I am currently learning Danish on Duolingo. Why Danish? Well, that's a weird story.
My first introduction to the language was when I was watching Angel (you know, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff). The version I was watching came with subtitles in somewhere near fourteen languages and the only way for me to turn them off was to cycle through all of these. Soon enough, I just gave up on turning them off and stuck with the first one, which was displayed by default. So you could say that Danish's proximity to the beginning of the alphabet is why I am learning language.
The second time I learned some Danish was due to a band (dance act? pop duo?). They're called Infernal and they usually sing in English. They had one hit (From Paris to Berlin) and that's approximately when I started listening to all their music. At some point, though, I found out that they had some songs in Danish under another name (Paw&Lina) as well. I liked two of these songs rather a lot and also looked up the meaning of what I was listening to. So you could say that Infernal is the reason I am learning this language.
Ultimately, though, the reason that I started learning the language is just that I liked it a lot. That's why I started watching a tv show in Danish and started doing Duolingo lessons. I stopped watching the tv show after a while and I also didn't continue putting the time into Duolingo. And then a year or so later, I picked up the app again and dropped it not too long after. My current attempt to learn the language is my third one.
The other day, I was watching some episodes of Buffy with a friend. It also had Danish subtitles, but this was only one of four languages. Moreover, though, my Danish has gotten to the level where I got just enough of it for it too be rather distracting (which also doesn't happen when it truly doesn't take much effort to read what you see, which is not where I'm at at all yet). So, I turned them off. However, yesterday I was actually watching some episodes on my own and I wasn't too bothered by being distracted, so I left them on.
That gets me to today. Today I was doing a quick lesson in between things. And they taught me the very first Danish word that I had learned. One that I had figured out from just the subtitles that first time because it had kept recurring. And then a bit later, the app taught me another word. This time, it was a word that had stood out last night. That was quite the coincidence. Or was it?
The two words were "Boy/Girlfriend" and "friend". I had started on a new category: people. And that's just the thing. Buffy and Angel aren't about the monsters. The monsters basically just provide the backdrop. People - and the relationships between them - are what the shows are really about. So, it makes perfect sense that this was the moment that I started learning words that I already knew.
And at the same time, I realized just how much the show really was about the people...
Showing posts with label tv series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tv series. Show all posts
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Let's talk Discovery
I have been watching Star Trek: Discovery since it started airing, so I've also been having my opinions on the show since that moment. My initial opinion was that the show was nice, but it wasn't all that Trek. However, with half a season (well, more like three fifth, but that's where we're getting the mid-season break) behind us, my views have changed somewhat and I feel it's time to speak up about it.
The show has been getting flak for a number of things since before the first episode aired. The show's main problem has always been its continuity. When photos leaked of actors in Klingon make-up, people weren't even sure whether these were Klingon because they looked rather different from what we'd come to expect from Klingons. The show's look was also criticized for being closer the Kelvin timeline than to what would make sense for the place in continuity this show said it was situated in.
However, when considering all the problems with continuity, you've also got to keep in mind that the franchise already made big changes before. The distinct look of The Original Series wasn't at all preserved for the movies and The Next Generation. Of course, this show takes place much closer to the original, so that's why people want to hold it up to higher standards when it comes to that.
Well, I'm feeling that we should actually just cut them some slack. Take the uniforms, they don't quite fit in with the established timeline. However, it should be noted that the uniform changed a lot in the past as well. Does it really matter, though? At the end of the day, it's more important that today's viewers like these uniforms than that you can imagine them being used at this point in time. In fact, that's always been a main factor in uniform designs. You can't really say that Deep Space 9's change was done for the viewer; it was clearly done to keep up to date with the era of filming the show.
Star Trek: Enterprise tried much harder to fit in its time. It was designed with the idea that this ship predated NCC-1701 (TOS's Enterprise). It featured uniforms that could have been a predecessor to what we'd seen so far, and as more limited with its technology and featured a number of prototypes of what became staples of the franchise later on.
That, I believe, is part of the reason it never really resonated with the public it wanted to have. Or rather, the different kinds of public it wanted to have. It both wanted to cater to new viewers by giving the whole thing a fresh look and a new feel, but at the same time it also worked really hard on making it fit in the timeline. This was most visible when story lines focused on things from other series, but were very restricted in which ways they could do this.
That's why I'm not too bothered by the change in technology. We get joysticks and HUDs, which isn't really in line with the view of the future that The Original Series painted. However, that future was in line with a vision of the future from the sixties. This show is simply more consistent with a current view of the future. It would be in line with the established timeline to show data disks, but people would laugh at it, since we've got more wireless technology today than they even imagined for the future when designing the original Star Trek.
There's still a couple of things that feel out of place. They tried holographic communications in a previous series set over a hundred years after this one, but they couldn't make it work then, so they abandoned it. It's strange that we see it here then. Ultimately, it's not too consequential really. However, the same can't be said for the holodeck that they have introduced without naming it. That would seem a direct violation of chronology. The fact that we now seem to be routinely using warp-capable shuttles also seems somewhat out of place.
The Klingons are something else that seems to have changed more than would seem to be reasonable. To be honest, though, the change is about is as big as the change in them was from The Original Series to the movies and The Next Generation. This also nicely sidesteps the fact that rubber forehead aliens got to be heavily criticized about halfway through The Next Generation-generation of Star Trek shows.
Then, the real problem of the way Klingons look comes in the form of something that Enterprise did. For a very long time, the change was simply chalked up to the fact that the times and budget has changed. The old look of the Klingons was also something that wouldn't have held up in that era of film making. However, Deep Space 9 subtly introduced that the difference actually existed in the show itself, and Enterprise went out of its way to cement the story of how the change happened into the canon of the show.
However, it definitely looks to me that they are going to address this. The virus that caused the change in looks seems to be something that is going to come into focus soon, if you consider one of the fan theories, which since the latest episode seems rather hard to deny. I wouldn't be surprised if they are going to go with the idea that the Klingons looked different before the virus. That would retcon some things, but not nearly as much as the blatant change seems to suggest at first look. Besides, this way we do get Klingons in line with today's production values. I think we owe it Discovery to let them show us how this plays out before judging them too harshly.
That also goes for the cloaking technology that the Klingons possess. Everybody knows they didn't have that technology at this point in time and it's a widely held believe that they acquired the technology from the Romulans. However, in the latest episode, the Klingon cloak seems to get beaten by the federation already, so that might be the reason they abandon it soon after. This might even get them a reason to pursue the technology with the Romulans. We ought to see how this plays out.
In a way, the Spore Drive falls in the same category. However, people complain a lot less about it. That's because it's a universe changing technology and nobody expects the writers to miss that. So, it's more or less a given that they will give a reason for the branch of technology being abandoned sooner or later and nobody believes the writers won't explain to us why that's going to happen.
In general, I rather liked what I've seen. While it's not always perfect Trek, it's solid science fiction nonetheless. On top of that, it has been trying a lot to bring back the Trek even if that took them a couple of episodes to get to. It's a rocky start, but I would say it's in a way more Trek than The Next Generation was during its first season. I mean, it had a very rocky first season as well and it did redefine for a large part what Star Trek was, for which it simply needed time.
That last part is also part of the problem here, I think. I've noticed a number of instances where the new show was made to feel more like The Original Series than anything from The Next Generation era. And well, the latter is far more season and more recent. A lot of people will miss that fact when the series goes further back in Star Trek history.
There are still things I don't like. Mudd's second appearance definitely fits that bill. I mean, I don't really see any mortal - especially one in Federation Space - having such a powerful device. However, omnipotent beings were plot devices in Trek since the sixties, so they're definitely trying. And I liked what I've seen so far, and I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the future. And I definitely needed something to fill the Dark Matter-sized hole left in my life.
The show has been getting flak for a number of things since before the first episode aired. The show's main problem has always been its continuity. When photos leaked of actors in Klingon make-up, people weren't even sure whether these were Klingon because they looked rather different from what we'd come to expect from Klingons. The show's look was also criticized for being closer the Kelvin timeline than to what would make sense for the place in continuity this show said it was situated in.
However, when considering all the problems with continuity, you've also got to keep in mind that the franchise already made big changes before. The distinct look of The Original Series wasn't at all preserved for the movies and The Next Generation. Of course, this show takes place much closer to the original, so that's why people want to hold it up to higher standards when it comes to that.
