May
14
Lost Finale
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My thoughts on the Season Five Finale of Lost can be found here (at Tor.com).
It was a bit mindblowing, but I’m getting a few uncomfortable BSG vibes from the show now.
May
12
Assorted – movies, tv, and books
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I feel like everyone I know has been to see Star Trek already. As usual, I am late to the party. I will rectify that tonight, however. In a way, though, I’m glad that some of the hype has been tempered by people having more critical opinions. I still haven’t seen too many people saying it wasn’t good, but I would rather go in expecting decent and not the best movie I’ve seen in recent times.
Tomorrow night is the Lost finale and it’s something I’m looking forward to more eagerly than I am Star Trek. I know Lost lost a lot of people a while back, but I have to say that it’s my favorite show on television. That title used to belong to Battlestar Galactica, but even in this past season, I found myself appreciating Lost more.
The Lost finale will also mark the end of cable television for me, for now at least. I’ve never been one to find that television was bad, or somehow lesser than other forms of media, but I do find that I spend too much time watching it lately. And I continue to stare at the books that line my bookshelves wondering when I’ll have the time to read them. So – no more television. Which isn’t to say that I won’t watch television shows – I will via downloads and DVD. I expect to watch more movies and actually take advantage of my Netflix subscription and the watch on demand service they offer. But I really want to read more and I figure this will help. I will also save some money in the deal.
Speaking of books, I finally finished Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun about a week ago and I’ve already started in on Urth of the New Sun, the sequel. I was originally going to wait, but I found that I couldn’t. I wanted a continuation of the story right away.
I’ll plan on writing a lengthier post on the books soon as I feel they deserve one. After this one, though, I intend to take a break and catch up on other reading.
More to come later…
May
6
The Unusuals
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Recently I have been feeling a kind of television fatigue. A lot of this rests on the shoulders of Battlestar Galactica, and the almost tiring march to the end, but I’ve been following more series than usual this year and doing my best to keep up with them all. The finales of BSG, Life, and Sarah Connor Chronicles bought me some reprieve, but there is, of course, Lost which I’m eagerly enjoying. Other series that I enjoyed at the beginning of the year – House, The Mentalist, even Bones – have failed to engage me much lately and while I’m enjoying Castle, there’s something a bit off with the show that I can’t quite put my finger on.
This television fatigue is why I was surprised to find myself watching ABC’s new cop show, The Unusuals. I chalk it up to being a sucker for shows about quirky people and a willingness to follow actors like Harold Perrineau (who I think got a little screwed on Lost) and Adam Goldberg. It also helps that I saw Amber Tamblyn in a few scenes and she surprised me with her portrayal of police officer Casey Schraeger.
The Unusuals is a bit formulaic in its setup. It focuses on the NYPD’s 2nd Precinct and the unusual cops who work there. Each person has his or her thing – Perrineau’s character, Leo Banks, is afraid of dying and always wears a bulletproof vest, Goldberg’s character, Detective Delahoy, has brain cancer but won’t get treatment or tell anyone, so he risks his life in the line of duty. There are other secrets, too, and a few characters with dark pasts.
While the individual episodes are interesting, usually dealing with an “A” storyline, and a more humorous and lighter “B” storyline, there’s also an overarcing “mystery” of sorts. The precinct’s Sergeant feels that things aren’t quite kosher in his department and he brought Detective Shraeger in to help clean it up. This plays up the usual tension of Shraeger having to ingratiate herself in the department while simultaneously investigating her fellow officers.
In addition to the quirkiness of its characters, The Unusuals succeeds for its portrayal of its police officers. These characters are corrupt, imperfect and damaged. They don’t always do the right thing, they’re not always stand-up people. But they are cops and they put their lives on the line, often for each other. Impressively, these imperfections only serve to make the characters seem more admirable and depicts a cost to a job that most people wouldn’t want anything to do with.
So The Unusuals is now on my DVR for as long as I still have cable. Though with ABC’s move to Hulu, I hope to be able to watch the rest of the episodes of this first season(only 10 have been ordered so far). Anyone else watch it?
Jan
28
Tor.com – The Legacy of Sherlock Holmes
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My latest post is up at Tor.com looking at the influence of Sherlock Holmes on modern television shows. Check it out if you like.
My previous posts at Tor.com can be found here.
Jan
27
Lightening television
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As mentioned in my previous post, I wrote something on Tor.com about Lost and BSG. Not coincidentally, those two television series are my favorite shows right now. But both have fallen prey to the same sad trend – the loss of the black characters on the show.
Both series started out as examples of diversity, I think it’s fair to say. Intentionally so. And that was something that mattered to me. Lost even went so far as to have one character (Jin) who spoke only in Korean. Both shows also featured black characters. Yet in both cases, those characters have either died, or become marginalized.
Click through for more (with spoilers for both shows):
Jan
26
Not so new Tor.com post
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I thought I would mention that I posted another in my post-apocalyptic series of posts on Tor.com. Unfortunately this one didn’t get any comments so I was hoping that maybe a little pointer might help. I’m writing these posts hopefully as a start to a conversation about what people like about post-apocalyptic fiction, what makes it up, what kind of things work and don’t work and what it says about us as the audience.
Please check it out if you feel so inclined.
May
15
More Star Trek musings
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While I don’t take back my previous statement about a lot of Star Trek being shit, I will admit to being a fan of The Next Generation and DS9 in the day. It’s just that in retrospect, after watching BSG, I am a bit spoiled. The way I see it, Star Trek (at least the series I mentioned), was good SF television. BSG is good (actually great) television period.
But on to the Star Trek. There was another Voyager episode on the other day and it dealt with the burgeoning Seven of Nine/Chakotay relationship. I think it was the finale.
That made me think of the various inter-crew relationships on the various series.
So, I pose to you, the readers, what was the best, most believable relationship on the various Trek shows? And what was the worst, most clumsy, ridiculous relationship?
Here are the ones I remember:
1. Ryker/Troi
2. Worf/Troi
3. Picard/Crusher
4. Data/Yar (maybe not a real relationship, but I thought it deserved mention)
5. Kira/Odo
6. Worf/Dax
7. Bashir/Ezri Dax
8. Neelix/Kes
9. Paris/Torres
10. Chakotay/Seven of Nine
11. T’pol/Trip
Those are the only relationships between main crew members that I can remember (I’m not counting relationships like O’Brien and Keiko since she was a secondary character – though I did like the way that relationship progressed over the two series). I also didn’t watch Enterprise much, but I read about the T’pol/Trip thing recently.
So, I open it up to you – which was the best? Which was the worst?
May
14
Star Trek…
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…can be such a load of shit.
My god, I’m sitting here watching a Voyager episode (don’t ask) and it’s appallingly bad.
BSG has spoiled me for a lot of other shows.
May
12
BSG and movies
Filed Under movies, television | 2 Comments
Watching Battlestar Galactica this season, I have been struck, particularly recently, by similarities to movies. War movies.
Two episodes ago, I was getting a strong Private Pyle vibe from the Chief. This week, I was getting a strong Apocalypse Now thing from Starbuck’s crew. Not quite a river, but similar. The further they go, the stranger things get, and the more tense.
I’m wondering what next week will bring.
Dec
2
More Torchwood
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I know I’m a fucking sap, but I found the last two episodes of Torchwood really emotional. And I thought that the kiss between Captain Jack and Captain Jack was one of the most romantic male kisses I’ve seen in a while.
I also wish I’d seen the season finale before I saw the finale for Dr. Who…