Battlestar musings...

"If I'm a cylon, you're really screwed." --Commander William Adama (season one "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down")

**Warning, this post contains all kinds of spoilers and potential spoilers for Battlestar Galactica seasons one through four, so if you don't want to be spoiled, turn back now.**

So I have dived into season one of Battlestar this week. Man, oh man, did I forget just how good this show really is. I mean, it is definitely one of my favorite shows, and I can honestly say it is probably one of the best shows on television, period, but when it’s not on the air one can easily forget just how beautifully this story unfolds.

I just finished watching the episode “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down” in which Colonel Tigh’s estranged wife Ellen falls back into his life. Battlestar can be such a serious show, clearly the plot is not to be taken lightly, but this episode manages to provide some very well played comedy even while dealing with a dark situation. I especially enjoy the dinner scene in Commander Adama’s quarters. Saul is so happy to have his wife back that he completely disregards all of his hard work in giving up the booze to jump right into that bottle of ambrosia Ellen conjures up before dinner. (Sidebar: Does anyone else think ambrosia is the Colonial equivalent of absinthe? It could just be the fact that it’s bright green that strikes the association for me but I wonder…) Poor Lee is trying to politely fend off his superior officer’s horndog wife, Adama is trying to make the best of what, to his mind, is a bad situation whether or not Ellen turns out to be a cylon, and Laura is trying to gage a potential new enemy. These actors are all insanely talented. Between the President and the Adamas, each actor is able to clearly convey what their character is thinking about the situation with a minimum of dialog.

As humorous as the dinner scene is though, I find the scene after Saul and Ellen leave to be even better. I am firmly aboard S.S. Bill & Laura, and their discussion of Ellen with Lee has all the feel of a family moment to me. It’s always nice to see Laura let her guard down around the Commander, especially when she clearly has no problem separating their friendship from their business relationship. There is, of course, also the scene in Baltar’s lab where everyone finds out what everyone else has been sneaking around doing behind their backs. Crazy good times.

I truly believe this is a show that is going to stand the test of time. Every time I watch it I find some new little detail that makes me wonder how far in advance and to what level of detail Ron Moore planned this stuff out. I know there are critics who have panned the second and third seasons, but this show has always felt so cohesive to me. Even when you think you know exactly what’s going on and then find out you are completely wrong, it’s never because what’s actually going on makes no sense.

I was really disappointed to read a throwaway comment in a recent article about the series that stated Lee would not be returning to active duty any time soon once season four commences, but even all the way back in season one, you can see him heading into lawyer mode. I think that’s the weirdest thing about watching these episodes all over again—knowing what happens down the road gives new weight to small details earlier on. For example, when the tribunal is being conducted into the string of security incidents after a copy of Doral sets off an explosion on board Galactica, the Master of Arms goes straight for Chief Tyrol and Boomer, assuming that their affair is indication that they are colluding with the cylons (possibly even cylons themselves). The first time through the audience is with the rest of the characters in being shocked by the “witch hunt” aimed at these two. We even know at that point that Boomer is a cylon, but we know she doesn’t know. Our sympathies are with those two and hoping that they escape unjust persecution. Watching it post-season three, however, knowing that Tyrol is a cylon too…that just gives it a whole new level. Suddenly, as wrong as we know the Master of Arms’ assumptions behind the whys of Chief and Boomer’s actions are, we also know that she is actually right. They are both cylons, and though at this point neither of them knows that, their actions do allow for destruction of necessary fleet resources. It makes you wonder how much of that is programming and how much is just accidental. Also, I don’t know about anyone else, but after finding out about Tyrol, I am reassessing that whole relationship between those two. Given the cylon preoccupation with understanding and recreating the human emotion of love, as well as the human reproduction process, you’ve got to wonder what drew those two to each other in the first place.

So yeah. Battlestar rocks. Jamie Bamber is a hottie, even when he’s wearing more than a towel (ooh…see…there’s still that episode to look forward to). No shortage of Apollo these days.

