The Walking Dead Season 2 Episod 6?

WARNING: Spoiler alert. Don't read this article if you have not seen this episode.

First thing first.  Once again, I ask that if you have knowledge of the comic book, you keep it to yourself.  In this particular discussion we are talking about a Television series. Knowing about the future based on the comic does nothing four our discussion here.  Plus, they are two very different medium. I have made the point a few times before, but to be short, we are responding to THIS story. Not the one told in comic book form. Frankly, I don't discuss movies with guys who have read "the book first". You simply cannot compare! I have never heard an account of some one who "likes the movie more". So please don't comment about what is going to happen based on the comic book, or how the book explains what is going on in peoples heads.

I can't be much more clear than that!

Now on with the show.

It opens up with ominous words from Scowl.  Dale approaches him with the news that Glen has spilled about walkers being in the barn.  Of course Scowl plays the "that is my wife" point of view.  This leaves little room to play with. It presents two points of view. Scowl's, upon which he wants to preserve walkers in an attempt to save them, or Rick's, who knows that walkers are simply shells of their previous selves and need to be put down.  This reinforces the duality of human nature.  We are the most creative and most destructive species on the planet.  At some point, that conflict is going to come to a head.

Overall, I loved the episode.  After abandoning any sort of expectations of what I wanted the show to be, I can sit back and enjoy it for what it is.  Great writing and great drama.

Very little happened in this show plot or action wise, but several little plots did start to bubble up.

Dale is a Jedi:


The guy has been around since the start, and as I mentioned before, always seems to be the one that every body goes to when they need to get something off their chest.  But he seems to be very manipulative in how he uses his knowledge.  First of all, he squeezed out of Glen the two big secrets.  But instead of confronting them directly and sharing them with the leadership of the group, he goes behind the scenes and pulls strings.  Kind of like how Obi Wan manipulated Luke into going with him telling him the story of his farther "from a certain point of view."  So instead of talking to Rick about the zombies he goes to Scowl!  Nothing good could come from that. Plus, who is Dale in the dynamics of the farm? He is the guy who stands around the camper and cooks Spam. Now he  thinks he is the guy who has to go confront weird farmer dude concerning the gaggle of zombies in the barn?

Oh and talk about freaky scenes by the way, how about the chick breaking the chicken's leg then feeding it to the zombies!  I got shivers when she callously snapped it's bones and it started shrieking.  Great stuff.

Then Dale needs to approach Lori about the baby. This is ok though. It is in his character to be concerned about the women in the party. It makes sense that once he hears about her pregnancy, he would open up discussion about it.

But then he confronts Shane in a weird jealousy thing. What was he thinking? Sure, he saw Shane level his gun at Rick and that definitely caused some trepidation. But I don't think that Shane's story left any thing for Dale to be suspicious about.  If Shane was a little vague, could it not simply be because it was a horrible experience and Shane feels bad that the guy gave his life for him?  It is definitely not something that should have raised Dale's hackles.  I think the writers are giving him some sort of meta gaming spidey sense.

At any rate, the dude is setting himself up for a fall, as Shane points out in no uncertain terms.

Shane is Cool:


Aside from Daryl, who spent the episode poking holes in his tent with an arrow, Shane is my next most favorite character.  I like his pragmatic outlook on reality.  Times are a changing and Shane is ready for the change!  He is not holding onto any old world moralistic view like Rick.  He is taking action and getting things done.

Speaking of Shane allow me to side track for a minute. Have any of you really sprained an ankle like Shane did? That was pretty bad! I know when I sustained a sprain like that I was limping for days.  Most times when you roll an ankle, you can still function well for a while because of adrenaline and lack of immediate swelling. Only after do you really start to limp. It takes a pretty serious sprain to render you almost unable to walk. An injury like that can be worse than a break and take weeks to go away. Shane seems to be totally recovered! My point is that the show seems to disregard continuity. As far as I know, the entire season so far has only spanned a few days.  In that time, Carl was shot in the gut and has recovered. (It took his father months to recover from a similar injury.)  Daryl got an arrow through the gut, and was shot in the head but only seems to be laid up because he was forced to stay put. Shane suffered an ankle sprain which should have had him limping for a week. These guys have some serious regenerative abilities! They are like Wolverine.

Back to Shane, I like the point of view that he introduces to the group. I also like how he does things. Going to the housing development had nothing to do with looking for Sophia. It was about putting the blonde in a situation that would force her hand.  He knows that sometimes potential is not realized until it is forced out. And he knew that he would likely find walkers in that town. So he convinced her to go so he could see how she performs.  Of course, it was convenient that a horde of walkers would attack when there were none only minutes before.  The Walking Plot points did their job. I mean seriously, they drove in and didn't see a single walker. Before they entered the house, they scanned the area, still no walkers.  They were inside for at most a minute.  They entered the house, cleared the rooms, stopped to ponder the sealed up door and pile of dead, then went down to the garage and gawked at the burned bodies. In that time a dozen walkers came from out of nowhere, sprinted up to the house, and started clawing their way into the precise spot that they were standing.  It is like the walkers were hiding behind the house across the street, and waited for them to go inside, knowing they were going to be in the garage where they could corner them. Sigh.

I loved the scene that played out in the house.  We got to catch a glimpse of a battle that happened in that home as the occupants tried to mount a home defense. They had a good zombie plan. They walled off the hallway that lead to the stairs to the basement/garage.  I would love to see that scene played out! Maybe in webisode form.  There was a pile of dead walkers in the kitchen. It must have been a nasty gun fight! And how did the garage get burned out? How did they bash through the sealed up wall?  So many opportunities to tell a great story!

I chuckled when Shane left the blonde to fend for herself on the street. And predictably, she found her way and became a marksman.  I know I'm breaking my own rules, but apparently in the comic she is some sort of sniper.  Honestly I wish I didn't know that because it takes away from any sort of speculation I could make about this scene.  Please stop commenting about the comic!

So, Shane berates the blonde, puts her in harms way, then gets some action.  Cool.

Sex sells!


When in doubt, sex it up.  Probably one the best examples of writers sexing up a show, I refer to Star Trek: Voyager.  It was not a great show, but I sorta liked it.  The first couple seasons were ho hum.  All they had for sexual tension was the weird relationship between Nelix and the young, sprite looking Kes. It was awkward at best.  Ratings were lumping.  What do they do? Hire a hot blonde, put her in a skin tight body suit, slap on a couple of borg implants, and have her kick all sorts of ass, and they got rid of pixie girl.  Blammo! Ratings shot up.  Then they started having the rest of the crew get some. Bellana and Tom, even Chakotay and the Captain. Sex added the unavoidable drama that comes along with sex.

