I just watched the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery. It took me a week to psych myself up for it, because it seemed like, however I might feel about the show, this was going to be your classic no-win scenario. (And, alas, when it comes to no-win scenarios, I am no Captain Kirk.) I figured, either I wouldn't like it, which seemed very likely given that I haven't been entirely happy with any new entry into Star Trek canon since Deep Space Nine, in which case I'd feel disappointed. Or else I would like it, and then I'd probably feel even more disappointed, because I'd have no way to watch the rest of it without paying yet another monthly fee for yet another streaming service, and that is not happening. No way, no how.
So, yeah, I can't say I went into it with the greatest mindset. And how did I feel about it after watching? Kind of shruggy, to be honest. I mean, it looks really pretty. And it's got a nice diverse crew, thus upholding an important Trek tradition dating back to 1966. On the other hand, only one of the characters so far has gotten any development or definition at all, and I can't quite decide how I feel about her. And while the plot seems to be trying very, very hard to be tense and interesting, I mostly wasn't really feeling it. Plus, hoo boy, did the beginning of this have the worst case of Bad SF Expository Dialog Syndrome I've seen in a long time. Which is saying something.
But, of course, it's entirely possible all of that is attributable to the difficulties any pilot/first episode faces. You have to establish all the setting and backstory stuff and introduce all the characters while trying to tell an engaging story from the get-go, and you have to do it with actors who haven't settled into their parts yet and writers who haven't had the chance to see how any of it plays on the screen. So, I'd certainly be inclined to give it some time and see where it all goes, if, you know, it were actually available on my TV. Or anyplace else I am already able to watch stuff. Oh, well. Probably it'll be available on DVD or something eventually, and I'll finally get to see how the cliffhanger comes out. Assuming I still care then.
I will say, though, that despite being the jaded old fan that I seem to have become, and the fact that I've been deeply disappointed by Trek shows in the past, I did still get a teeny little thrill at hearing the familiarly Trekkish notes of the theme song and seeing the credits sequence start playing (even if it was kind of a weird-looking credit sequence). There is something touching, I guess, about seeing something that you loved from childhood still surviving and taking on new forms.
By the way, speaking of new forms, I'm a little taken aback by the new look of the Klingons. Something in the back of my brain keeps complaining that they're just wrong, like I've fallen into some weird uncanny valley of Klingon makeup. But, given the history of the Klingons and their look, that seems like a really dumb thing to complain about. Well, probably I'd get used to them. If, y'know, I could actually watch the damned show.
(Sigh. You know, a quarter of a century ago, I used to dream about future developments that would let us watch anything we wanted, any time we wanted, thanks to the magic of computer technology. I imagined some central storehouse of media that we could pick and choose from and download at our leisure. And for a while there, I thought I was so prescient! But it never remotely occurred to me that what we'd eventually get instead would be a zillion different independent services, each wanting a separate subscription fee to watch their particular crop of shows. Even though in retrospect, it seems like it should have been predictable. But, really, it's always easier imagine the technology than it is to anticipate all messy real-world stuff that factors into how we use it.)
I just watched the second episode of Class. And if I had somewhat mixed feelings about the first one, I enjoyed this one much more thoroughly, mainly for the characters and the sense of humor. Although I am more than a little surprised by its positively Torchwoodian levels of gore.
As for the most recent episode of Doctor Who, my opinion of it is much the same as it was of the last one: the plot's not much, but the character stuff is fantastic, and the new companion is an utter delight.
Today has been a badly needed rest day. I slept in, spent some time reading on the couch, took a walk, ordered a pizza, and watched some television. Bliss!
