TV CHOICE: TEEN WOLF, OUAT AND AHS FREAKSHOW

Reviewed by Franki Dean

The first show I have chosen to review is Teen Wolf. This program has grown in popularity since it first started out in 2011. I want to start off by outlining why season 4 doesn't quite match up to the previous seasons. Every season has an opening plotline that gives away the story of the main one, but in this season, the Benefactor plotline was SOOO ambitious that it required too many episodes to clear up. No TV show really dwells on the idea of real life logic, especially not Teen Wolf. Teen Wolf is a show that should be appreciated for the impact of its emotions and visuals. Although season 4 was nowhere near as good as the previous, it was jam-packed with fantastic ideas, however, I don’t feel like the producers gave us enough mentions of the tragedy that happened at the end of 3B for fans of the show to truly get over Allison’s death. In the final episode, a showdown between Kate and the teenagers erupted. It didn’t last long though and soon enough, everyone was gathering outside waiting for the sun of Mexico to set. The final moment where Coach yelled at the boys for going to Mexico instead of lacrosse practice before reminding them that they needed to watch out for each other was touching and really indicates to me and the viewers of the show, the true meaning of friendship. That final scene taught us all that you don’t need to smother each other and never leave each other’s sides to be a true friend, but when your friend is in danger; you’ll fight to the death for them.

The second show I want to talk about is American Horror Story or AHS for short. There have been 4 seasons so far, this one being the fourth. This season, the plotline is all about “freaks” working together as circus acts to earn money for themselves.    

The promo poster above portrays a screaming woman with blood over her face, indicating the real horror of the show.

 Although we aren’t able to watch AHS in England (well we can but we’re like 3 weeks behind), the show is available to watch on Netflix. This whole season is based on real life “freaks of nature” such as the two headed woman and lobster finger man. Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters) plays a young man with a charming personality who is able to win the hearts of all the women in the town. However, he isn’t able to show his hands to these girls as he has “lobster fingers”. Jimmy faces the most struggles throughout the season as he battles to keep the freak show going so he is able to earn money and also fights to be a normal person. Just when he’s given up hope of ever being accepted for who he truly is, Maggie Esmeralda (a fortune teller) turns up at the show begging for a job. Jimmy is infatuated with her and makes it clear to everyone that she is to be offered a job. Unfortunately, later on in the episode we meet her; we find out that she is working alongside the man who is trying to shut the freak show down. The man has lost all hope of ever being able to just shut the show down, so he hires Maggie Esmeralda to win the trust of the acts so she can kill them and earn herself some of her own money. Though the season has not yet ended, I doubt very much that she will go ahead with the man’s plan, despite the gruesomeness of the show itself.

Captain Hook is featured above looking strong and fearless, although that is not the case.

Season 3 of Once Upon a Time isn’t recent, although it is my favourite season, purely for the fact that it features one of my favourite Disney characters, Peter Pan. However, the producers of the show created a twist and decided to make Peter Pan evil. I also found out recently that the character of Peter Pan is also supposed to be the Pied Piper. The intriguing character played by Robbie Kay brought an entirely new personality for Peter Pan which left fans of the show on the edge of their seats throughout the entire season. Although most of the characters stay the same; we are also led to view them as completely different personas as well. Wendy still portrays the same personality as the Disney character; however, she isn’t as feisty and definitely doesn’t talk back to Pan like she did in the Disney films. Tinkerbelle has no connection to Peter Pan whatsoever and helps the other characters try to destroy Peter Pan in the end. Finally, there’s Captain Hook as shown in the promo poster to the left. I feel that he is one of the truest personas to come from the Disney film (although no one ever walks the plank) as we see the ongoing feud throughout the season between Peter Pan and Hook. Hook is also proven to be very weak and doesn’t seem to like much confrontation. Even when the fighting scenes are happening, he still manages to keep out of the way until it’s just him and Peter Pan left. The only thing that upsets me about Captain Hook’s character is that his sidekick Captain Smee wasn’t ever shown and there was no crocodile constantly haunting the poor man. In the end, all of the Storybrooke characters work together to kill Pan, but there’s only one problem; for Peter Pan to die, Rumpelstiltskin has to die too. Both characters die in a brutal way and vanish in to thin air leaving the rest of the characters to pick up the broken pieces of their lives. However, in the second half of season 3 (which has nothing to do with Neverland), Rumpelstiltskin reveals he didn’t ever die, so the viewers are left wondering what this means for Pan. Is he still alive?