I wish this was Andrea...

Is it any surprise that in season two of TWD the writers upped the ante?  In the first season, there were two scenes where Shane and Lori got busy. But both were sorta secondary and reactive. They were more about setting the stage than pushing the plot.  You almost didnt even think about it.  This year? Glen scores with the cute farmers daughter. Every nerds dream!  It is the zombie apocalypse, and the nerdy kid is in a survival situation with a hot chick way out of his league.  Probably one of the smartest decisions the writers have made. You have got to root for the little guy!  Go get that babe!

In contrast to that nerd dream cutie though, we get Shane and the Blonde. You had to know they were gona screw for a while now. There was just too much sexual tension for them not to.  I knew the minute he was coaching her on shooting and she got all emotional that they were gona do it.  After she started shooting zombie head shots, you could almost see the lust in her eyes. I want to say Thank You to the writers for Shane's line "Well come on then!".  TV Glory. But I have to say I was a little weirded out. Honestly though, she got what she needed. Maybe now she will shut her trap and start toeing the line.  Or big papa Shane is gona give her the daddy treatment.

Hopefully we will see what the comic readers have promised and she will start kicking ass and taking names.  Any thing will be a nice change from the annoying, distracting, bumbling character that she was before.  The question is, who is

And hopefully Glen will get much more action from Becky.  I am enjoying the way she is in total control over him. He is just a goofy kid, and she is a woman that knows what she wants.  It is good to watch the poor kid squirm, trying to figure out what is going on in her head.

I think I'm jealous of a TV character!

The Walking Drama:


The show ended with a confrontation between Rick and Lori. True to character, and despite what we expected, Rick remained calm and cool. I enjoyed their conversation and how it got some major issues out in the air.  I also enjoy how they resolved some of these things in this episode. This will set the stage for a pretty good cliff hanger episode this weekend before going into the mid season break.  There are really no loose ends to tie up, except for two. Find the girl, and burn the barn.  They wanted to get the Andrea thing the baby thing, the shane/lori thing all out of the way for now, so they can focus on one thing... how will Rick respond when he finds a barn full of Walkers.  Undoubtedly, there will be a breakout.  I suspect that it won't happen until the end of the episode which will leave every one in peril in classic cliff hanger fashion.

The question is, who is gona buy it?

Time for a poll! Fill it out to the right.

At any rate, the show is fantastic. Especially once I set aside what I hoped the show to be, and accept what it is.  Great drama.  The writers are doing every thing right. Create interesting and compelling plot lines, on a shoe string budget.  That is how a show survives.  Well done AMC.

Jawaballs!

Things I can buy with 33 dollars + tax

33 Mc Double Cheese burgers

A box of size 4 Huggies and a box of wipes for the Jawa Baby

6 copies of Madden 2009

A pack of 50 Dunkin Donut Keurig coffee cartridges

A Black and Decker drill set

2 pairs of Carpenter Jeans from Wal-Mart

OR

The new Necron Codex.

Talk about sticker shock.  I went to a local store and bought a box of immortals, and the new dex, and it cost me 67 dollars.  I didn't look at the price tag on them before I paid. I am not really sure what I was expecting, maybe 50 bucks or so.  My eyeballs bulged out when I heard the price.

Speaking of bulge, did I ever say I think Alanis Morissette is hot?

Thank god for the Spikey Bits discount!

Jawaballs

The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 5

This season has become a two headed monster of sorts.  There are two stories going on. The one we all want to see, and the one we are treated to every episode.

The one we all want to see is the story of the Zombie Apocalypse. This story follows the collapse of society in the face of the realization that zombies are real, and the plague is spreading. This story follows a group of people as they try to escape and survive, encountering difficulty and adversity along the way, characters getting killed and zombies being stomped.

Then there is the story of a group of people sitting on a farm living their lives after the collapse has happened and looking for a stupid little girl.

Sadly, The Walking Dead mostly focuses on the latter of the two stories. It doles out the story we want to see in interesting and brief snippets of flashback and narrative. It teases us with quick preview shots of Chinook choppers flying towards Atlanta to drop the hammer on the zombie scum.  It dangles it's most interesting character like Merl in front of our noses. And it disappoints us with weird illogical behavior, stupid decisions and a recurring theme of a network dropping the ball.

This episode has three flashpoints.  The two headed monster of The Walking Dead, the dumb, dumb blonde, and the illogical behavior of every one on the screen.

The Two Headed Monster of The Walking Dead:

 First of all, the opening of the episode drags us in with the gripping, interesting and almost exciting story we want to see. Then you see Shane has hair again, and come crashing back to reality. TWD is using flashback to tell the story that we all want to see.  I have already griped about TWD being a zombie show with no zombies, well how bout a Zombie Apocalypse show with no Zombie Apocalypse? An important part of the genre is the survivors trying to get some place. I spoke about this before. Part of what drags us in is the survivors coming up with a plan, a goal, and trying to accomplish the goal.  For five episodes now, the group has been squatting on a farm.  The show continues to bog down to dangerous levels.

But more importantly, we want to see the actual fall.  We loved Rick waking up in zombie hell and having to get a crash course in the new world. But we were robbed of seeing the fall!  That was why I was so happy to see the opening of this episode. I got to see some of what happened before or during the fall.  Yes, the refugee train of cars would have been bogged down, and people would be hanging out in the street, just like what happens when 300 thousand people try to get to a major concert or sporting event. The line becomes a tail gate party!  People bust out the camp chairs and start tossing frisbees.  I loved that they showed this. Now add some zombies and we are good to go. The show dropped the ball here. They could have made an entire exciting episode out of Shane and company getting away from that traffic snarl. What happened after they saw the choppers fire bombing Atlanta? Did zombies hit the line of traffic? That is the stuff we want!  They could have mercifully taken a break from the farm/sophia plot and showed us some classic zombie mayhem. They introduced how Shane and Lori got involved with Sophia and her mom, now show us the rest!

And definitely show us the military side of it.

I get it that budget restraints prohibit this. Big crowds of people require extras, and that costs money. Also, big scenes like the choppers hitting Atlanta require CGI and that costs money.

