the list of now

Random things on my mind:

1.  I bow down at the geek altar of io9 for reinventing the opening credits to Firefly as an 80′s sci-fi action-drama.

2. And THEN… they followed it up with Simon Tam, MD:

There are just no words for being overwhelmed with this much awesome.  Well played, io9, well played.

3.  I get to go to Chicago in a little over 3 weeks.  I can’t wait to see family and friends.  We also get to hang out with people who don’t belong to that place and being a person who loves it when worlds collide, it’s going to be wacky fun.   Our good friend Deena will be there (and get to meet our family out there in the ‘burbs).  And also Ciao Rossi!  Who moved away from Chicago shortly after we did.   It will be like going back in time!

4.  Why on earth is Dust in the Wind stuck in my head?  It should at least be Carry on my Wayward Son. (Right? Am I right?)

5.   The worst opening credits for a television show anything EVER in the history of the world, was the theme song for The L Word from the second season on.  I stopped watching the show in the 3rd season.  It’s been off the air for over a year now.  But STILL.  I (still) hate that song with a seething, burning passion.  I can’t even love-t0-hate it.  It’s not funny or campy enough to be funny-painful-bad.  Just bad bad bad.  This bad:  Worse than killing off Dana.  THAT BAD, Chaiken.  That bad.

I would link it up for you, but I’m not that sadistic.   Don’t go look it up on youtube.  You won’t sleep.

(that bad)

Problem:

“Who does Matt Berninger of the National remind me of?”

Continue reading

At New Scientist magazine, in preparation for a special November 15th issue about sci-fi, they polled their entire staff to list their favorite sci-fi books and movies.  I look forward to reading this issue for full details, but this post on their website revealed the top choices in film:

Favourite sci-fi film:

Blade Runner, the 1982 film directed by Ridley Scott (based loosely on the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick), was the clear favourite, with its human androids and robotic humans. “It’s a great story, emotionally involving and well acted – and still has a mystery. Was Harrison Ford’s cop really a cyborg?” wrote one of our editors.

Runners-up:

Three films tied for second place:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 epic based on a story by Arthur C Clarke, was popular despite (or perhaps because of) its notoriously enigmatic finale.
• Solaris, Andrei Tarkovsky’s languorous 1972 film about mysterious visitations on an alien world. “Very haunting,” noted one editor.
• Serenity, the 2005 space opera from Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) that topped a previous New Scientist poll. “A relatively grown-up plot: the imperial enemy may be in the wrong, but aren’t actually evil,” noted one of our writers.

Yay Joss!  Yay Serenity.  Aside from my love of all things Joss, I really think Firefly (and Serenity as an extension of it) is his best work that we have seen yet.   I think it’s a nearly perfect project in writing, design and all aspects of production.   The greatest strength of Serenity is that it works as a complete feature film AND as an extension of the series.   I actually know someone who has seen the film several times and loved it, and still hasn’t “gotten around” to watching the series.  (I know, he’s crazy)  But it is proof that it works that way.  It created and delivers on it’s world in a roughly two-hour frame.

Even though I fully think it deserves the honor, I am kind of delightfully surprised to see it recognized here.

They also voted on their worst, the most gratuitously scantily-clad female characters, the most incomprehensible and my favorite category – “the most ardently loved AND fervently hated” -  in which one of my favorite-favorites, The Matrix is noted.  I can understand that, because I am of two minds about it myself.  I love that film, but am easily annoyed by Keanu Reeves and now have a bit of trouble divorcing it from the second and third installments, which I found very disappointing.

They have also opened up the voting to the fans. Results will be revealed in the November 15th issue.

Go here to vote for your favorite sci-fi films!

You can also vote for books and in case you are curious, here is the post about their favorite sci-fi books.  Douglas Adams’ A Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was their top pick.  I am ashamed to admit that I have never read it.*  (Although I always intend to, it’s on the list I promise! I just ((cringe)) never “get around to it”.

*If anyone needs me, I will be hiding from the stealth squad that has now been dispatched to remove me of my geek card and credentials.

I often think about being a teenager in the 90′s and am grateful for getting to experience the pop culture of that decade at that time in my life.   When I think about the television programming at that time, I remember three networks most distinctly:

1. A bold, original and culturally reflective voice in MTV (Back when there were music videos playing almost all the time, and the Real World had principles... oops I mean a real mix of interesting intelligent sober people who weren’t all in college! Remember that?)

