Good Star Trek Omens from AICN -- Harry Knowles at Ain't It Cool News has posted his thoughts after getting to see a few minutes of the Star Trek movie J.J. Abrams is working on for next summer, and the early word looks very good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this movie to be worthy of the Star Trek name, which no Trek movie really has been in quite some time.

And if you missed it, I posted a much longer piece about Star Trek earlier this week.

Labels: linkblogging, tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:16 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Does Anyone Really Care About Star Trek Anymore? -- That's the question posed by Tom Spurgeon, and although he may have asked it rhetorically, as part of his review of a new Star Trek spin-off comic book by John Byrne, my answer is yes, and I have some thoughts on the subject.

I was born in 1966, the same year Star Trek debuted on NBC; I debuted in January, the show came along in September, so in a way I am older than Captain Kirk. Of course, the show had been in the works for a couple years before it was ready for public consumption, a failed pilot being produced in 1964 with Captain Pike instead of Captain Kirk, and I've always been fascinated with the question of what the show might have been like had Jeffrey Hunter had the lead instead of William Shatner. Sure, Spock was a goof in that original pilot ("The Cage"), but Hunter's Pike was a darker and more intense character in that one episode than Kirk generally got over 40 years of episodes and movies. Even Kirk's death in 1993's Generations movie failed to muster up the sort of darkness and drama that an event like the death of James Tiberius Kirk should have inspired. Co-screenwriter and Battlestar Galactica prime mover Ron Moore even admitted as much in a recent interview.

So, I was born the same year as Star Trek, as I was saying, but obviously that means I didn't catch it in its first go-round on the tee-vee. No, it was in syndicated reruns in the early 1970s that it probably caught my eye, maybe or maybe not as a result of seeing the Saturday morning animated series, also called Star Trek. Some people don't consider the animated version canon, but you know what? If it's called Star Trek, is produced by Gene Roddenberry and stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols, it's goddamned Star Trek, goofy aliens or not.

My mom and I shared our love for Star Trek -- she had watched it from the beginning, and she definitely watched it at her end. In the early 1990s, when she was sinking into the beginning stages of Alzheimer's disease, I had a friend who worked at a video store who would sell me the then-new VHS releases of Star Trek episodes at cost, I think five or six bucks per tape. As I made my way through acquiring the series on VHS, my mom got curious about the tapes I was bringing home in stacks of three or four at a time, and she watched Star Trek again like it was something she had never seen. The disease had wiped out her memories of the show, but she was still sharp enough to appreciate its humour and sharp social commentary, and watching her watch those episodes in what I know now was the beginning of her end is one of my fondest, most bittersweet memories. Those tapes gave her endless hours of genuine pleasure, even as she slowly slipped away. If for nothing else, I'll always hold the original Star Trek in high regard for allowing her those many hours of entertainment.

When The Next Generation came along in 1987, I was dubious that Roddenberry and company could recapture lightning in a bottle. We'd had The Wrath of Khan in theaters by then, and that movie was really what recharged "the franchise" (a loathsome term) enough to justify trying another TV show a few years later. TNG's pilot was mostly uninspiring to me; I didn't care for the lack of conflict between the characters (a Roddenberry conceit), as conflict between the three leads was much of what made the original series and the best of the movies hum. Hell, the conflict between Kirk, Spock and McCoy was the best part of even the worst of the movies, The Motion Picture and The Final Frontier, the latter being Shatner's doomed-from-the-start attempt at writing and directing a Star Trek movie. You tried, but, She's dead, Jim.

The Next Generation got good after its unformed and meandering first season. Diana Muldaur replaced Gates McFadden as the ship's doctor, and she immediately added tension to the mix. A lot of people didn't care for her Doctor Pulaski, but I liked the way she mixed in with the rest of the cast. On the other hand, when she was unceremoniously ditched and Dr. Crusher came back, I was glad to see her, too. Probably for the same reason I never liked Babylon 5's first commander until he was fired after the first season then came back later and stirred everything up in some of the best episodes of the series. It's that whole Joseph Campbell thing about going out into the wilderness and coming back with the power to grant boons, I think.

