Thoughts on Star Trek Continues, Episode 1

This video is beautifully done: very true to the 60’s show both in tone and content. The dialogue is expository, the action is slow, the physics are loose and kinda mystical, the men are real men, the women are real women, the costumes are beautifully retro, the sets are authentic down to every detail. How did they even manage that? Did they get access to Paramount Studios or something? Did some enterprising (pardon the pun) geek recreate them from scratch?

So much fun.

Star Trek Continues E01 “Pilgrim of Eternity” from Star Trek Continues on Vimeo.

This video is beautifully done: very true to the 60’s show both in tone and content. The dialogue is expository, the action is slow, the physics are loose and kinda mystical, the men are real men, the women are real women, the costumes are beautifully retro, the sets are authentic down to every detail. How did they even manage that? Did they get access to Paramount Studios or something? Did some enterprising (pardon the pun) geek recreate them from scratch?

The actors are quite good too. Vic Mignogna as Kirk has the steely gaze down, and is way more built than Shatner ever was (hello, gratuitous shirtless scene!) Todd Haberkorn is kinda bland as Spock, and Larry Nemececk is quite good as a somewhat-less-curmudgeonly McCoy. Chris Doohan (son of James Doohan) was excellent as Scotty, and I found myself thinking it made perfect sense to have an actor with a natural Scottish accent—until I remembered Doohan wasn’t Scottish. Huh.

The biggest surprise was Grant Imahara as Sulu. I didn’t even know it was him. Sure, Sulu kind of looked like Imahara… and he sounded like Imahara doing Sulu… but it wasn’t until the closing credits that I saw it was actually him! Wow.

The plot was an interesting revisit of “Who Mourns For Adonais?”, with the Enterprise stumbling upon a crippled and dying Apollo (played by the same actor, even) who claims to no longer desire worship, and merely wants to live out his remaining days with mortals, in peace. Kirk sympathises but doesn’t really trust him, Spock is neutral, Bones is more sympathetic, and Scotty flat out doesn’t trust Apollo at all. At first I thought he was just being contrary to drive the plot, but he’s got good reasons: I’d forgotten that in Mourns, Apollo made the moves on Scotty’s girlfriend, and also attacked him with his divine lightning. But more than that, it’s revealed that said girlfriend, Lt. Palomas, was still infatuated by Apollo, and so distraught by the experience that she transfered away from the Enterprise, which later led to her death. So Scotty blames him for that too.

It makes for some good continuity, but also sadly continues the TOS tradition of women going gaga over charismatic alpha males, whether physical gods or genetically enhanced supermen. And I got to thinking: do we need a continuation of the original series? Okay, maybe that’s the wrong question: it’s art, of course we don’t need it. And granted, NCC-1701 is the ship that started it all, and the series does have a special charm all its own. But I’m torn about seeing it recreated so faithfully, with all its flaws intact. The slightly improved special effects and different actors highlight to me how problematic some of the tropes TOS ran on were, and how maybe they shouldn’t be given new life in the 21st century. The franchise has moved on. The world has moved on.

Overanalysing? Maybe. And to be honest, it didn’t keep me from enjoying this episode, or looking forward to any future episodes. Because seriously: getting Michael Forrest to reprise his role? Jamie Bamber as a redshirt? Marina Sirtis as the computer’s voice? You gotta respect that.

You Can’t Take The Sky From Me

Hey, who’d have thought I’d be back at the planetarium so soon?

This Saturday I went to Can’t Stop The Serenity, a fundraiser by the BC Browncoats to benefit Equality Now and the BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre.

Hey, who’d have thought I’d be back at the planetarium so soon?

This Saturday I went to Can’t Stop The Serenity, a fundraiser by the BC Browncoats to benefit Equality Now and the BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre. There was a silent auction, an evil laughs contest, and a whole lot of Whedon- and Firefly-related things to watch. Including a few costumes, though not as many as I expected. There was a fair number of Jayne hats, a group of three people (including at least one girl) dressed as cowboys (i.e.: Bad Horse’s chorus), and one woman dressed like a Vulcan in a blue TOS uniform. Huh. Didn’t see that coming. But I’ll say this for the Firefly/Serenity crowd, they’re pretty ecumenical. The auction items ranged all over the sci-fi spectrum, from an awesome foot-high plush Dalek to signed Stargate: Atlantis posters.

