Ted (2012)

I knew nothing about this movie going in except the actors in it. I love Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis and I think that Joel McHale can be hilarious not to mention I've been a fan of Patrick Warburton since he was the Tick and then there's Giovanni Ribisi who is always worth watching. What I didn't know was that Patrick Stewart was going to be narrating, so as this movie starts I was excited for a dumb romp. I'm familiar with Seth MacFarlann, and while not a big fan, or really one at all, I thought that with the cast mentioned above that the movie might be pretty decent. About five minutes in, I realized that the DVD  box should have had a big warning sticker on it that said, "If you are over the age of 18 you need to be really high to enjoy this movie. Seriously." But, by the time I was about 30 minutes in, I realize that there would also need to be an additional sticker on the DVD case that said, "We strongly encourage all adults to be thoroughly high before beginning to watch this move, and to do the drugs you see being done on screen every time someone on screen does them." And then maybe to have a huge jug of wine for good measure.
I don't feel as soiled as I do after watching one of those Judd Apatow/Seth Rogan flicks, but I feel dirty. I felt like I was watching the Jerry Springer show - it was so awful that I couldn't look away. I don't mean the MST3K kind of awful that you can make fun of and end up enjoying. I mean the kind of crap where you're apologizing to yourself as you go along for subjecting yourself to this crap.
Sam Jones as Flash Gordon should have been ironic and hilarious. Ted Danson doing a fake interview about his years on Cheers could have been brilliant instead of homophobic. I will admit there were a couple of lines that Patrick Stewart uttered that were quite funny in the context of being said by Patrick Stewart. This movie should not have been so damned predictable. Especially since all of us adults were going to be so high from following the stickers on the case that we could have followed any plot twist and loved it. Oh, that's right. They didn't put the warning labels on, so we were completely sober while watching. Bastards.
On the plus side, Mila Kunis is easy on the eyes, and I think Norah Jones is super-duper hot. Yeah. So, those parts were good.

Ted on IMDb

Eleventh hour: Miracle

Professor Hood (Patrick Stewart) and his Protection Services officer Rachel (Ashley Jensen) are called to a meeting where Drake (Roy Marsden) uses Hood to disprove to MI-6 that a potential nuclear weapon manufacturing site is that. While waiting to go in, Hood is reading tabloids and they all feature a story about a boy who was miraculously cured of his cancer by drinking well water. Hood takes this story very personally and decided that he will go up to Clayton where the boy lives and disprove that it was the water that cured the boy.
Hood meets Dr. Williams (Clare Holman), the boy's physician who assures him that the boy did indeed have a cancerous tumor on his kidney and that he received no treatment for it. From this, Hood concludes that there must have been something in the water so goes about systematically checking the water from the reservoir, the highest water source in the water tables, down to the spring from which the boy drank.
After many false starts, Drake keeps popping up warning Rachel that Hood is in danger and it is her duty to make Hood leave. The problem is that Rachel doesn't take orders from Drake, and thus Hood is given enough time to finally find the cause of the contaminant in the water and in the process uncovers black ops being run by Drake.
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I swear that in the last post when I was going on about the X-Files, that I had not seen this episode yet. This episode was pretty much X-Files, UK, with Hood as both Muldar and Scully, well the passion of Muldar if not the belief in something that could not be explained by science. The whole feel of this episode was very much in the vein of a Chris Carter show - the camera work, the lighting, the suspecious government officials trying to dissuade our protagonists without outright threatening them. Actually it strikes me that Hood is the X-Files all in one - the passion of Muldar, the scientific discipline of Scully and the hairstyle of Skinner.
Marsden and Holman are both well known actors, and neither one disappoints. This was probably the most consistent and the best acted episode of the series. But, based upon what the Oracle told me about the creator not liking the comparison to the one show that I keep comparing it to, I can see why it didn't come back, though I am not sure why someone else didn't just act as executive producer and continue the show. Perhaps the creator maintained control over the intellectual property.
Whatever the reason, I am sad that there were only four episodes. I feel like we were just starting to get to know Hood, and the Rachel character hadn't been explored much at all, other than her devotion to Hood. We never learned why this particular science advisor to the government needed a Protective Services agent keeping care of him. Oh well.
Just like in episode three, the outcome was pretty obvious from the beginning. The first time you see Drake, you think first that he's more of a spook than Hood and Rachel realize, and second that he's a bad dude. Not only that, but the first scene he is in with Hood gives away the endind. It was still a good episode but maybe this is some sign into why the show didn't go into a second season - without the creator on board, it was just another mystery show. Still, I would watch further episodes if they existed. Meh.