But yeah, the Borg came in during season two of TNG and their Hellraiser-stylings and eerie, hive-mind coldness was too frigging cool for primetime TV. Apparently it was too cool for Star Trek, too, because after their initial appearance in the episode "Q-Who" and the amazing two-part, season bridging "Best of Both Worlds," the Borg were never again used well on The Next Generation. The were either Edward Scissorhands in the stupid episode about the li'l boy Borg, or playing second fiddle to Data's evil twin Lore. Ugh. But they started with great potential.

By the time the series folded in 1993 to make way for the TNG cast to move to movies, I was sorry to see them go off the small screen. I might even have teared up a little during "All Good Things," the series finale. The double-length episode was a powerhouse demonstration of Patrick Stewart's acting and appeal, and if the time-bending plot swallowed its own tail ultimately, Stewart and John DeLancie as Q totally sold me on it. It's one of the few TNG episodes I rewatch again with any regularity.

Here things get crazy with spin-offs and movies and action figures and all kinds of crap -- TNG on film only made it through four movies before crashing and burning. The first two, Generations and First Contact, were both okay-to-good, but the last two, Insurrection and especially the atrocious Nemesis, were not well-received. I recently re-watched Insurrection on TV and realized it would have made an acceptable episode of the TV series, but as a movie it was a failure. Just not big enough. Nemesis had a cool title and that was it. If it had been about the scientific Nemesis theory, it might have been cool. I was also disappointed that no one but me thought it would have been neat to have a Trek movie in theaters the first year of the new millennium, called, of course, Star Trek: 2001. Come on, that would have been great!

Well, probably not, but only because the people entrusted to Star Trek's stewardship after Gene Roddenberry left seemed hell-bent on botching the job the longer they had it. Despite good episodes now and then, overall in retrospect I have no use at all for Voyager or Deep Space Nine, and by the time Enterprise debuted on the short-lived UPN network it was designed to support, I had mostly given up. I don't think I watched one entire episode of Enterprise the entire four years it was on.

Which is funny, because this past February, on Valentine's Day, in fact, my family received as a gift a 42-inch HDTV. And I added some HD channels to our cable package. And on one of them, HDNet, they were showing reruns of Enterprise. And I found to my genuine shock that I mostly dug the show a whole lot.

Sure, Scott Bakula is wooden and ham-fisted as an actor, but so is William Shatner, and I found that I could accept his Captain Archer and even enjoy many of his performances. And I genuinely loved the performances of Jolene Blalock as T'Pol and Connor Trinneer as the ship's engineer. He was obviously modeled on Dr. McCoy with his southern accent and no-bullshit approach, but Blalock's T'Pol was as complex a character as Star Trek ever delivered, eventually going far, far further afield of Vulcan logic and traditions than Spock did in all the years he was on TV and in the movies. HDNet recently suspended their telecast of the series, leaving me high and dry near the end of the excellent third-season Xindi storyline, but thankfully in the internet era, as Spock was fond of saying, "there are always...possibilities." So I'll finish the show soon. My verdict is already in, though -- Enterprise was imperfect, but after the original series and TNG, its my favourite of all Star Trek series, and that kind of amazes me, but it captured the sense of mystery and adventure in outer space very well, the ship and the sets were great, and a lot of good acting (I also really liked John Billingsley and Linda Park) was to be found in many episodes.

Now we stand on the precipice of a new, next generation in Star Trek. J.J. Abrams is working on a new movie scheduled for release in May of 2009. Abrams is the producer of Lost, a show I have run hot and cold on but currently am pretty much in love with, and I am hopeful that the new movie will at the very least be one last good Star Trek movie, if not the revival of the concept in the public consciousness. I'm with whatever faction there is that wishes they'd found a place for Shatner in it, mostly because, hey, he's still around and he deserves on last shot at the chance to inspire, as Captain Kirk did for me at his best. He taught me there's no such thing as the no-win scenario, a lesson I took to heart and have believed in, at my best moments, ever since. And also because we've already lost DeForest Kelley and James Doohan, and I am blindsided to think we'll never, ever have Star Trek with them in it again. It makes me sad and makes me feel old.


