Odds 'n ends...

I don't really have any specific topic for today's blog, so I thought I'd just mention some of the things that happened this week in the world of sci-fi television that caught my attention.

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One of my email lists put out the word yesterday that actor Jason Momoa, fabulous portrayer of Ronon Dex on my fave show Stargate Atlantis, has decided to cut off his signature dreads.


Now, personally, I don't really care what kind of hairstyle an actor or actress has. I mean, I've been known to comment, "wow that's a stupid haircut" from time to time, but really, none of my business. I'm just having a hard time imagining Ronon without the dreads. This guy is a total badass--that's his thing, and part of that is that he's got an aura of "wild" to him. The dreads add to that by giving him a very lion-esque appearance. Amusingly enough, he had to jump through some hoops to get the approval from the show's producers before he could get rid of the dreads. Apparently those evil geniuses finished season four with a bit of a cliffhanger (surprise surprise) and season five will pick up right where season four leaves off. So there's a major continuity issue if Ronon doesn't have dreads. The solution? After consulting with a "hair expert" the producers and Jason agreed that he will hang onto the dreads after they are removed so that they can be reattached when season five starts filming. I didn't see any specifics on when/if they will let the character of Ronon shed his mane though. Should be an interesting random detail to keep your eyes open for though.

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Let's see...my buddy Christopher Jacot made another guest appearance this past week. Remember, this is the actor who plays the recurring role of Larry the sycophant on Eureka. I love to hate him. This time he showed up on Smallville. He was, of course, the bad guy. Seriously, if you're watching a show where there's some kind of crime or mystery to solve and Christopher Jacot is doing a guest spot, it's him. It's always him. Awesome. In this incarnation as bad guy he played the comic book obsessed PA to a starlet playing the girlfriend in the Warrior Angel movie. Good ol' Chris was miffed that the movie producers had decided to let the girlfriend live when in the original comic story line she died. So he of course decides it's his job to kill the actress on camera. This results in him finding out about Clark's powers and thus being carted off to Belle Reve insane asylum. Oddly enough though, I found myself rooting for him a little this week as he tried to off Lana so Clark could move on and accept his destiny to save the world. Seriously...dude had a point. I will admit I kind of dig how evil they are making Lana lately, I just wish they would actually make her evil and not all sweet and good whenever Clark is looking her way. It's just a rehash of the first few seasons with her in Lex's place. Sheesh.

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Snippet number three tonight is about Journeyman. Is anyone else completely digging this series? I keep reading all of the critics' theories that it is just doomed and awful, but this one is really starting to grow on me. Even though it airs late enough that it makes me miss my bedtime to do so, I've started watching this one live. It also seems to me that NBC is still promoting the heck out of this show, so I am not sure why everyone keeps tolling the bells of early cancellation here. I don't think the network's ready to give up yet. I hope not. Sweeps are coming up so I guess we'll know more after November. My fingers are certainly crossed.

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Now I think I shall shell out some love for Dr. Who. I was contemplating last night who I would want to be if I did dress up for Halloween and I think I pretty much decided I would want to be the Doctor (as portrayed by David Tennant, I adore him). Fear not though--even if I was even remotely tall or skinny, and thus able to pull off the sweet vintage pin-striped suit, I completely lack the motivation to go find such a suit or to wear it in public. So no one will have to endure me looking silly. At least not for that particular reason at any rate. And in case you were wondering he wears that kick-ass suit with high-top cons. Score.



Anyhoo, to get back on track, I have recently started watching season two of the series. I have watched this series so completely out of order it boggles the mind. I started with season three and then moved on to season one, then started watching the spin-off series Torchwood (which aired after season three) and am just now getting into season two. Yet somehow I have managed not to confuse myself too much with the continuity. I think that might be one of the most beautiful things about this series. You can watch it in almost any order--and even if you know something from seeing a later show that you probably shouldn't know when you watch an earlier episode, it doesn't actually spoil that earlier episode. Brilliant!

I'm only a few episodes in (the Christmas special and the first two, to be exact) but so far here are some of the highlights for me:

-While running around in pajamas (or as he refers to them, jim jams) and a bath robe, the Doctor makes a wonderful passing reference to Arthur Dent and what a nice guy he was.

-While defending the human race he starts quoting "The Circle of Life" from the Lion King, then realizes halfway through that he's quoting the Lion King.

-Anthony Stewart Head, best known to us Yanks as Giles from Buffy, has a guest spot on the next episode I get to watch. Huzzah! It was his guest spot on MI-5 that got me hooked on that show. I completely forget that he's kind of a big thing across the pond so I get all warm and fuzzy every time I am reminded. Also, it makes me super jazzed for the Buffy spin-off special (possibly series) that BBC is working on based around Giles. Yay Ripper!

-The episode I watched today involved Rose and the Doctor in 1879 (they were trying to get to 1979, oops) running into Queen Victoria just as she's getting caught in a trap by a werewolf/alien thing. There's this lovely scene where they're all running from the werewolf and it totally made a bit from Eddie Izzard pop into my head. You all know what I'm talking about...that's one well protected queen...

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Anyhoo, so that's all I've got for you tonight. It's not much more than random musings, but it's what has been going on in my head in between all of the blanket making. I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween!

~*~

"God attack the queen, send big dogs after her, that bite her bum..."

Hey, at least I don't have "Viva Las Vegas" stuck in my head any more.

Ciao,
C

Recent acquisitions: Scrubs season six, My So Called Life the complete series (with an essay by Joss Whedon included, score!), and Twin Peaks the complete series (definitive Gold Box edition)

Time for another happy dance!

