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February 23, 2006
Lost the point
Um. Well - it’s now currently half way through season two in ‘Merika-land. And although it’s been sort-of-alright and it’s still sort-of-good, I have to admit that I have been losing patience with it somewhat. From reading the various forums around I can see there are two very distinct groups that make up the shows audience.
There are those that are involved with the characters and can’t wait for the week’s latest flash back, which goes to deepen their understanding of and appreciation of each of the individual survivors on the island.
Then there’s the second group which are more fascinated by the mysteries and the endless questions and puzzles on the island. Such as how are all these characters interconnected, how and why did the plane crash, what reasons are there for it being there? What is that creature on the island, who and what is the Dharma Initiative, who are these mysterious ‘Others’ who inhabit the Island. What is the significance of the Numbers which keep recurring? Etc. To this audience - (and I have to now confess to being in this second group) - these flashbacks only get in the way of the bigger story.
At first in season one I liked the back stories and flashbacks - but I’m finding them irksome and overdone now, particularly when they’ve already reached the stage where they keep covering old ground without adding new information, or are just plain filler. I understand that this is due to other pressures and the various logistics of filming the show, but it’s getting to the point now where I feel I’ve been tricked into watching a whole series of half ‘made-for-TV’ movies of the week, and half soap opera. Movies of the week are OK, but I can generally take them or leave them - (and I have to say, I usually prefer to leave them). Soap operas are something I’ve successfully weaned myself off years ago and so am not keen to fall off the wagon. Come to think of it I stopped watching soaps for much the same reason I’m getting disenchanted with Lost - I.E. thin story lines being stretched over way too long a period of time.
Fortunately - it does look like the second half of this season might be throwing up a few more answers or at least a few new mysteries about the Island (although that‘s annoying in altogether another way) - I lay stress on the word ‘might' because the creators seem to be honing their skills as experts in diluting those aspects of the show. I remember reading a few weeks back how they were looking forward to a very long run for the show and I have to say my heart sank a little. All I could see ahead was an endless succession of ever increasingly pointless flashback stories. OK, each character either learns from their past history or repeats their mistakes, thank you, Yes, I’ve got that now. Please move it on. Instead they’ll have a whole dedicated flashback over an issue when in fact the character could have simply said out loud to another person whatever the issue is and got it all over in a few seconds. If they continue this trend before long it’ll be: “Kate - says she doesn’t like Ranch Dressing much.” Cue: whole flashback episode to where she first tasted some in a Deli once and discretely spat it out. Or “Jack doesn’t particularly like corduroy jackets” - cue: flashback to his childhood where his mom took him shopping and made him try one on, only he felt it made him look nerdy and his school friends would tease him…. You get the drift.
On one of the very entertaining and informative official `podcasts' (how I hate that stupid term) one of the creators joked that they’d like to do a flashback episode for the ‘execute’ button - they’d show it being designed on a drawing board then cast and pressed in plastic… and so on and so forth up until it was placed on the Island. The trouble is, if the show does run for years - I can all too easily see them having to do things just like that just to keep the episode numbers up. Every so often another plane will crash or boat run aground -and that’ll set off another run of flashback stories for each new survivor… and they’ll never get around to answering any of the Island’s mysteries… but they’ll keep on adding in more - like yet another strangely symbolic animal or find yet another new hatch -gah! (cue Groc falling into deep boredom induced coma.)
I'm finding a similiar problem with Invasion on channel 4 - surely the show is running on a plot for what might have made a good single one-off episode of the X-files - but here it's being dragged out forever. I find it ironic that in the UK the new Doctor Who has veered away from it's original format of one story run over a series of four, or six or more episodes has condensed everything down to at most two episodes - but more usually it's now just one 45 minutes long one. Which works very well. Meanwhile these new US series have moved their format to one story being padded out forever.
I guess we can lay blame for this on the American TV network studio system where they have to fill a set quota of episodes every season (usually 22) regardless of whether they have enough quality material to justify all those episodes. It's a pity because -I'm guessing -that certainly in the case of Lost it would be twice as good if it were to be as half as short.
by groc at 02:01 AM | Comments (1)
February 22, 2006
religio-phobic
15 killed in Nigerian cartoon protests.
