1GF Watches TV: Ash vs Evil Dead

Westworld

Season 2 - Part 1

Journey into Night - In the aftermath the previous seasons massacre, the hosts rebel and the guests are slaughtered. Survivors. including Bernard, Charlotte, and William, are left to fend for themselves and survive out in the park. Meanwhile, Maeve journeys into the park to find a daughter she had from a previous program, with Lee and Hector by her side.

Reunion - Delores reveals to Teddy what he really is, and recruits the Confederados as an army to her cause. William finds Lawrence again on his quest to complete Ford's new game for him.

Virtu e Fortuna - Bernard and Charlotte track down Peter Abernathy, who has been captured by Rebus and his gang of outlaws, and they construct a way of rescuing him. Even though Charlotte escapes, Bernard and Peter are confronted by Delores, who demands Peter be restored to the host programming of her father.

The Riddle of the Sphinx - Bernard is abandoned near a cave where he finds Elsie, who he had abducted on Ford's orders. Initially hostile toward him, Bernard and Elsie form an uneasy alliance as they explore a hidden bunker in the cave. Meanwhile, Laurence's hometown has been taken over by Major Craddock and the Confederados after abandoning Delores, and William helps him deal with the situation. In flashbacks, William attempts to implant his father-in-law's brain in a host's body in hopes achieve immortality.

I cancelled my Netflix, so the rest of Attack on Titan will have to wait. I'll likely resubscribe for a month when Lucifer pops up in a few weeks. Meanwhile I wanted to get caught up on Westworld, of which the first season was one of my favorite TV shows of the last few years. I had initially hoped to catch up when the series first hit 4K, but a friend of mine wanted to watch it with me...but she has kids, so I put it off forever. Now I'm leaving her in the dust. I'm saving Star Trek: Discovery for her anyway.

My main concern with Westworld has always been how they were going to sustain the longevity of the premise. I love the original movie, but I never thought "This would make a great TV show" while watching it. The first season impressed me on making it work, but the acceleration of the premise straight to the host's revolt seems like jumping the gun. It's very possible that Westworld could have lasted a few filler seasons without getting things too extreme this early on. There are so many narrative scenarios in the park itself that it's almost disappointing to not explore them. The major downside to that is that if the park is functioning properly, then there is no danger to the guests, and the tension can deflate. Season one worked in spite of that, but there was no guarantee it could be sustained.

I've also been concerned that the series would fall into the overly serialized format, in which episodes don't really stand on themselves and just sit there, waiting to end so they can get to the next, without doing anything interesting in particular in the meantime. In the episode Reunion I started to fear for Westworld a bit, because it has all of the signs of this in a nutshell. The episodes is a lot of thematic talk, as Delores monologues about how she can "see," which is a monologue she's been stating too many times so far this season. It's probably the worst episode of the series so far, because very little happens other than setting up bowling pins to be knocked down and it's so damn boring. Episodes like this are why I grow irritated at serialized television.

The next two episodes are a bit spicier, which renewed my interest in the series. This was the Westworld I loved, with the journey into the unknown and the ambiguous and interchangeable heroes and villains. I was also pleasantly surprised that Elsie was still alive, mostly because the actress is hot, but still. I had assumed Bernard killed her the previous season, because it seemed like the reasonable assumption at the time, even though there was never a body. But that makes me curious about why Ford spared Elsie and yet had Bernard kill Theresa so violently. But knowing television, I'm willing to bet that this is never mentioned and we're just supposed to accept that this is the way it happened.

Like season one, I'm intrigued and hooked. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch another episode.

Second season is ha5der to watch but a better finale.

All in the Family

Original Pilots and Season 1 - Part 1

Justice For All - It's Archie and Edith's wedding anniversary (here, they have the last name of Justice instead of Bunker), and their daughter Gloria (played by Kelly Jean Peters) and her husband Richard (played by Tim McIntire) throw them a party. But their get-together becomes heated once Archie and Richard debate Archie's conservative political views and bigoted racial outlook.

Those Were the Days - This second pilot uses the exact same script, with different actors for Gloria (Candy Azzara) and Richard (Chip Oliver).

Meet the Bunkers - The premiere episode of the series uses the same script once again, except Archie and Edith are now the Bunkers and Richard has been renamed to Mike. Mike is now played by Rob Reiner and Gloria is now Sally Struthers.

Writing the President - Archie and Mike argue about a letter Mike wrote to President Richard Nixon about his concerns for the country. Archie retaliates by writing his own letter to the President complimenting him.

