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Genre: news,
Overall: WATCH
If you like… Gaming

Production values: Newsy? (4)
Writing: 86% as funny as Jon Stewart (4)
Editing: Good visuals, pacing (4)
Content Advisory: L-

Why it’s worth watching: because you haven’t laughed at Sony enough yet.

Synopsis: Weekly gaming news with humorous commentary.

Review: If you want to keep up with the gaming world this is the most entertaining way to do it. Each week, Checkpoint releases a ~10 minute video covering the triumphs and blunders of the gaming industry. It’s a gaming show for gamers by gamers. Most of the humor is dry and snarky and companies like Sony, Nintendo, and EA provide lots of fodder for affectionate lampooning.
The show itself is well produced with appropriate visuals and jokes in the title text like The Onion Network (though I have a hard time reading them and listening at the same time). They mostly play the newsdesk trope straight and don’t go overboard with gimmicks. And often they feature “expert commentary” like Jon Stewart’s cast of correspondents who will often provide exaggerated commentary on major stories. In conclusion, Sony has been pretty funny this year and gamers have Checkpoint to thank for helping them laugh about their useless PS3.

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www.squattersseries.com/videos

Genre: comedy, sitcom
Overall: WATCH
If you like... The Guild,

Production values: Invisible (4-5)
Writing: Crazy and witty (4)
Acting: Endearing (4-5)
Content Advisory: L S N-

Why it’s worth watching: well produced wacky comedy with a heart.

Where it gets good: The show starts to hit it’s pace after a couple of shows which setup the premise and characters and gets better as it develops.

Synopsis: A stupid bet leads to a new perspective on life for two Manhattan guys

Review: This sitcom has a funny but constraining premise: a bet with three rules: no paying with housing, no staying with friends, and you can’t leave Manhattan–but Squatters keeps it entertaining. Wacky characters and even wackier situations (protip: don’t try to bathe out of the sink in your office bathroom) keep the laughs coming. But the show creators have not neglected character arcs in the midst of the mayhem.
The acting is consistently solid not only in the lead roles but also among an unusually large supporting cast. This points to excellent directing by Brendan Bradley who also plays a main character. Put together with extremely competent production quality and those little cliffhangers at the end of each episode, you’ll keep clicking “next episode” until they run out. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss 2 hours goodbye.

Primarily reviews will focus on whether a show is worth the time or not without a detailed creative critique. From time to time I might go into more detail on this “Behind the Scenes” blog but probably not. Or I might talk about the pros and cons of the various distribution platforms. Or maybe I’ll talk about how to make better shows. Or about what’s happening with the site. Who knows! If you’re smart you’ll probably just read the reviews anyway.

I want to add some other features such as a wiki and a forum. I’d also like to make a framed version of the wiki so you can choose episodes in a nice list instead of the horrible navigation on most video sites. Let me know if you have a good idea about how to do this.

Send me feedback through the comments here or at whatsthat@webisodeguide.com

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Genre: action, fx

Overall: WATCH
If you like… explosions, Modern Warfare, outrageous acts of awesome

Production values: Insane (5)
Writing: Entertaining (4)
Content Advisory: L- V+

Why it’s worth watching: Hollywood quality action scenes

Where to start watching:
More Guns!
Eliza Dushku!
Modern Warfare as an Epic
Caveats: not a “show” per se. Just random fun with After Effects.

Synopsis: Freddie Wong is an After Effects wizard. More guns!

Review: Whether lampooning action movie and video game tropes or just being goofy, Freddie manages to entertain while wowing us with epic VFX. Freddie and his crew understand why we like action movies and distill the entertainment value to 5 minute shorts. He also has fun with wacky concepts like sky diving out of your house and the Rock Band of the future. Plus, for VFX enthusiasts he has a behind the scenes channel where he reveals the magic behind gun flares and motion tracking. Say goodbye to your afternoon, this is the Youtube channel with the most explosions.

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Genre: drama, scifi, legal thriller

Overall: DON’T WATCH

Production values: poor (2)
Writing: longwinded (2)
Acting: inconsistant (3)
Content Advisory: L

Synopsis: Spaceship crashes with unconscious Russian passenger from another planet? TV length episodes shoot for West Wing meets X-Files.

Review: Because the premise was intriguing and I like scifi I really wanted to like this show. Unfortunately I struggled to find anything that actually worked at all. Watching the episodes I just felt alternately uncomfortable and bored. It’s like something is wrong with every frame whether it’s lighting or framing or the set or the clunky editing or the Canadian accents for American characters or the subtlety bad audio.

The central mystery isn’t actually kept a mystery at all. It’s just thrown out there and everyone just pretends that it’s too crazy to believe (c’mon, this is tv folks). The plot is stretched out so thin that most of the time I’m just waiting for something to happen. I think there was supposed to be a character drama somewhere in there but having a bunch of people who just yell at each other in long soliloquies just doesn’t work unless you’re name is Aaron Sorkin. The actors are doing the best they can with the clunky lines but they clearly aren’t being given motivation and the director doesn’t seem to recognize takes that don’t work. With the long dialog he’s probably just happy to get the entire line. I could go on…

I’m sorry that I didn’t enjoy it but hey, someone did. Enough someones to pay for production anyway.

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