Howdy boys and girls! Just a quick post to share the wonderful news alert I got from my spoiler group this morning. Sci Fi channel has announced that Stargate Atlantis has been renewed for season five, with a 20 episode order. HUZZAH!


Funnily enough...they're not sure whether or not Flash Gordon will be picked up for a second season. Methinks that show is going the way of Painkiller Jane. Oh darn...


Anyhoo, that was a happy wake up call for me this morning, so I definitely wanted to share.


Happy Wednesday to all!


C

Go ahead, jump into that deep end...

There’s something to be said for character development outside of the story. What I mean is that, as a writer of any kind of story, you really need to almost overdevelop your characters when you create them. I think that a lot of writers in television or movies stop thinking about their characters as soon as those characters are no longer on the screen. I’ve seen a lot of shows get called out for “weak” writing and the complaints are usually centered on plots that make no sense or characters that just aren’t believable. I truly believe, however, that all of this can be traced directly back to lack of character development outside of the story or off the screen.

The viewer doesn’t necessarily need to see little Timmy’s fifth grade recital to understand that as the moment he realized he was destined to be a star. The writer, on the other hand, certainly needs to realize that it was this exact event that acted as the catalyst for the path Timmy finds himself on when we, the audience, join up with Timmy. If the writer doesn’t possess this piece of information then he really doesn’t understand Timmy and can’t believably write that character.

Let me go to an example outside the realm of television (but still within the world of scifi/fantasy). J. K. Rowling, author of the world-famous Harry Potter books, gave us seven books filled with oodles of rich characters, no matter how big or small the part each character had to play. When she was first setting out to share Harry’s story with the world she made a back story for every first year student that entered Hogwarts with Harry. She can tell you the name, birthday, and favorite color of a character that we may only have seen walking down the hall as our heroic trio discussed some matter of import. In book five, we are treated to some of Sirius Black’s back story and learn the names of a few of his relatives as he and Harry discuss the Black family tree. It was a nice little informative scene, but Rowling didn’t stop at just coming up with those few relatives Harry and Sirius discuss in the book. She came up with the complete family tree—complete with back story on most if not all of the family. When the fifth film was being produced and the props department needed more names to fill out the tree so that the scene could be translated to the screen, Rowling was able to send them over the complete chart without delay. She knows what happened to everyone in this world long before we met them and long after we had to say goodbye. As she recently told an audience at Carnegie Hall—she even knows that not only does Neville Longbottom become the headmaster of Hogwarts, but he also marries Hannah Abbott (of Hufflepuff) and lives at the Leaky Cauldron (which his wife runs) while he’s not at school.

Then there's that other thing she told the fans at Carnegie Hall on Friday. Yeah, you knew I was going to bring it up. Turns out our beloved Dumbledore is gay. Good for him. On the way to work yesterday and at lunch I heard several news stories regarding Jo's big "announcement." Oh did that frustrate me--not that Dumbledore's orientation is considered newsworthy or is controversial--those books have been nothing but controversial despite how well they have been received. Here's the thing--she didn't announce this fact. She was at a Q&A session, someone asked her if Dumbledore had ever really been in love, and she honestly answered the question. There was a particular wizard in Dumbledore's past that anyone who has read book seven knows about--and this wizard was D's one true love. I'm pretty sure Jo could have gone the rest of her life without telling anyone that Dumbledore is gay, but I also don't think she's the kind of person who has ever been inclined to be anything but honest with her fans. Someone asked so she answered.

To bring this back on track, the reason I mention the whole situation is that this has been an essential part of Dumbledore's character since day one. We the readers may not have known, but Jo couldn't have written him half as well if she hadn't. To even better prove my point--this part of Dumbledore had nothing whatsoever to do with the story of Harry Potter, so she never felt the need to include the information in any of the books. It's part of who he is, but not part of the story.

This is what I am talking about when I say that writers should overdevelop their characters. I think this is even more crucial in the world of television than in some other forums because for the most part television is ongoing. Character development is pretty much built in, unless you have the misfortune to be canceled before your time or unless you are writing a really crappy show. But what makes these characters able to grow and more believable to the audience is a writer that treats them as if they go on living their lives when you turn your television off.

I would lay down money that if asked what Clem the Demon's favorite movie is, Joss Whedon could answer without batting an eyelash. Ask any Whedonite why they love Buffy, Angel, or Firefly, and I would also bet that at least 3 out of 5 people would tell you it's because of the characters. We loved these people so much, wanted so deeply to find out what happened to them after their series' ended, that we got a movie out of Firefly and Buffy and Angel are now both officially continuing on in comic book form. If he hadn't known his characters so well to be able to write such enthralling stories for them, we would have none of that today, nor would we probably want it. Buffy the Vampire Slayer would have gone quietly into obscurity and the world would have been a much duller place.

One of my favorite television writers, Jane Espenson (who has written for such shows as Dinosaurs, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Star Trek: DS9, Battlestar Galactica, and the Gilmore Girls), has a really awesome blog for aspiring television writers. I like to read it purely for the writing insight and the many Whedonverse or Galactica references. Some of her recent advice follows along the lines of what I've been saying today. She recommends giving characters something to do on screen and notes that whatever activity you choose for your characters not only will serve a technical purpose, it will also give the characters depth. I whole-heartedly agree with this. Imagine you're a writer and you need to create one of these scenes--how much easier would the scene be to write if you already knew enough about your characters to know if they play Scrabble or would prefer Uno? How much more rich will the scene be if you don't have to stress about those kinds of details because you already know the game they're playing and know them well enough to say who'll play fair, who'll cheat, and who is just playing because they're bored?

So that's my advice to the writers of the television world (because clearly they all read this blog). If your show isn't performing as well as you'd like, take some time to get to know your characters off screen, then take a good look at what they've been doing on screen. I bet the two don't match well.

