Teen Wolf Reboot MTV Series

[LtColCarter]

I'm glad that Jackson didn't become a wolf. In my opinion, he would be an even bigger douche if he was one. Perhaps when he has some more character growth that he would be a good wolf. As for the critter I'm wondering if it's Lydia. She was never actually bitten, plus she went missing for two days. As for the vet, I'm curious about him.

Lydia was never bitten? Then what was that on her side when she was in the shower?

[Ibn Rushd]

Sorry for the late reply, I was on death's door for about a week (ok, not that close, but almost). I had flu and my glasses were broke so while waiting for new ones I was blind, so couldn't watch tv.

Spoiler:

I think the new creature is a cat (werecat? ), it clearly had a tail when it was on the ceiling. And with Jackson, I'm glad he's not a wolf, he's too full of himself. I don't like the idea of Derek building this wolfpack, but I hope it develops better. And now the Argents have backup in the form of Grandpa who's taken over the school!

I hope the show doesn't run into a cats vs. dogs show. We'll have to wait a see.

What a rollercoaster ride!

[LtColCarter]

Sorry for the late reply, I was on death's door for about a week (ok, not that close, but almost). I had flu and my glasses were broke so while waiting for new ones I was blind, so couldn't watch tv.

Spoiler:

I think the new creature is a cat (werecat? ), it clearly had a tail when it was on the ceiling. And with Jackson, I'm glad he's not a wolf, he's too full of himself. I don't like the idea of Derek building this wolfpack, but I hope it develops better. And now the Argents have backup in the form of Grandpa who's taken over the school!

I hope the show doesn't run into a cats vs. dogs show. We'll have to wait a see.

What a rollercoaster ride!

I thought the critter...

Spoiler:

looked a bit more lizard like

[LtColCarter]

Teen Wolf season 2 episode 3 review: Ice Pick
By Ron Hogan Jun 12, 2012

An episode with some decent ideas but a few problems in their execution. Read Ron's review of the latest Teen Wolf, here...

This review contains spoilers.

2.3 Ice Pick

Spoiler:

Since Scott McCall had a run-in in the forest with an angry monster and discovered it gave him mystical powers, agility, speed, strength, and killer sideburns, his life has been turned upside down. Scott didn't ask for the gift; it was thrust upon him. However, what if you could choose to accept it, becoming a werewolf at the cost of your humanity? Would you do it?

For the misfits of Beacon Hills High School—Isaac the abused son of the mortician and Erica the epileptic with the myriad of maladies—having the choice is no real choice at all. What Scott sees as a curse, they see as a blessing. They get confident, they start dressing better, and most importantly of all, they lose all those inhibitions and fears they had when they were just like everyone else. Derek Hale has been recruiting; after all, every wolf needs a pack, and since Scott isn't playing alone, well... maybe it's time to find a few good men and women who will.

This week's episode didn't really hold up for me. Derek has gone from a quasi-enemy to an ally to a full-on nemesis at the beginning of this season, which is a little tough to swallow. I'm well aware of the axiom regarding the corruptive properties of power. The writing (from Luke Passmore) seemed a bit awkward, and I'm not sure I like how the introduction of the new wolf was handled, nor did I like a lot of the stylistic tricks director Tim Andrew went for. There were a few too many distracting elements in a pretty important fight scene, and not enough was done to ensure the action could be properly followed for my taste. He directed some very good episodes from the first season, so I'm thinking the problem isn't so much his style as it is the material he had to work with.

But it's not all bad. While the execution wasn't great, there were some good basic ideas to be sussed out from this week's episode.

The most interesting thing about this episode concerned Jackson and Lydia. Last season's snobby rich couple gone horribly wrong, the two are split up but not entirely split up, as far as their linked relationship. They're no longer dating, but they share something. That something is the immunity to the werewolf bite. Jackson and Lydia both received the bite, yet after coughing up a lot of black blood, neither one has become lycanthropic. Jackson's science class mentioned something about developed immunity; if Lydia has the immunity, are they implying that Jackson caught an immunity from sex? Or did Jackson give it to Lydia? He's blaming Lydia, that's for sure.

I'm not sure how that works out honestly, but it adds an interesting layer to the show's version of lycanthropy (or makes for a good, plausible red herring). Then again, biting transfers the virus, so isn't it possible that Allison might have the werewolfitis via sex with Scott? Maybe Scott and Allison are more responsible and are practicing safe sex? Or maybe Jackson and Lydia didn't get the werewolf disease because the alpha who infected them died before they could make their first change?

