Busy...Brains...

Sorry for the lack of posting, but normal posting should resume next week.

It's just been horrendously busy the past few weeks.

Those of us who survived vowed it best not to talk about the details to the rest of the world, but let's just say that

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the Zombie Cats of Ernest Hemingway were a surprisingly difficult foe.

Ouch,

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One got through!

Back next week...I hope!

V the Final Battle Episode 3

Ah, whatever small hopes I might have seen raised in episode 2 were crushed into tiny pieces by episode 3 of V the Final Battle.

On the plus side they ramped up the infighting and tension amongst the Visitors especially with the introduction of Pamela who hates Diane:

Showing the internal tensions and power struggles within the alien camp adds an air of realism. The poor mixed actions by their infighting and bits of sabotage of each other serve to make the Rebellion's successes more palatable. Pity we didn't see more it earlier on. It was there, but not strong enough and early enough.

But this is balanced by nonsense like the alien mother ship hovering at just the right altitude for the following series of improbable actions. Mike the Resistance leader who was captured last episode is being given a truth serum where he finks out Diane's right hand man, Martin, who happens to be standing there with a gun and slack enough security that he can shoot his way out and take Mike with him. Then while on the run with Mike on the ship has some parachutes and finds a long access tube leading out below the ship so they can sky dive out to escape!

Those tiny dots on the lower left is them. It's like something straight out of a bad 1930 movie serial. In fact, that is what a lot of this episode is like.

Meantime back in the rebel camp, there is heartbreak at the death of a puppet,

I felt the same when my imaginary friend, Mr. Awesome Amazing Dude, died when I was young too. So long lizard alien puppet baby.

And after a rebel set up we see the death of human puppet by the Visitors who think he betrayed them,

who had been a traitor throughout the series and killed one of the rebels in episode two. Admittedly the fact that they fell for it just demonstrated tons of stupidity. Um, instead of killing a loyal servant based on a phone call, why not try your truth serum? Silly I know.

Next the alien lizard baby turns out to have died because of some new bacterium evolved from a terrestrial one, which they then explore as a weapon against the Visitors. And apparently it works more like a toxin:

killing the Visitors upon contact. Slightly annoying, but I'll overlook it.

Meantime the human twin, Elizabeth, starts growing extremely quickly going from infant to a young girl (with full language skills) in no time.

Apparently biology being beaten to a pulp isn't enough, they have to go beating down the laws of physics. Think how much food she'd have to be eating to go from infant (average weight around 7 lbs) to what appears to be a young girl – seven to ten time that weight in what at best is a day or two!

Of course, the plot requires a young girl rather than an infant so the laws of physics be damned too! Hey, we see this in sitcoms all the time where a baby is born at the end of one season and the following season it is a wise cracking young kid.

Next up on the irrationality parade the Priest kidnaps Elizabeth and hands her over to Diane as a symbol of peace between their two peoples.

Oh, you know this so will not end well. But it get more amusing when he tries to convert Diane to Christianity which inspires her to go even more vicious and she shoots him. While reading the Bible she found it interesting, thus she had weaknesses holding her back, therefore she must eliminate those weaknesses through bold actions. She then starts a campaign of violence is the solution which we'll see more of later.

Mind you the Resistance is not actually any better because when there is a disagreement about distributing the new anti-Visitor Super Killer Bacteria/Toxin now or waiting until an antidote can be given to their Visitor allies first. Naturally, we see that Socratic method is clearly the favored method of discourse in Resistance camp,

Ironside vs Singer – My bet is on Ironside!

But proving this is fiction, Singer's character wins and they'll protect their allies first.

Diane continues her crusade of finding old time religion via the barrel of her blaster and starts killing rivals, first up Pamela:

Then Pamela's guard while claiming he shot Pamela and she shot the guard – and takes command carrying out Pamela's “last wishes.” Wow, the Supreme Commander of the fleet is killed and you take the word of her greatest enemy in the fleet about how she died!

Just amazing! But it will be topped.

So Diane and the Visitors discover that the Resistance has a bio-weapon thanks to a traitor in their ranks. Oh, yeah – did I mention that the Visitors conditioned Mike's (Marc Singer's character) son to be a traitor before returning him?

