Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween!

It's finally Halloween! As I explained here, I failed to get most of my Halloween reviews done. I can stilll talk about Halloween though.

It isn't really celebrated in Australia much, much to my chagrin (it's mainly horror/supernatural stuff on TV, and dumb kids going around the street trick or treating, not knowing that no-one (and I mean no-one) over here has any candy for them! Bwahahaha!). This Halloween though, there's been barely anything Halloween related on TV! Grrrr!

Other than watching certain movies, a Halloween tradition of mine has been to watch entire supernatural/horror shows on the one day! In 2010, I watched Dead Gorg...Err, I watched NOTHING! I'll never tell! I never watched that show!-In 2011, I watched most of Season One and Two of the awesome comedy show Big Wolf on Campus (a reliable source tells me that Season Three sucks big time!)-And this year, I watched all thirteen episodes of Powers!

Now to talk about some of the horror/paranormal TV shows that I used to watch, so many years ago, when I was a kid!...

Powers

Powers was a British show about the Powers institute, a bureau that specializes in the paranormal. Working there are Professor Powers, Dr. Mary Holland, Mark (telepathic and telekinetic), and Song Li (telepathic, telekinetic, and an empath [the ability to sense things like feelings or events, from touching either people or objects]). It was about the team solving various paranormal cases, getting caught up with aliens, robots, ghostly knights, dreamscapes, alternate dimensions, time loops, etc. It was a fun show (with a cool theme!) but despite being popular with audiences and critics,  it only lasted one season, and it has never been released on VHS or DVD.

11 Somerset

Now this is a show that I've never actually seen (just perused its webite (which included episode trailers) constantly and played the kinda ok-kinda crappy tie-in onlinbe game series based on it, years ago), because it's never been released on VHS or DVD. In fact, I'm not sure if this one has even broadcast outside of Canada! Despite never having seen it, it seemed very interesting to younger me, and to now me, especially with its awesome (in my opinion) theme!



What 11 Somerset is about goes thusly-Teens Oliver Marsan (son of a famous writer of supernatural books) and Laurie Lamera get involved with supernatural stuff. Yeah, that's about it.

Phantom Investigators

Now this was a very interesting show! It was a mix of stop motion effects, puppetry, and real life actors! It was awesome! As for whether the show was any good or not, well, it's been a decade since I've seen it, so my memory just *might* be *slightly* hazy, but I remember it being good! Unfortunately it was never brought back for a second season and beyond, nor has it ever been released on VHS or DVD.

It was about a group of kids who solve paranormal crimes. Yeah, that's it, basically.

Seriously Weird

Seriously Weird was about Harris (played by Ryan Cartwright, who was in stuff like Hardware (a British comedy show), and various random episodes of Bones), a regular guy, who solves a mystical stone tablet thingie puzzle, gets sucked into and alternate dimension, and meets a god named Steve. Steve is cordial at first, but is insulted when the skeptic Harris keeps saying that he isn't real, and curses him. Harris is flung back to the real world, and every episode, he encounters some kind of weird thing, from mermaids, to yoghurt monsters, dog spirits, psychotic dream gameshow hosts, and evil angels who want to get their devil horns (a reverse Clarence!).

Powers and Phantom Investigators both share a quality that Seriously Weird doesn't have for the most part-Those two shows are good!

The first ep of SW was great! The second was cool, and kinda-creepy (going by my memory from ten years ago), but it just went downhill from there! The show was constantly embarrassing to watch, and good eps were few and far between. And the show lacked Steve the God! He was barely in it after the first ep, which sucks, because he was cool!


You'll have noticed a trend with all of these! None of them (I'm not sure with Seriously Weird, but I'm pretty sure) are available on VHS or DVD! They're lost to the world uness someone uploads them onto Youtube! (As someone has thankfully done with Powers). And I am not kidding when I say lost to the world! I have tried to find 11 Somerset-on eBay, on youtube, online, anywhere, but it's nowhere!

Well that's enough out of me. Happy Halloween, and may Conal Cochran kill all kids with the powers of Sauwon (Samhain) and Stonehenge!

"Do I need a reason? Mr Cupfer was right you know, I do love a good joke, and this is the best ever-a joke on the children! But there's a better reason. You really don't know much about Halloween. You thought no further than the strange custom of having your children wear masks and go out begging for candy! It was the start of the year in our old candy clans, and we'd be waiting-in our houses of wattle and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal. The dead might be looking in, to sit by our fires of turf. Halloween-the festival of Sauwon! The last great one took place three-thousand years ago, when the hills ran red, with the blood of animals and children. Part of our world. Our craft. To us it was a way of controlling our environment. It's not so different now. It's time again. In the end, we don't decide these things, you know, the planets do. They're in alignment, and it's time again. The world's going to change tonight, Doctor, I'm glad you will be able to watch it.-...And...happy Halloween!..."
Conal Cochran-Halloween III: Season of the Witch

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