First up was Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I actually hadn’t watched it in its entirety in a long time, which is a shame because it’s a damn good story with damn good songs. (Usually I just watch “Brand New Day” because it’s catchy and evil Neil Patrick Harris is fucking sexy. Well, sexier.)

Browncoats: Redemption is a fan-made film set shortly after the events of Serenity, and starring the crew of yet another freelance transport. It’s got a neat plot, so-so acting, and crappy special effects, but hey, I’m not going to make a big deal about that.

We also watched Whedon’s acceptance speech, from when he received an award from Equality Now (“Honoring Men on the Front Line”) back in 2006. And… okay, I’m going to be contrary here, but this is what I think:

Whedon isn’t all that. There, I said it.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, he’s done some good TV. I love Buffy (well, mostly the first 3 seasons, though it only started sucking in seasons 6 and 7) and quite liked Angel though I kind of lost interest about halfway through. Firefly is hella fun, though there’s a lot more style than substance. And I fucking adore Dr. Horrible. (Never watched Dollhouse.)

But his Equality Now acceptance speech really got my dander up. The way he went on and on about creating strong female characters seemed incredibly smug and self-congratulatory. Buffy is strong, yes, in that she can beat up any living creature and most nonliving ones. But when you get right down to it I don’t see how that makes her really special, or even especially feminist. It certainly doesn’t make her revolutionary, because William Moulton Marston has Whedon beat by 50 years.

Not to mention that whatever character development Buffy had was absolutely demolished in the later seasons, what with her creepily abusive relationship with Spike, turning into a one-dimensional cold bitch to the Potential Slayers, Brother Caleb’s over-the-top (and not in a good way) misogyny, and here’s the kicker: discovering that Slayer power really came from primordial male wizards, who created the original Slayer in a weird act of magical borderline rape. Wow, way to crap on seven years’ worth of female-centered mythos there, Joss.

The only comparable characters (that I know of) in his other shows are the badass warrior Zoe, and—here’s a better match—River, who rather like Buffy is a small, harmless-looking girl that had her powers thrust upon her against her will (in this case, nasty medical experiments). Huh. Never saw that pattern before.

No, I don’t think Whedon was trying to make any kind of statement with Buffy, or any of his later characters. I think he just lucked into a character that (with great writing and a fine supporting cast) got picked up as a feminist icon. That said, I’ll give him props for:

  • Being a feminist man, and using his fame to campaign for women’s equality. It is a big deal, in real life as well as fiction.
  • Being brutally honest. In his speech, one of his many answers to “Why do you always write these strong women characters?” was “because it’s hot”. (Incidentally, Marston’s bondage fetish formed a big part of the early Wonder Woman mythos).
  • Writing at least one series with something close to gender parity. Of Firefly’s 9 main characters, 4 are women. Actually, since the two who died in Serenity were men, that brings us to a female majority. A nice variety of characters, too, from the hardened warrior to the sweet wrench-wielding nerd to the crazy psychic dancing timebomb, to the—oh, let’s be honest, Inara is 100% fetish fuel.

Well, enough contrariness. Sorry, had to get that off my chest. I really did have a great time Saturday, and I’ll be sure to go next year.

The Olympic Opening Ceremony

It was not a nice day. The weather was cool and overcast, predicted to rain in the evening. Which it did, but that didn’t stop me from going down to David Lam Park in Yaletown to watch the opening ceremony. My jacket had a hood and was waterproof, but I could have used a layer or two more. At the end I was starving, shivering, and my legs and neck were killing me.

It was totally worth it. The ceremony was beautiful and stirring, a wonderful showcase of our country’s culture and diversity that, dammit, made you proud to be Canadian!

