Twitter Updates

Follow me on Twitter

Sunday, October 17, 2004 at 9:00pm eastern to be exact!

Dedicated Farscape fans - 1
Money grubbing tv execs - 0

Excuse me while I go do a happy happy joy joy dance for a moment…

ok I’m back! 

Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars will be a 4 hour mini-series based upon what was planned for the 5th and final season of farscape.  That was before the ass-hats at Sci-Fi went and cancelled it.  The main goal though is that they are able to clean up the cliffhanger that was left at the end of season 4.

Not much about the story is known but as time goes I’m sure the plot will get leaked.  Of course the obvious thing and in my mind all that I really care about is that Aeryn will have the baby.  Probably not until the end of the mini-series but I don’t think they would skip this one crucial and important area.  They know every fan wants to see that baby.

Anyways, I’m just really excited and can’t wait.  It’s been over a year and a half since the series was cancelled.  It was announced on Friday, September 6th, 2002 for those that didn’t know.  This was in the middle of the 4th season and just a few months after SciFi had made a big announcement about being excited to renew for the 4th and 5th season, which would be the last. 

In this time the fan base has done an amazing job at mobilizing and working to get the show back.  They’ve spent both time and money, something like over $150,000.00 I’ve read.  Several full page ads were bought in magazines and newspapers, radio and even tv spots were produced to get the word out.  When the first groups mobilized I did help out a bit.  I wrote letters to way to many tv execs and hung out in chat rooms for the first few months.  After a while though I did pretty much give up hope.  I still stopped by the SafeFarscape/WatchFarscape website every once in a while but that was about it.

So remember to watch starting Sunday, October 17, 2004 at 9:00pm eastern.

 

The New York Times has an article about The Family Guy returning.  They make you register to read but it is free.  In fact you can just fill in junk info (a fake name and email address) and click submit and then they’ll let you read the article.

Anyhoo… It gives some background on the show and the creator but that’s not that important.  If you fan of the show you already know all of that!  If you’re not I feel so sorry for you.  It’s a great cartoon and you’re missing out.  I have to be honest and say it’s actually better than the Simpsons.  While there are plenty of lowbrow comedy moments that anyone will get the writers do have a tendency to use more jokes and gags that require a certain level of knowledge.  They regularly make wise cracks about famous but not well known individuals.  So younger audiences will still laugh but many probably don’t really know what the jokes about. 

There are some quotes from a Fox executive about the show being revived and that’s really what I think is the important part of the article. 

quote:

---

Network executives say scheduling played a role in the show’s initial failure. “It was moved around and put on Thursday night against `Friends,’ a difficult time period in which it never grew,” said Gail Berman, the Fox network’s president for entertainment. “But we loved the show’s irreverence. I thought it was wild. It’s very in-your-face humor. Very bold.”

---

I think this is probably the first time I’ve ever seen a TV exec almost admit that they might not have been right.  I say that because Gail doesn’t outright say “We screwed up” but she make the point that they didn’t really give The Family Guy a good chance and in TV exec speak that does roughly translate to “We screwed up.”

So, it looks like The Family Guy will be back probably next summer.  The article says early spring or summer 2005 so we can assume that it will be summer during the off season.  You know they won’t put it with The Simpsons on Sunday where it belonged in the first place!  If they did then they would be basically admitting they did screw up and you know no TV exec would allow that to happen.  They’ll put it in some stupid mid-week timeslot that won’t give it good ratings.

Oh well enough of my ranting.  I’m just glad to see the show come back.  I guess I should go buy the DVDs sometime.  There are two volumes out.  There were only three season of the show so Volume one contains seasons one and two and Volume two has season three.  They’re only like $40.00 each so it’s a great deal.

 

Just a heads up that Showtime’s Dead Like Me season two starts July 25th. 

I’m a major fan of the show.  For being a show about death it’s very funny and enjoyable to watch.  If you’ve never seen it I feel sorry for you.  The plots are always good and the acting is great.

