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Television: Battlestar Galactica, Season 3
Mon, 20 Nov 2006

Another quick one written on the phone; my thumbs are oh so sore.

As I mentioned previously, recent shows have been attempting (and not so well) longer story arcs - Lost, etc. For a long time our TV writers have been pulling off the background story arc -- House's flirtation with some of the other doctors while they probe what his problem is, etc etc, but few can pull off any long duration story without both messing up syndication potential or getting the big story paced all to hell. Still, a few shows pull it off, and BSG season 3 is one of them.

Season one began with an intensity, though was really just an episodic character driven story -- given enormous disaster, how will these characters fare while trying to survive? It bogged down a little near the end of the season but really got exciting at the end. Season 2 picked off with more mature characters and got into the day to day nitty gritty of running a society in space with heavy military influence, politics, and survival against a superior foe.. but they'd gotten into a routine so not as many were pure survival stories. Great stuff but again, bogging down near the end of the season.. and frankly, I tire of political stories and emotional-pulls about babies etc. Great stuff, but with busy times in my own life I let it sit for a few months so that I wouldn't get beat up on the end of season cliffhanger. Caught up on Dr. Who instead, for a bit..

I noticed the other day that episode 7 had come out in season 3 so figured it was safe to venture into BSG again, knowing that when the cliffhanger struck I'd have a few episodes to go .. so much less stressful. How wrong I was, about the stress..

This is white-knuckle material, television writing at its finest. Really, these first few episodes of the season have probably been some of the best television I've ever seen.. gripping, human drama, fighting against oppression and all that. The psych-screwing still annoys me (enough with the baby plots and mucking with Starbucks head), but its really all just fantastic.

Thankfully I've got a few episodes to catch up on. But, if you have not been following the series .. listen to me now. Its good. Its gorramned awesome. I'm sure season 3 will slow down near the end like the previous two, but perhaps thats the writers just taking pity on us, giving us some respite after the oh so stressful beginnings of each season. My heart can barely handle this right now :)

Television can be good; long story arcs can be good; rarely do these two meet.

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TV: Where have the episodes gone?
Mon, 13 Nov 2006

I admit, I too wanted long story arcs. Still do. But I imagine on the third day of writer-school, novelists learn something called pacing. Keep it moving, giving away enough of the plot each time to keep the viewer or reader enticed. Plan ahead so that you've always got something consistent and interesting going on.

We liked Desparate Housewives in the first season, but over the summer we lost interest. We liked Lost, then started to tire of it. We liked Heroes, but are already sick of it, only a few episodes in. We're watching Lost on and off again, but only holding barely on.

Lost is supposed to be a mystery .. whose actually lost? the survivors of the plane crash? the others on the island? the viewers?

I say, what is lost is: the audience.

You see, these guys can't do pacing.. any of these shows. So many people I've talked to agree -- the shows are great on DVD when you can camp out and watch it all in fast forward, or in one big sitting. But no one can stand hanging on for several years to find out the writers really are just winging it.

So go back to episodic content; its obviously easier, or better understood. We like House -- it has a light overall arc sure, but each episode is an item unto itself. Lost/Heroes/Housewives .. go watch Star Trek Next Gen for gods sake.. a show that had wit, charm, and was still whacked out content and people liked it. You can't an empire build on Eva Longoria.

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TV: Good news everyone!
Sun, 19 Mar 2006

I'll be short and sweet for this is important and heady stuff - a short note on Billy West's (the voice of 'Fry') message board notes that Futurama will be back! Hooray! One of my favourite shows every to be on the tube. Now, if only Firefly could be brought back I could die a happy nerd.

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TV: /me Likes the Humans
Sun, 11 Dec 2005

Tonight is another finale for Survivor and its not the first time I've observed that the participants look far better when out in the jungle and starving than they do all fattened up and with make-up. Colby from way back looked the Cowboy with a gruff beard but once back in society he cleaned up into some metrosexual thing. The women in this current Survivor (Survivor: Alabama or whatever it is) just come off all Tammy-Fay - they looked good on the island but now just don't look so .. attractive, if I can say that. Now, perhaps its just these folks not being photogenic, the effect of television on their image, general nervousness from being on TV (though I doubt this as they've been parading in front of cameras for months now), lack of TV make-up skills, my lack of sleep as usual, or just the shock of the transition from seeing them in previous episodes to this. Or any number of factors. Or more likely, perhaps its just people look better in a more natural state - no make-up, a little starved and doing some exercise for a change.

Yes, I realize admitting that I half-watch Survivor has cost me something ;)

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TV: Reviewing _Sliders_ (1995-2000). Oh, and charities are annoying.
Mon, 17 Oct 2005

I surprised my wife the other day with a DVD pack of Sliders seasons 1 and 2. While most of you no doubt don't recall the show, it was one of her favourites (and I've fond memories of it as well!) Of course, my memory has never been that reliable in the long term (I thought Clash of the Titans was great when I was a kid.. but _damn_ thats some nasty to see now ;) - so I wasn't really sure if it'd survived the ravages of time. I ordered a copy of Buck Rogers in the 25th century with Gil Gerard (and Erin Gray, oh baby) at the same time and took in some Buck Rogers, MacGyver and Sliders all in a row...

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TV: Vagrant Philosophy, Or, If a Plot Doesn't Make a Turn, Does Anybody Care?
Thu, 13 Oct 2005

And when I say vagrant philosopher I refer to the esteemed streetside ranters -- those colourful homeless figures standing on a box outside your nearest shopping mall, barking out when the end of the world will occur. They're usually just running on at the mouth until they've driven everyone away.. like bloggers one might say ;) Well, on the off chance I've not driven everyone away with my incessant prattlings-on about retro-gaming I offer something else today :)

We follow a few TV shows these days -- not too many since theres not a lot of really good television on at all -- but a couple shows. For instance, Lost is a little interesting, but we've started to lose our fancy... perhaps we were intrigued until the summer break and now we've lost it? Desparate Housewiveswas also interesting.. until last season ended.

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Television: Getting a fix of retro..
Wed, 10 Aug 2005

For a long time my retro-pervision was limited to classic arcade machines and the requisite 80's music (though retro-night never plays what I listened to as a kid - in the 80s it would've been wank metal and later the early industrial stuff - really, does retro-night at the bar really play what anyones childhood was about? Or has it grown into its own thing especially with new-retro-style music like that of The Killers?) - though eventually I started to get intro retro-game-consoles (the SNES being first to try, even though I didn't have one as a kid) and more recently the retro-comics phase (all these graphic novels and Red Sonja's lieing around :) So this new found fetish was both a way to re-live (and hide in ;) childhood memories, as well as experience things I didn't have access to or couldn't afford back in the day.

Theres at least one other category of the retro fetish I've not mentioned - retro television. For a long time now I've been a fan of keeping my old VHS tapes around (didn't we all record stuff from TV to VHS?) - old Doctor Who episodes, some Robotech and Transformers cartoons, the never re-aired 4 hour Dune movie, etc. Cool stuff.. but two years back my man Aphyd pointed me to Gold Monkey where the guy was accepting tapes of the most unwatched show in the 80s (that I loved) - Tales of the Gold Monkey, and then selling cheap DVDs of the episodes. By gum, if this treasure of childhood has been 20 years forgotten by the studio who made it (and never republished), I might as well nab a copy right?

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