“Lost”, season 5, episode 3: “Jughead”

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Top 5 most bad-ass “Doctor Who” moments

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The “Boys from the Dwarf” are back!

Grab your Fijiian hotdog stand uniform, a chicken vindaloo and a lager, Red Dwarf, the unapologetically goofy BBC science fiction series, is coming out of stasis.

The BBC site’s reporting series co-creator Doug Naylor is reuniting the original cast for a new installment that sees them finally make it home after being lost in deep space for more than three million years. The two-part special, “Back to Earth”, will air Easter weekend on digital channel Dave.

When we last left the “Boys from the Dwarf” (as Lister referred to them at least once, although I seem to recall he may have used the term a couple of times) – plus the love of his life, Christine Kochansky – at the end of series 8, the recently-resurrected crew had left Lister, Rimmer, Kryten, Cat and Kochansky to die aboard the ship as it was seemingly on the verge of destruction. The final image (and I don’t feel that this is much of a spoiler ’cause it’s been nearly 10 years since the show ended and if you cared about it, you know what went down, and if you didn’t watch the show then you don’t care and the spoilage factor is irrelevant): Death was coming for Rimmer (again); the little smeg-head canned the Grim Reaper a good one in the junk and high-tailed it down the corridor.

To me, that wonderful final scene pretty much summed-up the series: a bunch of unimportant guys drifting through life trying to get by and have a little fun, fequently trod-upon by their alleged betters, occasionally confronted by huge forces beyond their comprehension and doing their damndest to survive one way or another – not with heroism to be remembered down through the ages, but instead possibly with a little cleverness, some quick timing and maybe a dash of physicality, but mostly with luck and definitely full of fear. Kind of a metaphor for how a lot of people on this world get through life, and one that was all the more effective by showing itself through laughter.

Special thanks to my co-worker and fellow fanboy Steve for passing along the article from the Beeb.

Dying to get onto Broadway

Not that I’ve ever been a big follower of the hit musical seen, but Broadway has finally gone too far. CBC is reporting that Broadway musical producer James L Nederlander is going to make a new musical based on the Michael Jackson video “Thriller” (which was directed by John Landis way back when). Holy shit. It’s enough to make your jaw hit the floor, and then spur you to go shuffling off without it in search of some brains.

harrysaxon’s the zombie fan around these parts (as a teen, he even had a car nicknamed “Zombo”) so maybe he’s more qualified to comment on this than me, but still… With all the money this producer’s got at his disposal, he couldn’t find something better to base a musical on? Seriously, a Michael Jackson video? I seem to recall SF Signal mentioning a while ago that “Evil Dead” had been made into a stage play, and so be it, it certainly has a strong cult following, but there’s gotta be something out there with more body than “Thriller” to reanimate on Broadway. Isn’t it pretty much all but forgotten except in Hallowe’en music video retrospectives? And I’m not just taking shots at this lumbering pile of celluloid decay because “Thriller” scared the crap outta me when I saw it as a kid, I’m saying this because in the horror genre alone there are probably hundreds of stories, movies, TV shows, whatever that would make a better musical and probably have more staying power than this thing. In fact, in terms of sheer camp value, I’m suddenly in mind of that old Simpsons episode where Troy McClure stars in the stage musical adaptation of “Planet of the Apes” – no zombies and no horror (beyond the realization that they “blew it all up!!!”) but even that would make more entertaining theatre than “Thriller”.

The great names of the stage must be rolling over in their graves.

Top 5 reasons “Lost” remains hard sci-fi

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The top 10 episodes of “Battlestar Galactica” – so far!

Friday’s the beginning of the end for Battlestar Galactica. Five years and four seasons (although, let’s face it, with the huge delay between the end of the first half of season 4 and tomorrow’s launch of the second half, it’s really more like season 5 than 4.5!) of fleeing the Cylons only to discover that the Cylons were among them already and key to finding Earth. To mark the occasion, we put our heads together and came up with the list of Top 10 Episodes - the ones that really grabbed us in a series that has consistently done some truly great storytelling.

