Edging closer to an explosive finish

Monday's Heroes was pretty damn good, but too short. I liked Linderman's narration at the beginning. So, we now know quite a bit more about his story, and his intentions. Linderman is the man with the plan, and a hell of a plan it is. I'm willing to believe he does care about humanity and wants to save the world; I'm also willing to believe he's emotionally & mentally warped.

Perhaps it was a bit subtle for me, but are we to understand Mrs. Petrelli is...telepathic? Or perhaps she sees into the future. Maybe she has super awesome hearing and was in the next room during Nathan & Peter's conversation. Whatever the case, this week's revelations bring to the fore a question that's nudged me a little during recent episodes - does anyone on this show not have some kind of power? I guess there's Mohinder, though he's powerfully boring, and Mr. Bennet [almost curiously] doesn't seem to do anything extraordinary. I wonder now, also, if Linderman & Mrs. Petrelli are among the first generation, or if others came before them. How long have these mutations been showing up?

I enjoyed Bennet's exciting escape via Parkman & Ted the Radioactive Man, whose EMP was totally cool. And now they're off to New York to bust some shit up. I wonder if Parkman will stick with them, or take off on his own to go after Linderman.

The most exciting parts of the episode followed Sylar, starting with the short but very cool fight with Peter. It was a nice touch that, while Sylar was unzipping Peter's head, we could hear a clock ticking. The glass bit was a cool move, though I have to wonder why Peter had his back to Sylar. That doesn't make any sense at all. Anyway, does Peter's contact with Sylar now mean he has all the powers Sylar has?

Isaac was never one of my favourite characters, but I liked the scene where Sylar offed him. His painting was great, and puzzling. While my first inclination is to believe the perversion of Isaac's painting came from Sylar's own twisted head, I wonder if Sylar perhaps painted another version of the future. Maybe Nathan Petrelli does ascend, as per Linderman's plan, but instead of using his position to bring the world together, he becomes dark and evil.

Well, I have other thoughts, but they'll have to wait. I'm on my way out of town for the weekend and stupid old packing is more "important" than geeking. Hmph.

Quality edumacational television

My new favourite show is Look Around You, a BBC-produced educational series that covers such topics as Calcium ["Whatever you do, never give a gypsy calcium."], Water ["What is water? It's a difficult question because water is impossible to describe. One might ask the same about birds. What are birds? We just don't know."], and The Brain ["The opposite of the brain is probably the bum. It's nowhere near as intelligent as the brain. It doesn't have to be, as it only needs to make very basic calculations."].

In the opening sequence, a jar containing a sample of the subject element is selected from a shelf of jars with such labels as "Poison," "Wafers," "Michelle,"and "Darkness." We are introduced to sciency terms like mafipulation, sulphagne and bumcivilian. Experiments are conducted using quantities like 4,000,000,000 billigrams (4g) and ..5.05 Mg (that's microgallons). All this is done with the perfect tone of school educational films from a few decades back. It is presented as part of a complete study module, and viewers are told to "write that down in your copybook." Episodes end with a preview of the next segment, promising a scientific look as such subjects as Reggae and Italians.

I definitely recommend watching these videos stoned. You can find them on YouTube.

Current reading: James Tiptree, Jr.

This is my first exposure to Tiptree and so far, I'm pleased. I borrowed Warm Worlds and Otherwise from a friend, a book of short stories written between 1968 & '73. They are not connected, though they share a bizarre flavour. It's nice when I run across scifi that feels fresh [especially when it's over 30 years old], and it's a special treat when I really enjoy the language & style of the writer, as is the case with this collection.

Not every story grabs me with equal intensity, but every story has some aspect that's interesting & novel. I initially stumbled on one of the most remarkable, "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death." Reading it was a sensorial experience, twisted by main characters who are wholly alien. "Through A Lass Darkly" tickled me with its irreverence and snapshot-style structure. "The Last Flight of Doctor Ain" is almost lighthearted at times, as it follows doom across the globe.

An especially enjoyable feature of Tiptree's writing is that the story is established as it progresses. That is, she drops you into the middle of a situation, in an alien environment, with various [mostly] sentients, and you learn what you need to know to put the story into context as you read it. She offers little or no preamble and frequently only the briefest finish. It's a bold stylistic choice, but highly entertaining and readable when pulled off well.

