Fall 2007 TV Season

OMG, I can hardly find time to post on this blog any more! :(

Anyway, the new Fall TV season is here, and there are a few shows to catch up on. I spent the weekend watching most of season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. I have about four episodes left.

Man, did that season suck. I stopped watching in November and I didn't miss much. More on that later.

I see that they're remaking the Bionic Woman. I have a bad feeling about that show (that it will be sleazy), but I will watch the pilot.

As for Heroes, I hated the season finale, but I will continue watching just to see if it gets better.

There's a new vampire show, I think on CBS. How can that NOT be terrible?

Looks like a wasteland for fantasy and sci-fi TV this season...

In Praise of Science Fiction

You never know where you'll find someone praising Science Fiction, but here's a little gem from, of all places, the Huffinton Post blog:

The first step to enjoying science fiction is - well, the first step is getting used to the worst writing on earth -- but the second step to enjoying science fiction is getting past the titles.

And it's worth doing. Because we're living in a science fiction world.

We should have seen China's anti-satellite program coming, but the only venue where it was being discussed was You Only Live Twice.

There was this boring movie where this sonorous blowhard said the ice caps were melting, but it was called Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, so no one paid any attention.

What if a cowardly dickweed with a messiah complex got to be President and started World War Three? Don't say The Dead Zone didn't warn you.

In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Q is experimenting with radioactive lint. Now spies are running around London, killing each other with teeny tiny polonium specks.

I could go on, but I'm late for the convention and my mom's still sewing my costume.

And this isn't about me, anyway. This is about you. Snooty.

Battlestar Galactica is the best show on television, but you're not watching it just because it has robots in it. Yet you'll still watch Desperate Housewives. Like Nicollette Sheridan isn't more machine than man.

LOL!

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Heroes

Around this time last year I was very excited about the new fall TV season. There were an unprecedented number of Sci-Fi and Horror genre shows debuting – Surface, Threshold, Supernatural, Invasion and The Night Stalker – and I was interested in seeing all of them.

Well, a year later all have been canceled but Supernatural. This year the crop of new genre shows is far more modest. Sci-Fi channel debuted Eureka at the end of the summer. It’s light fare about a small town filled with geniuses. I find it boring. The only other genre show is NBC’s Heroes, which ostensibly is a superhero genre show, but they’re trying hard not to embrace that theme and possibly alienate the Joe Sixpack viewer who stumbles across the show by accident.

Though the show is obviously trying to capitalize off of the success of the X-Men movies, the show reminds me of Surface in many ways. I’m too lazy to see if the same people are involved in the writing. Like Surface, the story is split into the points of view of multiple characters, all of whom have clues about the umbrella story -- where did all these mutants come from and what are they here for? As in Surface, we know that the main characters will all hook up and take on some evil secret government agency.

The Professor X of Heroes is a young Indian professor, but the analogy is a little off, since he doesn’t have any super powers (as far as we know). There’s a nerdy Japanese office worker who can teleport and slow down time who’s the most likeable character so far. My second favorite character is the invulnerable cheerleader. Brutal things keep happening to her body to the point where she’s like a living Mr. Bill. It’s an interesting choice of powers for a female. Usually female supers have powers that are helpful to others or are defensive or are “elemental.”

The other characters are less interesting. There’s a Hispanic junkie artist guy that paints the future. Ho hum. His light-skinned black girlfriend is interested in a white male nurse who has the power to levitate and fly. The male nurse has a brother running for Congress who can also fly, but the politician brother is a shithead who held a press conference and told everyone his brother is suicidal to cover for the accident that happened when the nurse was trying to find out if he could really fly. The last character is a white woman who runs an online peep show and has a precocious biracial son and a so far unseen black husband who’s (big surprise) a criminal. The peep show chick has some violent power we don’t get to see since she has blackouts. We only get to see the aftermath – mutilated bodies of the loan sharks who come after her. Maybe she’s a shapeshifter.

Most of the characters don’t know each other, but presumably they’ll find each other in the coming episodes. Hopefully that won’t take too long. That was one of the problems with Surface.

Do I think this show will last? No, not on a mainstream network like NBC. Is it worth watching? Sure. It’s not so bad.

'Superman Returns' director signs TV deal

From Digital Spy:

Superman Returns director Bryan Singer has secured a massive contract to develop new shows for television channel ABC.