Oh, My Aching Back - Archie hurts his back after getting into an accident with his cab. He then tries to get a payout in a lawsuit, but insists on a Jewish lawyer.

Well, I just had to watch All in the Family after that Live show and going through the trouble of digging out my box sets of two of the greatest shows of all time (eventually I'll get Shout Factory's complete set of Maude to compliment them). This was just science. Westworld can wait.

Plus it's been a rough week and I just needed to laugh.

Apparently CBS had timidness about putting the pilot script into a series, and probably rightfully so. Shows about political clash is an easy way to spark outrage, especially in a left-leaning show made during Richard Nixon's America. But in the end, I'm thankful they filmed the pilot three times, because they just couldn't nail the actors playing Gloria and Richard/Mike. While Tim McIntire, who played Richard in the original pilot, wasn't terrible, there just wasn't any chemistry being displayed by the actors. Then Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers came along and the show just clicked into place (I also think recasting Lionel with Mike Evans was a positive). Caroll O'Conner and Jean Stapleton were the the constants between all three pilot episodes, because it was clear they were the two things about the whole ordeal that were going above and beyond. The pilot episodes are funny because O'Conner and Stapleton are funny. But there are certain interactions between the characters that don't work until they're playing off of Reiner and Struthers. These four are a dream team.

Like most first seasons, there are some growing pains, but All in the Family is hilarious, even in these early days. The characters are all fully formed from frame one and it's just comforting that the actors all know exactly who they're playing. The characterizations don't change much over the course of the series, though Archie does tend to get softer by the time Archie Bunker's Place rolls around. Seeing such assurance straight from the inception just confirms that All in the Family is an all-time classic.

Power Rangers: Hyperforce

Part 1

Welcome to Time Force Academy - A Power Rangers series told entirely via tabletop RPG, Jen Scotts, the Time Force Pink Ranger (Erin Cahill, reprising her role), lectures cadets training to become Time Force officers in the year 3016. Meanwhile, a new enemy called the Alliance attacks the school and has infiltrated the Time Force itself.

It's Morphin Time! - Freshly bestowed the Hyperforce Ranger powers by Jen, cadets Marv, Vesper, Eddie, and Chloe, veteran Time Force officer Jack, and android Alpha 55 travel to 1994 Angel Grove in pursuit of the stolen time vehicle. They first arrive on Halloween night, and explore this strange time on this strange evening. The Alliance then attacks them with a monster made out of candy corn.

Whatever Happened to Scorpina? - After their last encounter leaves Jack near death, the Rangers decide to train to gain more experience with their powers. Later, the Rangers begin to suspect the Alliance may be interested in recruiting former minion of Rita Repulsa, Scorpina. They then seek out Scorpina at the Angel Grove library, where they encounter not only her, but monsters made out of library books.

Aisha Campbell Returns! - Zordon agrees to help the Hyperforce Rangers by sending them a member of his Ranger team, Aisha Campbell, the second Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger. (Karen Ashley, reprising her role). Together they seek out Rita Repulsa's former monster maker Finster, who they fear is also being recruited by the Alliance. They track Finster to Italy, where they try to persuade him against joining the Alliance.

Yes, this is a thing that exists. You're welcome for bringing it to your attention, by the way. It's like the powers that be decided Power Rangers wasn't nerdy enough, so they decided to rectify that immediately by turning it into an RPG series on Twitch.

I won't lie, I'm a bit of a Toku nerd. Growing up Godzilla, there is no way I wasn't going to be one, and of course I loved Power Rangers when it first debuted. I grew away from the franchise as I grew older, but after the show was "cancelled" after season 17 (RPM) I started getting "into" it again. Not the same way I was into it as a kid, but I started seeing it for what it was, and I found that camp appeal infused with that Toku footage a bit charming as an adult. And to be honest, I find the franchise fascinating. It's a franchise that was built around the footage of a different franchise from another country (Super Sentai, which I treasure) and turned into something that's both exactly the same and completely different at the same time. The result is this bizarrely stupid Frankenstein monster of a TV show that somehow lumbered to nearly 30 seasons, and is constantly reinventing itself each year. As a result to that latter aspect, different kids of different generations have their Rangers, and grow into their fondness for the series based on that. And throughout these years, the people who have been involved with this franchise, who probably should have been embarrassed by it, actually embraced it and support the affection for this series. Granted, this last point is likely because those actors and actresses likely haven't gone on to much in their acting career since then (the most successful Rangers to actor transition at this point is probably Rose McIver, who currently stars on iZombie on the CW), so it's likely they're just playing up what little fame they have.

