Support The Wertzone on Patreon

STICKIED POST

After much debate (and some requests) I have signed up with crowdfunding service Patreon to better support future blogging efforts. You can find my Patreon page here and more information after the jump.

Ultra-long web saga THE WANDERING INN to get physical releases starting this autumn

In news to make bookshelves everywhere tremble in fear, the very popular web saga The Wandering Inn is to start getting physical releases at the end of this year.

Written by "Pirateaba," the saga tells the story of Erin Solstice, a young woman who is transported from Earth to a fantastical world which works according to rules almost out of a video game. Erin finds herself in charge of an inn, and growing more skilled in her role as she tries to figure out what is going on, and more about the world she finds herself in.

The saga began publication ten years ago and since then has expended to a mind-boggling 16.2 million words, which is equal to 3.7 Wheels of Time, 4.9 Malazan Books of the Fallen and 9.3 Songs of Ice and Fire. The story has been collected into eighteen unabridged "books" for ebook and audiobook purposes, but these books only cover the first half or so of the complete saga so far.

HarperCollins are publishing the first two books in physical format, though for space reasons both books have been split into two volumes apiece. These divide as follows:

• The Wandering Inn: Book One, Part One
• No Killing Goblins: Book One, Part Two
• Fae and Fare: Book Two, Part One
• Immortal Games: Book Two, Part Two

The first two volumes will be published on 24 September this year, the latter two on 5 November. Presumably the physical publication of further books will depend on how well these initial volumes do.

The remaining books are called Flowers of Esthelm, Winter Solstice, The Last Light, The General of Izril, The Rains of Liscor, Blood of Liscor, Tears of Liscor, The Wind Runner, The Titan of Baleros, Witch of Webs, The Empress of Beasts, Hell's Wardens, Garden of Sanctuary, King of Duels, Lady of Fire, Archmage's Ire and the forthcoming Couriers Outbound. As noted, however, the collected volumes only cover about 40% of the webnovel so far, itself incomplete with the project projected at somewhere between one-third and two-thirds complete (so maybe around half).

All things considered, if the physical versions are successful, HarperCollins may find themselves publishing over 100 physical books by a single author (and not short ones either) to see this through, which will be impressive.

The physical release will also be accompanied by the first canonical map for the series, depicting the continent of Izril, where the titular Wandering Inn is located (outside the city of Liscor in the centre of the continent).

It will be interesting to see if the physical release brings the series to a wider audience and if HarperCollins will be able to bring the entire series to publication.

Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files - Volume 02

Earth, 2100. Mega-City Two, the vast super-conurbation stretching down the west coast of North America, has fallen victim to a malevolent plague. Mega-City One has developed an antidote, but the airspace over the mega cities is contested, so the only way to deliver the plague is overland, through the radioactive, burned-out wasteland separating the two: the Cursed Earth. Obviously only one man is capable of undertaking this epic journey: Judge Dredd. But whilst Dredd is away, there are those back in Mega-City One taking advantage of his absence...

The first volume of The Complete Case Files introduced the insane techno-hellscape of crime-ridden Mega-City One and its enforcers of law and order, the Judges. It's probably fair to say that volume is not the best introduction to the world of Judge Dredd, featuring as it does overwhelmingly violent action stories designed to appeal to teenage boys in the late 1970s. Subtlety, in-depth worldbuilding and strong thematic development were not high on the agenda, and the franchise showed little of the satirical bite and intelligence that would characterise it at its best. Still, it showed some promise, especially when it delved into Dredd's backstory or moved away from crime-of-the-week capers towards longer narratives, like the Robot Wars arc.

By contrast, Volume 02 is just two massive narratives, with a few one-off stories between, and is immediately much better for it. Much of the first half of the volume is taken up by The Cursed Earth, which runs from Prog #65 to #85, and is the first critically-acclaimed Dredd epic. Heavily inspired by Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley, it sees Dredd taking a road trip from Mega-City One on the Eastern Seaboard to Mega-City Two on the west coast, bringing urgently-needed vaccines to the sister-city.