It was not a nice day. The weather was cool and overcast, predicted to rain in the evening. Which it did, but that didn’t stop me from going down to David Lam Park in Yaletown to watch the opening ceremony. My jacket had a hood and was waterproof, but I could have used a layer or two more. At the end I was starving, shivering, and my legs and neck were killing me.

The setup

But it was totally worth it. The ceremony was beautiful and stirring, a wonderful showcase of our country’s culture and diversity that, dammit, made you proud to be Canadian!

The bad: the embarrassing mechanical hiccup at the end, cheating Catriona Le May Doan out of her part in lighting the cauldron. Boy, someone’s head is gonna roll over that.

And Nikki Yanofsky’s rendition of O Canada was incredibly annoying. She’s a great singer, but the anthem doesn’t need all those frills, which messed up everybody who tried to sing along. Though I appreciated that she switched between French and English.

(Come to think of it, the whole ceremony was very bilingual, with all announcements and introductions done in French first, but the countries were introduced in alphabetical order according to their English names. Usually that doesn’t matter, but then you’ve got Netherlands vs. Pays-Bas, or Uzbekistan vs. Ouzbékistan.)

The meh: Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams’ duet. The song was alright, I guess, but I’m not a fan of those two. Also leaving me cold was Measha Brueggergosman’s rendition of the Olympic Hymn. Sorry, she’s got some incredible pipes, but I couldn’t understand a word she was singing. I could tell some parts were in English and others in French, but that’s about it. I’m not even sure she wasn’t sneaking other languages in there.

The awesome: pretty much everything else, really. The First Nations greeting and dance was stunning, Ashley MacIsaac kicked so much ass, and k.d. lang blew me away. Not to mention the outstanding visual effects, with the whales, and the breaking ice, and the trees, and the audience participation, and the… everything.

So hey, I finally caught the Olympic spirit!

“This is my timey-wimey detector. Goes ‘ding’ when there’s stuff.”

So this weekend I saw Blink, an episode from the new Doctor Who series.

And wow, was that the creepiest hour of my life. “Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead.”

So this weekend I saw Blink, an episode from the new Doctor Who series.

And wow, was that the creepiest hour of my life. “Don’t blink. Don’t even blink. Blink and you’re dead.” Now I’m starting to see what the town council had against that living statue in Hot Fuzz, because yes, there’s something fundamentally wrong with creatures that only move when you’re not looking at them. And horribly scary, because your only defense is to keep looking at them. Could you focus on a Weeping Angel continually, not looking away, not even blinking, even if your life depended on it? Because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t. I tried just blinking one eye at a time, but that didn’t work for long.

Add a spookily gorgeous abandoned house to really punch up the horror feel, just a dash of whimsy here and there, an ending montage especially designed to ramp the paranoia up to 11, and you’ve got yourself a show that’ll send delicious chills up your spine again and again.

(Even some of the more lighthearted moments were intensely disturbing, like the Doctor’s “conversation” with Sally through a DVD, reading from a script which hadn’t been written yet from Sally’s point of view. Hah. I guess time is a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Although it’s interesting to note there were no actual time paradoxes in this storyline. All the events fit together nicely, if not… linearly. Except I’m not sure how the message under the wallpaper fit in.)

Dungeons & Dragons

I discovered The Order of the Stick about a month ago (with this episode, to be precise), and was immediately hooked. It’s got great plots, character development, action and adventure and tons of humour. Half of that is the hilarious metagaming dialog which spoke to right to my geek heart.

I discovered The Order of the Stick about a month ago (with this episode, to be precise), and was immediately hooked. It’s got great plots, character development, action and adventure and tons of humour. Half of that is the hilarious metagaming dialog which spoke to right to my geek heart. All this talk of hit points and +5 modifiers and levels by the characters themselves took me back to those long-ago gaming Dungeons & Dragons™ sessions I played with my brother M and a few friends. Ah, memories: the rattle of the dice, the scribbling on character sheets, the memorizing of monster stats, pretending we were wizards or paladins or thieves… Good times, good times.