Eleventh Hour: Kryptos

Climatologist Richard Adams (Donald Sumpter) is either on to something or is off his rocker. The government sends his old friend, Professor Ian Hood (Patrick Stewart) to look in on him, Hood is accompanied by his capable bodyguard Rachel (Ashley Jensen). They find Adams in a state of agitation at his home where we meet his wife, Gillian (Susan Wooldridge) who we find out was Hood's girlfriend first. Adams goes on about conspiracies and secrets and seems quite the loon to everyone. That is until he kills himself, leaving Hood a cryptic email and a quiz that leads to Hood and Rachel investigating the institute that fired Adams, run by the evil Destrano (Tom Mannion).
A second scientist had seen Adams work and reveals to Hood that Adams might have been on to something, but Destrano finds out that the man is going to steal the data that Adams left behind and has him fired, and then run over by a passing car as the man is walking out of the building carrying the box with all of his personal effects.
Hood finally figures out the keyword to crack the code, just as Rachel does through a different line of enquiry that reveals the truth about Adams.
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This was a great episode, full of familiar faces. Sumpter, Wooldridge and Mannion are recognizable to anyone who as spent a bit of time watching shows that aired on the BBC. That's the great thing about the UK's model of television programming - the seasons are shorter than US television, so more shows get aired. Most actors can't make a living off of playing one character, so they pop up in all kinds of places, and I'm told it's the norm to do at least as much theatre as television for these actors, so they all tend to have the chops, so to speak, to really bring mysteries (like this show), dramas and comedies alive.
The Oracle told me today that this show only lasted four episodes because the creator upon seeing the way the first episode and beginning credits were handled left because he wanted the show to be about science, not science fiction, and certainly not the X-Files. But, so far three out of three opening scenes have looked very much like my favorite Fox show ever. And the credits could not do more to evoke an X-Files type feel without actually displaying the word "X-Files" somewhere in the titles. She also mentioned that the US version, while getting picked up for a full season and airing right after CSI, couldn't hold the audience. I wonder if that is because they went the straight science route, or went the X-Files science route? I'll get back to you on that.
This was the first episode where I figured out the answers to questions long before Hood did. The big reveals in order are the Fibbonace sequence and Tokyo. The first one may be due to my fascination with this number sequence, but the second one is due to horribly obvious hint dropping.

