Coupling, PBS and the Pledge Drive of Doom.

So, I finally got a chance to watch the entire run of the BBC comedy seriesCoupling. One of my local Public Broadcasting Stations recently began playing it on Saturday nights as part of a large block of British comedy, including the likes of Waiting for God, Fawlty Towers, Vicar of Dibbley, and Father Ted. I’d been enjoying Coupling most of all because a.) It was, to me, the funniest of the lot, b.) I’d never seen it before and c.) It’s written by a long-time Doctor Who fan and now Doctor Who writer… a fact I totally forgot when I started watching it, and only remembered about 3 episodes in. That’ll teach me not to watch opening credits. This PBS station, however, just entered one of its dread periods called “The Pledge Drive” and has taken off the entire block of comedy that it normally shows. Meaning, to continue with Coupling, I had to take matters into my own hands.

I know my fellow Americans will be all too familiar with the concept of the PBS Pledge Drive. Let me elaborate on this for those who live outside the States, however. The dread Pledge Drive is a time honored tradition in which these publicly funded television stations will take off the majority of their regular programming (at least the only stuff that anyone even mildly sane would ever watch), and replace it with “specials” while interrupting every half an hour with on-air segments hosted by bland, usually homely people will try and encourage you to give money to their station by reminding you that it is only with public funding that they can bring you quality programs like this. Usually, these “special”, “quality programs” are turgid, 2 hour long videos of: some new Opera sensation (“oh, my god… he’s blind and he can sing like that! Isn’t that amazing?” …”NO! It would be amazing if he was deaf and could sing like that!”), a travelogue to some far flung place, an Irish pan-flautist, or most amazing of all… a cooking special. Sure, sometimes one of them will get the bright idea of playing a comedy marathon. Sure, once upon a time they used to have Doctor Who marathons, a fact slightly mitigated by the fact that they’d still interrupt them with Pledge hawking. Most of the time, however, it’s a metric ass-load of pretentious nonsense, sometimes sinking as low as celebrating the career and “talent” of Sarah Brightman. What they don’t seem to realize is that some of us like reliability and consistency in a television station. Maybe I would have been moved to give them money had they left my Saturday nights undisturbed, allowing me to get my Coupling laughs from them. Instead, they had a cooking show on, and I gave my (not small) amount of money to Amazon to get some DVD’s. Capitalism wins again, I guess. I do hope that at least some small amount of that money filters back through the channels of purchase and into Steve Moffat’s pocket.

Onto what I thought of Coupling: I loved it. Every last episode… though Season 4, episode one was a bit uneven, but by Mr. Moffat’s own statements (I think I read something like this) , Richard Coyle’s departure made that somewhat inevitable. I would have to put Coupling into my top 5 comedies of all time at the very least, if not actually at 1… which I admit, it’s hovering at right now. “Unconditional Sex” was somewhat a muted success for me, though, as I discovered that Lou Gish died a week ago right before I watched it, meaning the jokes about Julia being dead weren’t going over so well with me at the moment. I know some didn’t care for Oliver, but I kind of liked him. He had Jane’s psychology sussed, I think. He was nowhere near the neurotic mess Jeff was… yeah, ok, Jeff was hilarious… but would you really hang out with him? Gina Bellman is fantastic. Her portrayal of Jane is one of the highlights of the program for me. Patrick and Sally were made for each other. Steve and Susan had to work at it a bit more, but were a great couple.

My only complaint: I need closure on this. I know it’s unlikely any “ending” will be made, but I just need closure! I need to know if Jane and Oliver work out. I need to know if Sally actually gives Patrick a slightly less rude answer to his proposal. I need to know that Susan was ok after the C-Section, and what kind of neurotic father Steve made. I NEED TO KNOW!!!!

Ok, that’s me venting for today. Move along. Nothing more to see.

Apple's Big News

As you may have seen, Apple is Switching to an Intel based hardware.

This is big news, and I believe this to be the start of something fairly bold, and maybe even winning for Apple. If they can pull this off without too many hitches, then there's a chance that they can increase their marketshare signifigantly and finally create a real threat for Windows domination. I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

Doesn't stop me from being cheeky though:



-IMF

The Doctor's coming back...