I'll wrap up with a note on Tiptree's gender. Early in her career, Tiptree was reclusive and maintained a high degree of privacy. The name, the genre, the style of writing, led people to believe Tiptree was a man. However, about a decade after she began writing scifi, it came out that she was, in fact, not a man. The ruse spurred lots of discussion on gender distinctions in writing and the treatment of gender within the genre.

Stargate Craplantis

I don't really think it's total crap, but saying "Stargate Craplantis" makes me laugh.

So, since I'm such a big fan of SG-1, I gave its spinoff, Stargate Atlantis, a try. In the middle of its third season with a fourth already in production, this isn't an awful show, but it's not especially compelling either. Most of the characters are boring & stereotypical, and definitely unsympathetic, and they're only made worse by the fact that the main actors aren't very good. A pleasant bonus is the occasional appearance of Colonel Caldwell [Mitch Pileggi, Skinner from X-Files], but he really doesn't stand out. The anti-social geek, Dr. Rodney McKay, is often entertaining, but his arrogance is sometimes way overplayed, another walking stereotype.

I have mixed feelings about the uber evil bad guys, the Wraith. These are humanoid beings who feed off the life energy of other living creatures. They are tall & thin, with white skin and long, straight white hair, are ugly, and boast a tres goth fashion sense. Though they're cool to watch, they're pretty much a one-note baddie so far as I've seen. Oh, and they're trying to get to Earth because it'd make an awesome feeding ground for them, so there's your long-term dramatic tension.

Lest I give the impression that I think Stargate Atlantis actually is total crap, I will say that for all its faults, it's not without some redeeming features. It's in the Stargate universe, which means Atlantis has a similar atmosphere to SG-1, there are adventures on lots of different planets, and we're occasionally treated to some character crossover*. Though the acting is sometimes hard to take, the writing is all right and the stories are, if not gripping, at least entertaining. While this isn't a show I think I'll ever own, it's a fine time waster.


*In fact, Amanda Tapping [Lt. Col. Carter on SG-1] will be joining the cast of Stargate Atlantis next season. For my own tastes, I bet Atlantis will improve once she's a regular.

Scifi Snapshot: Malcolm McDowell

With the revelation of Malcolm McDowell as Linderman on Heroes, it occurred to me that McDowell has done enough scifi to justify a little retrospective. He's had a ridiculously rich career, starting on tv in 1964 and working on various British shows through the '60s, as well as making a handful of movies. He gained international recognition with his awesome portrayal of Alex de Large, the ultracool sociopath in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange [1971]. I guess if Clockwork made him famous, 1979's Caligula made him infamous.

Anyway, I don't want to list all his work, just the scifi he's done. This isn't a comprehensive list and I haven't seen everything on it, but it's substantially representative.
A Clockwork Orange (1971) McDowell utterly ruled in this. If somehow you haven't seen this, go watch it, now.
Time After Time (1979) He starred in this along with another actor who's done a good bit of scifi, David Warner. Warner plays Jack the Ripper, chased into the future by McDowell's H.G. Wells. It's entertaining enough, if only to cringe at all the polyester.
Cat People (1982) Freaky movie, featuring human sacrifice, bestiality, incest, and hot people turning into big cats.
Tales from the Crypt - "The Reluctant Vampire" (1991) This was clever & cheesy and fun to watch.
Star Trek: Generations (1994) Not the best ST movie, but then, even the best one isn't really exceptional. McDowell, at least, was a dandy bad guy.
Tank Girl (1995) I threw this in to show a little comics appreciation, though I don't remember McDowell's character much at all.
Lexx - "Giga Shadow" & "The Dark Zone" miniseries (1997) Haven't watched any Lexx. If anyone has an opinion about it, let me know your thoughts.
Fantasy Island - multiple eps (1998-'99) This was the attempted remake of the 1970s series starring Ricardo Montalban ["KHHAAANN!!!"]. McDowell, who stepped into the role of island host Mr. Roarke, was adequately creepy and accomodating, and sprung fantasies on unsuspecting guests for 13 episodes.
The Outer Limits - "The Human Operators" (1999) Don't think I've seen this one.
Heroes - "Parasite" (2007) Though we've been led to believe throughout the series that Linderman is a stone cold asshole, McDowell's refined grandfatherly gentleman, bustling in the kitchen baking a pot pie, punches a hole in that percepion and reveals a new layer of complexity to a mysterious character. Of course, we've only seen him briefly; there's still time for further revelation.

