Warp Section

When I saw that the Space Channel here in Canada would be carrying the new Dresden Files show I was exciting.  I’ve read most, if not all–I don’t know if there are new ones out since I last looked–of the Dresden Files mysteries by Jim Butcher.  In the books, Harry is a guy geeks can relate to.  He has trouble with women, he tends to carry around a lot of strange stuff, and well things tend to explode around him.  And come on dude, his blasting rod can pack a mean whallop!

So far I haven’t been too thrilled with the shows.  The TV Harry is just not my vision of the book Harry.  He should be taller, lankier, geekier, oh and his leather coat is too short.  Okay not to mention in the book, Harry doesn’t carry a freakin’ hockey stick and he drives an old VW Beetle not a Land Cruiser.  Nit picking, I know, but that is part of being a fan isn’t it.  Knowing the details that bring a story to life?

So while you’re waiting for the next epsiode, wander down to the library and check out one of the books.  You won’t be disappointed.

Share This

When you hear “epic fantasy,” you probably think of a medievalish setting, swords and horses, magic, kings, armies sweeping across vast landscapes. J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, George R. R. Martin. You probably don’t think of 1934 America. So imagine my shock, about halfway through watching the second season of the HBO series Carnivale on DVD, when I realized that it’s epic fantasy.

At the start, I compared the show to things like Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, maybe with a little Edward Gorey artwork thrown in. The setting is a Depression-era carnival, with lots of weirdness. There’s a freakshow, and the fortune teller really can see the future. There’s some horror: you will jump out of your seat, be grossed out, and might have a nightmare or two. When the forces of good and evil came into play, I thought of it as a religious allegory — the End Times playing out during the Dustbowl, which must have seemed like the end of the world to those who lived through it.

But near the end, I found myself comparing it to Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice books. Carnivale shows a tapestry of lives coping in desperate situations, faced with terrible choices, consistently making bad decisions and caught by terrible circumstances and powers they don’t understand. All this plays out against a backdrop that is truly epic: the heirs of great powers are caught in a battle foretold by prophecy, with its roots in the Great War, the War to End All War (as the first World War was known before there was a second). Signs and portents abound.

There are two stories here. The first belongs to Ben Hawkins, a young man who loses everything in the opening moments of the first episode. A traveling carnival takes pity on him and gives him a job as a roustabout. The carnival is run by a person known only as Management, and Management takes a particular interest in Ben, who has a mysterious past and, it seems, the power to heal with a touch.

The second story is that of Justin Crowe, a minister in a California town who also has strange powers and what he believes is a mission from God. He has fierce faith, but darkness and death follow him. He also has a mysterious past. We just don’t know how mysterious until much later on.

The show’s heart, of course, is how these two stories intersect. What do Ben and Justin have to do with each other? And what will happen to the lives of everyone around them when each finally realizes his destiny?

I highly recommend Carnivale to anyone who loves fantasy — urban, epic, dark, any kind of fantasy — with a warning. You’ll need a strong stomach to get through this. The show aired on HBO originally, which means it wasn’t interested in pulling punches. Some very disturbing moments result. It kind of makes Edward Gorey look like the Peanuts.

Share This

Starman was the TV spinoff of a 1984 film starring Jeff Bridges. The film was decent, a cute “fish out of water” story showing a goofy alien trying to understand our strange human ways and in the meantime falling in love. As the movie ends, his love interest, who believes she can’t have children, is pregnant — the alien is the father.

Fast forward to the TV show. 15 years later, that child is now a troubled teenager who has been living in foster homes most of his life. His mother is no where to be found, and he knows next to nothing about his father. Then, that father returns, and he’s an alien with strange mystical powers.

I was a devotee of the show when it first aired. I think being close to the same age as Scott helped with that. I related to him, the feeling of being a fish out of water, and the whole wish-fulfillment of wanting to be something other than human, wanting to be more powerful than I was. It’s a fantasy that has fueled countless books, films, and stories about falling into a fantasy world, discovering that one is a lost princess, and so on.

