Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Category: TV

  • Reamde and Bill Cosby

    No I’m not entirely sure how those two things go together: one is the latest novel from Neal Stephenson which had me riveted all the way through the 1000-odd pages, the other is the comedian best known for his influential TV series from the 1980s. I suppose it’s a pop cultural thing, but I’ve been trying to figure out what theme might be running through both topics in order to produce something profound out of a blog post.

    Instead, well, here we are. The “theme” if any is that both were things I experienced in July, and it now being the end of July I figured I’d get it written down.

    Reamde is a terrific novel that I nearly couldn’t put down; it weaves high-end World of Warcraft-style MMORPG cyberpunk er, nowpunk(?) with straight thriller style shoot-em-up almost seamlessly and so adeptly that you have to keep turning the page. I loved it and it occupied the better part of my mind while I was reading it, and except for one nagging minor plotline that never got addressed by the end, it’s nearly a perfect read.

    Seeing Bill Cosby live in Central Oregon was, despite its significance for Central Oregon, an event I was less excited about. Mostly because it took place on a Sunday afternoon (during a kid’s birthday weekend) out at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds—not exactly the ideal venue for which to see a comedian (seriously, the Tower Theatre would have been much better) but my wife won free tickets so what are you gonna do? The performance itself was fine, not entirely the caliber of his earlier years, and despite several issues with the handling of the venue and event itself (not Bill Cosby’s fault), it was an entertaining hour and a half.

    So what does one have to do with another? Well nothing really, but there’s an interesting contrast between stories of a childhood framed by an era very few of us can understand (Cosby was born in 1937), and the modern future-is-now headspace of works like Reamde from authors like Neal Stephenson. And it seems like there should be something profound in that.

  • Cartoon theme music…

    Does anyone remember the music in the ’80s Transformers and GI Joe cartoons that I can only best describe at “battle music”? It was only really played when the good guys were staging some sort of comeback, and the best example I can think of (supreme nerd alert here) is in the GI Joe “Serpentor” mini-series which introduced Sargent Slaughter, where Sgt. Slaughter led the charge against the BAT battalion in the first few minutes and then later in the third episode or something, fighting Dr. Mindbender at Sun Tzu’s tomb.

    (Yeah I told you it was supreme nerd alert!)

    It was reused a number of times in both series, and while I can find the clips on YouTube, I can not find any other references yet on the web—much less an MP3 of said music. Other than most of that music for those cartoons was composed by Robert Walsh, I think.

    Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? Or am I just crazy?

  • The TV post (Spring ’11)

    I usually end up making these type of rants posts this time of year because it’s at the point where the frustration has built and I need to trip the release valve. Well, frustration and just general commentary.

    For instance, “V“: I wrote about this previously, and, well, I’ve bailed. I don’t know what happened to the production or writing of the second season, but when a major plotline is the Visitors’ obsession with finding and destroying the human soul—well, I should hope the ludicrous nature of this is evident in itself.

    Plus, the “science fiction” aspect of the show finally diverged entirely into “fantasy.” Last week’s episode highlighted the human resistance creating a “DNA bomb” that would, I guess, scramble a person’s DNA (which the Visitors are purportedly collecting). Um, what? I didn’t know we had such crazy technology. And never mind the Visitor method of collecting DNA samples from humans: giant spiked Iron Maiden-looking devices tortuously exsanguinating the victim for a single small vial’s worth of DNA. Um, hello? We have this advanced technology known as a “cotton swab” which does the same thing.

    So I’m done with “V”.

    That’s the big one. I’m still watching and enjoying (to various degrees) “Hawaii Five-0”, “The Event”, “Law & Order (Various Flavors)”, “American Idol”, and the other usual suspects. I think I doze through the various “CSI”s.

    “Hawaii Five-0” I enjoy because there’s not a lot of thinking involved, and it looks good. My brother has the amusing observation that they are some sort of crazy Gestapo force but I suppose to a certain extent that’s what makes it entertaining.

    “The Event” is definitely filling in certain roles left vacant by both “Lost” and “24”, a fairly decent show (not dragging out the mysteries too much like “Lost” did) though lately the editing or something has been really choppy; when they jump from plotline to plotline, it’s never quite obvious what timeframe they’re dealing with, as you go from one storyline that’s taking place in the middle of the day to one in the middle of the night.

    I finally concluded that each thread must be self-contained and not happening concurrently—otherwise someone producing that show has to get their editing and sense of time straightened out.

