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. 

Monday, March 14, 2022

DVD Review: Bitten Season 1

 


Bitten was a TV series that aired in the US on the Syfy channel. It starred Laura Vandervoort, probably best known for playing Supergirl on Smallville, as Elena Michaels, a photographer living in Toronto, who is secretly the only female werewolf in existence. She is estranged from her pack but gets called back when the pack is threatened by a group of "mutts" (werewolves with no pack allegiance), which puts her "normal" life in danger. The show was adapted from a series of novels, that I have never read, so I am not sure how faithfully the show sticks to the source material.

The show has a bit of a "Twilight" feel, with generally better writing, and without the high-school romance. There is some love-triangle stuff going on, but it is not as dumb as Twilight could get sometimes. The show definitely pushed the boundaries of what could be shown on basic cable in terms of violence, nudity, and sex. The DVDs actually have more nudity than the US broadcast did because most of the butt shots (mostly from the males on the show, but also quite a few from Laura Vandervoort) got edited out on the US broadcasts. The series is made up of relatively unknown actors (at least here in the US) which included Greyson Holt, Steve Lund, Greg Bryk, Michael Xavier, and Genelle Williams.

For those who get the DVD set, the extras may include which set you get, as there appear to be multiple sets floating around. Mine includes commentary tracks on the pilot episode, the mid-season episode Bitten, and the season finale. Then there are deleted scenes and a couple of behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes. So, a good amount of material for those who like watching the bonus features.

Overall, I would say this season was a strong introduction to the show. The writing and acting are good, but not necessarily always great. The cast is ridiculously good-looking, and the show makes good use of that. The special effects were pretty good, but because it is definitely lower-budget than say the Twilight movies, the CGI werewolves did not look as realistic as they did in the movies. I'm guessing had the show been made in 2022 as opposed to 2014, the CGI would be better even with a lower TV show budget, but that said, they were not awful. The season is short, just 13 episodes, so it gets in and out of the story pretty quickly, which I definitely think worked for the show. I definitely think it is worth checking out.



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