But whatever the case may be, I could watch this nutty stuff all day. Hell, at some point in the future I might just fill this thing out with a bunch of Super Sentai and Power Ranger seasons just because I can and you're not stopping me.

In the meantime I gave this thing a peek. I think Hyperforce first came to my attention because I watch Andre Meadow's content on YouTube and he did a video on how he got cast as the Blue Ranger a while back. Knowing he was a Ranger fan, I felt happy for him, though I didn't really know what this "Hyperforce" thing was. It turned out it was a tabletop RPG that he played with a group of other "Rangers," and they made their way through an original Power Rangers storyline. I've never played RPGs so I never looked too deeply into it. Until this week, that is.

Here's the thing, to unwind when I'm stressed I watch gaming content on YouTube because it's low demanding and eases my tensions, with go-tos usually being Cinemassacre or Mr. Sunday's Caravan of Garbage. Having watched a lot of that content, I thought of venturing into uncharted waters and I remembered this RPG thing existed and thought I'd check it out and see if it was anything interesting. It did serve that unwinding purpose, but it's an uneven venture, to be honest. I looked at the length of the episodes and balked at that two-and-a-half hour runtime for each, and was tempted to go NOPE and just back out of there. But I decided to just dip my toe in just to see what was in store.

The thing I noticed about RPGs based off of this is that they seem more fun to play than they are to watch. Twenty minutes of a Power Rangers episode is a breeze for me, but having the same amount of story stretched to nearly three hours of endless description and dice rolling can be a bit cumbersome. The Game Master of the series, a lady by the name of Malika Lim, is adorable, but I sometimes yearned for her to be more engaging. When telling this story she uses a lot of words like "like" and "totally" while spacing her words when describing something because it feels like she's not sure what she's describing. At times it feels like the genesis of this project was her saying to her co-workers "Hey, I want to turn my Power Rangers fan fiction into an RPG and do a live reading of it! What do you think?" Because she's cute they say yes, but you can just feel them biting their tongues every time she does her Alpha impression and thinking to themselves "Why TF did we agree to this?"

If there is going to be one saving grace of viewing an RPG like this, it would be the charisma of the players. I was already familiar with Andre, who plays Eddie, the Blue Ranger, but I wasn't sure who else was playing. My first glimpse showed a conventionally good looking dude, two hot chicks, and a large guy who was obviously much older than them. When the older gentleman started speaking I started to feel a familiarity with him, and soon I realized it was Paul Schrier, who is the longest serving actor on the Power Rangers franchise, having played the comic relief character of Bulk over nine seasons of the series (Mighty Morphin through Lost Galaxy, as well as both seasons of Samurai). I was happy that he actually got a chance to play a Ranger, though it's slightly funny that his character is much more stoic than his Bulk character, which I'm still trying to get used to. I wasn't familiar with the other three, though Peter Sudarso, who plays Marv the Red Ranger, apparently played the Blue Ranger on Ninja Steel (which I haven't seen). The ladies of the group are Cristina Vee, who is a voice actress, and Meghan Camarena, who is a YouTuber like Andre.

But regardless of how familiar I am with these people, which I am not, they're very fun together, and I kept watching because they started playing off each other in a very entertaining way. Cristina, who plays Vesper the Black Ranger, is the most fun, as some of the most laugh out loud moments of the four episodes came from her. I don't care if you hate Power Rangers or RPGs, her description of trying to castrate a candy corn monster in episode two (and trying to keep it as PG as possible) is fall on the ground hysterical. And I rewound her great line in episode four of "If you don't make sure everybody is safe, I will make sure that you are not safe" over again because I was laughing so hard. Andre and Meghan are very enjoyable as well, as they play up some adorkable akwardness with their characters. Andre attempts to fight candy with pineapple smoothies and screams out "THE JUICE IS LOOSE," which reminded me of how charming I find his content. Meghan also has a fondness for raining fire from rainbows in episode three, which got a huge laugh from me. Paul and Peter lag a bit behind for me, since they're more straightfoward with their gameplay and they're less creative (they usually fall back on rushing attacks).

Like an actual RPG, you have to let your imagination do the work, though since I'm not too familiar with the format, sometimes I find myself a little lost. Ultimately, all of this feels like people reading a Power Rangers script and improvising the dialogue (which sometimes pays off and sometimes doesn't). But it's hard to get too wrapped up in the gameplay because it feels like they're more interested in building a narrative than actually playing a game. It never feels like any of the players are going to lose their character because it feels like the story the Game Master wants to tell requires them all to survive each round. That takes a little bit of the wind out of it for me.

