1864

I watched the first part of the Danish drama 1864, about the Second Schleswig War last night. This episode was set just after the First Schleswig War but it boded well for the series and the juxtaposition with a present day storyline referencing the Danish contribution in Afghanistan was interesting. Watching part two on iPlayer tonight.

Shieldwall!

BBC America has released a short teaser for the forthcoming BBC series The Last Kingdom based on the Bernard Cornwell book. Really looking forward to this...

The Road to D.C.

The Walking Dead will be back on our screens soon and Fox have released the trailer for the second half of the current series. It shall be interesting to see how this pans out as the graphic novels certainly step up a notch scale wise at this point...

Details have also appear to have been leaked of The Walking Dead spin off series and it may well be a prequel starting with the initial pandemic that Rick of course sleeps through in his coma in the original story. Could be good, but hopefully it evolves into a distinctly different story from the survivors on the road we have at the moment.

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy...

One of my favourite books when I was a teenager was Phillip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. More than the story itself I was fascinated by the alt-history timeline and the word dominated by the victorious Axis powers. I haven't read it in years and was surprised yesterday to evening to see that Amazon have produced a pilot episode of a series based on the book and that it can be seen on Prime Instant Video.

Produced by Ridley Scott and written by Frank Spotniz it is a really enjoyable hour of television and I hope that Amazon pick it up for a series. The visuals are great, and the background full of hints of a fascinating layered alt-history/SF storyline. If you get the chance to watch it, do so, then go and tell Amazon to hurry up and commission a full season!

Earth Must Come First!

Last year I started reading James S A Corey's Expanse SF series, now having read the first three books and enjoyed doing so. As I said so at the time that SyFy were planning a TV series based on them and they have now released their first trailer for it.

Not quite sure they have the look of the low grav Belters right, but it looks promising and if it is as good as the books, it should be well worth watching...

The Last Ship

I've just caught up with the finale of the TV series The Last Ship, a ten part post-apocalyptic show centred around the USS Nathan James and its role in finding a cure to a viral pandemic that has killed 4 billion people.

Despite what I thought was a rather limiting potential story I have enjoyed the series and feel it has a great deal of potential for skirmish based wargames. I had thought this would be a one off series due to the will they/won't they find a cure? plot arc, but surprisingly it has been renewed for a second series and the final two episodes set this up very nicely.

As post-apocalyptic shows go it is no Walking Dead, but it has its moments and is worth catching... the show not the virus! :-)

"This Isn't the TIE Fighter You're Looking For..."

I caught up with the new Star Wars: Rebels animated series at the weekend. So far Disney XD have show the two episode pilot, plus the first two episodes and despite some reservations over bits of the CGI animation, they are a lot of fun.

Charting the adventures of a band of rebels on the spaceship The Ghost and set four years before A New Hope, there are many nods to the "classic" Star Wars trilogy which will appeal to older fans, whilst watching the series with younger ones! The only thing that is wrong with the series is that it is animated!

I don't have anything against animation and there have been some good Star Wars animated series, but Rebels is essentially Firefly in the Star Wars universe. Just think how awesome that would be as a live action series...

World War II in Colour

I must confess I normally inwardly cringe when I see any history programme appended with the words "In Colour" and I had no intention of watching the Channel 5 series World War Two in Colour, currently showing on Friday evenings. However I was channel hopping last Friday and caught a bit of the first episode about the invasion of Poland and subsequent Blitzkrieg campaign.

Whilst the colourisation of the black and white film is not always perfect (and I do wonder why the Germans have brown jackboots), overall it is very well done and, although I don't normally see the need for it, some of it adds a little something to the footage. I grabbed some screen grabs to show what I mean.

The programme is also quite interesting for a generic WW2 potted history. Last night's episode 'Britain at Bay' was not just about the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, indeed that only accounted for half the programme. It also covered the first commando raids on targets in Norway as well as the start of the SOE and Resistance in Europe.

Whilst there are undoubtedly better history programmes available, I was more impressed that I thought I would be by the first two of this series and will continue watching. The current episode is available in Channel 5 OD here.

Greatest Tank Battles - Korea

After seeing Saul off to his new life as a music student in Cheltenham, I decided to have a bit of "me time" with a beer and the TV remote! Over the last week I have been recording the Greatest Tank Battles series on H2. The computer generated graphics are pretty lame, but the first hand accounts really interesting and the episode I watched on the tank battles of the early stages of the Korean War, really inspiring.

I have mentioned a desire to do some Korean War Wargaming before as it is a subject that has  fascinated me since learning about it at school in O level history. Previously I had thought about 28mm or 20mm platoon infantry actions, but there is a window for some great 6mm company level a armour battles.

The North Korean forces can be drawn from my planned 1944/45 Soviet forces, indeed the paint schemes are identical so they can do double duty. Infantry are more of a problem but IIRC Heroics make some insurgents in peaked caps that may be useful. The US forces are largely late WW2 and once I have progressed the late war Gerrmans and Soviets the intention always was to return to my first proper wargames army, the Americans, so this may well kill two birds with one stone.