Well, I'm feeling that we should actually just cut them some slack. Take the uniforms, they don't quite fit in with the established timeline. However, it should be noted that the uniform changed a lot in the past as well. Does it really matter, though? At the end of the day, it's more important that today's viewers like these uniforms than that you can imagine them being used at this point in time. In fact, that's always been a main factor in uniform designs. You can't really say that Deep Space 9's change was done for the viewer; it was clearly done to keep up to date with the era of filming the show.
Star Trek: Enterprise tried much harder to fit in its time. It was designed with the idea that this ship predated NCC-1701 (TOS's Enterprise). It featured uniforms that could have been a predecessor to what we'd seen so far, and as more limited with its technology and featured a number of prototypes of what became staples of the franchise later on.
That, I believe, is part of the reason it never really resonated with the public it wanted to have. Or rather, the different kinds of public it wanted to have. It both wanted to cater to new viewers by giving the whole thing a fresh look and a new feel, but at the same time it also worked really hard on making it fit in the timeline. This was most visible when story lines focused on things from other series, but were very restricted in which ways they could do this.
That's why I'm not too bothered by the change in technology. We get joysticks and HUDs, which isn't really in line with the view of the future that The Original Series painted. However, that future was in line with a vision of the future from the sixties. This show is simply more consistent with a current view of the future. It would be in line with the established timeline to show data disks, but people would laugh at it, since we've got more wireless technology today than they even imagined for the future when designing the original Star Trek.
There's still a couple of things that feel out of place. They tried holographic communications in a previous series set over a hundred years after this one, but they couldn't make it work then, so they abandoned it. It's strange that we see it here then. Ultimately, it's not too consequential really. However, the same can't be said for the holodeck that they have introduced without naming it. That would seem a direct violation of chronology. The fact that we now seem to be routinely using warp-capable shuttles also seems somewhat out of place.
The Klingons are something else that seems to have changed more than would seem to be reasonable. To be honest, though, the change is about is as big as the change in them was from The Original Series to the movies and The Next Generation. This also nicely sidesteps the fact that rubber forehead aliens got to be heavily criticized about halfway through The Next Generation-generation of Star Trek shows.
Then, the real problem of the way Klingons look comes in the form of something that Enterprise did. For a very long time, the change was simply chalked up to the fact that the times and budget has changed. The old look of the Klingons was also something that wouldn't have held up in that era of film making. However, Deep Space 9 subtly introduced that the difference actually existed in the show itself, and Enterprise went out of its way to cement the story of how the change happened into the canon of the show.
However, it definitely looks to me that they are going to address this. The virus that caused the change in looks seems to be something that is going to come into focus soon, if you consider one of the fan theories, which since the latest episode seems rather hard to deny. I wouldn't be surprised if they are going to go with the idea that the Klingons looked different before the virus. That would retcon some things, but not nearly as much as the blatant change seems to suggest at first look. Besides, this way we do get Klingons in line with today's production values. I think we owe it Discovery to let them show us how this plays out before judging them too harshly.
That also goes for the cloaking technology that the Klingons possess. Everybody knows they didn't have that technology at this point in time and it's a widely held believe that they acquired the technology from the Romulans. However, in the latest episode, the Klingon cloak seems to get beaten by the federation already, so that might be the reason they abandon it soon after. This might even get them a reason to pursue the technology with the Romulans. We ought to see how this plays out.
In a way, the Spore Drive falls in the same category. However, people complain a lot less about it. That's because it's a universe changing technology and nobody expects the writers to miss that. So, it's more or less a given that they will give a reason for the branch of technology being abandoned sooner or later and nobody believes the writers won't explain to us why that's going to happen.
In general, I rather liked what I've seen. While it's not always perfect Trek, it's solid science fiction nonetheless. On top of that, it has been trying a lot to bring back the Trek even if that took them a couple of episodes to get to. It's a rocky start, but I would say it's in a way more Trek than The Next Generation was during its first season. I mean, it had a very rocky first season as well and it did redefine for a large part what Star Trek was, for which it simply needed time.
That last part is also part of the problem here, I think. I've noticed a number of instances where the new show was made to feel more like The Original Series than anything from The Next Generation era. And well, the latter is far more season and more recent. A lot of people will miss that fact when the series goes further back in Star Trek history.
There are still things I don't like. Mudd's second appearance definitely fits that bill. I mean, I don't really see any mortal - especially one in Federation Space - having such a powerful device. However, omnipotent beings were plot devices in Trek since the sixties, so they're definitely trying. And I liked what I've seen so far, and I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the future. And I definitely needed something to fill the Dark Matter-sized hole left in my life.
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Space Opera: some observations
With both Dark Matter and Killjoys having just begun their second season a week ago, I feel it's about time I take some time to write about Space Operas once again. Most of this could have been written during the first season of each of the shows, but I didn't actually do so then, so I'm doing it now.
I can understand it. I mean, three shows is a lot and I doubt enough people would be willing to watch yet more Space Opera. That said, I would have loved to hear of more Space Opera, because I definitely would want to watch another series.
Observations
With Space Opera having come back after such a long period of almost nothing, you basically say we are in a new generation of the genre. What are the things that stand out in this generation so far?Tasers are hot
Whether it's the bad guys using them for torture and stealthy take-overs or the government trying to do things in a non-lethal way (but often still being more brutal than necessary), everyone is using tasers. Both Dark Matter and Killjoys went with more futuristic "Shock sticks", whereas The Expanse went with traditional tasers, giving the feel that the future isn't all that different after all.Aliens are not
It's just humans everywhere. Aliens are nowhere to be seen. The only exception to this was Otherspace, which had non-corporeal aliens. However, the only times these aliens could be "seen" they were pretending to be human. Unlike Stargate Universe did some time ago, we do often get fully populated galaxies, it's just that all that population is human.Space zombies
Everyone's doing space zombies in some sort or form. There's different stories behind each show's zombies but somehow space zombies are a craving that is shared by all the writers.Space is gorgeous
Of course it depends on resolution and black-quality of your screen, but there's a lot more possible in sfx these days and it shows. Even the low-budget shows like Otherspace showed us some gorgeous outer-space shots. Dark Matter was the one coming up the poorest in this regard in my opinion, but even they upped their sfx game for the second season.Interpersonal conflict is important
One of the ideas that Gene Roddenberry was very keen to build Star Trek on was the fact that the human race had grown beyond interpersonal conflict. Every other show has some form of this conflict, but there's a lot more of this in this generation if you ask me. Dark Matter is all about people who don't know themselves and trust is a big issue there. Killjoys has a closer team, but what happens between the team members is ultimately what drives much of the plot for the first season. The Expanse has people fighting everywhere, but one of the clearest examples might be the "main crew" which does a lot of fighting before they really start considering themselves a crew. Otherspace was just about a single crew, so much of what they do is getting on each other's nerves. It's always been there, but I feel it's even more there now.Star Trek
I'm very much looking forward to what the new Star Trek will bring to the table early next year. Many of the observations above wouldn't quite fit the Star Trek brand, which is filled with aliens, doesn't really have a suitable place for taser and doesn't feature interpersonal conflict. It will be interesting to see where they take the genre, even if it's uncertain whether it will be suitable for watching by real Trekkies.Other shows
The interest in the genre seems to have died down a bit. When the entire pie was on the table, everyone wanted a piece of it. Now, there are three solid shows eating that pie, leaving little for any new venture. Both the Blake's 7 remake and Space: 2099 seem to have died a silent death. Of the other things that were in various stages of development, nothing had been heard for some time, so I assume they aren't getting made. I also haven't been able to find anything hinting towards more new things being developed.I can understand it. I mean, three shows is a lot and I doubt enough people would be willing to watch yet more Space Opera. That said, I would have loved to hear of more Space Opera, because I definitely would want to watch another series.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Space Opera in 2015 [on tv]
For five years, we haven't had a single space opera on tv. The five years before that, there were only one or two series that were able to brave the executives. But finally, 2015 marked the return of the genre to our living rooms. And when it rains, it pours.
It's clear that the genre was wide open and many people were looking to fill that hole. Last year brought us 4 series: Dark Matter, Killjoys, The Expanse and Other Space. I'll just write about them all in turn.
The show was clearly produced on a very low budget, but I'd say that adds to its charm rather than detracting from it. The show also showed that space scenes can look amazing these days, even when the money is limited. It's also eight episodes of half an hour each, making it a rather short watch. And on top of that Yahoo lost too much on their original content to continue with any of it, meaning that the chance of a second season seems rather remote. If you like the genre, I'd definitely recommend watching. Just fit it between the other things your watching.
