Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Friday, January 21, 2022

Blu Ray/TV Series Review: Fringe: The Complete Series

 


Fringe was a very unique series that ran from 2008 to 2013. It was part police procedural and part supernatural thriller that involved a division of the FBI headed by Lance Reddick's character Phillip Broyles that investigated a series of strange phenomena that would come to be called "The Pattern". Anna Torv played FBI agent Olivia Dunham who investigated Pattern incidents with the help of a scientist who had been in a mental hospital for years named Walter Bishop (played by John Noble) who had studied similar incidents before he went crazy, and his son Peter (played by Joshua Jackson of Dawson's Creek fame) who was basically Walter's babysitter after he was checked out of the hospital. Of course, there was much more to the plot as the series unfolded with a lot of twists and turns. Some worked, some did not.

Fringe was a series that started out great and then kind of went off the rails a bit, almost like the series Lost. I would not say that the series was ever bad (although there were a couple of plot elements that were suddenly dropped and never returned to), I think the series did try a bit too hard to be unexpected and edgy and tried to shoehorn in plot twists where they were not needed. The acting was always great, especially on the part of Noble, and there was a very strong supporting cast throughout the series. This included Leanord Nimoy on what was his final major role in a TV series. He played a recurring character named William Bell who had a tangled past with Walter Bishop.

Overall, I would say if you are into series that have supernatural elements like time travel, multiple dimensions, etc., you will probably like this series. Especially the first couple of seasons. There are a couple of versions of the complete series on Blu-Ray, but from what I can tell all of the features and extras are the same as those that were included in the individual season releases. So, if you have the individual seasons there is no need to double-dip to get additional bonus features.




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