In a deal reported to have reached the seven-figures mark, Singer will work on three new scripts, one of which is assured to be a pilot that he will helm.

Talking about his newfound enthusiasm for medium of television, the director explained to The Hollywood Reporter: "You put something together in a quick time frame and get to create something that could have a long-lasting effect. [Also] television has an organic quality to it. Movies are pretty set. TV shows are open-ended, they can evolve over time."

His previous television experience includes developing sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica and also directed and produced episodes of the hit show House.

Interesting. With the success of Lost, maybe ABC has an appetite for pseudo fantasy fare, but mainstream TV has yet to show me that it’s really willing to give straight-up Sci-Fi and Fantasy a chance to build a fanbase unless it masquerades as a drama (as Lost does). The X-Files would’ve been pulled after half a season if it hadn’t been on Fox. Let’s see what Bryan is able to come up with and develop for the small screen.

Technorati tags: Bryan Singer | Superman Returns

'Eureka' Debut Sets SciFi Channel Record

From SyFy Portal:

(July 20 2006) - More than 4 million viewers tuned into the Tuesday night premiere of the new SciFi Channel original series "Eureka," setting a new ratings record for the cable outlet, according to several online news reports.

The July 18 two-hour debut got a 3.2 household rating, including 1.9 million aged 25-54 and 1.7 million aged 18-49, SciFi Wire said. "Eureka" was the No. 1 cable program on July 18 in household ratings, in total viewers and in the 25-54 and 18-49 demographics. It was also the highest-rated and most-watched premiere telecast of a cable original series in Tuesday prime time this year, the report said.

Ratings for "Eureka" put it ahead of the debuts of sister SciFi Channel series' "Stargate SG-1," "Stargate: Atlantis" and "Battlestar Galactica."

"Eureka" follows a U.S. marshal who stumbles on a small Pacific Northwest town that's actually a secret government research facility populated by the best minds in the nation, Zap2It said. Their research, however, makes the town a place where a lot of odd things tend to occur.

Wow, I can't believe this did so well! It was so boring. I mentally tuned out 15 minutes into the pilot.

Read more...

Technorati tags: scifichannel | eureka | tv | scifi | science-fiction

The Top 50 Movie Endings of All Time

Filmcritic.com has posted a list of the top 50 movie endings of all time. While I find some of the choices odd (the endings of A History of Violence, King of New York and Dead Again weren’t all that), I was glad to see that a few of my favorites -- The Thing, The Usual Suspects and The Empire Strikes Back -- in the mix. Surely Invasion of the Body Snatchers belongs here as well?

The list is here, but be warned -- spoilers abound.

Technorati tags: movies | film | critics | scifi | science-fiction

Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movie Suggestions

Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movie Suggestions

The other day I came across this list I’d made over 10 years ago of books I’ve read that I think would make good and/or profitable movies. I think I’ve changed my mind about some of them in the last decade. For now I’ll list them.

• A Matter for Men


• Darker Than You Think


• Death Angel’s Shadow


• Faerie Tale


• Legacy of Heorot


• Lord Valentine’s Castle


• Seventh Sun


• Songmaster


• The Anubis Gates


• The Dark is Rising


• The Dragonriders of Pern


• The Forgotten Beasts of Eld


• The Hunters’ Haunt


• The Many-Colored Land


• The Riddlemaster of Hed


• The Stress of Her Regard


• The White Hart

Also on my list were the following which have already been made, are in the process of being made, or could use a remake.

• The Chronicles of Narnia


• The Dark is Rising


• Watership Down

Later I’ll revisit the list and explain why I picked these particular stories.

Invasion

Surprisingly, Invasion turned out to be the most disappointing of the three network Sci-Fi shows I mentioned last week. Because it was placed after the premiere of Lost in the schedule, I suppose I was expecting some of Lost’s creepiness, diverse, strongly written characters and sense of mystery.

Instead, I was given the umpteenth iteration of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Come on, people. Break some new ground.

It’s Science-Fiction -- you’re supposed to take chances, get it?

Surface

I watched the premiere of NBC’s Surface last night. The pilot centered on four characters -- a young boy, a woman and two men -- who separately encounter mysterious sea creatures of apparently extraterrestrial origin. They’ll eventually come together to fight the aliens, I guess.

What I Liked:

• The idea of extraterrestrial sea creatures certainly hasn’t been done to death -- outside of The Abyss and Seaquest, I can’t think of any other examples where that was the main focus of the plot.

