samitestar

I have secrets. I ate the last piece of blackberry pie and told my hubby it had started to mold so I had to throw it away. I dreamt about Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy for months after watching Pride and Prejudice and I watched all five seasons of The Guild in one day (pathetic, right?).

But this show is all about secrets, big ones. Usually I don't like a mystery that keeps building layers upon layers of revelations. But there is something about the characters, the mystery of Sutton and Emma's parentage that keeps me coming back for more.

A lot of people have mentioned the main characters acting, but its the side characters that really keep the story afloat, in my opinion.

First off, Sutton's sister, Laurel. She's adorable and her bristl-y second child veneer has a soft gooey center that pairs great with Emsa's (my lame attempt to merge the names, just go with it) bumbling attempt to fit into Sutton's family.

Ethan - major hotness. The dude could just stand around flexing and I'd be spellbound, but he's perfect as the secret bad boy boyfriend of Sutton.

Suttons friends, Char, fragile, needy and slightly ditzy and Maddy, bitchy, strongwilled and hopelessly in love (predictably) with an older guy.

Thayer - I have to admit he came off kinda dorky at first, but he's got a lot going on in the brains department and he'll need it if he's going to keep up with Sutton (she's wily).

A few characters need to go, Nisha, evil bitchgirl at school who adds nothing to the story, at least so far, all she's done is make a couple of cryptic comments and make out with guys on tennis courts. This must be the Mean Girls effect, seriously, the show has enough going on without adding high school drama to it.

But overall, this show is addictive. I tune in each weak, excited to see what will happen next. Will they find their biomom? Will they find out what Ted and Alec did to her? Why is Annie so crazy? What did Eduardo know? Does Ethan really like Emsa? What about Laurel's new boyfriend, Hottie McGolden Hair? What about Char's new boyfriend? Does Sutton's mother know what Ted and Alec did? Why does Emsa keep flipping her hair??? I can't wait for next week.

My hubby and I were showless, you know where all your favorite shows are on hiatus or have finished up a season and I just happened to hear about this show from, well, I can't remember now, so basically, I was at loose ends and thought, 'what the heck, I'd watch one epi." I've never watched a New Zealand show before, shamefully, I didn't even consider that New Zealand might produce their own television shows - I know, typical American arrogance, so I thought it might be kinda lame, a little like some of the British television shows of the 70's with good acting but terrible production values.

Boy, was I wrong. The acting is great and the production was pretty polished, granted all the main characters live in ordinary houses and have pretty ordinary jobs, but still, I'm convinced and fell into the story easily.

Basically, Axl Johnson, turns 21 and his older brothers + his uncle Olaf (who turns out not to be his uncle, he's actually his grandpa, confused? Don't be, it totally makes sense once you watch the show) take him out to the middle of the woods and tell him he's a god. A Norse God.

Axl is the reincarnation of Odin, king of the Norse Gods, the allfather. But he doesn't have full use of his powers yet, none of his brothers do (they're all gods too) and so begins his quest to find Frigg (a goddess) who is his lifemate and destined wife, once they bond Axl and his brothers will come into their full powers, if he doesn't find Frigg and dies before his quest is fulfilled his brothers will die and there will be a great cataclysm (think earthquake, tsunami, etc).

So the quest is on! What follows is terribly funny as the brothers try to help Axl find Frigg.

I had a few problems with the Kiwi accents, I spent two epis thinking the characters were talking about "Nipple" a lot, when in fact they were talking about Netball (the Kiwi word for volleyball! We laughed and laughed about that!).

Anyways, Axl's quest for Frigg is interrupted by real life problems, his roommate Gaia's dad visits, his other roommate Zeb is nosy and causes problems.

His brothers lives haven't been smooth sailing either as they try to make real lives for themselves in spite of their godlike powers.

My hubby and I especially liked the oracles, Olaf and Ingrid, being an oracle turns out to be a really terrible gift, but they handle it with humor and grace and their attraction and friendship turns out to be one of the highpoints of the show. I hope the second season has a lot more of them.

If I had to compare this show to another show I guess I would say it has a bit in common with a show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the characters powers mostly burden and ruin their regular lives and a little like Northern Exposure, the situations they find themselves in are unique to the life they've built and the place where they live -modern New Zealand home to Norse Gods.