We started playing around age 8, even before the (1st Edition) Advanced D&D came along. I remember our first couple of games, on our grandfather’s dining room table. Good old module B2! We played with our older brother and dad—who’d introduced us to the game and bought the module and dice. He never wanted to play himself, and bowed out as soon as we found gaming groups of our own. M and I played for more than a decade (and two editions), up until our early twenties when the last of the old gang moved away. I didn’t mind not RPGing anymore, since by then I’d come out of the closet and finally had a bit more of a life. Still, it was fun while it lasted, and I got to flex a lot of my creative muscles. Plus, let’s face it: there aren’t that many social outlets for awkward teens with hyperactive imaginations, and I’m grateful to our parents for, first, introducing us to the game, and second, ignoring the fundie-driven “D&D is Satanism” hysteria that flared up in the 80’s.

But though I haven’t felt like playing since, I do get nostalgic. Now, we used to read Dragon™ magazine for most of our gaming life. Dragon had excellent articles on many RPGs (not just D&D), art, modules, short stories… and comics in the back pages. After devouring the OOTS archives, I suddenly had a hankering for those long-ago comics.

What’s New? with Phil & Dixie lasted only a few years, delighting readers with its hilarious commentaries on games and the gaming world. The creator, Phil Foglio, has been keeping busy: check out the terrific steampunk adventure Girl Genius.

Yamara started in the late 80’s and apparently kept going for a bit after we let our Dragon subscription lapse in ’93-94. It was also chock-full of metagaming dialog, with this strip being the best example. And yeah, we totally did that too. Or would have, if our DM’s had introduced this kind of mystery monster.

And Wormy. A beautiful, intricately drawn story about a cranky cigar-smoking dragon, that ended abruptly in the late 80’s. Gremorly the wizard and Solomoriah the winged demon cat kicked all kinds of ass; I believe the July ’81 strip was my introduction to the story—and what a strip it was!

No trip down memory lane would be complete without a nod to Dungeons & Dragons, the TV show. Actually, more than a nod. I recently got my hands on the entire show on DVD, and I’m happily making my way through all the eps. I loved the show when it came out, and it still holds up pretty well. The voice talent is only so-so, the dialog was kind of clunky and (this being an 80’s kids’ show) full of “morally uplifting” messages, but that’s okay because the visuals are what I signed up for, then and now. Venger on his nightmare is still an awesome sight, as is Tiamat and pretty much all the various creatures and places the children see. The animators did a top-notch job of adapting to the screen the fantasy monsters I was already familiar with, and I can tell they had a lot of respect for the source material. Which is more than I can say for the losers responsible for that similarly-named abomination. Bleah.

The Battlestar Galactica Season Finale

I should have expected something like this. Well, really, all you can expect from BSG season finales is the unexpected. Things change, secrets are revealed, it’s all exciting and scary and awesome, and the best you can do is go with the flow. And then, once you’ve watched it a couple more times, try to make some sense of it all.

All along the watchtower princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants too
Outside in the distance a wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

So. Yeah.

Ze mind, she is blown.

I should have expected something like this. Well, really, all you can expect from BSG season finales is the unexpected. Things change, secrets are revealed, it’s all exciting and scary and awesome, and the best you can do is go with the flow. And then, once you’ve watched it a couple more times, try to make some sense of it all.

Okay, so first things first: there was supposed to be a Big Reveal in this ep. Namely, we’d get to see the Final Five. Did we? I’m still not 100% convinced. Sure, there’s something screwy going on with Tori, Anders, Tigh and Tyrol. They’re definitely connected somehow (to each other and to the Nebula, since they only started hearing the music when the fleet got close), but it doesn’t follow they’re Cylons. After all, in the BSG universe psychic powers exist, with prophecies and various flavours of ESP from oracles and sacred Scriptures. Plus, Tigh predates the creation of human-form Cylons. So even though they are convinced they’re Cylons, I’m just saying there could be alternative explanations—even though Ron Moore himself said there aren’t, so there goes that theory.