Despite being classified as a single saga, the story is really a themed collection of episodes, linked by the device of the journey. Early on Dredd has to deal with mad mutants living in the Appalachians (where Mount Rushmore has been moved for unclear reasons), robotic vampires serving the last President of the United States, Mississippi plantationers using enslaved aliens, a cloned dinosaur theme park in the Rockies where the dinos have escaped and run amuck (did Michael Crichton read 2000AD?), and shenanigans in Las Vegas where the local Judges have gone rogue and become their own Mafia-like gang.

There's definitely a lot more dark satire here than in the first volume, and in fact the volume has to legally omit the most problematic storyline, in which it's revealed the pre-nuclear-war rivalry between local McDonalds and Burger King franchises has escalated into full-scale actual warfare. One infamous scene has a guy dressed as Ronald McDonald executing an employee for spilling a milkshake. Another episode, also omitted, has a mad scientist who looks like Colonel Sanders creating evil creatures based on corporate mascots, including the Green Giant and the Michelin Man. Rebellion did somehow negotiate the rights to use these elements in The Cursed Earth Uncensored edition from a few years ago (now out of print), but The Complete Case Files sadly has to make do without. The episodic nature of the story does mean you don't really notice their absence.

The story is solid, and some of the satire is quite biting, with alien slave Tweak and his story of enslavement in what is effectively the American South (if one reduced to a post-apocalyptic waste) being quite on-the-nose for the late 1970s. We also get a nice amount of worldbuilding by meeting President Booth, the leader of the United States when the third and last world war broke out, and explanations for how Dredd's world evolved out of ours.

If the story has a problem, it can be a little repetitive, goes on a little too long and the defaulting to using explosive ultraviolence to solve every problem can get predictable. Still, the sheer unhinged lunacy of some aspects of the story, like Judge Dredd facing off against a killer mutant tyrannosaurus, is quite entertaining.

The story rolls almost immediately into The Day The Law Died, which ran from Prog 89 to 108. After some odd cases back in Mega-City One hinting that not everything has been running smoothly in Dredd's absence, the city is taken over in a coup by Deputy Chief Judge Cal. Cal initially appears competent, but quickly goes totally insane, enforces the death penalty for the most ludicrous infractions, has alien mercenaries enforce his rule, and appoints his pet goldfish to second-in-command of the city. He neutralises Dredd early on, forcing Dredd to go underground and form a resistance to try to retake the city.

Cal is - fairly blatantly - based on the Roman Emperor Caligula, which may seem random until you remember that the BBC mini-series I, Claudius had been absolutely huge on British TV just two years earlier, with John Hurt on superb form as the deranged Caligula.

The story is again a bit overlong, and suffers a bit from the infamously fractious people of Mega-City One, who normally make the citizens of Springfield, Pawnee and Star's Hollow look quiet and orderly in comparison, going along with Cal's crazy stunts far too meekly. I get the impression the writers agreed and we get a late-story retcon trying to explain how everyone has been put under Cal's spell, but as an idea it's a bit weaksauce.

Instead, the story is mostly an excuse for action and for the development of a larger cast of secondary characters, including the introduction of Judge Griffin, as well as some crazy setpieces and comedic ideas, like Judge Fish, or Judge Schmaltz living up to his name to Dredd's extreme frustration.

By the end of Volume 02 (***½), we're still not up to speed with Dredd at his best, but we're getting closer. The few cases-of-the-week are unremarkable, but the two extended sagas are both solid stories with some great worldbuilding and side-characters. Both stories are probably a bit too padded, and the suspension of disbelief required to accept that Cal would get away with half the things he does before someone shoots him is quite strong, but we're seeing the comic start the development of its satirical bite and darker undertones that will become a much bigger part of its appeal later on.

The Complete Case Files Volume 02 contains almost every Judge Dredd story printed from Prog (issue) 61 to Prog 115 of the comic 2000AD, published from April 1978 to June 1979. Progs 71-72 and 77-78 are skipped because of legal issues (these stories riff hard on MacDonalds, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken, with scant respect for trademarks). The stories are set in the years 2100 and 2101. The writers in this collection are John Wagner, Pat Mills and Chris Lowder. The artists in this collection are Dave Gibbons, Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland, Brendan McCarthy, Brett Ewins, Garry Leach and Ron Smith.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

FOR ALL MANKIND renewed for sixth and final season

For All Mankind has been renewed for a sixth and final season on Apple TV+. The news broke just before the release of Season 5 on 27 March.

