Category Archives: Television

Stargate Universe is Back–Intervention

Television, , , ,

Well, the second season of Stargate Universe has premiered. For those who may have been following my blog, or had conversations with me about this show, you know that I haven’t been the greatest fan of the first season. First off, I love Stargate, and by that I mean both of the previous series Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. So I had a lot of hope for this show because I loved all things Stargate. But the first season was so flawed in so many different ways. The acting was all right, probably the only positive they had, but the writing was atrocious, and it was like they were just phoning in the whole thing. I never saw so many “let’s solve a huge conflict by going to a commercial and then coming back as if everything was solved off screen” moments in a show before. It was becoming a joke of what it could actually be.

So, when they left us with a cliffhanger for the end of Season One, I half expected them to come back and resolve the whole thing by some act of the gods that wouldn’t make any more sense than the rest of the episodes. But fortunately, they didn’t. Surprisingly, the first episode was not bad. But then, true to form, they went back to stupid resolution processes that keep causing me to pull out the few hairs I have left on my head.

The episode started out with a stand-off between the bad guys of the Lucian Alliance and the crew of the Destiny, the ship that has been the headquarters of this third installment of the Stargate enterprise (no, not that Enterprise). Anyway, the bad guy Varro ends up being a not so bad guy and saves the crew from being slaughtered but marooned on some desolute planet instead (geez, what a pal, eh?), and then he gets marooned, too, for going against the new crazy leader who takes over after Kiva dies from a gunshot during a gunfight with Colonel Telford, who also was shot in the stomach during the exchange. Anyway, the upshot is that the Lucian Alliance guys become all bad ass like and threaten to kill everyone, but Rush does a double cross, like he always does, and manages to play chicken with the Lucian guys by threatening to let some pulsar kill most of the people on board, except for where Rush and a few stragglers are holding up.

Meanwhile, TJ, who was pregnant last time we checked, and shot when Varro went nuts trying to, well, I really still don’t understand what he was trying to do when he started fighting his own people and grabbing for a machine gun that managed to kill everyone, including Elmo who was innocently recording his show at a nearby soundstage next door to the Stargate set, ended up on some planet they had been to before where they left half the civilian crew. Some aliens brought her there and it ends up being one of those situations where she’s kind of there and not there, but she’s going to be sent back, but her baby has to stay. That’s the deal. Or agreement. Or whatever. So TJ comes back, realizes that she lost her baby, because everyone on the ship thinks that she actually lost it on the ship, but in reality it’s living happily on some strange planet out in the Gamma Quadrant, or wherever it is they were.

So, here’s my thoughts. The show had some interesting action and character dilemmas. The Sergeant Grier character is becoming one of the most fascinating characters of all. He’s twisted, an asshole, but he’s so freaking loyal to Colonel Young that you have to just admire the man in his own violent way. Plus, the actor plays this character so well. I mean, I hate the character big time, but at the same time he grows on you in a pretty fascinating way.

The baby thing with TJ is completely understandable, although cowardly writing, in my opinion. They felt they had to get rid of the pregnancy, and I really think the decision was made to avoid having a baby they had to keep working with on the series each and every episode, because you know it would be that important if she had to keep it. It would be a constant set of episodes where her one defining line would be: “I have to protect my baby!” And honestly, I want to see her character grow without having to fall into such an old Hollywood, phoned in sort of characterization.

The Lucian Alliance guys bring an interesting dynamic because now we have a whole bunch of new characters who are now on the ship. Sure, they’re in lock-up right now, but you know they can’t stay there. They’re either going to be integrated into the crew, a la “the Maquis” from Star Trek Voyager, or they’re going to become further adversaries. Plus, one or two new actors might get pulled from them to become regulars, and some of them were actually pretty good, including the woman who takes over as their leader at the end. Unfortunately, they’re previous female leader died, and she could have been a fascinating character to build upon for the show.

They introduced the alien race (the one that saves TJ and keeps her baby) again, which means that they may have a much larger focus in the series. If not, they’re a bad plot save device. I’m hoping there’s something more going on because they hint that they’ve been paying attention to the Destiny crew and only jumped in when they had to do something to save TJ from death (she was dying from the gunshot would in the crazy machine gun spray by Varro’s bizarre heroics).

