The Daily Procrastinator

Ever since I joined up with the Procrastinators who run this blog, they’ve been pressuring me to watch a TV series called Firefly. Apparently, I’m the only geek in the universe who hasn’t seen (and loved) it already. For months, I hemmed and hawed, found excuses not to watch it, and generally just kind of avoided it, although FlashCap had already loaned me the DVDs. Generally, procrastinators, I’m just not a science fiction kind of guy. Eventually, though, peer pressure got the best of me, and I started watching the series a few days ago.
The following are my live notes, made while watching the first episode.
———————————————————————————————–

Serenity…is the the first episode? I have no idea. The on-screen menus don’t indicate whether this is the first disc or not. Nor does it indicate in which order the episodes are to be viewed. I’ll just start with this episode and hope for the best.

The combat zone, which I’m assuming is mostly computer generated, looks great.

Oh, no. He just said “goddamn,” except he didn’t say “goddamn.” He said something that I couldn’t really understand that kinda SOUNDED like “goddamn.” This is a bad sign. One of the biggest reasons I couldn’t watch Battlestar Galactica was “frak.” If you’re going to use a curseword, use it. If you’re not, just write your way around it. Fake cursewords are silly, and I can’t take anything else seriously after hearing them.

The scene when air support pulls out, as the main character stands and watches them fly away, is great. It’s almost unimportant that the other guy gets shot down while standing and watching because the main character’s facial expression totally dominates the shot. The music is great, too.

Six years later…Ah, I guess this is the first episode. The whole “distant past as context for the rest of the series” device. At least I started in the right place.

“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!” I LOLed.

“We’re humped”? Really?

From what I can see in her first little scene, the one in which she’s shutting down the ship’s system in order to avoid detection, Kaylie is hot.

Further research confirms my suspicions.

The bad guy uniforms look just like the Empire uniforms from Star Wars. Come to think of it, the big gun the main character used to shoot down the enemy aircraft borrowed pretty heavily from Star Wars, too.

Crybaby was a good idea. Heh.

The style of the credits and the music reminds me of Deadwood.

In her second scene, Kaylie comes off as more “annoying” than “hot.”
(EDIT: This attitude only persisted for a moment.)
Aha! He has a name! “Mal”

Episode 1 sex scene…that’s bold. And THAT woman is hot. There are implications that she’s not human, in some way or another. Bummer.

Hey, look! It’s Mos Eisley!

The “Good Dogs” sign over the grill. Heh.

Badger: Is that Jude Law? Dave Matthews? Michael Stipe? Who the hell IS that guy?

There it is again: “gorram,” or something like that. Yeesh. Two seconds later, somebody said “piss” on screen. What’s the big difference?

Aha! A whole name: Malcolm Reynolds

The recurring “I never married” joke is pretty funny. Also, the conversation between Kaylie and gramps is well-written.

Nothin’ into nothin’ is nothin’…carry the nothin’….etc…heh.

“It’s been a long time since [she] shot me…I carry no grudge.”

Is this “telling the story from New Hope from the point of view of Han Solo” thing deliberate?

While the whole group, crew and passengers, stands in the dining room and discusses the ship’s protocols, Kaylie is dressed in a new outfit and her hair is down. She looks great. Clearly, I’m going to have an interesting relationship with her as a viewer.

So the woman from the sex scene is an “ambassador,” which makes her a “companion,” which makes her a whore. I think the line about “becoming a companion” earlier was what made me think she was something besides human. Looks like it’s a title, not a type of being.

Holy shit. I just watched Kaylie eat that strawberry about seven times in a row. God bless the rewind function.

“That’s what governments are for, to get in a man’s way.” Nice.

The well-dressed passenger, the trauma surgeon, makes me uneasy, but I suspect that’s the idea.

Is that guy’s name Jane? “Public relations”? Heh.

…and the whore takes a spongebath…
No wonder you guys like this show.

“He’s not wildly interested in ingratiating himself with anyone.” That just about sums it up.

What language are they occasionally slipping into?

A mole on board? That can’t be good.

“This is not my best day ever.”

Son of a bitch. He shot Kaylie. I like her! (I think…)

Well, isn’t that doctor a prick? Just patch up her gut wound, ya jerk.

It’s odd, although theoretically accurate, that the ship doesn’t make any sound when it changes direction and accelerates in space.

