Closet Sci-Fi Geek

TV: “Lost” Season One vs. Season Two

I’ve heard quite a few die-hard “Lost” fans complain that season two is not quite as gripping as season one. Actually, I think season two is much improved.

As someone who only starting seriously watching “Lost” once the season one DVD came out, I’d like to make the following observations:

“Lost” was never consistently gripping from episode to episode even in season one. Never!

I remember tuning in when it first aired and finding it somewhat boring. It was only when I watched all the episodes back to back on DVD that I started to put the pieces together. But even then, there was a lot in season one that wasn’t that fantastic - we just remember it that way.

Here are a few things that sucked in season one:

• Was it just me but were three flashbacks on Kate alone really necessary? Season one was far too much about Kate and not enough of some more interesting characters.

• The Shannon and Boone story - completely annoying other than the salacious sex scene. I loved Boone but the show is better off without both of them.

• Drawn out flashbacks in general, with not enough happening on the island itself.

• Long stretches where the “monster” in the forest never appeared. Lack of fear among the lostaways about it. This seemed inconsistent, especially when everyone seemed to be perfectly fine running between the caves and the beach.

• Jack and his increasingly bad attitude.
  

The best part about season one was the build-up at the end about the hatch. This was paid off beautifully at the start of season two with the introduction of Desmond and the mysterious timer.

Since then, we’ve had quite a bit happening on the island - more than happened in all of season one, when you think about it. We’re not even halfway through and we’ve met the tailies, Shannon got shafted, the hatch has been opened, and a bunch of bare-legged freaks (the “others”) are running through the jungle doing God knows what.

Sure, now in season two we have a bit too much Ana-Lucia (though that’s a relief compared to all the attention annoying Kate got last season). We’ve also had more whining from Michael than should ever be allowed, but if we’re lucky the Walt thread will be tied up soon and we can move on to bigger and better things.

Whether “Lost” can continue to build a story once the full reveal has been made remains to be seen. But so far, season two has not disappointed me one bit.

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TV: “Invasion” Picks Up the Pace

ABC’s “Invasion” has gotten some mixed reviews (some think it’s a bit too slow), but finally, we are seeing some pay-off. Mariel (the blonde) is apparently some sort of pod person or DNA replica of her former self. Was that really her “original” body she found in the swamp? Did the sherriff cover it up by planting a Jane Doe corpse in Mariel’s stead?

“Invasion” is starting to become quite addicting. It still lacks some of the mood and panache of better series (such as its predecessor, “Lost”), but it’s not bad for a network sci-fi show.

And did I mention that Eddie Cibrian is a major hottie? That doesn’t hurt.

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DVD: “Epoch”

A strange monolith of sorts pops up in Bhutan with mysterious powers to heal and resurrect the dead. The United States and China get into a pissing contest over who has rights to the object.

Worst piece of crap I’ve seen in a long time. I can’t figure out if this was a made-for-TV movie, but it sure feels like it. Bad script, bad acting, bad special effects, and the most inane directing ever. Entertaining only on a rainy afternoon when you are under the weather and don’t have much in the way of brain processing power. F+.

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TV: “Nightstalker” Canceled

Well, we have our first sci-fi casuality of the season - “Nightstalker” has been canceled. Frankly, I think it’s a mercy killing. I had watched the first episode or two and felt that the series was weak but had some promise.

The last time few times I tried to watch “Nightstalker,” however, it was so painful that I had to turn off the TV. That’s saying a lot, for a geek girl who gets an immense amount of pleasure watching old, bad 70s disaster films. Sometimes bad can be very good, but in this case, bad was just bad.

Thanks, ABC.

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Games: Go Retro with a Text-Based MUD

Remember MUDs? If you don’t, these were text-based computer games that became hugely popular back before the World Wide Web took over the Internet. (It was estimated they took up 10% of all Internet bandwidth at one point.)

A MUD or Multi-User Dungeon is an online text-based adventure game where you interact with other players online. MUDs are kind of like the old Zork games, only with other people playing. There’s a huge element of chat involved in MUDs, and for some, the community aspect is more important than the actual play.

Back in the day (1995 to be exact), I was active on IgorMUD, which was a MUD based in Sweden. (Funny enough, it’s 10 years later and Igormud is still online at www.igormud.org.) I never got too far in terms of level or adventuring success, but it was a nice diversion at the time.

My sister and a friend from our high school got so involved in IgorMUD that they actually went to face-to-face IgorMeets. There was a whole community and culture that sprang up around IgorMUD.

Well, as the years went by I forgot about IgorMUD and text-based adventure games in general. The quality of computer graphics really skyrocketed in the late 90s. I remember when they game out with the first graphical Zork adventure game in the early 90s. (I think it was called “Return to Zork.”) The graphics were primitive compared to today’s standards, but at the time I was astonished and wowed!

(Imagine how things will change in another 10 years! I’m going to predict that by then we shall finally see virtual reality fully realized, where we will be able to immerse ourselves into realistic, graphical virtual environments!)

So you’d think, alas, with our Xbox and our Everquest, that the MUD would have gone the way of the dinosaur…it being text-based and all that.

Funny how things come around, however. I found myself accidentally finding a MUD site while searching for something entirely different on Google just last week. Hmmm…I wondered if IgorMUD was still around.

Out of curiosity, I found the address for my old beloved MUD and logged in. Sadly, IgorMUD is a tired shadow of its former self…what I had remembered had been moved or changed, and the players few compared to its heydey. (I feel this is partly due to IgorMUD’s broken help system. I couldn’t remember some basic commands and the “help command” function didn’t work. Not a great way to entice new players aboard.)

