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TV: The problem with being right

2007-10-15T21:27:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it sucks to be right.

I've often thought that for science fiction and fantasy to go mainstream, especially on television, would just result in a lot of bad science fiction and fantasy. The new fall television season, which is dotted with series that loosely fall into the genres, has proven me right, I'm afraid.

The bleak rundown for SF&F fans goes like this:

The Bionic Woman: This remake of a '70s-vintage spinoff is getting a lot of good buzz, largely because it's helmed by David Eick, 50% of the same team that turned another '70s cheesefest, Battlestar Galactica, into such a serious, classy drama that it once was possible to say the Emmys had unfairly snubbed it with a straight face. Unfortunately, The Bionic Woman substitutes flash for class and completely lacks the focus and sense of purpose that made Galactica so compelling.

The Bionic Woman is a mish-mash of elements that don't fit well together, like a powerful operative working for a secret organization bent on saving the world who has to be home early every evening for her baby sister. The shadowy agency pulling heroine Jaime Summers' strings is so all over the map that it's impossible to tell whether they're good guys or bad, government minions or mad scientists--they seem to be all and none of the above. Is the show about Jaime's problems with her bionics (there are multiple hints that the implants may drive her mad), her issues with her intolerably bratty little sister, saving the world through bionics, the tragic back-story of the previous bionic woman or...what?

Lead actress Michelle Ryan has all the necessary physical moves to pull off the obligatory weekly fight scenes, but her acting is marred by what looks like discomfort with her American accent (she's British). She frequently seems to pause while mouthing the unpersuasive dialogue, as if she's really having to think about the sounds coming out of her mouth. It's quite distracting, actually--I keep finding myself thinking "is there any reason Jaime absolutely had to be an American?"

Bottom line, Jaime is a lot less fun to watch than her apparent nemesis, another bionic woman previously thought to be dead (and I'm rather enjoying watching Katee Sackhoff chew some carpet). But that's kind of a telling point, isn't it? If Jaime were all that interesting, they wouldn't need a second bionic woman, would they? Unless you really can't get through the week without a chickfight, there's not much here. Grade: C-
Chuck: A computer geek becomes a super spy when a huge repository of spy stuff gets downloaded into his head. The last time I had a problem with my computer, I had to take it to Geek Squad five times, and the tech who fixed it didn't realize he had--he was still telling me to send it back to the manufacturer. So I'm having trouble suspending disbelief for Chuck, which in any case makes the old Jake 2.0 look a lot better than it really was. At least that didn't require us to endure subplots about the woes of stereotypical low-wage workers in a big-box retail store. Seriously, anybody as smart as Chuck is supposed to be can figure out how to get a real job. Grade: D
Journeyman: I confess I haven't been able to sit through a complete episode of this series about a guy who somehow gets transported back in time to change something in history. The character is just not half as entertaining as Quantum Leap's Sam Beckett, and individual plot lines are tame by comparison. The series devotes an enormous amount of time to bickering between the time traveler and his wife, who seems to be seriously cheesed off that his contact in the past is an old girlfriend. Grade: F
Moonlight: First we had the vampire cop with a conscience (Forever Knight) and then the vampire detective with a soul (Angel). Now we have Mick St. John, another vampire detective who's motivated primarily by desire to watch over a young woman he saved as a child from another vampire. Pretty low stakes, and the writing suffers by comparison with its predecessors. The only good news is that Alex O'Loughlin is mighty easy on the eyes--but he's essentially wasted here. Call your agent, Alex. Grade: D
Pushing Daisies: The most intriguing concept of the season features a protagonist with the miraculous ability to bring the dead back to life for 10 seconds--and only 10 seconds. I really wanted to like it, but it's rendered in such an annoying style it's essentially unwatchable. The producers of this show really should be forced to rewatch The Princess Bride over and over until they understand how to mix fantasy and comedy--and how to use a narrative voiceover--without letting the style become the story. Grade: D-
Reaper: Sorry, but I need my weekly dose of House, so I haven't seen it. What was the CW thinking when it chose this timeslot? And it just sounds like Brimstone Lite. Grade: Incomplete

Notice the common thread? With the exception of Pushing Daisies, all these series are pale imitations of something else. That's what usually happens when you mix science fiction and/or fantasy with major broadcast networks. The way you get a series on a major broadcast network is by convincing a network exec that the series has a lot in common with something that already aired successfully on some other network. The few exceptions to that rule, like Heroes or Lost, strike me as accidents--I suspect the network exec who greenlighted them didn't get it. (And thank God for that.)

The best science fiction is all about originality. Even when science fiction borrows from itself, as in the case of Battlestar Galactica, it works best when it shifts the focus and takes off in a new direction. That just doesn't happen much with mainstream television, and personally, I think that if the big networks can't get it right, they should just not do it. They're wasting a lot of money and trying their viewers' patience.

Man, it just sucks to be right sometimes.

TV: Bruckheimer Bites the Hand That Feeds Him With Justice

2006-08-31T08:34:00.000-05:00

As I watched the debut of Jerry Bruckheimer's newest crime/legal drama, Justice, last night, I found myself wistfully thinking of the premiere episode of CSI. I was remembering that wonderful lighter moment when Gil Grissom looked into the morgue and shouted at the dead bodies, "You assholes!"

If only Jerry Bruckheimer remembered that.

Justice purports to portray the other side of the equation from Bruckheimer's other crime/legal dramas, which focus on the investigation and prosecution of crimes. The show revolves around a top-gun defense team and its efforts to get its clients acquitted, and then it throws in a hook by showing what really happened--the part "the jury never gets to see." The premiere episode revolves around the death of a woman married to an adoring cuckold who's a little too naïve to believed. She's rich and unfaithful, so naturally, her husband is the first and ultimately the only suspect. He proclaims his innocence, and because there's money in the family, he hires a high-test law firm to represent him. As the premise suggests, you really don't know what happened--and neither do any of the characters--until the revelation in the final minute or so of the ep.

Declaring my bias, I have to say that I'm about crime drama-ed out. I remain loyal to CSI, but its various spinoffs and ripoffs strike me as pale imitations these days. Then again, it's hard to call anything about Justice pale--it's too harshly in-your-face for that. Bruckheimer's shows have tended to become more and more grim--gone are the days when any regular character is going to put on a swami's hat or rush out the door for a cockroach race, and Justice is no exception to that trend.

The draw for me was Victor Garber, who I loved in Alias. I doubt I would've bothered if he hadn't been involved, as the fact that this show turned up on FOX, rather than CBS, made me think it probably had been rejected by brass at a network better known for, well, taste. The quality on FOX has been improving, with a lineup that includes truly great shows like 24 and House, but the network remains better known for cheap stunts like Skating With the Stars. One must wonder when a "name" like Bruckheimer shows up there.

I have mixed feelings about Justice. I had the same reaction I would have if I saw a car crash that looked truly awful but in which no one was seriously hurt: initial horror, and then relief that it wasn't worse. The series concept is intriguing, but the premiere episode is relentlessly cynical, playing to our suspicions that lawyers don't give a rat's ass about what's right. It hammers us with the message that lawyers only care about winning cases and making money. No, wait--there's one lawyer on the "TNT & G" team who claims to need to know his clients are innocent, Kerr Smith's character (Tom Nicholson), but Smith's boy-scout act isn't very convincing. In the few moments when you can believe his protestations at all, he comes off like a three-year-old in a shark pool. If you're looking for the good guys, change the channel.