The show explores an alternate history of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It starts in 1969 with mankind first setting foot on the moon...but instead of Neil Armstrong, it's a Soviet cosmonaut. Furious at being beaten to the punch, President Nixon orders NASA to double down on beating the Soviets in building a permanent moonbase, orbital space stations and eventually the exploration of Mars. Each season is set in a different decade, showing significant technological and sociological change over the course of decades in this world where the Space Race was not won, but became supercharged.

The show has flown under the radar with the general audience, but has been a quiet hit for Apple TV+ and is, alongside The Newsroom, it's longest-running show since the streamer debuted in 2019.

Whilst For All Mankind is wrapping up, the wider franchise might have longer legs. Launching on 29 May, the same day For All Mankind airs its Season 5 finale, Star City explores the events of the first season or so of the show from the Soviet perspective.

Peter Jackson to produce yet another frankly unnecessary LORD OF THE RINGS film

Peter Jackson has confirmed he is producing a new, frankly unnecessary Lord of the Rings film, to accompany the other new, frankly unnecessary Lord of the Rings film he is already producing.

Jackson is already producing the borderline spurious Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, a new film directed by Andy Serkis, who also returns to star as Gollum. The film, set between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, will depict the various attempts by the wizard Gandalf and his ally Aragorn to locate Gollum and learn more about his mysterious ring. Despite having minimal source material available, the film will reunite multiple castmembers from the original movie trilogy, though will likely recast the role of Aragorn due to Viggo Mortensen looking twenty-six years older than when he made those films. This film is due for release on 17 December 2027.

Jackson has now confirmed that, having scraped the bottom of the barrel, he has punched right through it and is now halfway to Earth's core with a further Lord of the Rings-branded movie. The Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of the Past will apparently expand on the "missing chapters" from the original film, The Fellowship of the Ring, filling in the section between the Hobbits leaving the Shire and arriving in Bree. In the original novel, this section sees the Hobbits pass through Buckland, the part of the Shire east of the River Brandywine, where they regroup at Crickhollow and touch base with their friend Fatty Bolger (the infamous "fifth Hobbit," who stays behind in the Shire whilst the main crew go on their epic adventure). They then enter the Old Forest, running afoul of Old Man Willow and meeting the enigmatically jovial Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry, before being pursued by Barrow-wights whilst crossing nearby moorland. Rescued by Bombadil, they resume their journey to Bree.

The original writing team had expressed regret at having to exercise this material for time and tonal reasons, though co-writer Philippa Boyens noted on the DVD that it's wholly possible the Hobbits still had those adventures, they just happen off-screen in the movie.

Noted Middle-earth fan and shortly-to-be-unemployed talk show host Stephen Colbert will co-write the film with Boyens and Peter McGee, whilst Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will produce. A framing device will see Sam, Merry and Pippin (presumably a returning Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, though they are not 100% confirmed) reflect on the "missing episode" from some years after the War of the Ring. This will presumably allow their naturally-aged appearances and presumably CGI de-aged versions for the bulk of the action (where they presumably will need to be joined by Elijah Wood). The project does not yet have a director attached or a release date mooted, though it will need to be some time after The Hunt for Gollum's release in 2027.

Rumours that Warner Brothers are developing a full nine-hour trilogy based on a three-paragraph conversation between Frodo, Bilbo and Gloin at the Council of Elrond cannot be substantiated at this time. Yet.

Age of Mythology: Retold

The cyclops Gargarensis has vowed to shatter the gates to the Underworld and release the Titan Kronos back into the world. To this end he has assembled a vast army and set about this task in Greece. Arkantos, hero of Atlantis, sails to the Greek colonies to lend his aid in the Trojan War. Learning of Gargarensis and his plans, Arkantos forges a coalition with the Egyptians and Norse to stand against him.