I don't know where Hyperforce came from, though I think it's considered "official" Power Rangers because it seems to be in association with Saban Brands (which since the filming of this has sold Power Rangers to Hasbro). I suspect this might have been an advertisement for Ranger-themed RPG products, though I could be wrong about that. But whether this is "cannon" or not, it's hard to argue with it since have gone out of their way to create an official theme intro and morph sequence for the series. And they are both the most gloriously dorky thing I've ever seen.




At any rate, I need a break. I'll probably watch some more of this during the week while I'm at lunch, but I've gotten through ten hours of this already and I'm a little exhausted with it. I need to get back to Westworld and get caught up with SHIELD, so one of those might be next. Or I could watch a lot of Power Rangers. Don't put it past me to just pop that crap in and spend weeks posting it. You think I'm joking, but I'm not.

Power Rangers: Hyperforce

Part 3

Holiday Special Featuring Santa! - Marv, Eddie, Vesper, and Chloe are flung through time to the North Pole in 1985, where they have to help Santa contend with the Krampus for the fate of Christmas.

Dr. Tommy Oliver Returns! - The Hyperforce Rangers travel to the year 2005 where they team up with legendary Power Ranger Tommy Oliver, currently the Black Dino Thunder Ranger (Jason David Frank, reprising his role), in hopes to prevent the Alliance from recruiting the help of supervillain Mesagog. But the Alliance has unleashed a monster that releases a pollen that causes people to become angry.

Family - The Rangers capture Scorpina in 2005 and take her aboard their ship, where she escapes custody. The Rangers search every nook and cranny for the supervillain, but they each soon become haunted by important figures from both their past and their present.

During these three episodes I found myself flashing back to high school drama class, specifically the best and worst of amateurish performances I had seen back in the day. The holiday episode is very top heavy dramatics, as it tries to re-enforce character relationships and have the players improvise dramatic scenes together. While I like both, poor Peter and Andre are both really, really bad at this. They're very clumsy, rush it a bit, and they look uncomfortable doing it. Cristina and Meghan, on the other hand, are very good, as they look a little invested in what they have to say and then they bounce off of each other's dialogue in fun ways.. I find myself convinced that Cristina has done some improv training, or is at the very least is familiar with the rules of improv. There is a point just before Meghan cuts her off and transitions into the main dramatic point of the scene that I'm sure they've been asked to perform where Cristina plants a topic seed, as she ponders whether she is immortal since she's an android, which I'm sure she was hoping would bloom into a humorous conversation. Meghan may also be familiar with the rules of improv, or it's just her personality, because she knows how to take an idea that Cristina presents and run with it, while Cristina helps her snowball it until it becomes both absurd and hilarious. Meghan can run with her own ideas too, but on this show her ideas usually involve burritos, unicorns, and rainbows, while Cristina seems to have a wider selection of topics to offer her, ensuring that Meghan's hyper energy is utilized to its maximum potential. Watching these two interact with each other is one of the biggest joys of watching this show.

I'd also say that if Cristina and Meghan had some sort of podcast where they just spitball about whatever, I'd listen to every single episode.

While I'm on the topic of Meghan, one thing I did not expect from her was that dramatic tragic past monologue in episode ten. Goddamn. Floating back to high school drama again, I can tell you I've seen my fair share of really garbage monologues in my day, so I can safely say that Meghan kills it. If she is just a YouTuber like my limited research suggests, she needs to be on a stage, because she has some talent. And it may be a low bar to stumble over, but that's probably the best acted scene in the history of Power Rangers, and I don't care that it came from a non-actor playing a tabletop RPG.

Jesus Christ, I feel dirty talking about acting when I talk about this thing. But there you go.

Anyway, this batch of episodes are a bit uneven. The holiday special just kind of lumbers most of the time, as for an hour it's an improv drama, as I mentioned before, and a fairly dull one when Cristina and Meghan aren't working their magic. Paul isn't present, which the YouTube comment section is due to surgery the day before filming. The Santa storyline has some fun elements, and game master Malika is pretty good at playing an elf. Santa sits in Paul's seat to help fight off the Krampus, which also has its moments, but the whole episode just feels flimsy and long.