Instead of the head that we want to see, we get the other head. The stupid other head sitting on the dumb monster's shoulder, filling the scene with silly banter.  The farmhouse/sophia plot that is our TWD reality.  It has become very clear that AMC is satisfied with turning our genre series into a cheap to produce plot drama focusing on characters. AMC prides itself on producing gripping television that jumps the boundries, but I think that in this case, they are coping out.

Please please show me more zombie apocalypse, and less characters doing laundry and making dinner.



The Dumb, Dumb Blonde:

For the love of god I challenge you to show me an example of a television chick that more deserves a good solid backhand. First of all, she has spent the entire season moping about like a spoiled teenager who did not get a BMW for her sweet 16.  The minute she spit out the line "I'm tired of doing laundry, I want to help defend the camp." I would have been up on top of that camper and giving her mouth something to do other than jabber on.

This is not a sexist thing. It is not a sexual thing.  It is a common sense thing. The woman has shown nothing but inept failure.  All she has done is put her friends in danger, whine, and nearly kill herself. Why should she now be trusted to mount the crow's nest with the 30/30 and snipe zombies?   Why does she think she should now be shooting a rifle? It is not like weeks, days or even hours have been spent practicing with the damn thing. It has only been a couple days since they got there, and even if Shane had managed to start training her, she would have started with her own gun, and maybe his shotgun. That rifle spent the whole time in Dale's hands. She has not had a chance to fire it. Now she is up on the camper landing a head shot from 200 yards?

Why the hell did Dale not get up on the camper and snatch the rifle away from her with a good final backhand?. He must have seen that she was about to fire OVER THE SHOULDER of Rick and company who went out to meet the threat hand to hand.  They were standing 8 feet away from Daryl, in her line of fire!  Wasting the round would have been reason enough to back hand some sense into her, but shooting through her friends, in opposition to the rules that the owner of the farm laid out and Rick agreed to follow, is inexcusable. If I were Rick, I would be putting her unstable ass out to pasture and dropping her in that well with the zombie guts. That stupid blonde is gona get some one killed.

Illogical Behavior:

We all have our zombie apocalypse survival plan. We all can watch a show like this and say how WE would have done it and make fun of the stupid decisions made by the characters based on their limited point of view compared to our all knowing angle.  That is the fun of it!  But there is a difference between bad decisions and illogical behavior.

Examples?

Daryl trying to climb out of a ravine with an arrow through his gutt.  Daryl, of all people, would have known immediately that it was better to pull the bolt through his body, rather than leave it there and try to function with it sticking out.  Causing further damage to his insides is a secondary issue to the incredible pain that would have happened every time that bolt snagged on a bit of grass as he tried to climb out.  It is easy for me to say that I would have pulled the arrow out. But christ, I would have. Daryl definitely would have.  Instead, he wrapped it with his sleeve and tried to climb out the river.

Then he fell 30 feet back to the river bed, with the arrow inside him, and paid the price.  No wonder he saw visions!  Illogical.

Then there is the old dude, we will call him Farmer Scowl. Or just Scowl.  All he has done for two episodes is scowl at people.  Scowl at Rick because Rick is angry with god. Scowl at Glen for banging his daughter. Scowl at daughter for being hot. Scowl scowl grumble scowl.

Well, is he really illogical? Is there even any room for traditional logic in the drama apocalypse? Perhaps the dude is holding out that things will get better. Perhaps his beliefs pigeon hole him into certain actions. But that does not allow for certain things. Making every one hand over their guns for example. "I don't want guns being used on my property."  Dude, it is zombieland! You want these people to run around defenseless? Plus your own buddy was using one. You have to see the need to be packing heat, even if you don't believe in it.

Illogical.

How about Glen having a heart to heart with Dale about women.  "I don't understand, sometimes she likes me, some times she doesn't."  Dale just needs to keep his hand in a constant state of readiness for all these idiots who need backhands. It seems they come to him the most.  Glen looks like a college kid, so I am guessing he is 20 or so.  But dude, chick 101 dictates that all women behave hot and cold at best. Especially when they are having slut remorse, and probably even more especially in the weeks following the death of all that she knew.  The conversation was out of place, and yes, illogical.

I did love that he brought up the biological fact that women, when sharing the same company long enough, tend to sync their cycles.  I love even more Dale's advice.  While the conversation was illogical, it was good writing.

Then there are other leaps of illogic.

Scowl dictating relationships to his 22 year old hot daughter.

And yes, she is hot. I would take her over a dozen chicks like Kim Kardashian any day.  Her simple farm girl becky looks are far prettier than plastic overdone barbie doll super model looks.  Plus she is functional. Glen scored big.  If I came across a Kardashian I would shoot her in the leg Shane style and leave her as I get away.

So much hotter than...

On the bright side, zombies don't like fake flesh... 

These damn chicks have nothing to fear!

Ugh Angelina Jolie was the zombie in the well.

She was one step away from zombie when she was living.

This is fun!  

Scowl being angry at the group for making dinner.  Illogical.

Scowl insisting that they leave.  Hmm... two officers with a butt load of guns.  I think I would rather have them around, than force them away. Sure he can have concerns about his property and his faith. But it is illogical that he would hold onto such things. At some point you need to realize that god ain't gona do a thing for you as far as the millions of flesh eating zombies are concerned and hand over the reigns to some one else.

That last bit is up in the air, you can't really discuss logic and religion in the same sentence. But forcing the people away, for whatever reason, is illogical. There is safety in numbers. Even if the newest numbers are a bunch of bumbling idiots.

Other Stuff:

I enjoyed the interplay between Shane and Rick and I think Rick is being a whiny bitch.  Shane, in this case, has a solid head on his shoulders and Rick is too obsessed with his own failure to make a proper decision.  Shane is right, in the real world, after three days they are pretty much done looking for a rescue, and are shifting towards body recovery.  Add millions of zombies to the equation and things get worse. Would I want to quit searching for my son? No.  I would not. I have to believe that at some point these guys would say look Sophia's mom, she is gone, we need to move on.  You can come with us, or you can stay and look for your daughter.  We tried.  She would leave, they would go.  I know I would stay and look.  But I'm pretty sure the group would not.  At any rate, I loved Shane's cold steel stance here and I agree with him.  I think that the two of them provide the perfect leadership and I hope that they play this relationship out.

What the hell is with the barn full of zombies?  All I can think is that the AMC writers went all George Romero on us from Survival of the Dead. In one of his later movies people have a moral issue with shooting zombies, calling into question zombies rights to live blah blah blah. Scowl some how managed to get all of his loved one zombies locked in the barn and is hoping that the cure he mentioned comes around.  Maybe the zombies are why he is dead set on Rick's crew moving on asap.  His wife is probably in there.  He knows Rick would not understand and would burn the barn or something.