I was trying to spare you the most obviously brainwashed character ever, which no one realizes until close to the end – but then they use him for disinformation. Let's see he starts using his left hand instead of his right, suddenly not only hates baseball (which he formerly loved) but doesn't remember ever liking it and refers to the Visitor allies to the Resistance as traitors to their people. All he lacked was swirling hypnotized eyes and to start screaming the Visitors are Mother, the Visitors are Father! (Babylon 5 reference, natch.)

So the Visitors hear about the attack and are fed information that the Resistance is planning an aerial distribution of it by attacking an air force base and stealing the planes. Given they know that the Resistance has a bio weapon needing to be launched in the air, then seeing no raid on airbases and seeing a mysterious launching of a fleet of hot air balloons around the world near their ships,

they still don't know what is going on until it is too late. Nothing like a stupid opponent to make sure a plan comes together well.

Recognizing the humans have won, John wanted to leave while Diane says it time for the doomsday device which will explode the ship and destroy earth. Using her consummate negotiation skills,

she kills John as Elizabeth watches.

But wait the Resistance breaks in with their Visitor friends to stop the device and as Diane gets away (don't ask) they find they can't stop the device.

Whatever shall they do?

Remember I mentioned Elizabeth was going to have super powers?

She goes all all Star Trek: The Original Series/Space 1999 style glittery and glowy – and saves the day.

Super powered children saving the day with never before seen power pulled right out of plot convenience, it just saves the writer so much effort of actually coming up with a reasonable and satisfying ending.

So to recap.

First mini-series, V the Miniseries, surprisingly entertaining, but flawed, political story.

Second mini-series, V the Final Battle, see-sawed dramatically from bad, to okay, to just awful.

So now I think I'm grounded enough to watch the new series, but I may intersperse it with a little talk of the original TV series that followed the mini-series.

V the Final Battle Episode 2

I have to give the second episode of V the Final Battle props for starting to address my problems with episode 1. Yes, there are still problems but they did a much better job with the middle segment of this miniseries.

First up they introduce some characters who have actual backgrounds in covert ops including the ever awesome Michael Ironside:

part of military based group that have been organizing their own units and connect up with the Resistance we grown to know. Boy TV shows like bringing Michael Ironside on board in later seasons/series (think Seaquest, Andromeda, etc.) His character is also meant to typical antagonistic but capable semi-outsider that is almost a constant in these shows.

They bring with them special ammo to get through the Visitor's armor. Oh, that so brings up the problem in Episode 1 (and way too many shows in general.) When, in the first episode, they need the Resistance to fail in the first big attack their ammo doesn't work against the alien armor, but then later in the same episode the same ammo works just fine against the same armor when the plot requires them to succeed. Now, of course, it doesn't work again – necessitating new ammo.

The episode features some actual special and more touching character deaths. They avoid the annoying problem in the first episode of introducing a character just to kill them, by killing some characters that you have actually gotten a chance to know and was highlighted is just the right way – subtly so you don't necessarily see it coming but still having it be believable in the context of the story.

And they substitute having an old man in tights for a cute blonde.

Still the same silly conversion process by Diana but this time of the Resistance leader Julie who was captured at the end of the last episode.

There are some extensive scenes of Julie, in tights, in the chamber and Diana trying the process on her which are marred by two things -

Acting

Seriously the acting here, admittedly she is given little to work with, makes the scene more unintentionally comic than scary. Lots of screaming and heavy breathing in the context of 1980s rock show lighting and smoke is just plain silly looking.

It turns out “conversion” is just a magic tech device that forces the subject to relive their greatest fears with Diana offering to help them escape.

Frankly, it would have been better left vague. It was much more effective in the first series when a normally clothed subject is put in a room with weird scary devices, strapped in a chair, then the door closed with their screams following. Then you see them later all loyal to the Visitors.

By showing us all this, it ends up silly.

But then through some subterfuge by the Visitors who are sympathetic to the humans, Diana agrees to transfer Julie to earth which allows the Resistance to rescue her. Which really doesn't quite work but has the virtue of being thankfully brief. And leads to some well done heroic deaths.