THIS DECEMBER, YOU SHOULD WATCH…

Fringe (Season Three) 

Brooklyn Nine Nine (Season One) 

Sleepy Hollow

Once Upon a Time (Season Four)

The Walking Dead (Season Five)

2014 – A Space Odyssey

From probes landing on comets, to commercial space flight, to an Indian Mars mission, it’s been a phenomenal year for pioneering the stars– By James Sullivan.

Scientists are continuing to push the boundaries of space, slowly unravelling the mysteries of our universe, one space mission at a time. 2014 proved another year where impressive feats continued to be achieved, even the exciting prospect of commercial space flight...

 

The most impressive feat is that of the Philae probe. After initially launching in 2004 it finally landed on the designated comet. 

Despite a faulty landing prohibiting the solar battery recharging, the probe still collected information about the organic molecules on the comet, hinting at how life began on earth. Above all it proved just what scientists could achieve.

India also entered the Space Elite. On it’s first attempt it managed to launch a satellite in orbit around Mars with a budget of $74 million. Interestingly, the movie Gravity had a budget of $100 million.

In comparison, commercial space travel is surprisingly cheap. Virgin Galactic began testing SpaceShipTwo this year (although it ended in disaster), with hopes to transport over 800 space tourists, for the mere price of £150,000.

Branson is not the only person aiming a commercial takeover of the stars. The company World-View Enterprises is offering a staggering view from a capsule suspended by balloon, which is even equipped with a bar! It even costs a third of Virgin Galactic, just £45,000.

While perhaps not pocket change to you and me, it does offer the promise that commercial flights like these would become cheaper and more frequent in the future. 

An invaluable opportunity to witness the wonders of space with our very eyes. Wouldn’t that make one heck of a Christmas present?

Are You Going to Vote?

With the General Election coming up how many of you that are eligible to vote, will actually use your vote? - By Hannah Brown.

   Are you going to vote? A question that if presented to the majority of the people in college would be “don’t know” or “probably not.” But with the general election in May 2015, and with many of us in college having the right to vote for who we think should be leading this country on our behalf, it begs the question why many of us are still so uninterested in our vote.

   Personally I believe, through observation and personal experience, that young people as a whole remain uninterested in politics in general due to a lack of information, or to put it bluntly ignorance.

  How can young people be asked to be interested in something and then make a decision when they know relatively nothing about the subject matter at hand. For instance recently on the train I overheard another college student ask their friends who David Cameron was, once they were informed that he is in fact the Prime Minister they replied that they thought he was a footballer.

   This is a clear example of a lack of information. If they don’t even know who the current prime minister is how can they make an informed vote for the next one?

   But more is needed than just knowing the main leader of the party, you need to know their policies, what they say they are going to do. Although the media does release details of some of their policies, to know enough to make an informed vote you need to research more in depth, for example you can read their manifesto.

   Here are some pointers to help you to help yourself become more informed:

• Listen to the news and the party broadcasts.
• Research what each party promises to do (manifesto).
• Look at what they have done in the past.
• Talk to other people.

   At the end of the day politicians want votes, as votes get them into power, so they will therefore make policies that are targeted at the groups of people who vote. If you want the government to make policies that are benefiting young people then you need to make an informed vote at the next election, so that young people can be a voting force.

Why Animal Testing Should Be Banned

50 to 100 million animals are used for such purposes as scientific experimentation. By Charlotte Osment.

Firstly, animal studies can’t confirm or refute hypotheses about human physiology and pathology. The research done on humans is the only research which is relevant to humans. Animal testing cannot be trusted to have the same effects on humans as it does on animals. Therefore there is no need to unreasonably harm animals.

Animal testing is not the core of medical advancements in the world. While scientific advancements have been made on account of animal experimentation, these advancements have been too rare to justify animal testing as a reliable source of scientific testing. It’s sadistic that an entire line of study that involves killing thousands of animals will lead to no substantive scientific benefits. 

This makes it highly inconsistent that the ethical trade-off is "worth it". This inconsistency means that a large portion of tested animals will not meet the ethical criteria of being "worth it", and could thus be called ethically wrong. 

“What is animal testing?” - One student.

“If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn't done anything? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape instead.” - Ellen DeGeneres

There a huge amount of alternatives to animal testing but the main reason why the alternatives to animal testing are not being used is that they are impractical or a lot more expensive than animal testing. This places the dignity of animal life far below its actual value which is unfair and inhumane. Alternate techniques include:

a) Testing human cell cultures

b) Using computer models

c) Studying human volunteers

 “Animal testing is unethical and unreasonable. It has led to scientific breakthroughs but a large amount of the time they are slaughtered for no reason.” - Another student.