10) You Can’t Go Home Again
-nominated by harrysaxon
The new BSG tended to shy away from the marooned plot device the older incarnation relied upon so frequently, but you can’t go schlepping across the galaxy without crashing a fighter once in a while. Starbuck needing the downed Cylon raider to survive and ultimately escape was a nice nod to the episode in the second season of the old series where viewers finally learned of Starbuck’s fate ( although that Starbuck never made it home). Also a good episode for showing some of the tension between Adama and Roslin over what’s a good or bad command decision and what’s in the best interests of the fleet.

9) Razor
-nominated by bloginhood
A brilliant, dark piece of storytelling and one that would have rated higher on the list if not for the fact that it focussed primarily on a Pegasus officer and her plunge into depression as her humanity erodes. Wonderful to see old-style Cylon centurions, raiders and base ships, a quick view of a slugfest between old-fashioned dreadnoughts, and a glimpse into Adama’s past.

8 ) The Ties that Bind
-nominated by bloginhood
Lots of character development in this episode as the 4 secret Cylons aboard Galactica struggle with what the revelation means to their identities. Other characters were in for tough times as well. It was hard watching Cali and Tyrol’s marriage crumble, harder still to watch Cali collapse in on herself, and hardest of all to witness Tory’s calculating, brutal murder of the deckhand.

7) Exodus – Part II
-nominated by bloginhood
This was an extremely busy episode, and yet one that gave enough time to tell all of the powerful stories it needed to: Tigh killing his wife for collaborating with the Cylons (which made the later revelation that he was a Toaster that much more of a punch to the gut); Baltar choosing to go with the Cylons, despite having been threatened and used by them, and allowing D’Anna to take Hera; and the rescue from New Caprica. And the space battle, with all of its twists and turns left me breathless.

6) Final Cut
-nominated by harrysaxon
The first appearance of D’Anna Biers, the supreme mistress of manipulation. Through the documentary interviews, we got to see the real depths of the desperation felt by many of the crew – most importantly, the secondary characters who are always chipper enough in the background but rarely (up to that point, anyway) had a chance to get truly personal with us. And it made nice use of the theme from the old series.

5) Crossroads – Part II
-nominated by harrysaxon
Ah, the revelation of 4 of the Final 5! The ultimate mind-frak for a group of previously rock-solidly loyal people who now have to decide what to do with themselves, and, more importantly, who they really are as people. And now that these folks have been outed, the tension goes way up in terms of the mystery of the fifth. Also a perplexing and cool use of “All Along the Watchtower”.

4) Revelations
-nominated by bloginhood
At long last, the Fleet reaches the finish line – Earth has been found! …but it’s a ruin. Ain’t that just humanity’s luck? After watching this episode last spring, I was reminded of Adama’s what-do-we-do-now speech at the end of the pilot/miniseries, ’cause that’s gotta be one of the big questions on the minds of the thousands of refugees who have just experienced the second-biggest downer of their lives. And, of course, what the state of the Earth means for the series’ place in our timeline has been great fodder for geek debate over the past few months. Does this mean they’re in the future or the distant past? We’ll see how this is resolved over the next few weeks.

3) 33
-nominated by bloginhood
The series’ first episode put it into high-gear immediately. It reminded me of the line from “High Fidelity” where the narrator tells us that to make a great tape, you’ve got to start off big, then kick it up another notch to push the energy hgher. Just because they left the Colonies doesn’t mean the humans are off the hook – where the old series tended to give us a one encounter per episode form of cat-and-mouse, this new version showed us that the Cylon’s pursuit was not only relentless, it was fast and efficient. Here we see characters that really we’ve only just begun to get to know pushed to their breaking points. We see the battles not as exciting adventures, but as frightening, tiring chores. And just when the tension gets unbearable, it dips – every so briefly, so we can catch our breath before it hits us again and shows us the kind of tough, haunting choices that sometimes are forced upon people so they can survive.