A few other thoughts…

Does it annoy anyone else trying to figure out where the CIC keeps getting all of their attack plan models from? I mean seriously, did one of the ships in the fleet just happen to have a model manufacturing center on board? They couldn’t have had models of the cylon raiders or the resurrection ship before the attacks. Those things were made after they left the colonies. I know it’s a stupid thing to be annoyed by, but I’d almost believe it more if they were using chess pieces (or the equivalent) when planning their attacks and such. I’m just saying.

Also, I’ve developed, just tonight, a totally screwball and probably completely wrong theory about the identity of the final cylon. I think it’s Zak Adama. That’s right. I am basing this on the second encounter with a Leoben model, the one that tells Roslyn “Adama is a cylon.” Note that he never said which Adama. And Leoben’s big thing is that he likes to frak with people by telling the truth, but mixing it with lies, so you don’t know what part of his ramblings are truth and what part are false. So, he could have totally been telling the truth, but leaving out the crucial piece of information and managing to sow doubt and mistrust in Commander Adama in the mind of the President. Also, it totally would explain the cylons’ obsession with Starbuck. Her whole relationship with Zak could have been a cylon attempt to get as much information about her as possible, or it could have been the impetus behind their decision that she was the one with a “destiny.” Like I said, probably wrong, but just a thought.

And finally, it is kind of freaky how much of the soundtrack for this show sounds like the soundtrack for Titanic. The feel of the two shows could not be more different, but I swear, sometimes if I have Battlestar on and I can just hear the music in the background, I think to myself, why the hell do I have Titanic on? If you want an example of this, check out the end of "The Hand of God" where they're celebrating their successful attack on the cylons. I wonder what made Bear McCreary say to himself, you know, I think that all of the pipes and stuff in Titanic, that’s what I want the music for Battlestar to sound like…

And on that note, I’m done. I hope you all have a good week. Take care of yourselves.

So say we all,

C

Is it possible to have a case of the Mondays on a Tuesday?

Man, today has just been vaguely annoying all around. It started out stupid and just didn't get any better. In light of that, I really don't have a whole lot to say today. I am just looking forward to curling up with a couple of episodes of season one of Torchwood (bless the Amazon delivery man for having my package waiting for me when I got home) before the series (eep) finale of Life on Mars tonight.

Thankfully I finished up season one of Jericho on DVD last night, so I can watch Torchwood without guilt. It's only 13 episodes so I don't see any problem finishing up the season this week before the season two premiere on BBC America Saturday night. It's nice when the timing of season premieres and DVD releases line up like that.

Jericho was just as intense and incredibly compelling as I remember it being the first time around (even more so since I got to see all of the episodes I had missed). I am pretty stoked about seeing the second season and how it plays out. Thankfully CBS only ordered a short season and then produced it all and held it, so despite the strike we'll get all of the ordered episodes for this one. My fingers are crossed that the audience turns out in enough numbers that after the strike we'll have a shot at season three...

Anyhoo, now that I've wrapped up Jericho, and after I watch Torchwood, here's the pile of DVDs I have left to watch:

How I Met Your Mother (season two)
My Name is Earl (season two)
The Office (seasons one through three)
Scrubs (season six)
Twin Peaks (the whole series, box set)
Heroes (season one)

So, I find myself asking what shall I watch next? The answer? Battlestar Galactica. Yeah. I know. It's not even on the freakin' list. However, for the first time in a long time we have the complete first two seasons back at home (this is a series I lend to anyone who is even remotely interested on a regular basis, so we always have a set out it seems), and I find myself wanting to rewatch the first two seasons in preparation for season three's long awaited DVD release in March, in preparation for season four (huzzah!) in April. There's so much going on in this show, that another viewing definitely can't hurt you, and that way I won't have forgotten some random character who ends up being the final cylon or something.

So there you go. That's what's going on in my world, or at least the DVD part of it.