Probably the one Power Ranger fans were looking forward to was the addition of Jason David Frank to the game in episode nine, though if I'm being honest, he just drains joy from the room. He looks like he has no idea what he's doing there or what they want him to do, glancing around and thinking to himself "I'm stuck in a room rolling dice with a bunch of fucking nerds." To be fair, episodes with a guest star have usually been the ones that I've responded to the least, but Jason is the weakest by far. Karen Ashley and Mike Ginn at least looked excited to be there, and Erin Cahill at least faked enthusiasm for something I have doubts she was interested in. Jason David Frank just looks like he wants to shoot himself. To the credit of the players, they seem to read the room and try to make his experience there as wacky as possible, as everyone dials their character quirks up to eleven (especially Cristina), and to Jason's credit he does seem to loosen up as they get more aloof, but when they just try to move the story along, he just drops like a stone. He tries to do his expository dialogue, but doesn't seem to understand nor care what any of it means. I also have a feeling that he doesn't remember a lot of the crap he did on Power Rangers, especially not Dino Thunder (hell, I even forget Dino Thunder most of the time). He also calls himself "doctor" a lot, even when asked what he does. I'm curious if he remembers what kind of doctor he is. Granted, it's been a while since I've watched an episode of Dino Thunder, but I'm pretty sure Tommy specialized in Paleontology. I'm not sure if I've ever met a Paleontologist who answers the question of "What do you do?" with "I'm a doctor."

The tenth episode starts out with a really strong first half, as the camaraderie of the players is on fire during this one, as their riffs average pretty solid and they're constantly cracking each other up. Highlighting this is a moment where Cristina's Vesper character approaches Alpha 55 over his constant use of "aye-yi-yi!" and asks "Are you a Spanish..." then trails off, which is clearly a humorous tangent that she accidentally derailed because she didn't figure out the proper wording before she tried to execute it, but both the intent and the botching of it brings down the house, especially Paul, who is laughing so hard he's in tears. Cristina provides a minor save at the end, when the character of Marv disappears, and as everyone asks Alpha "Where's Marv?" she has Vesper ask "¿Dónde está Marvin?" Malika Lim is a trooper, because she plays along and responds to that question in Spanish.

I also like the semi-haunted house storyline in this episode too. It's really solid stuff until about two thirds of the way in. Unfortunately the final fight with Primatar is drawn out and weakens the entire experience. It becomes clear early on that this is a fight that the game master won't let them win, and they just chip away for way too long before Malika decides it's time to pack it in and set up a cliffhanger that comes out of left field. This episode was pretty close to being an episode I'd recommend to other people and say "No, watch this, it's really fun" but then it becomes a drag. And as it ended with a thud, I feel almost as drained as I did when I finished the Jason David Frank episode.

But if I have to keep going for one thing, it's to see more Cristina and Meghan interaction. I just gotta have it[/a].

Agents of SHIELD

Season 6 - Part 1

Missing Pieces - One year after the death of Coulson, SHIELD is now under the leadership of Mack while Simmons and Daisy lead a team to look for the double of Fitz, who is in hibernation in space. Meanwhile on Earth, SHIELD has to contend with humans from a parallel world, and one of them looks just like Coulson.

Window of Opportunity - Coulson's double, Sarge, seeks to rob a jewelry store for crystals, which leads to a confrontation with SHIELD, led by May and Yo-Yo. Meanwhile, Fitz has been awakened from hibernation and he and Enoch are enslaved on cargo ship.

Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson - Fitz and Enoch arrive on planet Kitson, where their ship is stolen. Left with barely any money, the duo hit the casinos in an attempt to win the money they need. Simmons and Daisy's team track them to Kitson, where they get into their own scrapes.

Code Yellow - Sarge's group tries to kill Shaw, who has started a tech company in the past year. Mack leads SHIELD on an extraction mission to save Shaw, but go on the offensive once they learn Sarge is present.

Holy crap! I watched something that wasn't a streamed tabletop RPG based on a children's show? THIS IS AN ACTUAL TV SHOW! LORD HAVE MERCY!

I decided to catch up on some Marvel TV since Spider-Man came out this week. I'm not up to date with Jessica Jones and Punisher, but I don't have Netflix anymore so they'll have to wait (will likely renew next month for Disenchantment), while Runaways is more of a mood show and I'm waiting for it to just hit that right spot for me. Cloak & Dagger I'm in no hurry to watch any more of. So that leaves little Agents of SHIELD, that show that nobody watches but ABC renews anyway because Disney tells them to. I've liked most of this show though (some seasons are admittedly better than others), so I'm always anxious to see what the agents are up to. Plus I can't wait to see how they address the events of Infinity War and Endgame!

