Nerdity: a Consideration

I wanted to take a moment of your time to talk about geeks.  Now we ALL know the traditional geeks.  I assume if you are reading anything on here you likely have at least a few friends that are classically nerdy.  But I wanted to share with all of you a quote one of our writers shared on facebook the other day:

“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection.  It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something.  It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult.  Being a geek is extremely liberating.”  ~ Simon Pegg

I am writing this article and I agree with this statement whole heartedly, so we are going to proceed under the assumption that it is true and that any argument you have is invalid because I want to make a point.  Read that a second time, would you?  Just to humor me.  Do you see any reference to video games?  Comic books?  Scifi or fantasy genres?  Intellectualism?

You do not.  Here is why: we use ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ so often to refer to people interested in the above activities that we forget what it really means.  We forget that it only truly speaks to the passion that one holds for some activity or event or something.  We talk of band geeks, science nerds, and so on, but we often forget that there are ‘sports’ and ‘rap geeks’, ‘fashion’ and ‘ballet nerds’.

So strange that we should delineate, that some nerdy and geeky pursuits are worth the title, but we never think to attach the title to other cases in which it is just as applicable but just less common.  I once mentioned to a fraternity guy, big on community service and respect that we were all nerds in our building (honors theme housing residence hall), at which he took great offense.  Do me this favor: never think of geekery as the thing that separates yourself from others, regardless of which side of that delineation you thought you were own.  Instead remember that everyone is a nerd, we all just have our own personal nerdoms.

Geeking-Out: Baker Street Holmes

The Unsung Heroes of The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games was just released on DVD, and after purchasing it and watching it with a few friends (one who had read the books but never seen the movie), I thought a little bit more about some of the tributes than I had previously. There are a couple of tributes who, in the games, are glossed over and not really talked about. However, they each played a very vital role in the outcome of the games. The Tributes I’m talking about are so overlooked, one of them never is even given a name, only a nickname: Foxface, from District 5, and Thresh, the male tribute from District 11.

Before I get into any further details: I am warning you now. THIS POST WILL CONTAIN PLOT SPOILERS FOR THE HUNGER GAMES MOVIE AS WELL AS BOOK. 

There. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way. I’m going to assume that if you’re still reading you either are familiar enough with the series to not have pesky spoilers bother you, or you just don’t care how the plot falls out. 

We first get a description of the female tribute from District 5 in the books as a “fox-faced girl.”Right from the beginning she is set up as a sly, elusive and tricky tribute. We see this as well throughout the games, whenever Katniss encounters her. She’s smart, clever, and difficult to catch, preferring to stay out of combat, winning by surviving the longest, rather than by killing everyone else. She’s fast too, and has excellent timing-getting in and out of the cornucopia at the feast before anyone else shows up to try and challenge her. Her death is completely accidental, and actually served, in a way, to help keep Peeta alive. If she hadn’t stolen and eaten those berries, he would have had no way of knowing that they were poisonous, and he would have died from them as well.

In the end, had she lived, I still don’t think she would have won (assuming this was a universe that wasn’t set up for Katniss to win), because she would have eventually been forced into a direct confrontation. We don’t necessarily know anything about her fighting skills, but the descriptions given of her seem to indicate that she would not have done as well as many of the other tributes in close fighting. And certainly Katniss probably could have taken her down with an arrow. 

Thresh, on the other hand, probably could have stood a decent chance of winning. And I would have wanted him to win, if Katniss and Peeta hadn’t. He’s a very large guy, very imposing, scored a 10 from the Gamemakers, and, most importantly, he refused to join the Careers group during the training. So, he’s a big threat, and prefers to be solitary. Other than that, we don’t know all that much about him. We only see him at one point during the games-at the feast, when he saves Katniss from Clove, killing her in the process, and sparing Katniss’ life because of what she did for Rue. If you ask me, that moment right there sealed Katniss’ victory in the games. We don’t know if Thresh fell to Cato’s hands or to the hands of the muttations at the end, but he made it to the top 4, and he probably could have won, if things had fallen out a little differently.