But it leaves me without much to talk about today. Except television. So, some comments on things I've been watching lately:
Class: I did watch the first episode! It feels, well, maybe a little too obviously aimed at teenagers for my own middle-aged tastes. To be honest, I can probably count the number of TV shows set in high schools that I've ever really enjoyed on two fingers. But it was pleasant enough, and while the first episode feels like a lot of setting things up, what it's setting up is potentially interesting, so I'm tentatively looking forward to the rest of it, and to seeing how it all shakes out. I'm not sure, though, whether it's a good sign or a bad sign that my interest levels in the first ep skyrocketed the minute the Doctor showed up.
Better Call Saul: The spinoff that seems like it should never have worked continues to work wonderfully well, but maybe that really shouldn't be much of a surprise given the sheer amount of raw talent both in front of and behind the cameras. Although possibly even more entertaining to me than the show itself is a comment Vince Gilligan made on Chris Hardwick's show after the season premiere. When asked about filming in the hot New Mexico sun, he said that New Mexico is like that original Star Trek episode with the space hippies: it's really beautiful, but then you realize everything is trying to kill you. I must say, of all the Star Trek episodes to find myself living in, I had not expected "The Way to Eden!"
Samurai Jack: I had forgotten how amazing this show was until it suddenly and belatedly came back. The revived version definitely has a bit of a different feel to it, but it's kept the same stylistic brilliance.
Once Upon a Time: Still the show I am most embarrassed to love unequivocally (if not unreservedly). I've heard rumors of possible major cast shake-ups, though, and perhaps a revamping of the show to accommodate those, and the way things are currently going in the storyline seems like it might be entirely consistent with something like that. I... am dubious about whether such a thing would even remotely work, but I guess we'll see. Maybe.
The Expanse: I never read the books this was based on, and I'm thinking now that was an oversight, as I'm really liking the series. It started off slow, but it's definitely holding my interest now. Although I do think it's one of those shows that may be better binge-watched, as the plot is pretty intricate, and I do keep finding myself forgetting important details from week to week. And it's interesting... I can think of very few space TV shows that are strictly solar system-based like this, and it may well be the very first genuinely hard SF TV show ever. But this is a subgenre that seems to be having a surprising pop cultural moment. A friend of mine suggested, when I brought this subject up, that that may have a lot to do with the fact it's much more feasible to do special effects involving zero-g and such than it was in the past, and I imagine that does account for a lot of it. But probably not all of it. It certainly doesn't account for the startling mainstream success of The Martian before it was ever adapted to film, for instance.
I may be watching other things, too, but if I am, they're either on hiatus right now, or have slipped my mind entirely. That's probably more than enough, though. Too much actually interesting stuff on TV is cutting way into my ability to work my way through the Netflix queue.
And the trailer for The Handmaid's Tale looks depressing and terrifying (so, probably pretty true to the source material):
Annoyingly, though, both of these are going to be showing on channels/services that I don't have, and which I am not going to run out and subscribe to. (Sigh. Perhaps it was inevitable that the new Golden Age of Television would also be the new Age of Not Being Able to Watch the Things You Want to Watch Unless You Subscribe to at Least Half A Dozen Separate Services. But that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.) Anyway, I will look forward to seeing both of them if and when they're actually available to me.
This week's geeky social activity: the Geeks Who Drink Firefly theme quiz, which was held in Albuquerque last night. (Well, and also in lots of other cities, but I didn't go to those.) We came in third! Which didn't win us anything, but it was not too shabby at all, considering there must have been thirty teams, and that the winners reportedly only missed two questions all night. Now, those are some big damn heroes!
Win or lose, it was an entertaining evening, and a good excuse for a re-watch, something I hadn't done in years. Of course, now I'm annoyed at Fox for cancelling the show all over again. Some grudges truly never die...
After my post on Star Trek the other day, someone linked me to this piece of music, which combines the theme songs from the original series, TNG, DS9, and Voyager into one amazing whole, and I thought it was just too great not to share:
I could not possibly let today pass without wishing a happy 50th Anniversary to Star Trek. Who would ever have predicted, back in the day, that a show that had trouble even staying on the air for three years would still be something we'd be talking about half a century later? Let alone that it would have such a tremendous influence on science fiction, on pop culture, on millions of people, and even on real-world technology?