Eleventh Hour: Containment

Professor Hood (Patrick Stewart), a Science Advisor for the Home Office and his bodyguard Rachel (Ashley Jensen) are called in to help out on an outbreak of a mysterious virus that has killed one man and likely affected up to 21 more people. Dr. Martin Callan (Nicholas Anderson) is a virologist in charge of a team of scientists brought in to contain the virus and to track down it's source.
Through investigation and interviews, the virus, which is now known to be a hybrid form of small pox and tanner pox, is tracked back to a worker at a refrigerated warehouse. The workers at this warehouse are predominantly Chinese immigrants, all of whom are sick. They are all put into quarantine, as is Rachel because she came into contact with the blood of one of the men.
Hood along with the help of a young virologist discovers that the workers do not have the hybrid virus but only chicken pox. When Hood, Rachel and one of the workers go back to the warehouse to look for containers of Variola (Latin for small pox), they find the samples missing and that the warehouse owner has taken them to sell to Callan, as they were samples from his lab when he used to teach at the University. The man end up taking Rachel hostage, but fortunately for her, Hood will not stop until she's safe.
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Well, no Gepetto, so I guess that question is answered.
This episode was about containing a virus, so I expected something a little more like the CDC and it's EIS agents, but instead got Callan and his group of academics. I have no idea what the situation is really like in Britain, but Hood says at one point "the United States spent a billion dollars on this, we created 37 committees", or something very close to that.
Twice in the episode, Hood explains scientific theories to lay persons, and I think that is pretty damn cool. I don't know if anyone came out of watching this show telling their friends that they now knew more about quantum mechanics or about how small pox was spread, but it is very cool that Hood was explaining this a person as a teacher, and that this wasn't something just said as part of the exposition to fill in the gaps in story.
This show could have gone the CSI route with lots of special effects scenes and one expert talking to another expert, but instead the show has more of a police procedural feel to it. Oh, and the opening sequence was all very X-Files again. I like that. We start off with this crazy looking scene and then explain it all using science.
I don't know how the British Intelligence and Security services are set up more than that MI-5 is domestic intelligence and MI-6 is foreign intelligence, but they are both structured like the CIA. Special Branch, I thought was another name for MI-5, as was Home Office. But Special Branch might be the domestic Special Forces that MI-5 uses for muscle or as a SWAT team.

Eleventh Hour: Resurrection

Dr. Ian Hood (Patrick Stewart) is on the scene of a mass burial of unborn foetuses, but not at the request of the local police, rather a Government Science Advisor. The local police do not take kindly to him being there and looking through their evidence without permission. Hood's bodyguard, Rachel (Ashley Jensen), is a member of Special Branch and it is implied that so is Hood. The police let him explain that foetuses are all clones of the same person and that the genetics are a perfect match for foetuses found all over Eastern Europe. After Hood explains that it's not murders that have occurred, but illegal cloning, the police decide to leave the scene as there is no crime for which they can investigate.
Through a combination of researching local records and making some educated guesses, Hood and Rachel are able to track down the doctor who is implanting the cloned foetuses, but who is not the cloner. The cloner is someone code-named Gepetto (Jane LaPotaire). By tracking this Dr. Hayward (Nicholas Jones) and Hood's realization at the aims of Gepetto, Hood comes into contact with the man, Griffin (Clive Wood) who the cloning is being done for.
In the end, a girl's life hangs in the balance and when Hood finally meets Gepetto, he is unable to stop her because he is saving the girl's life.
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Long live the fighters! Oh, sorry. Wrong Patrick Stewart character.
This show started off with a real X-Files vibe, if the X-Files were British and gritty. It morphed into a more typical police procedural / forensics procedural kind of show. None of this is bad. In fact, it is all very good. Stewart and Jensen are a good pairing. He's the brains and she's the brawn, but not as cliched as I just made it sound.
Now it goes without saying that I'll watch anything with Stewart in it, good, bad or the other, but this is good. I believed that he was a scientist, not a caricature of a scientist. I've heard that there is an American version of this series with Rufus Sewell playing Dr. Hood (or as the credits have it - Professor Hood which is just a little too much like Prof. X for my taste).
I read nothing about this show in advance, as it was a recommendation from the world's leading authority on all good things to watch, and I always take her advice. I hope that this isn't about Hood trying to track down Gepetto because a lot of that mystery is revealed to the viewer. BUT, I kind of do hope that it is about Hood trying to track down Gepetto because there is so much you could do with an obsessed scientist, and how common is it for the evil mastermind to be in a morally grey zone and more importantly to be a woman? In an American television show, the Gepetto character would be a middle-aged or older balding man, or at the very least something would be going on with his hair. If they were actually bold enough to cast Gepetto as a woman, she would be a mid-40s attractive brunette. You know I'm right. The BBC doesn't use this formula, party I guess because the male lead is an older balding man, but they are far more likely to go for acting ability over beauty and no offense to LaPotaire, but she is better acting than she is looking.