The reason I call Thresh and Foxface the ‘Unsung Heroes’ of the Hunger Games, though, is not because of the respective roles they played in keeping Katniss and Peeta alive, but rather the fact that, to me, they represent the small bits of humanity still left in the arena. Thresh, rather than kill someone he knows will have to die anyway in order for him to win, chooses instead to give Katniss a one-time pass, essentially to even a score. She took care of Rue, the little 12 year old girl from his district, so he took care of her, the only way he could-by leaving her alive, for just a little longer. Foxface is the prime example of survival instincts in action. She plays to her strengths: she’s sneaky, so she skirts around edges, picking at leftovers, stealing, never directly facing anyone. She’s playing the games her way, not the brutal, bloodthirsty way the Capitol wants.

Thoughts? Comments? I’d love to hear them.

Until next time,
Angel out! 

ATS: Episode 12 – Love’s Labours Lost

And That’s Shakespeare is BACK! BOOM!

GameRx: Star Wars TIE Fighter

With the rise of console, there are whole genres that are slipping through the cracks in the transition from the world of PC gaming. One such genre is the flight simulator; a former staple of the gaming market, the flight sim used to be one of the most generally popular genres of the medium. The deep-rooted desire of man to take to the skies was simply too compelling to pass up, especially given the mathematical simplicity of flight and the expensive nature of flight as a hobby. You could get into the seat of anything from a small Cessna to a fully-armed F-15 and take to the skies to do whatever you pleased without fear of imminent death. As the years go on, we find fewer and fewer of these gems floating around the market as we move from joysticks to joypads.

Star Wars: TIE Fighter, the sequel to the even lesser known Star Wars: X-Wing, is an ideal example of the even rarer genre of science-fiction flight simulators. One of the only flight simulators that takes place in zero-gravity, you play the part of a pilot flying missions for the Imperial Navy, piloting everything from the iconic TIE Fighter to the hulking Imperial Gunship in your duties to the Emperor. You rise through the ranks as you begin with lowly customs duties and work your way up to squad leader and even the personal guard of Darth Vader. You sit through simulator flights, briefings, liftoff protocol, systems management, combat, debriefing, and covert operations. I’d place it as the best example of a space flight simulator without second thought, easily surpassing the likes of Rogue Squadron and Freelancer in terms of how a space navy would operate both in and out of combat.

You play a nameless pilot in the Imperial Navy, a feature of the game that comes as an unexpected relief. No one really cares who you are. Mission briefings and debriefings are professional and impersonal, cutting right to the heart of the matter at hand. You’re not a hero. You don’t have some mystical destiny. You’re just another number on an always-changing laundry list of other numbers. You play no significant part in the central plot other than that you’re a pawn present at the various machinations of the galactic powers-that-be, trying to live one more day as you fight pirates, slavers, traitorous Imperials, and the Rebellion.

What the game really captures the best is in the scale of it all, a factor that’s often lost in non-historical shooters. With as fast as everything moves, ships are usually little blips in the distance. Torpedoes, while deadly, travel over large enough distances that you can shoot them out of space with either some careful gunning or another torpedo to intercept. Factor that in with the complete lack of ground as a frame of reference, and you’ve got a mind-bender of an experience.

The controls are pretty straightforward, but combining these with efficiently multitasking adds its own challenges while the horizon-less perspective makes things especially disorienting. The physics of flight are quite plausible, following principles of Newtonian motion rather than the arcade-like feel of the Rogue Squadron series.  Energy reserves must be managed as you divert them to shields (if you have them) and recharging the batteries for weapon systems. Your bomb bay (if you have one) will hold several different payloads that imperial clearances and regulations allow. Scanners let you analyze any ships that pass through, letting you scan their cargo for contraband or run diagnostics on the condition of the ship’s systems. The overall scope gives you a lot more to work with and plan around than most games like it, giving you a rather unique perspective of the battlefield as you carry out your mission. 

To me, the coolest part of the game is the wide variety in the missions with open-ended strategy and an elastic difficulty curve. You start off with routine tasks such like managing customs checkpoints, some in which the whole mission will pass without a single shot fired (after all, you want to avoid “imperial entanglements” just as much as any two-bit smuggler). As you prove yourself, you work your way up rank by rank, eventually taking command of your own squad. You issue orders to your wingmen as you proceed, meaning you can focus on key objectives while your squad does the dog-fighting or vice versa. Members of a Sith secret society will give you special objectives in some missions, adding an extra layer of involvement in the plot without actually developing any character. If any game captures the quintessence of the “silent protagonist”, it’s this one.