Not every angle they took was truly interesting and every once in a while there seemed to be a bit of a plot hole as the writers seemed to forget about things in previous episodes (and thus didn't care to mention why this was approached in a similar way). However, the problems got less as the show settled into a good rhythm and by the end it was pretty good. It still didn't quite hit the sweet spot for me, but I was hungry enough for space opera to not care the least bit.
Dark Matter is due for another thirteen episodes this year, meaning that we'll definitely get to enjoy more space opera. That of course also means that the cliff hanger that ended the first season will not have to go unresolved.
The show really took me in with these three characters living on one ship and going on the missions while also uncovering things about their own pasts and and going off on personal quests from time to time. This first season got into its groove quickly and really feels like a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Though they did leave more than enough questions open for the future of the series, it did also wrap things up nicely.
Unlike any other space western I know of, Killjoys got its second season greenlit without a hitch. I mean, it has only had ten episodes, so it's not even at the length of Firefly yet, but things are looking well. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of this in 2016.
The show is set in a relatively close future where humanity is active both on Mars and the meteor belt. The whole system is on edge as hostilities seem to be able to break out at just about any moment and in the mean time air and (more importantly, it would seem) water is a scarce commodity. There seem to be some plot holes in this whole setting in my opinion, but nevertheless this brings us a number of story lines that all have their interesting sides. However, it is still quite hard to pinpoint what it is all about with all these different threads.
It revolves around a generation ship sent out into space some fifty years ago, traveling at near-light speeds. Basically, it hasn't encountered anything and it's really just about dealing with some of the problems of space travel, but more even about the challenges of a generation ship. A whole social structure emerged and the internal politics are a joy to watch. And yeah, there's some things I just can't tell because it would spoil part of watching...
It's clear that the genre was wide open and many people were looking to fill that hole. Last year brought us 4 series: Dark Matter, Killjoys, The Expanse and Other Space. I'll just write about them all in turn.
Other Space
Other Space was the only of the four series that came to our screens in the first quarter of the year. It was released all at once in April on Yahoo Screen, as part of their original content offering. It takes space opera and marries it with comedy. It's more like Hyperdrive than Red Dwarf in the sense that it truly is space opera comedy, not comedy that happens to be set on a spaceship. However, even then it goes a step further than Hyperdrive. Instead of every detail serving comedy, there's a space opera story and space opera comedy, creating a mix that I don't think has ever been done before.The show was clearly produced on a very low budget, but I'd say that adds to its charm rather than detracting from it. The show also showed that space scenes can look amazing these days, even when the money is limited. It's also eight episodes of half an hour each, making it a rather short watch. And on top of that Yahoo lost too much on their original content to continue with any of it, meaning that the chance of a second season seems rather remote. If you like the genre, I'd definitely recommend watching. Just fit it between the other things your watching.
Dark Matter
In June, the space opera program really started gaining traction. Dark Matter was the first of the non-comedy space operas. It is also the most traditional space opera that aired in 2015. It put a crew in a fancy ship and let them struggle with space travel and all that entails. It added a twist, though: the crew is suffering from group amnesia. Even though they are able to figure out who they are by the end of the first episode, they aren't too willing to truly assume the same identities and that's one of the things that influences almost every story.Not every angle they took was truly interesting and every once in a while there seemed to be a bit of a plot hole as the writers seemed to forget about things in previous episodes (and thus didn't care to mention why this was approached in a similar way). However, the problems got less as the show settled into a good rhythm and by the end it was pretty good. It still didn't quite hit the sweet spot for me, but I was hungry enough for space opera to not care the least bit.
Dark Matter is due for another thirteen episodes this year, meaning that we'll definitely get to enjoy more space opera. That of course also means that the cliff hanger that ended the first season will not have to go unresolved.
Killjoys
Killjoys. This is the gem of the year, in my books. It premiered less than a week later than Dark Matter, but it takes quite a different approach with a rather small cast. Though it is implied that there's more to known space, the show sticks to a single star system. Like any good Space Western. Because that's what the show is. It may not be as literal in its Western part as the archetypal Firefly, but it but it does forego the exploration of the wide universe for the scavenge for the next paycheck in a smaller, known system. Oh, and much of that system lives on the outskirts of the law, with bounty hunters - or killjoys in local slang - running much of the show.The show really took me in with these three characters living on one ship and going on the missions while also uncovering things about their own pasts and and going off on personal quests from time to time. This first season got into its groove quickly and really feels like a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Though they did leave more than enough questions open for the future of the series, it did also wrap things up nicely.
Unlike any other space western I know of, Killjoys got its second season greenlit without a hitch. I mean, it has only had ten episodes, so it's not even at the length of Firefly yet, but things are looking well. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of this in 2016.
The Expanse
The year was closed off with the first four episodes of The Expanse. It's a little harder to write about a show that has barely begun, but so far it looks enjoyable if a little convoluted. The hopes for this series were high as it was rumored to be the show to fill the shoes that the reimagined Battlestar Gallactica left. However, I don't think it quite lives up to that standard. We'll just have to see where it goes. Visually, though, this show is just stunning.The show is set in a relatively close future where humanity is active both on Mars and the meteor belt. The whole system is on edge as hostilities seem to be able to break out at just about any moment and in the mean time air and (more importantly, it would seem) water is a scarce commodity. There seem to be some plot holes in this whole setting in my opinion, but nevertheless this brings us a number of story lines that all have their interesting sides. However, it is still quite hard to pinpoint what it is all about with all these different threads.
Ascension
A special mention goes out to Ascension. It didn't get beyond a mini-series and in the USA it actually aired December 2014 (in Canada it was early 2015, so it still sort of counts), but it was quite worth the watch. I have no idea where the show would have gone if it had continued, but is a quite clever show and puts a nice twist on the space opera genre.It revolves around a generation ship sent out into space some fifty years ago, traveling at near-light speeds. Basically, it hasn't encountered anything and it's really just about dealing with some of the problems of space travel, but more even about the challenges of a generation ship. A whole social structure emerged and the internal politics are a joy to watch. And yeah, there's some things I just can't tell because it would spoil part of watching...
The future
With two series being renewed for a second season and a third continuing its first into the new year, it looks unlikely that we'll be starved for space opera again any time soon. But it seems there is even more in the pipelines. Syfy mentioned working on four different space opera pilots nearly three years ago and only one of them has had any known result (Ascension, which was known as Sojourn back then), so I personally still hold some hope that more will be created from that avenue. Three years may be a lot not to hear anything, but for the creation of a tv series, it's really not all that crazy (though my hope may fade if we don't hear something soon now). In the mean time, there's talks of remakes for Blake's 7, Lost in Space and Space: 1999. Additionally, there also seems to be some decent progress on the tv version of Ringworld. And of course, Trek is coming back to the format of tv series in early 2017.Friday, April 24, 2015
Agent Carter: The One-Time Pad
I recently decided to watch Agent Carter. Sure, the reason I got into the Marvel Cinematic Universe was the simple fact that Joss Whedon was creating a show set in it, but by now I have become invested in the entire MCU and watching a non-Whedon show set in the universe was the logical next step.
Agent Carter started off pretty good, but today I watched an episode that made me ragequit the series. It was episode 5 (The Iron Ceiling) in which the main characters received an encoded message that wasn't meant for them. Their cryptographer couldn't handle it, so Carter came to the rescue. She mentions it's a one-time pad, says that the puzzle piece the cartographer was missing was that the original message was in Russian. And then, she continues to break the encryption in under 20 seconds.
WAIT. What? That's NOT how a one-time pad works!
A one-time pad is the one method of cryptography that is unbreakable. In fact, it's been proved mathematically that it is impossible to break. Actually, if you know how a one-time pad works, you should be able to come to that same conclusion.
The one-time pad may be unbreakable, but it has some other properties that are the cause for it not really being used in the digital world. Personally I quite like the one-time pad, so perhaps I will write about it in more depth some other time. I like to think about how it can be used in this day and age or even in the future. For example, I'd use it if I were in professional espionage even today. I've also thought of a very good way to use it in a futuristic galactic empire, where it would be especially important because the technology of another empire might be very far ahead of your own.
Another thing I like to think about is the limitations of the system. One of the problems is that you have to keep your "pad" or cryptographical key secret, which is a challenge after you die. Technology can help there, but technology wasn't around during the days of Agent Carter. You would have to keep the key either on you or store it in a safe place. Considering that, it really isn't that much of a stretch it was somewhere in the apartment where they also found the typewriter on which they received the message. Not the smartest move to keep them together, but an easy mistake to make, really.