I still want to hear the real explanation. I’ve got vague theories that the Final Five are incorporeal Cylons, existing as pure information on the boundary between life and death, and are somehow taking over—or at least sharing—these four human minds. That for some reason they went rogue and wanted to live among humans, which was such a betrayal that the other seven models refused to ever speak of them again. And unlike the known seven Cylons, there are no duplicates of the Five. Each model is alone, unique. This philosophical difference, of duplication vs non-duplication, may have been a part of the rift that caused the Five to leave or be kicked out. This would also explain why Cylons never recognized Tigh et al. as their own. Or, maybe they deliberately erased all knowledge of them, including their appearance, except for the simple fact of their existence, from their own memories. Which I guess you can do if you’re a machine, though it seems a wee bit extreme.

Roslin, now… what about Roslin? She’s sharing dreams with Sharon, Six and Hera. All three women are connected to the child in different ways. Sharon is her birth mother, Six is her godmother/adoptive mother (maybe), Roslin has some of her blood flowing in her veins. But she—along with Sharon and Six—was also affected by the nebula’s proximity, though in different ways from the other four “Cylons.” What if Roslin is the fifth of the Final Five? Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head?

Starbuck’s alive? And she’s been to Earth? And she’ll lead the fleet there? I’ll just squeak out a feeble “What the frak?!?” because… yeah. I got nothing.

Where’s Earth supposed to be, anyways? The final shot shows the fleet and the Cylons to be deep in a galaxy that looks a lot like the Milky Way, and the Earth to be in a small satellite galaxy like the Magellanic Clouds. Huh. Well, no big deal. Let’s just say it’s a different universe, and leave it at that.

But will I really have to wait until 2008 to see how this all plays out? Two thousand fucking eight? Are you kidding me? Sigh. Well, I guess I’ll have time to buy the DVDs and watch them over and over and over…

Anime of my Youth

I recently bought the first DVD set of Gatchaman, the 1970’s anime that was re-edited and repackaged as Battle of the Planets here in North America. I watched BOTP religiously as a youngun, having no clue as to its origins—and honestly, not caring that much. But now I do care and, seeing the original, uncut and redubbed (and resubbed—I usually prefer subtitles anyways), I’m shocked at how much was “lost in translation.”

I recently bought the first DVD set of Gatchaman, the 1970’s anime that was re-edited and repackaged as Battle of the Planets here in North America. I watched BOTP religiously as a youngun, having no clue as to its origins—and honestly, not caring that much. But now I do care and, seeing the original, uncut and redubbed (and resubbed—I usually prefer subtitles anyways), I’m shocked at how much was “lost in translation.” For one thing, the violence and the deaths were toned down quite a bit. For another, the robot sidekick and narrator 7-Zark-7 was added to the mix (because I guess kids need cute but annoying robots), cutting into yet more of the original story. Jinpei/Keyop was just a normal kid in the original series, but became some sort of lab-grown artificial human in BOTP to explain his weird speech impediment. The real explanation, of course, was that it was damn hard to fit English dialog to his huge flapping mouth. The adult characters all had much smaller mouths, so it wasn’t a problem for them. And, for some reason, in BOTP Galactor/Spectra (the evil organization trying to conquer Earth) got renamed and became extraterrestrial, where originally they were just human terrorists, no more alien than Doctor Evil. I’m not sure how much I should read into that. Were the BOTP writers too twitchy about blurring the lines of good and evil? Or maybe it was just to make the whole thing more science-fictiony and allow the heroes to visit other planets (which looked just like Earth) and put in some cool starscape shots?

I have to say, once it’s stripped of all the useless and irritating Kiddie Show frills, Gatchaman is pretty good stuff. Nothing spectacular, and somewhat talky and overdramatic as anime tends to be, but it’s good solid entertainment, highly enjoyable. Even the “character development” scenes and storylines (the “chemistry” between Ken/Mark and Jun/Princess, Joe/Jason’s hotheadedness and constant butting heads with the leader, the mysterious “Red Impulse” who turns out to be Ken’s father, etc…) are somehow a lot less annoying in the original.