Of course I have other projects on the go at the moment, but I will keep the back burner lit as I have enjoyed painting the 6mm armour this year and want to do some more...

Soviet Storm: WWII in the East

I caught the second half of the second part of Soviet Storm: WWII in the East on H2 channel yesterday lunchtime. About the 1942 Siege of Sebastapol, it was more interesting than most documentaries of its type in that it was Russian produced and had a lot more information about the Soviet side than normal.

H2 have episodes 7 to 10 on this week, but is seems that they are missing out a number of them as there are 18 in the series. Fortunately You Tube is our friend as it looks like they have all been posted there, here is episode 1:

Penny Dreadful

I managed to catch up with the first episode of Showtime/Sky's new Victorian Gothic drama series Penny Dreadful yesterday. Using a mix of public domain literary characters from C19th fiction (rather like Alan Moore did with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), it is great stuff for Empire of the Dead/IHMN players, interested in some horror gaming in the demi-monde between the real world and the supernatural.

Batman Before

Fox has just released a trailer for it's pre-Batman series Gotham. My interest level has gone from meh to wow...

Gotham Trailer

"This is Genocide! This is Extinction!"

Just caught the trailer for season four of Falling Skies - so much tabletop potential, roll on June!

Hail Odin! (and Amazon)

Amazon offered me one of their regular one month free trials of Amazon Prime the other day. They do this on a regular basis and whilst I take the free offers I cancel it before they start taking any money, after all I'm not that desperate that I need anything I order off Amazon the next day all the time.

Clearly I am not alone in this view as Amazon have now upped the content of Prime membership allowing you to borrow a Kindle book and have access to Prime Instant Video, Amazon's video streaming service.

The streaming service offers a lot of titles already available from Sky, but a number of interesting ones that are not including Breaking Bad,  Copper (C19th New York police drama), Hell on Wheels (shown on one of ITV's satellite channels but I missed series one) and Vikings.

Vikings is now on season two but as this had only been shown on Netflix previously I resigned myself to not seeing it for some time. I watched episode one last night and enjoyed it, not as stylised in the manner of Spartacus which I had assumed it would be, it may well inspire me to finish those Dux Bellorum Saxons that are sat undercoated on the workbench!

Donnybrook TV? New Worlds on C4

Channel 4 is showing a great looking new drama series tomorrow, set on both sides of the Atlantic during the Restoration period. A sequel to their ECW series The Devil's Whore (available to watch on 4OD), New Worlds is smack centre in the Donnybrook era and the trailer looks like it will provide lots of inspiration. All I need now is some free time to do some more painting...

37 Days

I've just caught up with the three part BBC drama 37 Days about the period between the Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination and Britain's declaration of war on Germany. Given we know the failed outcome of the diplomatic efforts to avoid war it is a very well constructed and tense period drama and well worth watching if you are a history buff.

Unfortunately it is only on iPlayer for a couple more days but if you get the chance, have a watch.

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Through the Stargate?

I've always had a soft spot for Stargate, the film and the spin off TV series and over the last few months I have been watching SG-1 in order having taped them all on my Sky Box on one of Sky's regular repeats. I've just started on the tenth and final season and my mind is pondering some skirmish games...

Phoenix Icons Jaffa Cannon and First Prime (photo Phoenix Icons)

I always thought the the background had a lot more potential beyond what we saw on the TV, especially the historical/mythical parallels so I had a delve into Lead Mountain (re)discovering the old Monolith Designs resin Stargate, some OOP Eureka Sci-Fi Egyptians and a few packs on Phoenix Icons official figures including a DHD (which I forgot to buy from Monolith).

A great excuse to pit some modern figures against those from other time periods providing proxies for troops from human 'seeded' alien worlds at different levels of technology and industrialisation, or more advanced SF troops. Could be fun, just need to find the right rule set...

All For (BBC) One!

I started reading the Sedgemoor book today and am hugely enjoying it. There was a fascinating anecdote when looking at Churchill (Marlborough)'s military career when serving with Monmouth alongside the French, both English officers fighting alongside the historic Captain d'Artagnan of the King's Musketeers in one action...

The fictional d'Artagnan is back on our screens this weekend in a new ten part series on BBC One. Whilst it probably won't be as good as the wonderful 1973 film, it still  should be fun to watch...

BBC To Go All Medieval This Summer...

The BBC is launching a new 10 part historical drama based on Phillipa Gregory's Wars of the Roses novel The White Queen. The central character is Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV so expect lots of political machinations, monumental battles and inevitably some kissing! The trailer looks pretty good...

 

I'm not sure what the book is like, SWMBO is a big WOTR fan and has read the series and says they are pretty good. It is quite strange how medieval and renaissance historical fiction is dominated by female authors (despite odd forays by the likes of Bernard Cornwell) whereas most other period tend to be male dominated (with odd exceptions mike Manda Scott). Whilst not having read Gregory's Cousin's War series I would recommend anyone wanting to read some historical fiction from the period to try Sharon Penman's excellent The Sunne in Splendour.

Almost Human

Fox have released a very interesting looking trailer for their forthcoming SF series Almost Human. From the people behind the excellent Fringe, all I can say is roll on November...