2.  The new face of cable vs networks with the amazingly fresh (and sometimes just addictive) Fox shows leading the way (The X-Files, The Simpsons, Party of Five, Beverly Hills 90210, In Living Color)

And last, but certainly not least:

3.  The WB.   Seriously, say the words “The New Tuesday on the WB” and I get a little misty eyed.  Home of Buffy and Gilmore Girls back in the day, the fangirl nostalgia and undying love I have for this network makes me able to forgive it, in retrospect, for putting shit like 7th Heaven on the air.   Because seriously, this was a network designed for demographics, almost exclusively.  Which yes, meant they wanted to make a lot of money off of teenage audiences, but it ALSO meant that they provided a home for shows that spoke to youth niches.  Not only teen programming, but well-written, smart television shows unlike the severely watered-down drivel that passes for teen programming on the Disney Channel these days.  Love it or hate it, melodramatic soap opera, Dawson’s Creek had a big vocabulary and featured some real issues.  Gilmore Girls was secretly a masterpiece of character-study, with amazing, relatable characters and extremely sharp dialogue masquerading as family drama.  Even 7th Heaven, which I severely struggle to say anything nice about, was well executed to meet the needs of a very specific target demographic.  Even if I don’t relate to that demographic, it did well with what it was attempting to do.  And I don’t need to tell you how I feel about Buffy. (I don’t have space to go there in this blog post).

This is not a mere trip down memory lane.  We are discussing this today, because today the new all-streaming online television website goes live!

The WB

(Yay!)  It has games.  It has a blog.  It has options for personalizing your experience, like creating your own channel (a la youtube), playlists and remixes of clips.  And most importantly, it has the shows! Buffy, Gilmore Girls, Angel, Veronica Mars -and bonus- Firefly (!!?!?!?) are available for streaming full episodes.

Right now it is in beta and the amount of shows from each series are limited.  The blog says that each show will have updates every Monday and I don’t know if that means that the episodes will continue to be available or cycle through the seasons.  Regardless, I will be watching.

I am a big fan of how the internet is being utilized to offer free access and exposure in more and more mediums.  There is such quality out there in film and television streaming, alternative news, public radio,  downloadable podcasts, albums, and books.   I love that the internet increasingly provides alternatives to the many things consumers get overcharged for, like excessive cable packages or overdue rental fees for movies at Blockbuster.

Now I know that Warner Brothers is a massive media conglomerate.  I’m not naive enough to think they are doing this as part of some open-source cultural revolution.  I also know some of these shows were already available on Hulu.com.  What is notable about this (other than my 90′s nostalgia love fest), is that it is another tv network going online and I believe this is very important in the future of media.

What they (and all the other networks offering free streaming of past and current shows) are doing, in effect is empowering the consumer with more options.  It is allowing us to be more choosy with our money, our time and our entertainment.

I am the only person I know with basic cable.  I don’t need 300 extra channels.  Soon, I may not even need the 70 or so that I have, because everything I will want to watch will be on my computer and able to hookup and stream from computer to tv.   That is money saved, tv watching on my schedule and not supporting the monopoly that is the ONE cable company in my region to offer me service (and charge whatever damn prices they please).  And that is without having to buy more “stuff”: no tivo, no dvd set, just the shows I enjoy watching available for free.  Fantastic!

Introduction:  I was going to make a list of my favorite episodes of television ever, but that is too long a list and I find myself stuck between what I think are the best episodes and what are my favorites.  That isn’t always the same thing and I’m aware of that.  So instead, here are my top “moments” ranked… these are the moments that stick out for me.

This does not speak for other fans, or my generation or any kind of demographic.  Everyone should have their own list here of those connecting moments, the kind that remind us, even years later, why we would choose to follow a television show, week after week.  These matter to us and become a part of our bank of cultural reference.  Personally, it’s how (and why) I engage… even though at times, I haven’t felt like TV is something worth engaging in.   Here are my (very personal) top five and why they are memorable to me.

5.  My So-Called Life – “Self-Esteem”

The moment: The end of the episode, when Jordan Catalano takes Angela’s hand and walks down the hallway.

This is the ultimate teenage romance moment.  Trapped in the angst bubble that is her narrative, Angela is getting to make out with Jordan but can’t enjoy it because he’s hiding their relationship from his friends.  She finally has him… kinda… and doesn’t realize yet that he doesn’t really have the mystery, he’s just a pretty pothead with not a lot going on. The characters are flawed and their relationship is full of deliciously realistic hits and misses.  Does this moment change everything?  By all the rules of teenage melodrama, it should.  But it doesn’t and that makes it all the more wonderful.  An isolated simple moment of validation and chemistry and hope.

