(Wed, Feb 14, 2007)
Check out Locus Magazine's complete historical listing of SF award winners. Exhaustive!
(Thu, Feb 22, 2007)
A couple-three years ago I was camped way up on top of the Network TV Matterhorn, singing down its praises like some retarded Zarathustra: "Lost is worth watching! Battlestar Galactica doesn't suck!" and so on like that, raving. Now, oh treacherous time, my mania has turned sour, the stripes of my pajamas inverted, oh! "Network TV is Dead! Haven't you heard?"
The last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica have set new records at the Suck Olympics, breaking the old ones so majestically, so absolutely, that one must sit in awe and simply gaze upon the suckiness, trying to comprehend it, as one does in appreciating the vastness of the Grand Canyon or the philosophical implications of subatomic particles. The degree of squander is reprehensible, and someone must be held to account!
The masses must rise up and honor Ron Moore with a golden icarus crown, a parade on the shoulders of Babylonians through the streets of Pompey on a throne of extinct wood -- before unceremoniously dropping him to the cobble stones. Behold! A racist psycho doctor! An entire planet of Stupid-Religion followers! A yawn-inducing love triangle involving Starbuck and Apollo! A seedy bar for henpecked husbands in the bowels of a military vessel! An episode named after a line in the theme song for Cheers! Admiral Adama hot for President Roslin! An extra-vehicular rescue without EVA suits! Survivors from same! Even the books have the corners cut off! For no reason!
Seriously, it's okay to have a filler episode every now and then; the Laws of Chaos insist that not every week will shine with splendid or even decent writing. But three weeks in a row? How to account for this?
And then also Lost: behold a myriad of mysteries which none of the protagonists seems to care about. Just speaking personally here, confidentially, if I were plane-wrecked on a tropical island inhabited by polar bears, a homicidal black smoke, a plastic pirate ship, a crazy French woman, a system of underground bunkers set up for scientific research and oddball psychological experiments, an ubiquitous number series, and a tribe of child-abducting wackos -- just to scratch the proverbial surface -- a-and then I were captured by said wackos, who seem to know what's going on... I'm pretty sure, just guessing here but pretty sure, that I would probably ask one of them, hey just between you and me sonny, just curious is all, I would probably want to know, hey WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?
But none of the protagonists are interested in that, and neither, apparently, are the show's writers. They're more concerned with whether Kate loves Jack or Sawyer more. They're worried about the fat guy eating too much. About that hobbit's junk addiction and his affection for that woman who doesn't seem to like him any more than anyone else. And when they finally develop an interesting character like that scary guy from Oz they just kill him off, apparently in order to kludge some room for two new characters nobody has ever seen before and who bring with them great shining trophies of annoying. Meanwhile, formerly interesting characters like Locke and Sayid have evaded the kill-off in order to wander sullenly around the jungle, occasionally passing in front of the camera then back off on errands too trivial to mention. They envy Mr. Eko's fate. Watching Lost this season, so do I.
Once more, and I've made this utterance so many times by now that it's become almost like a prayer, thank the gods for HBO!
The last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica have set new records at the Suck Olympics, breaking the old ones so majestically, so absolutely, that one must sit in awe and simply gaze upon the suckiness, trying to comprehend it, as one does in appreciating the vastness of the Grand Canyon or the philosophical implications of subatomic particles. The degree of squander is reprehensible, and someone must be held to account!
The masses must rise up and honor Ron Moore with a golden icarus crown, a parade on the shoulders of Babylonians through the streets of Pompey on a throne of extinct wood -- before unceremoniously dropping him to the cobble stones. Behold! A racist psycho doctor! An entire planet of Stupid-Religion followers! A yawn-inducing love triangle involving Starbuck and Apollo! A seedy bar for henpecked husbands in the bowels of a military vessel! An episode named after a line in the theme song for Cheers! Admiral Adama hot for President Roslin! An extra-vehicular rescue without EVA suits! Survivors from same! Even the books have the corners cut off! For no reason!
Seriously, it's okay to have a filler episode every now and then; the Laws of Chaos insist that not every week will shine with splendid or even decent writing. But three weeks in a row? How to account for this?
And then also Lost: behold a myriad of mysteries which none of the protagonists seems to care about. Just speaking personally here, confidentially, if I were plane-wrecked on a tropical island inhabited by polar bears, a homicidal black smoke, a plastic pirate ship, a crazy French woman, a system of underground bunkers set up for scientific research and oddball psychological experiments, an ubiquitous number series, and a tribe of child-abducting wackos -- just to scratch the proverbial surface -- a-and then I were captured by said wackos, who seem to know what's going on... I'm pretty sure, just guessing here but pretty sure, that I would probably ask one of them, hey just between you and me sonny, just curious is all, I would probably want to know, hey WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?
But none of the protagonists are interested in that, and neither, apparently, are the show's writers. They're more concerned with whether Kate loves Jack or Sawyer more. They're worried about the fat guy eating too much. About that hobbit's junk addiction and his affection for that woman who doesn't seem to like him any more than anyone else. And when they finally develop an interesting character like that scary guy from Oz they just kill him off, apparently in order to kludge some room for two new characters nobody has ever seen before and who bring with them great shining trophies of annoying. Meanwhile, formerly interesting characters like Locke and Sayid have evaded the kill-off in order to wander sullenly around the jungle, occasionally passing in front of the camera then back off on errands too trivial to mention. They envy Mr. Eko's fate. Watching Lost this season, so do I.
Once more, and I've made this utterance so many times by now that it's become almost like a prayer, thank the gods for HBO!
(Fri, Feb 23, 2007)
I forgot to mention Starbuck and Apollo boxing. Boxing.