There are bad guys, however, and they're the media, the police and prosecutors, who are portrayed here as grasping, corrupt and incompetent. The DA leaks lies and goes back on his word; the investigating police officer loses evidence and doesn't bother to check on his suspect's story because he's already decided he knows what happened before he bothers to for the truth. I'll buy that there are bad cops and district attorneys, but I certainly wasn't expecting this harsh an indictment from a series created by a guy who gives away Chevy Tahoes to law enforcement agencies.

It's no surprise that Garber's character, the camera-hungry spin-monger Ron Trott, is the most interesting of the bunch. His job is to combat trial by media by engaging in aggressive defense by media. You can think of Ron Trott as the anti-Jack Bauer: Jack does bad things for the right reasons, while Ron does the right things for the most venal of reasons. I'm curious whether the writers ever plan to show us what really drives him and/or how he got to be such a gold-plated jerk.

Strangely, however, the moral ambiguity that permeates this episode evaporated at the moment when the "truth" was revealed: the husband's innocent. He was upstairs kissing their daughter goodnight when his wife suffered a tragic accident. I can only speculate that somebody feared this whole story was just too O.J. to be likeable and decided the ep could only be saved by showing the defense team had gotten it right, however accidentally. I would've liked the ep better if the husband had been involved in her death in some way. It would've felt more consistent with the overall tone of the episode.

In the end, I liked it well enough to try it again...until Lost, which inhabits the same time slot, returns for season 3.

FOX premiered another crime drama last week, Vanished, about an FBI team investigating the abduction of a senator's wife. I'd recommend Vanished only to individuals with severe cases of chronic ADD--it's all flash and speed and no substance, with the thinnest of characterizations and plot twists that only work if you don't think about them for more than a split second. Besides, in the current hang-'em-all political climate, who really cares about a senator's wife?

I'll be very surprised if either series has long legs.

TV, Films: Farewell to 2005

2005-12-31T12:30:00.000-06:00

You can't really call yourself a critic if you don't end the year with some kind of "best-and-worst" list, so here's my list of the highlights and low points of 2005.

The good stuff

Battlestar Galactica: On television, it's no contest. This is hands-down the best show on television, fearlessly addressing contemporary controversies in a way that hasn't really been attempted since the glory days of the original Star Trek. Sci Fi Channel, about which no one with a brain can be anything but ambivalent, deserves a world of credit for this unexpected triumph.

Serenity: This tale of a band of misfits struggling to reveal the truth about a society in which the do-gooders have just gone way too damned far is the best science fiction film in years. Joss Whedon proves yet again that he's the absolute master at seasoning a wrenchingly tragic story with just enough humor to keep it bearable. Like the television series it's based on (Firefly), the film was criminally underrated by the few mainstream critics who bothered to notice it at all. It's already out on DVD--run, don't walk, to the video store, unless you're a big fan of big, God-fearing, altruistic government…no, wait, those are the people who need to see it most.

Lost: I have a bad feeling about the future of this series, but throughout 2005 it was consistently riveting. Re-energized by the addition of new characters from the doomed aircraft's tail section and sporting a whole new level of weird, courtesy of "the button" designed to prevent "another incident," it's as addictive as crack.

Batman Begins: The darkest Batman movie yet, and also the best (although I remain fond of the version that starred Michael Keaton). It was wonderful to see the franchise legitimized again this way.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: People who only saw the film probably liked it better than those of us who had read the book--they don't know the vastness of what was lost in translation. But the dragon sequence alone was worth the price of admission. While most of the media attention focused on how dark the film was, it's worth mentioning it also was laugh-out-loud funny a lot more than any of its predecessors. Still in theaters (and threatening to overtake Revenge of the Sith as the year's top-grossing film), and definitely worth the ticket.

CSI: The old fascination came back this fall, with the resumption of character development, especially for Nick Stokes after his near-death experience at the end of season 5, and the blessed restoration of the show's sense of humor.

Without a Trace: Is there anything that can keep Jack Malone nailed to his humanity, now that his father's passed away? It's hard to imagine what would, but I'll buy a ticket to find out, and so should you.

Disappointments

War of the Worlds: If Spielberg can't do science fiction any better than this, he should give it up and stick to history. It wasn't bad--but it wasn't very good, either, and I think we've rightly come to expect better from Spielberg.

The Stargates: I wanted so much to be a fan of the retooled Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis. But it's not possible to be a fan of anything as uninspired as these series were this past year. I'm sorry to say it, but I'm starting to think this concept is just so tired it can't be refreshed.

Just plain ugly

Surface: Oy. Clueless rip-off with a mediocre cast and amateurish special effects. I know, I know--I keep harping on this series. But it really is just that bad.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: In fairness, one of the problems was that everyone knew how it would end, and that was nobody's fault. But that being the case, what was the point? Stilted dialogue, abysmal acting and not a plot twist in sight.

And how lucky do I feel that I didn't have any reason to go see Aeon Flux or Fantastic 4?

Now you ask, "But what about King Kong?" Haven't seen it. I keep thinking about seeing it, but it's King Kong--I've already seen it. I may yet, but it's three hours long, and I keep thinking about all the other stuff I have to do, and the idea of renting it from Netflix starts sounding good again...

What can I say--it's still just King Kong.

TV: Stuff That's Just not Ready for Prime-Time

2005-12-30T15:40:00.000-06:00

I'm not a tech expert--I neither know nor care to know what nifty stuff lurks inside my television and makes the pretty pictures appear. I like the pictures, and I usually have no trouble restricting my thought processes to TV content. Once I figure out what cable plugs into what jack to get the whole thing to work, I'm done with the technology. But a couple of things have got me started thinking about technology as it relates to TV: The FCC recently mandated that television broadcasts in the U.S. have to be all-digital by 2009, and iTunes started selling TV shows for download.

First, the digital issue. We weren't planning on buying a huge, HD-ready television set in early 2005. Our old TV had different ideas--it was ready to retire and did so quite without ceremony (or warning). With the old one doing the electronic equivalent of heaving its last breath, we headed over to the local big-loud-box store and purchased the 50-inch techno-whiz behemoth we'd been putting off for several years.

So then we had this swell new toy, and I called up the local cable provider to inquire about HD service, which they were only too happy to come out and hook up, promising dazzling clarity and CD-quality sound. My first inkling that something might be just a bit, well, off came when I was told the new HD service wouldn't cost any more per month than our existing digital cable--suggesting that, in fact, it might not be worth more.

It's not.

In fact, if it cost more, I would've told the cable company to come haul its HD box outta here. As it is, it's not worth the cost of the service call to have it hauled out, although it would feel satisfying to do so.

I have three problems with the HD service I receive:

"Crystal clear?" What crystals have these guys been looking at lately? Annoyingly blurry with weird white snow at the top of the screen is the reality. And that's when it's not actually breaking up and getting all pixelized, which happens far too often to suit me.
"CD-quality sound?" Maybe if the CD's been left in the car and gotten warped by the heat. Actually, the worst part is that the sound frequently either drops out altogether or isn't synchronized with the picture, so that you get left with the feeling you're watching a foreign film with bad dubbing even though you're actually watching CSI.
Many of the plain digital, non-HD channels actually look a lot better than the high-falutin' HD channels. Seen BBC America lately? Why can I get BBC World Sport in better quality than the HD version of Lost? Some channels I watch all the time look significantly worse via the HD tuner box than they did through the old digital box. Sci Fi Channel, in particular, really appears to be transmitted via an antenna made of crumpled-up Reynolds Wrap.

