parakkum

You know, to date, I find the biggest plotting/characterization hiccup in Buffy to be the not-killing-Spike-ASAP, regardless of his ability to do violence.

After all, still a soulless monster. Yet, they all chum around with him.

Of course, the characterization of the vampires can be a bit odd at times, anyway.

I'm watching A Very Venture Christmas on Cartoon Network, and they just mentioned the Wookie "Life Day" from the Star Wars Holiday Special.

I am so very pleased. Who wants to celebrate the new year with a combined Holiday Special / Turkish Star Wars viewing?

Not that I've ever made it all the way through the second one. It's hard to watch a poor transfer of a C-grade movie in a language you don't understand.

Second thing first: Sunday morning I reinjured my neck while sleeping (masterful...I'd actually reinjured it two weeks earlier being stupid while exercising, but some odd stretching in my sleep sent it from "irritated" to "critically painful"). Knowing that I'd be in a bad way if I didn't see someone about it, I wanted to hit an urgent care clinic -- rather than an emergency room, as they are burdened enough by nonemergency cases. Honeyfields found the Camino Medical Group Urgent Care center in Sunnyvale. We waited there for hours, which is about what I expected, then I surprised the doc with my lack of neck mobility, so he prescribed me some Naproxen.

Then it gets annoying.

We bounced over to Walgreens, to which the prescription was supposed to be efaxed. The woman there told us that efaxed orders can take half an hour to come in, so I waited there while Honeyfields went to Whole Foods to pick some stuff up. After that time, they still hadn't received it, so we called the Urgent Care center where they told us that the prescription would take two to three hours to come in. Nice.

So...I went home, waited, then called the Walgreens several hours (of pain) later. They still didn't have the prescription.

We called the clinic, and there'd been an oversight, so they called the prescription in.

...and if they'd done that many hours earlier, I'd have avoided a lot of pain and damage. So I'm not really going to go back to those folks.

But my neck is doing better now, despite the fact that one of the side effects of Naproxen is stiff neck.

Now, for the beautiful synchronicity. While I was heating and then icing my neck today, I watched an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Specifically, the episode Disaster, in which the Enterprise hits a quantum filament (and doesn't that suck, given how big space is). One of the plot threads in this episode is that Picard is stuck in an elevator with three young 'uns, including Marissa Flores.

This is important, because this once-appearing character went on to spawn a series of fan fictions that are a gold standard of badness in fan fiction (you can read about them, and read versions with Mystery-Science-Theatre-style commentary, here).. That's actually overblown, because while the early ones aren't well written and they're all prime examples of the Mary Sue phenomenon, they're quite earnest, never mean or gross and written by someone with a tremendous good-natured capacity to take criticism and ribbing. Still, it made me want to find out where Erika Flores, the actress who played Marissa, is today.

Fortunately, there's a web site about her.

I was surprised to find out that she was in a CSI: Miami episode I'd actually seen. Good on her. I always like it when actors continue to find roles (and being the key suspect in CSI: Miami is a pretty decent role).

So, if anyone needs to know what Stephen Ratliff's heroine would look like in his later stories, here you go.

That made my afternoon (which is not nearly as significant as Honeyfields making my half a week by taking care of her temporarily crippled boyfriend).

U.C. Sunnydale sure has a lot fewer Asians than any U.C. I've been to.

Hmmm.

This may have been addressed in the Buffy comics or books: What does the Watcher's Council do if a Slayer actually quits? I don't mean "I'm not listening to you anymore" but actually says, "I refuse to fight or kill anymore supernatural things. I'm going to go be an accountant." After all, if that happens, you not only don't have the current Slayer, you don't have a replacement either.

Would there be a special branch of the Council tasked with executing an ineffective Slayer to bring the next one forth? They'd also be necessary if a Slayer were, say, crippled but not killed.

It's kind of a dark thought, really.

A Buffy thought:

So, if it's possible for an angry gypsy grandma to give a vampire soul, and there are a number of other magical mechanisms to do so, wouldn't it be cool to just cast a big spell that bounced souls back to all vampires? Then you can avoid all the obnoxious hand-to-hand combat.

Heck, it'd even be handy to be able to do that to some of the vampires.

We're watching Batman right now -- the Gray Ghost episode.