The only thing else I've got is regret to express about the untimely death of Heath Ledger. Talk about sudden and really just sad. I mean, this guy has done so much, and he had so much ahead of him. May he rest in peace.

Well, with that, I bid you adieu. I hope you all had a better Tuesday than I did and I wish you nothing but joy in the rest of your week.

Until next time,
C

To Hell with this...I'm gonna live!

That's right Kaylee, you're gonna live indeed...

Man. I was totally going to blog about how bizarre daytime television is, since I had to stay home today and my allowed activities were limited, which resulted in me sitting around in front of the television all day. Then I was bumming around on Whedonesque, which is the repository for links to all things Joss, and I found a link to this super awesome video on YouTube.



I love YouTube. I also love Browncoats. So this has got me totally thinking I want to rewatch Firefly now. It's not like it will take that long, it's just thirteen (superb and outstanding) episodes and one (supercool) movie. What I should be doing is finishing off the back half of Jericho before the new season premieres in February, but I got through the first half of the season and then just got derailed. This is, of course, no reflection on the series itself. I just had a lot of stuff go down in real life that kind of put me out of the mind frame I need to be in to watch a show as intense in the particular way that Jericho is intense, if that makes sense. I think I might entice myself to finish watching Jericho by promising myself that once I get that done, I can rewatch Firefly as a nice little change of pace.

But thinking about Firefly reminded me that the first issue of the new Firefly comic is supposed to be coming out soon, and that got me all excited all over again. I don't think I can ever give Joss Whedon enough kudos for realizing that, as long as he still has more stories to tell us in this 'verse, we'll take them in any medium we can get them. Comics definitely work. As he's said with Buffy and Angel--sometimes continuing the stories in comic form allows him to give us stories that technology or budgetary concerns would never have let him tell us on television. Also, there's a tiny little part of me that hopes those executives at Fox who totally screwed the pooch with this show have come to realize it and are kicking themselves heartily.

Let's hope they can make up for the bad juju garnered by Firefly with keeping the Sarah Connor Chronicles awesome and around. In case you're wondering, I did enjoy episode two just as much as the first episode. I really liked how they're tying in elements from the past (presented to us from both the movies and from the just the first episode) to give us hints as to the new direction these characters are moving. I also totally dug the appearance by Tony Amendola as Enrique (hey, I know he's been in so much more than just Stargate, but he will always be Bra'tac to me) as well as the nice little send up to L. Frank Baum. I have high hopes for this series. Maybe that's a bad idea, given that it's a genre show on Fox, but who knows, maybe it will go the Bones route and we'll luck out that it will stick around for a while, even if it doesn't end up getting all of the attention we adoring fans know it deserves.

One thing I have noticed about this series though, is that despite claims of the creators that the series is going to totally disregard the third Terminator movie, it doesn't really seem to be doing so. One of the big elements in that regard is Cameron's revelation to Sarah last night that in the original time line, she dies of cancer in 2005, resulting in Sarah going to get herself checked out by an oncologist. While it is clear that the events of the series will not lead up to the events of the third film, to me it really feels more like an alternate time line, not a complete reinvention. It could have happened like Rise of the Machines said it did, but someone who knew about that time line was sent back and changed it, and now we get a whole new course of events to see unfolding. Maybe that's just my take, but there it is.

Anyhoo, that's really all I have for today. There's nothing terribly exciting going on over here. I will leave you with one last YouTube video, while I'm showing you cool stuff. This is a Battlestar Galactica mashup of the original series and the Ron Moore reinvention. It's been around for a while, and every once in a while I feel the need to look it up and watch again. I enjoy the catchy little song that manages to pay homage to and mock both series at the same time. Good stuff.



Until next time, gentle readers, stay safe.

C

Come with me if you want to live...

Oh. Hell. Yeah.

(Warning, the following post contains spoilers for the first hour of the new television series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.)