I called the cable company to complain, and they were (gasp!) unhelpful. They blamed it on everybody else--the broadcasters, the satellites transmitting the signal from the broadcasters and even the producers for shooting shows in other formats.

I don't care whose fault it is. Like I said, I don't care what makes it work.

So when the FCC came out with its mandate, I laughed uproariously. I was picturing the commissioners looking at their brand-new, humongous flat-screens and cursing eloquently, just like I have been for the past nine months. Lots of luck enforcing it guys--my guess is, it won't do me a damned bit of good. If my experience so far holds true into the future, HD will really be ready for prime-time about five years after my new TV has collapsed and died. If then.

On the question of iTunes video downloads: Look, anybody who reaches for my iPod is going to draw back a bloody nub. I love the thing. But the video iPod didn't initially grab my imagination. My eyes (not to mention the rest of me) are too old to watch TV on a screen that small. But then it occurred to me that I could play the videos on my computer, as well as on an actual iPod. Or even, possibly, on my actual television.

Then I discovered that, unlike music downloads from iTunes, you are prohibited from copying the video files onto a disc for storage.

Can anyone explain to me why I would want to turn my $2,700 laptop into a glorified DVD player? Especially after just spending a bundle on a brand-new 50-inch TV?

No? I thought not.

I get the producers' wish to eliminate the risk of piracy of this material. I read somewhere recently that episodes of Battlestar Galactica are illegally downloaded more than 300,000 times a week. But if I wanted to get it illegally, why would I go to iTunes and pay $1.99? You think the pirates are depending on iTunes for their material? This prohibition won't stop illegal downloads, but it will discourage honest users like me from buying the files on iTunes.

I don't want to make dozens of copies and sell them on eBay. I just want to be able to use my hard drive for something other than video storage, and you can't tell me there's no way to rig up these files so that they can only burned onto a disc a single time.

This concept, like HD-TV, is just not ready for prime-time.

Update: I predicted that at least two of the new science-fiction series on mainstream broadcast channels in fall 2005 wouldn't make it past mid-season, and apparently I was too pessimistic (or too optimistic, if you factor in quality issues). CBS has killed Threshold, but NBC's appallingly bad Surface seems to have been given an undeserved reprieve. Maybe they're being gentle because its poor ratings aren't that much worse than most other shows on NBC. I notice they're occasionally rerunning it on Sci Fi--like SFC's core audience isn't made up largely of geeks like me who have seen the material Surface was stolen from a thousand times. Hey, if I want to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I'll turn on the VCR and watch the original.

The one remaining show worth watching in the group, Invasion, is scheduled to return sometime in 2006. I think Invasion is somewhat overrated, but now that Alias has gone to the dogs, I've got the time.

TV: Not bad for a fall season

2005-11-02T20:36:00.000-06:00

After a total computer meltdown and some health issues, I'm back with another batch of mini-reviews, this time for the television series I've been watching this fall.

Surface: Sea monsters bigger than aircraft carriers are swimming around in our oceans, and somehow nobody's noticed. This show has two concurrent plot lines, one of them a shameless, blatant rip-off of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the other a shameless, blatant rip-off of E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. It's charitable to call its premise, that the presence of "sea monsters" somehow could trigger an enormous, planet-busting geological event, laughable. There's also a government conspiracy conducted by guys who look and sound menacing but aren't smart enough to be dangerous. On top of that, there's not a likeable character in the bunch. Someone scuttle this garbage scow. Please. Grade: F

Invasion: In the wake of a devastating hurricane, alien creatures are taking over people in a small Florida town. Interesting characters and premise, but the creepiness factor is low, and the plot lines of individual episodes and the overall story arc move with such glacial slowness that I'm starting to lose interest. Step up the pace a little, and it could be really great, but at this rate, we'll never know what happened to that little town during the hurricane. And the length of time it's taking for this town to recover from the hurricane makes FEMA's response to Katrina look efficient. Grade: C

Threshold: Aliens are "bio-forming" humans, turning us into them. Another batch of interesting characters, and the most interesting premise of the lot. But once again, the creepiness factor is low (unless you find gore creepy, and I don't). Most episodes have followed a disturbingly familiar track and focused far too much on technobabble--the show's working much too hard to be slick and cool. On the plus side, I've finally regained my respect for Brent Spiner as an actor. Grade: B

Ghost Whisperer: Should've been titled Touched by a Psychic. I can't take this much syrup on waffles, much less TV. Grade: D

Bones: A forensic archeologist and an FBI agent solve crimes by studying, well, bones. David Boreanaz is playing the role of Special Agent Seeley Booth like "the lighter side of Angel," but somehow, it works pretty well. The stories have been engaging so far, but two things bug me: First, the series is working really hard at developing romantic tension between the two leads, and there's just not that kind of chemistry there, and second, Emily Deschanel's character is too abrasive to be believable, much less likeable. Nobody this socially inept can make it in a large institution like the "Jeffersonian Institute," where playing a political game is likely to be a survivial strategy. Grade: B

And about some returning shows...

Alias: Why am I still watching this? Of course, the mystery of why I ever watched it always has been a large part of its appeal--it's easily the most totally implausible series on television. But the novelty's fading, in part because I had a lot invested in the previous set of characters, and I'm not sure intriguing implausibility is enough to make me spend the time to learn to love a new set. If they had killed off Marshall, instead of Vaughn, I'd have more time on my hands on Thursday nights. Grade: Incomplete

Stargate: SG-1: I love Ben Browder, and I really wanted to love this retooled version of the show. But the episodes in the first half of the season have been so cheesy and goofy that I just can't manage anything but a great big yawn. King Arthur? Come on. Stop fooling around, and convince me the Ori are villains worthy of SG-1's steel. Grade: D+

Stargate: Atlantis: I never thought the Wraith were scary villains, and they're even less so now that the folks on Atlantis managed to thwart their invasion with relative ease. It's never a good idea to make the villains look too incompetent--it takes all the fizz out of the conflict. The Atlantis team certainly can handle better, and they deserve it. Grade: C

Lost: Flirting with getting too weird to be fun anymore, but not quite over that edge yet. Saving the world by typing a code into an old Apple computer every 108 minutes? Hmm... But the notion that the island is a kind of purgatory in which the characters all have to resolve their personal issues and find redemption is becoming more and more appealing, and the producers are doling out just enough little bits and pieces of information at just about the right pace to keep it interesting. Still one of the most intriguing shows on the air in a long time, and even the irritating characters are fascinating studies. Let there be weird. Grade: A-

Battlestar Galactica: Season 2 is evidencing a disturbing tendency to develop interesting plot threads...and then inexplicably drop them unresolved. On the up-side, they certainly left us with one hell of a cliffhanger, and the stories and the dynamics between the characters remain riveting. Episodes in the first half of the season have raised fascinating questions about the nature of humanity--and I'm all for anything that on TV that makes people think a little. The guessing game--who's a Cylon and who's not--is still loads of fun. By my count, we've now seen six of the 12 models (Number 6/Shelley Godfrey, Sharon Valerii, Leoben Conroy, Aaron Doral, Simon, and D'Anna Biers). Personally, I hope they don't reveal the other six too soon--keep us guessing, please. Grade: A-

Not bad for a TV season--there's only one real barking dog in the bunch, and it's been a while since I could say that.