I sometimes like to describe myself, only half-jokingly, as a lapsed Trekkie. There was a point -- OK, it was pretty much the entirety of my teens -- when Star Trek, with its humanist philosophy and its much-discussed optimistic view of the future, served me pretty effectively in place of a religion. These days, Trek and I have drifted apart a little bit. I've found myself disappointed with some of the later entries in the franchise, eventually giving up entirely on both Voyager and Enterprise. And I can see problems with the original series that weren't remotely obvious to me as a youngster, from the disturbing implications of Kirk's interpretation of the Prime Directive as something that only applies to societies he approves of, to its unexamined 1960s sexism.
And yet. And yet, I still maintain a deep, abiding, nostalgic affection for Kirk and company, and (in a somewhat different way) for their Next Generation descendants. Not to mention a strong appreciation for the tragically under-rated Deep Space 9, which, despite a rough first season and the occasional plot or character misstep, was and remains a damned good show.
I may not think about Star Trek obsessively the way I did when I was, oh, thirteen. And I'm pretty sure I've forgotten more Trek trivia than even Gene Roddenberry ever knew. But the swelling notes of that classic theme song can still stir my heart, and the role Trek had in shaping my life really cannot be underestimated. I feel like I should feel embarrassed by that, somehow. But I'm not. If nothing else, I'll always love Star Trek for giving me Mr. Spock as someone a lonely little nerdy kid to look up to and adopt as a role model, as he was for so many nerdy little kids like me.
Live long and prosper, Trek. Not that you need the encouragement from me. Whatever I might think about all the twists and turns you've taken over the years, you seem to be managing that just fine.
In the interest of actually updating once in a while, here's some media stuff I'm currently/recently into, and the slightly odd thought's I've been having about them:
I've been playing Undertale, the adorable game designed to make you feel like human garbage. (Why is it so hard not to kill things? WHY??!) I actually finished it once, but have started over again trying to do things differently, which apparently is what the game expects you to do if you actually want to not feel like human garbage. I cannot remotely decide whether this is brilliant and thematically deep, or just emotionally sadistic. Probably both.
I just finished watching The Wire, which does, indeed, live up to its reputation as a landmark piece of TV drama. And leaves one at the end with the impression that perhaps everyone is human garbage, made so by a crushing and inescapable human-garbage-producing system. (Well, all of us except maybe that one newspaper guy, anyway. And Bubbles, who is so darned likeable one can forgive him anything.) Honestly, I was eager to finally get through this show for sheer cultural literacy purposes, but now that I'm finished with it, I miss it already.
I've also been watching Community, which, mercifully, does not make me feel like human garbage, but which does make me wonder: How is it that tired, annoying sitcom plot points and cheesy, annoying sitcom morals-of-the-story suddenly become entertaining again if the show in question acknowledges, tacitly or explicitly, that that's what it's doing? I swear, part of me, watching this thing, is appreciating the show's ironic approach in a way that is itself ironic (because ironic meta is soooo last decade, amirite?), and it is at about this point that I start to wonder if our culture is about to disappear up its own navel, and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing or what. Eh, whatever. It make for an enjoyable half-hour of television, anyway.
I just finished watching season 5 of Game of Thrones on DVD. (And was surprised by how caught up in it I got, too. The last couple of episodes, there was a lot of very loud yelling at certain characters.)
Of course, being just about exactly a season behind, that means I got to the end of season 5 just in time to be hit by an avalanche of season 6 spoilers, everywhere I turn online. Honestly, what is it with this show? I thought Doctor Who spoilers could be tricky to avoid if you waited too long, but GoT fans and critics seem to go out of their way to make sure nobody can miss them. Years later, I'm still shaking my head in bemusement about the article I saw on the prevalence of GoT spoilers that had a spoiler in the title.
