Day 8 of 30 Days of TV Shows
By Dave Klecha | July 29, 2010
Day 08 – A show everyone should watch
This is really simple and really easy. Everyone should watch Mythbusters. It’s gotten a little more sensational in recent seasons, a little less science-y maybe, but really. Everyone. Should. Watch. Mythbusters.
And then they can stop sending me e-mail forwards about the hilarious true story of the guy who strapped a JATO rocket to his car and smeared himself across a mountainside. Or whatever. But mostly they should watch for the science. Look kids, it’s two guys who aren’t scientists, doing science! It applies to their lives as special effects guys! How amazing is that?
And since I have nothing else to say than that, have my favorite Mythbusters explosion of all time. Of all time!
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: life | 1 Comment »
Tea Parties for Everyone
By Dave Klecha | July 28, 2010
In case you haven’t been following the story–and I’m not sure anyone outside of Michigan has–for the last couple of months there has been a petition going around to get the Tea Party recognized as an official political party eligible for the Michigan ballot in November. What’s interesting–and perhaps deliciously hilarious–is that the official party is not affiliated, in any way, with the national Tea Party movement, even though that itself seems to be fragmenting. No, it’s just some chump in Mid-Michigan, a retired autoworker and former UAW steward, apparently taking it upon himself to create what so many have been allegedly clamoring for.
But, of course, no actually wants to create a Tea Party for-reals, because they know beyond a doubt that such a thing would split conservative voters, an neither of them would win. Which is exactly what they’re accusing this guy of doing, and whining the whole way.
Why I find it hilarious is because this appears to be a major rebranding effort on the part of neocons that is failing because they have no control over the brand. They created a new faction within the party with this patriotic and revolutionary and anti-tax root, but then because they just wanted to rebrand their faction, and made the mistake of choosing a brand with the word Party in it (which, admittedly, is a step up from the original “Teabaggers”), they opened themselves up to ordinary citizens–either the truly sincere or tools of political gamesmanship–creating an actual Tea Party.
Now, I think the whole movement oscillates between patently absurd and overtly harmful, but as was already shown in some state primaries, the new faction with their slate of chosen candidates is already going to great lengths to split the party. I realize they can trot out a moderate conservative per function to say that he’s just an ordinary guy, worried about taxes, et cetera and so forth, but do they really think they’re going to get the entire GOP faithful plus convince the moderate middle, to make a difference nationally? Do they really think they’re not going to get the conservatives who aren’t enamored with the Tea Party movement to come out and vote, just because they’re a Republican? As it is, it seems that for the most part they’re appealing to the existing GOP base with their shenanigans, and little else.
And they haven’t even made it to the midterms yet. Can’t even hold it together for one full election cycle before they start to rift within and get their brand chopped up from without.
There’s little doubt in my mind that the guy behind the Michigan Tea Party is doing so to spoil the GOP’s chances in the state. The announced candidates are all in tightly contested elections, and they didn’t bother with the usual third-party junk of trying to nominate people for Governor, just to make a point. He (they?) has a focused goal, and it appears to be to confuse voters in races the Dems could lose to a concerted GOP effort.
That said, I find it hilarious.
Topics: life | No Comments »
Day 7 of 30 Days of TV Shows
By Dave Klecha | July 28, 2010
Day 07 – Least favorite episode of your favorite show
So, again, there are a few worthy candidates here. Some would say that most of the first season is a good one, but I have a soft spot for the first season. They really tried to make every episode stand alone, and yet there’s only a couple of episodes that don’t have any bearing on future installments and story arcs. As bad as “The Broca Divide” was, for instance, they pretty much ignored the bullshit science later on, but used the notion of a people grateful for SG-1′s help, offering to house refugees and such in later episodes. For that alone, I’ll give that episode a pass. (Still in the bottom ten, especially for the bit where the black Marine is the first to succumb to the planet’s crazy-making evolutionary-regression illness, but hey.)
Anyway, also a good candidate are episodes like “Frozen” and “Nightwalkers” from Season 6 which seemed to have been lifted whole from the reject pile in the X-Files writers’ room.