Anyhoo, that's pretty much my blog for today. In closing, I'd like to send happy thoughts the way of two Stargate Atlantis actors. Rachel Luttrell and David Hewlett both recently became parents (separately of course--two separate babies and all). Congrats! I guess if SGA gets a fifth season it will have to be a much more baby friendly set, huh?

Laters,
C

Recent acquisitions: none--believe it or not I didn't buy any DVDs this week. Wow, scary huh?

Merry Little Thoughts...

First things first. I owe all of you an apology. My entry last week was completely lacking. It did, however, teach me a very important lesson: Unless I’ve been struck with a sudden inspiration (which does happen from time to time) I cannot just write something on the fly. It won’t work, clearly. So going forward I won’t post unless I’ve given the entry at least a little bit of thought and planning before sitting down to write. I’m making a list of potential topics and I also think I may mix in reviews of the zillion shows I’ve got waiting for me on DVD as I watch those. So bear with me, gentle reader, I promise it will get better. Now, to get to it…

Science fiction in television…there are so many shows out now—new and returning—and obviously I’m not watching them all, but I thought I’d let you know which shows I am watching and give you my thoughts on the series in general and the season so far.

Chuck (NBC, Mondays)
This is a new one. The basic premise follows Chuck, who was kicked out of Stanford and now works at the Buy More (i.e., Best Buy), as he receives a life-changing email from his former college roommate (and the individual responsible for getting him kicked out of Stanford) Bryce. The aforementioned email contained the database that receives all intel gathered by both the CIA and NSA and coded into the form of images. So, suddenly our friend Chuck finds himself knowing all kinds of things he shouldn’t (and doesn’t really want to) know. This newfound knowledge is triggered by seeing one of the images that was cataloged in the database that now resides in his brain.

Okay, this one is a wacky fun-time show. Chuck clearly has enough problems working at the Buy More with his best friend (I’m not really familiar with the actor playing Morgan but I swear the guy is channeling Seth Green and that is okay by me) and living with his sister and her boyfriend “Captain Awesome.” Everyone has expectations of Chuck, and he doesn’t really know what he wants to do with his life at this point—so he really doesn’t want to hear what anyone else thinks he should be doing. None of this changes when he becomes the crux of the CIA/NSA information sharing initiative. What does change is that now he’s got agents of the CIA (hot chick who is posing as his girlfriend to the outside world) and NSA (Adam Baldwin posing as a new employee at the Buy More) babysitting him and utilizing his hidden knowledge to complete “missions” to keep the free world safe and all that jazz.

I know it’s getting some mixed ratings, but I am really enjoying this show so far. I cannot give Adam Baldwin enough praise for how he is playing his character. He is probably, hands down, my favorite thing about the show. He can be scary and funny all at the same time. If you’re not familiar with Firefly or a Stargate aficionado, you probably best know Adam Baldwin as the guy who shot the can off the spaceship in the movie Independence Day. And no, before you ask, he’s not one of “those” Baldwins. Trust me; he’s got more cool in his pinky toe than all of them put together. That being said, I would never want to run into his current character at my local Best Buy. I think I’d just go home and order my DVD online…oh wait, that’s what I do anyway. Well, there you go.

So if you like a little action, adventure, and comedy with your sci-fi, I definitely recommend this one. I am very curious to see how this series proceeds.

SciFiTVFanGirl rating: 4 SQUEE!s (out of five)

Heroes (NBC, Mondays)
(**Spoiler Alert if you haven’t seen this week’s episode yet.**)
This one is a returning favorite. Tim Kring’s comic book for the small screen is entering its sophomore year to a lot of flack from the critics, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t get it. Let’s admit up front that I am a) easily amused, b) for the most part perfectly capable of temporary suspension of disbelief for entertainment purposes, and c) not a professional television critic. I tend to be a little bit more forgiving of some things that might make critics want to play a round of headdesk. At the same time though, I feel this makes me your average television viewer (although I still can’t stand so-called reality television, so maybe not that average). That means I’m the audience these shows are directed at, and I say that so far, Heroes’ second season is coming along swimmingly.

I will concede that they are getting kind of crowded with the multiple story lines and express my disappointment we didn’t get to visit Hiro in ancient Japan with last night’s installment. But that being said, I am glad that they are introducing new characters and given the overall title of this season, which is “Generations” in case you weren’t aware, I don’t think anything we’ve seen so far was completely unnecessary. I haven’t been terribly impressed with Maya and Alejandro, the twins of doom, so far. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure what purpose Maya’s power serves to the overall arc and unless she learns to control it and soon it’s just going to be more of the same. However, now that they’ve teamed up with Sylar and he’s figured out they have powers, that whole story line has become more interesting. I can see one of two outcomes here. Either Sylar will kill them and steal their powers, giving him the ability to have the eyes of death as well as temper the power, which will just be scary, or Maya and Alejandro will somehow manage to escape from Sylar, powers intact, which suggests that they will have gained some further measure of control over them. If they can do that they will have earned my respect. You don’t mess with Sylar without being a badass or without some serious help. This actually brings to mind a third potential outcome—they could meet up with another hero that helps them escape Sylar. I’m cool with that too, because it means more threads being tied together.

I don’t pretend to be an expert in comic books, but I have read my share. If you’re looking at serial comic books, Heroes, to me, fits the pattern. Kring has a plan here, and if we’re patient we should see a really stellar payoff by the season’s end. The whole point is to give you just enough in each episode to move the story a little further along and bring you back next week. It’s working for me. I don’t have to like all of the characters or be completely into all of the separate story lines—I know that it’s only a matter of time before they switch to someone else and I also know that when it all comes together it’s going to be one hell of a bang.