    Not too much to say about “American Idol” yet other than, I’m glad the assholes were booted last week, and damn, that Hailey girl acts like she’s pole dancing on stage. My nickname for her is Stripper Pole.

    And the first rule of this season’s Idol drinking game: take a shot every time Steven Tyler uses the word “beautiful.”

  • V

    So the new season of “V” premiered tonight; you might recall it’s the TV remake (reimagining?) of the the original nearly-30-year-old alien invasion TV series. I watched it from the beginning last season, with the presumption that I’d bail if it looked like it was going to go off the rails.

    It must have been good enough, because here we are at the start of the second season and I’m still watching it; I’m still operating under the same ready-to-bail presumption though. Overall the show is better than I’d thought it would be, though it could very easily swerve into extremely cheesy territory. It’s this tenuousness, I think, along with occasional plot/character moments that seem a little too “What the–?” or convenient that have me wavering still.

    Plus, for an advanced alien race with seemingly godlike omniscient technology—and rampant lizard paranoia—it sure seems awfully easy to manage and get away with all sorts of conspiracy literally right under their leader’s nose.

  • Lost is dead to me.

    Tonight’s lauded season finale of “Lost“? Yeah, there was 10, maybe 15 minutes out of the entire two hours that was any good. And those 10 or 15 minutes had to do with one thing and one thing only: revenge upon the Others.

    You want a rant? I got your rant right here…

    Spoilers ahoy.

    The Good

    I’ll just lay it out: the best (and maybe only) good few minutes of this entire season were the rescue of Sayid, Jin, and Bernard by Hurley and Sawyer. (I’m ignoring Juliet. She was pointless and they still shouldn’t trust her.)

    From Hurley running down the one guy with the VW bus (I will admit, I totally did not see that coming), to Sayid breaking the guys neck with his feet, to Sawyer shooting Roscoe even after he surrendered (“that’s for taking the boy from the raft”), all I can say is, it’s about time. I even said out loud, “That’s what I’m talking ’bout!”

    …of course, there’s still the fact that it took them two seasons to finally get revenge for the fact that the Others (despite their assertions that they’re the “good guys”) tried to kill them and kidnapped an innocent kid, but at this point I’ll take what I can get. It’s about goddamn time.

    The other good scenes? Jack finally (finally!) beating the shit out of Ben (although I think he should’ve just killed him, I really do), and Charlie messing with the Others Girls heads in the Looking Glass station. And the Looking Glass Others dying too, that was good.

    The Rest

    The rest was just… just… abominable. I’ve been ranting about bad writing on “Lost” for ages now, and this is pretty much it for me, I think. Gods, where do I start?

    The “game changer”—ah, the vaunted “game changer” that they’ve been promoting for ages now… where was that again, exactly? Was it supposed to be the whole “flash forward” (as opposed to “flashback”) that the ending revealed? Yawn. Was it supposed to be the revelation that the boat that Naomi was from isn’t from Penny Widmore? Yawn. Charlie dying? Double yawn.

    Okay, let me address these in order. The “flash forward.” Totally doesn’t work/don’t care for a number of reasons:

    • If this was supposed to be set in the future, why did Jack reference his father—who was already dead—twice? They spent two seasons beating into our heads how Jack was dealing with his father’s death to make Jack simply slip up in the “future.”
    • If this truly is the future, then why are we supposed to care? We see both Jack and Kate alive at the end, and the implication is that another survivor recently died, so we know at least three made it off the island alive… well, since the show has spent three seasons making us care pretty much about only three of the survivors (with a handful of supporting folks, and 30+ people we don’t know or care about), and two of them we see back in civilization, then I’d say game over, the ones we’re supposed to care about got back, all’s well that ends well. What? What was that? You mean, we were supposed to care about all the other survivors who we previously ignored, that Jack implies all died? Hmmm…
    • Jack’s future statements imply that calling the ship brought disaster to the survivors, just as Ben said. Only so what, we already knew that thanks to Charlie, and furthermore, how would Ben know that since he only just found out about Naomi, and again, why do we care? I mean, ABC has announced three more seasons of “Lost,” so it’s not exactly a cliffhanger if we know they’re going to drag it out until 2010…
    • Is the show going in a time travel direction now? We’ve already seen Desmond playing Quantum Leap and apparently go back in time for real, and then has future flashes about Charlie. Is present-Jack somehow aware of the “flash forward” memories? Does it matter? I can’t think of any good scenario where time travel would make any kind of sense anyhow.