A few weeks ago I was watching Newsnight and some Muslim leader was going on about how terrible "Islamophobia" in the Western world was. Mmmmm. With fundamentalists like this running around -I'd say any phobia was entirely justified. Salman Rushdie would know all about that.
Actually I'm an all-out fundamentalist-phobe. They all freak me out no matter what religion they are. For years now I've totally failed to understand the three main religions that have come out of the Middle East. All of them supposedly monotheistic - yet they're constantly battling (and happily killing) one another under the 'our god is better than your god' banner. Absolutely nothing about any of it makes any sense whatsoever. It's another one of those things that simply makes me despair of the human race.
by groc at 11:51 PM | Comments (2)
February 19, 2006
*groaning*
MPs reject ID card costings call.
Identity cards: exacerbating identity theft.
Ex-MI5 chief sparks ID card row.
This is a major problem with our political system - when a party -any party comes up with a poorly thought out policy - and makes it part of their manifesto pledges (without bothering to really consult any experts or ever do proper research) they then have to go through with it - at all costs, through hell and high water all simply because they can't be either be seen to lose, nor must they ever, ever admit that they were wrong. Really -it's utterly pathetic. These people (politicians) deserve no respect whatsoever.
I can't help but be reminded of the whole poll tax debacle and how that only got overturned by people protesting and rioting in the streets and which led to the end of Thatcher's reign as PM. Is it going to take something similar before they admit to their mistake?
by groc at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2006
Take TWO id cards into the shower?
Why government wants to give you a double identity
by groc at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
Hair don'ts
I accidentally caught a few glimpses of teen soap Hollyoaks over the past couple of days (not something I normally do) - and so caught sight of a bit of young boys running around sans clothes. Which was nice. But what horrified me most was their hair. What the fuck is going on with young people’s hair these days? Do they want to look like shit? Antony Gillian's character looks like an 80s mullet that's been smeared in lard for that lank greasy look and been randomly nibbled by rats.
by groc at 07:33 AM | Comments (2)
February 12, 2006
ironic
Now this is weird. The Daily Telegraph here is one of those rabid Right-wing papers. During the Eighties it was a fervent supporter of Margaret Thatcher and her policies. Amongst which where discrimination against Gay and Lesbian people (the infamous Clause 28), a demonisation of single-parent mothers -and a general hatred of all immigrants. So it’s ironic that the free DVD today (and the only reason I bought this paper) is a 1960s kitchen-sink drama classic of a single-parent mother who’s having a child by an Afro-Caribbean and whose best friend is a gay man -pretty much a grab bag of all the things the Telegraph has staunchly been against for years.
by groc at 02:26 PM | Comments (1)
February 09, 2006
P J Hammond -and that
W00t! I've just read that P J Hammond is writing /or has written an episode of the upcoming Torchwood.
Who's Peter J Hammond you ask? He created Sapphire and Steel.
(I've always thought that the Doctor Who episode 'Father's Day' was like an episode of Sapphire and Steel but with unnecessary monsters added in.)
Oh, and I didn't know there where new CD audio adventures of Sapph and Steel. With Sapph played by that doctor woman I liked out of Ultraviolent -Susannah Harker, and David Warner as Steel and oh hello, Mark Gatiss gets in on the act -playing Gold. He gets absolutely everywhere. Doesn't he ever sleep?
by groc at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)
February 04, 2006
Quark
Blimey - a sci-fi comedy series that predates Hyperdrive, Red Dwarf and erm, Futurama. Oh and that one with Molly Sugden that I've heard about but never seen (which given the reviews - I should be thankful for.) er... I'm reaching here since the whole sci-fi comedy sit-com genre is a pretty sparce one.
Sigh - maybe one day all this stuff will be archived on the internets and we'll be able to download it as we want. That would be better than letting this stuff go to waste unseen by anybody - or waiting for a company to bring it out on dvd, which is unlikely to happen. Although - these days they do bring out a lot of odd stuff on super cheapo dvds - and once blu-ray dvds take off they're going to have to find more and more stuff to fill the new higher capacity disks...
Mmmmm.
by groc at 09:55 PM | Comments (3)
Playmobil
The millionnaire playboy talks playmobil figures.
Stuff about Hans Beck, "The Father of PLAYMOBIL".
by groc at 06:19 PM | Comments (1)
February 03, 2006
Ooooh gadget
Nokia web browsing tablet thingy.
by groc at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)