Rush is becoming a very conflicted character now. Before, he was trying to take the Destiny. Now, he’s sort of on the side of the good guys, so who knows where his loyalities and his motivations will lie for the future. I don’t think they ever really played out the end of the conflict between Rush and Young. Saying they’ll work together “for the sake of the crew” is okay, but logic dictates that there should have to be more to it than that.

Complaints: They’re still doing the last minute saves by Deus Ex Machima, and that’s getting on my nerves. Grier and Lt Scott were in one of those no win situations where they were stuck outside the ship, unable to get to a hatch to get back in before the pulsar hit. Even the annoying kid Eli couldn’t save them, so they were presumed dead. Then out of the blue they are safe, and they state that they were lucky enough to be shielded from the pulsar by where they were located. OH GREAT! No, that’s stupid. Don’t set up an imminent death moment and then say, oh we were saved because the pulsar just barely missed us, letting all of this happen off camera. This is continuously bad writing, and I was hoping they had fired all of those bad writers from the first season.

Unfortunately, those types of writing moments are what continue to bring down what can be a good show, because the season premiere was not bad. I enjoyed it. I just need them to be a bit more consistent and realize that the audience is not a bunch of teenagers who are constantly fooled by coin tricks.

Overall, I’m hoping this is a sign of better things to come this season, and even with reservations, I’m going to continue watching…for now.

Storms, power outages, and putting it all into some kind of perspective

Memoirs, Television, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

Last night, I was sitting down to watch the season finale of Warehouse 13. It’s a quirky show that I’ve learned to like, and I was looking forward to see how they handled the final character arc they were playing out. Ten minutes into it, the cable provider’s satellite message appeared instead of the signal and indicated that it was having trouble connecting. Ten minutes after that, the message changed to “Acquiring Signal” and then suddenly all of the power went out.

So I sat in my apartment for fifteen minutes, thinking the power would eventually pop back on, but it never did. I found a flashlight to help me maneuver around the very dark apartment, and then figuring it was late enough, I went to bed.

The next morning, the power still was not on. Now, in the past I might have panicked and started thinking about all of the stuff in my fridge melting and going bad. But instead, I thought I get paid on Friday, and so what if I end up having to rebuy all of my groceries on that day. It’s not that big a deal.

Today’s a work day, so I got dressed in the pitch dark blackness and then went out to start my car. Well, I discovered a new problem: My garage door does not open without actual electricty. My garage is not attached to the apartment, so there was absolutely no way to get into it. My housing complex never bothered to include a key to the garage, so I realized I was not getting into my car. The housing complex’s manager’s office was also completely empty; apparently someone figured that with the power being off, it wasn’t a good deal to come into work on time. I guess they figured NO ONE would be interested in talking to the manager’s staff on a day when the entire complex was out of power. But oh well.

So I walked to the bus and took it to work. Haven’t done that in over a year, and it’s a very long walk to the bus, but I did it.

But all during this time I was walking, I examined the ramifications of the downed power grid. For about twenty minutes of walking, there was absolutely no power at all, although I did hear a generator working on one of the buildings. And then suddenly there were lights at about the twenty minute mark from where I lived. This area was not hit by the loss of power, or at least they had their power restored since it happened.

And this got me thinking about how little prepared so many people are for simple little hardships like this. I had a few flashlights in my apartment, so I was at least able to see. One of them burned out really fast, which told me that I had bought a pretty crappy flashlight. The others worked better, but it’s no fun finding out your flashlight is a cheap piece of crap when you need it most. It reminded me of some of those horror movies where someone’s in the dark, turns on her flashlight, and then a few seconds later it goes out. Makes the scene even scarier than if she never had light in the first place. But I digress.

What was interesting to me is that I’ve been through a few power outages over the years, including a few earthquakes that took place in California. And each one of those events caused me to prepare a little bit more for the next time. Each new scenario I came across made me feel a little bit more prepared for the next time, and that always felt good.

This time, I didn’t feel like I was really lacking all that much, and there was very little reason to panic. I did, however, hear quite a few muffled fights going on between couples and families in my apartment complex. This new entrance of events did not bode well for quite a few of them. And I wondered if this would cause them to be more prepared next time, or would it just cause them to complain a lot until things came back under normal, and then they’d be unprepared for next time as well. I don’t really know how they’ll handle it.