I just found out the second show is in production and I can't wait to see what happens!

Somebody said Zombies are the new vampires. I don't really care (since I like both so much), but I can't help but wonder why my favorite new shows have zombies (am I the only one with a countdown for The Walking Dead's second season?).

Just like the old show COPS, Death Valley starts out with a chase, two cops following a bloody faced woman through a small convenience store. There's shaky video as the videographer (is that even the right term for the person who follows the action?) chases after them and catches the shocking and somewhat funny conclusion to the chase.

Anyway, I love this show. It has just the right amount of earnest police procedural to balance out the bloody gore and humor of cops chasing after zombies and vampires in Los Angeles.

If you think this will be a one hit wonder, think again, like other good cop shows, it's the characters that really carry the show, but I am hoping for some kind of overarching plot, maybe something to do with a vampire prostitution ring, werewolf mafia, zombie ultimate boxing, something ridiculous, of course.

Death Valley hasn't hit a high with a cop like Captain Jim Dangle (my fave cop from Reno 911!) but you can't go wrong with characters like "John John" and my Death Valley favorite, Joe Stubeck, who made me giggle so much I almost spit out my coffee.

Anyways, I'll be tuning in for more.

I don't watch many comedies. It isn't that I don't like them, its that I don't like them enough to tune in every week.

But I thought I'd give this show a try just because the premise sounded interesting. It isn't about 20-somethings sharing an apartment or a middle class family with quirky neighbors.

What I found was a little bit different than what I'd expected. Instead of an office comedy (with the office being portrayed that of a security firm instead of an advertising firm or lawyers) this is a comedy about people doing oddball 'security' jobs, they remind me a lot of the characters from Sneakers (Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Akroyd, 1992).

Christian Slater - playing Oz, a Skymall obsessed security expert who reminds me a lot of the Robert Redford character in Sneakers, he motivates his employees with a mixture of blackmail and heart tugging personal stories (which I suspect will mostly be lies carefully crafted to elicit the required response).

Bret Harrison playing Cameron - the most recent addition to the company. He's the computer tech and sadly, I found all his geek cred to be lame and not terribly believable. I suspect the writers need to spend more time on Reddit. But he has an undeniable charm and his missteps lead to hilarious situations.

Oddette Anable as Melanie. She plays the sexy bad girl and possible love interest of Cameron. I know, I know, it's a trope - wild girl + geek = interesting romance, but gosh darn it if I don't love it to pieces EVERY darn time.

The most hilarious bit in the show was a brief moment with Dutch, Melanie's boyfriend who has a questionable job(aptly played by Michael Rosenbaum, Smallville's Lex Luthor, gasp, I didn't recognize him with hair!).

All in all, I liked the show and hope it does well enough to iron out the little problems with geek jokes and the occasional moments of overly scripted dialogue.

What I'd like to see is more character development, a multi episode story arc and more time with Dutch, Cash and Oz, my three fave characters. Also, they should spend more time with Melanie and Cameron, so we can find out what else he likes about her besides her being a sexy safe cracker.

I'm gonna come right out and say it, "this was freaking wonderful!" I am a fan of the books, so I knew what the show would be about and WOW I wasn't disappointed in the least.

For the people who complained about the sex scenes; get over it. People have sex. Your neighbors, your teachers and doctors even the bald fat guy who loads up on chocolate milk and pizza bites at the Mini Mart does it.

I've got some other movies that have sex in them, you might want to avoid them too if you are the prudish type.Eyes Wide Shut, A History of Violence, Titanic, Basic Instinct, American Pie, I could go on.

As for the complaints about the people populating small town Louisiana, I think city people have a stereotyped view of rural America. They envision simple country folk walking around in wholesome WalMart duds chatting about church and deer hunting. You don't think gay people live outside of New York and San Francisco?

Accents? Well, I didn't notice, I'm from CA and all southerners sound the same to me, sorry. I just can't care about it. I also don't care if the vampires don't fit the Bela Lugosi guidelines or have silly names. They can't all be brooding drama queens.

I will be watching every episode and I hope others like it as much as I do, because I'd love to see this show last a long time.