In the scope of the whole franchise, this is one of the very few LucasArts games that plays with the moral relativism of the Galactic Empire. It lets you explore the galaxy through the lens of the Imperial Navy, which really gives everything a different spin as your milk run gets interrupted by terrorists seeking to overthrow the one unifying power over the core worlds. It generally frames the Sith as the evil of an otherwise average empire. Sure, the Empire has a few bad eggs, but what nation hasn’t had some level of corruption in the bureaucracy? The Empire is being covertly used as a puppet of the few remaining Sith, which is what causes the more unambiguous morality in the films. Regardless of whether you support the “benevolent Empire” hypothesis, it’s some pretty good food for though; that much is for certain.

The space-sim opens up so many narrative doors in gaming. Think of all the concepts, the feelings that we can evoke with this kind of game that we can achieve with this medium in space. The sublime horror of dark, infinite nothingness. The dizzying lack of visual reference that our brains rely on for spatial awareness. The new dogfighting tactics that arise from the removal of such troubling forces as air resistance and gravity. Feeling the eerie reality of a soundless, combustion-less vacuum. We have games like Freelancer and Shattered Horizon , but these are only the beginning of a whole new world for games that remains almost entirely untapped. Maybe this game could be your inspiration.

Doc Watson is a writer and editor for the RedShirt Crew Blog. He has been a fan of Star Wars for most of his life and an play Cantina Band on both clarinet and saxophone (although not at the same time, unfortunately). If you have any questions, comments, or anything at all to add, post a comment below or send him a tweet at @DocWatsonMD

Even more dragons…Dragonvale, a pretty awesome app.

As we may have previously established, I absolutely love dragons. That’s why, when I saw this app for free on my iPad, I just had to have it. Dragonvale’s a pretty awesome app that’s got quite a lot of different things for different people. Plus, while in-app purchases can be made, they aren’t necessary to still enjoy the app and get the full enjoyment out of it.

Dragonvale works on a pretty simple premise: you own a theme park or, I guess, more of a zoo. And you have different dragons that you can raise. There are the basic element dragons: fire, plant, cold, water, lightning, air, earth, metal. There are also hybrid dragons, containing multiple elements (such as the mountain dragon, which is a earth and cold type). There are also some special types of dragons: the rare dragons (sun, moon, solstice, rainbow), the treasure dragons (which they just introduced, and at the moment includes the gold dragon) and the gemstone dragons (which are based on the birthstones of the present month) You can buy the basic dragons with simple money (called dragoncash, because you collect it from your dragons, who hoard money like no one’s business) and then you can buy the hybrid dragons with things called gems (the gemstone dragons actually hoard gems instead of dragoncash, it’s pretty useful). Gems are a bit rarer, and while there are a few ways to earn them in the game, mostly you can buy them in an in game purchase.

Now, before you look at me funny, because I did say that you don’t need to make in-app purchases to enjoy the game, let me explain. While you can buy the hybrid dragons with gems, once you reach a certain level in the game, you can breed dragons. For me, that’s the more fun element of the game. You take some combinations of dragons, trying to breed others. Each single element dragon has an opposite type, that they can’t breed with. Fire can’t directly breed with cold; water can’t directly breed with lightning; plant can’t directly breed with metal; air can’t directly breed with earth. This creates an additional level of challenge when trying to breed a dragon that is a dual type of opposite elements.

The other main element to the game is decorating and designing your park. They offer all kinds of buildings and other cute little things you can use to make your park look pretty. Some of the buildings include Treat Farms, where you can buy food to feed your dragons, the Coliseum, that has a daily event your dragons can compete in for prizes. You also can connect with friends in the game, and visit their parks, give them gifts, and get gifts from them.

I included this picture of the Copper Dragon, because I personally really like it. There are a wide variety of dragons available in the game, and new ones are introduced on a semi-regular basis. There are also a fair amount of limited edition dragons, that are only available for a certain amount of time before they go away.

I should also mentioning the leveling up system a bit. Like most games, you earn XP. for various things, like hatching a dragon, or building a building, so on and so forth. Once you reach a certain amount of XP, you level up. Different options unlock once you hit certain levels. For example, the metal dragon isn’t available until you get to level 14.

A recent addition to the game is the Dragon Track, where you can actually race your dragons, and you can spin on a prize wheel afterwards, with different wheels for gold, silver, and bronze.