Personality Power

Finding out who you are is a daunting prospect because you’re always growing as a person, but what if there was a way to learn about who you are?

Tom Hiddleston, self declared INFP.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (or MBTI for short) gives you the opportunity to learn just that. The assessment gauges your psychological preferences in how you see the world and ultimately how you make decisions: it can tell you if you’re introverted or extraverted, and give you a detailed view of your strong and weak traits which helps with personal growth.

 If that doesn’t interest you, famous authors, actors and other celebrities have been categorized into personality types, which means that you can see who shares the same type as you.

For instance: Tom Hiddleston, Johnny Depp and J.R.R Tolkien share the INFP personality type. Just the same as the INFP’s; Steve Jobs, Steve Martin and Jim Carrey share the ENTJ personality type – but there are still 16 other outcomes that you can get. The test analyses if you prefer sensing over intuition, thinking over feeling and judging over perception, as well as introversion and extraversion, and these traits ultimately make up your type.

 One misconstruction from the MBTI is that if a trait is given to you it means the other possible trait doesn’t apply, for example if you get perceiving as a result in the test rather than judging, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are more perceiving or less judgemental, it simply means that you have expressed a preference. But what’s probably the most interesting thing about the 16 different ‘types’ that the MBTI gives, is that our personalities are still hugely varied and that we can all interact and form friendships with completely different people. If you and a friend take the test (or you and your partner, it doesn’t matter who does) it can even lead you to find out about your relationships according to your type. 

An excerpt from an article on ‘personality café’ about the relationship between INFP’s and ESFP’s calls their relationship like ‘two peas in a pod’ – and goes on to liken their friendship to Rory and Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls and Harry and Ron from Harry Potter. Now, I could go on forever about the significance and insignificance of your MBTI type, and how it may help and affect your relationships, but this article has to stop at some point, so, to find out more information and learn what your type is, take the test on www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

Key:

Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving  

Extroverted Sensing Thinking Judging 

October/November Movie Preview

The summer blockbuster season is over and the September dry patch is done so now we find ourselves at the teasing period as we move into Oscar season. Films always risk crossing a fine line in this season, blending in with all the other dry contenders for the academies attention and trying to hard, delivering a forced and boring final picture or being mindless and silly in comparison to the relatively high bar everyone else is trying to hit. This is the season for filmmakers to get noticed in and there is a mixture of films that want your attention this year.

Arguably the most prominent of them all is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (20th November) but talking to in depth about this is probably a waste of time as anyone that will watch this movie probably already knows they want to. The Hunger Games is a massive franchise with a huge fan base and films that seem to be raising their game with each instalment and while it’ll probably end up being good is it going to be great? We’ll have to wait and see, though it is based on the dullest time in the books so that doesn’t raise much hope.

On the opposite end of the addition to a franchise scale Michael Bay’s new movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (17th October) isn’t one that seems like it would appeal to anyone really. The turtles are too gritty and serious looking to appeal to the young kids that the ninja turtles are meant to appeal to but the pure concept is to silly to be taking as a gritty and serious movie by anyone. It’ll probably end up somehow doing well in box offices, mainly down to Megan Fox playing the role of “girl” and the big name in the title but this one looks to be mindless and boring trash and you’d probably get more excitement investing your money into an actual turtle. And they’re dull pets.

It’s difficult to pin David Ayer’s Fury (24th October) down. It’s coming fresh from the director of last year’s excellent cop action flick End Of Watch so it’s in capable hands but the tone of the film is difficult to grasp from the trailers. On one hand it could be an attempt at bringing something gritty to Oscar season, maybe even a best supporting actor grab for Logan Lerman who until now has put on talented performances but not really found his footing as an actor. However, it could also end up being a mindless war flick that’s trying a little bit too hard to feed morals to it’s audience. The film will have to find out what message it’s trying to convey, war flick or powerful story of friendship between soldiers, if it’s going to succeed. Brad Pitt is currently having an unstoppable career so it can probably be predicted that he will put on a show as the man in charge of this platoon, a role that undeniably suits him. The weakness in the main cast is love him or hate him Shia Lebouf who could be using this as a comeback after all the press against him recently. It’s still difficult to argue against the idea of him playing a religious soldier in a tank squadron, especially after all his stuttering school boy roles he seems to have been grabbing, is an odd one.

