exsanguinator Reviews

Cooks vs. Cons (2016– )

Good idea, not sure how well it's executed

[5/10 · 5 April 2016]

Pro chefs vs amateur cooks. Which is which? Who will win?

Could a pro fall to an amateur? Or are the professional chefs really the standard?

Throughout the show the judges are constantly asked: which one is the cook, which one is the con?

A small side prize pool for the judges guessing who is who would be a welcome addition but there's nothing really to stop this from blending into the sea of elimination cooking competition shows.

It's entertaining, the twitter interactivity is a nice touch, and having the eliminated cook or con reveal what they are is fairly interesting.

As a side note, I like Zakarian as the host. Judging from the amount of guff he gets from his fellow chefs on other shows where he's not a judge I would think that he has a good sense of humour and I would love to see more of that shine while he is a host on his own show.

It's also interesting to hear what the judges think are "pro moves".

I'm gonna give it a few episodes to make up my mind 100% but judging from the first course, this is a show giving a chance. (can't believe I'm gonna let that pun slide).

The Shannara Chronicles (2016–2017)

Not great, not terrible (minor spoilers ahead)

[1/10 · 8 January 2016]

Just finished the 4th episode. It's pretty decent coming from MTV all things considered. The acting from the young leads needs a bit of work, hopefully it improves as the season goes on. Some of the dialogue is cringe worthy but luckily those moments are few and far between. The story is moving along at a pretty good pace and from what I remember (I haven't read the book in about 15 years) they seem to be hitting all of the major plot points so far.

From what I've read they'll be cutting a lot of the battle stuff, enough to leave out Stee Jans unfortunately, but hopefully that means that they will have more money for the quest part of the story, enough to give the Reaper a decent representation. I remember some parts of that story having a really good horror movie vibe.

All in all it's a fine effort but I found some of the dialogue and costumes to be really distracting at times.

Even though Allanon is not as tall and menacing in the show as he is in the books Manu Bennett definitely has the presence to make the character work. That along with the casting of James Remar as Cephalo and John Rhys-Davies as Eventine are excellent moves by the producers of the show and help it almost as much as the gorgeous sets shown so far even if some of them, particularly Paranor, are portrayed far differently than how they are portrayed in the book.

I'll finish out the season and hopefully it does well enough to convince MTV to adapt the Wishsong of Shannara next since that's my favourite book from the original trilogy.