I think the worst, though, in terms of just plain annoying, is “Demons” from the third season. It posits–contrary to the show’s premise–that some folks were plucked from medieval Europe and settled as slaves on another planet, and hung on to the medieval culture, marking all travelers through the gate as “demons.” This might have been handled well with another director, but unfortunately it was directed by Peter DeLuise who, while I’m sure he did many great things for the show, also seems to be the guy who took it the least seriously. (If you’re so inclined, listen to just one of his director’s commentaries on the DVDs. Half his comments are along the line of “And that’s Christmas lights in some black velvet! Is this whacky sci-fi or what!?”) And so you get episodes like this, completely forgettable and basically annoying. I mean, at least “The Broca Divide” and “Spirits,” for instance, had stuff in them you could argue about, and left some kind of impression. “Demons” is the episode I have to keep reminding myself even exists.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: life | 1 Comment »
Day 6 of 30 Days of TV Shows
By Dave Klecha | July 27, 2010
Day 06 – Favorite episode of your favorite TV show
So, there’s a few contenders for favorite episode. “Wormhole X-Treme!” and “200″ are almost a single, awesome episode, marking the 100th and 200th installments in the series. “Threads” is a great pseudo-series-finale, and “Moebius Pt. 1 & 2,” is a great follow-up movie to the series finale. The series really should have stopped there, but “Bad Guys” is a pretty hilarious 10th season episode, and “Unending” is a fantastic actual series finale. All of them deserving, as are a dozen others, but I’m going to go with the episode that sucked me in to the show when I first saw it, muted, years and years ago.
Window of Opportunity, as I mentioned the other day, is the series’ “Groundhog Day” episode. In it, the team goes to a planet and meets with an alien archaeologist another team met on a previous trip. Interestingly only to me, this is one of the earlier indications that there is human gate travel outside of the SG teams and their enemy the Goa’uld. That gets explored more later in the series, but it was kind of an odd, yet uplifting note, to this episode.
Anyway, it turns out the archaeologist is really working some shenanigans, trying to make an Ancient time travel device work, and in the process he starts up a loop that everyone but he, Jack, and Teal’c get caught up in. The show takes some predictable turns, in terms of the inevitable realization that nothing they do will have consequences, along with some hilarious bits of them learning to juggle, or the usually somewhat dim and uninterested Jack correcting Daniel’s translation of the Ancient language. Of course, they manage to convince the rest of the team that they’re stuck in a loop (each and every time), and finally do break out of it. But this episode tends to show off a lot of the things it does well, like the team dynamic, mixing light and heavy, and being able to consciously engage with genre tropes. More than once, in the episode, someone references or otherwise points out what usually happens in these kinds of movies/TV episodes, usually for comedic effect.
So, it’s got a warm and fluffy place in my heart for a couple of reasons, and it’s not surprising that it has consistently been among fans’ absolute favorite episodes.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: life | 3 Comments »
By Dave Klecha | July 26, 2010
Day 05 – A show you hate
There’s a couple classes of show I hate, almost universally, and will simply never watch no matter how awesome people tell me it is.. One is the half-hour sitcom, which I just don’t have any time for. Part of it is that the shows so often rely on the device of a character’s abject humiliation for its humorous punch, and that, as they say, is one of my squicks. I don’t know what it is, but I hate to see people humiliated for humor, especially when the situation is contrived, Rube-Goldberg-esque, to humiliate them. Probably the number one reason why I could not stand Meet the Parents. Drove me up the wall. Too many sitcoms of my youth were built around that, and I just don’t have the time or spare mental energy to waste on it. I’d rather just watch Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa answer questions than sit through an episode of Two and a Half Men.
The other is reality shows. Do I need to say more? Do I? Hate ‘em all. Unholy mix of mockumentary and game show.
So… I guess if you had to pin me down, I would say probably The Office. To me, painfully unfunny and not worth watching for any genuine bits that might be mixed in there somewhere. There’s a lot more that I don’t like at all, and Seinfeld is probably the close runner-up, with Law & Order: SVU, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis, and several others vying for the top 10 of shows I loathe. But The Office tops them all.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: life | 1 Comment »
Day 4 of 30 Days of TV Shows
By Dave Klecha | July 25, 2010
Day 04 – Your favorite show ever
So, I’m not typically a very fannish sort, especially when it comes to TV. I just don’t get deeply invested in shows, even shows that one might say I really, really enjoy. Just not part of my matrix or something.