The basic story goes like this.  Georgia Lass, played by Ellen Muth, was killed by a freak accident, a toilet seat falling from space.  Instead of going to the great beyond she finds out she’s stuck on earth because she has to become a grim reaper!  So the show is centered about Georgia and her new after-life.

They never really deal with any religion issues.  Heaven, hell, God, etc are not discussed.  As one of the characters explained to Georgia, it’s not for them to know.  They’re job is to just collect the souls of the newly departed and guide them to their final destination.  Not to say it wouldn’t hurt to have some discussion of religion but I do think it works better as a show not dealing with it and leaving it up the viewers to believe. 

So, mark your calendars everyone.  Season two starts July 25th at 10pm eastern on Showtime (channel 537 DirecTV).  Don’t miss it!

Well I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night with my girlfriend and a friend.  We were over to the friend’s new apartment and watched Gothika (I’ll write up a review on this next).  It was still early and we wanted to go do something so since the friend is a Harry Potter fan we went to see the new movie.

Now I’ve never read the books and I’ve only seen the first two movies when they showed up on HBO so don’t expect any comparing or contrasting to the books.

Suffice to say it wasn’t a bad movie.  The core cast has defiantly matured and it is very noticeable.  Both in physical as well as vocal changes which could mean the end of this cast is not far off. 

The story was good.  I didn’t notice any obvious plot holes although I’m sure the hardcore fans will watch it 20 times and manage to nit pick every little detail. 

The basic story goes something like this.  It’s Harry’s third year at Hogwarts.  A murderer named Sirius Black has escaped from the Azkaban prison.  There’s a history between Black and Harry’s family and Black wants to kill Harry.

It’s a much darker story from the previous two movies.  There was far less humor and silly hi-jinks this time round.  Which I found a bit disappointing to say the least.  The first movies were very much kid friendly with the humor but this one was so much darker that I just don’t see it being as enjoyable.  Of course the hardcore fans out there will sit there and enjoy it just as much I’m sure.

Story aside the movie was very good at the special effects.  This is obviously an important issue considering that magic is a fundamental part of the story.  They did very well at not making the CG effects stick out like a sore thumb.  Many movies I can sit there and point out every CG effect because the computer work is just so different from physical special effects.  However, I was able to watch the movie and not really tell.

If I had to rate it I’d give it one thumb up and one down.  One thumb up for the overall movie and one down for the darker and less child friendly experience.  If you’re out wanting to watch a movie and liked the first two movies then go check it out.  However, if you didn’t then go find something else because you will end up bored.

First some background...

TechTV is a technology channel. They have shows that cover the whole gambit. Shows that do nothing but show off cool new gadgets and toys, a show about video games, two shows that let viewer call in and ask the hosts tech questions, etc, etc. It's not the best quality I'll admit. They only have maybe a half dozen shows and rest of the time they air tech related shows from the BBC which is a bit annoying. Plus, they do dumb down the info so beginners and tech newbies can learn and understand. That's fine though. It's still good watching even for us tech experts.

G4 is a gaming channel. It's nothing but shows on computer and console games. Problem is its all trash. They're hosted by obnoxious asshats and the production quality is sub-par. The failure in the channel is that's its no fun to watch TV about gaming all day. Video games are about playing not watching. After like the first week that G4 started everyone got bored of it and stopped watching.

Comcast cable bought TechTV a few months back and merged it with their technology channel G4. For the last few months they've been separate and preparing for some type of merger but no one knew what to expect.

Well it's official today as Leo Laporte, a cast member of several TechTV shows, posted on his blog, The Laporte Report, that G4 was closing up the TechTV shop in San Fran and just gave everyone a 60 days notice.

The good news is 100 of the current jobs are being posted for any that want to relocate to LA. But they still have to renegotiate contacts, move to LA, etc. So, you have to wonder how many of the staff will actually go through with it.

This is why Comcast bought TechTV. TechTV is a success and has a strong loyal fan base. G4 has nothing. But G4 is Comcast's baby and TechTV is the competition so obviously they bought TechTV for the sole purpose of removing it. The 100 jobs being offered in LA is just an appeasement to fans.