So, the long awaited Sarah Connor Chronicles premiered tonight on Fox. Man, I have to say, I found it a very satisfying hour of television. It almost was enough to make up for the fact that Fox is for the third year in a row shunting aside the remaining episodes of Bones for that dreaded spawn of evil, American Idol. But I digress.

I've been excited about the Sarah Connor Chronicles for almost a year now, ever since rumors started circulating as new shows for the 2007-2008 television season started getting shopped around last year. I was at first super jived that it got picked up by a network, then super bummed when Fox decided to put it on the back burner until mid-season. Of course, that turned out to be a fairly smart move, given the writers' strike, since now Fox has several unaired episodes in the can to compete against other networks' reruns or reality series.

Even though I've been following stories and news about the show as it developed over last summer, I still have to say I had many pleasant moments of surprise as I watched the first half of the premiere. The second half will, of course, be airing tomorrow night at the show's actual normally scheduled time. For the first time since its "finale" I find myself relieved that there aren't going to be any new episodes of Heroes this season, since that means I won't have to try to pick between which of the two shows to watch. I can focus my Monday nights on the plight of the Connors instead. Huzzah! Once more I have something to keep as a happy thought to get me through the suckiness that is Monday at work.

The series picks up in 1999, two years after the events of the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Although I was prepared for events to pick up after T2, I was a little disconcerted to see they were in 1999, as I had seen several references to the show taking place in "modern times," which I took to mean more or less present day. But as it didn't really throw a big loop in the continuity (the vagueness of the timeline between the first two movies was always something I found more than a little annoying, but details like that tend to matter to me for some reason) I decided just to roll with it. This is definitely a decision that paid off.

So, the show picks up two years after Sarah escapes from the loony bin and, with the help of her son, the friendly Ah-nold robot, and Myles Dyson, destroys the company and technology responsible for creating Skynet, which is how the robots in the future manage to take over. Sarah and John are living under an alias and seem to be finding some sort of normalcy in their lives. Sarah's boyfriend even decides he's ready to take the next step and proposes to her. This of course prompts Sarah to get the heck out of dodge. She realizes they've become comfortable and that means their guard is down. So she up and moves them to some hick town in New Mexico. Unfortunately, she doesn't take into account the fact that her boyfriend, worried about her sudden departure, thinks something is seriously wrong and goes to the police. This alerts the FBI and the evil future robots to her current alias and allows them both to find her in New Mexico PDQ. Unfortunately for Sarah and John, the terminator gets there first. He sneaks into the school as a substitute teacher on John's second day and after taking roll, and getting to John's name, he whips out a gun he had conveniently hidden in his robot leg (which illicits both the reactions of "eww..." and "cool!") and starts shooting up the classroom in an attempt to kill John. John, of course, being trained by his mother in "Survival from Assassin Robots 101" jumps out the window and high tails it to the parking lot, trying to make his escape. The only casualty of the shooting appears to be a girl in the class named Cameron, who had befriended John on his first day.

Luckily for John, Cameron is no ordinary girl. She's a terminator too, a friendly sent back from 2027 to protect the future leader of the human resistance. She slam-dunks the big bad with her pick up truck and saves John, uttering the now famous line that was said in all three movies, "Come with me if you want to live." Best. Pickup line. Ever. Also, the delivery from Summer Glau was just excellent. She's so teensy, it amuses me when she gets to kick butt. Joss Whedon is gleaming with pride in the picket lines even now, I am sure.

So, we now have established our three main heroes, and John and Cameron meet up with Sarah and they hit the road, planning to head for the border and hide out in Mexico for a while. Unfortunately the stress of being a future hero to humanity is starting to get to John and Sarah realizes she can't keep them running forever, not without risking losing her son for good. She grills Cameron about why the machines are still around and we find out that Skynet still gets built even though Myles Dyson and his work were all destroyed. She doesn't know who builds Skynet in this new future, but she does know when and where.