Stargate SG-1, for whatever reason, blew that sensibility out of the water. I still didn’t start writing fanfic or making homemade music videos or anything, but through the first 8 seasons, it’s the sort of show that I could just pop in a DVD and sit down for a day and watch them. Which is, in fact, how I watched the first five seasons or so, on consecutive days, for quite a while.
I don’t remember when I first became aware of the show–I remember seeing the movie in the theater and enjoying it quite a bit–but one night my girlfriend (now wife) and I went to hang with some people at a bar in downtown Grand Rapids. And Stargate SG-1, for some reason, was on one of the bar TVs. I couldn’t hear what was going on, but I could tell that it was the Groundhog Day episode of the series, “Window of Opportunity,” just from the visual cues.
And I was in love.
I don’t know what it was that struck such a chord with me. It might have been Richard Dean Anderson playing against type as a wise-cracking, kinda dumb, let’s-blow-shit-up military officer. Or it might have been the “team” aspect of the show, or something like that. I think the things I point to the most, however, are the kinda hybrid nature of baddie-of-the-week and overarching mythology, and the blend of action and drama and humor. I liked, especially, how it was obvious that the show seemed to operate in an environment where things did carry over, but not every episode had to focus on the big questions and big story.
Until the 9th & 10th seasons, for the most part, which is why this isn’t on my list as a show that should never have been canceled. In fact, I would have loved if they had directly spun off the series into an idea that some had floated, called “Stargate Command” which would feature the same characters to begin with, but would give them the opportunity to transition in other actors, transition out the mainstays if they wanted, and keep things fresh. But, apparently, Sci-Fi Channel wanted its 10 season behemoth, so… we got those seasons, which seem like kind of a mistake to me. Except for the 200th episode, which is freaking hilarious, and a handful of others, here and there.
Anyway, back to why I love it so much. So, another aspect I loved about it is that it seemed like the perfect Saturday afternoon syndicated science fiction show. Probably it and Farscape really fill that role well, and there’s stuff for everyone (it seems), or at least every mood, in SG-1. I never watch it that way, one episode a week, though I’ve toyed with that idea as a weird sort of rewatch. Would take me years to get through all of them, but… it seems like a nice, slow way to go through it.
The only problem is, whenever I rewatch the series, I tend to stall out right before some of the show’s more embarrassing episodes, especially in the second season. But, I should remember, there is stuff to appreciate about the show, even in the worst episodes. Which is probably also why I love it so much.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: life | 1 Comment »
Day 3 of 30 Days of TV Shows
By Dave Klecha | July 24, 2010
Day 03 – Your favorite new show (that aired this season)
Okay, so, I am going to cheat outrageously on this one, since we happen to be between TV seasons right now, and I’m going to pick an upcoming show that I haven’t seen yet, but one that I’m cautiously very excited about. And it’s been a couple seasons since I watched anything new-that-season, so this is as good as it gets.
Detroit 1-8-7 stars Michael Imperioli and a buncha other people, in a pseudo-documentary about homicide detectives in Detroit. I realize, quite concretely, that the show is capitalizing on the strange attention Detroit has been getting lately from all corners. I sometimes get the feeling that a lot of people are rooting for the city to fail, to be a monument to the idea of a soft apocalypse, and the trailer for the show certainly demonstrates some of those aspects–like needing to expand the murder board, or sorting through the detritus on an overpass to find the right spent cartridge among a bunch of red herrings. But it looks like they are trying to go for a redemptive, positive theme, and the mayor of Detroit–very conscious about the city’s poor image–has given his tentative blessing to the show.
Happily, and thanks to the state’s filmmaking tax credits, the show will actually be shot here–soundstage, location, post production and all, which could well make it a showcase for the city in more than one way. And hopefully they’ll be unable to avoid showing that there are nice parts of the city, things worth building on, and so on.
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: life | No Comments »
The State of the Dave
By Dave Klecha | July 23, 2010
Hey look, it’s Friday! I love me some Friday.