That about wraps up our journey. If we're lucky we'll see McDowell again very soon, when new Heroes episodes pick up April 23.

Just A Geek

A friend turned me on to Wil Wheaton's blog awhile ago and I've become a big fan over the past many months. Wheaton, for those unfamiliar with the name, is an actor, writer, poker player, gamer, dad, and a hardcore geek. He's probably most familiar to anyone reading this as Wesley Crusher on ST:TNG. Though I'm not always interested in what he's yacking about, he writes often enough about things I am interested in and his style is entertaining, expressive & engaging.

Because it's something I read almost daily, and because I think other geeks will also find it interesting, I'm adding Wheaton's blog to my list of geeky places to go, over there on the right. Enjoy!

Merlin makes guest appearance on SG-1

Though I haven't been wowed by the current season of SG-1, I have nonetheless been following the story. Baal, at the least, makes it worth tuning in, even if some aspects of the show are weak. Unfortunately, one of those weaknesses is the actor playing the Orici, Morena Baccarin. Flat & boring, she was my one significant complaint with Firefly [on which she played Inara]. Of course, a little bad acting doesn't diminish the enjoyment of watching my favourite SG team do their thing.

Well, the first of the final ten episodes aired tonight and it was alright. Baccarin was not good, but the team did discover Merlin and that was cool. Although Baal was killed, there's no reason to think he won't be back in some incarnation - I think there are still a half dozen or more of his clones out there. Daniel Jackson has been taken by the Orici, and things don't look very good for him. I'm counting on a dangerous & dramatic rescue by the rest of the team next week.

Before tonight's episode, the scifi channel showed a special called "Behind the Mythology of Stargate." It would have been nice if it had actually discussed much mythology, but mostly it consisted of clips from past eps to illustrate that some of the elements of Stargate came from human mythology, which we know because they told us they did. Not very enlightening.

Sad news

Kurt Vonnegut died the other day, in New York. He fell several weeks ago & died from resultant brain injuries.

I've read a good bit of his work, loved most of it, was stirred by all of it. Not too long ago I reread Player Piano, enjoying his strong style and lack of refinement of his early writing.

*sigh* What can I say? It's a sad, sad day.

Spinning is so much cooler than not spinning

SG-1's 200th episode originally aired last summer, but I just watched it again and feel motivated to yack about it. It's a stand-alone ep, to the extent that it doesn't progress the current storyline, though it relies heavily on viewers having followed the show through its 9+ seasons. The premise is that a movie is being made based on the fictional television show Wormhole Xtreme, from the season 5 ep of the same name. Our favourite SG team goes through the proposed script, offering criticisms & suggestions, many in the form of brief fantasy scenes. It's packed full of jam with utterly silly nods to scifi classics, as well as a few random works, including Star Trek, Farscape, the Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, even a hilarious marionette sequence a la Team America: World Police. However, the real treat for SG-1 fans is that, more than anything else, it makes fun of itself. There are continual jabs at characters & incidents throughout the series, from Carter's "...just because my reproductive organs are on the inside..." speech, to Michael Shanks' [Daniel Jackson] season-long absence, to numerous funny references to past plotlines. They even give a shout out to the fans. To my delight, it also satisfies the shippers* among us, by giving us a Carter-O'Neill fantasy wedding sequence. *sigh* :)

As funny as so much of it was, it gets me right there [right...there --><--], with a quick monologue at the very end:
"Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blind critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."

For hardcore fans, I also recommend the making-of special, "Inside the 200th Episode." It's extra cheesy, but it has some very good bits.

SG-1 begins its end next Friday, April 13, with the first of the final 10 episodes.


