June 13, 2018June 13, 2018

The Hollow (Netflix) 2018 Review

Rating: 8/10

I have never binge watched an entire series at one go before (yes, go ahead and judge me) even while watching immersive worlds like Game of Thrones, countless fight scenes in anime, and the revolutionizing story of how a high school girl committed suicide. Yet I randomly opened this series up on a random Sunday morning, and guzzled it down entirely, relishing the final bits with absolutely no regrets.

I’m a huge fan of cartoons, especially the ones that somehow made more sense as I grew older (Justice League and Avatar anyone? Maybe a bit of Spongebob too?) and I felt I would not have appreciated this series as much as I would have had that Sunday afternoon. It was engaging, witty enough for kids to understand, and fun for the family.

THE SUMMARY

The Hollow (not to be misspelled as The Hallow #truestory) is a mystery-esque show where our protagonists wake up in the middle of nowhere and try to determine who they were and where home was by trying to move forward and unravel the mystery of how they arrived at this particular world that consists of magic portals, talking trees, and even Death himself prancing around on his horse.

The Hollow_2.PNG — Who I greet every Monday morning

The 3 main characters, Adam, Kai, and Mira, wake up in a ‘cell’ not knowing where they were, and soon realise they need to solve puzzles to proceed. Along the way, they discover that they each have their own ‘superpowers’ that can help them in their quest to find out where they are and to return home. Equipped with nothing but their clothes on their back, our young heroes rely on their quick thinking, wit, and logic to solve issues such as from being chased by 3 demon dogs all the way to stealing a branch from some tera cotta monks so as to return it to a talking tree.

THE HOOK

Besides the awesome art that took me back to the early 2000’s, what really drew me to the show was that the first few episodes distinctively made me feel like I was in a game due to its emphasis on how the puzzles and slightly less on character development. While it was definitely not something you’d expect from any cartoon series or show, it was a refreshing change for a gamer like me.

(Check out that heavy outline ❤ )

My initial fears were that I was committing myself to a sub-standard series on my fantastic Sunday morning, which would then pile on to my list of life regrets. However, the feeling of watching some kids in a virtual escape room was an interesting concept that I rightly invested in.

It may feel underdeveloped and slow at the beginning; give it a chance, I promise it won’t disappoint.

THE CONCLUSION

At the end of the show, I did feel that there were many unanswered questions, nonetheless, I do feel that the unique plot and adventure that I had the privilege of taking with our heroes was a rewarding one. Not extraordinary for sure, but it left my eyes well feasted (once again- loved the simple graphics), and my mind at ease knowing that my Sunday was well spent.

April 20, 2017April 20, 2017

Power Rangers Twitch Marathon: The Future of TV

Almost a month ago, Twitch premiered a Power Rangers Marathon, where all the episodes of all the Power Rangers franchise were aired back to back.

For nostalgia-suckers like myself, this was certainly a treat. To watch one of the best shows that you watched growing up for free? Definitely not an opportunity to be missed.

Let’s skip the memes and the Bulk and Skull moments a bit. As much as “BLLBLLBLBLBLLLBLL” and “Billy afk” was funny as hell, right here we can be looking at the advent of “New Television.”

Source from:
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/04/11/twitchs-power-rangers-marathon-results/

With over 45,000 viewers watching ONLY the Mighty Morphin portion (admittedly still the best over the rest), over 13 million views in total, and a whopping 60,000 viewers watching the debut of the Green Ranger alone, this can spark a new era where watching content isn’t based only on what the broadcasting station brings to you, but clearly attributed to something else.

Let’s be honest, as much as the Power Ranger shows were nostalgic and entertaining, other elements such as the storyline and the graphics pales in comparison with the shows we have today. Granted, they were set in the past. But we can safely say that Power Rangers was in itself better than shows like ‘Sherlock’, ‘Breaking Bad’, and even the latest ’13 Reasons Why’? These shows have incredible storylines and in turn received incredible traction. So why is it that it was the Power Rangers got the hype that even broke Twitch?

For starters, you can play the Nostalgia card, and the fact that the movie was coming up. But that means nothing for the future of television. There are only so many old shows you can air before you need new content.

Here’s my theory:

Twitch Chat.

Woah. You’re going to stop me there all of a sudden, and call me out for mentioning something that is seemingly so small and pointless that shouldn’t be attributed to that massive success Power Rangers experienced. After all, Twitch chat has been there since Twitch started, and chatting functions were there since the times of MSN. So why this time round?

This is born on a simple insight that has prevailed since generations ago: it is always better to watch a show with friends than alone. When families and friends were more closely-knitted, people would do simple things like go over to a friend’s place to watch sports, or sisters hanging out at home to watch soap operas.

Fast forwarding to recent times, people actually tweeted while watching shows, such as to their friends or simply about the show to their followers. Platforms such as Twitter would track these tweets and subsequently rated the show using proprietary platforms.

Twitch chat allowed you to basically talk to people who are watching the same content as you. This, of course, gave rise to all the memes from that marathon alone. But if we dig deeper, we can see how people communicate, and how we love to simply talk during a show. We can joke, give insights, or simply tell the viewers what we already know “GREEN RANGER INCOMING”, “WHITE RANGER POWER”, etc.

As such, Twitch chat has become our social place where we can watch TV with people ‘next to us’. This used to apply mostly to the live-streaming content creators and their audience, where streamers will stream video games and the viewers will talk directly to the streamers or within themselves. However, this time round, the actors still do not interact with the audience. Yet, the abundance of social interaction within the viewers fuel the hype, and as the word-of-mouth spreads, more viewers tune in, and we create the chain effect from there.

Am I saying Twitch is the next big thing? Definitely not, but the possibility is there. However, what we can look towards, especially for new content creators, is that community interaction is just as important, if not more. Additionally, with the state of technology that the world is currently in, it makes is so much easier to actually create the landscape for this type of interaction.

Like it or not, the function of a chat, similar to Twitch chat, can potentially fuel the new change in television, where viewers can talk to each other while watching the same show with its being aired, even though they are many miles away.

Just don’t be toxic though, mkay? With that said,

IT’S MORPHIN’ TIME