TV: Where'd All This Science Fiction Come From? (And How Long Will it Last?)

2005-08-24T19:18:00.000-05:00

Three new science-fiction television series have been proposed for the fall 2005 season on the "big-three" networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). In the past, I would've regarded this as cause for optimism, a sign that science fiction at last might be becoming more mainstream and less a genre that critics and reviewers only mention so they'll have something to ridicule on a regular basis. These days, I've learned to be more cynical, so much so that I'll predict here and now that at least two of these series won't survive to mid-season. If any of them makes it into a second season, I'll be stunned.

Frankly, when it comes to science fiction, the big-three networks' records are just plain piss-poor, dating back to the infamous cancellation of Star Trek after three seasons back in the '60s (about which some lifelong fans remain justifiably bitter). And that was a longer run than most SF series have had on the mainstream networks. For the most part, genre shows on ABC, CBS and NBC have been yanked off the air after only a few episodes. Remember Wolf Lake? I thought not--it went a handful of episodes a few years ago before it was unceremoniously dumped just as it was starting to get interesting.

The newer broadcast networks, FOX, UPN and the WB, have sometimes done a little better by their genre shows, mainly because they're still small enough to content themselves with a niche audience. These networks often have been willing to be patient and let a good SF show find its audience. In fact, they were so willing to be patient that the most successful of such shows--The X Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Voyager, Smallville--actually managed to stay on the air until after they had ceased to be interesting. Long after, in some cases.

FOX, however, apparently has become successful enough to adopt the big three philosophy of canning SF at the first sign that it might need some time, and sometimes the network has been simply brutal. Chris Carter's Harsh Realm got the harsh treatment after only a few episodes; FOX execs did everything in their power to destroy Joss Whedon's wonderful Firefly even before it ever saw air by insisting on broadcasting it out of sequence. The network had the audacity to renew Tru Calling, cancel it over the summer, and then promote the broadcast of a handful of unaired episodes as if it were a new season and drop the ax again in the middle of a cliffhanger. FOX isn't proposing any new science fiction this season, and if it were, I would be hesitant to watch it for fear I'd have to witness its horrible, early death.

UPN hasn't done much better, but the truth is, most of the science fiction UPN has aired didn't really deserve to live. The network doesn't appear to have either the will or the finances to do it right, even with its cash-cow Star Trek franchise. (I wanted to like Enterprise, really I did. But it was impossible to like.) And these days, with the network aiming at a young, female audience, and apparently convinced that there's no such thing as a female science-fiction fan, it's not very likely they'll try again soon. (There's nothing wrong with Veronica Mars, but it's hardly a substitute for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah, I know, some people are calling it "the new Buffy," but I think that's just because there's nothing else out there for a young, female demographic that even approaches Buffy's quality.) In some ways, it's just as well UPN doesn't try again, when you think back on earlier forays like Special Unit 2 or, God help us, Mercy Point.

The WB, frankly, hasn't done much that really can be called science fiction at all. Truth is, Buffy, Angel and Smallville lean more toward horror and/or fantasy than science fiction. The three genres tend to get lumped together because they often share the same audience, or at least parts of it. The WB has treated its shows better, with the exception of the ill-fatedBirds of Prey--I guess the network was hoping the lightning that sparked Smallville to success would strike twice--but that may be in part because they've risked so much less in the first place.

When you get right down to it, even the Sci Fi Channel has done a lot more horror and fantasy than science fiction in its original programming. (Some notable exceptions: Farscape, Battlestar Galactica, First Wave, and Stargate: Atlantis. I'm not counting Stargate: SG-1 because it had already become established on Showtime before moving to Sci Fi.) And if SF shows can't get respect from the Sci Fi Channel, what hope do they have elsewhere?

So, am I going to watch Threshold on CBS, Invasion on ABC and/or Surface on NBC? Probably. But my expectations, especially with respect to their longevity, are quite low. For one thing, they all seem to be treading such similar ground, concept-wise, that they're going to be competing head to head with each other as much as with other shows in the same timeslots. I like a good alien-invasion plot as much as the next SF fan, but how much of it do you really want all in the same week?

I don't know or care anything about what went on behind the scenes, but these shows strike me as being rushed into production on the off-chance that they can capitalize on the momentum created by successes like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, The Dead Zone and The 4400. What the network execs have failed to remember is that these successful series created their own momentum, rather than trying to siphon it off something else. Surface strikes me as particularly unlikely to make it long-term, if for no other reason than that its title has been changed at least once already--not a sign of stability at the top. (It's being produced by the people who brought us G. vs. E., not exactly the epitome of success.) All that underwater filming can't be cheap, which makes it a cost target.

What's that you say? I haven't even mentioned the retooling of The Night Stalker? Well, one of the good things about not reviewing things for money anymore is that I never have to watch anything I don't want to watch. I didn't like the first one, and I couldn't care less about the second incarnation, especially since it's being produced by Frank Spotnitz, who I blame for the painful and embarrassing descent into incoherence of The X Files in its final seasons. How Spotnitz got another job in television is much more a mystery than anything likely to air on The Night Stalker.

Film: The Great Raid is a great relief

2005-08-20T08:40:00.000-05:00

This summer movie season reminds me of the parts of A Clockwork Orange in which young Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is bound to a chair with his eyes forced open as visuals of mindless, pointless violence flash endlessly on a screen.

Thus, The Great Raid, although certainly no less violent than many other films released this summer, really felt like a breath of fresh air. At least the violence in this movie has meaning.

That said, The Great Raid is a good movie, not a superb one. It hasn't got the emotional power of Saving Private Ryan--everyone in this film is stoic almost to a fault--or the spine-wrenching intensity of Enemy at the Gates. But considering the historical context, the filmmakers probably were right to keep things a bit on the restrained side.

The film deals with the heroic end to one of the more shameful episodes involving U.S. policy during World War II--the abandonment of hundreds of American forces to brutal Japanese imprisonment in the Philippines. I've long suspected FDR's "Germany first" policy would've been a lot harder sell if folks at home had had a clearer picture of what was going on in those Filipino prison camps or on the Bataan Death March that sent the POWs to the camps. The abandonment of the Philippines early in the war, while it probably was the only practical thing to do under the circumstances, is something no American should be able to think about without a twinge of conscience. I'm no big fan of Douglas MacArthur, but he was right about that one.

The Great Raid doesn't gloss over that negative aspect, but it's clear from the outset that its purpose lies in telling the story of the rescue mission, not the reasons why a rescue became necessary. One can argue that the rescue was too little and too late, a point the film itself makes in its focus on a POW leader who eventually doesn't survive despite the lengths others go to on his behalf. In truth, the raid on Cabanatuan was largely symbolic, but if symbols weren't powerful, military uniforms would be a lot plainer and nobody would hang up the flag on the Fourth of July.