One of the advantages of tv series is that after rageplugging you can just later pick up where you left once you've cooled down. It had never been mentioned or seen on screen, but both Carter and the cryptographer must have had the pad, which had been retrieved from the original owner's apartment. It's a bit of a stretch I needed to add to make sense of things, but I'm willing to do that. Unlike someone truly breaking a one-time pad message like that, it's not outside my realm of suspension of disbelieve.
As a final note, I did google "Agent Carter one-time pad", expecting to find other people ranting about this same thing. I was a little let down to find less than a handful of people were complaining about this. The one-time pad is really one of the most basic things of encryption and honestly, I feel that every computer scientist should know at least a little about encryption. I'll just choose to believe that very few computer scientists have seen the episode. However, one of the posts in question mentioned a solution similar to mine, but dismissed it because the cryptographer should have recognized the Cyrillic alphabet. The thing that counters this, though, is that the one-time pad can take many forms. It is often explained in a simple form that uses alphabetical operations, but - for example - in the digital age those operations for a simple bitwise XOR makes a lot of sense, because it would allow encryption of any type of data. Likewise, there are definitely variants that hide the fact that the message was in Russian and in fact using one of those makes a lot of sense if your intended receiver is (or was) doing espionage in the United States...
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Willow: Lesbian?
Not too long ago, I finally watched the final season of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. After a rather disappointing sixth season, I was glad to see that the final season was much better. However, there is one issue that bothered me about this season, and that's the relationship between Kenedy and Willow.
The problem I had with it was that it never really felt like a reeal dynamic relationship, flowing from who the characters are. I know I am drawing up double standards when I ask such a thing of a relationship in Buffy, but don't necessarily ask the same thing of a relationship in another show, but I feel it's justified. After all, all other relationships in Buffy did flow from the characters. Shows that perform better in a specific aspect, should be held to a higher standard in that aspect. Shows that perform better in many aspects, should be held to a higher standard in all of those aspects.
I had my suspicions that she was shoe-horned in to cement the fact that Willow was gay, even without Tara, when I saw the relationship on the screen. I've never thought that she was 100% gay, considering her meaningful relationship with Oz and her feelings towards Xander in the early seasons. Still, the very choice to keep her interested in girls wasn't the problem, really. It was more the way it was done (adding in this relationship basically just for that purpose) and why it was done.
At least, what Joss Whedon said was the reason for this. I believe it was in an interview with a gay magazine that he said about her having a relationship with a man post-Tara "We do that now, and we will be burned alive. And possibly justifiably. We can't have Willow say, 'Oh, cured now, I can go back to cock!' Willow is not going to be straddling that particular fence. She will just be gay." I have a lot of respect for this man and his works, but this just really annoys me. I suppose it's the lack of understanding about gay-ness, though.
I am straight myself. What I take that to mean is that so far, I haven't been truly attracted to another male. However, I am rather open-minded and I know quite a number of gay people. In that, I have found that the number of words we have comes up short. We have a "white" (gay), a "black" (straight) and perhaps a single shade of grey (bi). The reality, though, has a near infinite number of shades of grey (more than 50 anyway).
There's probably a lot of people who consider themselves straight, but do in fact feel somewhat attracted to the same sex, but don't act on that for various reasons (such as, the attraction being rather minor, being told that such attractions are bad, or even just not realizing such attractions can be of a romantic nature). The same is probably true when you take gay as the base-line. However, in those cases the gay people generally did more exploring of their sexual orientation and they are already facing much more social stigma, which I think leads to such feelings less often being repressed.
In fact, I know two lesbian girls who have each been in a relationship with a single guy (well, each with a different guy, but neither with more than one guy). And I'm not talking before they came out or realized their sexual orientation, but after. One of the two has even gotten together with the same guy a couple of times after their relationship (when neither was in a relationship). I really wouldn't say it makes either of them "not lesbian", I'd say it makes them able to think outside the lack of terms we have for the issue.
That's sort of what I felt Willow was like. I didn't know where exactly she fell in the range from "straight but into Tara" to "interested mainly in girls, but into some guys as well", but I did feel she was somewhere in that range. She fell in love and developed this relationship with Tara even before she realized that she could fall for girls. That's why I feel that after Tara's death she could have dated guys again. Of course, it wouldn't have been diving straight into bed with the first guy she met, but rather a path of finding out what her exact orientation was, and then maybe dating a guy again. I've also felt that that guy could have been Xander, but that, I suppose, was primarily wishful thinking.
Of course, in the show there were plenty of references to Willow being gay prior to her relationship with Kennedy. These ranged from Faith (while in Buffy's body) stating that "Willow's not driving stick anymore" to Willow trying to turn a guy into a woman after she's fallen in love with him because of a spell. However, most of these examples weren't by Willow herself and when they were, they generally were at a time when it didn't really matter, as she was with Tara. For those reasons, I've thought of those things as the characters thinking in the black and white terms of gay and straight. However, in the end, it was in fact the writers who thought in those terms. After all, how can one ever justify a straight relationship again after having had a gay one?
The problem I had with it was that it never really felt like a reeal dynamic relationship, flowing from who the characters are. I know I am drawing up double standards when I ask such a thing of a relationship in Buffy, but don't necessarily ask the same thing of a relationship in another show, but I feel it's justified. After all, all other relationships in Buffy did flow from the characters. Shows that perform better in a specific aspect, should be held to a higher standard in that aspect. Shows that perform better in many aspects, should be held to a higher standard in all of those aspects.
I had my suspicions that she was shoe-horned in to cement the fact that Willow was gay, even without Tara, when I saw the relationship on the screen. I've never thought that she was 100% gay, considering her meaningful relationship with Oz and her feelings towards Xander in the early seasons. Still, the very choice to keep her interested in girls wasn't the problem, really. It was more the way it was done (adding in this relationship basically just for that purpose) and why it was done.
At least, what Joss Whedon said was the reason for this. I believe it was in an interview with a gay magazine that he said about her having a relationship with a man post-Tara "We do that now, and we will be burned alive. And possibly justifiably. We can't have Willow say, 'Oh, cured now, I can go back to cock!' Willow is not going to be straddling that particular fence. She will just be gay." I have a lot of respect for this man and his works, but this just really annoys me. I suppose it's the lack of understanding about gay-ness, though.
I am straight myself. What I take that to mean is that so far, I haven't been truly attracted to another male. However, I am rather open-minded and I know quite a number of gay people. In that, I have found that the number of words we have comes up short. We have a "white" (gay), a "black" (straight) and perhaps a single shade of grey (bi). The reality, though, has a near infinite number of shades of grey (more than 50 anyway).
There's probably a lot of people who consider themselves straight, but do in fact feel somewhat attracted to the same sex, but don't act on that for various reasons (such as, the attraction being rather minor, being told that such attractions are bad, or even just not realizing such attractions can be of a romantic nature). The same is probably true when you take gay as the base-line. However, in those cases the gay people generally did more exploring of their sexual orientation and they are already facing much more social stigma, which I think leads to such feelings less often being repressed.
In fact, I know two lesbian girls who have each been in a relationship with a single guy (well, each with a different guy, but neither with more than one guy). And I'm not talking before they came out or realized their sexual orientation, but after. One of the two has even gotten together with the same guy a couple of times after their relationship (when neither was in a relationship). I really wouldn't say it makes either of them "not lesbian", I'd say it makes them able to think outside the lack of terms we have for the issue.
That's sort of what I felt Willow was like. I didn't know where exactly she fell in the range from "straight but into Tara" to "interested mainly in girls, but into some guys as well", but I did feel she was somewhere in that range. She fell in love and developed this relationship with Tara even before she realized that she could fall for girls. That's why I feel that after Tara's death she could have dated guys again. Of course, it wouldn't have been diving straight into bed with the first guy she met, but rather a path of finding out what her exact orientation was, and then maybe dating a guy again. I've also felt that that guy could have been Xander, but that, I suppose, was primarily wishful thinking.
Of course, in the show there were plenty of references to Willow being gay prior to her relationship with Kennedy. These ranged from Faith (while in Buffy's body) stating that "Willow's not driving stick anymore" to Willow trying to turn a guy into a woman after she's fallen in love with him because of a spell. However, most of these examples weren't by Willow herself and when they were, they generally were at a time when it didn't really matter, as she was with Tara. For those reasons, I've thought of those things as the characters thinking in the black and white terms of gay and straight. However, in the end, it was in fact the writers who thought in those terms. After all, how can one ever justify a straight relationship again after having had a gay one?
Friday, July 12, 2013
Babylon S5: The Claudia Christian Story
Long time no see! I haven't posted in a while but today I felt like
writing a blog post. This time I'll write about the series I have
recently watched: Babylon 5.