And that leaves me wondering about how well people are prepared for handling bad situations that they might come across. I know people have a tendency to go off like poffy hairdressers every time something doesn’t work out the way they planned, but what if something happens that occurs over a length of time? How do people handle that, and can they? I’ve been watching this BBC show “Survivors”, which is about a fictitious disaster that happens, leaving a small segment of the British population alive. It took place in the 1970s, but it was interesting how poignant those events were and how relevant they could be for today. If something happened that took away our sense of normalcy, how well would we handle ourselves? Would we live long and prosper (sorry, bad Vulcan humor) or would we end up panicking until we wasted away or died?

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers to that. I’d like to think we’d never have to find out, but I fear that the answers aren’t ones I’d really like to hear.

Stewart/Colbert hold a real rally, but no one will probably take them seriously

Politics, Television, , , , , , ,

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is planning to hold a major rally in Washington, D.C. that is a direct response to some of the stupidity that has been happening by pundits and/or politicians like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. The theme of the rally, being held on October 30, is “Rally to Restore Sanity”. Stephen Colbert, not one to miss out on the fun, is holding a counter rally at the same time, in the same location, titled: “March to Keep Fear Alive.”

The significance of this event (these events) is that politics and media have gotten stupid lately. So, what better way to hold them in check but to call them out on it.

The problem that I perceive is that the news media doesn’t even realize that it’s being ridiculed for how bad they’ve gotten. What is most likely going to happen is some pretty face is going to announce the success of this “event” and treat is as if they’re somehow “in” on the joke. I think that’s what pissed me off the most about whenever the news covers Stewart and Colbert. They so often are NOT “in” on the joke, but the actual butt of it, and I’m sorry but laughing about it doesn’t make it any different when they go back to doing exactly what they were doing that caused the ridicule in the first place.

Unfortunately, this is a one time event. Which means that the media will get right back to being stupid again.

Some of the Best Writing on TV May Never Be Seen

Television, Writing, , , , , , , ,

It’s kind of funny, actually, but there is this bias against certain types of programming on television, specifically that of the science fiction and fantasy variety. But surprisingly, some of the best dramatic writing I’ve ever viewed has been from this genre, and unfortunately no one really seems to be watching it.

An example is the one that everyone talks about when it comes to science fiction, and that’s the rehash of Battlestar Galactica, which had to be one of the best dramas I’ve seen on television in ages. It was intense, well acted, and with plot twists that were so well constructed that it was shocking at how well it was carried out. Some other examples would be some pretty obscure titles, including one I was watching last night that was unbelievable for how well it was written, and that show is Doctor Who. Over the last few years I’ve kind of paid attention to this show, but always thought it was a bit too campy for me. I was watching the middle of the fourth season of the latest variation of this show, and out of nowhere the writing was just overwhelming. Some of the plots were just genius, and then the way they pulled the stories off was beyond anything I’ve seen in modern television. There was one episode that took place on a futuristic airliner (done to be much like the cabin of any airplane, but in space), and the character interaction was just off the charts. The plot seemed somewhat simple, but the story quickly went from a “what’s out there” to a Lord of the Flies segment of anarchy that I kept thinking they were going to somehow blow this great moment of television, but they never did. They did a really good job of maintaining the type of power they were going for, and it was like a seasoned director took a great screenplay and made it just right. You don’t see that very often.

Lately, we’ve seen some brilliant character-driven storylines on recent television shows like LOST, which has shocked so many people at how it did exactly what it set out to do. Yet, we’re still left with this sense that science fiction and fantasy is trash that really shouldn’t be paid attention to.

I had a conversation the other day with someone who told me that she only watches dramas, like Gossip Girl, because she likes shows that are a lot more realistic. I’ll not even comment further on that one, but I’m sure you get the idea. People are so convinced that it has to be a drama to be considered real, yet I can’t tell you how many of our dramas are some of the worst writing that has come along in ages. Sure, there are exceptions, but way too often we’re given trash and get so used to it that we give accolades to medium level stuff, as if it is brilliant. A couple of examples come to mind because I’ve been watching these shows and still can’t believe that people think these are the best we have to offer.