In a really flippin' sweet scene, they head back to L.A. to a bank where Cameron claims to have a safety deposit box (opened the year the bank was built) that is the key to helping them track down and stop the creator of Skynet. As we all know from the movies, when someone is sent through time in this universe, they can't take anything with them (not even clothing). They can however, send someone back to the past to build things that other travelers might need. This is just what the resistance did. They sent back one of their best engineers to 1963 to help build the bank vault. In the process he left all kinds of goodies behind for his comrades, including what turns out to be a time machine, so they "would always have a way home." They fight off the evil terminator (who, like a Timex, takes his lickin' but keeps on tickin' and has followed them to the bank) and poof! In a ball of energy and lightning our three heroes emerge naked and slightly confused (except of course, for Cameron) on an L.A. freeway in the year 2007. Huh. Well, there's that time-setting issue from earlier explained and resolved.

We learn this is the when that Skynet is once more built, so now Sarah and John can get down to the business of trying, again, to stave off the destruction of mankind at the hands of the machines. End of episode, tune in tomorrow night.

Overall, I was just really impressed. I have to admit, I kind of liked the third movie, and I knew going into this that the series was kind of created to discount everything that happened in the last film installment. I was worried it might be kind of lame, or a stretch to fill a series with a good enough story to be worth watching and to make people forget that someone has already told us what happens next. But the pilot alone opens up a whole new mission and it is very believable that this is where Sarah and John could have ended up going rather than how events unfolded in movie three. The kind of nice thing about the whole franchise is that it is based on time traveling. As is mentioned in this episode, they've already changed the future once. Now is their chance to change it again. The fact that all of their attempts to stop Skynet from being built seem to be doomed to ultimate failure is also a really interesting commentary on humanity as a whole. I mean, seriously, is there a more true myth of human nature than Pandora's Box? We are a curious race, and as far as technology goes, we do seem to be a bit obsessed with making things better and faster and capable of doing more for us. Like all of the best science fiction, the Terminator franchise has always been an excellent cautionary tale, and the Sarah Connor Chronicles are no exception.

I am also pleased as punch with the casting we've gotten so far. We all know I adore Summer Glau (if you're wondering who she is, she played River in Firefly/Serenity and Tess in The 4400). This show gives her another chance to be a surprise powerhouse, but it's not just a reprisal of River Tam--as a terminator, she's got a whole different way of handling conflict, and of dealing with her human charges. Thomas Dekker (he was Claire's friend Zach in the first season of Heroes) is also doing well as John Connor. I am sure the powers that be didn't intend it this way, but he's a good transition from Edward Furlong (who played the character in T2) to Nick Stahl (who played him in T3). He's got the attitude down as well. I mean, he's at an age where he's expected to be an angsty rebellious teenager, but he's also got the added burden of knowing the world thinks his mother is insane when she's really anything but, and the knowledge that he's destined to save the human race. That's a heavy load and not a lot of young actors could pull that off. He seems to be giving it a pretty decent go though. Last but not least we have Lena Headey as Sarah Connor. She's got a pretty damn big pair of shoes to fill, because I don't think there's a Terminator fan in the world who isn't going to be comparing her to Linda Hamilton every step of the way. If she hadn't done such an outstanding job in T2 maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal, but she set the bar so freaking high most actresses couldn't even see it from the roof. I think Miss Headey's off to a pretty decent start though. I look forward to seeing how she, and the rest of the cast, does in future episodes.

I can only hope this show does well. It's got a lot of good things going for it, so maybe the stars will all line up nicely on this one. I definitely know what I'll be doing for the next few Monday nights, that's for sure.

Anyhoo, until the next post, everyone stay safe. We've still got a few years until the robots take over and try to kill us all.

And don't worry.

I'll be back.

C

Don't Panic!

So, a couple of years back my hubby found downloadable versions of the original BBC radio show broadcasts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He surprised me with the series for my birthday that year (and won some major points with his gift!) and I've recently been re-listening to the series in my car as I drive about to work and such.

Over here in America, it seems like the majority of people are mostly familiar with the Guide in its novel form. Although since the recent movie adaptation a few years ago, there are quite a few people who have now seen the movie but never read the book(s).