I know I haven't been updating my blog very often, but I think I'm gonna be a bit more conscientious about it from this point... make at least one post a week. So, I'll start now with the impending return of Doctor Who.

As has been reported widely, a DVD screener of the first episode got leaked... and yours truly got a chance to see it, and I'm glad. My review (spoilers are present):

The Good


Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. He was brilliant. A bit of a walking mood swing, but utterly brilliant. He's entusiastic, enigmatic and enrgetic... everything a Doctor should be. I look forward to seeing him settle into the role and really run with it.

Billie Piper as Rose. She's a very effective actress, not to mention curvy and beautiful. I like that Rose isn't a shrinking violet, and that she played an active role in the story's conclusion. I'm not sure I know Rose that well yet, but I think it'll be a lot of fun getting to know her.

The chemistry between the Doctor and Rose. They play off of each other very well, and their is some very definite attraction going on there, both ways. About time.

The TARDIS, inside and out, and the way you can see the inside from the outside.

The new Sonic Screwdriver, and the Doctor's new Wardrobe (though I still think he's been raiding Angel's closet).

The dialogue is quite sharp, and at times pretty funny.

The Bad

The music is atrocious. I mean incredibly awful. Synthy, loud and
obnoxious, and it's just jarringingly incongrous to what's actually on
screen. This show needs a new composer... one who knows how to compliment a
scene and not detract from it. Even the charmingly antiquated Dudley Simpson scores of the
original Who would have been preferrable to this.

Noel Clarke as Mickey. He played his role much to broadly, like a simple cartoon, mugging for the camera in every seen and simpering like a moron. His performance as the Auton copy of Mickey is just flat out embarrassing.

The pacing was a little frenetic, and the story comes off Rushed... but this really couldn't be helped... pilot episodes usually are... too much to establish in too little time. So, I can forgive this one.

On Buffy comparisons:

I keep hearing the comparisons of the new Who to Buffy, but I've never really seen that Buffy's tone could be accurately used to describe the milieu of "Rose", but I really think there is another series that it's reminding me a great deal of: Farscape.

If you look at Farscape's pilot episode (not to be confused with it's character called Pilot), it's a fun, energetic episode with a quick pace, fart jokes, and characters who seem to be largely charicatures for the most part. The villian, Captain Crais seems 2 dimensional... a cardboard villian that we've seen over and over. Ka'Dargo seems like a barely veiled Worf Clone. Rygel's a stuffes shirt little Muppet, Aeryn an angry hot-girl/soldier and Zahn and Pilot are just barely explored at all. John Crichton, the main character, is the only one with any real work done in that initial ep, and he reacts to the bizzare events around him in complete bewilderment. It's fun, but it's not a good indicator for the rest of the series.

Farscape started out with a great deal of energy and alot of enthusiasm, but it started uneven... not really finding it's voice until late in the first season of the show. By then end of the first series, Crais had become a damaged and almost sympathetic character with Ahab overtones. D'argo was shown to be a deep and nuanced character, very different from Worf, Zhaan, the priest was shown to be a former murderer and the only member of the crew that had been justly imprisoned, Rygel was shown to be someone who is easily and fatally underestimated, and Aeryn was shown to be confused, disillusioned and vulnerable. John Chrichton, who came into this situation a pacifist who argued with the others about them carrying guns had been pushed past the breaking point of sanity, that he not only started carrying a gun himself, he named it!

Basically, over the course of that season, the people involved in making the series had learned what worked, what didn't and had found the right balance to start telling some truly phenomenal stories. They still had the occasional clunker but the whole became greater than the sum of it's parts.

Now, when I watched "Rose" I can't help but see the parallels. It's got alot of energy and good intention, but it's also got some uneven bits, and things that don't quite work... but it's the first episode... and it's probably going to be in that nebulous, raw period where it hasn't really found it's voice and it's balance. I would lay dollars to doughnuts that as the first series progresses, and the production team and the cast get a rhtyhmn down, we'll see a streamlining to the series, and an overall increase in the effectiveness of the show and it's characters.