The biggest problem with this app, for me, is the amount of habitats you’re allowed to have. You have to build habitats for your dragons to live in, obviously, but you can only have a set amount per level. The amount increases when you level up, but, not at a fast enough rate, for my tastes. You end up being stuck with more dragons than you have space to put them sometimes, and you have to get creative, or sell the dragons. But that’s a small problem, honestly. And can be circumvented easily enough.

Unfortunately, Dragonvale is only available on the Apple OS, for the iPad, or the iPhone. I haven’t yet heard about it being released for the Android, but I know that there’s a huge demand for it. Perhaps it will be soon?

That’s all I got for you today.

Until next time,
Angel out!

The End of an Era: A Farewell to Artemis Fowl

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian.  True to its name, it is indeed the last book of the long-running Artemis Fowl series, and author Eoin Colfer certainly knows how to go out with a bang.  That’s not to say that it was spectacular, but literally that there were lots of explosions.  As I was reading it, I wondered if Eoin Colfer had called Michael Bay and asked him to write the last Artemis Fowl book.  Now, I’ve been an Artemis Fowl fan from a very young age and am deeply invested in the series, but I would be shocked if even the most casual fan did not shed a tear or two at the end.
The Artemis Fowl series has always been one of my favorites because Artemis, even though he was a child, could still outwit those much older than him without any sort of magical powers or anything.  He had help, of course, but he was always the one calling the shots and coming up with grand plans.  I wanted to be Artemis more than, say, Harry Potter, who was always a piece in other people’s plans and was generally clueless most of the time.  So in my review, just understand how much I wanted to like this book.

I’ve noticed a gradual decline in the quality of the Artemis Fowl books.  In my opinion, every book after The Eternity Code has gotten worse and worse, until we’re left with the shell of a novel that is The Last Guardian.  Where are the plans? Where are the layers of devious plots? Opal Koboi, the frequently appearing villain, seems to have lost her touch.  Megalomania is all well and good, but it’s no fun if it’s a straight shot to world domination.  There was a set up, of course, but for the most part her plan just went from point A to point B.  Artemis was also very quick to give up, trying half-heartedly to make plans but moaning all the time about how he couldn’t do it.  The shining star, as usual, was Holly Short.  Her relationship with Artemis was beautiful and heart-breaking and wonderful, and that really kept the book(s) alive and running.  She essentially replaced Butler as Artemis’ confidant; Butler appeared with less and less frequency.  One character, however, is not enough to save the entire book.  There was no subtlety, there was little trickery, and I got the impression that Colfer had run out of ideas.

That is not to say that the book was an entire wash.  There were still some mischievous plans, and Mulch Diggums was hilarious as always.  The plot twist in Artemis’ plan, while a bit predictable, wasn’t bad as far as plot twists go, and of course it was all very well-written.  And don’t even get me started on the end.  To put it lightly, the end tore out my heart and stomped all over it.  But it was so well done that I couldn’t even care that my heart was being broken.  It gave the series the solid conclusion that it so richly deserved, and I’m glad that Colfer decided to end it the way he did.

Overall, the book isn’t great.  It’s not even that good.  But honestly, if you’re any kind of Fowl fan at all, you owe it to yourself to finish the series.   On a scale from the best to worst, with the best being your all-time favorite book and the worst being the epilogue of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian rates about a 7.

Lost Books: The Ship Who Sang

I firmly believe that those who love to read have the responsibility to share the books they’ve found and loved with others.  Some of the books I love the most are those that you won’t find on the featured shelf at Barnes & Noble. Sometimes you won’t find it at a new book store at all.  I make a point to comb through used book stores to see what I can find.  I actually didn’t find this book there, I got it from a friend, who has so many books herself she could open her own used book store.  The book in question is The Ship Who Sang by Ann McCaffrey.  Some would say that calling anything by Anne McCaffrey a “lost” book is a grievous offence.  I personally would agree, but the point of these Lost Book posts is more to share books that are no longer in the spotlight, and this beautiful story from 1961 certainly qualifies.

The late Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011) was a prolific writer with many diverse stories, but she is best known for the Dragonriders of Pern Series.  However, that is not the series I am going to talk about here.  The stories I’m talking about are the stories of Helva, the ship who sang.  To be precise, the book The Ship Who Sang is a collection of interconnected novellas.  The edition I have, as published in 1969 contains the following: The Ship Who Sang (1961), The Ship Who Mourned (1966), The Ship Who kill (1966), The Dramatic Mission (1969), The Ship Who Dissembled (1969), and The Partnered Ship (1969).  There are others, but as of the writing of this post I have not had opportunity to find them.