Age of Mythology, a magic-and-legends spin-off from the venerable Age of Empires real-time strategy series, was released in 2002 and remastered and re-released in 2014. Following the pattern set by its forebear, Age of Empires II, the game has now been remastered and re-released yet again. We are now in the age of not just the remaster, but the remaster of the remaster.

Age of Mythology: Extended Edition was fine, maybe a bit minimalist as remasters go, with better water effects, tweaked textures and greater support for modern resolutions. But it was also bit underwhelming, with the feeling it could have been much more comprehensively updated. The team evidently agreed and after the barnstorming success of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (itself a remaster of a remaster), they came back for another go-around.

Age of Mythology: Retold is now the definitive version of the game. Age of Mythology has always flown a bit under the radar, despite being an enjoyable and characterful real-time strategy game with four distinct factions (the Greeks, Egyptians, Norse and Atlanteans), a splendid interface, a reasonable difficulty curve and superb graphics, which take the painterly, 2D approach of Age of Mythology II and adapt it into 3D with subtlety. I always found Age of Mythology to be a more satisfying arrows 'n' spells strategy game than WarCraft III, whilst some of its updates to the Age of Empires formula are superb. The weakest thing to come from the game is arguably the Tale of the Dragon expansion from Extended Edition, which felt a bit undercooked.

The game itself is pretty standard as far as RTS titles go: you start with a base, in this case a town centre, from where you can train workers who construct buildings and work as resource-gatherers. There are four primary resources: wood, gold, food and faith. The first three are used to build mundane structures and units (a mix of archers, cavalry, infantry and siege weapons) whilst faith is used to train "myth units" (sphinxes, dragons, cyclopses, hydras, frost giants etc) and one-off "heroes" (like Odysseus or Achilles). Resource-gathering is a surprisingly flexible system, with multiple ways of getting resources. For example, food can be hunted (peasants kill chickens, bears or pheasants and use them for food), farmed or gained from the sea by sending out fishing boats, whilst gold can either be mined directly, gained through trade at a marketplace or setting up a trade network between your town centres using caravans.

As usual, you amass armies which you can take into battle. The composition of these armies is interesting, with a rock-paper-scissors mechanic complicated by the deployment of counter-units (pikemen who are marginally effective in infantry battles but devastating against cavalry), so assembling a well-balanced force is essential. Early in a game, units can be fragile, so making sure you get unit upgrades from an armoury to improve armour, attack and resilience to specific damage types, like bludgeoning or piercing is also important. As each game proceeds, you can upgrade to a different age, which unlocks new units and building types.

This is all standard, but Age of Mythology nails the details very well. This was one of the first RTS games that allowed you to automatically task newly-built units (so right click on a gold mine to make all the villagers built after this point automatically go over and start mining), resulting in a very smooth and intuitive playing experience.

In terms of gameplay, Age of Mythology is hugely enjoyable, but it does focus a lot on attack. Whilst some games give you impressive options for defence and turtling, like StarCraft and its bunkers, photon cannons and siege tanks, Age of Mythology's defensive structures tend to be less effective, with walls and towers coming down very easily to enemy action (disappointingly, as the game's wall-building system may be one of the best in any RTS game ever made, allowing you to built elaborate fortifications very easily). The game is at its best when you are constantly engaging the enemy, reinforcing as needed and keeping them on the back foot. Tactically, a fine balance is needed between known when to keep up an attack and when to fall back for reinforcement.

In terms of story, the game has a very silly but enjoyable narrative which mixes up the Norse, Egyptian, Greek and Atlantean legends and stories in a manner that's contrived but fun. The story can't hope to match WarCraft III's beautiful cut scenes and in-game plot twists, but it does know when to butt out and not interfere with gameplay (a lesson other RTS games could learn from, even now) through endless cut scenes and major reversals you can't do anything about. Age of Mythology remains a pretty fair game in that sense.