Okay, I will admit that I do really like the cool alien ships:

Yes, it is a classic flying saucer but the details in the design are quite nice.

We find that the Visitors are going to remove all the water in Los Angeles with thirty days unless the Resistance destroys the water super sucking up facility. And here I was so hopeful that they would forget the silly stealing Earth's water plot. Sadly they remembered.

They compound that annoyance by having one of the big failings of too many of these shows – having the two leaders do the “undercover” recon:

Seriously the Visitors had captured, at different times, and know well the appearance of both of them. Wouldn't you circulate the photos of the two very well known leaders of the Resistance to all your security personnel? Talk about staggering incompetence by the evil alien overlords.

This stupidity on their part enables the humans to blow up the Visitor facility just in time to set up some plot elements for the third episode.

First, for resistance leader Mike, played by Marc “Beastmaster” Singer, to exchange himself to Diana for the release of his son.

And for the teenager girl to give birth to her alien babies!

One is human looking and the other is a scary lizard twin!

While every looks shocked at the fact she gave birth to a puppet, the credits role!

{Mind you I completely forgot about the lizard twin, so I was surprised.}

Still there is some silliness but over all it is significantly better than episode 1 and gives me some minor hope (but not a lot) for the conclusion.

V Final Battle Episode 1

Well the premiere of the new V series happened but since I watch via Hulu I won't get a chance to catch it until the weekend – but in the meantime continuing my look at the original V, here's my take of episode 1 of the sequel mini-series V the Final Battle:

the first miniseries while flawed had it moments, but the sequel is quickly drifting into blatant silliness rather than just flirting with the line between storytelling and stringing together cliches.

The main thrust of the episode is the resistance striving for more active attacks against the Visitors, trying to expose them to the public and create rallying points amongst the general population. One of the big problems is to have the resistance achieve some measure of success they have to overlook a lot of the advantages the technology required to achieve useful interstellar flight offer and the combat skills that trained combat troops would have over completely untrained, poorly armed and essentially middle class city folk.

This forms a consistent irritant in my viewing of the series – nagging at me, undermining my ability to accept the storyline. Now this could have been dealt with by several means including a more extended narrative where you see the training and participation of actual trained soldiers, development of better weapons, stronger connections to sympathetic Visitors, etc. with the Resistance building gradually and logically enough to some plausibility.

{Of course, that insistent feeling could also have been muted to the point of being practically non-existent through compelling characters, well crafted dialog and other examples of good writing – but sadly it was not to be.}

It starts off badly when apparently they decided to kill someone early on for dramatic effect, but rather than kill off someone we knew and cared about from the first series they go the easy route. They introduce a new character, quickly throw us a shell of back story just to kill her off in the beginning during the first big assault on the Visitors.

Oh, but it gets worse – even sillier in fact.

Let's start off with this:

“What's that?” you innocently ask. Oh, there's so much wrongness behind that, I can barely begin.

In the first miniseries, there was a teenage daughter of an anthropologist (who mysteriously is a biologist now – but let's not dwell on that minor inconsistency) who had a crush on one of the Visitors not knowing he was a reptile wearing a human skin (okay technically not that different from many teenage boys.) At one point Diana, one of the leaders of the Visitors said to the one the girl had a crush on that he should take part in an “experiment” with the girl.

So in this series she is now pregnant with a Visitor lizard baby which is causing her to develop a lizard scale ring around her neck and crave raw meat. If anything, the whole sub-plot that springs from this marks the biggest and best “jump the shark” moment of the series. Not just for what happens now but for what is to come.

For now though let's start with the fact than a entirely separate alien reptilian species could impregnate a human woman through “normal” human style sex and carrying that child causing specific mutations in the mother?!? Wow.

Brain hurts. Evolutionary biology and basic genetics has been left beaten and bleeding in a back alley by the writers. I could almost, once plied with sufficient quantities of alcohol, forget that except for what also happens here and what is to come later.

You see Diana and her Visitor friend are laying in bed in their fake human skins watching the video of the taped sex between the teenage girl and the human disguised Visitor which turns them on so they while dressed as humans start to have sex.