What I Didn’t Like:

• The sense of tension that was being nicely built was shot to hell when one of the scientists gave a briefing about the growing threat and unveiled a freaking molar that was about 7 feet tall. ROFL!

• None of the main characters are likeable. The woman seemed bitchy and self-centered.

• The show tries to evoke a Spielberg-like sense of wonder, but that’s played out and so 80’s.

• The kid who took the alien egg into his house really didn’t strike me as stupid enough to do such a thing. That wasn’t like taking in a cute mammal. We’re talking slime, you know? Who the hell would do that?

The Verdict:

• It won’t last unless the characters get more interesting. I am curious enough to want to get a good look at one of the creatures to see if they’re hideous or cute.

Threshold

I watched the premiere of Threshold on CBS, and it didn’t suck as bad as I thought it would.

The pilot episode centered on a risk consultant woman (her only friend is her white French bulldog -- my pooch is so much more handsome) who developed the protocol that the government will use in a “first contact” scenario. When a naval ship encounters an unidentified flying object and all communication with them ceases, the feds bring her in and essentially kidnaps a handful of other people who are to be her assistants.

The group goes out to the ship, poke around, and discover a video tape that makes their noses bleed. They also encounter the sole survivor on the ship, a guy whose DNA has been altered. When the team is forced to evacuate the ship because the North Koreans are coming (wait a minute – why are we scared of them? It’s our ship!), the survivor breaks loose, attacks some people, is shot four times, but survives. He later tracks the consultant woman back to her house and attacks her.

That’s about all that happened in two hours on the show. It’s implied that the aliens are hostile and they may come from fourth-dimensional space, as opposed to another planet. They also seem to be reprogramming human DNA, as opposed to possessing people or inserting worms or insects in their bodies.

The verdict? I still don’t think this is a good show, but it didn’t insult my intelligence.

Sci-Fi on Mainstream TV

It seems that the major networks -- ABC, NBC and CBS -- have rediscovered the Sci-Fi genre this Fall. Some say it’s because of the success of Battlestar Galactica, others point to ABC’s Lost, though that is more properly categorized as Fantasy.

Here’s the low down on these shows:

Invasion (ABC): “Man has searched the skies for centuries and has never come up with conclusive evidence to prove the existence of other forms of intelligent life. What if we have been looking in the wrong place? What if there were other forms of intelligent life already living among us? What if perceived natural disasters were really diversions created to conceal clandestine alien activities?”

Surface (NBC): “Surface is an expansive drama and undersea adventure that centers on the appearance of mysterious sea creatures in the deep ocean -- and tracks the lives of four characters. They are: Daughtery Carstarphen, the young oceanographer who discovers the secret; Dr. Aleksander Cirko, the government scientist who tries to keep things under wraps; Richard Owen, the Louisiana fisherman who loses his brother in a suspicious diving accident; and Miles, the young boy who brings the creatures ashore.”

Threshold (CBS): “Revolves around a female government contingency analyst who leads a team of scientists and military personnel who get in contact with a mysterious alien lifeform.”

Will any of these shows make it? I highly doubt it. I’ll watch the pilots of each, however. If they’re worth talking about, I’ll review them here.

Upcoming Movies

Checking out IMDB, there's not too much on the horizon as far as movies go. I have my doubts about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though I did like it when I read it back in the early 80's.

May is all about Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Everything else will be destroyed. It's the Summer of Sith!

June will be dead for me. I have absolutely no desire to see Batman. Bewitched might actually be funny, but I don't pay to see comedies.

War of the Worlds comes out in July. I can't see how this could not be decent. I hear that Lucas is pissed that Spielberg is going to be eating in ROTS's take. Actually, I'm pissed too. Not about the money -- nothing good ever gets released in August or September. I wish they would push the release back a bit.

The Fantastic Four comes out in July also. Again, I'm not interested. I don't care for comic book movies. I'm sick of that genre.

August looks as bad as June. I hope the Doom movie tanks. Video game movies suck too.

September. Bad as well. The Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie Corpse Bride is the only thing vaguely interesting. To me, anyway.

November. Nada! I will not pay to see a Harry Potter movie.

December. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Can it be the next Lord of The Rings? Probably not. But it will be one of only three movies I pay to see in 2005.