When the show aired on the Sci Fi Channel a few years ago, I watched a few episodes and was disappointed. The stories tended toward after school special object lessons — helping puppies and single mothers and the like. Not a lot of depth going on. I wanted more dealing with the implications of aliens on earth and this troubled kid who was just trying to get along in the world. It might also be that times were a bit different then, and the feel-good stories didn’t seem simplistic like they do now. I’ve been jaded by years of watching hyper-gritty shows like The X-Files and Battlestar Galactica.

Highlights include a turn by Erin Gray playing Scott’s mother, and the next to the last episode, where government agent George Fox finally captures the alien he’s been hunting for all these years. Now that was scary.

For a good episode guide, check out Starman Net.

Share This

What can I say about Firefly that hasn’t already been said? It isn’t just a TV show, it’s a phenomenon. As someone who talked a friend into knitting a Jayne cap, I’m familiar with the phenomenon.

So I’ll talk about what first caught my attention: the language. The first time I heard a string of Chinese seamlessly interwoven into a line of backwoods American dialect, I was fascinated, and I listened carefully. Just on the basis of the language, I could almost figure out the whole world, the whole culture that serves as Firefly’s backdrop. That is an amazing feat of world building. In just a few lines of dialog I knew that this was a frontier society that had developed out of a merging of American and Chinese cultures. The actors handled that mash of language so well that I believed in the world, utterly.

Firefly had good world building in spades. This was a show that paid attention to the details, and that’s rare. I love it when a show makes me pay attention to the details. I wish more of them did.

I’ve just started playing the Serenity RPG with a group of friends. The world is too good to just give up on, so we’re going to see how well it does in a role-playing campaign. We have a good ship. We have a Captain, a Mechanic, a Doctor, a Companion. A couple of crazy mercs. A crazy…whatever (haven’t quite figured out what she is yet). And yeah, it feels a bit like coming home.

This world’ll keep flying for a good long while, I reckon. Love’ll keep a science fiction franchise in the air when she oughta fall down…

Share This

“When I was a kid, my father told me there was no such thing as monsters; my nightmares were just figments of my imagination. As I got older, I had to wonder, was he lying to me… or just wrong.”

Three shows sprang to mind when I watched the first episode of Dresden Files. It had the gritty detective of Eureka, the magical mystery of Charmed, and the dark supernatural feel of, well, Supernatural. Fortunately, it didn’t have the WB-required brooding teens or quite the level of silliness of Eureka. Don’t get me wrong, I liked all those shows, but this one, in my opinion, is a cut above. It’s the first good attempt at dark and magical since Angel.
It has humor, too, but it comes in the form of Harry Dresden’s dry, self-interested comments to the supporting cast. Blackthorne’s (Dresden) acting is strong, and while we haven’t seen much of the supporting cast yet, it seems promising.

The first episode has set up a darkly wonderful world with supernatural agents who aren’t just good and evil, but self-interested, rules-bound, and who have personalities rather than simple alignments. I have high hopes for the series.

Share This

A few thoughts on the new Sci Fi Channel series based on the series of novels by Jim Butcher:

I wasn’t too sure about it at first. The plot seemed iffy — any story dependent upon our sympathy for a small child makes me suspicious. But one scene won me over completely: a circle of creepy Raven men surrounds the young boy-in-peril. One of them offers him a can of whipped cream, for his banana split. Because even if you’re a supernatural creature, the best way to keep the kid you’re protecting happy is to give him ice cream. It was so incongruous and wacky, I loved it. And those nictitating membranes? Very, very cool.

I like Harry, I liked the way the episode revealed his childhood in small slices, building up a mystery and leaving me wanting more. So yes, I’ll be watching again. But I do hope the plots get a little more interesting. It would also drive me a little less crazy if they used some actual folklore instead of just making stuff up. But that’s just me.

Share This

The funny thing about this show is how it still seems way ahead of its time.

Max Headroom was about what happens when Corporate Media is pervasive — what happens to the world, the culture, and the people who live there. And it isn’t pretty. Massive poverty, decay, and hopelessness plague the city. Human lives are counted only as data points on network ratings reports and are worth nothing else. Edison Carter (played by the inestimable Matt Frewer) is a reporter trying to get to the bottom of various mysteries. He’s achieved enough popularity that his Network masters can’t get rid of him, even though most of the mysteries he exposes involve nefarious Network plots to control the politics, economy, and the people themselves. The fact that this show actually aired on network TV made it all the more subversive. I always felt like it was getting away with something cool.