In fact, I am going to give my view on the departure of Claudia Christian from the series. It's an interesting story because JMS (the show's creator) has always been active on the internet, even though the internet was in its infancy when he was making this series.
Because of this, different parties gave their side of the story, which has conveniently been archived here: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html. It clearly wasn't an amicable break, but the question just what happened still remains. Today, I'm going to tell what I think happened. It's been quite some time, but I've just watched the series and just want to write down my thoughts about this all.
Before I begin, though, I want to say that if anyone involved ends up reading this (and I'd be honored) I don't want them to feel offended, I'm just doing my personal speculation here and I don't by any means think I'm right. With that out of the way, let's just get started.
In the end, what I think happened was a case of miscommunication. JMS believed it wasn't, but I think he was looking in the wrong place. He was looking at the communication between Claudia and himself (and the other cast members). I think the main miscommunication was in a different place, and because people weren't aware of that, things that seemed like they had to be very clear involved some miscommunication.
One of the things that caught my eye on that page is how JMS's first post doesn't mention the fewer episodes debacle, as it was not an issue to him. Then, Christian tells about wanting to do fewer episodes and only after that Straczynski talks about the whole issue. It is later yet that he digs up another piece of information: her wanting to get paid for the episodes she didn't do.
The first thing to note here is that JMS was offended by Christian not finding his promise enough to go on; I don't believe JMS is a kind person when he's offended. The second part is that Christian's agent got a negative on doing less episodes (she was very adamant about not doing such calls herself). I am assuming that both are telling the truth, and under that assumption, it seems it wasn't Christian but her agent who made the demand for her to be paid for episodes she wasn't in. It's sour to single someone out like that, but it seems the logical thing if the people posting in the newsgroups were telling the truth.
Of course, long before that there was already was the fact they were going to cable (TNT) and the actors were on the short end of the smaller budget that entailed. I think this was what caused Christian not to extend the contract option earlier on. It also seeded the first of the ill will on her part. Clearly, Straczynski wasn't aware of just how much the actors were giving up until halfway through the specific thread.
Then there's another point that jumps out: JMS says the deadline was very clear, whereas Christian claimed not to be aware of it at all. One of the reasons JMS believed it was completely clear was because he told her so himself at a convention. I'd speculate, though, that she didn't make much of this because she felt that a deadline is something her agent should be contacted about, so she didn't think of it as an official deadline, but as just a line drawn by JMS. She stepped on his toes yet again, and the goodwill was being sucked out of the situation very fast. Straczynski counters by saying that her agent was contacted well in time. Again, if I assume both are speaking the truth, I can only assume that her agent didn't do his job and didn't let her know about this.
Then, Jeff Conaway visited Claudia the Monday after the deadline. Because the deadline had now passed, he was probably very clear about the fact that this was a deadline set by the studio. However, since Christian hadn't heard of it from her agent and hadn't understood that from Straczynski, this was the first time she was really aware of this deadline. That's why she mentioned this as the only time she had been told about the deadline.
There was one more important thing that I can't skip over: Christian doing other work. I don't this is a direct cause for all the trouble that led to her not being in the last season of Babylon 5, but I think it has several tangents with it all the same. From what she wrote, I think Christian was approached for other roles, she hadn't been actively looking for them. It may have been a part of the reason why she didn't give the earlier contract extension. It probably was also the reason why she was looking for a way not to do all episodes. Finally, this was probably also what the rumor mill turned into "her looking around for other work", which was an important thing in the relationships between the different people involved getting strained.
In the end, I think the situation was just not a simple one and there were some problems cropping up, but the one who really dropped the ball was Christian's agent, though. However, I'm just an uninformed kid doing guesswork and making assumptions.
The note I want to end on, is a more positive one. It's the character that filled the void left behind by the lack of Ivanova: Captain Lochley. While one may say this was a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, I personally agree with JMS, she was a different character, had her own story rather than taking over Ivanova's and fit the role to fill quite well. The hard thing here is that in both one-on-one replacements he did, the position in the military structure was a very large of what defined the character, meaning that they would automatically become quite similar.
Anyway, as I was going to say, in a way it is ironic that Christian's replacement only did a few episodes after her departure had at least something to do with her wanting to do less episodes. However, I actually think it was a really good move to have Lochley in so few episodes. Because of this, it didn't feel like she was shoehorned in or that we were being told to care about her, but instead as a natural progression of the situation. As a hole left in the military structure being filled by the folks back home, which wasn't a main cast member, so didn't get the center stage.
3/1/2016: I cleaned up some spelling mistakes and improved some sentences to be clearer, as this was rather poorly written.
In fact, I am going to give my view on the departure of Claudia Christian from the series. It's an interesting story because JMS (the show's creator) has always been active on the internet, even though the internet was in its infancy when he was making this series.
Because of this, different parties gave their side of the story, which has conveniently been archived here: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html. It clearly wasn't an amicable break, but the question just what happened still remains. Today, I'm going to tell what I think happened. It's been quite some time, but I've just watched the series and just want to write down my thoughts about this all.
Before I begin, though, I want to say that if anyone involved ends up reading this (and I'd be honored) I don't want them to feel offended, I'm just doing my personal speculation here and I don't by any means think I'm right. With that out of the way, let's just get started.
In the end, what I think happened was a case of miscommunication. JMS believed it wasn't, but I think he was looking in the wrong place. He was looking at the communication between Claudia and himself (and the other cast members). I think the main miscommunication was in a different place, and because people weren't aware of that, things that seemed like they had to be very clear involved some miscommunication.
One of the things that caught my eye on that page is how JMS's first post doesn't mention the fewer episodes debacle, as it was not an issue to him. Then, Christian tells about wanting to do fewer episodes and only after that Straczynski talks about the whole issue. It is later yet that he digs up another piece of information: her wanting to get paid for the episodes she didn't do.
The first thing to note here is that JMS was offended by Christian not finding his promise enough to go on; I don't believe JMS is a kind person when he's offended. The second part is that Christian's agent got a negative on doing less episodes (she was very adamant about not doing such calls herself). I am assuming that both are telling the truth, and under that assumption, it seems it wasn't Christian but her agent who made the demand for her to be paid for episodes she wasn't in. It's sour to single someone out like that, but it seems the logical thing if the people posting in the newsgroups were telling the truth.
Of course, long before that there was already was the fact they were going to cable (TNT) and the actors were on the short end of the smaller budget that entailed. I think this was what caused Christian not to extend the contract option earlier on. It also seeded the first of the ill will on her part. Clearly, Straczynski wasn't aware of just how much the actors were giving up until halfway through the specific thread.
Then there's another point that jumps out: JMS says the deadline was very clear, whereas Christian claimed not to be aware of it at all. One of the reasons JMS believed it was completely clear was because he told her so himself at a convention. I'd speculate, though, that she didn't make much of this because she felt that a deadline is something her agent should be contacted about, so she didn't think of it as an official deadline, but as just a line drawn by JMS. She stepped on his toes yet again, and the goodwill was being sucked out of the situation very fast. Straczynski counters by saying that her agent was contacted well in time. Again, if I assume both are speaking the truth, I can only assume that her agent didn't do his job and didn't let her know about this.
Then, Jeff Conaway visited Claudia the Monday after the deadline. Because the deadline had now passed, he was probably very clear about the fact that this was a deadline set by the studio. However, since Christian hadn't heard of it from her agent and hadn't understood that from Straczynski, this was the first time she was really aware of this deadline. That's why she mentioned this as the only time she had been told about the deadline.
There was one more important thing that I can't skip over: Christian doing other work. I don't this is a direct cause for all the trouble that led to her not being in the last season of Babylon 5, but I think it has several tangents with it all the same. From what she wrote, I think Christian was approached for other roles, she hadn't been actively looking for them. It may have been a part of the reason why she didn't give the earlier contract extension. It probably was also the reason why she was looking for a way not to do all episodes. Finally, this was probably also what the rumor mill turned into "her looking around for other work", which was an important thing in the relationships between the different people involved getting strained.
In the end, I think the situation was just not a simple one and there were some problems cropping up, but the one who really dropped the ball was Christian's agent, though. However, I'm just an uninformed kid doing guesswork and making assumptions.
The note I want to end on, is a more positive one. It's the character that filled the void left behind by the lack of Ivanova: Captain Lochley. While one may say this was a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, I personally agree with JMS, she was a different character, had her own story rather than taking over Ivanova's and fit the role to fill quite well. The hard thing here is that in both one-on-one replacements he did, the position in the military structure was a very large of what defined the character, meaning that they would automatically become quite similar.