    Recap: Two “future continuity” errors, and a bunch of people we don’t know or care about die anyway. Conclusion: Bad writing.

    Oh and by the way, Jack’s “beard” in the “flash forward”? Worst. Fake beard. Ever.

    The boat offshore and Naomi were not sent by Penny Widmore:

    Wow, what a shock. I totally didn’t see that coming. At all. It wasn’t telegraphed by anyone. Really. Stunning. Really.

    Say… here’s a thought… what if the ship and Naomi really had been sent by Penny? You know, following up on the whole Penny Widmore scene at the end of the second season finale? You know, to make her seem really as smart as powerful as implied? I think that would actually be more interesting. But god forbid they should try for more interesting.

    Plus, you know, the ship is what, 80 miles offshore? Well, that should only take them about, oh, 30 episodes to actually get to the island, in Lost time. That should get them through the next two seasons.

    Recap: A “surprise” twist. Because it’s the season finale and, you know, people expect twists. Yeah. Conclusion: Bad writing.

    Charlie dying:

    Most illogical, poorly contrived death scene ever. Hey, I don’t have any problem with Charlie dying, they’ve only been predicting that for half the season now, but… what? He locks himself in a small room that’s filling up with water so “rapidly” that he has time to write a message on his hand and to make sure Desmond understands what he means?

    I mean, what the hell is that? Both Charlie and Desmond swam down to the Looking Glass station! Even if the station was flooding with water ten times as fast as it was in the small room, that still would have left both of them plenty of time to swim out and back up to the surface! You know why?

    You can swim up faster than down!

    Jesus Christ, at the slow-assed pace the station was flooding (through a single small porthole, I might add), I could’ve made a sandwich and had a beer before swimming out to safety!

    Recap: Uh… why bother. Conclusion: Either bad writing, or if they wrote it so that the water was filling so fast that there was no way out for Charlie, then bad production for not making that evident. But if that was the case, why give Charlie time to write a message… eh. Bad writing.

    The rest of the episode was, frankly, forgettable.

    I think the writers have written themselves into a deep, deep hole with too many loose ends, plot twists, half-baked ideas, and random clutter to get themselves out of. I really cannot imagine any way that they could tie it all together that wouldn’t seem, well, stupid. Let’s just recap some of these anomalies:

    • A plane full of strangers who have too many mutual links in their past to be coincidence.
    • A smoke monster “security system” that appears both as a mobile cloud of black smoke and as people from your past. (It apparently reads minds.)
    • An invisible man with telekinetic powers.
    • An island with weird magnetic anomalies that no one outside can see and that no one on it can escape.
    • It heals people, too. Selectively.
    • Time travel. At least (definitively) for Desmond.
    • The Numbers. (Say, what happened to those this season?)
    • Whispering disembodied voices in the jungle.
    • A boy (Walt) with some sort of psychic powers.

    Yeah. Game over.

  • Lost is officially done.

    Yeah, I can’t help it. I have to say tonight’s episode of “Lost” jumped the shark. They just went all brain dead. Why?

    …well, check after the link. There’s spoilers, not that it matters I guess.

    Read more.

    So, this “Jacob” that Ben took Locke to was… an empty chair. In an empty room. And Ben stood talking. To. The. Chair.

    There’s two possibilities.

    1) Ben is basically Norman Bates.

    2) The Others are controlled/led by an invisible man with (apparently) telekinetic powers.

    And of course since this is “Lost”, it has to be Number Two. Why? Because that’s what they do. That’s the strong implication from the voice Locke briefly heard to the crazy telekinetic-like shaking of the room. That is what they do on this show.

    Forget that Number One would actually be more believable, creepy, and interesting: the Others are led by an invisible man.

    “Lost” is officially done.

    …I don’t think I can sit through three more years of this. I really don’t.

  • Pop culture segue

    Don’t let the title completely fool you, this entry is a rant, as much as anything else. And don’t think that I’m some sort of pop culture otaku; I’m usually behind the curve when it comes to such things, especially music.

    But I seem to consume a fair amount of it anyway, and so here we are.

    What do I really have to say about pop culture? Read on…

    TV: American Idol

    Yes, I’m watching it, yes, you can make fun of me for it.

    Overall, I think the finalists this season are really weak, and at least half of them should never have been chosen as finalists in the first place. It’s a freakshow headed up by Sanjaya. Seriously, what were the judges thinking when they chose him for the final 24?