Retold eliminates many of the previous negatives about the game. AI is dramatically improved, eliminating some of the dumber enemy moves and improving the responsiveness of your units. Pathfinding is dramatically improved.The one-shot god powers have been replaced by cooldown abilities instead. The game leans a bit more into the differences between the factions, making them feel more distinctive. For a game that's almost a quarter of a century old, Age of Mythology feels quite fresh and modern in most respects even before the Retold improvements are accounted for.

Those improvements are significant. The biggest change is the lighting, which is now gorgeous, and the basic elimination of draw distance limitations, making in-game cutscenes (when you are most likely to be gazing across the battlefield) much more attractive. Improvements in textures and rendering make the units and buildings hold up extremely well even at 4K and zoomed-in, but the game remains very undemanding by modern standards, meaning potatoes can run it relatively well (things only start to chug if you set up skirmish matches with the unit cap increased to preposterous levels). There are also welcome improvements to the UI, which is now more intuitive, and the ability to automate resource gathering. You can now set ratios so every new villager you create is automatically assigned to a task (so set an equal ratio and new villagers will automatically be assigned to each resource in turn), though this can also be turned off. Gameplay and balance changes are minor but noticeable: walls feel a bit sturdier than in the base games, and units now automatically use their special abilities rather than requiring direct player intervention.

Content wise, Retold includes the original campaign, divided between the Greeks, Egyptians and Norse, and the Golden Gift mini-campaign for the Dwarves, plus The Titans expansion for the Atlanteans. This is a sizeable amount of content, with a playthrough of the singleplayer campaign content lasting a reasonable 35-40 hours. Two additional, paid-for expansions are also available. Pillars of the Gods is set in China and Yasuko's Tale is set in Japan. Both add an 8-hour-ish campaign and a new faction apiece, obviously the Chinese and Japanese. The Tale of the Dragon expansion is forgotten about here (probably for the best) with the new expansions being much better-written and voice-acted, with more compelling stories and gameplay, not to mention narrative ties to the original campaigns. More content is incoming, with an Aztec-themed expansion due this year, and the occasional addition of new gods, heroes and units for the existing factions.

Age of Mythology: Retold (*****) takes one of the RTS genre's underdogs and turns it into the game it was always meant to be. Twenty-four years after release, Age of Mythology finally realises its potential. The game is available now on PC, Xbox Series S / X and PlayStation 5.

Note: Part of this review was previously published in 2018.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Slow Gods by Claire North

Mawukana na-Vdnaze is an unusual man. Born in the Shine, an autocratic multi-planetary government noted for its brutal repression of dissent, he escapes in the most astonishing manner possible, via an FTL jump that goes...weird. Given refuge on another world, he is drawn back into interstellar affairs when a twin star goes supernova, generating an explosion that will render dozens of worlds uninhabitable, including some in the Shine.

Catherine Webb has consistently been one of spec fic's most interesting voices since they launched their career almost a quarter of a century ago. The Matthew Swift sequence (four novels plus two spin-off books), under the Kate Griffin pen-name, was notable as an urban fantasy series with terrific prose, but it's been their long streak of stand-alone novels under the Claire North pen-name which has attracted a much wider audience. The million-selling, John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winning First Fifteen Lives of Harry August was one of the most striking genre novels of the 2010s (and it remains a mystery why it hasn't been adapted for the screen), and the World Fantasy Award-winning A Sudden Appearance of Hope was also very accomplished.

In the 2020s they've shifted gears away from supernatural-tinged time travel and identity-bending fiction into a more heartfelt embrace of genre: the Songs of Penelope trilogy has been a full-bored fantasy-historical sequence, an interrogation of Homer, and now Slow Gods is a full-on, take-no prisoners space opera, the kind of shift in genre and approach that could give other authors whiplash.

Slow Gods starts slow, perhaps fittingly, and takes its time to spool up. Early chapters establish the Shine and the imminent threat of the twin supernova, a threat which is dismissed by some since its consequences will take decades or even centuries to become apparent, and all the people who'd have to make the hard and unpopular decisions to deal with it will be long dead by then, so why bother? Other, less psychotic civilisations swing into action much more dynamically, and how the different species and polities confront this massive existential threat is most interesting.