Fun bit as Simon Trent, AKA the Gray Ghost sees the Batcave for the first time:

GG: "This looks just like..."

Batman: "...the Gray Ghost's lair?"

Batman is a huge geek.*

Of course, his enemy in this episode is a toy collector. It's an alpha-geek showdown.

*We learn before this point that Bruce watched Gray Ghost as a kid and he has a whole collection of Gray Ghost memorabilia.

There will, indeed, by two new Star Wars television series. So says Lucas.

One will be a live-action series similar to Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, set between episodes III and IV.

"Like on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, we want to write all the stories for the entire first season all at once," [Lucas] said.

Coming out before the live-action show is an animated series:

Animated show Clone Wars, currently broadcast as three-minute episodes, will become "a 3D animated" series of 30-minute shows, [Lucas] said.

Really? 3D? I'm not so hot on that idea, as I haven't seen much in the way of good CG execution on television.

You can read the BBC story here.

I didn't see anything on the official site, though I don't feel like looking around there too much prior to seeing Episode III.

Hunh.

William Daniels, who played Mr. Feeny in Boy Meets World, was the voice of K.I.T.T. in Knight Rider.

Yet another connection that, once explained, seems clear.

Here's a rundown of some solid animated fare you can catch on television these days:

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

The premise: Madam Foster runs a home for imaginary friends whose kids don't want them anymore.

Created by Craig McCracken, creator of the Powerpuff Girls, Foster's is well-written, quite funny, and animated with a much more delicate line than Powerpuff. At turns endearing and hilarious, Foster's tops my current animated recommended list.

Example lines from the episode we're watching now:

"How do I find my own brand of coolness?"

"We watch TV -- and pay particular attention to the commercials."

Avatar: the Last Airbender

The premise: The world has four nations -- fire, earth, air, water -- and an avatar, who rises from each nation in turn. One hundred years ago, Ang, who was meant to be the next Avatar, was trapped in ice. In the interim, the fire nation took over. Now Ang is back and has to regain his proper place.

With really solid animation and a continuity-oriented storyline, Avatar is a compelling show that I actually want to keep up with (ah, the power of TiVo). The creators have made an Asian-esque setting, using what they want but not tying themselves down to any particular culture -- as evidenced by their using the four western elements.

The "airbender" of the title is Ang -- a "bender" is someone who can manipulate the element in question.

Kim Possible

The premise: High-school kid Kim Possible regularly saves the world with the assistance of her friend Ron Stoppable and her "technical support genius" Wade.

In the top-tier of DIsney television animation, Kim Possible stands out by not being written down to a juvenile audience. Though it is more of a straight humor show than the other two mentioned above, it's still quite good, and it features some possibly familiar voice talent -- Patrick Warburton and Nicole Sullivan make regular appearances.

William Shatner won an Emmy this year for his work on Boston Legal. He won another Emmy last year for his work on The Practice.

He also won a Golden Globe for his performance on Boston Legal.

This just really pleases me.

I'm always interested in seeing where people from works I like go next.

Last month I watched the second episode of the crime drama Bones, which stars David Boreanaz as an FBI agent who partners with a forensic anthropologist to fight crime. The writing felt clumsy and the mood they were trying to set was rather forced. I think, however, that this show may be intentionally second tier, trying to appeal to an audience that doesn't appreciate the degree of subtlety found in the current run of Jerry Bruckheimer dramas while still having the same general content.

Today, I watched the season opener of Smallville and noticed an interesting guest star listed -- James Marsters. If you want a spoiler, you can check who he's playing on IMDB. Nifty.

Quote from Smallville today (I may have mistranscribed a word or two here):

"Thanks to Lex. If he hadn't pulled strings at FEMA, we'd still be waiting on that relief money."

We're watching Avatar: the Last Airbender right now. In the current episode, The Fortuneteller, Sokka is trying to convince some very superstitious villagers that their fortuneteller is wrong and the volcano is, indeed, going to destroy their town.

Sokka: "Look! Can your fortunetelling explain THAT?" (pointing at exploding volcano)

Villager: "Tsch. Can your 'science' explains why it rains?"

Sokka: "YES! Yes it can!"

I feel that way sometimes.

The fifth season of Scrubs will begin with the new year. The first episode airs on January 3rd, 2006.