I rolled my eyes at the Belch, and references to aliens farting in a coming ep, but I asked myself why I accepted the farting and belching in Farscape, but not in Doctor Who... and I couldn't honestly find an acceptable answer. I think what we're seeing here is the thematic child of Farscape.... which is strange because in the early days of Farscape, I always thought it reminded me of Doctor Who (lots of running in corridors, and travelling in a living and completely unarmed ship).

-IMF

I deleted my Political Post

It just seemed childish and in poor taste.

Chrisopher Reeve

I know I'm late commentating on it, but I really needed to find what I wanted to say about the passing of Christopher Reeve. So many have already said everything there is to say. I'm profoundly saddened by the loss of this man, not just for his connection to what is arguably my favorite pop-culture figure: Superman, but for how he chose to deal with a bad hand of cards dealt him by the indifferent dealings of fate.

I don't know how I would have handled being rendered quadrapelgic. I really don't know that I could have handled it, truth to tell. If I had the celebrity and financial resources that Reeve had available to him, I may have chosen to put all of it toward personal rehabilitation, and to hell with the rest of the world. Reeve didn't. He turned his personal tragedy into an incredible crusade to heal spinal injuries for everyone, not just himself. To have such resource available, and the terrible temptation to use it selfishly, he chose to use it for everyone's benefit... and in that way, more than any other, he can be likened to the character he played. He'll be missed.

So, I'll end this post with the character he played (here played by Tim Daly) saying goodbye in this sound clip.

Jon Stewart on Crossfire.

I originally posted this text on Mystcommunity, a fan-site for the MYST seried of videogames, in reaction to this video of Jon Stewart's recent appearance on Crossfire.

"I couldn't have agreed more with Jon Stewart in this clip. He comes to the very sage conclusion that partisan bickering is destroying the political process in America, and that the media by and large is helping it right along. Journalists should be unbiased, dispassionate chroniclers of events, and for a time they were. Recently, however, they have become part of a show... a deliberate, highly produced entertainment medium not only promulgating the partisan devisiveness that is found in American politics, but streamlining and simplifying it to a manichean parody of civilized discourse: Right vrs left, Republicans vrs Democrats in a battle royale, disagreeing on everything only on the basis of their politics and nought else. Jon was absolutely right; Crossfire is to true debate what Pro Wrestling is to actual sports. It's a show with characters and costumes. Let's take Tucker Carlson for example, and his ludicrous bow-tie. Tucker wears it as his personal distinction, knowing that without some little catch, he'd be a forgettable nobody in a sea of bland, young jouralists. Instead of distinguising himself by the quality of his work, or the intelligence of his analysis, he has chosen a little catch item. It's sloppy, and it bespeaks of shallowness. Instead of developing character, he has chosen to be one. It's a trap many fall into, even people in Myst fandom do this on the boards or lyst, trying to draw attention to themselves by either posting in a specific color, or only speaking in third person, or bolding the first letter of their post. To find this behavoir in someone who is supposed to be a serious commentator in a true journalistic media is just bordering on absurd. It's a costume. It's revolting.

Jon, I know you'll never read this, but I just want to say thanks for calling it like it is: a complete farce."

No Tights, One Flight

Last night's installment of Smallville broke the show's axiom of "No Tights, No Flights" in a big way. The tights haven't shown, but boy did flight make an appearance. Clark, reprogrammed to a pure Kryptonian persona, took to the skies... and it's Superhero flying like I have never seen before except in Animation. It was fast and frenetic. It had a visceral feel of movement, speed, and raw power... and if this is what can be achieved to make Superman fly on Television, just imagine what can be acheived in film. No more Wire-flight, or cheesy, green-screen only stuff. This was real superhero flying action. I hope they break this part of the motto more often, even if they copped out when had Clark revert to his real persona and forget how to do it.

Firefox

When I worked at Gateway, I was known to say things along the lines of "I use Microsoft because it has support. If someone came out with something better that wouldn't require sacrificing my compatibility, I'd switch in a second." Well, now, Mozilla has done just that with a browser called Firefox. Firefox is a great browser. It does everything IE does, and more, and what's more, it just does it better. So, I use Firefox pretty much exclusively now. I also switched from Outlook Express to Mozilla Thunderbird, which is similarly better than its Microsoft counterpart. Now, if someone could make a decent Windows replacement that would allow me to use my existing software, I'd be set.