Pioneer One Webseries Review

“We could have been on Mars twenty years ago,” Dr. Zachary Walzer tells a congressional committee in the webseries Pioneer One. “We could be pushing the boundaries of a whole new frontier world. We could be sparking innovation and raising a whole new generation of dreamers who would push us even further than the generations who came before thought possible. That future lies on Mars. And if it’s not us, it will be somebody else that gets there first.”

Dr. Walzer is just one of a small handful of characters drawn into the mystery of Pioneer One when a young Russian male is discovered in Canada and evidence suggests that he arrived there from Mars. Like Walzer predicted, the Soviet Union apparently initiated a secret mission to the distant planet over thirty years earlier, and the descendent of those anonymous cosmonauts has found his way back to a home world that he has never previously seen.

Pioneer One is not an adventure story of “boldly going where no man has gone before,” however, but a political and psychological narrative of both Cold War and War on Terror intrigue. The Russian, known merely as Yuri (Aleksandr Evtushenko), was found in the wreckage of an old Soyuz spacecraft that leaked radiation across a swath of rural Montana. The initial reaction of the US government is that the action was an intentional act of terrorism, and any evidence pertaining to space exploration is a cover-story to hide the true intent of the culprit. Although instructed to retrieve Yuri from Canada and bring him back to the United States as an enemy combatant, Homeland Security Agent Tom Taylor (James Rich) defies his superiors in an effort to decipher the facts surrounding the event.

OCTOBER 31, 2011 (READ MORE)

 

Awkward Embraces Webseries Review

Although the medium is still relatively young, it is amazing how many webseries share the same basic premise with increasingly mixed results. While the concept of twentysomething female friends experiencing the trials and tribulations of both life and love has found success with the likes of Fourplay in LA, Freckle and Bean and We Are with the Band, for instance, there are a number of other webseries with the same focus that lack any sort of originality. The dating scene is another subject filled with potential comic fodder, but here again the majority of entries in this category come across as both flat and overdone.

At first glance, Awkward Embraces appears to fall into this same vein of redundancy as three female friends swap stories about their failed attempts to find male companionship. The group gathers after work and verbally share these moments of happenstance while flashbacks fill in the visual elements of each narrative. It is a “been there, seen that” storyline if ever there was one, and not only on the Internet but television as well. There is a major difference, however, between Awkward Embraces and the scores of other similarly themed shows—Awkward Embraces is actually good.

First of all, there is nothing awkward about Awkward Embraces from a production standpoint. While professionally filmed webseries have become the expectation rather than the exception at this point, it is still relatively rare to find comedies that are indeed funny and actors who can truly act regardless of the medium. The trio of actresses in Awkward Embraces, on the other hand, exhibit natural ability and demonstrate a perfect sense of comic timing. Whether they are deadpanning a satirical remark, more dramatically reciting a witty one-liner or even utilizing physical humor that borders on slapstick, Lyndsey Doolan, Jessica Mills and Candis Phlegm bring their characters to life with effortless precision. It helps, of course, that the scripts are filled with more laugh-out-loud moments in under ten minutes than most half-hour television sitcoms—from the situations to the dialogue to the overall narrative, everything clicks like clockwork in each installment of Awkward Embraces.

OCTOBER 19, 2011 (READ MORE)

 

The Wisdom of Felicia Day: In Her Own Words

Forbes magazine calls her both a “mogul in the making” and “guru to the Internet content crowd.” The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, refers to her as “nerd-tastic” while the Wall Street Journal claims that she is a true “web entrepreneur.” It doesn’t matter the moniker, however, as Felicia Day has proven ever since The Guild first premiered in 2007 that she is the unspoken ambassador of the webseries medium and one of the few who have mastered the nuances of the budding industry. In addition to creating, writing and acting in The Guild, she was one of the main stars of Joss Whedon’s online musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, appeared in The Legend of Neil and The Webventures of Justin and Alden and branched out with a second multiple-hats-wearing webseries, Dragon Age: Redemption.

With such an impressive resume and equally talented, it is no wonder the Felicia Day is often considered to be the “Queen of the Internet.” Through the years, she has given numerous interviews in which she not only discusses The Guild, her acting career and love of gaming, but personal insights on how she found success within the medium and words of advice for potential independent creators as well. Taken together, these snippets into the mind of Felicia Day offer an overview of an industry still in its infant stages and the ongoing changes facing both the television and online video industries.

“It’s sort of the Sundance of our time,” Felicia Day told IGN in December 2008 in regards to the webseries and the Internet. “This is where people are going to be discovered and be making new content. And the cool thing about it is there are no rules. It’s not like you have to make a two minute episode or a ten minute episode. It’s really whatever your story is. And I know that there are a lot of frustrated people in Hollywood, who aren’t allowed to tell their stories because they’re either not telling them in the way the studios or networks want them to, or it’s not appealing to as many people. The cool thing about the Internet is I can make a show about gamers that would never get made by traditional means, and I can find an audience for it. I think that it’s kind of the democratization of media in a sense.”

OCTOBER 17, 2011 (READ MORE)

 

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Fringe and The Harvard Psychedelic Club Comparison of Walter Bishop and William Bell from the FOX drama Fringe and the portrayals of Timothy Leary, among others, in the book The Harvard Psychedelic Club (October 10, 2011).

Voyage Trekkers Webseries Review Review of the comedy webseries that follows the misadventures of the crew from a Galactic Union spaceship that not only spoofs the Star Trek but contains its own originality as well (October 5, 2011).

Castle and the Murder of Johanna Beckett: Chapter Two Examination and recap of the investigation into the death of Kate Beckett’s mother during the season three episode of the ABC drama Castle, entitled “Knockdown” (October 3, 2011).

The Trivial Pursuits of Arthur Banks Webseries Review Review of the AMC-produced webseries about the romantic relationships of a neurotic playwright that contains numerous similarities to the films of Woody Allen (September 26, 2011).

The Big Bang Theory Season Four: Sheldon Speak A series of quotes and observations made by Sheldon Cooper, as well as other characters, from the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory during the show’s fourth season (September 21, 2011).

Castle and the Murder of Johanna Beckett: Chapter One Examination and recap of the investigation into the death of Kate Beckett’s mother ten years earlier during seasons one and two of the ABC drama Castle (September 19, 2011).