So, I hope Abrams and crew turn out something great, and I think there's a better than 50/50 chance of that happening. Nimoy's Trek instincts have almost always been right on, and he's on-board for the movie and its story, and that has to be a good indicator.

Note to Tom Spurgeon: I wrote this all in one sitting, with the only research needed being how to spell "Trinneer," so I guess my answer to your question is, yes, I still care about Star Trek. Here's to hoping the people now responsible for its future do, too.

Labels: tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 2:06 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 3 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Doctor Who: Time Crash -- The annual charity broadcast of Doctor Who is eight minutes of pure joy for me. It's been a day or two since it aired, and if you're somewhat net-savvy, it's pretty widely available at this point.

I won't spoil a thing for you, other than to say that David Tennant's Doctor makes a speech right at the end that perfectly sums up my feelings about the guy he's talking to (and about), and this little short episode pretty much made my entire weekend. Seek it out if you're at all a fan of the series.

Labels: recommendations, tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 4:44 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Extras Season Two -- Very glad to see the second season of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's Extras (their follow-up to The Office) is coming out on DVD next week.

Now, Extras isn't as immediately, obviously brilliant as The Office was -- I mean, the first episode of The Office I saw was the first episode of Season Two and I was not only not lost, I was hooked for life. I love the entire original British series, both seasons, and I love the U.S. version, and yeah, I pretty much love Extras.

I'm more or less a comedy snob, in the same way I am a superhero comics snob -- I can and do enjoy comedy, but it's got to be intelligent and present a singular comedic vision. Gervais and Merchant tend to deliver that in spades.

Extras is a little slower-paced and deliberate than The Office, but it's much more about character. Other than Tim and Dawn, most of the characters on The Office (just like working in a real office, it should be noted) were somewhat two-dimensional twats who deserved whatever they got. Gervais's own character eventually acquired some genuine depth beyond being pathetic, arrogant and sad, but poor Sir David of Brent had to wait until the two Christmas special episodes to earn any real sympathy. Most all the lead characters on Extras are more nuanced and likable, and I think it's a slightly more thoughtful show as well. Which is weird, because I think I like The Office more, but they're do very different that it's almost apples and oranges directly comparing the two. I do love them both mightily, though. Added bonus: Gervais's co-star Ashley Jensen is exquisite.

So if you like good comedy, but perhaps haven't seen Extras as of yet, just a heads up, as of Tuesday, the entire series to date will be available on DVD and is well worth your attention.

Labels: recommendations, tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 9:45 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Big Who Season Finale -- Watched the two-part finale of the third season of the new Doctor Who with the kids at lunch today, after having missed the entire season due to lack of intense interest and other things going on. I guess with the internets, you know you can probably always catch up down the line later on, right?

Right?

Possible SPOILERS and definite NERDITRY beyond this point...

Except I don't think the season we missed could match the energy and inventiveness of this two-part trip from the end of time back to present-day Great Britain. I mostly decided to check out the season finale because of the rumoured reappearance of one of the Doctor's greatest enemies, a character I'd kind of expected to see back in Season One, with all its "The Doctor's gone dark" stuff. See, I was guessing after it was announced that Season One Doc Christopher Eccleston was only sticking around for the first go-round that he in fact was not the Doctor, but this other gentlemen in question, suffering from amnesia after the end of the Time War. I thought that would have made a great season finale, the real Doctor arriving to reclaim his TARDIS from Eccleston, who would have been able to play the very dark results of finding out his true identity quite well before making room for the sunshiny David Tennant in Season Two. And the audience would have been both outraged and amazed to learn they'd been rooting for you-may-know-who all season long. Oh, the angst!

Turns out The Powers That Be kind of thought like I did -- some of that stuff kind of played out in these final two episodes of Season Two, after all. The Master (I warned you up there with the SPOILERS and all!) has been suffering from amnesia in the wake of the Time War, and he certainly was a lovable old Time Lord type in the first part -- so much so, with the affected name ("The Professor") and the Companion, that I thought maybe he was the ultimate, final version of the Doctor, and that we were in for another iteration of Doc Meets Doc. I'd guess that we were supposed to think that, given the available evidence, and it's really too bad the BBC leaked the actual identity of the bad guy, because I probably would have stuck to my theory that Professor Yana was The Doctor until the real reveal came along.