    The top three are Melinda, LaKisha, and Blake. My pick to win is Melinda; she’s simply the best of them, and she’s humble about it. I would’ve picked LaKisha earlier on, but she started getting arrogant and too full of herself.

    Contestants aside, the show really, really needs to let Paula Abdul go. This season is really bringing home how worthless she is to the show. All she does as a “judge” is simply parrot what the others have said or make pointless comments about how well the contestant has dressed, and her drunken-slash-stoned antics are simply embarrassing. Her time is done. They need to bring in someone who’s not an assclown.

    There’s really not much more to be said, other than some snarky comments about some of the others…

    • Haley (who was mercifully eliminated last week) only got as far as she did because of her skimpy, revealing outfits. I’m surprised that even got her as far as it did; she’s simply a terrible singer.
    • Phil—dude, the bald look doesn’t work on you. At all. Combine that with the pale, deathly-ill look you seem to be sporting… let’s just say the initials for the nickname I have for him are “C.P.” Plus, he’s a terrible singer also.
    • Chris Sligh—wow, I’ve never seen anyone look like Sideshow Bob in real life before. Except for the weight part.

    TV: 24

    This season has turned out to be weak. Not as weak as the third season—I’m not sure they can get that low again—but coming off the success of last season, it just doesn’t hold up. Which is too bad, since the premise, previews, and first episode all seemed promising.

    But I just can’t buy into the premise that Jack, who was incarcerated and tortured in a Chinese prison for the past (nearly) two years, can walk off the plane and step right into such a physically demanding role and leadership position of CTU as if no time at all had transpired. It should simply be physically impossible.

    Also, the season is largely a retread of season two (which was strong, perhaps the strongest of all of them): the threat of nuclear bombs by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. One even goes off. Jack reappears from an absence to save the day. Nefarious forces at the White House attempt to remove President Palmer from power. Et cetera, et cetera.

    TV: Lost

    I’ve avoided doing any more extended ranting on “Lost” since last fall, mostly because I don’t want to become a cliché of myself. (Not to say I’m not already, but that’s a different blog entry…) Also because the quality of the season picked up since the terrible first six, but also because I’m getting increasingly frustrated with the series in general.

    After last week’s episode, just a few of the things that are bugging me:

    • Why did they neuter Jack? He sucks these days, and he had some of lamest lines ever. “She’s under my protection.” What?? Who says stuff like that? Is this some weird reversion to Middle Ages feudal dialect? And the end, when he’s babbling about trusting Juliet, “looked into her eyes” etc.—extraordinarily lame, and I was going to comment that he’s a fool to trust her when sure enough, they cut to the Juliet-as-traitor-betrayer flashback. Jack sucks.
    • Speaking of Juliet, can’t the writers make up their minds about her? They seem to be trying awful hard to make her a sympathetic character to the viewer but then they blow it. We all know she can’t be trusted, ever. So why waste screen time on it?
    • Sayid is the smartest person on the island, and he’s always right. Isn’t it about time (after nearly three seasons) that they start working that angle rather than just ignoring him? They need to kill off a bunch of losers and let Sayid take charge.

    Basically, I’m to the point where my suspension of disbelief has come crashing down. While I’ve enjoyed the season more than when it started, I think the producers and writers have dropped the ball big-time and have a convoluted mess that keeps getting compounded with bad writing.

    TV (General)

    Everyone keeps telling me how I should be watching “Heroes” and “Battlestar Galactica.” Apparently those are perfect for the geeky/sci-fi kind of person that I am, and they’re really good. I think I pretty much missed the boat on “Battlestar,” but maybe I can catch up on “Heroes” during summer reruns…

    Comics: Y: The Last Man

    The coolest thing I’ve discovered about the Deschutes Public Library in the last six months is that they have a decent collection of comic trade paperbacks; I’ve been going through and reading comic series that I missed the first time around.

    “Y: The Last Man” is one of them—the library has the complete set of trades (though the series is still ongoing). The premise: all the males in the world (technically, all mammals with a Y chromosome) are wiped out in a single day by a mysterious plague. All, that is, but one man and his male capuchin monkey. So it’s a post-apocalyptic type series, following the last man (whose name is “Yorick”) as he copes with being the last, and how that fits in with how the remaining women of the world deal with the crisis.

    It’s really good, utterly non-superhero, and for mature readers only. The trades are all fairly quick reads, but you’ll want to go back and read them again. Excellent stuff.

    Incidentally, the creator and writer of the series, Brian K. Vaughn, was recently hired to be a writer on “Lost.”

