About three weekends ago, R expressed an interest in getting into Lost. Unlike what seems to be a majority of our geekish peers, etc., we haven’t been watching it. Honestly, we’ve had plenty of shows to watch already, with part of the blame for this being TiVo, which eliminates any personal excuses that TV-watching humans used to use on themselves to get over missing a show. “It doesn’t come on at a good time, I hate watching commercials, I don’t have time, I keep forgetting to put in a tape,” etc. (For the record, these shows include House, Monk, Psych, Doctor Who, among others.)

Well, after some discussion, I ran all over town late that Saturday night, looking to rent a copy of the Season 1 DVD, though in the end, I went to the 24-hour Walmart (hack, spit) and just bought it outright. Two week’s later, we’ve started Season 2. With help from iTunes, we’ll probably be caught up with regular airings by the time the show comes back from its winter hiatus.

(more…)

After nearly having a philosophical breakdown after this season’s premiere of Prison Break, in which a long-running character is politely asked to put down her phone by a government agent who momentarily shoots her through the heart and head, I was a little surprised to see a certain lack of similar shock. Without going into the backstory, it was a surprise end for a character who had been (at this point) singlehandedly orchestrating a whole subplot, into which much sacrifice had been invested. Add to that the soul-numbing morbidity of someone politely asking you to do something specifically so they can summarily kill you, and it was a scene for which I was simply not prepared, and have had a hard time overcoming (I swore off the show immediately after that episode, though I’m having mild second thoughts).

This seems to be a trend lately. UGO.com (and others) blames this trend on 24, saying: “No one’s safe on this show, either.” A brief TV Guide interview last spring with the producers of Break confirmed this, saying “We don’t want you to think anyone is safe”; though this was in reference to the John Abruzzi character, who in fact didn’t die at all (though we were led to think he did, just as we were for Dr. Tancredi at the end of the first season, who was blue as ice then, yet once again warm at the start of season 2).

But I think the trend predates the already venerable 24 — thinking back, killing off major characters was a popular trick of 1980s soap operas (for which we probably have Dallas to thank).

R is a fan of Stephen King, and as a result I’ve been exposed to a fair amount of filmwork based on his writings. If there’s one thing that ties King’s horror works together — aside from the peripheral elements of the mythos such as Derry, Maine, or King’s tendency to cameo in his movies — is the fact that no character, large or small, is safe from whatever terrible horrible force is going after people.

The difference is that King’s movies are honest about the fact that we are watching a horror movie, and the evil force after our heroes is usually fantastic and unreal (Cujo the only remotely feasible one that comes to mind). King’s movies aren’t sold as “This is a movie about an awkward young girl who finds her destiny at her senior prom” or “This is a movie about a failed writer who goes to a resort in the mountains to find himself.” You know what you’re getting into. But with Prison Break, you’re constantly told that “This is a show about a guy who breaks his brother out of prison”, not “This is a show about cold-blooded CIA agents, Secret Service agents, mobsters, and other psychos who indiscriminately kill people like cattle on a regular basis.”

It all came full circle (presciently) with the season premiere of The Dead Zone, in which an auxilliary character was killed on her wedding day by her weasely fiance’s puppet master. What was this show (albeit loosely) based on again? Oh yeah: a book by Stephen King.

In Japan, in 1992, someone had a great idea…

What would be the best way for easily bored Japanese to learn stodgy old English?

Let’s teach people English by having slender young girls do weird calisthenics to bad pronunciations of the lesson’s phrases!

See them move on YouTube.

So I’ve gotten my girlfriend hooked on Doctor Who, specifically the new series, aka strangely enough “The First Season”, which is currently rerunning on SciFi.

I don’t know why they named it Season 1 (and the currently-airing David Tennant season as Season 2), when in true chronology it would be something like the 27th.

This new series has a very awkward and uncomfortable connection to the old. The first episode has the Doctor facing an old enemy, although not a very common one. Here and there we see little snippets of the former series creep in — like a Cyberman head on display in a museum, copious (almost pre-Davison overkill) use of the sonic screwdriver, etc. The Doctor even faces his most popular foe, a Dalek, in an episode of the same name.

On the other hand, however, this new series has seemingly gone to great, almost Stephen King-like lengths to kill off as many of those vestiges as possible. For example, that Dalek the Doctor faces in Dalek is the last of its kind, and it dies (it basically commits suicide over a frankly rather disturbing eugenic principle).

While we’re on the topic of last of their kind, we learn in episode 2 (The End of the World) that Gallifrey — and apparently all the other Time Lords — was completely destroyed in a Time War that happened sometime after the Paul McGann movie and the start of this series. Lots of intergalactic races were involved in this war, including the Daleks, though apparently not Earthlings.

Of course, the Doctor insists he was the only survivor of the Time War, and yet he encounters a Dalek which fell through time into the early 21st century. Perhaps there were other survivors. For some reason, this oddly goofy yet troubled Doctor has convinced himself that he is all alone.

Anyway, the other thing I’m not fond of is Christopher Eccleston’s refusal to serve as the Doctor for more than one season. After having singlehandedly reintroduced the series to a new audience, and bringing a new level of sophisticated humor and aloof free-spiritedness to the character, he promptly buggers off. Apparently they say he is being well received. On the other hand, the Independent doesn’t think so.