*"shippers" is a term that I think arose on messageboards during the reign of Farscape. It's shorthand for "those who get into the romantic relationships on their scifi shows of preference."

...In a galaxy far, far away

I recently watched The Empire Strikes Back, after not seeing it in quite some time. This is a movie I've seen dozens of times, know very well, and still enjoy every time I watch it. It would be ridiculous to try writing a review of it. It's awesome, it's cheesy, it's well directed, it's seminal, it's iconic. It's been so firmly embedded in my consciousness that I have less an opinion about the movie than a filter of my experiences of it. So, I just want to talk about it some.

Because our copy has been watched so many times, and because I like to watch the occasional scene more than once, there are glitches at the start of a couple of my favourite scenes. That's motivation to finally replace the VHS tapes with DVDs, I guess [which could raise the issue of what I think of the latest revision of the original trilogy, but I want my blog to be a happy place]. Not surprisingly, those occasional scenes following the glitches on my tapes are Han & Leia scenes, because I'm a sucker like that.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to see an exhibit at the Houston Museum of Art called The Magic of Myth, which was part movie stuff and part story deconstruction insofar as Star Wars fits Joseph Campbell's myth cycle. The exhibit included some amazing things, among them several costumes. Being that I'm a pretty big textile geek, I was struck by the fabrics, their compositions & textures. It made me realize that the movie [and all movies] lacks the richness of an entire area of interest for me, because the media cannot support it. It serves well the broad strokes of fashion, but does nothing for the artistry & workmanship of textiles.

Of course, the costumes weren't the only cool things in the exhibit. There were several ship models, including an awesome Millenium Falcon & a great big Star Destroyer. Yoda-puppet was there. The coolest piece was Han Solo in carbonite. Actually seeing that model had me giddy.

I won't talk much about the changes Lucas made when the original trilogy was re-released in the '90s, but I do want to make one comment. Even with the changes that were made - spiffed up CGI, added/altered scenes - some of the mistakes were left in, and I like that. For example, in A New Hope, the stormtrooper still hits his head on the doorframe, and in The Empire Strikes Back, Luke's trampoline bounce during his fight with Vader is still seen & heard. Given some of the changes, it's surprising that Lucas would keep in these mistakes. Surprising, but welcome.

Empire is commonly referred to as the best of the Star Wars movies. Among other things, the bad guys get away after making off with one of the heroes, and everyone likes to see the bad guys kick a little ass. Though unfortunate for him personally, Mark Hamill's motorcycle accident prior to the filming of Empire did a lot for maturing his character. Luke went from being a whiny kid to a real galactic hero, with the scars to prove it. It helped as well that Lucas did not write or direct this installment. While Lucas gets story credit, Lawrence Kasdan's screenplay brought the story to life. Of course, it's no surprise that one of the reasons Empire is my personal favourite is the development of Han & Leia's romance. Empire features their first kiss, and the monumental carbonite scene that always makes me cry.

Well, I could go on, but I'll save more for another day.

"The Doubtful Guest" movie

This isn't scifi, but it does pertain to something awesome, so I thought I'd mention it. Edward Gorey's story "The Doubtful Guest," is being made into a movie, with the involvement of the Jim Henson Co. It's not due out 'til 2010, but here's hoping it's something to look forward to. For those unfamiliar with the work, "The Doubtful Guest" is about a creature who comes, unannounced & unwelcome, to a family home...and does not elect to depart. It's a short story with not a whole lot to it, so I'm a little concerned with how it's going to be made into a feature length movie. I think this will also be Gorey's first work put to film, so let's hope it's not screwed up too much.

Small changes afoot!

Groove on the new look! While I want my page to be spiffy and draw "ooo!"s & "aaah!"s from my friends, my priority is the information, so I just wanted to add something pretty to the page, and throw in some extras along the sidebar. The text in the image at the top is practically unreadable, but that's okay because the important stuff is in the posts. For your entertainment, I am starting a new feature wherein I post a picture & a short paragraph about something related to my geekery. I don't know how often it'll change, but enjoy some Show & Tell when you stop by! I've also added labels to the posts, so if you're looking only for posts on one subject, there's now an easy way to find them. Finally, I've added a list of links to interesting/useful sites.