Battle of the Planets wasn’t the only anime I grew up with. There were three other shows, all French-dubbed. And, interestingly, none of them toned down the violence. I guess English censors were more timid than French ones?

First up is Goldorak (original Japanese name: UFO Robo Grendizer). Giant robots with exotic-looking weapons! Earth in peril! A prince in exile! The series actually wasn’t hugely violent, since most of the action took place between the aforementioned giant robots; however, there were a number of tense and emotional scenes, as well as a few deaths over the course of the series—including most of the main bad guys in the finale. I’ve found a few videos on YouTube and a few more as bittorrents. It still holds up quite well. The action and visuals are excellent, and the characters have some depth (except for a few who are there just for comic relief). Good stuff. And I’m not the only one who thinks so: Goldorak was huge in France and French Canada when it came out.

As it turns out (and again, I had no clue then), Goldorak/Grendizer was just one of many giant robots already fighting in anime. My brother and I had lots of the little Shogun Warrior action figures back in… 1979, I think. Later, we got the bigger Raydeen and Daimos. I wonder how much they’d be worth now. It’s kind of a moot point, since we threw them away long ago, and even if we hadn’t they’d be far from mint condition. For example, I remember that Poseidon’s missile launcher things broke off at one point.

Albator (English: Harlock) is the story of a noble space pirate fighting evil alien plant women called Sylvidres (English: Mazones), who mean to conquer Earth. This series was very violent, with people always getting shot or stabbed or burned, often in slow motion. One scene I remember shows Clio (Miime), the mysterious alien crewmember with strange magical powers, quietly playing solitaire (I think) on board the Atlantis (Arcadia), when a Sylvidre soldier snuck up on her. So what did she do? She threw a playing card like a knife at the Sylvidre and hit her right in the chest. Whereupon the alien burst into flames, ’cos that’s how they die. Man, that’s hardcore. In addition to the violence there were also a few scenes of nekkid wimmin (well, nekkid Sylvidres), though with their long hair or other props artfully arranged to cover the naughty bits.

Albator was recently broadcast for a while on Radio-Canada; I stumbled on it by accident and managed to catch a few episodes. It’s a great show, very dark and over-the-top dramatic, though lightened by gorgeous space battles and small amounts of comic relief. But damn, how old was I when I first watched it? Seven, maybe? I guess the moral is, TV violence won’t necessarily harm your child as long as it’s artfully done.

Last but not least we have Capitaine Flam. This anime was based on a 1940’s sci-fi pulp series called Captain Future: each storyline, taking up four half-hour episodes, was adapted from an original Captain Future story. As far as I can tell, the TV series is very true to the original. We have a hero who is a physically and mentally perfect human being, with vast scientific knowledge and amazing athletic skills that he uses for the good of humanity. We have a few interesting sci-fi sidekicks (a robot, an android, and a brain in a floating box), as well as a platonic love interest. This is a universe when men are men, women are women (yet, though Joan is often the damsel in distress, she’s got a sharp brain and can kick some ass when needed), space is big and dangerous, and on every planet and moon you’ll find exotic aliens or mysterious ruins hiding fabulous ancient technologies. But though Flam can fire a proton blaster with the best of them, as often as not he saves the day through diplomacy or ingenuity. You don’t see that too often these days, but it was a time when a hero could be manly and scientific. In fact, though some of the science is extremely silly (no, you can’t hide an entire planet in Halley’s comet), there’s a very didactic tone to the show that reminds me of some Victorian adventure stories and slightly more recent comic books.

I downloaded a few episodes, and I’m happy to say Capitaine Flam still holds up. In fact, it’s damn good stuff, even more enjoyable now that I’m aware of its roots. And, best of all, there are online copies of many of the original Captain Future stories. Just in case you want to see where it all started.

In Praise of Stargate SG-1‘s 200th Episode

Oh my Lord, that was just about the funniest hour of sci-fi I’ve ever seen. I may get the Season 10 set just for this one episode. The in-jokes were flying, the actors seemed to have a great time, it was all meta and silly and over-the-top and I just couldn’t stop laughing.

