TV Show Reviews, a Return to Skiffy, more

TV reviews. Flash Forward and Stargate: Universe.

Let me begin by reviewing my reviewing status. Anything that airs after 8 PM EST is on “past my bedtime”. We’re up at 3 AM here in Casa El Davidson Norte. I watch while lying down and, if I’m lucky, I’m in the process of falling asleep – winding down as it were.

Not the best of circumstances if/when a show has slow moments.  It either puts me to sleep or prompts a round of channel surfing.

Both of which happened during the middle halves of both of the shows in question.

Flash Forward featured what I’ve come to call the ‘getting to know you’ episode’, where we are treated to short, pithy scenes involving the minor supporting characters and presumably receive some deep knowledge about their character, motivations, feelings and relationship to the other characters.

This is a necessary phase in any large ensemble show and most of it was handled acceptably in the second episode, though it did strike me as being overly consumptive of the time available for the second episode.

FF still has one thing going for it: two episodes in a row have treated us to very compelling hooks at their conclusions.  Last week was the lone awake mysterious person in the stadium.  This week it was the revelation that someone else was talking to mystery man on a cell phone.

The show is also showing signs of slipping into (almost) standard police procedural (with of course the SF premise twist);  this may be good for a general audience as many are familiar and comfortable after (decades?) of CSI, Law and Order, etc.

I will say that the scene between Director Wedeck and Benford, in which Wedeck reveals that his flash forward found him sitting on the can – while he was sitting on the can – was a nice touch of humor.

Flash Forward is beginning to lose my interest; the hook was again compelling enough to get me to tune in once more, but if the middle of each episode is going to slow down as much as this second one did, I probably won’t stay awake long enough next week to catch the third hook.

SGU. Star Gate, the original flick, was a pretty ok SF/action adventure film. It had its problems, but Kurt Russell and the mix of ancient/alien tech were more than enough to carry it for me.

SG-1 I tuned in a few times, McGuyver was a smart choice for replacing Russell as the lead, but I eventually found myself thinking of it as yet another SF show that featured the  token ‘alien’, token tough heroine, token nerd, etc., etc. and completely lost interest.  Atlantis’ opening episode made me dizzy.

So it was that I approached SGU with some trepidation.  However, John Scalzi’s promotional efforts (he’s a creative consultant to the show) balanced my reticence out enough to get me to watch the opening.

But first: I wonder, strongly, if the studio’s invitation to Scalzi to work on the show wasn’t a small piece of brilliance on their part (and on Scalzi’s as well).

John is well-liked by the fan community and quite effective at internet-based promotion.  For the price of a consultant’s fee, the show has bought into PR and acceptance at a level that normally can’t be bought.

On John’s side; if the show is a hit, he get’s to take credit for it (fans will know that it was really the guiding hand of one of their own that was responsible) and if it isn’t a hit, John needs say nothing, since the assumption will be that nobody listened to him.

Anyway, my opinion is – the jury is still out on this one.

Great opening.  Bodies and equipment flying through the gate in a never-ending, fifty car pileup fashion.

Nice use of flashback as the background story was threaded in to the current day predicament.

Uneven foreshadowing; I had the Senator pegged as a goner by his second appearance.

Didn’t like Dr. Whatshisname – not because I’m not supposed to like him, but because he seems of the type of the new ‘aloof genius who everyone needs but can’t stand’ iconic characters and in reality, such people never make it to positions of authority; less able but more approachable folks get their jobs as they get shuffled off into consultancies.

The nerd – another iconic type – managed to be funny/smart enough to get past the stereotype, at least for now, though I’m already getting tired of the nerdy genius disagreement scenes between Rush and Eli and am expecting to see at least one, if not three such, every episode.

I was also bothered by the scene in which Dr. Rush attempts to take control of the expedition:  not a single soldier appeared to question the usurption of authority, and only a couple of the civilians were vocal about it.  I understand the purpose – Rush has to be seen as wanting to take control (the smart people really ought to be running the show) – but it is part and parcel of a character that I’ve already stated I find unbelievable.

I also want to know why someone didn’t suggest plugging the broken window intead of the suicide that was required to close the bulkhead door. Maybe the hole was too big, maybe there weren’t the right materials at hand (though a ship like that without hole patches…), but no one even suggested the possibility.  Makes me wonder if we aren’t going to sacrifice one civilian per hull breech – suicide of the week kind of thing.

All in all – yet another iteration of an SF franchise that I have little interest in watching.  I’ll come back for a second episode just to see how they handle gating through to a planet, but so much of this show is already predictable that I don’t see much future in it, for me.

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A few months back I offered a listing and history of the terms used to name science fiction (sci-fi, scientifiction) and mentioned Skiffy, stating that I wasn’t sure of the date of origin for that term. Gary Farber came back and said that he was pretty sure that it was coined relatively late in the last century.  I responded that I was deliberately hedging my bets since I found it hard to believe that it would take several decades for the collection of punsters than SF fans are to get around to playing with SciFi.

Gary started asking around and has been unearthing some interesting historical information.  Various illuminati of the SF authorial world have been drawn into the discussion, a have other fans of note.

This is only by way of progress report:  when Gary publishes something official, I’ll link to it, but right now the various levels of quote/do not quote are a bit confusing to me (too soon after waking up right now), so I’ll just tease and cover my butt that way.

Gary writes HERE.

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Hmmm.  I know there was at least one other thing I wanted to mention this morning, but can’t seem to remember what it was.  Maybe something to do with the Classic Science Fiction Channel…

Nope – I just remembered what it was.  I’ve been tapped for another SFSignal Mind Meld – this time concerning movie villians of the genre variety.  It will be upcoming in a couple of weeks, during which time I will try to figure out who the best/worst SF film villian is/was.

In the meantime – back to the grind.  If you have ever tried to gather together a list of every single business operating within the environs of a small town, you’ll have some idea of where I’m at…