Anyway, as I was going to say, in a way it is ironic that Christian's replacement only did a few episodes after her departure had at least something to do with her wanting to do less episodes. However, I actually think it was a really good move to have Lochley in so few episodes. Because of this, it didn't feel like she was shoehorned in or that we were being told to care about her, but instead as a natural progression of the situation. As a hole left in the military structure being filled by the folks back home, which wasn't a main cast member, so didn't get the center stage.
3/1/2016: I cleaned up some spelling mistakes and improved some sentences to be clearer, as this was rather poorly written.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
A Word About a Tribe
I have written about tv series on here before. However, I don't think I ever wrote about The Tribe. That's mostly because I watched it before I got this blog. I'd probably still list it as one of my favorite series.
Today I was watching - of all shows - Degrassi The Next Generation. Well, I was also zapping to other things so I missed large part and as such I didn't really understand the plot. Or know many of the characters. I don't know what they were doing, but it seemed they were doing something special with their episode. Well, that's besides the point anyway. What is not besides the point is that as I was watching it, for a moment, the show felt like The Tribe.
I have some ideas about how that came to be, but before I get in to that, let me first give you something of an idea what the scene was about. A group of kids had been making a road trip with a school bus (or so it seemed, I don't know exactly) and now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere. People were angry with the one responsible for the bus getting stolen, but though there was this conflict, they couldn't get stuck on it. Even though not all of them were able to get along quite as well as one would hope, they were completely dependent on one another.
And that's what I believe set the scene for making it feel like it was like The Tribe. The Tribe had this same thing. We were seeing a seemingly randomly assembled group of kids, united by the fact that they were refusing to join one of the gangs - or "tribes" - and thus they formed a Tribe. They ended up in a relatively isolated situation in which they are fully dependent on one another, even if they do not like each other.
I could go into discussing why I might like a series with a premise like that, but let's not. I don't want this to be too much about me. Instead, I am going to talk about me in a different way. I am going to talk about why I think this reminded me of the Tribe in specific. It may well be that the abandoned grass field which was the setting for a scene that could well have taken place on The Tribe. I do remember a similar scene when The Tribe was about to fall apart, though that was only two people (I believe) rather than an entire group. I think there is more to it.
The Tribe wasn't exactly the sole series with a premise like that. One of my other favorite examples of a series like that would be "Transformers: Beast Wars". This was about a group of robots (that could turn into animals) that lived on a planet with nobody to keep them company but the opposing group. Though this was more based around the conflict (where the Tribe was more about problem solving and internal conflict, with the threat of external conflict lying around the corner) it has the same principles of a group working together not by choice but by necessity. Interestingly enough, it also shared a lot of other things with the Tribe like the way the main group was composed (my favorite comparison has to be Dinobot/Lex).
Then why didn't the scene feel like Beast Wars instead? Well, we have had the scenery already, which could have been plucked straight out of a The Tribe episode and there is also the very obvious fact that Beast Wars is an animated series, while the Tribe, like Degrassi, is acted. However, while it may have played a big role, I don't think that's the crux of it.
I think the crux of it is that The Tribe is the series I identify the "genre" (the genre of the group of people working together not by choice) with. And that is only possible because I have seen extremely little else in the genre lately. Perhaps it's just not a liked genre in Hollywood?
(I should add that, the series I mentioned and others I can think of right now aren't Hollywood series. Nevertheless, I don't know everything, so I may just be off on that. Also, the premise of Lost suggests that it may be in this genre as well, but the "ensemble cast" idea that I have heard so much about in connection to the show would allow it to break out of the genre as well. However, I haven't watched the show, so I can't say much about it.)
Today I was watching - of all shows - Degrassi The Next Generation. Well, I was also zapping to other things so I missed large part and as such I didn't really understand the plot. Or know many of the characters. I don't know what they were doing, but it seemed they were doing something special with their episode. Well, that's besides the point anyway. What is not besides the point is that as I was watching it, for a moment, the show felt like The Tribe.
I have some ideas about how that came to be, but before I get in to that, let me first give you something of an idea what the scene was about. A group of kids had been making a road trip with a school bus (or so it seemed, I don't know exactly) and now they were stuck in the middle of nowhere. People were angry with the one responsible for the bus getting stolen, but though there was this conflict, they couldn't get stuck on it. Even though not all of them were able to get along quite as well as one would hope, they were completely dependent on one another.
And that's what I believe set the scene for making it feel like it was like The Tribe. The Tribe had this same thing. We were seeing a seemingly randomly assembled group of kids, united by the fact that they were refusing to join one of the gangs - or "tribes" - and thus they formed a Tribe. They ended up in a relatively isolated situation in which they are fully dependent on one another, even if they do not like each other.
I could go into discussing why I might like a series with a premise like that, but let's not. I don't want this to be too much about me. Instead, I am going to talk about me in a different way. I am going to talk about why I think this reminded me of the Tribe in specific. It may well be that the abandoned grass field which was the setting for a scene that could well have taken place on The Tribe. I do remember a similar scene when The Tribe was about to fall apart, though that was only two people (I believe) rather than an entire group. I think there is more to it.
The Tribe wasn't exactly the sole series with a premise like that. One of my other favorite examples of a series like that would be "Transformers: Beast Wars". This was about a group of robots (that could turn into animals) that lived on a planet with nobody to keep them company but the opposing group. Though this was more based around the conflict (where the Tribe was more about problem solving and internal conflict, with the threat of external conflict lying around the corner) it has the same principles of a group working together not by choice but by necessity. Interestingly enough, it also shared a lot of other things with the Tribe like the way the main group was composed (my favorite comparison has to be Dinobot/Lex).
Then why didn't the scene feel like Beast Wars instead? Well, we have had the scenery already, which could have been plucked straight out of a The Tribe episode and there is also the very obvious fact that Beast Wars is an animated series, while the Tribe, like Degrassi, is acted. However, while it may have played a big role, I don't think that's the crux of it.
I think the crux of it is that The Tribe is the series I identify the "genre" (the genre of the group of people working together not by choice) with. And that is only possible because I have seen extremely little else in the genre lately. Perhaps it's just not a liked genre in Hollywood?
(I should add that, the series I mentioned and others I can think of right now aren't Hollywood series. Nevertheless, I don't know everything, so I may just be off on that. Also, the premise of Lost suggests that it may be in this genre as well, but the "ensemble cast" idea that I have heard so much about in connection to the show would allow it to break out of the genre as well. However, I haven't watched the show, so I can't say much about it.)
Monday, November 28, 2011
Chuck: Going Strong
Big news: here in the Netherlands we are way behind when it comes to series being broadcasted on tv. Well, not too much new, but anyway. It's a changing thing, as the executives hands' are being forced by the fact that downloading series and watching them long before the come out here is becoming more main stream. Personally, I think Comedy Central NL is also playing a big movement setting some of the new frontiers, but it is working on a rather limited budget so it's also doing some pretty old shows.
Anyway, I don't watch all my series on my computer. I do that when I really like a series and it's somewhat older, but in general, I do that to series that have finished already and that I really want to watch. I usually do not do that to series that are on tv here.
Well, most importantly I don't do it with things like sitcoms or other series which have episodes that can easily be viewed in a vacuum like South Park. This way, I can still turn on the tc and watch an episode without the chance that I have seen it already being too big (it's still pretty big as I do watch a lot of tv and because the broadcasters that have some of the series I like more are on a limited budget so doing the same (very good) series every once in a while.
However, I do also do the same thing for other series. For example, a while back Comedy Central started broadcasting Buffy episodes. Pretty Awesome. I don't see where the comedy is in that, but never mind that, it's just a good series and that's always welcome. I suppose they ran out of the episodes they had or something and then some executive decided they wouldn't buy more because it wasn't comedy, though, as it is no longer on.
Another of those series is Chuck. So, I'm quite a bit behind and I don't even know where the series it right now or if it is even still running. And either way, I don't care all that much. I don't need to know. I am enjoying the series right now and that's enough for me.
Anyway, so I just saw the bit with the transformation to the intersect 2.0. Well, not just, it's been a while and I have seen a few episodes since. But anyway, that change made me wonder where the series was headed, considering they had done so far. Though I spent quite some time doign this introduction, that is really what I wanted to write a bit about, where the series is now headed.
And the thing is that I am quite surprised about that. In a positive way. At the time, I had felt that the writers had done a pretty constricting job of writing themselves into an impossible corner.