There is something to be explored there, and I hope that Scott's long-promised talk with the friendly town vet/his boss/apparently a werewolf expert will shed a little more light on the details of just what in the world is going on with Jackson, Lydia, and the escaped lizard from the ABC reboot of V that is terrorizing MTV's redux of Teen Wolf.

Source: Den of Geek

[RoK]

Lydia was never bitten? Then what was that on her side when she was in the shower?

She could have been bitten, though I'm thinking that she was scratched. I could be wrong though. As for the creature...

Spoiler:

I think it's Lydia. Perhaps she's going through some sort of transformation that she doesn't know about. After all, she did run all over the woods for two days completely naked.

[LtColCarter]

She could have been bitten, though I'm thinking that she was scratched. I could be wrong though. As for the creature...

Spoiler:

I think it's Lydia. Perhaps she's going through some sort of transformation that she doesn't know about. After all, she did run all over the woods for two days completely naked.

But I wonder how she would...

Spoiler:

become a lizard like creature when she was bitten by a werewolf?

[Ibn Rushd]

According to Lauren Toyota during the monday night airing of the show

Spoiler:

some ppl were tweeting in that it could be the vet, since he was referring to change, and he knows something about werewolves, plus at the end he said that "we should have that talk now". And apparently by ep. 5 we should know more about the lizard.

[LtColCarter]

[RoK]

Well, we now know that the vet's name, Alan. I'm also going to assume that he was a hunter like the Argents, or perhaps something along those lines, since he knows a lot about mythical creatures, such as werewolves.

[LtColCarter]

Teen Wolf season 2 episode 4 review: Abomination
Ron Hogan

Jun 19, 2012


Sharper, funnier, and better focused than last week's episode, with more lizard for your buck. Read Ron's take on the latest Teen Wolf here...

This review contains spoilers

2.4 Abomination

Spoiler:

The newest monster from the bestiary to hit Beacon Hills is a pretty disturbing, troublesome critter. No one really knows what it is there for, except for the local veterinarian. As it turns out, Dr. Alan (or Allen) Deaton (Seth Gilliam) is more than just a vet. He's the key to pretty much every mystery. The first season established that he knows all about werewolves, and now it turns out that he also has some sort of past history with the Argents as well. While he's not exactly clueless about the lizard monster that's stalking Beacon Hills, he doesn't know what it is.

No one knows what it is, but the one thing you can say is that it's pretty dangerous. Stiles finds this out the hard way. As the damage to his Jeep gets repaired at the local car mechanic, Stiles finds some gross fluid on the door handle and mashes his hands into it. That's the worst way to find anything gross, honestly. Then, things get weird. Stiles' hands go numb, he loses his ability to make sarcastic quips, and worst of all, he drops his phone. Oh yeah, also, the mechanic gets paralyzed by a lizard man and crushed to death by a hydraulic lift.

Everyone's after this lizard thing, apparently called a Kanaima. Scott and Allison are trying to find out what it is, the Argents are on the hunt for it, and Derek and the wolfpack are also on its trail, trying to prepare for the myriad of threats. Everyone is everywhere, and they're all seeking the same end: to not get killed by the refugee from V.

This is the most we've seen of the lizard this season, and it has to be said that the creature looks really, really good. Some of the movement effects are a little dodgy (like when it leaps onto the ceiling), but when you see it facing off with Scott or intimidating the Hale pack, it looks awesome. It's almost as if the lizard is a blend of movement CGI and practical special effects. One of the things I found particularly good about the lizard was its fingernails; they have that opalescent whiteness of actual animal nails and are very impressive. Subtle details like the claws and eyes are what make creature effects work, and this lizard works.

This week's episode also displayed much better focus than last week's. The script, from Christian Taylor, is sharper and funnier than last week, and there's more subtle moments of comedy that have made the show such a hit. Gerard gets some fun things to do, and there's some actual explanation of the lizard monster that's this season's big-bad courtesy of Alan the vet (we actually get the vet's first name finally!) and the Argents. The direction, from series regular Tim Andrew, is also very sharp this week. The opening kill at the garage was spectacularly shot, and very tense. It was also very inventive, as it emphasized what would later be said about the creature: it is designed only to kill, and it kills because it loves to kill.

This is really a stand-out episode for Michael Hogan, especially at the end of the episode. He gets to really work this week, playing all sides of Gerard's character. He's excellently manipulative in the role, and it's fun to see Gerard playing up the doddering grandfather role to lull Scott into a false sense of security before laying the hammer down. It's very effectively done, and I really like Michael Hogan as an addition of the show.

I have to wonder just how they're going to knit all these various groups together. There's obviously not a lot of love lost between the three factions searching for the lizard, and there are also outliers like Jackson, Lydia, and all the stuff going on with Jackson's attempts to become a shape shifter. It all has to come together sometime, and I'm interested to see just how they all put aside their differences and work together (if they even can now).