Merl!  Some one pointed out last time that he did not think Merl was real in the preview. Nice call!  I might not have been right with Merl not actually coming back to instigate trouble, and after this episode I doubt he will, but I was still sorta right with my prediction that Daryl was going to have to make a choice.  The hallucination planted a seed, and Daryl is going to still have to choose. So whether or not Merl is real, the end result exists.  Blood is thicker than water. Rick is responsible for the loss of Merl.  There is a debt owed, and at some point it is going to be called in.

So aside from the two ridiculous falls that he survived, the arrow through the gutt, waking up to zombies gnawing on his boot instead of his ankle, and him never missing with his crossbow, Daryl is my favorite character. I think he is the most well written and I like him as an actor. I love how his world has actually changed for the better. He is valued and a leader. Hell, without knowing any thing real about his life before, the zombie apocalypse was probably the bet thing that ever happened to him!  I love this element of the show and it shows great writing on the part of AMC.

What else? I don't even recall seeing T-Dog.  I think he was there, but played no roll in this episode. Dale and the girls mom did their secondary character things. Dale looking at more behavior from others in the group with disbelief, and mom whimpering.  Lori continued with her baby drama, and Shane pointed out that Sophia was not even worth looking for because she just slowed the group down any way.  Glen and "becky" are gona knock boots whenever she feels like it, and Scowl is going to continue to scowl. Meanwhile, no progress towards Fort Benning is going to be made at all before mid season break and hopefully when they find Sophia she is a zombie.

No progression, quagmire like character development and a 5 episode long side plot based around finding a girl have derailed the show.  As it stands now, I have decided to just DVR it and watch it later.  We all know what happens next... before long we start asking ourselves if it is even worth watching on DVR at all.

I can say that the show brings up some good moral discussion.  What would YOU do if you were a survivor, you hook up with a couple other useful guys like Daryl and Shane, and you come across a useless mother and child like Sophia. (Useless as far as zombie survival are concerned.)  What is standard protocol?  Cut em loose and tell yourself the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Or stand strong on Picard like morals and defy the needs of the many if it comes at the sacrifice of the few.  I have to say that in this case, I doubt I would stand much stronger than Shane.  Especially if my own wife and kid were gone.  We all want to say we would do the right thing, but I wonder if I would be looking the other way if I came across people who would "slow me down".  Know what I mean? I love that AMC is pushing this boundry.

So, the show is good. The fact that it provokes discussion is good.  There are definitely parts that make me crazy, but I am coming to realize that once I accept that my preconceived notions of what the show should be are not going to work, I can enjoy the show for what it is.

Now, how bout Hell on Wheels?

I like the show.  Once again, it skirts the line of the surreal, as it should. I wish they would do it more. The creepy security guy was a perfect opportunity. I would like to see them use more interesting camera angles and lenses. They could really take a "Twililght Zone" approach with this show and make it something worth watching.  It was an enjoyable twist that the protagonist was almost in the hangmans noose, but ended up the foreman.  Though, I have beef with his inability to pull that nail out of the floor using the chain, but magically a spoon was able to get the job done.  If you have not seen the first two episodes, take a look, I think it is worth your time!

Jawaballs

The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 4

Spoiler blah blah.

This movie mad me laugh damn hard!

Bring on the MoFo bad ass zombie killer!

I was watching Snakes on a Plane and laughing my ass off. The premise of the movie is to take Sam Jackson, and put him in a ridiculous situation where he can spit out great one liners and do bad ass stuff. What situation? How about 30k feet in the air onboard a 747 filled with crazy pissed off snakes.  It was perfect! Whenever they needed something bad to happen, they just put a snake in there. "Ok, how do we make this worse? Oh I got it, put a snake in the cockpit and kill the pilot!" Que Sam Jackson F-bomb version 39948. 

Why am I talking about Snakes on a Plane? Because this last episode of WD reminded me of it.  More on that in a bit.  First of all, AMC has not been listening to me. Once again, no progress on the overarching story has been made. I get it that they are dealing with shit, but that does not mean the episode cannot include bits about the story such as flashes of Chinooks in the distance, or sounds of explosions or something... Remember, last season left off with the characters trying to get to Fort Benning as their motivation. They picked up some good info on what happened, but need to find out whether there is a safe place, or if the rest of their existence is going to be spent running from Zombies. 

This episode I found myself paying more attention to my video game on the computer than to the episode. That is not good. I suspect ratings are on the verge of taking a huge dump and put WD in danger of cancellation for next year. 

But the episode did not disappoint either. First of all, as I predicted, Glen hooked up with hot farmers daughter. She also continued to take a bigger role in the group, while other characters were forced to do nothing like the Blonde and Shane. Continuing to compound their group dividing malcontent and setting the stage for future drama.  The kid is ok, the wife barely whines at all, and Glen and Daryl (The only dynamic characters aside from Rick and Shane in the show) handle most of the action. I want to talk about these two guys, and a third point, Cost Cutting.

COST CUTTING:

After a hugely successful first season, created on a big budget, part of my issues with season two are their obvious cost cutting tactics.  The season has been written with their reduced budget in mind. Hell, I would rather have 6 episodes done on a high budget than 13 episodes on a shoe string. What do I mean? How about just one single set. The highway/farm. Well, thats actually two. But you get the point.  The traffic snarl and surrounding woods consumed most of the first three episodes, and the farm has been the setting for most of 2.  In season one the sets seemed so much more interesting. Maybe I am just imagining it though. And really, this issue is minor as I don't really thing it affects the quality of the show.

But the other cost cutting tactic does.  How bout a zombie apocalypse television show with NO zombies?  Yup. This episode included a grand total of one zombie, stuck in a well.  

Really the entire episode revolved around just a couple sets and plot points. The Well. The farm house. Another run down farm house (Probably on the same property) and a pharmacy?  Getting back to my other point today  by the way, did you notice that one of the only interesting parts of this episode was when Glen and the girl rode horses into town? I gobbled up the town eye candy!  The sign on the pharmacy suggesting to take what you need, and any thing else that might give a clue as to the struggle that happened there.  Those are the stories I want to see!

This is a big change from the dozens and dozens of extras that appeared last season.

I will refer to more cost cutting later.