Now think about this carefully. Two reptiles dressed in human costumes have sex after turning themselves on by watching a reptile dressed in a human costume having sex with a human woman. So the Visitors are furries?!? Just amazing.

I hate to spoil the future storyline but the child, nicknamed the Star Child, when born will have mysterious, mystical, magical powers that neither race has. Which is the biggest jump the shark to come. And also serves to kick the corpse of science some more.

It also makes as much sense as breeding a horse and donkey resulting in a flying unicorn with laser beam eyes! Mind you a flying unicorn with laser beam eyes would be rocking cool and I would totally forgive the bastardization of science that its birth would represent.

You know after that the remaining silliness seems almost benign.

The fact that Diana's brainwashing of humans required they be put in skin tight leotards while standing up:

Yeah, whatever. Admittedly seeing an out of shape old man in tights is pretty creepy.

The fact that the two leads in the Resistance bicker constantly as a prelude to their romance:

while spouting dialog about him being a loner. Painful, but tolerable.

Or the fact that Marc Singer's character has a chase scene with the aliens who are firing lasers while riding on horseback,

Painfully bad and silly. About as interesting and dramatic to watch as oatmeal cooking.

And no guys, holding a gun to your audience won't make me like this:

Actually a scene in the episode where the Visitors stage a show of a loving audience for John their leader.

So the aliens carry a ready made applause sign with them when they come to conquer a new world? Talk about massive insecurity.

So to recap, episode 1 of V The Final Battle not off to a good to start. It's not following up well on the few decent elements of the original miniseries and it setting up way to many bad developments that lead things in worse directions.

600 Posts - Jeepers Creepers

Sweet Baby Cthulhu!

Comic from the super awesome, and tragically no longer updated, web comic:
The Misadventures of Hello Cthulhu!
(Read it now you brainless curs!)

This is my 600th post!

Neglected Classics and Lost Books

One of the things that I've always been really fond of is “lost” books and neglected classics, including the whole concept of forgotten authors. Not only because of the awesome documentary The Stone Reader, but also on my own. (BTW here's a site worth checking out on that topic - Neglected Books) I've had a long time habit of collecting the original novels that movies are based on where we rarely talk about the novel or original author (even though they were huge in their day) but still know the movie well.

And recently I've become very hooked on literary podcasts and one of my favorites is Open Book on BBC Radio 4 and they recently had an amazing two part story focused on Neglected Classics.

For each week the host, Mariella Frostrup, interviewed five different authors and asked each one to select one book they felt was a neglected classic that deserves to be read widely today. Even when I wasn't particularly interested in the authors interviewed, I found the interviews interesting.

Here are the 10 books selected:

The Polyglots by William Gerhardie
The Rector's Daughter by F M Mayor
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
Many Dimensions by Charles Williams
Esther Waters by George Moore
The Quest for Corvo by A J A Symons
Rasselas by Samuel Johnson
Carol by Patricia Highsmith
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope

They are asking for listener votes and other suggestions, and the winning book will be dramatized for the radio and broadcast. All of which is a great idea.

Personally I've already read Lermontov's book years ago for a Russian literature class, but it is a fine excuse to re-read it. And thanks to the wonder that is my Kindle I quickly downloaded:

Many Dimensions by Charles Williams
Esther Waters by George Moore
Rasselas by Samuel Johnson
Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope

All of which have joined my to be read list.

BTW Williams' book is a fantasy book which I've never heard bandied about in either literary or SF& F circles – but perhaps I've lead a sheltered life and everyone's been talking about it when I wasn't around.

I think it is a shame this was just a short term project because I'd love to see more of this and I'd especially love to see this done with SF&F. Interview groups of SF&F writers and ask them to each pick a neglected classic of the genre and discuss why they like it and why it is relevant today. Heck gather up the last 10 Hugo novelist winners and ask have them do a panel on it and post it online.

(I'm trying, in my own little way, to tackle the short memory cycle in SF reading in the new series of posts, SF Novels - From the Beginning, I started the other week where I'm reading, or re-reading, SF & F from the earliest days and very gradually working my way up. Right now I'm skipping around a bit in the 1800s through 1920s with the next couple coming up soon.)