Breaking Bad. An okay show, but for some reason every review of this show acts as if it is the greatest television show ever. I’m deep into the second season of it, and it’s okay. It’s not great, but it’s okay. What I would like to comment about this show is something no one wants to admit: It’s basically Weeds with a much more serious story line. And Weeds does it so much better. Let’s look at that for a second.

Weeds has a woman who needs to make a lot of money because she lost her husband, so she goes into the marijuana dealing business. She has a bunch of wacky friends who hang around, and the show does everything possible to justify that this woman is doing a very bad thing but for the right reasons.

Breaking Bad has  a guy who needs to make a lot of money because he’s got cancer, so he goes into the meth dealing business. There are a bunch of somewhat wacky people who are part of his world (including a klepto sister in law and a DEA agent husband of the klepto who has all sorts of his own wacky drug-related adventures), and the show does everything possible to justify that this guy is doing a very bad thing but for the right reasons.

Both shows are essentially about the same thing, except unlike Weeds, people don’t generally consider meth to be as innocent as they do marijuana. So it has some problems there. All along, I watch Breaking Bad, waiting for the great moments everyone talks about, but I find myself thinking, “why should I care for this guy who is creating a product that is destroying the lives of so many so he can take care of his family?” It’s like the show Dexter, another “great” that people talk about. I watched all of three episodes before I thought, “I can’t root for this guy” and never watched it again. There’s a point where rooting for the underdog just doesn’t justify rooting for the criminally insane guy who considers himself above the law.

Other “great” shows: Rescue Me. I bought the first season and had a hard time getting through the first episode. Trite writing that tries too hard to play the 9/11 angle of brave firefighters. Let’s make them somewhat crazy, and everyone will root for them. Hasn’t worked so well for me so far.

Sadly enough, there aren’t enough ground-breaking shows out there, and the few that are just don’t seem to be that great themselves. Which is pretty sad because the really, really good shows don’t last very long.

Anyway, just a gripe that is slowly going off track now, so I’ll end there.

When a GREAT book is made into a movie

Television, Writing, , , , ,

I have always been a fan of espionage writer Ken Follett. Although he’s written a few books I didn’t care for, like the Modigliani Scandal, which is a horrible book in my opinion, he’s also written some of the greatest thrillers of our time, like Eye of the Needle and Key to Rebecca. But a few years back, after a hiatus where we didn’t see much from Follett, he came out with an unassuming book called Pillars of the Earth. Unlike any of his previous work, this was an historical novel that follows the adventures of a mason who has the solitary desire of building a cathedral in medieval England. The characters he creates in that story are brilliant, and the long-reaching arc he employs in the craft of the story is masterful. It has easily become one of the t0p books on my list of books to recommend ovre the years. Recently, he released a sequel to the book, World Without End, and it, too, was a wonderful book.

Well, they’ve finally come around to making a TV movie out of the first book, and I’ve been torn about this. Some books I’m fine with being turned into a movie because they were okay books, and I was curious to see what they would do with it. But when a masterpiece is turned into a movie, I’m very apprehensive about watching it, because no amount of casting, screenwriting and cinematography can do justice to a masterpiece.

Now, I’ve been wrong with this a few times, like with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Great movies, and they complemented the great books and didn’t diminish them in any way. Other than Excaliber, which isn’t really a movie about a book but of an entire concept, I’m torn on finding another one that was as successful an adaptation as Lord of the Rings was. I don’t think there’s a single movie out there based on a book where I haven’t been disappointed. Okay, maybe Star Wars, but the book was more based on the movie (even though I know the book was written first), so it didn’t really have that sort of problem.

On the other hand, I know there are so many people out there who will never take the time to read a book that is over 1000 pages long, no matter how good it is. So this might be the only chance for them to ever experience the world that Follett created. But it leaves me thinking that so many people will come away from the experience thinking they read the book, or managed to do enough, that the book is no longer necessary to read. It reminds me of the dorks in school who would be assigned to read a book in a literature class and then at the last minute watch the movie, thinking they got the whole experience of the book. And they would write their report on the movie, pretending they read the book. And it was so obvious they got a limited interpretation of the book (the screenwriter’s interpretation). It used to really bug me because they’d think they “got away with it” when they really missed the reason the book was assigned in the first place.