Booyah.

Straight from the NBC site and tv.com. It looks as if a second new episode will air immediately after the first on the 3rd.

...it's entirely cool that Wendy's has an ad for their Mandarin Chicken salad that says:

"Why toss an ordinary salad? Karate chop it..."

It also has "oriental sesame dressing."

*sigh*

They could at least refrain from showing these ads in the Bay Area market.

Wil Wheaton reviews Star Trek episodes

Awesome.

Apparently, there are plans for three live-action movies based on the excellent animated series Avatar: the Last Airbender.

I am a huge fan of this show. It's literally the only television program I actually keep up with.

I'm not really thrilled about live-action movies.

I'm less thrilled by the idea that M. Night Shyamalan is going to direct them.

The big Hollywood news, though, is that James Cameron also has an SF/F movie titled "Avatar," and Fox is not planning on let anyone other than him touch that title.

A trailer for the upcoming Clone Wars TV series is available. You can see it by clicking here.

This CG series sort of attempts to mimic the visual style of the original, Genndy Tartakovsky-produced Clone Wars series, but pretty much only in the visual design for key characters. The environments and machines look like they were ported over directly from ILM's work on the actual films. They've added enough additional rendering to the characters so that this disparity isn't too odd, although I'd have to see more actual character acting before I decide whether it works or not.

This one could be a lot of fun. And hey, Asajj Ventress is back.

If you're around my age, you may have watched Robotech as a kid. Robotech is an amalgam of three Japanese animated series, Super Dimension Fortress Macross (which became the "Macross" portion of Robotech), Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross (which became the "Southern Cross" portion of Robotech), and Genesis Climber Mospeada (which became the "Invid Invasion" portion of Robotech).

My favorite part was always the Invid invasion portion, and I now own the original Japanese series, which benefits from being disentangled from the overarching story used to stitch the three series together for the American show. Only in the last couple years, talking with my friend Tim, did I realize something kind of odd.

Mospeada is a kids' primer on insurgency.

The basic plot of Mospeada, which you can review in more detail here, here, and here, goes as follows:

An alien species known as the Inbit (Invid in the American version), invade and take over Earth. Those humans who weren't on-planet at the time flee to the sanctuary of Mars.

Thirty years later, the humans send an invasion fleet to retake Earth. They lose badly.

Three years after that, they send a second fleet to retake Earth. They also lose badly. A survivor from this fleet, Stig Bernard (Scott in the American version), decides to carry on the fight as an insurgent. He nucleates a group around him, incorporating people who grew up under the occupation and other former military personnel from the crushed first invasion fleet and before.

Through the bulk of the series, the protagonists ambush Inbit patrols, steal supplies, and generally carry on a normal insurgency. Notably, the show even deals with issues of collaboration with the occupying power, with some communities selling out insurgents for offers of safety. The picture I used, above, is from an episode in which a former military hero is revealed as a collaborator, handing over other insurgents in exchange for peace for his adopted community (alien on the left, collaborator on the right). Naturally, Stig is having none of it, and things don't go well for the collaborator.

What's most striking about Mospeada is that the humans don't win militarily. They do, at the end of the series, send a third invasion fleet to retake the Earth -- and that fleet, too, does poorly. At the end of the day, the Inbit leader, the Refless (Regis in the American version), decides that the humans are just too much trouble, and leaves.

In other words, the insurgency succeeds by making the occupation cost too much for the occupying power. How's that for a lesson for little kids?

Edit: Fixed an error in the sentence above that makes it seem like I'm opposed to the show. Oops. Also, see comments for notes on how insurgencies make an appearance in every Robotech element.

I just randomly stumbled upon this today. The opening credits to Macross, done in super deformed style:

For reference, here's the original Macross opening:

If you're an American child of the 80s and you knew Macross as the first third of Robotech, here's the "original" Robotech opening credits:

...and here's the SD version of that, generated from the SD Macross opening (a real SD Robotech opening would have SD Southern Cross and Invid Invasion, too):

I quote littlestar here: "It's awesome! And bizarre!"

I finished watching Battlestar Galactica this week - this is mainly a heads up to my friends who have very politely avoided talking about it around me (and yes, this means I watched all of season 4 in about a week and a half or so).

I liked it.