The film has its thrilling, suspenseful and poignant moments, but the suspense is somewhat muted by the fact that you already know how the story ends. The acting is competent but not all that compelling (headliner Benjamin Bratt has an uncanny resemblance to the actual commander on the raid, Lt. Col. Mucci), with the exception of Joseph Fiennes' fine turn as Maj. Daniel Gibson, the ill-fated leader of the POWs. But, like I said, it's all very stoic, giving nobody in the cast much opportunity to emote. The film sticks to the facts of the mission, in the process de-emphasizing the personalities, which leaves it all feeling just a bit sterile.

If you want to see this film in a theater--and that's where the impact of it will be greatest--you probably need to hurry. It was very sparsely attended in our neighborhood Cinemark, while the Alex types flocked to another dose of aversion therapy down the hall.

On another, somewhat lighter note, I've really been waffling about whether to see The Brothers Grimm when it opens next week. I keep thinking things like "Terry Gilliam, Matt Damon, Heath Ledger--how bad could it be?" And then I see another of those godawful previews and remember that August often is the month when studios throw out their trash, and realize it could be very, very bad indeed. I'm leaning toward waiting for the DVD.

Film: Just Another Disaster Flick, Spielberg-Style

2005-07-03T21:05:00.000-05:00

I don't think I can be fair to this movie until after I get my Tom Cruise rant off my chest. I promise to keep it as short as possible.

No matter what you think of his relationship with Katie Holmes or scientology or where he got the idea that he knows more about psychology than experts actually trained in the subject, the bottom line is, Tom Cruise has been acting like a jackass lately.

We Americans tend to assume that everyone has a constitutional right to behave like a damned fool…at least up to a point. And we tend to assume that celebrities are going to act like damned fools now and then. We're disappointed (but not surprised) when Michael Jackson dances on an SUV outside a California courtroom, demonstrating an appalling disrespect for the justice system. We're disappointed (but not surprised) when Russell Crowe throws a tantrum and assaults a hotel employee. But we do expect even celebrities to make some basic acknowledgment that whatever they did to bring public disapproval down on themselves probably wasn't a good idea.

What's really irritating about Cruise's recent behavior is that, not only is he behaving like a jackass, but he's giving the appearance he really believes being a jackass isn't just his God-given right but is the right thing to do.

He's just wrong about that. Big box-office numbers don't make rude, rowdy behavior right, and if Cruise keeps it up, it's very likely to backfire on him eventually.

OK, now I've got that out of my system.

Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is pretty much a standard disaster flick, heavy on the mortal peril and light on meaning. Not that that's a problem, at least for me--I like disaster flicks. This one is a lot like what you'd expect from the offspring resulting from mating Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. And, let's face it--this story is oft-trodden ground. But from Spielberg, I really was hoping for more. Oh, well. It's summer; have some popcorn, turn off your brain and enjoy the show.

I was told the film was very scary, but I didn't find it so. It is, however, compellingly suspenseful and fast-paced and contains one truly creepy moment involving a flaming train. The basic story-line revolves around dockworker Ray Ferrier's struggle to survive the alien invasion with his children, young Rachel and teenage Robbie. The desire to protect his kids comes to Ferrier a bit late--not only is he something of a deadbeat dad at the outset, but he then leaves the kids alone at home while he satisfies his own curiosity about what caused the "lightning" that starts all the trouble. As he's never been good at taking care of them before, it's no wonder they have doubts about his ability to cope now.

At bottom, this clearly is intended to be the story of a family bonding together in adversity, and as such, it has only one noteworthy twist: Eventually, Ferrier realizes he simply can't protect both kids, especially the one who really doesn't want to be protected, and has to let one of them go. He and his son only bond when it becomes clear where Robbie acquired the guts and resourcefulness to get through--from his father. That twist is almost enough to lift the film out of the standard-disaster-flick rut. Almost, but not quite, because all we see of that transformation is from the father's point of view, and that turns the ending into something of a Deus ex machina.

On the side of I-expected-better, there are some annoying logic issues in the plot. The aliens' electromagnetic pulse apparently works only inconsistently--sometimes it affects cars and lights (but not camcorders), but other times it affects cars but leaves the lights on. And I'm still scratching my head at how aliens as technologically sophisticated as these wouldn't think to test the air and water for agents that might be toxic to them, especially after having been on Earth once before to bury their infernal machines.

There are some nice homages in the film. Unlike the 1953 film, the aliens' machines are walking tripods as in H.G. Wells' novel. There's an extended sequence with the eye-tentacle that made such a spooky appearance in the earlier film. And there's a basically needless plane crash, for anyone who hadn't already gotten the parallels with September 11.

If you have difficulty picturing Tom Cruise as everyman, you won't be the first or the last. But there's so much going on in this film that you'll get over it after a while; his performance is good but not great. The rest of the cast is solid, too. The always-impressive Dakota Fanning is a joy to watch, as usual, and Justin Chatwin is suitably manic-depressive as the obligatory sullen teenage son.

In short, if it weren't for some absolutely marvelous special effects, I'd say you'd be OK waiting for the DVD. But no matter how big your television is, it won't render that flaming train the same way. Ramp down your expectations, but head for the theater.

And while we're on the subject of oft-trodden ground: Yet another remake of King Kong? In the name of God, why?

Film: Star Wars ends; Batman Begins

2005-06-27T22:27:00.000-05:00

A couple of mini-reviews of things I've seen lately, in an effort to make up for my having had so little time to write here.

First, I saw the big-screen rendition of the trailer for Serenity this weekend, and it looks terrific. If you didn't see Firefly, the TV series on which this film is based when it aired on the network I now call TWB (Those Weasel Bastards) for its shabby treatment of the show, you should immediately buy, borrow or rent the DVD series of the aborted first season. (Pay no attention to the cheesy graphics and music on the discs. Just watch the episodes and enjoy.) Then you'll be ready for the feature film. If the writing and the wonderful ensemble performances are as good as those on the small screen, this film will be one of the true highlights of 2005's movie offerings.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: Lord, how I wish George Lucas had stopped after Return of the Jedi, not least because after seeing Sith, I have utterly lost respect for him. I was steeled for a third round of stilted dialogue, pointless (and seemingly endless) graphics sequences and awful performances from actors who clearly know better. I was not prepared for a character to become unrecognizable, a morass of moral confusion and light-saber battles so darkly lit that it was impossible to see the fighting.

The most shocking problem is the sudden, unexplained change in Padme's character. It's painfully obvious that Princess Leia didn't get her spunk from her mother, who, under the stress of Anakin's transformation, loses all will to live even for the sake of her children. (Didn't Leia say, in Jedi, that she vaguely remembered her mother? I guess Lucas forgot.) Padme's main contribution to this story line is to stand around wringing her hands and looking tearful (and very, very pregnant). She does finally work up the gumption to do something really stupid: Go looking for Anakin long after it's too late and arrive just in time for him to whack her one. What a worthless dishrag she'd become by then.

I don't expect a whole lot of moral clarity from Hollywood, but Obi-Wan's final accusation for Anakin ("Only the Sith deal in absolutes!") was just laughable after the Jedi had decided that Anakin had to face the absolute punishment for the absolute crime of killing younglings. (Not that I'm arguing that's not an absolute that ought to be enforced.) This really is something of a case of the kettle and the pot calling each other black. Neither the Jedi nor the Sith manage to hold the moral high ground. In fact, the story seems to argue there's no such thing as a moral high ground. That's sinking pretty low from where the series started.