This is contrasted against Maw himself, whose travel through jump space has rendered him...other. Not quite human any more, capable of unusual acts, possibly dangerous, but also essential for certain tasks. FTL travel in this setting is dangerous, with most starship pilots going insane after just a few jumps, but Maw's condition has given them a very different reaction, potentially highly useful. In the wrong hands this could turn into another superhero story, with Maw's amazing skills spelled out in neon five-mile-tall letters, but Webb uses their formidable experience in crafting damaged, special characters to give Maw a lot more subtlety than that. Maw himself does not know what he's capable of and is not always that interested in finding out. At one point he ponders some experiments to determine the limits of his abilities and concludes he just can't be bothered to try. Maw's characterisation is of someone driven by instincts and goals but whom also finds the idea of fame abhorrent. Maw is simultaneously the most special and ordinary person in the galaxy, which is an interesting take.

The characters around Maw, from quans (quantum intelligences) to members of a telepathic hive-race to more or less baseline humans, are fascinatingly-drawn, and come and go through the story as Maw's travels through space separate them from friends and allies (but also enemies) for decades at a time. The novel is somewhat episodic, with several distinct storylines that sequentially follow before combining into a satisfying narrative whole, bringing the story back to where it began.

The novel is highly accomplished but the opening chapters feel a little hesitant, as if the author was not entirely committed, but this feeling vanishes pretty quickly and instead we get a wide-ranging, human story about identity, loss and hope, driven by Webb's firm grasp of prose and pacing. It's a quiet, sometimes melancholic novel, with occasional bursts of action and moments of vast, profound tragedy.

Slow Gods (****½) is a quietly powerful science fiction novel about the death of worlds that starts slow and acquires an unstoppable, powerful momentum as it goes. It's a highly successful shift in tone and genre for one of our most consistently talented, if perhaps underrated, authors. The book is available worldwide now.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Person of Interest: Season 1

A decade ago, a genius computer programmer named Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) created the Machine, a powerful AI capable of detecting crimes before they happen. The US government wanted to use the Machine solely to forecast large-scale threats, like terrorism, whilst Finch wanted to use it to help solve everyday crimes as well. Finch still has a line to the Machine, which feeds him the social security numbers of people who are about to be the victims - or sometimes the perpetrators - of crime. With an old injury inhibiting his ability to work in the field, Finch recruits ex-CIA operative John Reese (Jim Caviezel) to assist. Reese, living off the grid and suffering trauma after the death of his girlfriend while he was overseas, reluctantly agrees and finds the work is giving him a sense of purpose again. But their laudable actions soon attract the wrong kind of attention from the police...and Reese's old bosses.

Back in 2011, Jonathan Nolan, brother of director Chris and co-writer on many of his movies, went solo to work on a new procedural TV series, with J.J. Abrams producing. Person of Interest eventually ran to 103 episodes airing over five seasons, attracting significant critical acclaim and wider popularity in the process. It also gave Nolan the springboard to work on Westworld for HBO and now Fallout for Amazon.

This first season gradually eases the viewer into the world and premise. In fact, it might be a bit too gradual. The show spend a lot of its time on its mystery of the week format. The Machine spits out a social security number, Finch does some data-searching and Reese then saves/neutralises the person accordingly. Finch's seemingly infinite hacking skills and Reese's one-man army combat skills overcome almost every obstacle with ease. Complicating matters are Reese being hunted by both the police (represented by Taraji P. Henson's Detective Carter) and various former CIA colleagues.

The show does start to mix things up by bringing in serialised elements, with the hunt for the mysterious criminal mastermind "Elias" and the hacker "Root" forming key story arcs in the latter part of the season, along with the well-meaning Carter getting closer to Reese and Finch meaning they have to consider the risks vs reward of bringing her onto the team. This also leads to the development of the main cast. Just having Reese and Finch with Carter pottering around in a B-plot in the background risks getting a little claustrophobic, hence bringing in recurring characters like Kevin Chapman's Detective Fusco (a dirty cop Reese blackmails into helping him, but later decides to go straight) and Paige Turco's Zoe, a con-artist and political operator, is a good idea. Brett Cullen also recurs as Nathan Ingram, Finch's partner in the creation of the Machine and the public face of its design (hence how Finch is able to operate undercover). Ingram only appears in flashback, in an occasionally surfacing storyline about how the Machine was created.