Oh...they don't...well okay then.

SHIELD sometimes had a habit of utilizing the MCU's timeline as an advantage, though now it's kind of a mess. The end of the previous season even acknowledged Thanos was on the move, though this season is supposedly a year later and technically half of all life should have been decimated by now (or "blipped," according to Spider-Man: Far from Home). SHIELD's reaction to these events would have been a wonderful storyline, though if they wanted to work around it and start a story five years later, I wouldn't have blamed them. But SHIELD chose it's own path, and it ultimately feels like the series that was born out of the movies is being disowned.*

*This isn't to say the events won't be addressed later in the show, but still...one year has passed? Ugh.

But if SHIELD can maintain a level of entertainment to it, I'll keep watching. Seasons three and four were some damn fine TV, and I'm fairly fond of that maligned first season as well. If I'm a little tempered with the show it's because I ran very hot and cold with the fifth season, which had high points, but I found mostly lackluster. I'm not sure if it was worse than the mostly boring second season, but I'd have to watch both again to come to that conclusion.

As I settled into the fact that SHIELD is paving its own path, I started enjoying SHIELD's groove again. So far this season is an improvement on the previous, with the teamwork quirks and action that I quite love shining. I'm enjoying the Sarge storyline and am intrigued about where it goes. The Fitz storyline I'm a little more cautious on, because the outer space scenario in the previous season ran very thin for me and I'm not really up for a continuation of it. That being said, the casino scenes in the third episode are a lot of fun. And wasted Simmons and Daisy are just too fun.

So yeah, I'm still on board the SHIELD train. Just keep it fun and I'll keep coming back.

Been looking for an excuse to watch this shit:




Wanna join me?

More on the way

www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/abc-sets-two-more-live-specials-norman-lear-jimmy-kimmel-1224784

I'm not a fan of pre-Peter Graves/Leonard Nimoy Mission:Impossible

Mission:  Impossible

Season 1 - Part 2

Old Man Out Part 2 - Briggs and Rollin are forced to improvise a new plan when the cardinal's execution is pushed up and he is moved to another cell.  The IMF team must race against the clock as their circus begins to look more suspicious to the locals.

Odds on Evil - Briggs' team is tasked with preventing Prince Ivan Kostas the acquisition of weapons for an invasion.  They concoct a casino caper to deprive Prince Kostas of his funds by rigging a roulette table and climaxing with Rollin challenging him to a game of Baccarat.

Wheels - A South American country election has been rigged to keep a hostile Nationalist dictator in power, and Briggs' team is sent there to tamper with the already tampered results into a more favorable direction.

The Ransom - A criminal has kidnapped the daughter of Dan Briggs' personal friend demanding an exchange between her and an informant in custody.  Briggs assembles his IMF team to assure that no harm comes to the child and hopefully pull a fast one in the exchange.

Getting past Old Man Out makes a world of difference, because the second part is more of the same, a lot of organ music and padding.  However, the padding in this particular episode includes a cat fight between Barbara Bain and special guest actress Mary Ann Mobley.  There are worse ways to pad your episode out.  Also padding the episode out is a big stunt sequence in which Rollin makes his escape by climbing down the side of a building, though you can clearly tell the stunt man is not Martin Landau in this sequence.  Tom Cruise has spoiled me with his death wish insanity.

Odds on Evil jazzed me up after making it through that two part bore.  It's Casino Royale, M:I style!  While the casino games themselves lack tension because our IMF team are a group of big stinky cheaters, the structure of their caper is exciting to me.  Unlike Bond, who is funded by his agency in his own little casino story, the team starts out with little money, so they build it up by fixing the roulette wheels with a little magnet gizmo, while trying to dodge casino suspicions.  After making the money they need, their gambling ringer heads to the Baccarat table with Rollin and the mark, where he cleverly passes off all the winnings to Rollin in a losing streak.  This sets up Rollin to challenge the Prince head to head in a few high stakes hands.  I LOVE IT!

The last two of this batch aren't nearly as endearing to me as Odds on Evil, though their fairly solid on their own.  Wheels has some problems, since at its core it's the story of a repressed nation that needs America to free it through democracy...by altering that country's own democracy to our benefit ('MERICA!  FUCK YEAH!).  But there are some personal stories in the episode that I enjoy.  Speaking of personal, The Ransom is the most personal episode so far, as it effects Briggs' own family and friends.  The episode has some fun turns and is pretty successful.  It's just not Odds on Evil fun.