As for everything else, it had all the failings of the first two prequels…except more so, especially in the acting department. It's no longer enough to fall back on the excuse that the dialogue didn't give the actors much to work with--although, in truth the script only favored Ian McDiarmid with anything interesting to say. But Ewan MacGregor, at least, managed to get a little traction into his performance this time. Nobody else did, though, and this from a group that includes Oscar and Emmy nominees. I predict Hayden Christensen will sink even farther and faster into obscurity than Mark Hamill did, and much more deservedly. Hamill, at least, could do more than scowl darkly.

To say this film was an utter disappointment is an understatement--even my very low expectations didn't help. If there's anything nice I can say about it, it's that Jar-Jar Binks never opened his mouth. Honestly, halfway through, I was looking at my watch.

Batman Begins: Movies based on comic books have come a long way recently, but this one sets a new standard, especially in the realm of character development. If I have a minor complaint, it's that the film started off a touch slow. But once it got going, it hit escape velocity and never slowed down. I could nitpick some of the plot logic, but even the story line was so much better than the previous Batman films that there doesn't seem to be much point. The romantic subplot didn't add much, but then, it didn't detract much, either.

There's some moral ambiguity here, too, but it makes pretty good sense in the context of the young Bruce Wayne trying to figure out what his morality is and where to draw the line. A good bit of the film is spent on this struggle to find the boundaries of right and wrong--to make up his mind what the appropriate response to evil is. He attempts to get into the criminal mind but can't quite pull it off. He's willing to get mean, but draws the line at murdering murderers. Ultimately, he comes down to the concept that evil triumphs if good people do nothing. That's simplistic, of course, but in a comic-book movie, I'm willing to overlook thematic material that's painted in broad strokes. Nuance is probably a bit much to ask. And, interestingly, it's exactly the nothing Batman does against Ras al-Ghul that provides a truly satisfying conclusion to the story.

A spectacular cast fires on all cylinders throughout, with Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine occasionally stealing scenes despite Christian Bale's wonderful portrayal of the Dark Knight. Liam Neeson, who must really regret having gotten involved in the Star Wars series, is also a genuine pleasure to watch here.

I really enjoyed watching Bruce and Alfred, with help from Fox, put together all that cool bat-gear. Admit it, you've always wondered about that, right? I particularly liked the misstep with the headgear--there had to be something that didn't work right the first time, and it was a nice touch that made the whole process more believable.

Great fun--bring on the sequel.

TV: Season ends with some bangs, some whimpers

2005-05-26T16:45:00.000-05:00

I've been so busy watching season finales that I haven't had time to do much writing the past week or so. Here's a précis. Beware: Might be a spoiler or two.

CSI, "Grave Danger": The show's needlessly gory, humorless fourth season ended in a gratuitously gruesome two-hour episode written by people who apparently have no direct, personal experience with fire ants. This episode easily could've been done in 90 minutes, rather than two hours, if celebrity director Quentin Tarantino had been willing to do without the myriad reaction stares that went on forever and served no purpose. Grade: C

Cold Case, "The Woods": The season-ender was a sequel to a chilling episode about a serial killer who selects his victims from females he knows will fight back, then hunts them relentlessly through a forest. Secrets about what motivates both Lily and the killer are revealed, but when they are, the ending becomes predictable and ultimately lacks suspense. George was much creepier the first time around, before decoding his past slightly humanized him. Grade: B

24, "5-7 am": After a season primarily characterized by rehashing old ideas, the adrenaline level finally got ramped up at the end. There's more excitement in these two hours than the 22 previous, and it ends in a real shocker of a plot twist. It'll be fascinating to see what world-in-peril situation will pull Jack Bauer back out of hiding. If I were writing this series, it'd involve a public revelation of exactly how much a lying weasel President Logan is. Grade: A

Without a Trace, "Endgame": Moral ambiguities about oppression and dirty wars in Africa drive this tense episode that ends in a heart-stopping cliffhanger. This series doesn't get enough respect. On the other hand, I'd vote to outlaw forever "Endgame" as a title for television episodes. Grade: A

Alias, "Before the Flood": Up until the last 10 seconds, which actually made me gasp out loud, this episode was pretty standard stuff. The Bristow family and various hangers-on save the world while escaping from a bunch of people who have essentially been turned into crazed zombies. Well, it's standard for Alias, right? The writers need to stop leaning on the crutch Rambaldi devices have become and come up with a new idea. Grade: B-

Lost, "Exodus, Part II": Unfortunately the only review I can write about this one goes like this: "Dear Time Warner Cable: Because your service went dead at about 7:30 pm last night, I was only able to see the first 30 minutes and the last 30 minutes of one of the most important episodes on television this year. You suck, and I am looking up the number for DirecTV."

I knew there was a reason I used to boycott all AOL Time Warner products. Perhaps it's time to renew that vow…

Books: I Want my Harry Potter!

2005-05-15T19:43:00.000-05:00

July 16 can't come soon enough for me -- it's the date of the release of the next installment in the Harry Potter books, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

For a long time, I was one of those die-hard snobs who refused to believe this series of children's novels would be interesting enough for adult readers to devote my time to it. Everybody said it was, but then, people said that about Finding Nemo, too, and it turned out to be singularly juvenile and irritating. The Harry Potter series, however, may consist of stories about children, but they're more than stories for children.

I got hooked about a year ago, when I tripped over the movie version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Even though I came in on the middle of the movie (and the series), I was instantly charmed. I've now seen the first three movies, am waiting with toe-tapping impatience for the fourth film (due in November 2005) and have read all five of the novels. Breathless as a sixth-grader, I've pre-ordered book six.

I really admire the way author J.K. Rowling has built each successive novel on the structure of the previous books, so that the layers of each plot have become ever-more delightfully rich and complex, but without getting so cumbersome that readers can't keep up. On the other hand, I really sympathize with the filmmakers trying to find ways of making movies of reasonable length out of novels that get longer every time, and do it before the child actors get too old to be believable in the roles. Rumor has it the director of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Mike Newell, considered breaking it up into two films -- the book runs more than 700 pages. (And the next novel in the series is even longer.)

I also admire the way Rowling has gracefully aged her characters into adolescence, complete with typical teenage neuroses. In the most recent novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry comes right up to the edge of being genuinely annoying in a series of angry outbursts sprinkled through the book, but he never quite crosses the line (well, show me a teenager who isn't occasionally annoying, and I'll show you a teenager on Thorazine). And besides, Harry's under so much pressure all the time, it'd be inhuman not to cut him some slack. He's got Lord Voldemort on his tail all the time, his foster family keeps trying to starve him to death, one of his teachers is out to exact revenge on him for something his father did, and God only knows what kind of creature is going to leap out at him at any moment -- it could be anything from a house elf to a giant spider to Mr. Filch's cat. A lot of children in books and films these days are just too cute to be endured -- remember the irksome kids in Jurassic Park? Harry's likeable, all right, but never cutesy.

If Harry's something of a grumpy hero, he's certainly a courageous and determined one, risking his life repeatedly to save his schoolmates and others. In fairness, he might not get far without his best friends, Ron and Hermione, and he rarely saves the day all by himself. But when it comes down to it, if you need a guy to stave off a werewolf or a dragon or even a horde of dementors, Harry's your man.