I first started watching Doctor Who when it was airing on PBS stations here in the U.S. back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Because I saw the transition from mega-popular fourth Doctor Tom Baker to fifth Doctor Peter Davison almost at the same time the British did, I always had an affection for Davison in the role over Baker, although I like 'em both. Certainly they're my two favourites, having seen little to nothing of Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy, as Who-fever seemed to dry up on American public television stations after Davison left the series.

I was one of the few who watched and liked the Fox TV movie with Paul McGann inheriting the mantle from Sylvester McCoy, and really, really dug Eccleston's work in his one and only season. Tennant has had some great moments in the episodes he's done that I have seen, especially his forced goodbye to Rose, and it was nice to see him given some really meaty stuff in this season finale, from explaining a few things to Captain Jack (who seems much less irritating now) to trying to build bridges with his last surviving fellow Time Lord.

Speaking of whom, John Simm was a bit of a revelation as The Master. The amusing but mostly two-dimensional mustache-twirling of Anthony Ainley in the Baker/Davison era and the dark mischief of Eric Roberts in the Fox movie were nothing at all like the trickster/master planner Simm introduced in these episodes. The whimsy and the perfidy were delivered in equal doses, and the political commentary toward the end was both welcome and well-done. Which came first, Warren Ellis's Black Summer #0 or the script for part two of this season finale? More likely, it's just the zeitgeist at work, The Master's actions on the SHIELD HELICARRIER -- UNIT aircraft carrier Valiant representing a violent fantasy that satisfies the desire of pretty much everyone in the world for the U.S.'s own evil government takeover to end.

SPOILERS END HERE

So, this two-parter had it all -- copious reference to Who history, actual, unexpected plot developments, and very good performances from actors obviously having a blast in their roles, especially Tennant and Simm. I may or may not catch up on previous episodes from this season, but there's no question I'll be watching with the kids when the fourth season gets underway. We all want to know how they're going to get out of this one.

Labels: tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:55 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
And Now For Something Completely Different -- Minor medical emergency wrecked the hell right out of my Monday evening...I won't disgust -- bore you with the details, but needless to say the essay I was polishing up Monday afternoon may not be up for a day or two. I'm on antibiotics and hopefully will be all better in a few days. But if I don't post much today, I didn't want you to think I had crawled back in my cave, although hibernating sounds awfully good right now.

Sopranos Spoiler Alert...

I did get around to watching The Sopranos finale, and while I was a bit baffled at first (like much of the rest of the viewers), I did some online research and found out that if you watch carefully, and pay attention to what characters are in the restaurant at the end, there's little doubt about what happened.

I think writer/director David Chase deserves a little more credit than outraged but apparently very casual viewers are giving him. There were a couple of echoes of the original pilot, which I would not have caught if I hadn't watched it Sunday night, and I think the most important clue goes back to the conversation Tony and Bobby had on the boat when they were relaxing on Lake George a few weeks back, before they got mad and beat the crap out of each other.

Labels: real life, tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 12:58 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Doctor Who -- Well, it was true -- the third episode of the new run of Doctor Who was a fantastic episode from start to finish. The Sarah Jane and K9 material was genuinely moving, Anthony Stewart Head was fun if a bit over-the-top (well, it is Doctor Who, after all), and the story was as engaging and entertaining as the best of the previous season's episodes.



The best scene was probably Rose and Sarah Jane bonding through their shared exasperation with The Doctor, a scene so universally accurate that even my kids understood the truth and the humour behind it. Mickey's line about "The Mrs. and the ex" was gold, too.

Labels: tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 3:39 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
Spraino, Soprano -- My wife fell down the stairs of our apartment building on Saturday, spraining her ankle and giving us an opportunity to spend some quality time in front of our DVD player. We rented most of Season Three of The Sopranos, and as of this writing have gotten through all but the last episode. Hopefully we'll find time this afternoon.

My wife is recovering nicely, although there was some Poison Control intervention after she accidentally ingested my diabetes medication Saturday night instead of her painkillers. Suffice to say that Saturday was not a very nice day for my poor wife -- but again, she's recovering nicely, and the only long-term problem I see is, well, she's still stuck with me.