I'm seriously beginning to suspect that HBO is planting this stuff somehow, in an attempt to get people like me to subscribe.
I've been watching the Walking Dead spinoff, and it's... Well, it's not awful, but, I have to say, some part of my brain is tempted to just skip it and watch the aftershow, because the episode they're talking about always sounds slightly better than the one I just watched.
Also, they keep showing ads for Preacher, which intrigues and bemuses me, because I'm pretty sure one of my main thoughts after reading the comics was that, of everything I have read in my life, that was the least likely to ever be filmed.
Our team won the pub quiz last night! Apparently our perfect knowledge of fictional orphans made up for our pitiful inability to name more than three Denzel Washington movies from the last decade.
I watched the season finale of Better Call Saul yesterday, and it was fantastic. You know, on one hand it's not remotely surprising that a Breaking Bad spinoff, brought to us by the same people, would be really, really good. On the other hand, though, elevating your comic relief to the status of tragic anti-hero in his own prequel drama (even one that also features a lot of humor) seems, on the face of it, insane. So I'm still impressed that it works as well as it does.
I had to go into work today, on my day off, for a lecture on cyber security, which they require us to do periodically. So now I can warn you all: don't pick strange USB drives up off the ground and stick them into your computer. You're welcome.
Not much to talk about today, this being one of those weekends where I don't really have much time to do anything but sleep and work. But I figured, for anybody who might be interested and hadn't heard this yet, I'd pass along this recent bit of news that made me happy: Neil Gaiman has said he'll be wring a TV adaptation of his and Terry Pratchett's novel Good Omens. That article also talks about some other Pratchett-based adaptations currently in the works, which I am feeling pleasantly optimistic about.
Now, I just need to do start that Discworld re-read I keep saying I'm going to do sometime...
Has this really been a much, much worse year than usual for hearing about the deaths of people I've never met, but whose work I care about? Or is it just that I've been paying attention more, after a couple of especially hard-to-ignore examples early in the year? Or maybe just that I'm reaching an age where it's beginning to be inevitable? Probably some combination of the three, I suppose.
Anyway, today it's a sad farewell to Gareth Thomas, aka Blake of Blake's 7, a show that reached the coveted status of my #1 fannish obsession for a surprising number of years, long after it went off the air. (And now I've got the last scene of the series playing over and over in my head. I can't decide whether that's appropriate or awful, but I suppose it's pretty much inevitable.)
Thanks for fueling my imagination, Mr. Thomas, and for helping to bring me so much fascinatingly grim-yet-campy entertainment, ever since that first day I saw you on PBS.
Gareth Thomas as Blake, in the first episode I ever watched.
My current Netflix watching: The Wire, season 3. And this show continues to be a constant cavalcade of, "Hey, it's that guy from that thing!" Look, it's Littlefinger from Game of Thrones as a smarmy, scheming politician! Well, nice to see that he's not being typecast at all...
So, I just finished watching Dexter. And since I've mentioned it here before, I thought I'd come back and share my thoughts... OK, no, that's not true. Mostly, I'm writing this here because after investing eight season's worth of time in that show, I am damned well at least going to get a blog post out of it.
Although, honestly, I think past a certain point I was mostly only continuing with it out of a sense of completeness and a strong, morbid curiosity as to whether the final episode was really as bad as everyone said it was. Which... Yes. Yes, it was. And all the more so because elements of it actually would have made a great ending to the show if only they, and everything leading up to them, hadn't been done so, well, awfully.
Seriously, someone could get a Masters' thesis out of all the ways in which Dexter grasps vaguely in the direction of some really interesting, brave, thought-provoking storytelling and then drops the ball on it, over and over. It is, ultimately, a fascinating failure. Sometimes it's an entertaining, even compulsively watchable one, sometimes one that threatens serious injury from all the banging your forehead against things it makes you want to do. Which is frustrating. Maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it was too much to ever expect anything else. After all, one of my earliest reactions to this show was, "I don't see how this premise is remotely sustainable, long-term." I was right about that, and it's entirely possible nothing was ever going to make it sustainable long-term. But I can't help but wonder, a little wistfully, what it might have been like if it were written with real vision, by someone willing to fully embrace the fundamental fucked-upped-ness of it all and able to consistently resist the temptation to buy into the character's own self-deluded ideas about being a hero.