The occasional touches of whimsical humor don't hurt anything, either. I may not be 14 anymore, but I still find the idea of a magical incantation that goes, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," delightfully amusing. And part of the reason the books work well on an adult level is that they don't end with the sort of sunshine-and-jellybeans resolutions you expect from children's stories. The characters don't go off with a song in their hearts, especially in the most recent books, over which archvillain Lord Voldemort's shadow looms large.

I think it may boil down to the fact that Rowling has high expectations for her young readers' ability to understand and appreciate the complicated and sometimes intense material she's creating, and of course, with sales through the roof, there should be no doubt readers have risen to the occasion. That, more than anything, elevates these books to a level where they really are enjoyable to adults.

If you haven't experienced the Harry Potter films or books, you really owe it to yourself to give them a try, especially if you've been avoiding them because they sound like "kid stuff." Start at the begining, with Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, but do start. You're likely to find yourself marking July 16 as a red-letter day.

TV: Happy Memories of Duct Tape and Home-made Hang Gliders

2005-05-14T13:16:00.000-05:00

Toward the end of its run, MacGyver got goofy, preachy and derivative, and I lost interest. So when I picked up the DVD boxed set of the first season, it'd been a long time since I'd seen any of it, and I wasn't expecting a lot. I bought the set out of loyalty to something I'd once enjoyed very much, as a final gesture of affection.

Maybe it's that low expectations can help a TV show tremendously, but what a happy rediscovery these discs were. I'd forgotten how irresistibly likeable the MacGyver character was, how hunky Richard Dean Anderson was back then (not that he's not still easy on the eyes), and how much fun creative kitchen chemistry became when it was used to blow up bad guys or escape from corrupt (and not especially competent) Bulgarian officials or greedy (and not especially competent) South American drug dealers.

The missions against minions of the now-defunct Evil Soviet Empire are almost the only thing about this series that feels dated -- repeated references to East Berlin are slightly jarring these days. OK, there also are those shirts with the standup collars, and the hooky pop-rock soundtrack is almost too perky to be endured, but most of the story lines were serviceable enough at the time to retain a viewer's interest even now. It's still possible to wait with pleasant anticipation to find out what mundane set of objects MacGyver will slap together to create a bomb or a rocket or a hang glider...or God only knows what else.

And of course, that was the main point. I say the plots were serviceable, but they weren't so inventive or original that they would've stood up well without the improvized gadgets. The story lines went like this: Bad guys do something bad or plan to do something bad; Mac is called in to stop them; bad guys try to thwart Mac's efforts and almost succeed; Mac invents something out of junk and thin air that swats the bad guys down like drunken gnats. That general plot scenario pretty much sums up every action/adventure TV show that's ever aired; it's the cleverness of the home-made, low-tech gear that distinguished this series.

Perhaps more importantly, the series made science look cool and fun, so much so that the producers sometimes left an ingredient or two out of the recipes for explosives, for fear little kids would blow themselves up while emulating the hero. (Those of us who've always thought science was cool and fun felt vindicated.) And MacGyver made resourceful genius look easy. Anybody with half a lick of common sense and a roll of duct tape could do a lot of what MacGyver did -- we'd just never thought of doing it until Mac pointed the way. We believed that MacGyver could build a bomb out of a stick of chewing gum, and if we paid attention, we could figure out how, too. And the scripts managed to explain how it all worked without huge amounts of exposition, in language the average viewer easily could understand.

The show demonstrated that it was possible to be scientific without being geeky. You could even be a girl scientist, which was tougher to swallow back then than it is today. Then again, MacGyver had moments of sublime geekiness, like an attempt to cook breakfast for his landlord with a robot he obviously hadn't tested beforehand. Thus, another part of the show's message was that it's OK to be a geek, as long as your motives are pure (and you keep plenty of paper towels on hand to wipe up the broken eggs).

I suppose the series' age is part of the reason why there aren't any special features with these discs. Probably back then nobody was thinking there'd be a need for a "making-of" featurette or for keeping any deleted scenes or bloopers. But a fair number of people involved, including Anderson and recurring guest star Bruce McGill, are still around, and a few of their reminiscences would've made this set a real gem. We couldn't have had an interview or two? Nevertheless, for those who loved the series before it went all mystical and started doing things like a cheesy parody of Raiders of the Lost Ark, this set's a must-have.

And now I'm eagerly awaiting the May 24 release of another old favorite -- Airwolf. Hit the turbos, Dom.

Film: Just When You Thought Remakes Were the Worst

2005-05-13T07:34:00.000-05:00

I had a few days off work recently, so I ordered a couple of movies from Netflix that I had missed when they were in theaters. Netflix is great for checking out a movie to see if it's worth the investment of actually buying the disc, and with these two, I'm really glad I checked before cracking loose my hard-earned cash.

The movies were the recent remake of Flight of the Phoenix and a pseudo-science fiction movie, The Day After Tomorrow. (That Dennis Quaid stars in both signifies nothing.)

The original Flight of the Phoenix, starring Jimmy Stewart, is one of my all-time favorite films, and I guess I should've known the modern-day remake would pale next to the classic. The good news is, the special effects are great. But it's almost as if making this film in color sucked all the drama out of it.

Basically, a group of oil workers flying away from a rig in the desert get caught in a sandstorm that brings down their plane. They have very little food or water, their radio's out, and because they were off course when they crashed, nobody knows where to search for them. Hostile nomads in the desert will kill them if they can, and if the desert doesn't do it first. But one of the passengers turns out to be an aircraft designer who realizes there are enough useable parts in the wreckage to create a new plane and possibly fly it out.

I was braced for the pointless inclusion of a token female character. You can tell she's a token by the fact that her presence serves no purpose and contributes nothing to the story. Nothing against Miranda Otto -- it's just that she's got nothing to work with. She looks great, and that's all she's there for. In fact, this pretty solid cast is largely wasted, especially Hugh Laurie, who has been doing some impressive work in television lately, in the British series MI-5 and the medical drama House, M.D.

But where the film really falls down is when it shifts much of the focus from the doubts about Frank Towns' competence as a pilot. It's mentioned in passing a couple of times, but the film is so busy painting him as the minion of a corporate empire bent on wrongly laying off a handful of hapless oil workers that the force of it is dulled. The self-doubt and self-loathing that practically dripped off Jimmy Stewart just isn't there. Even Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi) doesn't complain much when Towns makes the decision to use one of the last cartridges in an effort to start the engine, in a scene that was marvelously intense in the original version. And the lack of that tension makes the climactic effort to fly out of the desert, well, anti-climactic. There's no real doubt that the makeshift aircraft will fly. It's not Quaid's fault, either -- like Otto, he hasn't got the words on the page to pull it off.

Instead, the film focuses on a strange antipathy between the two pilots, Towns and A.J., and the oil workers. And yet, it never quite manages to get to a point where the group comes together and resolves this issue, either. Basically, they crash in the desert, build an airplane from the wreckage, and escape. Nothing changes.

So there really is no point to this film except to create some spectacular special effects. Unless you're easily impressed by CGI, rent a copy of the original movie, which is much, much better.

Then again, the 2004 version of Flight of the Phoenix didn't actively try to insult my intelligence, which can't be said of The Day After Tomorrow.