So, I’m torn as to whether or not I’ll watch the movie. But secretly I want to see what they did with it, but internally I keep feeling that if I see it, and I hate it, then it might forever taint my enjoyment of the book that I once had. Probably not, but it’s always something to think about.

Why E-Readers Just Won’t Take Hold in America

Movies, Television, Writing, , , ,

There’s been a lot of hype over the last couple of  months because of the emergence of the IPAD, which has been predicted to usher in a new age of reading. This has caused all of the other e-reader makers to ramp up their business models, each one of them vying for the ultimate control of this incoming market. But I have bad news for all of them. That market’s not coming. Sorry, but it’s not.

You see, there’s a funny thing happening on the way to the the emerging market. There’s been an interesting fantasy that’s been playing out in the American public that is somewhat identical to the reason why so many Americans are fat. Every now and then, we look in the mirror and realize we’re fat, so we tell ourselves (and everyone around us) we’re going to go on a diet. And for a few days, we feel good about ourselves. And then we order that hot fudge sundae for dessert, and well, the diet kind of goes away. Oh, we rationalize it with promises of future exercise, but we know deep down that we’re going to go back to our old ways. And we do. Then we continue to get fat, and then we suddenly wake up, look in the mirror and then announce we’re going on a diet. Rinse. Repeat.

That’s what’s happening with E-readers. For the longest time, the majority of Americans stopped reading. We started watching TV, playing video games and doing anything but anything intellectual. Our reading output in this country is abysmal, and we know it. But every now and then, we promise to start reading again, and we go to the bookstore and buy lots of interesting books that we put on a shelf and never read. Oh, we might start reading, but then something else comes along and we stop. Rinse. Repeat.

So, when the E-reader came along, we all jumped up with joy and said we’d start reading books now because they’d be easier to read. So people went out and bought IPADs. I’m guessing that after the new car smell disappeared from the devices, they stopped being the most important carry item for those planning to read. Or they started using them for other reasons.

In a few months, publishers are going to start wondering what happened to that emerging market of electronic books. Sure, some will sell, but nowhere near the amount that was promised when this new technology was going to usher in a new era of reading.

You see, on the surface and deep down, we’re kind of lazy. Some of us read a lot. Most of us don’t. But we won’t tell you that because everyone wants everyone else to think we’re all little Einsteins walking around with encyclopedias for brains.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect I’m not. But one can hope for better results than the usual expectations. As a writer, it bothers me that more of my country folk don’t read. But what can I do? Our medium of communication is movies and television. And even in those areas we aren’t all that impressive as we tend to focus more on reality programming and sports programming than anything else.

But that’s why E-readers probably won’t take hold in America. We’re too busy pretending to diet while watching people getting voted off the island.

Hasn’t Been A Lot to Say Lately

Television, Writing, ,

I’ve been keeping busy lately, so I haven’t really had a lot of time to make a lot of comments. Wasn’t like anyone was really going out of his or her way to read the blog, so I don’t think there’s too much at a loss as it is.

As for me, I’ve been keeping busy with work. The job has settled down a bit. It doesn’t look like things are as bad as they used to appear, so there’s a bit of stability there. It’s not the greatest job in the world, but it’s not the worst either. The people are decent to work with, and the environment is quite stable. So, who am I to complain?

As for other things, I’m continuing my process of getting ready to write the next book. The research is pretty much finished, and now all I have to do is start putting forth the actual writing itself. I’m waiting until the feeling comes to me, and then I’ll probably disappear completely to finish this one. It’s going to be a pretty long novel, so it’s going to take me some dedicated time.

As for this blog, I’ve noticed that there’s a LOT of spam that comes to me in the messages. I’ve been rejecting most of the messages because it’s pretty obvious that people are just trying to generate traffic to their own sites, and they’ll do practically anything to get their names listed on the sites of others. Not really interested in that kind of stuff. Hopefully, the ones who read this blog are reading it because they’re interested in seeing what’s going on with me, or at least in reading my thoughts. I’m not a real fan of the whole spam thing.

Been playing a lot of World of Warcraft lately, for those who are interested in that sort of thing. I have a bunch of 60+ characters, and my deathknight is now 72, heading towards 73. It’s amazing how much work it is to level a character in the 65+ range. I’ve never made a character reach 80 (the level cap), so it’s interesting trying to get closer to that level.