These ongoing storyline elements make the show more interesting, but are treated with a light touch. From start to finish, the season is primarily concerned with its person-of-interest-of-the-week format and everything else is subservient to that. This means the serialised storylines are usually held off at arm's length which can be refreshing - arguably too many other shows ditch their interesting format too quickly to embrace serialisation, which can devolve into soap opera if the writers are not careful - but also frustrating. Whenever Person of Interest's main story arc starts building any momentum, the show kills it stone dead for another 3-4 episodes of self-contained adventures.

It's fortunate that the self-contained stories are usually pretty good. Reese's one-man army/Batman-without-the-mask spiel and Finch's savant-like IT skills are toned down a bit and complicated by increasingly effective and smarter opponents as the season goes on, to keep things fresh throughout. The serialisation does return with a vengeance in the last few episodes, leading to a hell of an effective cliffhanger that paves the way for the wider-scaled and scoped second season.

The performances of the leads are effective, with Michael Emerson (Lost) especially sympathetic and engaging as the stiff-upper-lipped Finch, whom we learn has made some questionable decisions and is now trying to atone for them. Kevin Chapman makes Fusco likeable and loathsome by turns, and Taraji P. Henson is engaging as Carter, at least after some initial abrasiveness in the character is toned down a bit. More of a mixed bag is Jim Caviezel as Reese. Caviezel seems to have trouble settling on a tone for the character, which to be fair is reflected in the writing. It's very easy to take a character who's supposed to be reserved, analytical and stoic and make them just dramatically inert instead, and the writers and Caviezel make that mistake a few too many times. Whenever Caviezel is stretched with material delving into his character's past or requiring more emotion, he can be quite good, but there's a few too many episodes where he comes across as checked out. Still, he's never terrible.

The show is often mentioned in the same breath as another Abrams project from the same time, Fringe. Both shows are contemporary dramas with science fictional themes laced into them (Fringe much more obviously so, and more upfront), and both shows start off as almost rote procedurals until the creators feel confident to slam down the accelerator on the main story arc, where the shows promptly improve and become more compelling. Both shows also last for five (well, four-and-a-half) seasons. Interestingly, whilst Fringe only ever did okay at best and was on life support for at least its last two seasons, Person of Interest was a much bigger crossover hit and enjoyed a larger viewership, which tailed off significantly towards the end. Both shows are also have a reputation for being somewhat underrated, and have pretty well-regarded endings. The similarities end there, as their stories and aesthetics are quite different, and I do have to say that Fringe after its first season felt like its main story arc had engaged more decisively and interestingly than Person of Interest's.

Still, Person of Interest's first season (***½) starts okay and quickly becomes quite strong, even if Caviezel's performance and the writing can be a little uneven throughout. Both the serialised plots and the stories-of-the-week can be quite good, and the other castmembers are excellent. The tail end of the season hints at a much bigger, more epic story unfolding behind the scenes as well, providing a good impetus to carry on. The show is available on physical media and streaming worldwide.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

RIP Nicholas Brendon

News has sadly broken of the passing of Nicholas Brendon, who was best-known for playing the role of Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Brendon was born in Los Angeles in 1971 and was an identical twin. As well as his slightly older twin brother Kelly Donovan, he had two younger brothers. He developed a stutter as a child, which badly impacted his self-confidence, and pursued acting as a way of managing the condition, abandoning plans to become a professional baseball player. His initial attempts to break into acting ended in failure, so he considered retraining in medicine.

A second attempt at acting saw Brendon audition for the pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer in late 1995. Cast as Xander Harris, the high school nerd who develops a crush on newly-arrived Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) only to discover she is the Slayer, the prophesised destroyer of vampire-kind, Brendon retained the role when it went to series, entering production in 1996 and finally airing (as a mid-season replacement) in 1997.