Listening to the radio plays again got me thinking about this whole franchise, and about adaptation in general. Usually, when a book I've read gets adapted into a feature film, I tend to greet the news with either great excitement or extreme trepidation. My reaction generally depends on how many times I've read and how much I love the book, the people/studio behind bringing the story from book to screen, who is going to be in the movie, and how well I think the story can be adapted into a movie in the first place.

Movies based on Stephen King's work tend to make me nervous, because I feel like his writing is so complex and internal (people thinking rather than doing). On the other hand, television mini-series, or movies based on his shorter stories, leave me a little more hopeful. Those tend to have a much greater chance towards staying true to King's original creations.

Sometimes a deviation from the story can be a good thing though. Neil Gaiman's story Stardust was (in my humble opinion) perfectly written, but the ending of the movie was changed completely. Yet it totally worked. As Gaiman himself has said, you couldn't have had the ending in the book in a movie, it just wouldn't have worked. Things like this are reasons I tend to be reassured even further when I hear the author of the original work is closely involved in the script/filming process of adaptations.

But bringing this back around to the Guide, what got me thinking today was how truly different the story evolved on the radio than it did in the books once the first couple of "chapters" had wrapped up. I have a very good friend who to this day won't see the movie because she knows she will not like it, it is just so different from the books she knows and loves. I totally respect her choice in that matter, although, for me, there was no way I wasn't going to see it. I can't even remember now what movie my husband and I saw the first teaser for the Guide at, but we were standing up cheering when we realized what it was for. I mean, heck, we even went to the premiere in our bathrobes and jammies in honor of Arthur Dent and took our towels along with us, because you should always know where your towel is.

I love the movie version of this story, but the thing is, I totally could have hated it. This had the potential to be an even bigger disappointment for me than Eragon (which you don't want to get me started on). I think part of the reason I was able to go with the flow so well in regards to some of the plot changes and the like was that I had already been exposed to the radio version, and by that point I had kind of caught on to the spirit of the Guide.

What I mean by that is that Douglas Adams, may he rest in peace, was a bloody genius. When it came time to adapt the story from the original radio play into a novel, he completely grasped the fact that he was moving his franchise into a different medium and as such, it needed to be actually different. He didn't just flesh out his original scripts, he gave us a whole new story. The core adventure was mostly the same, but there were all kinds of new details, and some things that could only have worked in an audio version were eliminated altogether. It was also his chance, I'm sure, to drop anything he didn't like the first time around or expand upon something he felt hadn't got quite enough attention yet. The same principle applied to the wonderfully horrible and cheesy 80's television series BBC ran (and of course, I have that too). Now we were actually seeing that guy with two heads and three arms, now we could actually see if the Vogons measured up to previous descriptions, or if in the visual version they were something else entirely (they weren't--other than their creation by Adams, the Vogons defy much in the way of imagination). So by the time the movie came around, I was expecting differences, and even in some ways eager to see what they were and to learn how some old staples flourished in their new environment.

It almost makes me wish that I could approach all book-to-film (or other medium transpiring) adaptations this way, but I know I won't. Sigh. I don't know what it is about the Guide, but it just has that knack for getting me to look at the world in a different way.

Of course, if they hadn't kept the sperm whale and the bowl of petunias in every version so far...well that probably would have been the end of my open-mindedness. You can't not have the sperm whale and the bowl of petunias, after all.

Anyhoo...that's all I've got. If you haven't read the book(s) or seen the movie, well, what are you waiting for? It's good stuff. Guaranteed to make you laugh.

Until next time, gentle readers, I hope you know where your towels are,
C

Holy imploding replicators!

Good gravy! Well those of us who have been eagerly awaiting the return of new episodes of Stargate Atlantis weren't disappointed with last night's episode, Be All My Sins Remembered.

Let's just hit some of the highlights, shall we....