Glenn:

He gets double duty this episode!  First of all, he gets to deal with the Snakes on the Plane... or in this case Zombies in a Well.  Does the reference make sense yet? To further emphasize my point about using zombies as simple plot points rather than creating a show about surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, the producers only used one zombie in this episode. And it was in a well.  The well they were using to get drinking water. Zoinks! Plot point! Get that Mutha F-ing zombie out of that god damned mutha F-ing well!  I wish they had sprung to get Sam Jackson to come into the scene and make some comment like that.  

All the zombie did was sit there and hiss while Glen dropped a noose around it's head.  But damn, the poor kid had to ride down the well, dangling above the zombies reach, and drop the noose around it's head! What the hell? The property has 4 other wells. Is it worth risking Glen to remove that one zombie?  And what the hell is the zombie doing in the well any way?  The property seems pretty secure, so how did this single zombie manage to make it's way into the property, AND find it's way into the 2x2 square foot area on those acres of land that would drop it into the well that the characters decided to use to get water? 

Now the girl said that this was the well they use to water the cows. How did they not notice the walker in the well before? Grr.  I hate it when things just don't make sense. I get it, willing suspension of disbelief. I am nit picking a zombie show. But COME ON!  

Has any one noticed there are no Zombie Kids?

This should have been the zombie in the well. We might have cared that way.

But at least Glen got a reward. He was picked to go "to town" and get some supplies with none other than the hot farmers daughter!  And sure enough, girls have needs too and shaboinks happened the first chance the two of them were alone.  Nice.  The best part, and this is why I love AMC, is the subtle writing. First of all, he was all gooey eyed and she shot down his post sex euphoria like a cold bitch. He got used. Nice.  But even better was the girls father eyeballing Glen when they got back. Dad must have known something funny happened. The writers didn't ruin the moment by giving him unnecessary dialogue. A simple look was all that was needed. Great stuff. Oh and they practiced safe sex. Can't be too careful!  

Too bad Rick's wife was not as sensible when she was getting scrogged by Shane. Soon we are going to have yet another kid in the group, and hopefully increasing the odds of us finally seeing a zombie child.  

Sure, I understand that the image of a zombie toddler meandering around by itself and gnawing on a leg bone would be too much for TV, but they would certainly exist.

Any way, git er done Glen! Nice job.  

DARYL:

Forced drama 101. 

Once again, the previously bad boy does good stuff. People like to see redemption, and the writers are no fools to this. They also like to make us care about characters, then put them into trouble. It's a simple solution.

 Protagonist + Challenge + Coping + Victory/Defeat = Drama.  

Shane coped wrong. The audience hates him. He is bad.

Daryl is coping right. The audience likes him. He is good. 

Great TV happens when those good and bad lines are blurred, and the coping happens in unexpected ways.

So.

Daryl was the misunderstood bad boy rebel pre zombie. Probably a result of his social status, upbringing, family etc. He wants to change that. He goes out alone looking for the girl, (Loner coping.) and tells the mother a heartfelt story about a flower.  (The writers make us care about him, so he helps others by showing empathy.)  Now we are sure enough going to see him get into trouble.  (The writers make him fall and get an arrow up his butt.)  How he deals with the adversity next episode will be his character's defining moment. 

They took a moment to reinforce the fact that Old World Daryl still lingers when Rick suggests that he could leave as if he was waiting for a chance to slip away and leave his friends.  This reinforces how Daryl feels he is perceived and suggests a possible plot twist. Is he ever going to be accepted? Might he find acceptance elsewhere? What happens when Merl comes back and it is time to pick a side? 

In Blade 2 Daryl picked the wrong side... and paid the price.

In the preview for next episode, we see Daryl getting hurt, and we see Merl again. SURPRISE! 

Time for the good stuff.  What is going to happen next?  Well, this episode left little for me to work with. Glen and the girl are going ot have an ongoing back and forth thing used as a side romance plot. Hot and cold "I don't understand." stuff. Shane and the Blonde are going to bond more. The show sorta glossed over the issue of Rick's pistol that was supposed to be in the fat dudes hands when he died. After all, part of Shane's story was that they were "down to pistols" and the guy stayed behind to cover him, logically, with the pistol he was "down to". Since they did not take air time to show Shane explaining how he had Rick's gun, I am assuming he came up with a story off the air because it was back in Ricks hands this episode. 

The bubbling issue between Shane and Rick is going to come to a head soon. Rick gives orders, Shane offers his opinion, then follows Rick's orders. (Surrendering the guns.) It won't take long for Crazy Shane to finally decide he does not want to follow Rick's orders.  

Merl, at some point, is going to plot revenge and try to get Daryl to help.  Further, he probably has the little girl and has been protecting her.  After all, he probably has his own code of ethics that I spoke about last time, and it probably extends to protecting kids.  Motive aside. Daryl is going to have to make a choice.  Merl, or the group. 

The girl's mom is too minor a character at this point to be more than a plot instigator. Same with T-Dog and Dale.  I don't see them doing much more than interacting with the main characters offering support or countermand. If the girl comes back alive, we will see her mom remain as the same insignificant character that she is.  If she is killed, we can see a couple of interesting things happen. What I would like to see is her go rogue. She is getting weapons training from Shane, so maybe she will get all badass like Sam Jackson and go Medieval on some ones butt. My guess? Merl.  Thought it would be a nice AMC twist to have Daryl support Merl, and have the mom kill Daryl. 

Rick's wife, now preggers with Shane's kid, (that was one fast preg test) is going to have her own little hole to dig out of . Does she go to the vet for an abortion? Interesting twist there. I doubt the spiritual doctor would do an abortion having already commented about kids as our future and being religious and abortion being a sin and all.  But I doubt AMC would let such juicy possible plot points slip away. Imagine trying to raise a baby in Zombieland? A five year old can hide quietly while a zombie horde passes by, can a 5 month old? 

The coming confrontation between Shane and Rick is only going to be that much more nasty when he finds out Shane knocked up his wife. 