I will give 'em this, thought: they had some fantastic casting.
Yes, this has been quite the day of nerdy indulgence for me! First, I went up to the big semi-annual book clearance sale at the Albuquerque public library. And, man... Every time I do that, I remember how much I love the thrill of the hunt and that squeeful feeling of having big piles of newly acquired books. But I tend to forget the stressful, claustrophobic feeling of being in that room full of people, all of whom appear to be trying their best to stand directly between me and whatever books I might be trying to look at at any given moment. Still... Boooooks! I ended up with a total of, uh, 22. Which is actually a small haul for me for one of these things. And you can't beat the price: it comes about to about 23 cents per book.
Traffic downtown was kind of a pain, though, because there was a chunk of street closed off for some unadvertised reason. I'm not 100% certain, but it looked like they were filming something. I was wondering if it might be Better Call Saul, since I know they use a lot of downtown locations, but I don't think they've started filming season 2 yet. Which is good, because otherwise I would have confusingly mixed emotions, since I really hate backed up traffic, but I really like Better Call Saul. If it was just some random movie, though, I can just feel annoyed. Still... I guess it's a sign that New Mexico's film industry really is taking off, as that's not something I've ever encountered before.
Anyway. After the book sale and navigating the downtown streets, I went to see The Avengers: The Age of Ultron. Which I enjoyed. Maybe not quite as fun as the first movie, but entertaining. Especially as I've always had a soft spot for anything involving AIs. Someone told me yesterday, though, that the director's cut is supposed to be three and a half hours, and I can totally believe it, because a lot of the plot, while it worked OK, did feel like it could have been fleshed out more.
And now, I am about to watch the season finale of Once Upon a Time. I've had somewhat mixed feelings about this season, to be honest, but I'm still ludicrously into this show, so I'm looking forward to it.
Oh, and, yes, somewhere in there, I did find time to call my mom. (I also tried to call my dad, since it's his birthday, but I didn't get an answer. So, if you're reading this, Dad, happy birthday!)
I'll tell ya, there is some interesting stuff in my Netflix queue. Having given up on Mockingjay, I have now moved on to the next item on the list, a six-part anime series called FLCL[*]. Two episodes in, and so far my entire reaction can pretty much be summed up as, "Now Japan's just fucking with us." I am reserving judgment as of yet as to whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
[*] Apparently that's pronounced "fooly cooly." Which appears to be some sort of sexual euphemism. I... don't even know.
I watched about half of Mockingjay, Part 1 last night before I got too sleepy to continue, and I'm now debating whether I should even bother finishing it. It's not that it's bad, exactly, but so far it consists mostly of people sitting or standing around in various places with offputting lighting, looking grim and intoning stilted Dialog of Earnest Seriousness at each other. And do I really need more of that in my life? Especially as I did read the books, so it's not like I don't know how it all comes out.
All of which is making me think of this blog post that I read a few days ago. (If you're too lazy to click, the title is, "Too Busy To Watch a Movie? Read A Book.") Reading that gave me one of those "OMG, I am not alone!" reactions, as I have been trying to explain to people for ages how it is that I can binge-watch entire seasons of TV shows or cheerfully dive into a 500-page novel that will take me days to finish, but sitting down to watch a 2-hour movie somehow feels like way too much effort. Generally, people look at me in blank incomprehension when I say that, but, wheee! Turns out it's not just me!
