TV. robin hood season 3

looks like i was right last year. in the climactic final episode of last season, robin hood and his men went to the holy land to find the king and let him know how poorly the sherriff has been doing. the episode ended with maid marian dying. at that time i was frustrated (as you can see here) and wondering where they could possibly go from there. it was obvious to me that the show jumped the shark at that moment, and it turns out i was right. all this season has been pure crap. they have really been grasping at straws, as far as story goes. they introduced another love interest, which is not nearly as interesting as maid marian, they killed off the sherriff (which i'm certain is only temporary), and now guy of gisbourne is working along side robin and his merry men? stupid stupid stupid. the writers wrote themselves into a corner last year, probably assuming that they wouldnt get picked up for a third season, and it turns out that they shouldnt have been picked up! every episode this year has been in stark contrast to the two previous seasons. no one is acting like themselves, and the main plot has been long since lost. it really is a shame to see a good show go so horribly wrong. there's only about three or four more episodes this season, lets hope that they finally put this dog out of its misery and dont have a fourth season- please! either way, i'm done watching it, thats for sure!

BOOKS. diary

this book haunts me. ever since i've read it, it haunts me. the book follows the life of a woman who lives on a little touristy island where she works at the local hotel. her husband is living on life support in the hospital and she and she must try to make sense of all the strange things that have been happening and why everyone has been acting so weird. sounds pretty basic, huh? i expected a lot when i read this, it is, after all, written by the same guy who write 'fight club'! as i was reading it, the whole thing just seemed disjointed and not very interesting. i got to the end and was confused by it all. i set it down and a week past. thats when it happened: i kept thinking about the book, the little details and the parts of the story that didn't seem to fit right away. i couldnt stop thinking about it. then it hit me! the whole picture suddenly came into focus, all the odd parts and all the confusing parts, they suddenly melded together and i saw what palahniuk had done! when it hit me i actually had to sit down! the sheer power and brilliance of the tale he wove took me a while to process, but now that i had, i realized the sheer genius of it! i would love to give examples of it, but i would never want to give away anything to someone who might read it- i wouldnt want to steal that moment of revelation from anybody.
still, all these months later, it haunts me...

TV. V

diana and i were really excited for this show. well, we werent excited until we spend a day watching the old V miniseries (as i write about here), but after investing in the old show, we got really pepped up for this new one! turns out we got our hopes up for nothing. after watching the pilot episode i was really disappointed. many of the moments i was excited to see recreated were just quickly glossed over. when the aliens arrive in the old series it was a major event, it had impact. there was speculation of what might come of it and how to deal with that first contact- there was some real drama. on this new version the arrival and contact are whipped through before the first commercial break! so much for drama... the old one was poorly written and poorly acted, but it was riveting. this new one has the same writing and acting, but there is nothing there to draw me in. there is a new twist thrown in: the idea that there have actually been aliens living among us that have been lying in wait. unfortunately it isnt very interesting, or well done. we watched the second episode, but neither of us really cared at all by that point. its too bad knowing that juliet had to die for this. (that was a 'lost' reference). we never bothered with the third or forth episodes, and now with it off the air until march, neither of us will miss it in the slightest. disappointing, really.

TV. the prisoner

i have never seen the original tv series, nor did i know anything about it when i began watching this reimagining of the concept on amc. i just saw the cast, jim caviezel and ian mackellen, and i knew it would be worth the ride.
the story is quite confusing, but i think thats part of its appeal. we are dropped in, along with our hero, named number six, into a desert. he eventually stumbles upon a small town filled with people who have numbers for names. everything seems normal at first, but soon he realized that this town, run by number two, has no way out. as six tries to find ways out, he remembers more and more little bits of memories about life outside the town. over the course of the six hour miniseries, six has many things to distract him. first he spends all his time trying to get out, he is side tracked by a man who claims to be his brother. later he strangely finds himself an agent working for the very man who he is trying to escape from. also, he is continually distracted by a woman who tries to help him (or is that hurt him?).
the story played out very well as six claims he doesnt belong here and does everything he can to get out. it sounds so straight forward, but there are so many strange things that happen along the way. sometimes we are uncertain if a scene is real, or just part of a hallucination, which makes it much harder to put all the pieces together. having finished the miniseries, i'm not sure that i know exactly what was going on, but it was really fun to watch. the story just drags you in and mesmerizes- i didn't understand it, but i really liked it!

BOOKS. the terminal man

i had read this one before, back when i first discovered michael crichton back in junior high, but i didnt remember it very well so i thought i would revisit the story. its a fairly short novel about a man who suffers violent blackouts that lead to him doing terrible things. he is a prime candidate for a new medical procedure that would try to cure him of his violent behavior. the blackouts happen when he starts to get mad, he then goes on violent rampages that he doesnt remember and cant control. the procedure involves putting something in his brain that would trigger his pleasure sensor when ever he started getting too angry, which would cause a happy and peaceful feeling to sooth him down and stop the attack before it got started. the problem is that he soon becomes addicted to this pleasure and tries to get it whenever he can. well, something happens to the sensor and he breaks out of the lab. a pretty interesting story that follows the addictive quest to find pleasure. the story isnt very deep, but the implications of addiction, rage, and identity are thoughtfully discussed. another great book by crichton!