Started watching the first season of True Blood last night. I’m finding it an interesting drama, especially when the writing and acting is considered. It has a real quirky style to it, and the main character is very intriguing, especially as she is played by Paquin (think that’s her name). I’m starting to notice some of the side characters who are equally famous from little appearances they have had on other shows, like Deadwood and Heroes. Some really strong character actors on this show, so it does not surprise me that it is capable of handling its down south setting really well.

I started physical therapy a few weeks ago for my shoulder, and that’s going well. I’ve been needing to take care of this problem for awhile now, and let’s just say that I’m glad I’m finally taking care of it. I’m supposed to go today, but I haven’t been feeling well today, so I called in to cancel for today but will go again on Thursday.

Not much else to share. I’m still around, but not much is going on.

The Hurt Locker…an interesting peek into the abyss and shopping for cereal

Movies, Television, , , ,

I finally got a chance to watch Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker over the weekend. It was interesting to see a movie that covers the military in a way that doesn’t seem like it’s a miltary advertisement (I’m looking at you Transformers 2) or a condemnation (I’m looking at pretty much every Iraqi movie that’s been made so far).

The story is pretty simple. It’s about an EOD specialist whose main job is to defuse bombs. His team works as back-up to him, and the movie follows the events he and his team experience during a rotation in Iraq.

What really stuck out to me was the “team” emphasis the movie explores. This is one of those nuances that happen within the Army involving specialized groups, specifically those with a set mission that rarely can be handled by a regular unit. The main character is a former Ranger, and his team consists of a former mission intelligence sergeant and a specialist-ranked noobie who is pretty much learning his place in the greater scheme of things. I think it covered the specialized nature of the team very well, and it was interesting to see it carried out on film where there was little attempt to glorify it or diminish it with some stupidity (like Platoon, which while it was a decent film ended up focusing on dysfunction rather than function).

One thing that really hit me hard with this movie is a very soft scene after a return to the U.S. when the character is asked by his wife Kate (or whatever her name was…she was played by Evangeline Lilly, the woman who plays Kate in LOST, and she was honestly the only actor in the entire movie I recognized) to find a box of cereal in a supermarket where they’re shopping. This man who is so perfect in a world where it may end at a moment’s notice with people all around him who might be trying to kill him, stands in front of the entire aisle of boxes of cereal and can’t move because he’s overwhelmed by the choices in front of him. This is the sort of person who spends his every moment deciding between green and blue wires (the Hollywood equivalent of a bomb defusion choice, which THANK YOU was not an issue ONCE in this very well done movie), and he was unable to choose a simple box of cereal. That one moment brought the reality of this fictionalized world home for me, and I’ve never seen it done so well.

In the end, I think the movie is deserving of the awards is received. Granted, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it was up against a lot of dismal films that year, which is becoming more of a norm than an exception. Even though that was the year of Avatar, a very visual film, at least the Academy recognized that that was ALL it had going for it.

The acting was done well, and the writing was what should be expected from a Hollywood film of this magnitude. Strangely enough, I had trouble finding any acknowledgement of the writing from the closing credits, although it might have flown by me and I didn’t realize it. I was looking for it, however, and was somewhat annoyed that everyone else and his brother was acknowledged, but the writing didn’t seem to be all that important to the makers of the credits.

May Wrap-Up

Politics, Stickman, Television, Writing, , , , , , , , , ,

Just thought I would take some time to do a little bit of a wrap-up of things going on, including the news.

1. My job. Well, I haven’t lost it yet, but it’s never really going well. I like the people I work with, and I tend to deliver whatever is desired from me, but it’s one of those jobs where you just get the feeling every day that it just isn’t working out, and no matter what you do, it probably never will. It’s unfortunate, but I really need to find something stable that doesn’t make me feel like it’s going to end tomorrow on a whim that I can do nothing to avoid.

2. My writing. Nothing seems to be happening. I send stuff out, and if I ever get a response, it’s a generic, no thanks. It’s really frustrating, and I really don’t know what to do about it. It’s like I’m forever on the outside looking in to a great place where everyone is writing lots of fun stuff. People who come out of the place engage me in conversation, but I’m never allowed inside, almost as if there’s a conspiracy to keep me outside but no one on the inside knows anything about it.