Set an unspecified time in the future, these stories have one unique aspect from the typical space exploration stories of the era: the shell people.  In a world where space travel is possible, there are still some things science and medicine can’t fix.  Some people are still occasionally born horribly deformed.  The sort of person who would live a short, painful, and unproductive life.  Now, if the mind behind that deformed body is strong and receptive, (as determined with an encephalograph) then the parents of those infants have an interesting option open to them.  At the age of three months, a series of surgeries can begin where the body is installed in a titanium shell, and the brain is connected to electronics.  The pituitary gland is modified to keep the body from outgrowing the shell, and the infants begin lessons.  Shell people can have all kinds of jobs.  Helva in particular becomes a Central Words BB Scout Ship.  The BB stands for Brain/Brawn.  Helva would be the brain.  She literally is the ship.  It’s hull is her skin, it’s sensors her eyes and ears.  The brawn is a mobile human partner.  The two work together on almost any sort of mission you could imagine.  The stories all follow Helva.  Each individually follows the story of one of her missions.  The plot and conflict of each individual story about the challenges she faces on the mission, but taken together, the story is about one very human woman, searching for her place in a vast and confusing universe. This woman just happens to have the body of ship.  I highly recommend this book.  Follow Helva over the course of several years, as she meets and loses several brawns.  Some of whom have issues just as deep as Helva’s can be.  Follow one young woman across the stars as she learns who she is, what she wants, and looks for a partner and friend to spend her life with.  If my word isn’t enough, then take Anne McCaffery’s.  “Helva is one of my favorite characters.” -Anne McCaffery

Save the Supers

Wanted to spread the word about a funny new web series called Save the Supers.

In the style of the Office, follow the super-powered members of the Super Force as they deal with problems like budget review, keeping their jobs, and femme fatales.

Find out more, after the break.

The show came to my attention because it was created by Sandeep Parikh, most notable for his role in The Guild (the awesome web series created by Felicia Day). So I decided to check it out.

It’s pretty funny, and similar to the Guild, runs an average of 7-9 minutes.

So if you like superheroes, and sardonic humor – check it out. It’s got good special effects, snappy dialogue, and even a cameo by Felicia Day.

I for one, will be keeping my eye on it, because it’s freakin’ hilarious and has good actors.

Here’s the link to the site: Save the Supers

Enjoy!

– JV out

From the Bookshelf: Sixty-One Nails

Awhile back I was browsing through the bookstore and I spotted this book called Sixty-One Nails. I was intrigued by the unusual title, picked it up, and fell in love. Fans of urban fantasy series such as The Dresden Files will love this.

Find out more, after the break.

I have been a long-time Jim Butcher fan. So when I say that this guy Mike Shevdon is on his level, you know it’s awesome.

Sixty-One Nails follows a guy named Niall Peterson, who dies one morning on the Subway – but not completely. He is saved by a mysterious woman named Blackbird and launched into a strange and often dangerous new world where he learns about the courts of the Fey. Through the course of the book, he learns he has to fix an ancient ritual to stop an unthinkable war.

It’s not often that I fall for a book as hard as I did for this one. The language is excellently crafted and lends itself to enjoyable, swift reading. It doesn’t get in the way of the story is what I’m trying to say, but it’s still above par.

The story itself is compelling and enjoyable. We say it all the time, but I actually had difficulty putting it down and doing basic things like eating meals.

The book has a nice mystical spin on it, with some classical Fey influence that fans of the genre will recognize, but it also stays set in modern London. The urban fantasy aspect of it is very well-woven because the themes are all about how the Feyre tie in with modern human culture. The ritual the book is centered around is in fact real, and it was very interesting to see British history mixed in with everything else. But not too much, just enough.

I never got bored reading it. There were some turns in there I definitely didn’t see coming. I would say it’s not as gritty as the Dresden Files (yet – this is the first of a trilogy), but it has the potential. As it is, I don’t think it needs to be any darker. It was well-balanced.

Overall: A+

READ IT.

– JV out.

