Category: Television & Movies

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Television & Movies

Nifty article on Trek fan films

Click hereabouts for a nice NY Times article on the various and sundry Star Trek fan video projects. Part of me yearns to get back into this stuff; another part of me realizes I’d only be cast as the fat, belching Klingon ambassador from Star Trek V, and yet another part of me would rather just tell an original story instead of hanging on to the coattails of any single franchise with all the copyright complications involved. (That last part of me, however, also reminds me that I’m not that great at writing fiction, be it in prose or script form, and that maybe I should just keep aiming my video camera at my kitten.)… Read more

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Gaming Music Television & Movies

Jar Jar links.

Not much to speak of this morning – my digestive system is still engaged in a lively debate with itself over whether or not the pork chops with stuffing my wife cooked for me are agreeing with it in any civilized way – so here are a couple of nifty links you might want to check out.
Doctor WhoThe Beginner’s Guide To Doctor Who: Whether you’re only casually acquainted with the original series of Doctor Who, or only gave in to the Time Lord’s charms when the new series started, here’s a nifty little semi-interactive guide to the original show. It’s not a terribly deep survey of classic Who (and the “monsters” segment is little more than a target game minus the reward), but it’s a decent enough refresher course. There’s a focus on classic characters and enemies who have appeared in the new show (i.e. Sarah, K-9, the Daleks), though some of the other mentions are somewhat curious, and one wonders if they have any bearing on the upcoming finale of the second season…
John BillingsleyMad props to Phlox: The Futon Critic is giving mad props to John Billingsley (formerly Enterprise’s Dr. Phlox) as the “breakout star” of ABC’s new fall drama series The Nine. (I’ve seen some preview stuff on the network feeds myself, and this review of the pilot only confirms for me that this is a show to keep an eye on later this year.) I’d find it riotously funny if DVD sales of Enterprise suddenly spiked because everyone wanted to see that show that Billingsley used to be on.
Pre-owned games and the law: a fascinating essay from a legal perspective about the rumors that Sony has plans to squash the used video game market, and largely right on the money. Now here’s a wild idea: how about making games that are just so darned cool that we don’t want to ever get rid of them? (Novel thinking, I know.) Still counting down to the Red Star release to see if it fits that category. Back on track, it’d also help if the pricing was a little more realistic on new games. The last current-generation game I bought new was We Love Katamari; total outlay was $25. (Well, technically, total outlay was nothing – I got it with a Wal-Mart gift card I got at Christmas.) Quick check of the ol’ PS2/Gamecube shelf…I’ve bought more than 2/3 of my current-generation games used. (Curiously enough, the only ones I’ve gotten new have been both Katamari games, Taito Legends and Pac-Man Vs. for the ‘cube, though that latter game was packed in with a budget “greatest hits” re-release of the otherwise forgettable Pac-Man World 2. So, if you’ve got a cheap game from Japan, I guess I’m all yours.) In short, if Sony and its licensees weren’t pricing their new product into the stratosphere, and were producing stuff with real replay value, that’d go a long way toward solving this perceived “problem” of the used game market. (Or, if you want the statistics spun in a different direction: I’ve spent more on Odyssey2 games this year than I have on Playstation 2 games. But admittedly, that’s just me.)
And last but not least – a new Weird Al song for free! Weird Al Yankovic is apparently coming down the home stretch of a new album, and if that wasn’t good enough news for you, he’s unleashing a free song that didn’t make the cut, for – rough estimate here – zero dollars. (I also see Al has linked to Rob’s UHF pilgrimage on his links page!)
Hope you have a good weekend. The Mrs. is headed out of town for several days for a postal convention, or she’s going to go postal at a convention, or something like that – I really need to get some clarification there. So for a few days it’s me, Othello, Olivia and Xena. How much you wanna bet we’ll have the place completely trashed by Monday night?… Read more

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Television & Movies

Adios, Invasion.

InvasionOh, damn it. Talk about an unresolved cliffhanger!! ABC’s Invasion came to an end tonight with an episode appropriately titled The Last Wave Goodbye, with no concessions or last-minute changes made to the fact that the show had been cancelled mere days ago. As such, we wind up with a monumental cliffhanger, leaving one major character’s life hanging in the balance – and really no clues from which to interpolate her fate. Egads!
All of this would probably be better if the show had ever found an audience, but it didn’t; it seems to be common knowledge that Invasion was the favorite new 2005-06 show of the network’s president, and that’s probably the only thing that kept the show on the air for its entire season, and kept the network from yanking the promotional rug out from under the show’s feet. But it’s hard to argue with the bean counters when you can’t get the Lost audience to stick around for the show right after it. (And in terms of its serialized storylines, over-arching mysteries, and breathtaking tightening of just about every dangling plot thread at the end of the season, Invasion was not dissimilar from Lost – to be truthful, I just don’t understand why this show couldn’t hold Lost’s viewers, unless you’re asking me to believe that a huge chunk of that audience abandoned their TVs immediately after Lost to go hit their chat rooms, instant messengers and The Fuselage to talk about the episode of Lost they’d just seen.)
Anyway, with talk of the CW rescuing Invasion fading away faster than the life of that character, I suppose a post-mortem wouldn’t be too premature. I’d love to be proven wrong. … Read more

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Television & Movies

Just seems appropriate somehow.