Mind you, I'm not sure the author has the full explanation here. Yes, I think probably a large part of it is that we all feel really busy these days, with a zillion other things we could be doing instead of watching that 2-hour movie, while TV episodes are more bite-sized and thus feel like less of a commitment, and books can be whipped out anywhere and read a few pages at a time. But for me, at least, it's more than that. It's not just that I am (or feel) busy and don't want to commit the time. It's more about committing my attention, and the issue of how much reward I get in return for what that attention costs me. Books, for me, require almost no effort. Reading is almost like breathing for me, and it's pretty much an unthinking default activity for filling any random downtime. Utterly effortless, and often done during times when I wouldn't be doing much of anything else, anyway, so it scarcely feels like an investment. Even if it turns out to be a bad book, I don't really feel frustrated or cheated out of the time it took me to read it. Much.
A TV episode requires maybe 40 minutes of sitting down and actively committing your attention to the screen (or at least, it does the way I watch it). A movie might require a couple of hours. But how does the reward compare? I think this is what makes the difference. I find I have very little patience with movies that don't completely and immediately deliver me a great viewing experience; whereas I can actually have a lot of patience with a subpar episode of TV show I'm following. Why? I think it's this: with a decent TV show, there's at least the prospect of a long-term reward for the time I'm investing. Maybe the pilot episode is rough, maybe this particular mid-season episode is mostly just annoying filler, whatever. But sitting through that episode, even if it's not great in itself, gets me somewhere. At least, it does with most modern TV shows. It's a step along the path in a much larger story, a story that I get to watch play out over time, with characters whose lives I can be a part of for a good long while and a world that my TV and I can explore together at our leisure. It's a part of a larger whole, one that can potentially provide me with days or years of entertainment, which makes it worth sitting through the boring parts and the missteps, as long as that whole seems at all worthwhile. And if the episode I'm currently watching isn't great, the next episode might be a lot better. But I have to get through the current one first, or the story won't work as well. And, hey, I can do that! It's totally worth it to me. And so I'm able to relax and enjoy myself, rather than feeling impatient and frustrated and distracted by thoughts of all the other things I could be doing with my time instead.
With a movie... Well, you watch the movie, and that's it. That's the full experience. The point of watching a movie is to enjoy the movie, and so, if my enjoyment is anything less than complete, it feels like kind of a waste of time. That's even true for movies like The Hunger Games series, where there actually is one story continued over several movies, because these things come out spaced a year or more apart, and generally by the time the next one is available, I've forgotten most of the last one and lost all sense of momentum and most of my interest. Sure, there are exceptions, exciting movies that provide extended enjoyment because afterward I spend a long time thinking about them and discussing them, and can watch them over and over and find new things in them each time. (Hello, Cabin in the Woods!) But those are very, very rare. Most of Hollywood's output is, at best... kind of OK. And two hours of my concentrated attention for the sole reward of having watched something kind of OK is mostly just not good enough.
1. Happy Pi Day! This is an extra-special one: since it's 3/14/15, we've got a couple of extra digits! Too bad I was asleep at 9:26, or I could have really celebrated! Alas, I have no pie, although I do have to go to the grocery store soon, so I think I'm going to rectify that. In the meantime, I will observe the occasion by linking to Phil Plait's 8 Things About Pi for Pi Day post.
2. I am watching Game of Thrones again, now that season 4 is out on DVD. (I've got two episodes left. Do not spoil me!) My reaction to this show at the moment is an interestingly paradoxical blend of, "Man, this crapsack world is too crappy even for me!"[*] and "Ooh, I have got to get around to reading these books!"
3. While we're in mourning for Leonard Nimoy and Terry Pratchett, let's also take a moment to remember Nimoy's fellow Star Trek contributor Harve Bennett, who, as a friend reminded me recently, was responsible for much of the success of the Trek films, and was the person who convinced Nimoy to return for The Wrath of Khan. He died on February 25.
[*] I have something of a taste for dark stories where really bad things happen to everybody. It makes me feel way better about my own life, by contrast.