The guns fire actual bullets and not some kind of laser beams. I wouldn’t have expected that, what with the potential to poke holes in the walls of spaceships and such.

Wow. That guy’s carry-on luggage is his girlfriend. Whoa! She’s awake! …and she looks familiar…familiar and STRANGE…

Not girlfriend, but sister. Huh. Her name is River (?), and she’s some sort of uber-genius.

A government center accepts the 14-year-old supergenius and she disappears from her family. Ender’s Game, anyone?

It looks like Kaylie is going to survive. This is good news.

The whore’s wardrobe is fantastic…oooh, and she’s trying to pull a power play on Mal.

“You only gotta scare him.”
“Pain is scary.”

Jane (still can’t believe that’s his name) is highly amusing.

I don’t know what Reavers are, but they don’t sound good at all. Not at all.

“They’ll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skin into their clothing, and if we’re very very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.” Wow. And now various people on board Firefly are preparing to kill themselves. The show does a damn good job of making the Reavers REALLY scary before they ever make an appearance on-screen. (a la Jaws)

Kaylie, looking at River: “She’s a real beauty, isn’t she?”
I tend to think this line should be reversed. River is so goofy-lookin.

Jesus. How long are these episodes?

Wow. He told her that Kaylie died. That’s messed up.
Both the doctor and I freaked out for a moment.

“Certain words were exchanged, also certain…bullets.”

“Here’s a little concept I been workin’ on: why don’t we shoot her first?”
“It IS her turn.”
Even when things are tense, there’s humor. I like the balance.

Horses? Didn’t see that coming.

“Ride east half a mile, you’ll see where it’s been dug.”
“Reckon I will.”
“Well then.”
“Yuh.”
Well written!

…and the lawman gets free and abducts River…That goofy broad is going to be nothing but trouble…

Oh no! The gorram Reavers are coming back! *eyeroll*

Nice shot, Mal!
*laugh*
Awesome!
Then they just chuck his ass out the back of the ship. Love it.

They just pulled the evasive maneuver from Top Gun!

Hmm. We’re going to address themes of faith, too. And the shot where the Shepherd is bowed down before the whore and she lays a hand on his head as if in blessing is most interesting indeed…

River is so ooky. I just don’t LIKE her.

So, if he knows damn well that Jane will turn on him one day when the money is good enough, why does Mal keep him onboard?

“If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.”
—————————————————————————————————–

All in all, it was good.
I’ll watch the next episode when the combination of time and inclination aligns.

Stay tuned for my notes…

Coming soon to your living room?

I remember my first 3-D movie: it was Jaws 3-D, and the memory of that 35 foot long (no shit) great white shark exploding and half of its jaw bone floating right before my eyes is something I still recall fairly vividly today.

Meh. The shark still looks fake

But that’s probably because I was 10 years old at the time. The novelty of wearing those cardboard glasses and seeing the images pop out at me made that abomination of a movie different, but definitely not better. Memories of watching non-3-D movies like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark are just as vivid in my mind.

Flash forward, oh, 20+ years later and the 3-D movie experience hasn’t changed all that much: we’re still expected to wear the glasses (now plastic and at a surcharge) and, perhaps beyond a few scenes, the 3-D experience doesn’t add a heck of a lot to the Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs movie watching experience.

Unless maybe you’re 10.

Which is why all this talk of 3-D television baffles me. Apparently Sony and Panasonic think the next big thing is television sets that will allow us the experience of 3-D right in our living rooms. But who on earth wants that? 3-D movies work (occasionally) for kid movies and as a gimmick for tired sequels (i.e., Jaws 3-D; Friday the 13th, 3-D; Final Destination 3-D), but beyond that, no one except the money-grubbing studios are clamoring for these films to be made.

Let’s look at the reasons this idea is bound for failure:

1) Size of the screen: 3-D movies work because everything is so huge. Yes, televisions are larger today, and getting larger, yet most homes will have a limit to both budget and space available. Small images floating in front of a small screen just won’t make as much of an impression.

2) 3-D is a social experience: When objects jump out at audiences in 3-D movies, the creators want a reaction out of the audience. We attempt to move out of the way when an object is thrown “at us” – and we shriek and laugh along with the rest of the audience after it happens. At home, there’s generally not going to be a large viewing audience, so that interaction is lost.