Then there is the issue of what the Doctor whispered into Rick's ear.  I might have been a bit drunk but I seem to remember this or last episode Rick referring the comments made by the doctor at the CDC but not getting into it.  I am a little surprised that Merl will be reappearing so soon, I thought he would appear right before a mid season break. At any rate, I suspect we will see new episodes through the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I think that AMC will want to show Holiday programing through december, and will take a break on WD. That will leave them with 6 episodes that will air in the Spring if my count is right.  So I expect to see things bubble up to the boiling point with Shane's moral struggles, Merl's revenge, and the vet's philosophical issues in the next three episodes, and a nice little cliff hanger  to carry us through the winter. :)  

So how about Hell on Wheels?  AMC picked the right time to premiere it.  WD has a nice hold on the audience to lead into HoW which appeals to the same crowd. While I liked it for it's uniqueness, the old west theme, I have to say it seems more like forced drama.  I think that AMC should have taken a more surreal twist with the show and made it more dark and perverse.  Made it more weird.  I just don't think it is interesting enough to catch the audience that WD, Madmen and Breaking Bad did.  I doubt I will be watching it again this week.  It is just on too late!  

More to come.  I have some live shows planned, I am finishing up a big commission, and I want to talk about future 40k!

Jawaballs

Mechanicon no go

Unfortunately I have very little to report from Mechanicon. I feel bad because I promised to do interviews with a game developer and a new pod caster. I woke up on Saturday morning to find that I did not have my toothbrush, so I went out to get one. At that time I decided to plug in my phone that was dead, and it came alive with about 8 phone calls from my wife, who had been trying to call me all Friday night.  She had been having problems with the muscles in her leg after a surgery, and ended up going to the ER at 5am or so.  It was pretty much a no brainer, not long after I got her on the phone, I was on the way back to CT.  The Mechanicon crew was understanding and I was massively disappointed. I was actually optimistic about my chances for a repeat, or at least a top 3 for my third year in a row... But family comes first.

I hope my absence didn't throw off the pairings. :(

Ok, time to go give the jawa baby a bath.

EDIT: Woops I ended this before I mentioned that she was ok, just a weird cyst thing in her calf.  I hope every one had fun this weekend!

Jawaballs

The Mechanicon is here!

Yet again The Mechanicon is upon us! Mechanicon has become the GT for the hobbiest. In that I am saying that if you are into the hobby, than Mechanicon has something for you.  With multiple rooms full of gaming, there is something for EVERY ONE!

The Mechanicon Crew gets in some late night Talisman action!

Off the top of my head:

A five game 40k GT
A three game Fantasy tournament
Warmachine tournament
A separate 3 game 40k GT on Friday allowing Forgeworld Rules!
Several 500 point Kill Team tournaments for 40k
Blood Bowl
Heroscape
A "Golden Demon" type painting competition called The Iron Ogre.
Talisman, Munchkin, more more more!

Oh and there is over 3 grand worth of prizes.

To top it off, Mechanicon has been working hard at improving their already very nice custom built tables with even better terrain.

Finally, the main gaming hall has it's own bar with dollar pizza and drinks, as well as affordable beer throughout the weekend! At Mechanicon, you get so much more than a 5 game 40k GT. You get the opportunity to immerse yourself in gaming virtually nonstop from Friday Morning until Sunday Night.  Whether it is in various organized tournaments for fantastic prizes, or self organized pickup games with buddies. (I want you Ted Nagel. And yes Brad, we will see each other on the table too.)

So do take a look at The Mechancon site. The price tag might seem like a lot, but in the end, it is worth every penny and then some.  There are still spots open in the 40k GT, so get yourself signed up! If you have been looking to put a smack down on Jawaballs, we can arrange that too.  I am opening myself up to all comers.

What list am I playing? I will be bringing my new Hero Hammer assault list. I intended to play it in 4 major GTs. Nova, BFS, Mechanicon and The Conflict.  This will be my third outing with it.  I have little hopes of a Best Overall repeat, but I am going to do my best!  I learned a few things at Battle for Salvation and hopefully will be able to have a chance at beating some of those armies that previously tabled me. But I had to drop The Sanguinor from the list since Mechanicon is only 1850.  I dropped Sang and added a Rifleman Dread for some much needed long range punch. I would have preferred another close combat scout squad because they rock the house, or maybe devastators for the stronger shots, but simply did not have the time to paint them up to the proper level.  It will be a late decision on whether I go with the rifleman dread, or just a close support Multi melta dread. I wanted a furioso but I cant spare the Elite slot.

Soon it will be time to start thinking about a new army.  What do you think guys? Grey Knights or Necrons!  I also have a secret Xenos project in the works...

More to come on that once I clear out some commissions.

Jawaballs

The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 3

SPOILER ALERT:

Do not read this if you do not want the episode spoiled.



When we left off, Otis and Shane were chased into a high school carrying the vital medical supplies to save Carl's life. Every series has a couple of episodes where things slow down.  This was one of them.  Almost the entire episode was devoted to either more character development, or episodic plot drama.  The greater story arch however was not progressed at all.  AMC needs to be wary of that. I will explain later. A few important things did happen that will set the stage for the rest of the series.

Number One: Shane took the deep end plunge.

Since I am talking about trust and honor, how about this chick?

Who is worse, Shane or Her?

  We could already see the guy starting to lose it previously.  He is in love with his friends wife, and having difficulty coping with his predicament. Before the plague, he was probably kept in check by the rules of society. With the collapse of rules, the Shane rules were born. Pretty much, what Shane says goes.  You see a lot of people like this every day.  Bullies who obviously only follow the rules because they would get in trouble otherwise.  Not because they think the rules are right. In other words, not good people. (40k bullies any one?) In previous episodes, he nearly raped Rick's wife, and went way overboard with beating up the redneck who was hurting his family.  You see, the thing with guys like this is that so long as their carefully fabricated world stays intact, things are good. But with Shane, things started to unravel. Rick, a true leader who leads by example and word, not force of hand, came into the scene. First of all, this immediately challenged Shane's dominance, but also, and more importantly, his love for Rick's wife.  In one fell swoop, the only things that Shane had left, his power and relationship were taken from him.  So you get what we had in the scene where Shane lined up Rick in his sights last season.  Which is the way he wants it!

So Shane is unraveling. But he does have a sort of nobility.  It would hurt Shane if Rick knew how he felt.  They were friends, but their friendship is based on a relationship created while the old rules applied.  Shane knows that eventually there would be a clash and he is taking steps to escape it before it happens. The nobel anti hero.  Sacrifice for the sake of what should be. But is it sacrifice or cowardice? At one point this episode, Shane was about to give up. Then Otis came running, shooting the zombies about to take Shane down.  Then again, Shane was about to give up, and Otis kept him going.

But what is keeping Shane going? You would like to think it is his love for Carl, but I have to disagree.  It is not even for his friendship with Rick. Shane is ashamed of his own cowardice and weakness. It is noble that he is putting himself in danger for Carl, and helping Rick to save the kids life, but I think Shane is more concerned with the appearance of how he looks, than a deep rooted devotion.  Also, I do believe he holds a certain honor debt to Rick.