However, it turns out that is not the case at all. Instead, they are taking a lot of risks and doing some and most of them are paying off pretty well. They are doing some pretty good stuff. The issue of Chuck and Sarah is also neatly handled as they actually made everything a lot more awkward than it had been before. And you know what, this time their relationship is actually more relatable. At least, that's my opinion.
However, I do feel there are some problems with the series. They mostly lie in the way that only seeing parts of the series has become a lot more troublesome and missing an episode is more of a problem than ever now. Most of it is to be expected when taking so many risks, but I do think I there are some things they didn't do exactly right. The thing is, though, that these things are inspiring me as well. They are part of my inspiration to be working on tv series theory as I did in yesterday's article. I want to be able to quantify what I feel they did wrong and find out how I think they could have done nearly the same thing, but do it a lot better by making some small changes here and there.
I'm looking forward to more of this series. It's been really good lately.
Anyway, I don't watch all my series on my computer. I do that when I really like a series and it's somewhat older, but in general, I do that to series that have finished already and that I really want to watch. I usually do not do that to series that are on tv here.
Well, most importantly I don't do it with things like sitcoms or other series which have episodes that can easily be viewed in a vacuum like South Park. This way, I can still turn on the tc and watch an episode without the chance that I have seen it already being too big (it's still pretty big as I do watch a lot of tv and because the broadcasters that have some of the series I like more are on a limited budget so doing the same (very good) series every once in a while.
However, I do also do the same thing for other series. For example, a while back Comedy Central started broadcasting Buffy episodes. Pretty Awesome. I don't see where the comedy is in that, but never mind that, it's just a good series and that's always welcome. I suppose they ran out of the episodes they had or something and then some executive decided they wouldn't buy more because it wasn't comedy, though, as it is no longer on.
Another of those series is Chuck. So, I'm quite a bit behind and I don't even know where the series it right now or if it is even still running. And either way, I don't care all that much. I don't need to know. I am enjoying the series right now and that's enough for me.
Anyway, so I just saw the bit with the transformation to the intersect 2.0. Well, not just, it's been a while and I have seen a few episodes since. But anyway, that change made me wonder where the series was headed, considering they had done so far. Though I spent quite some time doign this introduction, that is really what I wanted to write a bit about, where the series is now headed.
And the thing is that I am quite surprised about that. In a positive way. At the time, I had felt that the writers had done a pretty constricting job of writing themselves into an impossible corner.
However, it turns out that is not the case at all. Instead, they are taking a lot of risks and doing some and most of them are paying off pretty well. They are doing some pretty good stuff. The issue of Chuck and Sarah is also neatly handled as they actually made everything a lot more awkward than it had been before. And you know what, this time their relationship is actually more relatable. At least, that's my opinion.
However, I do feel there are some problems with the series. They mostly lie in the way that only seeing parts of the series has become a lot more troublesome and missing an episode is more of a problem than ever now. Most of it is to be expected when taking so many risks, but I do think I there are some things they didn't do exactly right. The thing is, though, that these things are inspiring me as well. They are part of my inspiration to be working on tv series theory as I did in yesterday's article. I want to be able to quantify what I feel they did wrong and find out how I think they could have done nearly the same thing, but do it a lot better by making some small changes here and there.
I'm looking forward to more of this series. It's been really good lately.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Series Premiere, Season Premiere
One of the pages I still get a lot of trafic on this site from is the one with the caveman debugging post. It turns out that people come across the term and wonder what it is, and googling it actually leads right to my blog at the top of the results. Wow.
Well, today is going to be a post in a similar vain. This time about the name for the first episode of a tv series or just the first of a season.
I have used several terms for this, but most just don't sound too well. "Beginner" and "Opener" just don't do the trick for me. We have finale on the one hand and together with the first episode of a season it makes one of the aspects of tv series that particularly interest me.
I knew I had heard a good term for it once, but I couldn't remember. So yesterday, I did some googling. Well, I ended up not finding it through googling, but through navigating my way through wikipedia. And there it was, in an article marked as bad because it didn't cite source: Premiere.
This word has one very important quality. Even if people have never heard of the term before, they will quickly enough understand what you mean with it. That is, in my opinion it's strongest quality. Of course, it's also important that it just sounds good and that it fills what in my opinion was a niche.
What I would like to do is propose the terms "Series Premiere" and "Season Premiere" when talking about tv series. And what I am going to do about it, is just use them. And I urge you to do the same. And to spread the word, of course.
So: Premiere it is!
Well, today is going to be a post in a similar vain. This time about the name for the first episode of a tv series or just the first of a season.
I have used several terms for this, but most just don't sound too well. "Beginner" and "Opener" just don't do the trick for me. We have finale on the one hand and together with the first episode of a season it makes one of the aspects of tv series that particularly interest me.
I knew I had heard a good term for it once, but I couldn't remember. So yesterday, I did some googling. Well, I ended up not finding it through googling, but through navigating my way through wikipedia. And there it was, in an article marked as bad because it didn't cite source: Premiere.
This word has one very important quality. Even if people have never heard of the term before, they will quickly enough understand what you mean with it. That is, in my opinion it's strongest quality. Of course, it's also important that it just sounds good and that it fills what in my opinion was a niche.
What I would like to do is propose the terms "Series Premiere" and "Season Premiere" when talking about tv series. And what I am going to do about it, is just use them. And I urge you to do the same. And to spread the word, of course.
So: Premiere it is!
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Battlestar Actors on Other Shows
While I took a bit of a hiatus from writing here, I watched Battlestar Gallactica. And man, is that a series. Truly, it's brilliant. Great writing and great acting, they take a lot of risks and manage to pull each and every one of them off favorably. I am getting sidetracked, though. I will write about how awesome this series is and how you should watch it some other time.
Now though, I want to focus on a story that played the past week for me. It all started when I saw my first episode of Hawaii Five Oh. Or rather, a tiny bit of it, it was just on as I was in the kitchen, and I actually was just about to leave. In the very first scene in which she appeared, I recognized Sharon from Battlestar! At first she was in the background and I wasn't sure about it, but it soon turned out that it was indeed her and that she actually played a main character of the series.
Zap forward to tonight. This time I watched my first ever episode of Law & Order UK. It's an interesting series, but that's not really what this is about. They have Lee Adama!
I think it's really interesting how being on this show means so much for your career. I mean, both shows were started recently and are quite big. And two Battlestar Gallactica actors actually got major parts in them, very possibly because of their achievements on Battlestar. If anything, I really say it says something about the (acting) quality on Battlestar. (Go watch it!)
PS. For this show I tried to translate a word that just doesn't translate very well. I didn't know this, so I typed a sentence in google translate to see what English phrase it would use (I ended up just rewriting it, but just have a look at this):
Now, the important part is in Dutch, but it's translating to English, so you can see what it is about. Now take a look at that suggestion. It is suggesting I change "zij" into "hij". Or in English, it's suggesting that I change "she" into "he"...
What's up with that Google? Some problems with emancipation?
Now though, I want to focus on a story that played the past week for me. It all started when I saw my first episode of Hawaii Five Oh. Or rather, a tiny bit of it, it was just on as I was in the kitchen, and I actually was just about to leave. In the very first scene in which she appeared, I recognized Sharon from Battlestar! At first she was in the background and I wasn't sure about it, but it soon turned out that it was indeed her and that she actually played a main character of the series.
Zap forward to tonight. This time I watched my first ever episode of Law & Order UK. It's an interesting series, but that's not really what this is about. They have Lee Adama!
I think it's really interesting how being on this show means so much for your career. I mean, both shows were started recently and are quite big. And two Battlestar Gallactica actors actually got major parts in them, very possibly because of their achievements on Battlestar. If anything, I really say it says something about the (acting) quality on Battlestar. (Go watch it!)
PS. For this show I tried to translate a word that just doesn't translate very well. I didn't know this, so I typed a sentence in google translate to see what English phrase it would use (I ended up just rewriting it, but just have a look at this):
Now, the important part is in Dutch, but it's translating to English, so you can see what it is about. Now take a look at that suggestion. It is suggesting I change "zij" into "hij". Or in English, it's suggesting that I change "she" into "he"...
What's up with that Google? Some problems with emancipation?
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Becker S6E13
Recently I watched the very last episode of the tv series Becker. It was fabulous.
(Spoilers ahead - spoilers of the finale as well as of the general continuity. However, if you don't know this yet, you should really just go watch more Becker!)