2) Pegasus
-nominated by bloginood
This took a beloved episode idea from the old series and curb-stomped it. When Pegasus arrives, the people of Galactica think they’ve been blessed – a newer, bigger battlestar with all the trimmings to even the odds against the Cylons, and a tough Admiral Cain who isn’t interested in hiding from the enemy. Problem is, where Lloyd Bridges’ Commander Cain from the old series was a likeable, roguish, Errol Flynn kind of buccanneer, Michelle Forbes’ Admiral Helena Cain is a remorseless, megalomaniacal, brutal real-life kind of a pirate who advocates rape, torture and the plundering of the civilians she’s sworn to protect, not to mention flouting the authority of the Presidency. This Pegasus isn’t a steed of the gods, rather a nightmare preparing to prey on the Fleet. There were some tough scenes in this episode, not only the attack on Sharon, but having to see Tyrol and Helo get clapped in irons and sentenced to death as punishment for their heroism. The scene to really watch though was Adama in the corridor where he learns the news of the imminent executions and has to decide in only a second or two whether he’ll go against his military conditioning to obey superior officers (something he demands and needs from his own crew in order for them to survive) or to mutiny and put the survival of humanity at stake by getting into a firefight that he probably can’t win against a superior battlestar. In that brief moment, Edward Olmos showed some acting that would put 99% of the award-winning veterans of stage and screen to shame.

1) the pilot/miniseries
-nominated by bloginhood
This is what started it – the first impression that made everyone sit up and say “Uh. Wow.” I was one of those who tuned in with a lot of trepidition – the old series was a cheese-fest, what could this new spawn of Hollywood inflict in SF fans? And yet, right from the get-go, the story was compelling and believable and looked and sounded so utterly frakin’ cool. Even if the rest of the series had never been given the green-light, as a stand-alone, the miniseries was a masterpiece. As great as all the episodes since then have been, none of them mean anything without the dazzling start the series got off to.

The top 10 things we’re looking forward to in 2009 – harrysaxon

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The top 10 things we’re looking forward to in 2009 – bloginhood

Last week was about looking back fondly on the old year, this week’s list is about anticipating the new. And there’s so much to look forward to that we each had to do our own list!

Bloginhood’s Top 10 Anticipated for 2009:

10) Star Trek XI
Part of me’s looking forward to seeing what Abrams is going to do with the franchise, but I’m pretty uneasy about it being so warped that it won’t resemble Trek anymore. While reimagining works sometimes, as in the case of BSG, other times, well, you get “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, which was a complete waste of time and money. I’m trying to stay positive.

9) Caprica
Here’s another one where I’m a little trepiditious despite being interested. Some of the early comments about the show being a sort of “Dallas” in the 12 Colonies (or, at least on one of them) soured me on the show a little – I kept getting visions of a season finale cliffhanger of “Who Shot Adama?!” On the other hand, BSG turned out to be such a great show, I’m really hoping this one flies too.

8 ) Fanboys
The first time I read the buzz on this flick I was dead set on seeing it. As the months dragged on though, and the release date kept getting pushed back, and word leaked about story changes and various and sundry putting their hands into the production, I grew more disappointed. But I’m still hoping that there will be enough of a good story in there that the Force will be strong with this movie (or, at least tolerably present) when it’s released next month (unless it gets delayed again).

7) More episodes of Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles
I was surprised how much I’ve enjoyed this show since its debut. Despite the repetitive stalk and shoot Terminator elements of the plot and the somewhat predictable relationship developments, the story has, for the most part, remained consistently entertaining. Not a perfect show by any means, but certainly worth making time to watch. I’m interested to see how Summer Glau’s little killing machine continues to evolve toward humanity in the coming episodes.

6) More episodes of Reaper
Another show that, despite the predictable (and unoriginal) general premise of a guy who has to hunt supernatural baddies for the devil, has turned out to be really, really good. The writers have done a nice job of bringing Sam and Andi’s relationship to fruition without stretching out the “will they or won’t they” too long, as well as teasing the nature of the bargain with the devil, the surprise with Sam’s parents, and, of course, allowing Sock (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Sock is Jay and Silent Bob’s secret love child) to be consistently hilarious and steal scenes without remorse. I got the first season collection on DVD for Christmas and we spent a few days rewatching it, and it’s still as funny as the first time.

5) Anticipation – the 67th Worldcon
Montreal’s going to be a lot of fun this summer. I’ve had my ticket for a while now and I’m in the middle of giving some thought to how I’m going to vote for the Auroras and the Hugos. Initially, I’ll admit I had worries of stumbling along in broken highschool French like the Tick when he was turned into a two-headed blue bird, but then I remembered it’s Montreal, and they’re cool enough to speak to geeks in any language.