New Friends vs. Old Friends..A comparison of 2 iconic sitcoms

Friends is possibly one of the most well known sitcoms of the late 90s to early 2000s. Almost anyone who grew up then has seen at least one episode. It is without a doubt, in my opinion, one of the greatest sitcoms I have ever seen, and when it ended in 2004, it was the end of an era. Most sitcoms since haven’t been the same. How I Met Your Mother, on the other hand, is an amazing example of a brilliant current sitcom. Critics have referred to it (in its earlier years) as “The New Friends,” probably because of the large amounts of similarities between the two shows. Since I’ve been currently watching both series in a bit of a marathoning spree, I thought I’d take a few moments to sit and compare the two shows.

Both How I Met Your Mother and Friends center around a group of adults in their late twenties/early thirties living in New York City. They all go through various trials and tribulations, experiencing difficulties with love, life, relationships, work, and everything else. At the end of the day, they’re such a tight knit group that they’re really family. Hilarity usually ensues as a result of the various antics.

Comparing How I Met Your Mother to Friends is, in a lot of ways, a very valid comparison. They both tackle some very serious issues in lighthearted ways that keep things interesting, and they are two of the highest quality sitcoms I have ever seen. But let’s take a closer look at the series specifics, shall we? (And warning: possible SPOILERS ahead)

I already mentioned the general setting of New York City and general life experiences, but there are some general set ups and character ideas that are similar between the series. Some of these are pretty much tropes, but it still merits mentioning. For example, Barney and Joey are similar in a lot of ways. They’re each the playboys of their respective shows, with Barney being a little more intense about getting laid than Joey is. Ross and Ted are also similar in a few ways. You see them deal with relationships that happen and fall apart. They’re both the mildly obnoxious academic type, spouting random useless facts that the rest of the characters don’t really care about. They even both eventually become professors in their respective fields. Monica and Chandler eventually fall in love with each other and get married like Lily and Marshall do (though they admittedly were together before the series began). Chandler and Ross are the college roommates turned best friends, much in the same way Marshall and Ted are.

As similar as the series are though, How I Met Your Mother, in my opinion, in many ways is ultimately a better show than Friends. And here’s why: the premise of the show. How I Met Your Mother is literally about what the title says. Older Ted is telling his children the story of how he met their mother. This allows a lot more freedom and playfulness in the show. Since everything is a flashback, different scenes show up multiple times, and you learn a little bit more about what’s going on each time you see that scene. For example, in the beginning of season 6 you see Ted and Marshall at a wedding, and you learn that wedding is where he met the mother. You see different references to that wedding again throughout seasons 6 and 7, learning more about who’s wedding it is. (I won’t tell you, because, I don’t want to spoil that for any and all who want to see it.) How I Met Your Mother is amazing for it’s ability to take a joke and keep it alive across multiple seasons. You see a bit of a flash forward in season 4 that you don’t get the full story of until the end of season 6. I highly applaud their writers for that ability.
How I Met Your Mother is also pretty good at not taking itself too completely seriously, and responding to things that go on in the world around it. For example: How I Met Your Mother is aware of the comparisons made between it and Friends and makes fun of it, putting itself clearly on top.

The other major reason I like How I Met Your Mother more than Friends (even though I love both series) is the clear character growth that happens over the series. While Chandler, Joey, Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, and Ross do go through at least a little bit of growth over the 10 years of the series (particularly Chandler), they just don’t grow enough for my personal tastes. Barney Stinson, however, is one of my favorite characters in television ever, and not just because he’s played by Neil Patrick Harris. The character is so much more than he appears to be, and you see a lot of that unfold as the series goes on. Ted, Marshall, Lily, and even Robin each experience growth in their own ways over the seasons, and the drama never overpowers the comedy.

However, it should be said that in many ways Friends made shows like How I Met Your Mother or even The Big Bang Theory possible. From the beginning, Friends was always about the ensemble, never the individual. The cast worked together, never letting one member make more than the others, and always being nominated for awards as a ‘supporting’ role, never a lead role. They made it very clear that their success was because they were together. No one member of the cast was better or more important than the other. Lots of other sitcoms of their time, like Seinfeld, or Everybody Loves Raymond, or Fraser, lacked this ensemble orientation. Sure the cast worked well together, but not in the same way that Friends did. The ensemble focus definitely set the stage for future sitcoms.

Even if you’re not the greatest fan of sitcoms in general, I still highly recommend How I Met Your Mother. It uses a great type of humor, and appeals to audiences far beyond the typical sitcom viewer. Plus, it’s got Neil Patrick Harris AND Alyson Hannigan!

Comments? Thoughts? I’d love to hear them.

Until next time,
Angel Out!