The week has been a nice, if one that is slightly out of skew with my normal type weeks. Worked on a book production project, worked on revisions for a novel, and spent what seems to be an inordinate, but thoroughly enjoyable, amount of time hanging out with Mary Robinette Kowal. If you don’t know her (and I think there might be some who don’t), she’s a fabulous writer, currently the VP of SFWA, professional puppeteer, and delightful conversation partner. She also won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, so to say that she’s an awesome person for a fledgling writer to hang out with is a vast understatement.
But, it wasn’t all fun and games this week. I also tore what I think is my fourth pair of khakis since starting my current job in February, all due to the very non-desk-job nature of my supposed desk job. Since there’s a gazillion square feet of manufacturing plant and warehouse outside my office, I tend to have to squeeze into odd space and crawl around the occasional whirring, clanking machine, not to mention crawling under various and sundry office desks, and I realized that it’s just not a job for regular khakis. So I bought some Carhartt dungarees, which look surprisingly enough like ordinary khakis, just with much sturdier material/stitching and a few extra pockets.
Mmmmm, pockets.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the weekend, which hopefully will feature plenty more writing and a bit of hanging out at Gun Lake.
Anybody else with fun plans for the weekend?
Topics: life | 2 Comments »
Day 2 of 30 Days of TV Shows
By Dave Klecha | July 23, 2010
Day 02 – A show that you wish more people were watching
Okay, so, this is a bit of a tricky one. I don’t talk much about TV shows with other people, so I have no idea what people are and are not watching, but I can guess that most of my American friends aren’t watching much in the way of British comedies, so I’ll go with The IT Crowd.
The premise of the show is pretty basic: one slacker nerd and one super nerd are the entire IT department for a who-knows-what-it-does British corporation. In the pilot, they’re saddled with a female manager who lied about her IT knowledge to get a job, any job in management. And in the course of the show they discover a gothy sysadmin living in the server room. While most of what goes on is couched in the hyperbole and exaggeration typical of comedy, there are plenty of very true moments mixed in as well.
The fourth season of the show just started not too long ago, and is available online, but it seems you need to have a British IP address in order to access it, more’s the pity. But, if you have Netflix, they do have the first three seasons available on DVD or through online streaming.
Topics: life | 1 Comment »
Day 1 of 30 Days of TV Shows
By Dave Klecha | July 22, 2010
I usually resist this kind of thing but, a) I was looking for something to get me into the habit of posting regularly again, and b) this kind of thing is going around among some of my friends, so I thought I would take a stab at it, just for kicks. There’s three versions, one each for TV, movies, and books, and unless there are screams of protest, I’ll probably cycle through all three. Why? Because I’m bored, and the worst you could do is stop reading. I’ll still be amused.
Anyway, as an additional challenge, I may try to mention, at least, 30 different TV shows for this meme, especially since I’m not sure I’ve watched 30 different shows enough to have a profound opinion on them. Not a big TV guy. But hey, put the tough one first, I suppose.
Anyway.
Day 01 – A show that should have never been canceled
I’m going to skip the obvious skiffy answer here, the one that everyone in my circle points to, and go with a slightly more unconventional choice: The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
Whenever it comes up, I tend to wax hopeful about the day when the AI is good enough, the CGI is good enough, that my home computer could actually generate whole new episodes and seasons and story arcs and whatnot of this show out what it knows of the existing season, what the writers intended for the future, and so on. I realize that’s probably a monkey’s paw wish, there, but it’s a fun one.
Anyway, if you don’t know, the show was a sort of sci-fi western, with the emphasis on western, starring Bruce Campbell and a handful of “Oh THAT guy”s, including regular appearances by the wonderful Billy Drago. In some places it was kind of steampunky, in other places outright sci-fi, with time travel and alien artifacts and such. R. Lee Ermey played Brisco’s deceased lawman dad, and the show was done in deliberate B-movie serial style, with cliffhangers on each commercial break, and so on.
Sadly, it was an unwitting victim of some weird Fox off-season decisions, and so the first season finale, unknown to everyone including Fox itself, became the series finale, with everyone wrapping on the season as though they’d be back for season 2. I would loved to have seen it continue, and I’ve discovered with the recent emphasis on season-long storylines, I long for some well-done, episodic action-adventure like Brisco.
Somehow, the WB has all 24 episodes free online.
Topics: life | No Comments »
« Previous Entries