Source: Den of Geek

I enjoyed this week's episode. I do have one question...When Derrick wolfs out, why doesn't he look more like a wolf? I thought it was because he wasn't an alpha...but he's an alpha now.

[RoK]

My guess is that he either hasn't fully transformed into the Alpha yet, or he only partly transforms, to save energy or anything like that.

[Ibn Rushd]

We got to see a bit of the bro-mance back too. I liked that relationship that they had going, with all the threats and insinuations.

[LtColCarter]

Teen Wolf season 2 episode 5 review: Venomous
Ron Hogan Jun 26, 2012

The Teen Wolf folk are still keeping us guessing as to the identity of the shape-shifting lizard, and Ron has a few guesses in his review of this week's episode


This review contains spoilers.

2.5 Venomous

Spoiler:

Jackson seems to be struggling with his new senses and powers. He lifted the truck and has super hearing one minute, but struggles with weightlifting the next. There's obviously something going on here, and Jackson's confusion about it all seems to have given Derek and his werewolves a reason to worry about it. After all, the whole point of the kanima is that it doesn't know it's a powerful monster when it's not in monster form. Turns out, like a snake, it's also not allergic to its own venom. Hence, when Derek and his gang kidnap Jackson from the gym at school and force-feed him poison, they're nonplussed to discover it paralyzes him.

Although, just because one subject is down, that doesn't mean the second subject is free to go. There's always Lydia. The very same Lydia who spent a few days wandering naked through the woods, who is in intensive therapy during school hours, and who has been behaving, ahem, a little oddly ever since her traumatic experiences. That makes her suspect number one on the kanima list, and that's good enough for Derek, who sends his gang out to take care of the strawberry blonde lizard girl (or at least suspected lizard).

I really like the set pieces that director Tim Andrew and writers Nick Antosca and Ned Vizzini came up with this week, particularly the scene in chemistry class with the rotating partners. It was one of the more interesting set-ups in the series. Very tense, very wisely blocked, and well shot by all involved, there was a strong layer of tension throughout the scenes as Erica and Isaac got to menage Stiles, Allison, and Scott in turn. It was great to see the interplay, and how the wolf tactics changed from person to person. I also like the subtle tension between Scott and Allison; she's capable and smart thanks to her training, but she's hardly a match for a werewolf who can snatch crossbow bolts out of thin air.

The developments with Jackson, Lydia, and the company are pretty fascinating, especially when Scott echoes my suspicions from earlier in the season that she might have passed some kind of immunity on to Jackson. Then again, they're both possibly the lizard. Or they're both the lizard. Either way. I like how the characters have kind of banded into two distinct groups with different goals. Scott is the protector and alpha of Team Wolf, a motley assortment of humans, hunters, and possibly other things. Derek is the puppet master of Derek and the Dominos, a neat pack of werewolves determined to stop the lizard by any means necessary. As we saw earlier in the episode, it creates a fun dynamic and adds to group tension when the two partnerships are at cross purposes.

Holland Roden, speaking of Lydia, does some great work this episode, and has been quietly doing good work all season. Her confrontation with Jackson is brilliantly handled, and she's been handling Lydia's mental instability in a subtle, but smart way. It's there, but Lydia being Lydia, she is able to hide it beneath a layer of false bravado and sarcastic intelligence. Still, it's there, and Roden does a great job of underplaying it when appropriate and exploding when appropriate.

I also like the way the show is handling the Kanima. There are a lot of possibilities for who it may be, and while I'm satisfied that a shape shifter was revealed, I'm curious as to whether or not there is more than one of them on the loose. After all, it is looking for a friend, and what better friend than another of its kind? There's an obvious potential lizard, but I can't help but think Teen Wolf's creative crew will go in an entirely unexpected direction just to confound me.

Source: Den of Geek

[RoK]

From what I've been reading Lydia did get bitten from Peter Hale (Derek's uncle). Seeing that she survived, does that make her another werewolf or something else? Also, I have to give props for Scott for being the alpha of his own "pack" (Stiles, Allison, Lydia, and Jackson). Even though by wolf standards he's an Omega (a wolf without a pack and on his own), he's doing quite well. Also...

Spoiler:

I'm not too surprised that Jackson's the Kanima, though I did wish it was Lydia. It would definitely give her character more, depth, I guess. I'm not sure how to put it. Perhaps they can give her character more expansion in this season.

[LtColCarter]

[Ibn Rushd]

Who was in the car at the end?