Oh my Lord, that was just about the funniest hour of sci-fi I’ve ever seen. I may get the Season 10 set just for this one episode. The in-jokes were flying, the actors seemed to have a great time, it was all meta and silly and over-the-top and I just couldn’t stop laughing.

The plot is that Wormhole X-Treme!, a campy sci-fi show inspired by the real Stargate program, is inexplicably being picked up for a movie. (What studio does that, when only 3 episodes were ever made? asks Jackson. “It allegedly performed well on DVD,” replies Teal’c. Tee hee. Are Joss Whedon’s ears burning?) So SG-1 has to sit through a brainstorming session, shoot down Martin Lloyd’s goofy lowest-common-denominator ideas (Teal’c: “I do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode.”) while pitching their own.

Mitchell fighting zombies! Lloyd in love with Carter’s technobabble! A younger, “edgier” SG-1! (“Dude, that hot chick was so totally a Goa’uld.”) O’Neill and Carter getting married! By Thor! (Uh, I think. All Asgard kind of look alike, don’t they?) Cheyenne Mountain exploding! Teal’c P.I.! Completely ridiculous cliffhangers!

SCENE:

SG-1 is on an alien planet, running from about a zillion Replicators. “We’ve got ten seconds before the time dilation field is activated. If we don’t make it through the Gate we’ll be stuck here forever!” yells Carter, just as they come upon the Stargate surrounded by Jaffa, with loads of bombers and gliders. “Okay, this could be a problem,” says Mitchell.

CUT TO:

Stargate Command. SG-1 is emerging from the Gate, safe and sound. “That was close, huh?” asks Mitchell.

I laughed so freaking hard at that. It’s right up there with Princess Bunhead’s “I escaped somehow!” from Thumb Wars for sheer unapologetic silliness.

And the homages: The Wizard of Oz, with Vala as Dorothy, and Gen. Landry as the big floating head of the Wizard Ascended Being. Her wish was first to go home, “But now I’ve decided I’d quite like to be a part of something. A regular part, if you catch my drift.” Farscape, with the characters rattling off that show’s made-up swear words (and props to Amanda Tapping for doing a kickass Chiana, complete with the weird posture and head twitches). Star Trek, with Mitchell as the intrepid commander of the Daedalus battlecruiser, facing an exploding singularity with weapons at maximum. And marionation… although that bit dragged a little, and most of the good jokes were already done in Team America. But really, everything else was gold.

Props to the SG-1 people for poking fun at themselves, and letting us laugh along.

We’re Gonna Bring You The Power

Last Sunday’s Family Guy had a cutaway about the classic 70’s children’s show The Electric Company, and I’ve spent the last couple days looking up clips on YouTube.

Last Sunday’s Family Guy had a cutaway about the classic 70’s children’s show The Electric Company, and I’ve spent the last couple days looking up clips on YouTube.

We actually didn’t watch that show much back when it was on (we watched Sesame Street, plus a few French shows); what I remember is mostly the extremely catchy theme song and the Spider-Man skits. And it starred Morgan Freeman, too! Damn, I guess he’s always had that smooth and sexy voice—equally suitable to teaching kids to read, and the heartstrings-tugging story of penguin life and death in Antarctica. All that and some funky animation, too!

Not that Sesame Street was any slouch in that area. I remember this beautifully bizarre song and a mournful ballad that captivated me as a youngling. And some useful advice, animated in the same trippy style as Yellow Submarine.

What do kids watch today, to broaden their minds? Are there any good educational shows, or is it all cartoons based on computer or card games? Not having any kids myself, I really wouldn’t know. Zoboomafoo is quite neat from what I’ve seen, not least of all thanks to the hunky hosts. (yes, I’m shallow. Sue me.) Speaking of hunky: Steve Burns was quite cute in Blue’s Clues, but he’s mega-hot now, with the stubble and the shaved head and the geeky rock music.