3. Stickman. I’d produce more of Stickman, but it’s really hard to try to bring humor to the rest of the world when you get the impression the rest of the world doesn’t care, doesn’t really want it, and you’re just wasting your time. Or at least it feels that way.

4. My life in general. It feels like I’m constantly in limbo land, and I can’t find a way out of it. I don’t feel I’m where I need to be, but I don’t know where I need to be either. There’s really no one significant in my life, so I don’t have that to look upon as a solution to anything, or even as a journey towards any place. If I had to use one word to describe the feeling, it’s “blah”. Really blah, if I needed two words.

General topics:

5. The Guild Season 3. If you have never seen this series, and you happen to be a computer gamer, especially one who plays MMOs, this series is for you. It’s put out by Felicia Day, and it’s manufactured by a bunch of Internet happy people (meaning, without a lot of commercial backing), and it’s funny. It misses every now and then, but it does deliver. I recommend it.

6. Survivors (the British import series). Another interesting show. I recommend it. It’s another one of those shows that doesn’t appear to have been backed by a very large commercial enterprise. Either that, or it was backed by a commercial enterprise that seriously sucks because its production values are very amateurish. But it’s quality of show is very high. The writing is good, the acting is surprisingly not bad, and the premise is quite original and fresh. It is also very daring in its material, which has shocked me a few times because it really feels like some show that had been made in the 1970s, but with a sense of 2010 in mind. As a matter of fact, I just checked, and it WAS produced in the 1970s, so that explains that. But another one I recommend.

7. Sandra Bullock and her husband. Every now and then something in the news causes me to want to make a comment. Well, recently, Jesse James went on Nightline and said that he cheated on Sandra Bullock because he was abused as a child. Today, the father announced that Jesse was lying, that he never abused him. Well, my thought on this, having no knowledge of said events, is that abusers rarely ever admit they abused anyone. And in many cases, the spouse will also claim there was no abuse because no one wants to believe that something happened under their noses. But having said that, it’s a stupid reason to use as an excuse as for why you cheated on your wife. Any excuse is a stupid excuse because cheating is just that…cheating. I’d never have gotten married to anyone if I ever imagined once that I would be cheating on my future wife. And once I was married, cheating is NEVER an option. Why so many people can feel that there is justification for whatever reason is beyond me. I even heard one person say his wife cheated on him so now he has a blank check to do the same. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Maybe it’s why I’m rarely in a relationship. They never make a lot of sense to me.

8. LOST. It was great. Great ending. Great show.

9. The iPad. Um, is it a netbook? A laptop? An oversized iPod? I’m not sure. But it isn’t enough of a substantial product to get me to want to buy one yet. I need something like it that I can really use to write a novel on and feel comfortable with it. It’s almost there. Why wouldn’t I buy one? In order to use its 3G network, I have to pay AT&T more money. I already pay them to use it with my iPhone. If they can’t lump those two together, they’re ripping me off. Not buying it for that. I don’t hang out at wi fi spots enough to use it otherwise. No word processor that I could find on it when I was looking at it at the Apple Store. Or maybe there was one. I don’t know. The guy who worked there was so impressed with himself that he worked there that he spent the entire time trying to score with some hot chick that was looking at an iPhone that I couldn’t get anyone to help me except for the one guy who “thought” he might be able to guess. Not a hard sell for me.

10. BPs oil disaster. Clean it up. Well, cap it off and then clean it up. I don’t want to hear about how you’re thinking you can do it. Just do it. As for Obama’s involvement, I don’t care. Get BP to fix it or call in the Marines. Or Flipper. I don’t care. Fix it. Or get Red Adair to fix it.

11. North Korea. Not sure what to say there. Our foreign policy was written in shortly after the First World War. We haven’t changed it since. Not sure why we’re under the impression that things are going to get better if we keep doing the same things that haven’t worked before. Didn’t Einstein have something to say about that and insanity?

That’s all for now. Some days, it just doesn’t feel worth it to continue, but then I remember that there’s still another episode of LOST to air before doing something stupid. Oh wait, the show ended. The networks better come up with something soon, or I’m cashing my ticket out of here.