As an added bonus for all the nerds out there, this show gives constant love to the world of Star Trek. I’m not even a fan and I’m amused. First there was good old George Takei as Hiro’s father. He’s gone now, alas, but this season they’ve brought in Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) as Micah’s grandmother. Given the theme of generations, I can’t wait to see what her power is. I find Micah so much more interesting now that his mom is out of the picture. I’m sorry; I just don’t think schizophrenia is a super power. Plus, we’ve got Zachary Quinto (Sylar) lined up to play Spock in the new Star Trek movie next year. This is just good stuff.

SciFiTVFanGirl rating: 5 SQUEE!s

Journeyman (NBC, Mondays)
Here’s another new one for you. I was a little indifferent about this show at first, but it’s starting to pull me in. Here’s what NBC’s website has to say about this show:

“’Journeyman’ is a romantic mystery-drama about Dan Vasser (Kevin McKidd, "Rome"), a San Francisco newspaper reporter and family man who inexplicably begins to travel through time and change people's lives.”

In the pre-season build up I often heard this compared to an old favorite of mine, Quantum Leap. I will admit there is no other reason why I even gave this show a chance. Really the only big similarity between the two shows is that Dan is sent back to “fix” something about history. He’s not lost in time the way Sam Beckett was, Dan only leaps back for small periods at a time before returning to his present life. I like this, because it gives us all kinds of issues he has to deal with when he does get back, because while he’s not always gone for the same amount of time that he spends in the past with each visit, he’s still gone for big chunks of time and he has absolutely no control over when he travels. Unfortunately, so far this season, the show runners haven’t really taken this set-up to its full potential. Mostly his wife has just been pissed that he’s missed something important, or his boss has been pissed that he missed a deadline, etc. Apparently, however, Dan has had a history of gambling problems. His disappearances initially cause his loved ones to think he might be gambling again, or perhaps experimenting with drugs. Eventually Dan manages to convince his boss he’s clean and to get his wife to believe him when he explains what he’s actually been doing. So now he has an ally in the present.

Of course, the whole “romantic” part of that show description then comes into play. Dan’s not the only traveler we meet on the show. It turns out his old fiancé, Livia, is also a traveler. In fact, she once ended up traveling while on a plane that crashed and has been presumed dead by Dan for the last nine years. Surprise! I haven’t seen last night’s episode yet, but last week left Katie (Dan’s wife) having just discovered that Livia is still alive and also traveling like her husband. I sense renewed trouble in paradise. I hope they get this triangle resolved quickly, or at least relegated to a minor, and much less irritating, plot point. It has the potential to be a nice running piece of the show but it equally has the potential to reach the Clark-Lana proportions of irritation being forced on us by Smallville’s show runners. Ergh.

Another nice touch is that when Dan travels, he goes back as himself, at his current age. Which means if he’s traveling in his home city of San Francisco (which is usually the case), he needs to be careful to a) not run into his younger self (which would be much easier if he would stop going to his old apartment, seriously), and b) not run into anyone he knows who might wonder why good ol’ Dan has suddenly aged twenty or thirty years. It keeps things interesting. As I mentioned already, he only goes back for short periods of time, a day, a few hours, etc. Whatever is sending him back will keep sending him back to either the same day or different periods in the life of the individual he has been sent to “help.” For example, in one episode he helped deliver a baby girl on an airplane, only to end up helping her confront her absentee father once she was in her twenties. There’s a lot of potential here. If the show runners can find the right balance between Dan’s personal life and his “missions” I think that this could be an outstanding show.

I must also give kudos for the soundtrack. So far, every time Dan has gone back, I have been highly impressed with how well the chosen background music has set the scene for the new time in which our hero finds himself.

SciFiTVFanGirl rating: 3 SQUEE!s

Bionic Woman (NBC, Wednesdays)
Now we get to yet another new series this season. Of course, it’s not completely new. Bionic Woman is, of course, an update of the classic series. It comes to us from the minds that took Battlestar Galactica from cheesy but entertaining fluff to a dark, intense, and gripping look at humanity as a whole. I had high hopes. Between the BSG creative might working on this show, and the on-screen talent they’ve “borrowed” for cameos and recurring roles I had my fingers crossed that I would once more be blown away. So far, not so much.

I wouldn’t go so far to say this show is bad, but I still can’t say I really like it at this point. I’m not even remotely invested in any of the characters they’ve given us so far. Considering how much I love some of the actors we’ve got, this is not a great sign.

The effects are okay, and the action scenes are satisfying on the popcorn scale. Overall though, I’m just not feeling the plot. I have yet to even consider watching this show live, and it’s usually one of the last ones I clear out of my DVR buffer at the end of the week. Still, NBC is putting a lot of effort into this one, so I am holding out hope. I wouldn’t recommend it at this point, but I am hanging in there, at least till the mid-season break.

SciFiTVFanGirl rating: 2.5 SQUEE!s

Smallville (CW, Thursdays)
Oy vey. Talk about shows making someone want to headdesk. Smallville definitely is not a new entry into sci-fi on television. It’s now airing its seventh season. I keep hoping each season will be the last and they keep bring it back. I would say I don’t even know why I watch this show, except that wouldn’t be entirely true. For one thing, on average, about half of the story for each episode is pretty good. For another, I’m committed now. It’s in its seventh frakkin’ season for Pete’s sake! I want to see him don the cape and the tights and fly!!

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last seven years, Smallville is a take on a possible origin story for Superman. It follows a young Clark Kent as he learns of his Kryptonian heritage and subsequent super powers. Throughout the series he has developed most of Superman’s trademark powers. As each ability surfaces he has to learn how to use it and still keep his true identity secret from all but the small and ever-rotating cabal of people who know about his real origin. In addition to watching the boy Clark Kent grow into the man who will become Superman, the show runners have added their own element to this iconic universe: meteor freaks.