• John and Ronon find out Teyla is pregnant!
• We get to see our heroes fighting in a fleet composed of Earth battlesships, Ancient warships, and Wraith hive ships!
• Rodney makes a girl! (Okay, she's a replicator/weapon, but still...)
• Sam telling off Ellis for disrespecting Rodney!
• The destruction of replicator homeworld and all *ahem* known replicators in Pegasus! (In what I think might actually be a new and previously unused method...)
• And...in a super "holy s***!" inducing ending, we are introduced to Evil Replicator Elizabeth!

Wow. It was a lot to take in. Plus, there was some general Zelenka awesomeness in there as well. The Wraith, being Wraith, bugger off after the replicators are destroyed, back to being enemies as usual. We've got the Travelers parting ways with the Lanteans as semi-allies. I wonder how that's going to hold up seeing as how they have been often touted as the "new big bad" of the season. Plus, all of the critics who have been fed up with the replicator story line in general, mostly cuz, you know, SG-1 already did that, should be pleasantly mollified with how the show decided to wrap them up, while introducing a new replicator threat into the mix. I really wonder where that is going to go. Sure, I know there will be people saying, "yeah, that's just a rehash of the Replicator Sam and Fifth story line from SG-1" but I don't think so. For one thing, this is Elizabeth Weir they're making a villain. I am immensely curious to see how that plays out. I was pretty much okay with how they wrapped up Weir's story line a few episodes back, giving the Lanteans and the audience closure on that character, but making her pure evil...this could get interesting. We'll have to see I guess.

I have to say, out of all of the really cool things that happened , one of my favorite scenes was early on. Colonels Caldwell and Ellis are beamed down to into the control tower to meet up with Carter, Sheppard, and McKay for the initial briefing on the replicator tracking technology. The quick round of greetings, "Colonel, Colonel, Colonels, Colonel, Colonels, Colonel..." as they all went around saying hello was priceless. It was also a nice little nod to an early SG-1 moment with a similar vibe of "General, Colonel, General, Doctor, General..." and so on. Good stuff.

Also noteworthy was the preview of the forthcoming MMORP Stargate Worlds aired during the episode. The fact that they are finally airing ads on television has me hoping that they are soon to at least announcing a release date. I am looking forward to this game just as much or more than Lego Indiana Jones. That says something.

In other news (but slightly related), Women's Murder Club was another series back with a new episode last night. FBI Guy featured Stargate Atlantis' Joe Flanigan (Sheppard) as the titular character, in town to protect Inspector Boxer, who the FBI now believes is a serial killer's next intended victim. It was a pretty decent episode. I am really digging this show. There was also a nice little moment where Agent Ash (Flanigan) is introduced to Inspector Boxer's DA friend, played by actress Laura Harris, who appeared in the season three episode of Stargate Atlantis, The Game. I love these random little connections.

Next Friday should prove an interesting bout of juggling for my DVR, with new Atlantis, new WMC (I think) and the mid-season premieres of Monk and Psych. Continuing with my theme of "Hollywood's a Small World," the previews of the new episode of Psych feature a quick glimpse of none other than Kate Hewlett, sister of David Hewlett (McKay on Atlantis), who has also appeared as McKay's sister Jeannie in multiple Atlantis episodes. I am very much looking forward to that one.

Well, that is all from me for now. Hope things are well in your world.

Ciao,
C

Juno, it's a go.

Greetings gentle readers, and happy new year!

I don't have too much to say, but I wanted to let you all know I just got back from seeing the movie Juno, and I definitely recommend it. This was just an all out good movie. The casting was superb, the story was engaging and real. A lot of things you thought you knew where they were going ended up going in completely different ways, but without pissing anyone off. That's always a nifty trick.

Plus, there was a random Degrassi (Next Generation) cameo, two actually if you count the one from the previews.

Anyhoo, if you're looking for a movie to see this weekend and you're not too keen on any of the big name shows, check out this little flick.

That is all.

Good night,
C

Recent acquisition: Seaquest DSV season 2