V has Landed
November 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Like many children of the 80s, V is one of those television events that is forever burned into my mind and probably added to some hidden phobia of aliens and perhaps even reptiles. Nonetheless, when I heard that ABC was remaking the original NBC property, you could say I was definitely excited to see how it would shape up. I even took in the original mini-series and the TV series that followed when sci-fi aired them prior to the new episode 1 and while it wasn’t as scary as I thought as a kid, the original was still very cool. Yeah, the effects were marginal, but for 1983 they were pretty good. The concept and the story however was pretty amazing and that was the main thing I hoped would make the trip into the new imagining and after seeing the pilot and the first episode, I’ve got high hopes for the series.
Of course people are already making the Nazi, Obama and immigration references, and in all reality, how could they not? The story is ripe for creative misinterpretation and the blogosphere is having at it. All politics aside, episode 1 really should have been two hours as it moved way too fast – it was like the aliens had just arrived and before the first commercial we were all ready breeding with them. Spoiler alert! Just kidding. Episode 2 slowed up a bit, so perhaps they were a little too eager to get things moving. While the original storyline was tossed out, the key elements are all still there and the characters are interesting and diverse. Long gone are those turbo shield sunglasses, but the visitors are very easy on the eyes and quite stylish. The CG work is pretty solid, but that was to be expected, so I’ll keep watching and from the numbers so far, it sounds like many others will be as well.
Haven’t seen it? Learn more and watch full episodes on ABC’s official V site»
Stargate Universe
October 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Screen cap showing the opening sequence of the new SG•U series
So who watched Stargate Universe last night? My guess is that anyone reading this had it on their calendar and made the 2-hour premier the focus of their Friday night. Despite all the naysayers disparaging the new series, calling it Stargate Voyager and a slew of other creative names, I went into the latest extension of the Stargate franchise with an open mind and have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While the show’s universe feels very familiar, the flavor of the series is noticeably different in that it’s much grittier and with a definite adult vibe – I mean there’s a a full on sex scene before the first commercial airs that would have been right at home in the reimagined BSG series.
The new series follows a band of soldiers, scientists and civilians, who must fend for themselves as they are forced through a stargate when their off-world base comes under attack. The desperate survivors emerge aboard an ancient ship, which is only partially functional, locked on an unknown course and unable to return to Earth. Faced with meeting the most basic needs of food, water and air, the rag-tag group must unlock the secrets of the ship’s stargate to survive as the ship takes them from galaxy to galaxy and possible inhabitable planets.
They definitely packed a lot into this first outing, but they had quite a setup to deliver and did a decent job of packing it all in by way of flashback scenes and character back-story’s. And yes, as rumored the cast was all over the place, but that’s very much by design given the storyline and the character’s unique traits have already given us a taste of who’s who in the group. All told I thought the premier was great and definitely caught my interest, but perhaps as a Stargate fanboy I’m a little easier to win over… let’s just hope that SG•U can go the distance like the original series did, but only time will tell.
Caprica
April 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment
“Battlestar Galactica” has barely ended, and already a spinoff series is being trotted out by the Sci Fi (or Sy Fy as they now call themselves) Channel. Like many BSG fans, I was quick to get my hands on hte pilot via pre-release DVD, clearly released way early to create a little buzz on the coat tail’s of the the mother-ship series coming to an end.
Fortunately “Caprica” (a pilot to the forthcoming spinoff) is no quick cash-in on its parent series’ success. Okay, the fate of humanity doesn’t yet hang in the balance, and there are no space battles at all — but it maintains the same suspense, intelligence and philosophical musings as “Battlestar Galactica” had, even as it shows how Adama and the Cylons came to be.
A pair of secretly monotheistic teens — Zoe Graystone (Alessandra Toreson) and her boyfriend Ben — are running away from Caprica to escape the decadent polytheistic culture. But then Ben turns out to be a suicide bomber, and destroys the lev train.
Two men are left to deal with their grief in the aftermath — prominent cybernetic inventor Daniel (Eric Stoltz), and mob-connected Tauron lawyer Joseph Adams (Esai Morales), who lost his wife and daughter in the explosion. As the Caprican government starts ruthlessly hunting for monotheists, the two men bond. But then Daniel finds that Zoe is not completely gone — in an orgiastic virtual rave, she left behind a virtual “echo” that has all her memories, feelings, and even experienced her death.
Believing that the avatar can bring Zoe back from the dead, Daniel is determined to somehow put her avatar in a robotic body — and offers the same to Adams. At first Adams is desperate enough to agree, even to sacrificing his principles to get a vital piece of machinery for Daniel. But their ethics drive the two men in opposite directions, as Daniel’s obsession drives him to spawn something terrible…
It’s pretty obvious that “Caprica” is meant as the pilot of a TV show, because there are too many plot threads (the monotheists, Lacey’s involvement, the Adama family’s changes) left floating in the air with no resolution. Not to mention that final scene, which will leave you shrieking, “What next? What next? What’s gonna happen next?”
That said, it has the promise of being a truly brilliant piece of work — the writers deftly interweave topics of racism, religious oppression and misguidance, sorrow, and the existence of the soul (do our memories alone define us, or do we have something more?). And they spin up a totally believable world in Caprica, which is a wee bit more advanced than our world but essentially the same, with rebellious teens, Mafia-esque mobs, smooth downtown buildings and a seething undercurrent of sex’n'blood decadence.
The first half of “Caprica” is a bit slow, especially since it mainly focuses on how rotten Daniel and Joseph feel. But once Daniel discovers virtual-Zoe, the story blossoms into a beautifully tense tango between the two men, full of quietly poetic dialogue (“Sometimes faith can be a victim of chance”) and some eerie horrific moments (Joseph’s reunion with his dead “daughter”). The last ten minutes truly links “Caprica” to “Battlestar Galactica.”
Both Stoltz and Morales do brilliant jobs here. Neither Daniel nor Joseph is portrayed as a bad guy, but one of them allows his obsessions to carry him into dangerous territory, while the other has lines that he’s determined not to cross. Torresani is also quite good as a fierce young woman who wants to change the world, and her digital avatar, and Polly Walker gives a solid if brief performance as a serene young teacher with a secret.
“Caprica” is a solid start to the proposed spinoff series, although the wide-open ending keeps it from quite working on its own. Still, a little something to tide people over until the series really gets going.
