Category Archives: television

X Files – All Over Again

Leave a reply

I signed up for Hulu+ recently. Mostly to get full season access to some shows, and it’s nice to not be on an 8-day delay to watch recent shows.  You can catch up to a show before the next live episode is aired, if you care to do that.

I noticed that all 9 seasons of X Files is available.  I was a fan when they started airing in 1993 but they were on TV on Fridays, and I was 26, single, and living in the suburbs.  I usually drove into town on any given Friday.  I did become a regular watcher eventually.  I was a bigger fan of the spin off Millennium, which only lasted 3 years.  I thought it’d would be fun to go back and watch all the old shows.

Since i’m doing so, i thought I’d write a brief write up on each, with the emphasis on brief.  And also keyword the shows so that if you wanted to see a list of any of the threads you could find them.  You can certainly get all kinds of information about the show on Wikipedia, including episode lists.  It’s a firehose of information.

I will not attempt to hide spoilers, indeed there should be some. It’s an 19 year old show, if you’re still trying to avoid spoilers, you know how to look away.  The titles of each post will give away what episodes I’m talking about.

I always thought it interesting where the various episodes were set, so I will include that information for my own fun.

V Anew

Leave a reply

I recall watching the old V (1984-85) [mini series, part 1] with much vigor.  The effects were appropriately cheesy for the time, but it was a somewhat interesting story until it derailed after a season.  So, it was with anticipation that I awaited the new incarnation.

The original subtext of racism and holocaust has been replaced with one of terrorism.

However the writing, and perhaps only having 4 hours of shows before the winter recess, caused the freight train of plot to overspeed the rails in the first episode out.  Also forcing the “Pilot” into a one hour slot, makes this problematic.  Are they trying to set the whole scene in this one episode?  Seems so.  Or are they just trying to pack more action in?  [Plenty of Spoilers]

0:00 – Erie music and cutting between all the characters to introduce, the first 8 minutes are textbook writing and editing, a very good job.  With requisite action: plane crash, space ship appearance, brief motorcycle hijinx.  Requisite Independence Day joke.

Erica (single mom), Tyler (son) – Father Jack, Roy – Ryan (perhaps fiance), Valerie – Chad (newsman), Anna (visitor)

7:00 – Seemingly within a half hour the military has cordoned off an area and they’re blocking access?  Why?  How so fast?

9:20 – Why is Anna speaking to the almost uninhabited area near the Egyptian pyramids? (perhaps homage to the original mini series shot that was similar)

9:40 – “There will be more communications with your world’s leaders in the hours to come.”  Never happens.

14:36 – “It’s been three weeks.” This is the anti-Lost in plot terms.  Racing past chances for character development in search of action in the plot.  It becomes obvious that Erica’s FBI partner is behaving suspiciously.

19:15 – Visiting the space ship. Lisa (hottie visitor).  “Peace Ambassador Program”  Bam, just like that.  Three weeks in.  There would absolutely be protests and push back over “indoctrinating our youth” (see recent Obama address to children).

22:50 – Skeptical Father Jack, I like the character.  But his words from the pulpit don’t come across as anything a priest or minister would say.

25:30 – Bad kid, bad V, bad dad, bad mom.  Bam, character development that could have been an entire episode subplot in 2 clean minutes.

27:00 – Suspicious phone calls to Ryan, suspicious Valerie.  Seems we’re going to reveal Ryan’s back store in episode 1.

28:00 – More suspicious partner.  Could have been more subtle over several episodes, but it’s obviously coming to a head in this episode.

30:30 – Father Jack is lured into the web.

31:30 – Chad doesn’t ask the obvious followup to Anna’s “don’t ask us anything that would paint us in an unflattering light”  . . . “like what?”

33:20 – Erica attends “cell meeting”, thinks it’s a terrorist cell, all will soon be revealed, is there anything left?  Did they decided to reveal all the secrets of the first series in 40 minutes?

37:27 – Universal Health Care – LOL. topical.