Scorpio’s alarm sounds.
TARRANT: Slave, what’s wrong?!
SLAVE: Well, nothing is actually wrong, sir. Yet.
ScorpioAVON: Explain the alarm, Slave.
The alarm goes quiet.
SLAVE: I had to get your attention, Master, and I was forbidden to speak unless spoken to.
AVON: All right, you’re spoken to. What is it?
SLAVE: I beg to advise you, Master, that we’re approaching the planet Gauda Prime.
Everyone relaxes for a moment.
SLAVE: And Scorpio is under attack!
An explosion rocks the flight deck.

(from Blake’s 7, episode 52: Blake (1981), written by Chris Boucher.)
Try not to read too much into it, I just thought it was strangely appropriate. I’ll get back to posting kitten pics soon – I’ve a feeling I’ll soon have no end of free time in which to do that sort of thing. Olivia went to the vet on Thursday to be tested for various kitty illnesses and to get her first round of shots. The good news is: she’s a perfectly healthy kitty! We already knew she was a perfectly lovely kitty.… Read more

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Critters Serious Stuff Television & Movies

Kitty updates, drowning David Blaine, and porn.

OthelloPoor Othello, he hasn’t been getting a lot of face time, what with all of the other cat-related news going on. Othello celebrates his 12th birthday in a couple of months, and before we adopted Olivia, we took him to the vet to get his shots brought up to date and for a general checkup. The good news is that my little fuzzy guy is the very picture of health – he’s still active and fit, and doesn’t have any major health issues. He keeps in shape with repeated bouts of IMS (Invisible Mouse Syndrome), symptoms of which include chasing across the house after invisible objects at top speed. I think he does this just for the exercise myself. As for Olivia, she’s fine and she’s fiesty and was bored to tears today because I had to feed horses in the morning, take out the trash, and then get what little sleep I was going to get before having to go to work. Life as a kitten is rough! We have bad weather on the way, so Xena will probably be coming into the house. We’ll see how Olivia likes her “big sister” who happens to be a giant dog. (Seriously, at most they’ll probably only get a glimpse of each other.) … Read more

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Critters Television & Movies

Kitty recruitment drive II.

We may have found a new kitty already – that’s almost alarmingly fast. To my relief, she looks nothing like Chloe, despite being the same breed that happens to be my wife’s favorite. We’re waiting to find out more about her, including whether or not she’s even still available. She’s also a Katrina Kitty, rescued from St. Bernard’s Parish. Of which large chunks apparently no longer exist; her family has never been located. Maybe adopting her would help to mend a lot of broken hearts right now. We should know more soonish. We saw another kitty, this one in Oklahoma, who looks a lot like Chloe – a little too much like her, really. Hopefully this is Othello and Xena’s new friend – and my wife’s new fuzzy sidekick on this crazy journey through life.
Speaking of crazy things you never, ever expected to happen: the original Star Wars movies, pre-special-edition, on DVD. Officially. This September. OK, can we finally admit that there is a God, and He is great? 😆… Read more

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Television & Movies

On Deck 78

Having plumbed the depths of the Discovery from 2001, I’m setting my sights this time around on a more mainstream target. In the intro to the 2001 set design piece, I mentioned that the net is oversaturated with photos of nearly everything Star Wars, Doctor Who and Star Trek related. And while I still think this is true, one has to remember that Trek fandom has a somewhat selective memory. For me, the best-looking ship interiors ever to grace the screen in the Trek franchise were seen in what was, for many years, the lowest ebb of the franchise.
One of the things I loved about TNG was the look of the Enterprise. I loved how Herman Zimmerman designed the sets for the ship’s central locale (and thus setting the template for future production designer Richard James to follow after his departure), and I adored those touch-screen computer interface graphics designed by Michael Okuda – “Okudagrams,” as they quickly became known in the Trek art department (and later to fandom). But it wasn’t until 1989 that I saw those two elements married to the more functional, less-living-room-esque design of the original Enterprise bridge as laid out by Matt Jeffries, with the console silhouettes developed for the movie era by the late Mike Miner. While it’s impossible to deny that this was the darkest hour of the original crew since the final scene of Turnabout Intruder, I must admit to absolutely loving one thing about Star Trek V: The Final Frontier…and that is the Enterprise herself.
Star Trek V Enterprise shuttle bay… Read more

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Television & Movies

Today we’re watching the Discovery Channel

DiscoveryIt’s amazing how you can find nearly any photographic or graphic material related to Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5 or Doctor Who on the web, but there doesn’t seem to be an equally comprehensive archive of images anywhere from 2001: a space odyssey. Now that omission, dear friends, has to be a crime somewhere in the world, for 2001 boasts some of the most beautiful and logically, functionally designed sets ever to grace a soundstage in the name of science fiction. It’s time to fill this gap.
Beware, clicking on the following “more” button will take you to a page with lots of rather large pictures like this one. But if you’ve got the bandwidth and the time, venture forth into HAL’s memory core for a tour of the Discovery.
Daisy, daisy...… Read more

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Music Television & Movies

Whither Star Trek…soundtracks?

The Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next GenerationI had the occasion to respond to an e-mail from a reader of the site this week who was inquiring about any possible news of new Star Trek TV soundtrack releases, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a really good idea. The worst we can get is a “no, not gonna happen.” Feel free to pass the URL for this entry along to your Trek-music-hungry friends. Here’s an excerpt from my reply to the e-mail.

To make matters even more complicated, there’s the current status of Trek (not exactly the most favorite Paramount property ever under the current regime at Paramount/Viacom/CBS) and the status of the label that used to do virtually all of the Trek TV soundtrack releases. Quite a few of the staff at GNP Crescendo seem to have defected in the past few years to a newer indie label, La La Land Records, which does not have the Star Trek license; Crescendo no longer has the license to pursue new soundtrack releases, from what I understand, so we’re stuck between a studio that doesn’t give even the tiniest fraction of a flip about Star Trek right now, and no label in place to release stuff even if they could license it.
My best advice for right now is to write a nice e-mail or letter to La La Land Records and try to stir up some interest in a possible series of Star Trek episode score CDs, very much like their current “Farscape Classics” series, which gather every cue from two individual episodes on a single CD. (I’ve gotten the first one of those Farscape CDs, and I have to say, they’re really nice.) With the 20th anniversary of TNG coming next year, I’d like to think that maybe we could put a bug in their ear about this idea and start getting some TNG episode scores released – I’d personally love to have Q Who, Skin Of Evil, The Child, Peak Performance, 11001001, Datalore, and The Emissary on CD…and that’s just from a cursory glance of the first two seasons.
Give ’em a shout at www.lalalandrecords.com – the worst they can do is say no.

… Read more
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Television & Movies

This is what the Super Adventure Club actually believes!

The Return Of Chef!It’s been hard to escape the news that Isaac Hayes quit South Park in the wake of last fall’s controversial episode lampooning Scientology, or that in the wake of that news, how Comedy Central scheduled and then suddenly pulled a repeat of said episode. Tonight, on the show’s season premiere, Matt and Trey struck back with both a brilliant white-hot anger and compassion, attempting to draw fire away from Hayes and toward Scientology itself instead. Throughout the episode, Chef spoke in disjointed, cut-and-pasted phrases pieced together from the nine years worth of dialogue he has recorded for previous episodes, leading the boys to realize – gasp! – Chef has been brainwashed by that “fruity little club.” Their attempts to rescue him only lead to tragedy for Chef himself, though he is resurrected at the end of the episode in a less-than-subtle (and yet knee-slappingly funny) homage to the closing scenes of Star Wars Episode III. At several points during the episode, the folks responsible for brainwashing Chef threaten to take drastic action – namely, asking Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny to leave – a clear indication that it’s not over by a long shot, and Matt and Trey don’t intend to let this drop.
Chef VaderAgain, not South Park’s finest hour, but one of its most heartfelt. I almost hope we get a running thread about this throughout the season. Heck, I even hope that Isaac Hayes might come around and show up to redeem Chef again (and that way, we can get a Return Of The Jedi spoof outta the deal too!).
In other news, I’m still almost speechless about the phrase that’s been running through my head all day: “Doctor Who has been nominated for multiple Hugo Awards.” I’ll be quite honest, I’ve loved the show for most of my life, and I never envisioned it being nominated for a Hugo Award either on TV or in print. The episodes Dalek, Father’s Day, and the combined two-parter of The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances were all nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), up against a Galactica episode (Pegasus), a Pixar short, and one or two other things I don’t recall haven’t heard of before. I’m torn between wanting Dalek and Father’s Day to win – from my own fleeting correspondences with them, writers Rob Shearman and Paul Cornell, respectively, are just damned nice guys. However, I’ve got to root for Cornell’s script hear; Dalek was a watered-down version of Shearman’s 2003 Doctor Who audio story Jubilee, but Father’s Day was pure Cornell, thought-provoking and heart-tuggingly emotional. My best wishes go to all the nominees – because from the ones I have seen, they’re all A-list stuff. (Truthfully, I’m surprised that [A] more Galactica episodes weren’t nominated, and [B] that Pegasus was the one that did get the nod; it’s worth remembering that multiple episodes of Babylon 5 were on the ballot for the ’96 Hugos, but JMS asked to have all but The Coming Of Shadows removed from consideration so there wouldn’t be a split of votes that would actually keep B5 from winning at all.)
As much as I love Doctor Who, I’m still reeling at the thought that it might soon share the same Hugo-winning stratosphere as some of the finest episodes of Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and The Twilight Zone. Wow. Promote the hell out of that, Sci-Fi. You’re showing two Hugo-nominated shows. (Granted, Galactica’s already a Hugo winner, but still…)… Read more