LOST Goes Out As It Should…With Answers and a Sense of Purpose

Television, , , , , , ,

The finale for LOST was last night, and even though I’m not one to stay up that late these days, it was well worth the staying up. (spoiler warning for anyone reading further….) Right up to the last few minutes, I found myself thinking, wait, we’re about to go out with a nice ending, but I still don’t feel I have any answers. And then they sprung it. Just like that. And I was thinking, wow, that works. Sure, there was a lot of fighting against that thought, but in the end it really worked, and just like LOST, it waited until the last moment to just subtly explain what it’s all been about. That’s so much like LOST.

What I thought was so profound is that one of the obvious clues had been staring us in the face all along. We knew the character’s name from the start, but it was one of those shell games where you just never looked at that person’s name to realize how significant it really was. It took Kate actually just saying it out loud, in almost disbelief, for me to realize how this process of puzzle making was so well done in this show. The bizarre thing is we always knew the person’s name, but no one ever bothered to just say it out loud, all together. That one clue would have really been enough if we realized how significant it was all along. I mean, every character in the show had a significant name (well, most at least), including John Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Jacob, Faraday, and the list goes on.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever get another show like LOST ever again. We’ve lost some of the greatest written dramas on television over the last few years, including Battlestar Galactica, which like LOST took a few years to really get its groove.

I’ll admit it. I’m a big fan of good television, but unfortunately, there’s not a lot of good television to find. The big shows right now are a lot of reality TV stuff, like Dancing with the Stars. I can’t watch any of that. The few good dramas are few and very hard to find. Instead, we get really trashy television like Grey’s Anatomy. I really hate that show, even though I love Heigl, even though she’s slowly becoming an enigma on that show. But I hate the stupid premise of that show, and the few times I tried watching it in the beginning completely turned me off of it.

So what do we have left? Surprisingly, one of the more innovative shows became a victim of its own success. Actually, a few did. There was Heroes, which had a GREAT first season and then imploded on itself with the cardinal sin of television (it thought it was more important than it really was). This same cardinal sin is happening to a lot of early shows, like Fringe, FastForward and V. But they didn’t even allow themselves a chance to become important before they turned into jokes of themselves right off the start. Another show that had promise, just for the intriguing writing it was doing in the beginning was one you wouldn’t suspect, and that was Desperate Housewives. And then it turned really stupid, as if it only had to rely on its great first season to make it great by name alone. It’s difficult to watch, so I stopped.

Some of the other promising shows are on the Sci Fi channel, strangely named Syfy these days. Except they’re screwing up those as well. Stargate Universe has taken a great franchise and tried to become Battlestar Galactica, which it is not. Stargate was always light, fun and entertaining. Stargate Universe is boring, tedious and another one of those that sees itself as important without doing anything to become important. I think when they went to the “let’s put our heroes into an inescapable plot in one week and then have them just walk through the stargate unscathed WITHOUT AN EXPLANATION the next week” is what has finally destroyed the show. They keep trying, and every now and then there’s a glimmer of hope, but it’s close to being thrown on the “don’t watch” list.

However, in July a bunch of the good shows from Syfy are coming back, and that might be really interesting. Eureka, a weird, light show, is coming back. Warehouse 13 is also coming back during that time. I’m not sure when Caprica is coming back, but that’s also on the backburner of a lot of people for one of the better shows out there, even though it’s just a spinoff to Battlestar Galactica, told some decades before the events of BG erupt.

One of the other decent shows, especially decent over this last season, is Smallville, and it is going to be producing its 10th and final season, which has a lot of people going through pre-withdrawals. But this means we should finally get to see the Boy of Steel become the Man of Steel, which has always been the end game for this series. Sure, they could make a Superman TV series, but I just don’t think it would be as great as the premise for Smallville always was. The origin story is such a unique animal in fiction, and we already know how it’s supposed to turn out.

Which leaves the rest of us wondering what are we supposed to do now that LOST is gone? There are no other shows that can replace it. Sure, a lot of networks are going to try to duplicate it, but they will continue to fail because they so want people to think they have the next LOST, which is impossible to do when you are trying too hard. That was one of the beauties of LOST. It never came out and said it was great. It just was. It trodded on, telling its story as it wanted to tell it, and they didn’t fall back on stupid shark jumping tricks to keep the fans happy. But the fans were happy, and they kept viewing.

Shows just don’t do that these days. And that’s what we’ll probably miss the most.