TV. V original mini-series

with all the hype and hoopla around right now with the relaunch of 'V', i kind of wanted to watch the original mini-series. low and behold, the syfy channel must have read my mind! the sunday before the relaunched show premiered, syfy was showing both original miniseries' in a row. i tivo'ed them, planning to watch them at some point. sunday afternoon diana took poco out for a walk, so i started watching the first one. when she came back i kept watching. she picked up a magazine to read, but after about ten minutes she put it down and instead was just as hooked on the miniseries as i was!
syfy actually rebroadcast the original miniseries as well as the second miniseries. it ended up being a little over ten hours of 'V', but i was really fun to take it all in at one time! the story is a killer one: aliens come to earth, they promise us peace and try to get us to work with them. as the story unfolds, we begin to see that their motives might not necessarily be as pure as they had let on. the amazing this about the original miniseries is just to see how bad it really was. the acting is stiff, the writing is clunky, and the effects are laughable. but for some reason, it still really good! i think its just such a great concept and starting point, that it succeeded in spite of itself! now, after watching the originals, we are ready for the undated version!

TV. stargate universe

i am a huge stargate fan, so when i heard they were making a third show i was very excited. this new entry into the stargate cannon is quite a bit different than the last two, stargate sg-1 and stargate atlantis. this one doesnt feel like its a syndicated show filmed in vancouver, which can be good, but can also be bad. its bad in that its leaving the old formula that has worked for over a decade, but its also good in that its leaving the old formula that has worked for over a decade! the style of the show has definitely taken its cue from battlestar galactica, giving it more of an intimate handheld camera feel. the story follows a random group of people who unexpectedly find themselves on an ancient spaceship traveling the farthest reaches of the galaxy. they dont have any control over the ship, and they dont know where they are. the crew (if you can really call them that) is lead by colonel young (justin louis), but is often at the mercy of the only man who is able to figure out how to work things on the ship, dr. rush (played by robert carlyle). these two guys are at odds because young wants to run it like a military operation, but rush cant be bothered with such protocols. the people stuck on the ship are made up of half military soldiers, and half regular civilians, which leads to a lot of problems. so far the season seems to be taking its time with setting up the characters and their relationships as they try to cope with the fact that they may never return home again. its a promising start, even though they have really only used the namesake of the show, the stargate itself, only once or twice. its quite a bit different than i expected, but i think it is a worthy addition to the stargate family. i look forward to the rest of the season and what lies ahead (which will hopefully include some aliens!!!)

COMEDY. ricky gervais

ricky gervais is a really funny guy. in this special he goes all to the wall and rips apart americans and all the stupid things we do. he doesnt just give us a go, but he turns it back on himself quite often. pretty funny, but nothing very memorable. he can tell a great story, but i think his stuff is better when its situational, like in the british 'the office', or his other show, 'extras'.

WORDS. the interrobang

i'm not entirely sure how or why i came across this, but i recently found this strange little grammar anomaly. its a punctuation mark that is meant to be an exclamation point and a question mark. strange. in the official rules of grammar it is not allowed to have more than one exclamation point at the end of a sentence. so when ever anyone ends a sentence like this: 'he said what?!?' it is improper grammar. instead, you are supposed to use the interrobang. huh. will the wonders of the english language ever cease?!?

TV. 2009 emmys

the emmys were on last night, hosted by neil patrick harris. i'm always a sucker for award shows (and love nph on 'how i met your mother'), so i tuned in hoping it would be good show and barney would do a good job hosting. i was not disappointed! there were a few changes this year, including the fact that almost no one expected to win won, which always keeps things lively. nph started things off with a little song and dance number about how everyone should make sure they watch and 'put down the remote'. it was a fun intro and played to nph's strengths. they also started with the best categories, in my opinion: the comedy awards. there were quite a few surprises here with not all the awards going to '30 rock', as was expected. unfortunately, my favorite, jim parsons from 'big bang theory' did not win. maybe next time.

one of the best additions of the show was the color commentary from john hodgson, the daily show's resident expert. as the winner walked up to accept the award he would briefly speak about that person making random comments about them that werent necessarily true- very funny! another bit that i really loved was when nph would introduce the presenters he would not reference their most well known role, but rather cite a very random bit role that they had played in, for example when jon cryer came on to present an award, nph referred to him as 'photographer number four in 'my two dads'.' or something equally absurd.

my big question for the night, though, is this: why do they have so many awards for the movie/mini-series category?!? who really cares?!? no one watched those! why must we waste 45 minutes of the telecast to that stuff? oh, and that 'dancing with the stars' tribute was completely worthless. good thing nph did such a great job of keeping it moving that it was easy to overlook such timewasters. in fact, the whole show was only about five minutes over their time- amazing!

anyway, hopefully there were enough people watching this year for cbs to renew its contract with the emmys to show it again next year, because if not, it will most likely be banished to bravo or lifetime i'm sure...