4) Watchmen
I haven’t read the graphic novel – yet (it’s sitting in my in-box), but I’m familiar with the premise and it sounds smart and the early buzz says the movie won’t disappoint. The only problem is this dust-up between the studios. Fans can only hope they settle this pissing match so that the flick can actually hit the sreens in 2009 as intended – or ever, for that matter.

3) The Wise Man’s Fear – book 2 in Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicle
I just got finished reading The Name of the Wind a little while ago and it impressed the hell outta me. Intelligent and believable fantasy. Rothfuss is definitely an author to keep an eye on.

2) A Muse of Fire by Dan Simmons
Yes, I know this was released in 2008, but I’ve had it on order for a few weeks and it hasn’t arrived yet, so, obviously, I’m now looking forward to it in 2009. Because I’m a huge Simmons fan, and his stories have yet to disappoint, this is one of the foreseeable reading highlights of the year.

1) Battlestar Galactica – the final episodes of Season 4
BSG is one of the best shows on television. Ever. I’m still right pissed off that Season 4 got split in two and we’ve had to wait so long for the back half to hit the air. But that being said, better late than never, ’cause some great SF shows, like Firefly, never get the chance to come into their own. I’ll be spending this weekend watching the webisodes as a warmup, and next week, when the beginning of the end kicks off, it’ll be sweet indeed.

Over to you, harrysaxon!

And how about everyone else? What are all of you looking forward to in SF in 2009?

Culling the herd

The one and only downside to getting a big stack of books for Christmas is that in the post-holiday season you’ve got to find some place to put them. In my house, that’s a bit of a problem. The shelves in the den are already full and my wife refuses to let me invade new territory elsewhere in the house to set up new colonies of books. Refile them, reconfigure your stacking plan, move the other brick-a-brack of the shelves, stand on your head for an hour and to view the storage problem from a whole new angle – try whatever you like, but sooner or later you’ll run out of room. That’s when tough times call for tough measures. You know what I’m talking about: culling the herd.

I know, I know, it’s a painful subject. For bookworms the world over there’s little quite as painful as facing the prospect of having to get rid of pieces of their collection. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t read some old rag for a decade or two and have no time or interest in picking it up again. It doesn’t matter if you downright loathe the thing. Most book lovers I know clutch their collections with more ferocity than Smaug perched atop his hoard in the Lonely Mountain. Even the thought of loaning a book to a trusted friend who you know is going to return it safe and sound at some point (I’m looking at you, harrysaxon!) is enough to make a die-hard book buyer a bit antsy. But getting rid of a few books? That’s like having to leave your home – a little piece of you dies. Doesn’t matter if you’re selling them and putting that little bit of cash towards another book purchase. Doesn’t matter if you donate them to the local library or to a charity that’ll sell them and put the money to a good cause. You still have to say good-bye to one of your precious books (Gollum, Gollum – sorry, I had something in my throat for a minute there).

There are even some people out there who are totally incapable of it – I had a buddy in Winnipeg who absolutely refused to give up any of his books, no matter how bad – even old novelizations of “Space 1999″ episodes. This made each move more painful than the last – it’s amazing any of us were willing to help him haul boxes of heavy pulp from one apartment to another every couple of years. Truly a militant packrat.

Luckily, I’m not that far gone. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve started The Discard Pile.

The first of the SF-related books to make the cut was Robert Foster’s “The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth“. I bought this back in the 80′s when I’d first discovered “The Lord of the Rings” and was grabbing anything Tolkien-related that I could get. For some reason I’ve held on to it, even though I tend to reread LOTR, “The Silmarillion” and “The Hobbit” every couple of years and know them backwards and forwards. And if there is some piece of minutia about whether some Petty Dwarf made a wrong turn at Albequerque once that I’d have to consult this book about, it wouldn’t be worth my time to do so and I wouldn’t bother. While this book has been a familiar sight on my shelves for a couple of decades, it really serves no purpose anymore and might as well make way for something else.

Next is S.M. Stirling’s “The Sky People“. I appreciate his effort to revive the naive adventures of yesteryear when pretty much every planet was inhabited and dinosaurs were common as deer, and the story moves along quickly enough, but ultimately I didn’t much care once I was done reading it. That seems to be the case with the one or two other solo efforts of Stirling that I’ve read over the years. For whatever reason, his style just doesn’t grab me enough to make it worth buying any more of his books or keeping this one around.