I passed on this one when it was in theaters because it was released during a time when I was so pissed off at both the Democrats and the Republicans that I wanted nothing to do with any film that smacked of political overtones, and the media were playing up the idea that the film was taking shots at the Bush administration. In doing so, they missed the real story: that this movie is a dopey piece of tripe undeserving of anything like the attention it got. If it hadn't been for the trumped-up assertion that it was somehow insulting to Bush/Cheney, The Day After Tomorrow wouldn't have rated 30 seconds on CNN.

The film revolves around and is consumed by the notion that an abrupt climate change could plunge the northern hemisphere into a new ice age essentially overnight. There's a drastic melting of the polar ice sheets that yields up huge floods and causes gigantic superstorms that last for a week, sucking super-cold air from the upper atmosphere that freezes solid pretty much everything north of Kansas. There's a sub-plot about a climatologist trying to reach his sullen teenage son, who's stuck in New York City, but don't be fooled into thinking there's a story here -- it's all about the pseudo-science premise being displayed in every possible fashion writer/director Roland Emmerich could figure out how to render in CGI.

OK, slow climate change wouldn't make a compelling disaster film; I concede that. But if you buy that we could experience a change from a temperate climate to a new ice age in a couple of days, you need to be returned to seventh-grade science class until you gain a grasp of basic thermodynamics. I don't care how many hydrocarbons humans burn, the temperature of Atlantic Ocean currents isn't going to drop dramatically in a week.

Now, I've come away happy from lots of movies that started from stupid premises -- after all, it's possible to use a stupid premise in a way that leaves the viewer satisfied. Hey, I liked The Poseidon Adventure. The problem with The Day After Tomorrow is that the stupid premise is shouted at the audience over and over again -- like we didn't get the point the first 20 times it was made -- and there's really nothing else to pull this film above the level of goofy knockoff disaster flicks like Volcano or Dante's Peak. People get drowned, they fall to their deaths, they freeze to death, they're trapped in intense survival situations. The only inventive bit here is that a few people get attacked by wolves.

Unless (again) you're really impressed by CGI effects and/or you flunked every science class after seventh grade and you just don't know any better, there's nothing here worth spending your money on. If you've got a jones that won't be eased by anything but a disaster flick, rent The Towering Inferno...quick, before they remake it.

TV: Galactica for Grownups

2005-05-12T13:53:00.000-05:00

I'm not the first person to say this, but it's worth saying again: Battlestar Galactica is not only the best science-fiction show on television but the best science-fiction show in years.

Now, I'm not one of those people who enjoy mocking the original series. I quite liked it. It was never possible to take it seriously, but it was possible to consume it like a handful of popcorn...and then move on to more substantive sources of entertainment. If the remake of Battlestar Galactica had been, well, a remake of Battlestar Galactica, I would've watched it and been content. There's nothing wrong with indulging in a little fluff, now and then.

That said, the original series is not a show I'd recommend for adults (who were not its intended audience anyway). It glossed over the disaster in the pilot episode, focusing instead on the plucky band of Colonial Warriors setting out on a journey toward Earth. An enormous amount of time was spent on kid-friendly plot diversions like games of Pyramid and teaching a robot dog tricks. The Cylons were never scary--in comparison to Star Trek: The Next Generation's Borg, the Cylons were as threatening as baby goats. In fact, we used to root for the Cylon underdogs because they were so bloody stupid. A reference in the new series to the first Cylons as "walking toasters" made me laugh out loud.

So imagine my surprise and delight to find that Sci-Fi Channel had unexpectedly broken its recent pattern, in which paranomal reality shows and dopey monster movies had become the stock-in-trade. The new Galactica is as dark, sexy and topical as its predecessor was light, sexless and indifferent to current events. The old Galactica was a live-action cartoon; the new one is a genuine drama, scary, tense and at times heart-wrenching. If it weren't for the character names and the shape of the Vipers, it would be hardly recognizable as a remake.

The reason this works, despite gimmicks like making Starbuck a woman, is that Battlestar Galactica is very much a post-9/11 drama, infused throughout with the sense of what it's like to have your civilization utterly changed in the course of a few hours. The characters are literally running for their lives, their existence reduced to a long, drawn-out forage for food, fuel and water occasionally punctuated by savage conflicts with a determined, dangerous enemy. (Let's face it, there never was anything light about how the colonists came to be out there looking for Earth.) The losses these people suffered and the struggle they face are palpable in every episode, sometimes implicitly stated and sometimes shown in a brush-stroke detail. We see survivors crowd into the Galactica's communications shack, desperately seeking lost loved-ones, tacking hundreds of photos of their friends and relatives all along a corridor; the president wonders how long it'll be before she grows tired of the only three outfits she has left to wear. The Galactica itself is old, on the verge of decommissioning at the time of the attack, stripped of some vital equipment and short on personnel; when it comes to maintenance, improvisation has become the order of the day.

Meanwhile, the characters are loaded down with the baggage they had before the Cylons attacked: President Roslin has breast cancer; Apollo hasn't suddenly lost his myriad self-doubts and disillusionments about his father; Adama still grieves the loss of his other son; and Starbuck's guilt over Zak Adama's death continues to fuel her recklessness. Gaius Baltar's many neuroses grow more painful every day, now that he can't salve them with multiple sex partners and heavy doses of publicity as he used to do back on Caprica.

And the Cylons have been imbued with some real menace. Their end-game is as yet unclear, they're sneaky, and much like our own real terrorists, they're embedded and mostly invisible among the general population. It's possible to fall in love with them and even to breed children with them, and at least some of them appear to be religious fanatics.

How can you not love this?

I'm thrilled at the differences, but there's one aspect of the old series that I was glad to see return: Richard Hatch. It's a near certainty that, without Hatch's efforts to keep the concept alive, the new series never would've happened. And his new character, Tom Zarek, possesses a moral ambiguity that's given Hatch an opportunity to do something he never was allowed to do in the original series: demonstrate that he can act.

I have only two minor complaints: That nobody seems to have noticed how astonishingly weird Baltar is and the similarity of the wardobe to 21st-century western fashions. Why Baltar wasn't the first person to be suspected of being a Cylon is simply inexplicable, just because his behavior is so off-the-wall, yet it never seems to have entered anyone's mind to question his human-ness. If nothing else, you'd think someone would wonder why he so often appears to be having sex with the air. And second, I get that there's a need to establish parallels between the colonists and earthly humans, but wouldn't you think that a human civilization that grew up on another planet a galaxy or two away might have invented something to wear other than business suits? I mean, come on, neckties?

But those are quibbles. This is one of the few television series I've ever seen in which characters' injuries, no matter how serious, aren't magically healed in the next week's episode. The series has raised questions about how to deal with betrayal and terrorism. It's delved into the treatment of detainees and privacy issues that subtly force one to think about the "Patriot Act." Politics hasn't been pushed aside in favor of survival, and as the characters lay groundwork for a new presidential campaign, the vultures are swooping around, struggling for a bite off what's left of colonial civilization. Bring on the swift-boat veterans.

This is Galactica for grown-ups, and that's a very good thing, because most of us who watched the original series now are quite grown up. I haven't felt this heady about a television show since Star Trek took on the Cold War and racial prejudice.