Along with his spaceship, baby Kal-El’s arrival on earth brought a meteor shower. Those meteors were composed of green rocks that are pieces of Kal-El’s native world, Krypton. While we all know that Kryptonite is poison to Clark, it is also radioactive, and the inhabitants are constantly stumbling across it. Exposure to the “meteor rocks” tends to give us humans powers of our own. It also tends to make us crazy…and apparently to make us lust for Lana Lang. A large portion of the high school seasons dealt with Clark trying to protect the town (and Lana) from meteor-infected individuals while his best friend Chloe runs around town trying to expose them. Fun times.

Now that the show is getting on in years, I really can’t say it is aging terribly well. Clark can only stay in Smallville for so long. They’ve got Chloe working at the Daily Planet—alongside Jimmy Olsen (who is her boyfriend) and Lois Lane (who is her cousin). Lex Luthor has for the most part given up on his attempts to be anything other than the mega-villain he’s destined to become. Pappa Kent has passed on. Hell, this season we’ve even got Super Girl joining the party, and last season the JLA got its kick start. There’s only so much stalling the show runners can do before Clark has to put on the cape and finally become Superman. But man, are they trying to stretch it out.

My biggest quibble is that Clark is still chasing after Lana Lang. We all know they don’t end up together. They’ve completely broken each other’s hearts multiple times by this point. Lana married Lex Luthor for crying out loud—then staged her own death to frame him for her murder. This is not the woman Clark Kent needs to be trying to keep around. An interview with one of the show runners touched on this stating that Clark Kent will always love Lana, she’s his first love, so they can’t just abandon that story. To that I say, yes they can! I had a first love in high school. It happened, it was nice for a while, and it ended. We both moved on with our lives. This is the way the world works. This is even the way the comic book world works. Hell, even Angel and Buffy realized that while they would always love each other they weren’t meant to be and moved to different cities so they could get on with their respective lives. Keep her around as a friend, sure, that follows canon, but for all that is good in the universe, stop trying to pretend these two are PB&J. I can’t be the only person who is tired of that. It can completely ruin an otherwise excellent episode for me.

So, yeah, I’ll watch this one to the bitter end. But I really wish that the show runners would wise up. Go the BSG route and plan out your story arc, and then when you get to the end, end the series! People would far rather have a show that ended early that they can remember fondly than watch a beloved show grow stagnant and painfully drag on. I think even the band on the Titanic would understand…

SciFiTVFanGirl rating: 3 SQUEE!s

Moonlight (CBS, Fridays)
I so wasn’t going to watch this show. It’s been a hot topic of discussion all spring and summer. The show centers on a vampire who works as a private investigator in L.A. But he’s not just any vampire—he’s got a conscience, and he doesn’t feed off of people, but gets his blood from the neighborhood blood bank. Does this sound familiar to you? Does it sound a bloody awful lot like the plot synopsis for Angel? Exactly. I loved Angel (liked it better than Buffy, as a matter of fact), and I felt that my personal quota of vampire detectives had been filled. Plus, this show seems to have a curse hanging over it. Only one actor that appeared in the original pilot is still in the cast (the main one, of course). David Greenwalt (who actually worked as a show runner on Angel) came on to replace a show runner and had to leave because of health problems before the season started. All of the Whedon fans are in an uproar over the similarities to Angel. So the show has had a lot of negative press. But as I started to hear more of the actual details of the show, and found out that Shannyn Sossamon had been cast as the main vampire’s sire (I have no idea why, but I for some reason will try anything once if I find out she’s in it), I decided to at least give it a cursory chance. My hopes weren’t terribly high as there wasn’t a whole lot of good in what I’d heard about the show.

Wow. I was so wrong. I am totally digging on this show. The Angel parallels are there alright—reporter Beth Turner is decidedly like Detective Kate—but Moonlight has taken how I always thought things should have gone with Kate on Angel and applied that, instead of the girl meets guy, girl works with guy to solve crimes, girl finds out guy is a vampire and swears to kill him. The two actresses look creepily like one another though, and that is hard to shake.

The show was a tad slow in getting off the ground but I think they’ve done a good job of developing the characters and introducing their unique spin on the vampire mythos. Two nice touches in particular are that instead of a stake through the heart being lethal—the sweet spot for a stake on this show is the spine, and it’s not lethal—it will leave the vamp paralyzed until the stake is removed. I also dig “the Cleaner” who we met last week. She’s a vampire that specialized in cleaning up after other vampires. That means disappearing the bodies so that the humans don’t find out and go all Van Helsing on the vampire population. I do get the impression (I can’t recall 100 %) that the vampires of this world have reflections, and that irks me, but you can’t have everything, I guess. Other than that my only real complaint is that there’s a bit of a Thorn Birds vibe going on here. Mick (our vampire) rescued Beth from Coraline (his sire) when she was a little girl and has been keeping an eye out on her since, playing her protector and eventually becoming her friend. What worries me is that they seem to be setting up a romance between the two. Ick. Then again, I guess there’s a serious shortage of morally upstanding lady vampires floating around out there for Mick to choose from. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how it goes.

All in all, I am very pleased with what Moonlight has put out so far. There’s a lot of potential here. So to CBS I say, don’t screw it up!