Edison has help: vaguely amoral kid genius Bryce, decker extraordinaire Theora Jones. And of course, Max Headroom. Max is an AI construct created from Edison’s own brainwaves when he was knocked unconscious and near death in the pilot episode. (Not to mention an 80s marketing phenomenon. Oh, the irony.) In a computer networked world, Max can go everywhere and see everything. Too bad he talks too much and has an irritating sense of humor. All this made for unique chemistry and personality, when those things are often lacking in our entertainment.

The fact is, we’re closer to Max Headroom’s world than ever before, with our global media conglomerates, competing 24 hour news networks, and shrill pundits. And that scares me. We’re being fed bread and circuses, and we don’t have an Edison Carter to dig up what’s being buried under the hype.

As an aside: this was very nearly the only place where the cyberpunk movement made its way to television in any meaningful fashion (beyond the gadgets, that is), and in many ways it pushed the ideas of cyberpunk in more directions than even the literature of the time did. Cyberpunk in the 80s (and beyond) seemed to get bogged down in gadgets, weaponry, mirrorshades, and massive testosterone laden adventures — a trend that reached its apogee in Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash and The Matrix films. If you want to know why cyberpunk faded as a subgenre, it’s because it never really got past the starting gate, in my opinion. For me, cyberpunk was never just about neuro implants and jacking in. It was about a culture where information is a commodity, and disposable technology is as pervasive as fast food. Where globalization means that all cultures begin to blur together and as a result you get things like a U.S. version of Iron Chef.

The other reason cyberpunk faded away is it turned into reality in fairly short order.

Visit www.maxheadroom.com

Share This

There’s a saying I really like and use quite often: it’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.

They’re really out to get Number Six.

This Number Six is not Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica, but Patrick McGoohan from The Prisoner. Though he’ll tell you quite forcefully and famously, “I am not a number. I am a free man.”

The opening credits tell the backstory: this man worked for…somebody, doing…something. Fans of the show say that he’s a secret agent — a reference to McGoohan’s previous TV series Secret Agent (aka Danger Man). But he quits. Angrily tenders his resignation. He’s got a nice vacation planned somewhere tropical, but while he’s packing, he’s knocked unconscious, kidnapped, and wakes up in the Village. (The lesson here is if you’re a secret agent, pack your bags BEFORE submitting your resignation, and go straight to the airport after.)

On the surface, the Village is a pleasant little place, with quaint little buildings and lovely little activities like band concerts and chess games. But if you try to leave the Village…go on, just try it. You can’t. You’ll be fetched back in an instant by a creepy white balloon the size of a Volkswagon. And it doesn’t look at all fun.

In the Village, everyone has a number. Number Six isn’t happy in the Village, as you might guess. People keep trying to get information from him. He keeps trying to escape and keeps getting dragged back by the white balloons — rovers, they’re called. He doesn’t know who’s in charge, but he keeps trying to find the elusive Number One. He speaks regularly with Number Two — who is different in every episode. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t get a handle on the place, and every friend he makes ultimately betrays him.

The Prisoner is both a product of its time — it’s a sort of late Sixties commentary on Cold War paranoia, with completely whacked-out design sensibilities that (according to my mother at least, who watched it when it first aired) were right at home in 1967 — and ahead of its time. The psychology at work here is fascinating: how much can one man take? What will “They” do next to break his will? There’s never really been anything like this on TV before or since (with the exception of a few classic Twilight Zone episodes). The resilience of the main character is what makes the show, er, captivating. You keep coming back because you want to see our hero’s next clever plan to outwit his captors — and how that plan will ultimately fail. He fails week after week, but he keeps trying.

This show is available on DVD. Check it out. I guarantee, watch just one episode and for the rest of your life, whenever you write down your social security or other ID number on a government form, you’ll whisper to yourself, “I am not a number…”

For everything you ever wanted to know about The Prisoner and more, see The Prisoner Online.