It wasn't planned or anything, it was just on tv. On thing that meant was that before the show started, I didn't know it was going to be the series finale. However, I had the feeling it was going to be the series finale in the first few minutes.
Quite often series finales are quite recognizable. Often they have the "bigger than life" plots, the plots that are supposed to feel epic and awesome, the plots that break the status quo that had been held for very long - if not the entire series. Usually they try to tie up all the loose ends. An episode being a two-parter (or more-parter) is also a good sign that it might be a series (or season) finale, because tying up all the loose ends and being epic are two things that are a lot easier when you have more time to do so.
There are good reasons for a finale to do those things. First off, the finale is the last thing people are going to see of the show - thus an important thing to remember the show by, so they need to be awesome. Also, as you no longer need to maintain the status quo for the next episode, so this is a good chance for you to break it. Secondly, people don't want to be left with questions, so tying up the loose ends makes a lot of sense as well.
Becker did none of those things. Alright, the status quo was broken, but it was done subtly. Usually breaking the status quo means real changes - like in Becker, Reggie being replaced with Chris or the moment when Becker and Chris started dating. There was no such thing here - there was no status quo change in such a sense of the word.
The episode didn't have something awesome or bigger than normal happening to the cast. No, this was an episode that just had the normal parallel plot lines. Nothing bigger or more awesome than normal.
The episode tied up some loose ends, but not all that much. The most obvious loose end was one that had been introduced a few episodes earlier - which was a great use of continuity, by the way - which actually ended tying up another end as well, but this end had so far been under the table cloth, so it was actually a surprise that it ended up being tied up.
The thing that made this episode a real finale was something entirely different. In the first few minutes Becker actually asked Chris out.
*dramatic silence*
Even Chris replied with "You're actually asking me out without me asking you to ask me out?". It wasn't normal. From that moment on, it became clear that this just wasn't the normal bitter Becker, something about him was different. The story then went on about how Chris thought this was the moment Becker was going to dump her. A pretty simple storyline and very similar to other things they have done. And even though nobody told me, I just felt that Becker was sincere and was actually not going to dump Chris - there was just something about his attitude that made me feel that way. Finally, Becker was making some progress. Finally, he was getting over his midlife crisis.
The deal was of course sealed when Margaret convinced Jake to go study with the money his nana had left him. The Bob-replacement guy had his own storyline here, where he tried to find a job by padding his cv, and turned down a job because the person who matched the cv would actually be underpaid for the job. That too is tied up nicely as he gets to take over Jake's news stand.
The last thing was that Becker and Chris have their confrontation and Becker actually tells that he doesn't want to break up with her and that his strange behavior might be related to him actually thinking he might happy. Chris plays a very strong role as she is clearly glad with this fact, but is also here to support Becker through the emotional changes - even if for the better, emotional changes may well be hard. The episode then ends on a very strong note, as Becker shouts at a guy pissing on his doorstep. There may be a huge change in Becker, but it isn't going to be instant.
Anyway, a great episode *thanks to the entire staff of Becker* which provided me with some very satisfying comedy tv, but which also taught me a lot about series finales. Don't try to overachieve, but pick the right things. It was truly fabulous.
(Spoilers ahead - spoilers of the finale as well as of the general continuity. However, if you don't know this yet, you should really just go watch more Becker!)
It wasn't planned or anything, it was just on tv. On thing that meant was that before the show started, I didn't know it was going to be the series finale. However, I had the feeling it was going to be the series finale in the first few minutes.
Quite often series finales are quite recognizable. Often they have the "bigger than life" plots, the plots that are supposed to feel epic and awesome, the plots that break the status quo that had been held for very long - if not the entire series. Usually they try to tie up all the loose ends. An episode being a two-parter (or more-parter) is also a good sign that it might be a series (or season) finale, because tying up all the loose ends and being epic are two things that are a lot easier when you have more time to do so.
There are good reasons for a finale to do those things. First off, the finale is the last thing people are going to see of the show - thus an important thing to remember the show by, so they need to be awesome. Also, as you no longer need to maintain the status quo for the next episode, so this is a good chance for you to break it. Secondly, people don't want to be left with questions, so tying up the loose ends makes a lot of sense as well.
Becker did none of those things. Alright, the status quo was broken, but it was done subtly. Usually breaking the status quo means real changes - like in Becker, Reggie being replaced with Chris or the moment when Becker and Chris started dating. There was no such thing here - there was no status quo change in such a sense of the word.
The episode didn't have something awesome or bigger than normal happening to the cast. No, this was an episode that just had the normal parallel plot lines. Nothing bigger or more awesome than normal.
The episode tied up some loose ends, but not all that much. The most obvious loose end was one that had been introduced a few episodes earlier - which was a great use of continuity, by the way - which actually ended tying up another end as well, but this end had so far been under the table cloth, so it was actually a surprise that it ended up being tied up.
The thing that made this episode a real finale was something entirely different. In the first few minutes Becker actually asked Chris out.
*dramatic silence*
Even Chris replied with "You're actually asking me out without me asking you to ask me out?". It wasn't normal. From that moment on, it became clear that this just wasn't the normal bitter Becker, something about him was different. The story then went on about how Chris thought this was the moment Becker was going to dump her. A pretty simple storyline and very similar to other things they have done. And even though nobody told me, I just felt that Becker was sincere and was actually not going to dump Chris - there was just something about his attitude that made me feel that way. Finally, Becker was making some progress. Finally, he was getting over his midlife crisis.
The deal was of course sealed when Margaret convinced Jake to go study with the money his nana had left him. The Bob-replacement guy had his own storyline here, where he tried to find a job by padding his cv, and turned down a job because the person who matched the cv would actually be underpaid for the job. That too is tied up nicely as he gets to take over Jake's news stand.
The last thing was that Becker and Chris have their confrontation and Becker actually tells that he doesn't want to break up with her and that his strange behavior might be related to him actually thinking he might happy. Chris plays a very strong role as she is clearly glad with this fact, but is also here to support Becker through the emotional changes - even if for the better, emotional changes may well be hard. The episode then ends on a very strong note, as Becker shouts at a guy pissing on his doorstep. There may be a huge change in Becker, but it isn't going to be instant.
Anyway, a great episode *thanks to the entire staff of Becker* which provided me with some very satisfying comedy tv, but which also taught me a lot about series finales. Don't try to overachieve, but pick the right things. It was truly fabulous.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Gimmick or Driving Force
I have been away for "Fantasieland" (which, you guessed it, would translate to fantasy land), which is the smaller brother of "Kinderdorp" the past three days, but I'll talk about that later. Right now I wanted to talk about something even more recent. I just watched the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
I intend to watch all Star Trek episodes some time. As a kid I watched a number of stray episodes, but never watched it all. I started by watching Voyager, as I had seen the most episodes of it. Next I decided for DS9 because it plays in the same time.
The first thing that my eye fell on in the series opener is how the anomaly in the episode is a gimmick rather than the main drive of the episode. Here, the wormhole is an important plot point for the series, but the episode is not about it. The timeless alien (which is not executed flawlessly* by the way) is used as little more than a gimmick. In Voyager if such a strange thing showed up it would always be the focus of the episode. I like this way better (or at least, it not always being the focal point of the episode). I have yet to watch the rest of the show, so I'll have to see if this continues to be this way. Anyway, that makes one point for DS9 (of shich I have only seen the series opener) against only a handful for Voyager (all of which I have seen).
* There are two problems with the alien. First, it fears to be destroyed. Second, it agrees to let ships through from now on. Neither of these fit the model of an alien who has trouble understanding beings living in linear time. I don't know if these problems could have been avoided, though.
I intend to watch all Star Trek episodes some time. As a kid I watched a number of stray episodes, but never watched it all. I started by watching Voyager, as I had seen the most episodes of it. Next I decided for DS9 because it plays in the same time.
The first thing that my eye fell on in the series opener is how the anomaly in the episode is a gimmick rather than the main drive of the episode. Here, the wormhole is an important plot point for the series, but the episode is not about it. The timeless alien (which is not executed flawlessly* by the way) is used as little more than a gimmick. In Voyager if such a strange thing showed up it would always be the focus of the episode. I like this way better (or at least, it not always being the focal point of the episode). I have yet to watch the rest of the show, so I'll have to see if this continues to be this way. Anyway, that makes one point for DS9 (of shich I have only seen the series opener) against only a handful for Voyager (all of which I have seen).
* There are two problems with the alien. First, it fears to be destroyed. Second, it agrees to let ships through from now on. Neither of these fit the model of an alien who has trouble understanding beings living in linear time. I don't know if these problems could have been avoided, though.
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