As for Tony Soprano and company, wow, what a season. The highlight (barring the not-yet-viewed final episode) was Pine Barrens, directed by the brilliant Steve Buscemi and featuring Christopher and Paulie lost in the woods, starving and eventually at each other's throats. The brilliance of this episode is in the set-up. They come to be in the woods through perfectly ordinary (for this gang of crooks)
circumstances -- just another day at the office, essentially. But a cascade effect of mistakes sets in, and the next thing you know the boys are in big, big trouble. A riveting episode, extremely cinematic, and all the more impressive for the lack of emphasis on the character of Tony Soprano.

Other highlights of this season included Tony hooking up with a frenzied, troubled but irresistible car dealer -- the tension as she drove Tony's unsuspecting wife home from the car dealership was one of the best scenes in the history of the series. Also of note is the eerie coincidence of Anthony Jr.'s brush with trouble, mirroring the legal trouble the little bastard got into in real life.

The DVD format has really been revelatory in the case of a show like The Sopranos or Buffy, where the excellence is obvious, week in and week out, and is enhanced and emphasized by the commercial-free, high quality sound and picture. The only flaw in the developing system is the insistence of some companies -- including whoever does The Sopranos -- of overpricing the sets. I'll rent but not buy stuff like The Sopranos when it sells for $100.00 a set. But when I can get twice as many Buffy episodes for about half the price, those I'll shell out the cash for. If the companies would price the sets a little more reasonably, I'm quite sure they'd be
getting a lot more of my money than they currently are.

Labels: tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 8:47 PM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE

 
The Friday Briefing -- Saturday morning the wife and I plan to rouse the kids at some godawful hour and drive hours and hours and hours to take them to Boston. It's been a long, long time since we made any road trips, and my wife wants them to see the New England Aquarium (within 5 miles of two famous comics shops, Comicopia and Million Year Picnic), so in the interests of my fascination with fish (Mmm, shrimp! Clams! Scallops!), we're outta here Saturday morning.

What this means for you, old friend, is that my reviews will be late this week. In fact, the late-this-week reviews will probably appear early next week. Say, Monday or Tuesday. But fear not, there is stuff in my review stack, and once I stack 'em up, sooner or later, like magic, or magick even, the reviews get written.

One book I plan to review and which you need to go out and but right now, even before I complete this sentence, which I'm making long to give you time to see the error of your ways and go already, is Tom Beland's True Story Swear to God #3: Moments. Beland, frankly, is a master storyteller whose romantic-but-not-falsely-sentimental story didn't bring me to tears, but it came goddamned close. To say anymore would be to come close to reviewing it, but please support Tom's effort to tell this story. It's good comics.

As for my thoughts on Rob Lowe leaving The West Wing, which I know you've been wondering about, well, the writing was on the wall there for a long time. Yes, his character was originally supposed to be the focus of the show. I was originally supposed to be fabulously wealthy because I was the mastermind behind a successful internet startup, too. If only I'd have done it a year or two earlier. If only Martin Sheen weren't a more interesting actor than Rob Lowe. Boo-hoo, pass me a tissue. No, seriously, the thought that Rob was only getting $75-goddamned-thousand-dollars a week is so sad!

Hey, I liked Sam Seaborn. I may even come to miss him once Rob collects his 16 weeks worth of $75-goddamned-thousand-dollar paychecks before bowing out. But you know, when you have a good thing going, man, sometimes it's a good idea to let it ride and not get whiny and bitchy about how things were supposed to be.

I actually met the guy who lived next door to Rob Lowe when he was growing up, conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher. Looking into his eyes while he snapped his gum was like looking into the unknowable void. I swear, I actually heard wind whistle through his ears.

I may try to get another weblog entry in before I leave Saturday morning. If not, hey, have a good weekend, and go buy Tom Beland's comic book. It's good for you.

Labels: radio, real life, recommendations, tv

// posted by Alan David Doane @ 10:55 AM [LINK TO THIS] | 0 COMMENTS | E-MAIL ADD | SUBSCRIBE