Nextflix Reviews - GLOW

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GLOW stands for Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling, this program has had 2 seasons so far on Netflix and I am hooked. I binge watched both seasons pretty much as soon as they hit the network. The premise is based on a real life wrestling promotion that started out in 1986 and had a syndicated TV show for 4 seasons that was known for it's comedic skits. 

In 2012 there was a documentary about the promotion, this was seen by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, who were looking for ideas for a female-centric show at the time. They went on to create this GLOW show. This 2012 documentary is also available on Netflix and is an interesting, funny and poignant watch, well worth checking out to see the history and influence it had on this show. 

Season one of GLOW came out on Netflix in 2017, with season 2 just coming out at the end of June this year. The wrestlers from the series are based on the original characters but with different names.

Alison Brie is a keen but essentially failed actor, she just can't get a decent role despite her passion, professionalism and enthusiasm. Her best friend Debbie Eagan is a fairly successful soap opera star and seems to have it all, making Alison feel overshadowed by her. The pair fall out in spectacular fashion when Brie sleeps with Eagan's husband. 

Alison goes to an audition for GLOW, a wrestling show to be filmed for TV, it's pay rolled by enthusiastic but inexperienced rich boy Sebastian "Bash" Howard and to be directed by irascible, jaded Sam Sylvia. The team is soon put together and starts training, Alison brings her acting chops and enthusiam to the project which rubs Sam up the wrong way but this is the best job she's ever been given and is determined for it to be a success.

Things take a nose dive for Alison when her ex-friend Debbie is picked up to be the star draw of the show as all american good ol' girl Liberty Belle. This threatens her position and stirs up animosity between them, but can they forget their differences and make the show and their relationship succeed?

This disparate team of women need to become like a family to each other, living through the bumps and bruises of life whilst going through the bumps and bruises in the ring. Will the fans like the show? Will the network like the show? Will they be able to pull off the manoeuvres they've practised?

The tone of the show is a great mix of fun and serious, there is drama and proper character development but there is a lot of light hearted stuff mainly in the in-ring personnas of the wrestlers, with such names as Welfare Queen, The She-Wolf, Zoya the Destroyer, Beirut, Fortune Cookie and Brittanica. Most of them are terribly non-pc stereotypes which are so familiar to anyone who watched wrestling back in that era.

Season two is a continuation of the themes of the 1st really with new challenges being presented to them to do their best to try and overcome. I won't say what happens but it seems very likely we'll see a 3rd season sometime in the future, where I hope they'll be able to keep up the level of quality and entertainment of the previous ones.

Oh yeah I just found out today that the character Welfare Queen is played by real life wrestler Kia Stevens. Her TV show wrestling persona is a fun heel who is a sweetie out of the ring, nothing like the powerhouse, Awesome Kong she portrayed for the TNA wrestling promotion.

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Nextflix Reviews - iZombie

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Starting in 2015 this comedy/drama has just tied up it's 4th season on Netflix and is bloody good stuff. Based on the DC imprint Vertigo comics by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred it tells the story of Oliva 'Liv' Moore who has to change her life drastically after getting scratched by a zombie at a party and becoming infected with the zombie virus herself. The zombie rules in this world are different though rather than being a slathering flesh crazed shuffling fool she retains all her human abilities but craves brains. It's only if she doesn't get a supply to eat that she becomes feral. To this end she gives up her training to be a doctor to become an assistant pathologist at the King County Morgue. Her boss Ravi Chakrabati soon realises her plight and becomes her friend and confidante. Also with his scientific knowledge he seeks to find a cure for the condition.

There is a saying, "You are what you eat" and a strange side effect of eating the brains of the deceased is that she picks up images and characteristics of her meals. This leads her to be able to uniquely assist Detective Clive Babineaux in his homicide cases as she often sees memories from the victims very recent pre-death lives. It also provides much of the ample humour as she takes on their characteristics also which can lead to some very funny situations and I imagine it must be a lot of fun and a challenge for an actor to have so many different facets to play with. She's been affected by the brains of a jock, a geek, a seductress, a surly teen, a mother hen, a cantankerous old man and all sorts of other combinations of humanity in the course of seeking sustenance. And with the knowledge her meals have given her she's helped to solve the cases of their untimely deaths.

Other members of the cast include her on again/off again fiancé/boyfriend Major Lilywhite, when she gets zombied up she has to ditch him as zombism is sexually transmitted apparently! There is also her room mate Peyton Charles who is assistant district attorney for King County and then there is Blaine a sometimes ally, (but mostly villain), whose drug dealing of an infected batch of Utopium led to the initial incident that got Liv zombified in the beginning. 

Over the course of the 4 seasons things have developed significantly as more is learned about the cause of the condition and more people become infected. Blaine uses it as an excuse to earn more money and power through increasingly nefarious means. A lot of the initial story was around Liv keeping her condition secret from her friends but they each learn of it as the show goes on changing the dynamic of the relationships. Also a cure is developed but it is limited and has side effects and they are unsure of it's safety. This also leads to a bit of a zombified/not zombified back and forth too for some of the cast. Attitudes to zombies change as the humans knowledge of them increases and by season 4 we have an independent zombie state in Seattle which is founded in much controversy in season 3. Seattle is now cordoned off from the outside world with paranoia rife between humans and zombies. There is fear and distrust from both sides many humans think of zombies as monsters to be eliminated and some zombies think of humans only in relation to their tasty skull content and with brain shortages being a problem the new rulers of the area are finding it very hard to govern, becoming more authoritarian as the series runs. There are humans who want to become zombies as it cures any terminal illness they may have, and also zombies who want to be cured but there is only a very limited supply of the antidote available. Even the friends within Liv's circle are forced to question their thoughts and loyalties and are faced with hard decisions. 

Apparently the next season, number 5 will be the last so we will see how things develop after the cliffhanger of season 4's finale. I've grown to like all the characters, (apart from Blaine who is a bastard albeit a charming entertaining one), and hope that season 5 will end well for them and like many will be waiting feverishly for 2019 to find out what transpires.

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes a laugh with a bit of sickness involved, she eats brains every week and prepares them with almost mouth watering detail!!!, so that might make some a bit queasy. The interplay between all the cast is great and they all have proper stories to get into as well with no real boring undeveloped characters really. Liv played by New Zealand actress Rose McIver is great, she is so versatile to play all the nuances of the characteristics she inherits from her meals but she is slightly eclipsed as my favourite character by English actor Rahul Kohli's fun portrayal of her boss Ravi. 

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Apparently the show is only loosely based on the comics but I may well add these to my Amazon wishlist 😃