Rick even betrays Shane's nature when he tells the high school story of him stealing the car. Shane is unscrupulous, and uses his good appearance as a cover.

I have a childhood friend that is a complete and total miscreant. So much so that he had to move away from NY because he was on the top ten most hated list of the State Troopers. His situation was so dire that if he got pulled over one more time, he would end up in jail for years.  He is a thief and liar and a close match to Shane's personality. I would not really consider us friends, but, I trust him with my life.  I have no doubt that he would take a bullet for me.  Why? I'm not entirely sure. But he holds a level of devotion to me that belies his unscrupulous nature. Maybe because I always gave him the benefit of the doubt and respected him despite what others said. I think this is the relationship Shane holds for Rick. Shane feels guilt over leaving Rick in the hospital, he also feels guilt for moving in on his wife after telling her Rick was dead.

Shane owes Rick, and that along with his cowardice and shame of failure drive him.  That is why Shane put the bullet in the guys leg and left him.  Shane decided he had to pay his debt no matter what the cost to him.  Mostly because he wanted it paid so he could slip away guilt free.  Hence the problem. Shane only feels guilt towards certain people. Rick being one of those few names.  He knew it was wrong to shoot Otis and leave him, but his sense of guilt/nobility/shame for Rick was stronger than the morals he might hold related to a world now dead.

The head shaving was symbolic of all of this. It was symbolic of him shedding his debt to Rick. It was symbolic of him shedding his sense of right and wrong based on old world rules, and it was symbolic of him trying to wash his hands of Lori despite the fact that she gave him respite from his shame by asking him to stay. But now he would have to wear the clothes of a man he betrayed, and lie to his loved ones.  And sooner or later that lie is going to unravel too.  He is going to have to explain why he has Rick's pistol, which was supposedly in the hands of Otis when he died.  When that lie comes to a head, Shane's world will come crashing down. My guess will be that Glen will be there to help resolve the issue.

Number Two: The rise of Glen!

Last week I predicted that the Vet's cute daughter would rise to the level of regular character. This week I am sure of it.  First of all, there are at least there other people in the house. Only she got more then a few seconds of camera time. But also, most of that time was spent with Glen.  We are going to see Glen step up and take a more active role in things.  Glen is an optimist and holds a fatherly respect for Rick. Rick owes his life to Glen.  Those facts will lead to Glen replacing Shane as a decision maker, especially as Shane's sanity slips further away.  I have not read the graphic novels, but I predict a confrontation between Rick and Shane, probably caused by Shane getting the girl killed or nearly so, and Glen ending it with a bullet to Shane's head.

Number Three: Daryl becomes a leader?

Yes, Daryl, the neo nazi redneck is stepping up into a position of respect and leadership. Such is as it would be. The guy has useful skills in the new reality. He is a survivalist and analyst. He can break down situations, and offer quick and efficient responses.  But most importantly, as opposed to Shane, he does have a sense of right and wrong. He might not have followed the rules of society before the fall, but now that things have changed, and people rely on him, his sense of right is coming to the surface.  As he laid trying to sleep, the crying mother got the best of him. He knew that going to make a show of looking for the girl would help. While out there with the blonde, he actually showed some wisdom.  His logic on choosing not to kill the hanging zombie was sound and based on his reality which is very black and white.  Why waste an arrow? But also, he wanted to prove a point to the blonde. The dude hanging from the tree opted out. There are consequences to those actions.  And Daryl was going to enforce those consequences. But the wisdom is in his accepting her deal and shooting the zombie.  Now he had her trust. It was not about the arrow, or her answer. It was about him taking the time to give her the chance to trust him. I think he manipulated her in that regard.  Now he has her in his pocket. In fact, he is slowly doing deeds for every one in such a way. T-Dog, Rick, The Blonde... I would not be surprised if every one ended up owing him.

This is a common classroom discipline tactic. When you have a room full of tough kids, you do subtle favors for them individually, but you don't point that out to them at the moment, you wait until you need to pull that favor out of your pocket! Soon they will develop a sense of loyalty to me because they owe me, they have a street code, they have something invested like Trust. Hmm, sneaky? Is Daryl a teacher? What is the difference between me and my miscreant friend?

But it is how he uses this subtle power that will decide what kind of man he is. Sadly, as likable as he is, I think that the first chance he gets he will betray the group.  That will probably coincide with a late season reappearance of his brother Merl.  But he has still done good along the way.  Is this the definition of anti-hero?

But what happens if no progress is made in the overarching story?

AMC needs to be wary of bogging down the story too much with character development episodes.  I get it, they had to set the stage for the Shane melt down, plus whatever future plans for Glen and Daryl. But why are most of their audience watching the show? I'm gona guess it is not for the drama.  A lot of their audience is watching the show because they like to see how people react to the zombie apocalypse. They want to see what happened to Fort Benning. They want to see zombie action! The only zombie action in this episode was told in flashback.  The first three episodes of this season has not seen them progress from the damn traffic snarl that started it.  Little has changed. The girl is still lost, Shane is on the edge and the group is still fragmented.  They are no closer to Fort Benning and the zombies are even less of a fixture and more of a plot twist.

Want another example of a show that lost it's viewers in such a way? The original Battlestar Galactica any one? The show had the same premise as The Walking Dead. A group of survivors making their way against the odds and an unending opponent to an eventual end. The viewers tuned in to see what was going to happen. But week after week the story arch got bogged down with sub plots and character twists until it was cancelled before it's time. That was why with the new BSG, while they spent a lot of time doing character dev, just about every episode also included a bit of a push into the story arch.  The new BSG remained on task, thus it maintained it's incredible popularity. The Walking Dead runs the risk of becoming bloated with too many episodes about nothing.  The need to keep the balance or risk losing their fans.

Next week we can look forward to watching Shane squirm, Glen hook up with the hottie, and the blonde sulk.  More to come!

Jawaballs

Star Wars: The Old Republic. Jawaballs gets some hands on time prelaunch!

Myself with Mr. Jeff Bass. The guy in charge

of social events for Bioware

Hey Folks! Last night I had the pleasure of attending a meet and greet social at a club in New York City hosted by none other than Bioware!  As part of their appearance at NYC Comic Con, they decided to have an unrelated social event at a club for guys unable to attend the con.