Also in December: King Kong. Can Peter Jackson do well with a script not based on one of the best written stories of all time? His zombie movies weren't just bad -- they were awful. I have my doubts here. The fact that Jack Black is the male lead makes me roll my eyes. I hope PJ proves me wrong.

If King Kong bombs, does that make it more likely or less likely that we'll see The Hobbit by 2009?

8 Million Stories

I'm watching Alien Siege, another Sci-Fi Channel Original. The premise is that aliens have landed on Earth and are demanding 8 million people as sacrifices or they'll destroy the planet. Early on the show establishes that most countries have selected their sacrifices from their prison populations, but the good old USA is trying to be fair. 650,000 Americans will be chosen using a lottery system. The President gets on TV and tells the people who are fighting back to stop resisting.

As if!

Could any President sell this? Someone would assassinate him. His party would be ruined forever. And I hate how they always show soldiers in these types of films as having no problem with what is going on. Let me tell you, we bitched all the time about our orders and we weren't being asked to escort people to their deaths!

There are two things that civilians don't seem to know about the U.S. military, and it's really important.

• The soldier has taken an oath to defend the Constitution, not to do what the President says. If there is a contradiction, the Constitution must be upheld.
• The soldier is not supposed to obey an unlawful order.

Handing people over to an alien race is enslaving them. Slavery is unconstitutional. And human sacrifice is against the law, even in the red states. So no soldier (airman, sailor or Marine) should be standing there assisting in "processing" the "winners" of the lottery.

Would some assholes go along with this farce? Oh, hell yeah. But I have no doubt that military personnel would go AWOL rather than do this, especially since their own families would be effected if the lottery is truly random.

But would the lottery be truly random?

The best way to ensure that the majority population could be sold this would be to weight the lottery. For example, you're more likely to be picked if you've ever done time, been on probabtion or ever collected public assistance. You're less likely to be picked if you hold a college degree, and you are given extra consideration if you hold an advanced degree. Certain professions would be exempt entirely -- police, military, medical professionals, etc.

That is how you would get the majority to cooperate.

By the way, my discussion of this is way better than the show.

Top 100 Movies: Observations

I've seen 79 of the 100 movies on the list I posted the other day.

Some things I noticed:

• Only one of these movies has a black protagonist -- Cidade de Deus.
  
• There are actually movies with female protagonists on the list: Silence of the Lambs, All About Eve, The Wizard of Oz, Alien, Aliens, Annie Hall, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Fargo and The Princess Bride. Nine movies.
  
• There are only two horror movies on the list -- Jaws and The Shining -- though you might make a case for Alien, Donnie Darko, Psycho or Se7en. How is The Exorcist not on this list?
  
• I don't think any of the movies have a gay main character, unless the Peter Lorre character in M was gay. That wasn't clear to me when I saw the movie.
  
• There's only one Western -- High Noon -- on the list. How is Shane not on this list?
  
• Surprisingly, there's only one Holocaust movie on the list: Schindler's List.
  
• There are 8 War movies on the list: Lawrence of Arabia, Apocalypse Now, Paths of Glory, Das Boot, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Saving Private Ryan, The Great Escape and The General. Where's Platoon? Stalag 17? Full Metal Jacket?
  
• The Crime genre is well represented: The Godfather, The Godfather II, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Goodfellas, Double Indemnity, M, Se7en, Touch of Evil, Reservoir Dogs and A Clockwork Orange. 11 movies.
  
• If you lump Sci-Fi and Fantasy together, there's an impressive presence on the list: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Matrix, Alien, Aliens, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Metropolis, Blade Runner, The Return of the King, The Two Towers, The Fellowship of the Ring, Raiders of the Lost Ark, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, Finding Nemo, The Sixth Sense, Donnie Darko, A Clockwork Orange and The Princess Bride. That's 19 movies, but The Princess Bride doesn't belong here. Donnie Darko is a personal favorite, but no way is it one of the 100 greatest movies of all time.
  
• There are only two children's movies here -- The Wizard of Oz and Finding Nemo. Where are Shrek and The Lion King?
  
• Braveheart is the only period piece on the list. How is that possible?
  
• There are four Stanley Kubrick movies, four Alfred Hitchcock movies, three Quentin Tarantino movies, three Francis Ford Coppola movies and two Steven Spielberg movies. Is Tarantino really as good a director as these heavyweights? Please.