Nicholas Brendon appeared in all seven seasons of Buffy, until the show ceased airing in 2003. His character was notable for not possessing any special powers or skills, instead presenting the "ordinary guy" perspective on events. He was also somewhat the stand-in for creator Joss Whedon, sharing Whedon's interest in comic books and movies. Xander's nerdish persona was somewhat at odds with Brendon's tall good looks, so the show pivoted with Xander dating the popular Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) in the second and third seasons before hooking up with immortal ex-demon Anya (Emma Caulfield) in Season 4. Xander also became an effective fighter against the forces of evil. Several episodes focused on his character development, arguably the most notable being in Season 3's The Zeppo when he saves the day whilst his super-powered friends, busy with a world-ending threat, are otherwise occupied. In later seasons he gets an ordinary job (in construction) and develops impressive skills in carpentry and design. One episode also saw Xander split into two identical people, which allowed Nicholas and his twin brother Kelly to work together (some fans, unaware that Brendon was a twin, thought the show had demonstrated amazing vfx skill instead). Xander's crowning moment of glory comes in the Season 6 finale when he saves Sunnydale and possibly the world from Willow (Alyson Hannigan) after she is consumed by darkness. The show ends with Xander recovering from Anya's death and his loss of an eye in the final battles against the forces of evil.

Brendon went on to play the recurring role of Kevin Lynch on Criminal Minds, appearing from the third through tenth seasons from 2007 to 2015 in 21 episodes. He also played the main role of Seth Richman in Kitchen Confidential in 2005-06, and the recurring role of Lee McHenry in four episodes of Private Practice in 2010-11. He chalked up multiple film roles, the most notable being in comedy-horror film Psycho Beach Party (2000) alongside Amy Adams and Lauren Ambrose.

Nicholas Brendon also toured on the Buffy convention circuit, but struggled with depression and alcoholism, attending rehab several times. He married and divorced twice, and was arrested several times. He went on Dr. Phil twice to discuss his issues. He also had other health issues, requiring spinal surgery in 2021 and suffering a heart attack in 2022.

There's no denying that Nicholas Brendon had a troubled life, and had a lot of problems after his brush with fame on Buffy in trying to further his career. However, his family reported that new antidepressant medication seemed to be working in the last few years of his life, he had avoided some of the problems that earlier afflicted him and he had found a new career as an artist. It appears he may have found some peace in his last few years.

FIREFLY animated TV series in development

An animated TV series based on cult SF classic Firefly is in "advanced development," according to star Nathan Fillion. Most of the cast is expected to reprise their roles. Joss Whedon is not involved in the project but has given it his blessing.

The news was announced at a Firefly panel at WonderCon today. The animated series will be set between the events of Firefly (which aired one 14-episode season in 2002) and its movie sequel, Serenity (2005). Fillion (Mal), Alan Tudyk (Wash), Gina Torres (Zoe), Jewel Staite (Kaylee), Morena Baccarin (Inara), Sean Maher (Simon), Summer Glau (River) and Adam Baldwin (Jayne) will all reprise their roles from the TV series. It is unclear if a new actor will replace Ron Glass, who passed away in 2016, as Shepherd Book. Book departed the Serenity ship between the events of the series and movie, so he may not feature in the new project. The timeline was chosen to allow actors who characters died during the events of the movie to return.

The project is being developed by Fillion's company Collision33 with 20th Television Animation. Writer-producer team Marc Guggenheim (Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow) and Tara Butters (Agent Carter) will serve as showrunners, and have completed a first script. Animation studio ShadowMachine is producing concept art. Whedon, who created Firefly and wrote and directed multiple episodes (including the movie) but has since fallen from grace in Hollywood, will not have an involvement but Fillion has got his blessing to move forwards.

During an video addendum to the announcement, it appears that the project has the working title Firefly: Still Flyin' (or at least that's the logo), with a pilot episode entitled Athenia.

The news comes only a day after Sarah Michelle Gellar confirmed another attempted revival of a Joss Whedon property, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale, was dropped after a pilot was shot for Hulu. That project may be remounted in a different format.