SciFiTVFanGirl rating: 4 SQUEE!s

Stargate Atlantis (Sci Fi, Fridays)
Clearly I love this show. It is my favorite show on television right now. Atlantis is now in its fourth (and hopefully not final) season. This is the first year it has been on its own without parent show Stargate SG-1 leading into it. So far, I think that Atlantis has reaped all of the benefits of being the primary focus of the franchise. This show follows the exploits of an expedition of modern day humans comprised of scientists from multiple nations, many members of the U.S. Air Force and Marines, and a few aliens thrown in. The expedition occupies the lost city of Atlantis which is currently located in the far away Pegasus galaxy. They travel to other planets and Earth primarily using the stargates, but there are also some pretty ships. To date their biggest enemy is an alien race known as the Wraith, closely followed by the Replicators. We’re supposed to get a new big bad this season though. This show is just fun. While the science isn’t always 100% sound, the show runners do try to be at least remotely grounded in reality and the technobabble itself (sometimes in Czech, even) is always entertaining. But for me the best thing about this show is the dynamic between the characters.

As far as this season, I’ve already recapped in a previous post what I am looking forward to seeing in future episodes, so I won’t go into too much detail here. I’ll just say that so far I’m nothing but pleased with what they’ve given us and am eagerly awaiting more.

SciFiTVFanGirl rating: 5 SQUEE!s

Torchwood (BBC America, Saturdays)
Last, but certainly not least, we come to my new British favorite. This is another show dealing with aliens but it addresses them from the point of view of a group of humans on Earth. They know we’re not alone, but they also know we’re not really ready to know that. So the institution has taken it upon itself to make sure that aliens stay secret and alien technology doesn’t fall into any human hands but its own. It’s a fun premise and the show has good writing and great characters.

I think my personal favorite bit about the show is Captain Jack’s pet pterodactyl. That’s right, there’s a pterodactyl. It’s pretty awesome.

I also enjoy that (as far as I can tell) they avoid falling back on the Dr. Who aliens or even mention of the Doctor. This is a spin-off, yes, but it is very much its own show. I really look forward to watching Jack’s character grow now that he’s out of the shadow of the Doctor.

