User blog:Takashichea/Winter 2013 Screened TV Experiences: Star Trek/Walking Dead



Welcome everyone! I know it's a bit late, but I wanted to do a blog similar to my project called Anime Vice Recommendations and Experiences where I take folks' recommended anime and manga and try it out. I do a marathon, might not finish it, but I share my experiences and recommend to the right folks who will love it. Originally, I wanted to do as my last blog in Screened when it shut down on March 2014. I never got a chance due to school and trying to save people's wiki work and reviews from Screened.

I do these series of blogs to show our community does discuss anime and manga while getting folks to try new and old shows!

Don't worry, I won't go into spoilers. I just want to give a general impression, not a traditional review.

Star Trek
Recommended by Mike20, FinalDasa, and Acura Max This is the original series. Back in the fall 2013 or was it summer 2013, we had a Star Trek wiki project. Acura Max asks me to help out. I never watched Star Trek before. I have heard of it back then. FinalDasa and Mike20 mentions this series is episodic, so I won't be too lost when I work on certain episodes and upload caps. Acura Max and FinalDasa told me it was good Sci-Fi show for a beginner like me. I don't watch a lot of TV shows since I didn't have cable or rely on the internet much until college. I had cable once in middle school for a year, but I ended up watching Cartoon Network, Nick, and Tech TV's cartoons instead.

This is my list of TV series I watched in my entire life:

*Hercules *Xena *Sabrina the Teenage Witch *Supernatural *Big Bang Theory *Raising Hope

If you ask me about Hollywood celebrities, I wouldn't know anything despite being a Californian.

Impressions
I heard of the series when I writing an autobiography of George Takei in middle school for English class. Dad picked out a book and told me to write about Asian Americans. Sorry, my dad wasn't warming up to Americans and other nationalities who aren't from our country at that the time. I never picked up Star Trek until Screened in 2013. My first episode was the Naked Truth which coincidentally features Sulu. It got me in. I only watched a few episodes:

*Miri *The Corbomite Maneuver *Balance of Terror *The Galileo Seven *Court Martial *Space Seed *Errand of Mercy *The City on the Edge of Forever

My favorite characters included Captain Kirk, Spock, and Sulu. Star Trek is more about exploration and how Captain Kirk's crew get out of tough situations. Miri wasn't my favorite since it was kind of creepy. I would say The City on the Edge of Forever and Naked Truth were my favorite episodes. Naked Truth had more excitement for me while The City one involved time travel and a bit of drama. Captain Kirk is a playboy in the series. Lots of women all develop crushes on him, Miri, Edith, and Christine Chapel. Wish I saw more episodes about Spock and learn about his Vulcan kind.

It's a bit difficult for me to recommend this show since I haven't watch enough, and I need to refresh my memory. If you like space opera shows with exploration and how mankind interacts with aliens, try this show out.

Walking Dead
Recommended by Acura Max During the fall of 2013, Acura Max and the Screened crew were talking a lot about Walking Dead in their discussion thread. It was one of the most popular shows next to Breaking Bad and Hannibal if I recall correctly in the community. I was curious about Walking Dead. After I became mod in Anime Vice right in the middle of fall semester, I started losing control and mismanage my time. There was too much crap with school and too much crap with the battle forums. Wiki community was my safe haven since I did better as a wiki mod, given it was my preferred job where I was happy and comfortable in. I dropped all my classes and change my major for the 3rd time from Microbiology to Asian American Studies. In November, I felt so weird. I had no school. I had all this free time which I used to help both Screened and Anime Vice. With any time leftover, I dedicated to watching a new TV show, Walking Dead.

Recommendation from Acura Max was a heavy, horror drama show and it requires a thick skin. He told me it was more brutal than Supernatural. I'm not a big fan of horror movies, shows, or video games. Supernatural was unique because it had bizarre humor to supplement its horror. Walking Dead was a different beast. Impressions

Walking Dead was a hell of roller coaster ride. Don't expect your favorite characters to live. Anything can happened. Crap just hits the fan several times. In season 3/prison arc, I cried a lot. Don't want to spoil folks, but I should have saw the death flags. The story and the writing was better than most TV shows and anime I seen in my life. I will keep Walking Dead on par with Fullmetal Alchemist because Hiromu Arakawa is one of the best Shonen mangaka I seen in anime. The TV series was built weird. I first watched the series on Amazon Instant Video and completed season 1 on it. Season 1 only had 6 episodes. Then, I purchase the DVD Set 1-3 since I couldn't find Set 2 and 3 together for a cheaper, better price. I regret selling the Walking Dead DVDs because the bonus clips shares a lot of info on the characters, story, and how they create the set. It's so awe inspiring to see the magic work.

I would definitely recommend this show to fans who like zombie apocalypse shows. It's like a soap opera show. Is that right word? Anyways, it's a show that's full of surprises, victory, and hardships. It shows you that when the world is in hell, it brings out everyone's ugly side, but there is a spark of humanity you will see every now and then. I recall a flaw from FinalDasa. He points out the series is too over stretch. If you like shorter shows, you might not pick this up.