Death seems to be a bit of a running theme this season with Book of Life (24th October) and Life After Beth (1st October) both addressing it. The former is an animation by filmmaking legend Guaellmo Del Toro about the Mexican festival of death and the latter being an addition to the zomromcom genre starring up and coming talents Dane Dehann and Aubrey Plaza. To be honest the animation seems the more appealing of the two with the trailers showing so much stunning content and giving off a similar vibe to movies such as Coraline and the Box Trolls, that genre of kids films that can mess a child up, teach them some important lessons and show them enough fun imagery to entertain them. Those are the best kids movies for the Halloween season and Book of Life looks set to deliver just that. Life After Beth on the other hand is this seasons Halloween date movie for the couples that don’t want to see an actual horror film and it could probably go either way. The cast are really good but the plot seems very dejavu, the idea of a girlfriend coming back from the date feeling like it’s been done before even if it hasn’t. For zomromcoms Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland are out on dvd people and they’re probably better investments.

A quick run through of other films coming out this season would include Interstellar (7th November), Christopher Nolan’s new movie. This is a man who always delivers something unique and interesting when he directs though the film does appear to be shooting for crazy heights in terms of plot and it’s a struggle to work out how all the content promised by trailers is going to fit in. Nevertheless Nolan will undoubtedly give it his best shot. The Judge (17th October) is a father son bonding story starring Robert Downy Jr, a man who’s career right now can do no wrong. It’s unclear as to whether the film will focus more on the parent/child relationship or the lawyer story that it’s based around but it’s definitely going to be well acted, that much is true. There’s also The Drop (14th November) starring Tom Hardy. This film is an old fashioned crime noir that has received nothing but positive press from the film festivals it’s showcased at so if crime is your thing it’ll probably be worth checking out.
Finally Gone Girl (3rd October) is the film to watch this season. It’s a psychological thriller of epic proportions based on the best selling book and nothing but good things have been said about it. The plot is still shadowed in mystery and intrigue and in that way it’ll keep you guessing until the final second. See this movie and then encourage your friends to see it just so you can talk to them about it, Gone Girl is this movie seasons must watch.

Book Review: A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire

A Game of Thrones is the first in A Song of Ice and Fire series. It’s an epic journey told by author George R.R Martin. The first series alone has captured the hearts of 24 million. Will it capture yours? Read the review of, ‘A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire’ by Violet Daniels.

It was a cold, dark Sunday evening when I picked up ‘A Game of Thrones.’ It had been lying on my ‘to read’ pile for weeks but I hadn’t felt the need to dive into it before then. The rain continued to pour and the wind battled the delicate glass of my windows and it was then that I thought it would be the right moment to pick it up.

A Game of Thrones hit our TV screens with lust, blood, war and drama since April 2011. TV critics have either loved or hated the infinite series that continues to provide us with bloodthirsty battles and various raunchy love affairs. However have you ever considered tearing your eyes away from the screen just for a moment to pick up the book? Who knows, maybe you will after this article.

A Game Of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire has dominated the bestseller section of our high street booksellers for years. The story is the first in a major series by George R.R Martin and it in captures the heart of the War of the Roses whilst maintaining its original set of characters and families. The story revolves mainly around one family in particular, this family is named the ‘Stark’ family. The narrative of the novel is told through various characters in the story but it features the family of the Starks heavily throughout the tale. Eddard Stark is the head of the family who is King Roberts right hand man. Being best friends with the King obviously has its virtues, however we soon find out that it can land Eddard Stark and the rest of his family in a lot of trouble.

As the story unfolds the battle for the Iron Throne commences and with this comes family feuds and intense violence on the battlefield. The feature of the Iron Throne bestows acts of treachery amongst Ned and a split in his family emerges–  they are torn apart and no longer have their father for protection. His many children now have to fend for themselves in a corrupt kingdom without their claim to the King for protection. 

Whilst the Stark family is torn apart by the various feuds at court we also meet other characters in different houses along the way. 

You will also be captured by the enthralling, steamy romance between Daenerys and Khal Drogo; a couple that are joined together for marriage in the beginning go the book. Husband, Khal Drogo is of Dothraki and Daenerys is of the house of Targaryens. Their marriage is a lusty romance which ends in tragedy, however I know it will grip you throughout the whole novel as it certainly never failed to grip me. With the Dothraki we enter a completely different world; a world of passion, culture, intense romance and unfortunately, tragedy.

Martin manages to capture eloquently the lives of many families in the times of the Wars of the Roses and thus this makes it an intriguing read from a historical point of view. It’s hard not to fall in love with the complexity of the novel and I found myself emotionally invested in the fate of the Stark family. I was enchanted by the words from Martin as he pinpoints all the intoxicating aspects of the Wars of the Roses. If you are thrilled by action, drama, by history or by romance then get yourself a copy of this book!

Overall rating: 4/5