SciFiTVFanGirl rating: 5 SQUEE!s

~~~~~~~~

Alrighty folks, that’s it for this week. I hope you found it at least mildly interesting. Until next week, try to behave.

-C

Recent acquisitions: Transformers the movie

The Awesomeness that is Captain Jack...

Sorry Pirates of the Caribbean fans--as much as I love Jack Sparrow, I am actually referring to Captain Jack Harkness from Russell T. Davies' reimagined Dr. Who and original spin-off Torchwood.

The story goes like this:

In my avid consumption of Stargate Atlantis fan fiction (it's like crack, people) I came across multiple stories that were crossovers with Torchwood and featured my beloved captain. Now I am a fool for crossovers in my fan fiction, and even if I've never seen the show that's crossing over, I'll read the story if the premise sounds interesting enough. This is how I managed to get sucked into the awesomeness that is Farscape and Battlestar Galactica (well, only partly for BSG), and will probably lead to me getting completely sucked into Babylon 5 when I finally get around to checking out the series on DVD. So I read the SGA/Torchwood crossover stories and was completely intrigued by Captain Jack. So I thought to myself I would check out this show Torchwood and see if it had any potential.

Well, turns out, the show was in its first season over in Britain at the time--which meant not airing anywhere in the US. So okay, I could probably have found the episodes online somewhere, but I am too lazy to do that, and there are usually legal implications and all that. Plus I found some info on a news site that BBC America (one of the best cable channels ever) was planning to air the show the following season. Woohoo! So...just a little patience and I could find out what this was all about.

In the meantime, since Torchwood was a Dr. Who spin-off series, and since Jack Harkness was the character that they were carrying over to the new show, I figured it might be time to give Dr. Who a try.

I'll confess, I had never seen any of the previous incarnations of the show. All I really knew about Dr. Who was that at one point while Davies was working on getting the new version up and running Eddie Izzard was being considered for the role of the new Doctor (which, I have to agree with my husband, now that I have a point of reference, totally wouldn't have worked, as much as I love Izzard). I also knew that the fans of Dr. Who got really super persnickety when Stargate SG-1 got lauded (and put in the Guinness Book of World Records, I believe) for being the longest running sci-fi series. Who fans threw a fit about this, because the good Doctor has been around in one form or another since the sixties. Here's the thing--the show, much like the Doctor himself, comes and goes. The award for SG-1 was for longest consecutively running sci-fi tv show. It had at that point been on air for ten seasons straight. The Doctor's never done that. Okay, sorry, that's still a bit of a quibble for me. Where was I? Oh, right...okay...so I was a neophyte into the world of Dr. Who.

I decided to give it a whirl when the new(ish) third season aired on Sci Fi Channel back in July. I think it took maybe an episode and a half and I was hooked. So I went and ordered the first two seasons on DVD so I could get caught up. As of right now I have seen all of season 3 and all of season 1. Season 2 is next up on my DVD watching list.

As it happens, I finished up watching season one right around the weekend Torchwood finally aired on BBC America. So I did actually manage to see the introduction of Captain Jack on the parent series and get some back story on him before I saw the first episode of Torchwood. (Which by the way, is every bit as awesome as I thought it would be--despite the weirder than weird episode about a cyberwoman.)

So who is Captain Jack Harkness? Well, as portrayed wonderfully by John Barrowman, he is a former "time agent" from fiftieth century Earth. He is human but due to an encounter with a Tardis-enhanced Rose Tyler, he can no longer die. (For those as new to the Doctor as I once was, the Tardis is Dr. Who's time-traveling ship and Rose was his companion for the first two seasons.) After getting stuck on Earth in the far past, he must actually live through the next few centuries until he can find the Doctor again (after he has met the Doctor in his original timeline, of course) and get his time-traveling device repaired. One of the things he does with this time is to reinstate the institute of Torchwood, which is a group dedicated to tracking alien contact on Earth and protecting the human populace from aliens and alien technology. It's pretty nifty.

Anyhoo, I seem to have totally wandered off from what I had originally planned to post. My apologies. It's been one of those days where my brain just refuses to stay on track. Long story short, this is my favorite new character on television. I can't wait to see where his story goes. He popped back up at the end of Dr. Who season three (to set the scene for airing Torchwood, I'm sure, given how skewed the airing in the US is when compared to the original airing schedules). I very much enjoy that he can carry his own show but also integrate so smoothly with the characters on Dr. Who.

So, there you go. I'm pretty sure I have stopped making sense, so I'm not going to torment you any more. I will close with my answers to a survey that my mom posted on her blog last week. I've been meaning to put mine up and now I'm finally getting around to it.

1. What time is it?
9:35 p.m.
2. What's your family nickname?
I remember once I was Kitten and I think Cocoa at one point too
3. What are you most afraid of?
Hm…I don’t know how to answer this without getting terribly existential.
4. What is the most recent movie that you have seen in a theater?
3:10 to Yuma
5. Place of birth…
Champaign-Urbana, IL
6. Favorite food
tacos or Chinese food
7. What's your natural hair color?
brown
8. Ever been to Alaska
nope
9. Ever been skinny dipping
not so much
10. Love someone so much it made you cry
very much so
11. Been in a car accident
yes, when I drove that darn Saturn it was a magnet for accidents
12. Croutons or bacon bits
can’t I have both?
13. Favorite day of the week
Tuesday (new DVD day!)
14. Favorite restaurant
Chili’s or P.F. Chang’s—it’s a toss up
15. Favorite Flower
daffodil
16. Favorite sport to watch
hockey
17. Favorite drink
tea (hot)
18. Favorite ice cream
chocolate-chip cookie dough
19. Warner Brothers/Disney
I’m a Disney brat
20. Ever been on a ship?
I don’t think I’ve ever been in anything that qualifies as more than a boat
21. What color is your bedroom carpet?
beige
22. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
3—go on, mock me, I dare you (explains a lot, huh?)
23. Before this one, which blog did you look at last?
Jane Espenson’s (television screenwriter)
24. What do you do when you are bored
watch DVDS, read, crochet, torment the cat, call my friends…
25. Bedtime?
Usually between 9:30 and 10 on weeknights—Friday and Saturday all bets are usually off though
26. Who will post this on their blog?
I really couldn’t tell you
27. Who won’t?
Also, no idea
28. Who is the person that you are most curious to see their responses?
I’ll be curious just to see if anyone else picks this up
29. Favorite TV shows
Stargate Atlantis, Torchwood, Bones, it goes on and on really…
30. Last person you went to dinner with
my hubby, yay for date night!
31. Smokes or Drinks
I have been known to enjoy the occasional margarita
32. What is your favorite color
green
33. How many tattoos do you have
five
34. How many pets do you have
two cats and a husband
35. Which came first, the chicken or the egg
again with the existential—I still maintain that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has an excellent answer to this question if you choose to look for it
36. What do you want to do before you die?
I would really like to a) complete a story and b) get it published
37. Have you ever been to Hawaii
honeymoon in Waikiki, it’s cliché, I know, but, also, awesome
38. Have you been to countries outside the U.S.
I spent a random few hours in Canada once (though I plan to go back for a con at some point) and spent a week in Cancun, Mexico
39. How many people read your blog?
I’m going to say maybe 2.5?
40. Time this survey ended
9:51 p.m.

That's all I've got. Have a good one kiddos!

TTFN,
C

(Almost forgot!)

Recent acquisitions: Degrassi High the complete series

I'm doing a happy dance...

It's not Tuesday and I don't even care. I just had to share the happiest news in the world. TVShowsOnDVD.com, which is an awesome website and useful tool for any DVD fanatic such as myself, announced this week that a release date has finally been set for the second season of Seaquest DSV. Score! January 1, 2008 can't come quickly enough for me.