Although this was found in a game forum, I'm not interested in it as game content. Over at RPGnet, Loseth has taken a stab at quantifying the Colonial and Cylon fleets. Here's an excerpt:

I know that 20 or 30 basestars seems like a crazy low number for the initial Cylon fleet strength, but I think it actually makes sense. During the series, we learned (from various nutters actually counting the number of launch ports, etc. -- see here) that battlestars seem to carry viper complements in the range of 80-ish (Galactica) to perhaps as high as150-ish (Pegasus), while Basestars seem to carry a raider complement in the neighbourhood of 430. If we assume the Colonial fleet began with 120 Battlestars at an average of 110 vipers apiece, that puts the Colonial fighter strength at about 13,000. Twenty five Cylon basestars at 430 raiders apiece gives just under 11,000 raiders. Assuming my above assumption that fighters constitute a fleet's main strike arm is correct, then 11k versus 13k isn't much of a mismatch, especially if we factor in that the Cylons were counting on having surprise, as well as a huge tactical advantage from the CNP backdoors.

I've replicated the full post in the extended entry, and you can pop over to the RPGnet thread to read the ongoing discussion (which is more than I've done, really).

Around the homestead we often discuss the merits and failings of American versus other (typically, Asian in the form of Korean or Japanese) television (and media, generally). One of the big flaws in the typical American product is the desire to have it continue indefinitely. Mapped to a television show, this desire has predictable outcomes. All the characters eventually end up in all the roles, bad guys become good guys good guys become bad guys, everyone is in a relationship, and so forth. In a way, it's a similar problem to the specter of continuity, in that there's such fear of creating a discontinuity by ending a show and hoping the audience will come back for the same creative team, actors, settings concepts, or whatever. Instead, we try to make a show last for a long time, and in the process harm it tremendously, such that when the show does it, it's more of a collapse than a finale.

With that in mind, I think both Battlestar Galactica and Avatar: the Last Airbender are admirable recent "series complete" offerings from American producers. In the case of BSG, I understand (having not read much about it) that they weren't explicitly planning on the exact length they ended on when the show began, but that they made a very intentional decision to end the show "early" in network television terms so that it would have a real arc and flow toward the end, rather than just limping in over a line that was hastily scratched ahead of its weakened form. All in all, the end product works well. Avatar, on the other hand, was explicitly designed from the beginning to be a "three book" show, with seasons that tied in directly with the overall structure of the storyline, and no real room for continuation after the fact.

Both Avatar and BSG provide satisfying viewing experiences, and much like a Korean series such as Sam-Soon are worth picking up as a complete series, with no caveats about "weak seasons" or the show falling apart toward the end.

These days, I'm pretty much only watching a new television show if it's on Hulu (a natural consequence of not actually having any sort of television service in our home). Here's one that I picked up on, and that was actually premiered on Hulu ahead of its network premier:

Southland is a decent police procedural, and has reasonably engaging characters and enjoyable story lines. My main criticism of the episodes aired to date is that it feels like they're shoehorning too much character-based drama (e.g. the police detective with the dysfunctional home life) in too quickly - sort of a "See, this character has this going on...DRAMA!" thing. That said, the protagonist and his partner have suffered the least from this, leaving the most room for their characters to develop a little more naturally.

I do enjoy the tone of the show, and I'm always up for a procedural set in Los Angeles, as the tone is different from (and naturally, more familiar than) the standard NYC setting.

Just as it carries new programming, Hulu also features old series that haven't been aired for quite a while. Case in point:

Originally aired in the early 1990s, Exosquad was fairly explicitly designed as an American answer to anime. Specifically, rather than aping the art or other tropes of anime, Exosquad took the then-surprising approach of having mature subject material and a long, overarching story. This was a big callback to Robotech for those of us who grew up with that as their only example of mature animated storytelling. It's also similar to Robotech in presenting war in a more realistic mode, with casualties and ambiguities, rather than strict good guys and parachutes magically sprouting from exploding airplanes.

Naturally, this meant it was on in the 6am time slot, and was canceled on episode into the third season.

Fortunately for us, we can watch the series on Hulu (and, if you're a real aficionado, buy it on DVD). I'm very happy about this, and have been enjoying seeing the series in a coherent manner that I just couldn't pull off when it was on at awkward times while I was a busy student.