4. Firefly – “Safe”

The moment: When Simon finds River dancing.

The perfectly joyful, worryless moment of River dancing and the reassured look on Simon’s face when he finds that she is ok.  In that moment, the viewer realizes that we are truly getting to see RIVER, free of the entire world of mental illness and danger that she had been given.  Then we get to see Simon watch her, knowing that he hasn’t really seen his sister in a long long time… and suddenly there she is, dancing and happy.  He gets that moment and we, as viewers, do too.  It’s a transformative moment, an interruption into the panic of Firefly’s capers and bleakness of River’s condition.  It’s perfectly filmed, directed and acted by Summer Glau and Sean Maher (the latter of which I generally find unremarkable).   This moment makes me cry, every time.

3.  Carnivale – “Pick a Number”

The moment: When Samson goes back to Babylon and shoots the bartender.

Carnivale was a series defined by gut-churning reveal moments.  To be honest, I had a difficult time picking just one from this series (and a close follow-up would be the big Sophie reveal moment close to the end of the second season – if you’ve watched the show, you know what I’m talking about).  So why did I pick this one?  Well… the most memorable episode in this series and one of the most perfect, was the heartbreaking “Babylon” – what I always fail to remember, is that the emotional “gotcha” from this episode is actually in the follow-up, “Pick a Number”.

After one of their own is kidnapped and murdered by the men from the mysterious town of Babylon, they hold a trial for their own kind of justice.  When that fails to punish anyone for the crime, Samson goes back to Babylon and shoots the only man he can hold accountable.  It is a moment with a strange sense of perfect justice, on a show where there is a disorienting sense of chaos and fatalism, battling it out around these characters’ lives.  And then, on his way out of the town, he sees the murdered girl staring out of a window… the new “whore of Babylon”, trapped there forever.  It doesn’t really get more horrifyingly bleak than that.

2.  LOST – “A Tale of Two Cities”

The moment – The first few minutes of the episode (and the season) when it is revealed where “the Others” live.

By this point in the series, we already knew that “the others” definitely did not live in muddy huts and wear rags.  There was something else going on, to be sure, but nothing had really prepared me the perfect little suburbia that was revealed in these first few minutes.  This is quite possibly the most brilliant series-arc-changing “reveal” that I’ve ever seen in a television show.  In the first three seconds we are introduced to Juliet, and then her conflict with Ben and THEN the moment expanded to further reveal that we were not seeing them presently, but in the minutes preceeding the plane crash?  The best plot moments are when “No-fucking-way!” is followed by “Oh my god, of COURSE…” and this was a doozy.

1.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer – “Becoming: Part Two”

The moment: Angel’s soul is restored, just before Buffy needs to kill him and send him through a portal to hell… and she does it anyway to save the world.

It’s the end of a truly spectacular season of television.  Many people disagree, but I think the second season of Buffy might have the best single-season arc ever.  It’s just so tight, on ALL levels.  From a stellar ensemble of characters, David Boreanz emerges as a considerable scene-stealer (in my opinion playing “evil Angelus” so much more compellingly than he does “tortured Angel”).   Buffy’s new love turns into an incredibly frightening, sociopathic enemy and their ongoing face-off rattles through the entire season like a fucking freight train, straight up until their last battle – a swordfight.  It’s both epic and strangely civilized, while Buffy tries to delay the moment where she needs to let go of her love, to let go of her hope for his soul.  And she does… she pushes through his insults and his evil and her own doubts to do what she needs to do.   I am not exaggerating when I say that when I watched this scene for the first time, a total emotional “loss of breath” occurred in the moment when I saw his soul restored (and I know I’m not the only one).  The next few minutes were so deeply sorrowful, I can’t really even talk or think about this scene without feeling it.  Not remembering it – feeling it, as engaged and distraught as my 17 year old self was then.

This is number one, because this was first time, watching television, that my snide inner-critic failed in convincing me that it was “just a tv show” and it stopped feeling silly to care so much.  The first time when  television had the same connective power for me, as my beloved books and art and other “higher” mediums.

There really isn’t anything more to say about the kind of gift that is, in any written or visual form of storytelling.   Even TV.

Note: I’m always fascinated to know what would be on other people’s lists.  So please leave one if you comment.  Thank you!