Geekgasm 2: MWB Hears a Who!

Recently, I ventured into my local science fiction and fantasy bookstore (Pandemonium Books & Games) on a quest.

I'd been hearing good things about Weird Tales and Realms of Fantasy. I'd tried Weird Tales years ago and wasn't that excited about it and I'd never tried Realms of Fantasy. But I do like like supporting science fiction and fantasy magazines as a matter of principle in the best interest of the long term health of the genre I love, so I figured I would buy some recent issues before subscribing.

Sadly and surprisingly, there were no copies there. Only copies of the big three (Asimov's, Analog and Fantasy & Science Fiction), Locus, a manga magazine and lots of media tie magazines. I'm not sure of the reasons why they weren't available there, either current or back issues (while there were tons of back issues of everything else), but it is quite sad when a dedicated SF&F bookstores doesn't carry your magazine!

One of the things that was there (that I don't already get) was Doctor Who Magazine!

But first let me give you some context.

Way back in the day, I started watching Tom Baker's Doctor when it first premiered in the US and was instantly hooked. My Who addiction spread from not only watching it faithfully whenever possible, but also to buying the Target novelizations, the Missing Adventure and New Adventures novels. Over the years, the original series was canceled and the US re-runs faded away and my mania entered a state of remission.

Then the new series arrived which I watched faithfully and loved, but still I was able to resist the siren call of novelizations, buying the DVDs (old and new series), etc.

As I glanced over the back issues of the magazines, I heard a tiny voice proclaim: “We are here!” Glancing around, I saw no visible sign of where it arose from and dismissed it as nature's way of reminding me to clean my ears. Then I bought a few issues on impulse.

Thankfully, as I flipped through the magazines, I was alone – because I began to make the oddest noise, rather like the twittering, soft, plaintive cry a cat would make as it sees a bird, out of reach, beyond the window of the house where it dwells. Page after page of descriptions and ads for books, collectibles, DVDs and more. Each in turn, driving the crescendo of consumerist, fan-boy mania higher and higher to eventually crash inevitably, and tragically, upon the rocks of my actual budget.

My Who fandom was no longer in remission but had grown wildly out of control again. Thus subscribing to Doctor Who magazine was a must (adding to my pull list at my independent comic bookstore – Million Year Picnic.) I'm flirting with ignoring my lack of additional space for DVDs and books and starting to buy Who DVDs and books. But here is the real thing that rocked my fanboy world.

While I was reeling in my frenzy of Whogasm, I once again heard that tiny, pleading voice - “We are here.” It was then that I understood, there is a world of Doctor Who based audio dramas that I had never explored before in my life!

The magazine had ads and glowing reviews for the official Doctor Who (original series) audio dramas put out by Big Finish:

Featuring professional production and scripts - and many of the original actors! They do look snazzy and I will definitely check them out.

But I was equally taken with, and somewhat even more in geeky awe, when I scanned iTunes for Doctor Who audio dramas and found three long running amateur ones including:

The Doctor Who Audio Dramas which has been running since 1982!

I've listened to one story from each of the three podcasts I found, and, so far, I like the one above best – but I have years of material to go through.

Still I stand in silent, and greatly respectful, awe to the folks at Doctor Who Audio Drama for doing this for love of Who for some 27 years!

You Rock!

And Doctor Who – yes I may pay attention to other shows, books, etc. over the years but it must be said:

I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
A Who fan is loyal 100%.

Darn right!

Four Days of Vincent Price - Day 4

And what better way to finish off a four day celebration of Vincent Price for Halloween than the movie Tales of Terror (1963) - consisting of not one but three tales by Edgar Alan Poe!

What fun for all!

And me I'm back to my personal Halloween Dracula fest - I've roared through four Christopher Lee Hammer films versions and am going through the Universal Films ones.

Four Days of Vincent Price - Day 3

It's time for yet another Vincent Price Halloween treat.

This time it is the ever awesome House on Haunted Hill (1959)!

One hour and fourteen minutes of ghosts-a-rama!

A classic trope of paying people to stay in a haunted house, which always works so well.