BOOKS. the shack

this story follows a spiritual man who recently lost his daughter in a while camping. the family was playing in the water when a man came by and kidnapped her. since the event he has struggled with forgiving himself for not being there to save her, and also questions God about why it happened. while trying to deal with a spiritual crisis of faith, he decides to find some time alone and goes to a cabin his friend offers as a way to get away for a while. while there he has the most amazing experience: God shows up. now he can ask God directly why did this happen. the book deals with these conversations in an interesting manner, but it quickly becomes apparent that the 'God' he talks with is not the traditional God of Christianity, but rather some sort of 'spiritual' god that bares little resemblance to the God of the Bible. the story is well told and we really feel for what this man is going through, dealing with the loss and guilt of a dead child, but the doctrine is far from Christian.

TV. you are what you eat

diana and i recently came across this little british gem. its a show on bbc america, hosted by gillian mckeith, that tries to help overweight people get healthy again. it starts with showing how badly the people have been eating, in fact they make a list of all the foods that person has eaten in the last week and then puts all of it on one table for them to see. usually the person is rather disgusted by it because it always contains much more terrible food then they would have thought- and not much fresh food at all. gillian then gives them an eight week regime of healthy foods and exercise. we peek in on them a couple times over the eight weeks, and at the end of the episode we see the results. almost without fail, the person looses 30-50 pounds!
the show was on twice a day over the summer, so diana and i tivoed all the episodes we could! after watching them for a little while we got motivated to eat healthier foods ourselves and are in the process of loosing weight as well. one little thing about the show that i really loved was the british weight measurement they would use: they measure their weight in stones. apparently a 'stone' equals 14 pounds, and every time they would talk about their weight it would always be in stone. for example if someone weighted 300 pounds, they would say that they weigh 21 stone 6. cool! well, diana happened to look at the back of our scale and found that it had a setting to measure in stone! awesome!!! we have been weighing ourselves in stone ever since!

TV. eureka

ah, a fun summer diversion. this series on the syfy network is loads of fun, it follows a small town sheriff as he tries to deal with the little problems that arise in eureka. the only problem is that eureka is a small town filled with scientific geniuses who are creating crazy futuristic stuff and doing the strangest experiments ever! each week there is a new experiment gone haywire that they have to deal with, everything from a landing space ship, to a haunted piece of ice. the great part of the show is the fact that it doesnt take it self seriously at all, which helps with the unbelievable situations they find themselves in. colin ferguson plays the local sheriff as he tries to deal with all the nut jobs, government conspiracies, and hardest of all: a teenage daughter. colin does a great job of playing it all off like he's seen it before, making wise cracks the whole time. he's kind of like the jack o'neil of eureka. and if you actually understood that reference, then you are probably already watching this fun show...

TV. warehouse 13

the sci-fi channel (sorry, its 'syfy' now...) tries it's hand at another original series. i gave this one a try because i have been impressed with most of their other shows. ranging from 'stargate sg1', to 'battlestar galactica', to 'eureka', i have typically enjoyed the scripted shows on this network.
this one is about a couple of new agents recently assigned to the middle of nowhere. now they have to work in a place called 'warehouse 13'. its a huge storage area for all things strange, weird, and unexplained. the two of them go out and hunt down objects with powers we dont yet understand. they get them and bring back the objects to the warehouse where they are catalogued and stored until they know what to do with them.
the season started slowly (not necessarily a bad thing), but has since picked up. the two main agents are pretty fun, they have a great chemistry together, playing off each other well. the highlight of the show, though, is definitely the guy who runs the warehouse, he tells them where to go and what to look for. the show does a good job of balancing out the sci fi mythology stuff with a lighthearted sense of humor that all the characters share. each week the show gets more interesting, so i think i will keep watching!

TV: virtuality

its too bad that fox dumped this one, because this is a really good story. fox aired this two hour 'movie' recently, but its not really a movie, it was a pilot for a new television series by the creator of the 'battlestar galactica' reboot on sci-fi. fox must have paid for the pilot to be made but then canned the show, figuring they wanted to get something for the money they spent, they aired the pilot even though there is no show coming. the story is that of a crew on a deep space mission that has recently left earth, it is filled with many different types of people and each of them has an interesting story to tell. the crew is, apart from being on a mission to find a new inhabitable planet, also on a reality show. the company behind the mission used that as a way to pay for the trek. so we get to see these crew members going about their ship activities, and we also get to have interviews with them explaining what they are thinking, like a reality show. also, in order to allow the crew members some r and r, each of them has a virtual reality helmet that they can wear which takes them to a holodeck type fantasy. as they crew gets closer and closer to the point of no return, bad things keep happening. the vr helmets start to have mysterious visions, the doctor is diagnosed with an incurable disease, and the captain is mysteriously killed. with no way to turn back, the remaining crew must do the best they can. all this makes for a really interesting premise for a continuing show, but unfortunately, instead we get a great start with no chance of ever seeing where their stories will lead. way to go fox, you totally ruined another great sci-fi show that could have been.