I hopped on a train from CT right after work and made my way out to the club on 36th street with dreams of some face time with Star Wars: The Old Republic.  The new MMO due out on December 20.

I arrived at the location at 5:30pm knowing that doors open at 8 for the event. There were already about a dozen or so people in line.  I quickly introduced myself and shook hands with a few guys at the back of the line. One was from Scotland who flew over for the con, another worked in Finance around the corner and a few other guys were blowing off work and wives from Jersey. The typical mixed bag of gamers.  My kind of crowd.

Just a few folks in line. Ahead by the railing was a couple 

from Spain on their honey moon!  

This guy was passing out wristbands from a plush R2 unit.

He is the creator of a fan podcast site TorWars.

Jeff Bass came out to socialize.

So after almost three hours of waiting, IDs were checked and in we went!  

Lighting was of course dark so I have few pictures worth showing.  But I made my way immediately to the gaming area. It turned out there were 6 PCs set up for fans to play the game on, and each of us who got on one had 30 minutes to play.  Since there were easily 300 people there, grabbing one of those slots would be lucky.  I managed to score one though.  Apparently introducing myself as Jawaballs carried no weight except for a wry smile at the goofy name, but when I mentioned Bell of Lost Souls there was a glimmer of recognition from the guy running the gaming, and I made it to one of the first slots.  

Game on!

They had the game preset and we were playing on one of the actual US servers.  I was not able to create a character, but they had pregen characters and I picked the one I plan on playing live, a Sith Operative. (The sneaky sniper)   So then I was off. Headset on and blue haired chick running around some sort of Cantina sporting a carbine.  

As most of you know, the interaction between player and game is based on voice.  Instead of quickly reading/skimming a block of text that offers a quest, the dialogue is handled through cut scenes between the quest givers and your character.  At pauses in the conversation, you can select certain options that will guide the conversation, and give you positive/negative effects.  

After quickly watching the impressive cut screens and scooping up some missions, I was off to the wilds.  From here it was a standard MMO.  Get mission, run into wilds and kill. Defend the outpost from marauding thugs. But quickly I got a sense that TOR has the best of every thing, and more!  First comes the cover option. As you run up to boxes and barricades, a "hologram" of your character appears behind certain ones that would grant you cover. You run up to them and hit the button to take cover and your character does a snap roll into safety.  In this picture my toon jumped behind a box to get ready to charge up a power shot on a waiting thug.  

I managed to level three times as I played, and by the third I was one shot killing these thugs with the charge shot.  On the power bar you can see the three powers I had to begin with. There was a fourth, Shiv, that only appeared when I was close. She pulled out a knife and jacked dudes in the face.  

To the right of the living thug, behind the HUD, you can see a corpse. Some corpses glowed with that pillar of blue energy. Those signify that they carry loot. As I looted my kills I picked up a fairly good upgrade rifle.  Not sure how they run the power levels of gear but it was quite a bit better than the one I started with.  

In the middle shot you can see a cut scene of my character arriving on location, and at the top the NPC is talking to her.

In this last shot my toon just finished clearing out an army of thugs and stands ready for more.  They had called time to switch and that was that!

Recently I have been playing Rift, which is I think the most current MMO, and TOR shares a lot in common. As you kill mobs that are part of your quest an alert pops up on screen, and to the right you have a heads up quest tracker.  On the left upper it keeps track of loot.  You can see the last few items you picked up.

The interface was flawless from the little I could experience.  On the bottom right is your Heads Up Display map and if you are lost you can click it to bring up a map with you in the center as a cursor. The map is see through but you can follow your cursor around to navigate twisty turns.  Fairly standard fare for good games, but surprisingly difficult for some to pull off. Dungeons and Dragons Online for example is one that does not do this well.

The gameplay itself did not bring a whole lot new to the table, at least that I managed to experience in my furious few minutes.  The cover system is nice and I'm sure will be vital as the game grows, but the powers on the tool bar are reminiscent of the same button mashing brought to you by games like WoW and Rift.  Hopefully the game will indeed have an efficient Macro system that will enable efficient customization of the button pressing. Rift excels at this and TOR should take that page of code.

From there I have little more to share. The graphics were good, but almost a bit dated!  We have seen millions of screen shots and all sorts of videos of character progression so maybe that is the culprit. I do have a feeling however that the game engine may be a victim of it's own age. It has been in development for at least three years, having been announced on October 21, 2008.  How much of the basic work was already done when that announcement was made?  At some points I almost got the impression that I was playing an Xbox game on a 360.  Know the feeling?  The graphics were certainly good, and frankly with high action shooters you don't really want high res graphics slowing game play but I wonder if the very long development time has hurt the final game. Did the content overshadow the graphics?  Having said that, the game textures were nice. The grass looked like it truly enveloped the toon and stuff far off had detail.  I hope guys have the hardware to animate it.

When discussing  graphics with Jeff  Bass he seemed not concerned with some of the rigs described to him.  Is this a good or bad thing?  On the one hand you almost want him to say that the game is a graphics hog, that way you may get a truly ground breaking experience.  On the other... it would be nice if a rig showing it's age could handle the game without expensive upgrades.  Not every one has a power game machine!

So after my gaming I scored a couple of exclusive Empire T-shirts by answering Star Wars trivia questions, and had some free drinks at the open bar. I have to hand it to Bioware they spared no expense, though the chips were stale. :)  I had some top shelf scotch and a couple beers, and paid not a dime short of tipping the bartender. There was no entry fee either. Bioware really threw the fans a bone with this event.  Kudos to you for doing it right. I got to shake hands with some big names in other genres and make new friends with cool gamers.

Overall, my experience was great. I think that the game should come close to meeting it's MASSIVE expectations.  It is playable and fun. The interactive quest system gets you into it, and the fact that you have choices between good or bad, and the game tailors itself to your choices is great.  Quite revolutionary for an MMO.  Most games have a relatively linear story line in which you are more of  spectator watching events unfold. In TOR the story is uniquely crafted around your character and actions.  Your friend can take part in it too and have their own actions influence events.

Here is some video! Nothing great, but it was fun. :)




As standard fare, the devs were tight lipped about any thing not already released. There would be no secrets divulged here. This was more of a "Come look what we created!" event. Plus we had some free drinks and good laughs.

I'm looking forward to playing with the friends I made that will be joining my guild, Jawa Nation.
If you want to join the guild take a look at my Jawa Nation blog as well!

Tell me what you think about what you have seen of TOR so far and what your expectations are!

Jawaballs