    Comics (General)

    “Fables” is a truly excellent comic series, also available in trade paperback form at the library and also an entirely non-superhero premise. In some ways it reminds me of Alan Moore’s beyond-brilliant “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” (not the movie. Never the movie), in that the characters are drawn from the literary (and public domain) world of fable and fiction.

    Pretty much any other comics-related stuff I could say I already said here.

    Books: Cell

    I read Stephen King’s Cell in something like four days. It’s that good and that quick a read. It’s also the kind of book that will make you seriously think about throwing away your cellphone. I won’t go quite that far… yet… but I’m thinking it would be prudent to watch other people to make sure they’re not going crazy on their cellphones before answering mine.

    What makes it especially good is that it’s not one of the marathon-length books King often writes; it’s straightforward, fast-paced, well-plotted, suspenseful, and graphic as hell. Some of his tightest writing I’ve read in awhile. I loved it.

    It’s basically King’s contribution/foray into the apocalyptic zombie genre. Since I followed it up with the “Y: The Last Man” comics, I guess maybe I’m on an apocalyptic binge… maybe I’ll seek out some zombie novels.

    Books (General)

    I’ve currently got three books going: Code by Lawrence Lessig (that link’s actually a cheat; I’m linking to the revised edition, because that’s more relevant, but the one I’m reading is the original edition published in 1999), Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, and Singularity Sky by Charlie Stross.

    Code is dense and thoughtful and sometimes a chore to slog through. Extraordinary Origins is light and interesting and parceled out into perfect bite-sized chunks; good stuff for the casual history buff. I’ve just started Singularity Sky this weekend but so far it’s promising; it seems to be a post-modern blend of hard science fiction with space opera with post-Singularity stuff (duh, from the title!).

    I keep eyeing my bookshelf, fingering through books I haven’t yet read. Beer brewing books, Vernor Vinge, Patrick O’Brian, Rudy Rucker, Stephen Baxter, Stephen King, some classics… it goes on. A reading binge is imminent now that TV is getting close to winding down, I think. So many books, so little time.

    Of course, if I were sticking to the “pop culture” theme with books, that probably means I’d have to stick to mainstream bestsellers. I think the last time I read a mainstream bestseller other than a Stephen King was a few years ago with The Da Vinci Code, which I reviewed. I wasn’t favorable.

    Movies

    Actually, when it comes to movies, I suck these days. I hardly ever see them in the theater anymore and I’m simply behind on what’s current. What’s worse is that this is a drool-inducing year of movies for me:

    • “300” – which I must make an effort to see while it’s still in the theaters.
    • “Spider-Man 3”
    • “Transformers”
    • “Live Free or Die Hard”
    • “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”

    Those are kind of the “must see” movies on my wishlist. Other movies which would be cool to see but don’t have that urgency include “Grindhouse,” “Shrek the Third,” “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” “The Simpsons Movie,” and “Ocean’s 13.”

    Yes, they’re all geeky movies and/or sequels. What? Did you think I was gonna go all Pavlov’s Dogs on something like “Georgia Rule” or “Miss Potter”?

    Of course, take it all with a grain of salt. I haven’t even seen “Casino Royale” yet. I suck.

    Music

    What do I know? I mostly listen to the radio and have a handful of CDs (nothing current). If you’re looking for music advice/wisdom/humor/whatever, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

  • I was interviewed about Lost…

    Based on what I’ve been writing (ranting) about “Lost” recently, I was contacted via email by a woman doing a feature story about the subject who wanted to interview me (also via email).

    The twist? It’s a Brazilian television Lost fan site entirely in Portuguese.

    Globalization, ya gotta love it. It’s cool seeing my name and site in print, even if I don’t know what the article is saying. It’s here: “LOST” JÁ ERA? TEMPORADA DESANIMA FÃS E PERDE AUDIÊNCIA NOS EUA.

    Guess it’s time to fire up the Google translator…

  • Obligatory Lost post

    I’m starting to think I’m becoming a parody of myself with these “Lost” posts. I’m also thinking about coining a new phrase: “to pull a Lost.” It should be self-evident what I mean by that, but: to start out strong, have everything going your way… and then blow it. Which seems to be what they’re doing.

    Actually, last night’s episode was better than it has been this season… mostly. I’ll get into that below after the obligatory spoiler warning…

    Here there be spoilers!

    (more…)

  • Lost A-Team mashup

    I love this video mashup of Lost and The A-Team. I might even like it better than the actual third season of “Lost” so far!