Ahh, Darwin the talking dolphin, we miss you so. Rest in peace Jonathan Brandis, and Mr. Scheider, I salute you!

Ciao,

C

Gater's Paradise

It’s back! Oh huzzah and hooray! Stargate Atlantis opened its fourth season on Friday with the episode “Adrift” which is serving as the center of a three-episode story arc that began with the season three finale. I loved this episode, and apparently I wasn’t the only one.

I lured my hubby into watching with me by pointing out that Jewel Staite (of Firefly fame) is on the show now and that he didn’t want to miss her being all cute and doctor-y. Now, every once in a while an episode comes along that I make him watch, and I usually recap the cool effects, plots, or jokes from any episode for him over the weekend. Besides which, I pretty much eat, sleep, and breathe Stargate Atlantis when it’s airing. So, while he doesn’t watch the show regularly he has a fairly decent idea of who’s who and a basic grasp of what’s going on, and for the most part he seems to enjoy the show when he watches. But this one really seemed to strike him. The next day he was asking me questions and going over some of the effects and plot points with me. So it was a good jumping on point for those who aren’t regular viewers.

Michael Hinman of the news site SyFy Portal also seemed a bit blown away in his review of the episode. I’ve always kind of gotten the impression this is a show he only watches because he was a fan of the parent series (Stargate SG-1) and because it’s kind of his job since he, you know, runs a website devoted to science fiction television series and all. I was pleasantly surprised at how much he really seems to be getting excited for the new season. SG-1 has ended its amazing run after ten seasons and now the producers seem to be stepping up to the gauntlet to give Atlantis the chance to become the show it’s had the potential to be ever since the beginning. This is especially evident in the scene where Sheppard and Zelenka have to go on a space walk and we get a beautiful exterior shot of Atlantis—which is something we’ve never gotten in such detail before. I know the powers that be are hoping that bringing in Amanda Tapping (SG-1’s Colonel Samantha Carter) to be the new commander of the Atlantis expedition will help transition some SG-1 fans to Atlantis if they didn’t watch the second show while both were still on the air. My fingers are crossed that they can do it without alienating the die-hard Atlantis fans, but from everything I’ve heard and seen so far, they’re trying to do it right. It should be interesting. Our two main characters on Atlantis—Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard and Doctor Rodney McKay, are basically two sides of the coin that is Samantha Carter. But at the same time, there are three very distinct and separate personalities there and seeing the three of them thrown together should prove to be very interesting indeed.

(John and Rodney -->)

So far the fans seem to be jazzed as well. Monday’s poll on Gateworld asks visitors to rate the episode, and as of the time I’m writing this, 54% of the voters (including myself) have given it a 10 out of 10. There’s been a lot of buzz going around that the renewal of the series for a fifth season is going to be entirely dependent on how well the ratings do in the first half of the season. There have been all kinds of reminders and pleas on my email lists and news sites to be sure to watch live! I try, I really do…but seriously…we’re talking a sci-fi show catering to a tech savvy crowd. Just because we’re nerds doesn’t mean we’re home on Friday night—and it usually DOES mean there’s a TiVo or a DVR likely to be in use at our place of residence. I won’t get into my diatribe on how I feel about the current state of television ratings and how effective I feel they really are, so all I can say is that I hope that they continue making the episodes good enough to get—and keep—our butts in front of the television Friday nights. We do want more—we just want to watch it on our terms.

I’m still working through season three on DVD, so I’ve saved this episode to watch again once I’m all refreshed on what happened leading up to “Adrift.” A beautiful thing about Atlantis is that it’s usually even better the second time around, mostly because sometimes I get distracted while viewing and the second time around I usually catch all of the little jokes I missed the first time around. It’s good stuff. Put John and Rodney onscreen together and something funny is going to happen. That’s all I’ve got to say.

Anyhoo, to sum up…here’s a list of the top five things I’m looking forward to from this season of Atlantis, in no particular order:

1. Jewel Staite! I’ve loved her since she was Becca in Flash Forward, she was awesome in Firefly, so it’s even more exiting to have her as a recurring role on my favorite show. I will miss Carson Beckett terribly, but dead as he may be, Paul McGillion’s already filmed appearances in multiple episodes at the end of season four, so clearly Carson’s not gone for good. That leaves me free to enjoy Dr. Keller without any guilt at all. Excellent.

2. Carryovers from Stargate SG-1. It’s a fact of life that group dynamics change and so do television casts. As much as I love the cast of Atlantis, I am really intrigued to see how they integrate SG-1’s characters in the mix. We’ve got Carter for good, and it looks like Dr. Lee may be coming on board as well. Teal’c has got an appearance, and corresponding showdown with Ronon scheduled for later in the season, and I’ve heard rumors that Walter will show up as well. I would guess that with increased communication with Earth now that the gate bridge is up and operational, Walter will be our main point of contact with the SGC. I heartily approve if this turns out to be the case. Walter rocks.

3. Chuck. Actor Chuck Campbell has portrayed Atlantis’ primary (and Canadian) gate technician since the first season. In the season three finale “First Strike” he finally got a name…and it’s Chuck. Very creative on the show runners’ parts, let me tell you. It’s actually kind of amusing as hell though, since instead of making up a name for him à la Lorne (the two lead names for him were Nick and Mark until it was officially made Evan by the powers that be), the fanfic community decided long ago just to roll with the actor’s name for the character. Anyhoo, naming issues aside, he’s been popping up more and more throughout season three and actually getting referred to by name in the season four opener. I take this as a good sign.

4. The Rodney/Katie Brown breakup. She’s not right for him. Seriously. “Duet” was an awesome episode, and it was good to see the humorous side of McKay’s disastrous attempt to date, but then in “Sunday” they went and tried to imply that these two crazy kids actually have a future. Phsaw. Nothing against Katie Brown, but if, and I stress the if, there is any woman in the Pegasus galaxy who can handle Rodney, it’s Lieutenant Laura Cadman. Bring back Cadman!!! Sigh, alas, no scheduled appearances that I’ve heard of…but we can always hope. David Hewlett pretty much confirmed in a recent interview that this season puts the kibosh on the Rodney/Katie romance, and I can’t wait to see it.

5. Flying frickin’ city! If you’re familiar with the show at all, you know that the city of Atlantis is actually a cleverly designed space ship—that’s how it used to be on Earth and then ended up on the bottom of the ocean in another galaxy. I know that the powers that be can’t give our heroes enough power to actually be able to fly their city around the galaxy whenever they want to—there would be no fun in that at all—but man, it sure is cool to get to see it fly. Clearly, the season-opening outing will drain the existing ZPM and they’ll have to find a new planet to settle the city down upon once more, but man…this just opens up all kinds of possibilities, and it’s so awesome to get to see the city FREAKING FLYING. I know it won’t last, but as long as it does, I plan to enjoy.

On a slightly related note, Stargate Worlds, the Stargate based MMORP in the works, has released the conceptual work for a world in the game that was once inhabited by the builders of Atlantis, the Ancients (or the Alterans, which is what they called themselves). It’s pretty sweet looking, but don’t take my word for it, judge for yourself.

Still no word on the release date for the game, but my friends and family should probably assume I’ll be disappearing from the grid for a while once it finally comes out.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. Until next week. Try to behave kiddies.

Ciao,
C

Recent acquisitions: How I Met Your Mother season two, Jericho season one