3) High Definition. HD TV is a phenomenal upgrade from standard definition, the pictures are gorgeous, and it’s practically brand new. When we upgraded to a 1080p TV, my wife and I sat stunned by the picture quality our Blu-Ray movies provided, and commented that they practically looked three dimensional. And this was without a set of those damned glasses! Speaking of which…

4) Those damned glasses. What guy wants to sit down to watch Monday Night Football wearing a pair of ill-fitting glasses? Who will watch CSI: Miami which will have only two truly 3-D moments in the entire show (one being when Caruso’s shades come flying toward you in the first two minutes)? We have 3-D televised events already (Superbowl commercials/half-times; Disney channel movies), and these are met largely with skepticism if not completely disregarded. And, hell, I have a hard enough time finding my remote – how am I going to keep up with a pair of cheap plastic glasses?

I suppose I could be wrong, but 3-D television, in my eyes, has “failed experiment” written all over it. It’s not 10 year olds buying the TVs, and, unless the technology makes giant leaps over the next year or so, 3-D television will be the next “Beta” of the entertainment industry.

Now, all bets are off if the porn industry gets involved…

Plenty of sites and magazines give previews of the new television shows hitting the airwaves each season. The DP isn’t one of them. No, the DP has no access to previews or screenings of these shows, and because of this we don’t feel an obligation to be nice when talking about the recycled, tired garbage the networks are going to be attempting to foist on us this fall. We have something better than previews, though: instinct. And we’re here to tell you which new shows you should pay attention to, and, more importantly, which shows not to get emotionally attached to, because they’re not long for this world (Trauma is already hemorrhaging).

A few caveats here: 1) I’m not looking at HBO shows – no real reason why, except those fuckers are responsible for True Blood and I’m getting sick of hearing/reading about that soap opera (that’s all it is, people – a soap with mythological characters, Rogue getting naked, and bad accents). 2) No reality shows are being mentioned. They thrive on appealing to the lowest common denominator, and I’ve found the LCD always manages to surprise me with their poor taste. And 3) I’m not mentioning actors in the series unless for some reason its pertinent to my prediction…or if there’s a good pic of an actress available.

So let’s start with CBS’s new shows:

Accidentally on Purpose – Mondays, 8:30/9:30

Stop me if you’ve heard this storyline before – a babe gets knocked up by someone who would normally not be on her radar, and then they decide to keep the kid and see where that takes them. Yeah, it’s stolen from Knocked Up, though it throws in another love interest for the girl. Whoop-de-doo. This is attempting to draw in the HIMYM and Big Bang Theory crowd, so it’s got a chance, but I’m betting that crowd has seen Knocked Up too and won’t feel the need to see a serialized small screen version.

The Good Wife – Tues. 9/10

The wife of a shady politician has to go back to work at a law firm when her husband goes to jail. Topical, and I really like Julianna Margulies, but the point about her working at a law firm leaves me cold. Too many damn shows out there with the court system, and I’m sure there will be a lot of emotional cases Margulies will get involved in: abused children, battered wives, etc., so it will become a courtroom drama. And dramas focused on leading women haven’t traditionally lasted on the Big Three (Providence, The Ghost Whisperer, …ok, that’s all I’ve got).

NCIS: LA – Tuesdays, 9/8

Can anyone actually watch Chris O’Donnell for a straight hour? His movie career says “NO.” LL Cool J is also part of the cast of this criminal investigation drama – yes, another one (which makes, what, 15 such shows, 8 of them with the letters “CSI” in them?) – and without Mark Harmon this time there goes the moms over 35 audience. But CBS is pretty good about marketing its crime shows, and with the names attached it’ll get at least two seasons. But I’ll be damned if you’ll be able to find anyone who admits to watching it.

Three Rivers – Sundays, 9/8

A medical drama revolving around transplant doctors. A tear-jerker to be sure, but it’s locked into a limited formula from the get-go. They’ll be telling stories from three perspectives (doctors, patient, donor), so there will be a lot of human interest, but CBS has not faired well with medical dramas since Chicago Hope which ended in 2000 ( L.A Doctors and City of Angels both might as well have been DOA). Still, CBS audiences tend to like limited formulas, and with the passing of ER, and the fact that older audiences probably find House too edgy, I’ll say the network finally will have an established medical drama to hang its hat on.

Next time: NBC’s new shows