In a few months time channel 354(DirecTV) will no longer be known as TechTV but G4tv. It will be a craptastic channel full of hosts that try to act cool and hip but are just retarded and lame. The shows will lack substance because it's cheaper to fill an hour slot with worthless hype and trash that spend time and money doing something worthwhile.

I never really watch TechTV that much. I'll catch some of the shows on the weekends when I'm bored. I usually catch the reruns of The Screen Savers the next day while I eat lunch. The Screen Savers is taped live every night and they always have something interesting to watch though. Modding X-Boxes, building high end computers, interviewing people in technology, etc. You usually get 15-20 minutes of good content for the hour show. Rest of the time is pretty boring. They do let people call in and ask questions which is very cool. The questions are always pretty easy stuff but it's still nice because the fans get to interact with the hosts live.

I'm just ticked off TechTV is getting the boot. If anything it should be the other way around. They should keep TechTV and incorporate G4 into the TechTV lineup. They could finally dump some of those BBC shows and have real content. However, that would be too obvious and logical. Why do what would be popular and successful when you can just screw things up. You have to remember that the people in charge are the same people that keep making reality tv shows, stopped showing music videos on MTV, cancel good shows like Futurama, Family Guy, Farscape, Keen Eddie, etc and crank out crappy mini-series like 10.5 on NBC. They live in their own little world and have clue what mainstream TV Viewers are like.

Sometimes TV execs just piss me off so much!

What's there to say... hmm... It's a great movie! Yup that should sum it all up pretty well. No seriously folks. It's not showing at every theater so you might have to look around to find it but it will be worth it.

The basic summary of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" goes something like this. Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) have a rather rocky relationship. After a rather nasty fight Joel goes to apologize at Clementine's job, she works at a book store, but she acts if she has no idea who he is. He learns from friends that she had him erased from her memories at this place called Lacuna. He goes to them and decides to have them erase her from his memories as well. After the procedure is started he begins to realize that he still lovers her and doesn't want to loose the memories.

The cool thing is 90 percent of the movie is played in reverse chronological order. It does that because we follow the procedure that erases memories from most recent to earliest. As a result you really don't get the whole picture until the end which I think is great. So many movies basically dump out everything on the floor within the first 20-30 minutes. You know everything and you just spend the rest of the movie being entertained by the pretty special effects till the hero(s) win.

Ok, sure anyone with a half a brain will know how this movie will end, I won't say it just to not spoil it, but the fact that they don't describe anything upfront and make you watch to see how the relationship unfolded is a wonderful change.

On the technical front the movie was impressive. It's no Lord of The Rings but there are plenty of little details there. Most of the movie takes place inside Joel's head so the little effects of things dissapering as the memories are erased is nicely done. Most people probably won't pay enough attention to notice them all and it's a shame. For example in one scene Joel is talking to Clementine in the bookstore. As they talk books on the shelves slowly lose their titles and change to blank white. Each time the camera would shift more and more would turn blank. Then when all were blank the entire room slowly darkened and this showed very nicely the idea of the memory disappearing.

I went with my girlfriend to see it. You know what folks, Weekend dating is overrated. I think catching a movie on a Wednesday night is way better. Why you may ask? Simply there's nobody at the theater! I think there were maybe 10 people total at the theater to see the movie. You get to feel like it's just the two of you there and that's much more romantic in my opinion. No being stuck next to some sweatty fat guy that managed to eat his entire jumbo popcorn before the previews are over, no moron that talks non-stop to his friends, no stupid parents bringing little children to an adult movie and then having the kids whine for two hours. It's pure bliss people!

Of course the downfall is being the middle of the week you can't stay out really late since you both have work or school in the morning. Then again being able to see each other in the middle of the weak is enough to make it worth it. For my girl and I we only see each other on the weekend and Tuesdays normally. Any extra time we get we have to take advantage of.

So enough of my ramblings already. Everyone go see the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Then get your friends to go too. It's another one of those rare intelligent movies so don't pass it up. We have to let Hollywood know that it's not enough to just spend millions on special effects. We need good original stories that inspire and provoke the mind too!