IgorMUD (while still playable) is hardly indicative of the many MUD environments out there now. MUDs have grown up! And while I can’t say for sure that MUDs are experiencing a bit of a “renaissance,” they are still viable, fantastic gaming environments.

The best thing of all? They are free!

Go to Top Mud Sites and you’ll find a whole slew of highly active, advanced MUDs. It truly surprised me to see that MUDs were not only still alive and kicking, but alive and flourishing!!

MUDs have gotten quite sophisticated since I used to play in the early-to-mid 90s. Many MUDs now come with beautiful, detailed websites, that offer help files, maps, illustrations of the different character types, and volumes of back history.

You can find MUDs on many different subjects too: Harry Potter, Star Trek, and even Alice in Wonderland.

Iron Realms is a game company that actually specializes in making MUDs. They earn their money by selling credits for players on the system who want to advance more quickly. Otherwise, the MUDs are free.

With this new, overwhelming world that just opened up for me, I decided to try MUDding again. I actually like to play video games but haven’t had much time recently. But since I do a lot of work at the computer, I figured that (as long as keep myself focused), taking 10 minutes here and there to check into a MUD might not be a bad distraction. (We can only hope!)

I chose one of the Iron Realm’s MUDs, Lusternia, to see if there was any truth to their advertising about how fantastic their MUDs were. (Also, I was hoping that on a commercial system, I might actually find some working help files.)

So far, so good. Lusternia first takes you through a very entertaining but thorough tutorial when you enter the game. The newbie support is suberb. And their web-based Java interface is exceptionally cool - you can click on a directional arrow rather than typing in “n” or “s” to move around.

I’m intrigued and looking forward to exploring this virtual text world.

So while you may not be wowed by the graphics, MUDs still have much to offer. MUDs are free, for one thing, and still highly immersive even with the use of text. You use your imagination rather than fancy graphics to provide the detail. In this respect, MUDs are like a good book. While it’s fantastic to see “Lord of the Rings” onscreen, there’s a certain amount of history from the book that cannot be fit into two or three hours of screentime.

The same can be said of MUDs. When you enter a MUD, you may not get the initial visual detail a cool graphic can provide. But you enter a world where graphics don’t limit you. The only limit is your imagination.

For those new to MUDs, the experience can be a little frustrating at first. MUDding is all about typing the right commands, and the commands must be typed in exactly. For example:

“LOOK AT BAG”
“GET SWORD”
“WIELD SWORD”

When choosing a MUD, here are a few things to consider:

• Do you like role-playing? On some MUDs, they are very strict about players talking “in character.”

  
  

• Are you interested in combat and killing or a more “sim-like” relaxed environment?

  
  

• What sort of world are you intersted in? Medieval times? Futuristic science fiction? Ancient Rome? A hodge podge? You can probably find a MUD centering around your interests.

  
  

• Do you need lots of support and help to get started? If so, you might want to choose a commercial MUD with actual helper staff online. (This is not to say that non-commercial MUDs don’t also have helpful communities. You’ll have to try them out to see.)

  
  

• What’s the community like? How long has it been around? For myself, part of the reason I chose Lusternia is that it is relatively new (having been around one year). This means that while the environment is already extensive and fleshed out, the MUD hasn’t been around so long where everyone knows everyone else, everyone has already gotten to high levels, and there’s no room for newbies.
  

Now, if you truly hate reading and typing, MUDding is not for you. But if you are looking for some free, quality entertainment, you might just get a bit retro and get MUDding!

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TV on DVD: “Jeremiah”

“Jeremiah” is a post-apocalyptic television series set about 15 years in the future after a plague wipes out the adult population of the world. Those of the “age of innocence” (children before puberty) survive the plague. Now those kids have grown up and the world is a much different place…

The series first aired on Showtime a few years back. It’s had two seasons and is now either canceled or “on hiatus” (no official word from Showtime either way). “Jeremiah” also brings us the unlikely pairing of J. Michael Straczynski (creator of “Babylon 5″) and Luke Perry of 90210 fame.

I never watched the original episodes on Showtime, but have been catching up on the first season through the magic of DVD. The series starts off a bit slow, but starts to pick up speed in disc three.

Luke Perry actually does a great job as Jeremiah, a young man searching for clues to his dead father’s mysterious connection with a place called “Valhalla Sector.” In typical 90210 style, Perry is yet again playing someone who is much younger than him age-wise. In the series timeline, Perry, at almost 40, is playing someone around 10 years younger. Fortunately, the 90210 comparisons end there. (Though, notably, in one “Jeremiah” episode, another 90210 alum plays a guest role - Jason Priestley. It becomes quite clear that Perry is the more talented actor of the two.)

Perry teams up with Malcolm Jamal-Warner (”The Cosby Show”), who has the unlikely name of “Kurdy,” and the two of them roam the countryside looking for clues about “The Big Death” and a possibly military installation that may be gearing for a big power play.

Initially, the series seemed to be faltering due to a very grim, repetitive plot device: Jeremiah and Kurdy travel to some unknown town. Jeremiah and Kurdy run into a gang of thugs. Said gang of thugs perpetrates some awful brutality. Jeremiah and Kurdy fight gang of thugs and win.

Over time these first episodes were a bit too grim and at the same time pedestrian - I almost gave up on the series since some episodes were almost too painful to watch. Still, some bright moments shined through - for example, when Jeremiah goes on a rampage against the bad guys after the tragic death of one very peculiar “good guy.”

Once the series starts to delve into the underlying intrigues and politics of the new world (and some fascinating things that happened before the “old world” went down), the series starts to get pretty good.

I’ve just finished watching disc three, and I look forward to finishing the first season. While this series can be a bit uneven, and lacks a certain polish that other current sci-fi shows have, it’s still some worthwhile viewing. Give it a try, and stick with it.

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