40:30 – Erica “kills” her partner.  Wouldn’t an FBA agent be skeptical about what would kill an alien? Ryan’s backstory revealed.

44:45 – Erica and Jack as partners.

If they intended to start where the other left off, then they seem to be on their way.  With a bit of aliens as terrorists in a 9/11 world spin.  I can only hope that succeeding episodes will stop long enough for us to meet the characters.

[Pilot available on iTunes for free and Hulu on Saturday]

Dead Like the Lovely Forgotten Bones

Leave a reply

The fall television seasons are kicking themselves into life. Hulu makes it much easier to catch the many pilots flying furiously past. The 2002 Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones seems to have it’s hand heavily on a new offering from ABC: The Forgotten.

theforgottenI recently finished watching the two seasons of Dead Like Me on Hulu.  That show started in 2003, and has been likened to The Lovely Bones because the main character is a young girl who dies and continues to watch over her family.  It differs in that the main character is living an afterlife as a grim reaper rather than just watching over the family.  The Showtime broadcast of Dead Like Me was quite good, particularly because they weren’t limited in their language by US broadcast television standards.

Now there is a movie adaptation of The Lovely Bones in post production, directed by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings) no less.  With that in the collective consciousness, this new ABC series presents itself.

The main character in The Forgotten is played by Christian Slater.  The role is a much better one than his last: My Own Worst Enemy, which started repeating itself in the second episode and luckily didn’t make it past nine episodes.  It’s also available on Hulu, please don’t waste your time.

The pilot was done well, but I think it could have dropped most of the partial narration by the dead girl.  It almost comes off as a clash of two stories.  Are we trying to tell the stories of the volunteers searching for the identities or are we there to hear the story of the dead?  I’m also wondering how many of the public will liken next January’s movie to the series that started this September.

The Listener – Silent

Leave a reply

I almost never turn on my TV anymore. I watch TV shows streamed over the Internet. It’s like having a DVR without needing a DVR. Mostly I watch on Hulu, but sometimes on SyFy (recent rebranding of SciFi) or CBS or Boxee.

I’ve been watching The Listener recently. Like most shows, the new episodes show up in my queue the day after they aired and I can watch them whenever I like. Recently 5 episodes showed up all at once.

It didn’t take much research to find out that NBC had cancelled it in the US. It a fairly tired premise, so I’m not too surprised, but I’ll likely watch out the half season at my leisure.

Fox Show Crossover

Leave a reply

familyguybonesI thought this Hulu image for a recent episode of Bones was just server gone bad, but it’s the actual correct image for the episode. Several times during the show Agent Booth hallucinates that Stewie from the Family Guy is talking to him. It’s reasonably humorous, and fits into a longer arc plot line actually.

And I thought I saw some other show with a similar “dead guy in a barrel of wine” episode.  But I can’t recall where.

Buzz and Bacevich

1 Reply

The juxtaposition of two videos I saw today is eerily representative of the current state of American affairs.

The national hero, Buzz Aldrin, speaking on the future of space travel. It all sounds great, unless you listen to more that five contiguous words and try to make a coherent concept out of them.

Obviously Xeni Jardin had a great opportunity to interview such an important man, and couldn’t let the footage go to waste. The inanity is somewhat like a bus wreck. A bus full of parakeets juggling crystal goblets. Shiny.

The other interview was Bill Moyers talking to Andrew J. Bacevich (includes transcript). I actually only heard the audio to this one, though the video snips I did watch made it that much more revealing.

This almost hour of discussion is one that every American should be required to listen to and ruminate on. But we’re much more likely to watch the first one and yell “Go, Buzz!” (Hey, despite the incoherence, I did.)

Such is America’s attention span, and such will be its downfall.

I think I may have to go back and listen to Bacevich again. He did such a good job of relating his points, and the discussion was thick with content.

[Edit: a few days later SciAm had a cogent interview with Buzz. Seems like Xeni just had the bad luck of catching him when he had brain overload – apparently he’s been on a publicity tour of late for several things.]