Michael Crichton’s “The Lost World” is also going out. I felt a brief – very brief – stab of guilt for getting rid of this one since the author died not long ago, but it’s certainly not one of his more memorable books. The original “Jurassic Park” was much better.

“Colony” by Rob Grant is on the donation pile too. It wasn’t a bad book, in fact, admittedly it did have a funny moment or two. It just wasn’t as good as Grant’s other stuff (especially his Red Dwarf collaborations with Doug Nalor). I can’t see myself reading it again, so…

Matthew Hughes’ “The Commons” was another one that wasn’t bad, but at the same time didn’t really grab my interest. To be fair, I got a real chuckle out of Hughes’ multi-sided pun on the Commons, where the Commons is the name in the story for the human collective unconcious that is explored by people who observe recurring metaphors and archetypes at the risk of becoming lost or going mad. It’s pretty clear that Hughes is making a reference to John Stuart Mill’s famous example of The Tragedy of the Commons, where people who have access to shared, public land will plunder its resources in their own self interest rather than husbanding them responsibly. I think it’s also pretty obvious that Hughes (drawing from his observations from years in Ottawa), in talking about how the Commons can sidetrack a person until they cannot find their way out, is making a joke about the risks of spending too much time working on Parliament Hill. That being said, the various short stories that have been cobbled together to form the novel felt too disjointed. Maybe this is one of those books that might grow on me given another read in a few years, but with too little room on the shelf, I’ll take my chances and maybe give another of Hughes novels a try some other time.

Gregory Maguire got a double-whammy in this purge. I enjoyed “Wicked”, but his other fairy tale re-do’s “Mirror Mirror” (Snow White) and “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister” (Cinderella) both earned a resounding “meh”. Gone.

Another twofer in the pile – this time for Charles DeLint. “Spirits in the Wires” and “The Onion Girl” are on their way out. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy DeLint’s stuff once in a while. Problem is, his stories all feel too similar to one another – he’s got a formula that, admittedly, works, but is too annoying in its sameness if read too often: Supernatural critters and spirits from European folklore rub shoulders with North American native powers in some generic city; add a plucky, caring, and usually good-looking group of living at or near the street-level but basically wholesome artsy-fartsy usually 20-somethings and teens who quaff gallons of tea while sharing their feelings; nudge one of these kids into some sort of ill-advised collision with the afore-mentioned sprites (sometimes as a result of a personal problem that’s driven them in the wrong direction); send the rest of the gang off to the rescue, usually with a wise elder to give some backup, and you’ve got a DeLint story. These two books certainly aren’t bad by any means, they’re just not my favourites. And when DeLint’s books are so similar to one-another, there’s no point cluttering the shelves with the ones that aren’t qutie as good as the others.

Lastly, oh yes, it had to happen, I’m finally getting rid of “The Divorce of Buddy Figaro – A Taoist Comedy Novel” by David Silverberg – the most hated book on my shelf. Ever. This waste of paper is so absolutely awful that I’ve considered keeping it just as proof that some of the worst writing ever did actually get published. That’s probably the reason I’ve kept it for the past couple of years rather than pitching it as soon as I was done with it. Proof that I suffered through the whole thing and actually had my sanity at the end of it. But if room has to be made for more books, I’d have a hard time justifying the loss of a bunch of mediocre stories while keeping this steaming pile. I almost feel bad about putting this thing in a pile for donation, but who knows, someone out there might connect with it in some way I’m incapable of understanding. I can’t bring myself to say more power to them, but, well, whatever makes your boat float. At least it’s out of my home once and for all. Good riddance!

That’s my post-holiday bookshelf cleanup. Now I’ll have room for new, hopefully worth-while acquisitions.

What’s your take on getting rid of books in your collection? Are you able to cull them without much regret? Do you feel a pang of guilt when parting with them? Are you one of the few who’s actually unable to do it?

What are some of the SF books you’ve recently culled from the herd? Why did you give them up?

Big mess o’ book reviews

At long last, I’ve managed to catch up on writing reviews of books I’ve devoured in the last six months or so. Check out my bloginhood site for my two cents on a bunch of books from 2007 & 2008, as well as some older fare.