P.S. There’s a new version of The Prisoner in the works, for 2008 broadcast. Christopher Eccleston is not, as rumor had it, scheduled to play the title role. Alas…

Share This

I usually introduce Now and Again to people by describing it at the best show with the worst premise ever. On paper, it’s frankly ridiculous: Now and Again is the story of Michael, an ordinary man with an ordinary life who is killed in a freak accident — except he isn’t, because secret government researchers retrieve his brain and implant it in the biologically engineered body of a twenty-something superman, who then goes forth to thwart evil. Go ahead, laugh.

I didn’t catch it when it first aired. The Sci Fi channel aired it a few years later, and I was utterly sucked in.

The show’s creator, Glenn Gordon Caron, is the first clue that something interesting is going on here. He’s the mind behind 1980s blockbuster Moonlighting, and current NBC hit Medium. Caron’s interest and talent is showing real people in real lives, no matter what whacked-out things are going on around them. The dialog in these shows is superb, and the relationships between the characters shine.

Half of Now and Again is the story of Michael and the genius behind the superman program, Doctor Theodore Morris. Their relationship is contentious. The doctor tends to view Michael as a thing: the experiment, the product of his own research. Only slowly does he come to see Michael as a person. Michael is only reluctantly grateful about his chance at a second life — because he misses, terribly and longingly, the wife and daughter he left behind. But he’s warned: if he tries to escape and reveal himself to them, they will be killed, for the sake of the project.

The other half is the story of Lisa and Heather, Michael’s wife and daughter, who are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives after Michael’s sudden death. It’s an honest and heart-rending portrait of grief and recovery.

Because this is science fiction, and network television, nothing remains simple. And Michael doesn’t stay away from Lisa and Heather. Over the course of the series, their paths cross a number of times, and each time Michael is torn — he can’t tell them who he is. But he’s drawn to them. He tries to protect them. Heather thinks it’s hilarious that this young hunk of a guy seems so enamored of her middle-aged mother. Lisa thinks it’s kind of creepy, but she can’t help but be intrigued. There’s something familiar about him. . .

In a nutshell, this show is SF storytelling at its very best. You take an outlandish premise and make it real, not necessarily by trying to explain the science, but by making the characters so real, so likeable, and so sympathetic, that you’re willing to suspend any amount of disbelief in order to follow them on their journey.

Unfortunately, this brilliant show never found its audience. Which is too bad, because the series ended with a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers. And we’ll never know if Michael and his family survive.

One of my favorite exchanges, from the episode “Boy Wonder:”

Jimmy: Superman doesn’t get Lois Lane.
Michael: Then what does he get?
Jimmy: He gets to be Superman.

Share This

Happy New Year! The geeks will continue strong in 2007, and here’s just a brief look at what is on my TV calendar for January:

* January 3: Golden Globe Nominee Masi Oka (Hiro) brings an exclusive Heroes preview to The Tonight Show!

*Jan 21: Dresden Files begins. This series looks too cool. From wikipedia:
The Dresden Files is a fantasy/mystery book series by Jim Butcher. (The TV series is based on books)

Each novel in the series is told from the perspective of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden (named by his father after Harry Houdini, Harry Blackstone, Sr., and David Copperfield). Dresden is the only professional wizard in modern-day Chicago (he is in the phone book, under “Wizards”). Butcher’s original proposed title for the first novel was “Semiautomagic”, a title that sums up the series’ balance of fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction.

*Jan 22: Heroes returns!

Jericho doesn’t return until the end of February, and depending on these other shows pan out, I may or may not return with it. The writers have to earn back my love with some meaningful explanations before I dive back into more WB-style relationship drama that just happens to be set after the world blew up.

And, depending on how bored I get in that mid-January stretch, there are several sci-fi channel movies, which are always a crap shoot.

* Jan. 13: Grendel–a Sci-fi original movie based on Beowulf. Sci-fi? More like fantasy, but it’s on the sci-fi channel, and it has Marina Sirtis, whom you know better as Diana Troi.

Speaking of old ST:TNG actors, Brent Spiner (Data) is in another Sci-fi channel series called Threshold. I haven’t even heard of this series, so I can’t really comment on its quality.

*Jan 20: Bloodrayne. Ultraviolet. I mean Blade. I mean… yet another half-vampire kicking ass in tight clothing.

*Jan 27: Gryphon. Large bird attacks. Medieval kingdoms unite. We’ll see…

Share This