TV. the phantom

after recently rewatching the phantom movie from a few years back, this miniseries on syfy caught my eye.  it takes the story of the phantom and brings it into today.  the phantom is based on a comic book.  the original story follows a family of adventurers who have taken up the mantle of the phantom, the ghost that walks, going back all the way to the time of pirates and explorers. each generation of the family takes over where the father left off, and the film version of the phantom follows the man who is behind the mask during the 1930's.  this version of the phantom takes place in the 90's and follows the story of the latest generation.  he was taken away from the phantom's island as a baby, so he has no idea about his important lineage.  when confronted with this new found reality he must decide if he is going to take up the mantle, or walk away.
the miniseries is is pretty hoaky, but quite a bit of fun.  when the main character steps into the role of phantom, he decides to update it a bit, make it more relevant than those who came before.  the movie does a good job of establishing the phantom's heritage and history while opening up the opportunities for what is to come.  this miniseries was designed to be a pilot for an ongoing phantom tv show, but it must not have done as well as they had hoped because the show was abandoned before it could go any further.  i for one would have enjoyed seeing where this was headed and spending time watching the phantom do his adventuring thing!

TV. clarissa explains it all

nickelodeon started showing its old 90's shows late at night, and having watched them a couple times back then, i wanted to check them out again and relive a little bit of my youth.  i tried 'all that' which really sucked, and 'clarissa explains it all'.  i remember this one kinda being for girls, but that didnt stop me from watching it from time to time back in the day!  rewatching it now i was surprised at how fun it is!  the show follows clarissa as she deals with her family and pesky brother with the help of her best friend sam.  the fun part of the show is that clarissa talks straight to the camera and shares whats on her mind.  melissa joan hart is a lot of fun as clarissa, but my favorite character is her little know-it-all brother ferguson.  the stories are very simple and rarely leave the confines of their house, which leads to the four family members very well fleshed out and the show actually has some pretty good character writing.  over the course of the summer i'm pretty sure we watched all 65 episodes that were created!  its a simple show for teens, but its still quite fun for those of us who left those teen years decades ago.

DVD. sliders

the wife and i had a bunch of time recently to hang out at the house and watch a bunch of tv.  three weeks off for the birth of my son will do that...  well, there wasnt much good stuff actually on tv, so instead i dug deep into my dvd collection.  on a whim i asked diana if she would be willing to watch an episode or two of sliders.  its a sci fi tv show from the 90's that i remember loving when it was on.  she remembered it too, her mom used to watch it (her mom really loves sci fi. cool, huh?).  well, we started right from the beginning: season 1.  the story is set up as our main character, mallory quinn (played by jerry o'connell) who is a boy genius and has built a device that can open up gateways to alternate dimensions.  he, a girl that he works with, his professor, and a random guy driving by at the time of the accident, are all swept away through the gateway.  from there they visit many different dimensions, all the time trying to get back to their own.  the fun thing is that each dimension is different than ours in some way.  sometimes its something simple like red streetlights mean go while green lights mean stop, but other times its much more interesting like one dimension where the patriots never defeated the english and america is still ruled by the queen.  the different dimensions in each episode can be hit or miss, but for the most part they are a ton of fun!  the show itself actually holds up pretty well, and diana and i found ourselves watching a ton of episodes.  we quickly finished seasons 1, 2, and 3.  by the time we got around to season four it was time for me to go back to work, so we will certainly have to come back and finish them up one of these days!  over all, season one and two were by far the best, season three started to introduce another dimension sliding race of alien bad guys, which was pretty lame, but thankfully they didnt show up too often to ruin the fun.

GAMES. drop 7

now that i've got one o them fancy iphones, i have been checking out a bunch of free games.  many of them are fun, but most of them wear out their welcome after a day or two of playing.  one game that has kept me playing over and over again is a game called drop 7.  i love the puzzle games, and this is a really clever twist on the whole dropping pieces style that began with tetris.  the concept is a little tricky to get the first time through, but once you've got the hang of it, it is super addictive!  see, there are these grey circles at the bottom and numbers fall from the top.  in order to make a number disappear, you have to put it in a spot that corresponds to its number.  for example: if you have a 1, then you must put it in a line by itself, a line of one.  if you have a 4, when its in a line of four circles, it will disappear.  the clever bit is that the lines can be up and down or side to side. if you make a number disappear next to a grey circle it cracks, do it a second time and it becomes a number.  like i said, its sounds more complex than it actually is.  i've been playing this one a ton and really love it, give it a try some time and you will be hooked too!