Fortitude is an excellent 4 season drama/thriller that exists on the fringes or horror and scifi and was incredibly compelling. If there’s a comparison, it would be something of a Stephen King story, where strange things just happens to happen in this Antarctic town. It just finished off it’s 4th and final season and deserves to be binged.
The world’s top assassin, Duncan Vizla, aka The Black Kaiser (Mads Mikkelsen), is settling into retirement when his former employer marks him as a liability to the firm. Against his will, he finds himself back in the game going head to head with an army of younger, faster, ruthless killers who will stop at nothing to have him silenced.
There were a lot of good books this week. But the new volume of Captain Marvel was the best read for me. It was a nice re-introduction to the character, re-integrating her back into the Marvel Universe proper. She got to fight a giant monster with her best friend Spider-woman, got welcomed back into the Avengers by Captain America, re-kindled her relationship with James “War Machine” Rhodes and got to jump through a portal to another dimension… all in the same book. I don’t know what Kelly Thompson has instore for the character, but it should be one hell of a ride. In other books.. the Man Without Fear is a non-Daredivel story that’s still enjoyable. Bendis’ new volume of Young Justice was good enough to keep me reading. The latest issues of Miles Morale: Spider-man, Avengers and Domino are still good reads. And The Punisher is quickly becoming one of my must-read books.
Normally movies release their ‘final trailer’ around the time tickets start to go on sale. But since Captain Marvel tickets went on sale considerably early, Marvel has given us a ‘Special Look’ pre-final trailer to keep us occupied and excited.
2018 was the year of the streaming series. For the geek, this was a wet dream of content. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pulled itself out of cancellation hell to score another two seasons after an incredible time/space storyline. Youtube Originals finally came into it’s own with two awesome standout series Impusle and Origin. Netflix doubled down on original content, and even though they cancelled most of the Marvel series, Daredevil. Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and yes, even Iron Fist delivered top-notch seasons. But the award has to go to The Expanse once again. Possibly the greatest sci-fi tv show since Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse continued the growing tension between Earth, Mars and The Belt leading to an incredible discovery and a bolt new direction by the end of the season. Sy Fy Channel had the balls to cancel the show, but luckily Amazon Prime made the save by picking up the series for season 4.
Marvel has made it a point not to mix their motion picture, television and streaming show together. Even though they all officially exist in same Marvel Cinematic Universe, you will never see any crossover events between the properties (except a couple times Lady Sif showed up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Since it’s first season, S.H.I.E.L.D. has done a good job of staying on the peripheral of the movie events.. just enough toe remind you it’s the same universe. This upcoming season was delayed a year to give time for the last Avengers movies (Inifinity War and Endgame) to play out. So what will the world of S.H.I.E.L.D. be like after The Snap?
Alice appeared in only the first season of Idris Elba’s Luther, but Ruth Wilson’s portrayal of Miss Morgan has made her one of my favorite TV characters. She was badly missed in the following seasons, as she came to the US for bigger tv shows and movies. But for season 5 she’s back in a big way. And it’s awesome!!!
My feelings on Doctor Who under Chris Chibnall’s control has been lukewarm. It seems to have taken the new show-runner most of his first season to get the show back up to form. Jodie Whittaker feels like she’s comfortable with role now, and this story feels like classic Who as The Daleks once again threaten the Earth.
There’s very little original content from Youtube’s Originals brand that I’ve wanted to watch. But the 5 episode Origin might be the real deal. It’s basically the same premise at Lost, but instead of an island, your heroes awaken aboard a space station headed for a new planet to colonize.