[LtColCarter]

From what I've been reading Lydia did get bitten from Peter Hale (Derek's uncle). Seeing that she survived, does that make her another werewolf or something else? Also, I have to give props for Scott for being the alpha of his own "pack" (Stiles, Allison, Lydia, and Jackson). Even though by wolf standards he's an Omega (a wolf without a pack and on his own), he's doing quite well. Also...

Spoiler:

I'm not too surprised that Jackson's the Kanima, though I did wish it was Lydia. It would definitely give her character more, depth, I guess. I'm not sure how to put it. Perhaps they can give her character more expansion in this season.

Well, since another alpha recognized Scott as an alpha...it seems that by werewolf standards...he IS an alpha.

Who was in the car at the end?

Grandpa Argent

[LtColCarter]

Teen Wolf season 2 episode 6 review: Frenemy
Review by Ron Hogan Jul 3, 2012

This week's Teen Wolf boasts the revelation we've been waiting for and some great fight scenes. Here's Ron's review...

This review contains spoilers.

2.6 Frenemy.

Spoiler:

The secret has been revealed. The kanima, a mystery until last week, has been outed and with every moment of freedom, it seems as though Jackson has gone from annoyance to wannabe shifter to legitimate danger. With every moment Jackson runs free, more lives are put into danger and it seem as though no one can really stop the kanima menace. Derek can't beat it in a one-on-one fight; Scott can only annoy it and delay it. Even Argent, with a massive handgun and several well-placed shots, can't down the thing. Instead, it scampers off in search of its next victim.

That victim is Danny, Jackson's best friend and the only person who may know Jackson's secret outside of the core group of werewolves and hunters. Why would Jackson want to hurt his best friend? That's a very good question, and one Danny better hope everyone else can answer before the pile of paralyzed gay men left in the wake of the kanima becomes a pile of dead gay men.

Frenemy's cold opening this week is brilliant. We go straight into the fighting between lizard and werewolf, and it's very impressive. Russell Mulcahy, the director of this week's episode, knows how to shoot some great fight sequences, and if they're shrouded in darkness or taking place in some creepy area under a bridge or freeway, so much the better. Hence, this week's best fight takes place under a bridge, and there's a similarly great scene that takes place in the local gay bar in which the Jackson kanima stalks poor Danny as he gets his groove on with the rest of Beacon Hills' gay community.

Also, Lydia has a meeting with Matt (Stephen Lunsford) the creepy photographer boy who keeps randomly popping up in episodes, doing something creepy—in this case, finding and carrying Lydia's dog back to her before giving her a flower and telling her he wants to kiss her—and disappearing again. If you know where they're going with this character, please tell me in the comments, because they could go in any direction and I would not be surprised. Maybe he's becoming an Argent associate; maybe he's just a creeper. Either way, I think I like the ambiguity.

This week's episode of Teen Wolf, penned by series creator Jeff Davis, zooms along at a breakneck pace, only slowing down to properly milk the tension of certain moments, like Gerard Argent using his lie-detecting thumbs on his granddaughter’s throat, or when Jackson uses his kanima hearing to listen in while Stiles, Allison, and Scott discuss just what to do with the lizard monster acquaintance they have chained up in a borrowed paddy wagon. Those moments, particularly the way Colton Haynes plays Jackson's painful transformation from man to beast, are very effective. Ditto the digital effects and/or make-up to create the creature. There are still moments when it doesn't look as good (like when it climbs walls), but when it's prowling around on the ceiling or stalking, it's a great-looking creation. Also very impressive was Jackson's partial transformations at various points this week.

Teen Wolf, at its core, is a show that does a great job of hiding its seams. For example, product placement occurs in most shows, but Teen Wolf manages to do it fairly gracefully. Even this week's Pandora mention was handled well, because you need mood music when you're going to have sex in your car. The show does love its cheesy fun moments, and this is one of them, akin to when a show like 30 Rock does a straight reading of a commercial into the camera. It works because the show refuses to acknowledge that it's a product placement and includes Pandora (or its musical tracks) as a simple fact of life. People who can get Pandora on their car radios would use it; that's how I got hooked on satellite radio. People eat Reese's Cups out of vending machines. People listen to music while driving or dancing or whatever.

I appreciate realistic touches in television, and if it pays the bills at the same time, so much the better. When you're dealing with a show about werewolves and lizard monsters and the like, you need all the realism you can get.

[LtColCarter]

Teen Wolf Season 2 Episode 7 Restraint Promo

[RoK]

-runs in and falls down- Hey, I have returned from my vacation. Sorry for not replying sooner. Anyway, all caught up on the episodes. I'm just curious though, what is Peter Hale's plan for Lydia? Seeing that she didn't die or get turned when he bit her. Also, who is the Kanima's master?