Closet Sci-Fi Geek

TV: Locke’s Lockdown on “Lost”

Fun episode of “Lost” last night with the hatch going crazy. In less than 24 hours, the net was already filled with images and interpretations of the glowing map that Locke saw briefly before the blast doors came back up. Here is just one example.

I’m still wondering if the Lostaway’s life before the island was just all in their minds…what are the odds, say, of Sayid’s Nadia running into Locke? (I had missed this cameo but others on the net have sharper eyes than I do.) It’s not that much of a small world.

Perhaps all the Lostaways are the ones who are already sick with the “disease,” which is really a collective mental illness. In this scenario, they have all had a group hallucination that they were on an airplane that crashed and had lives before the island. Maybe half the stuff they see in the “real world” isn’t even there! Just a thought. We will find out eventually…

DVD: “The Final Cut”

Robin Williams gets dramatic in this quiet science fiction film set in the not too distant future. He plays a “cutter,” a person who edits people’s life experiences that were filmed thanks to a “Zoe” brain implant. These edited life experiences are then shown at funerals, to comfort the bereaved.

Not surprising, in the course of his work he stumbles across some dark information, and gets embroiled in murder and intrigue.

Simple enough…and yet, the film doesn’t quite live up to its promise.

The main premise is interesting, but a little far-fetched: What would happen if every moment of your life were recorded? But who would really agree to such a thing? While it’s possible that someday people may be forced to get an implant to record their lives, I find it hard to believe that people would volunteer for a such a chip. (Actually, in the film, it’s usually the parents that authorize the chip, when the child is just a baby.)

Robin Williams is also surprisingly dull in this film, playing a character who is so passive to the point of being a non-entity. Everything that happens to him just doesn’t seem quite right as a result. His sexual relationship with the much younger Delila (played by Mira Sorvina) is just simply unbelievable, not just because he’s so much older than she is, but because he’s such a dud.

Add to that a convoluted plot, and you have a film that piques your interest but fails to pay off its initial promise. Not bad to watch for a rental, but only if you’ve gone through all the other films in your queue.

TV: A Little “Lost” A-Ha Moment

On recent “Lost” episodes (and possible spoiler alert): I hadn’t paid close enough attention to the name of the prisoner in the hatch. Then I read it was “Henry Gale.” Henry Gale, as in Dorothy’s uncle from “The Wizard of Oz.” And his story is that he flew in on a balloon.

Duh.

I don’t have the past episodes to check, but wouldn’t it be funny if his supposed “wife’s” name was Emily?

Oh, Auntie Em.

Just had to share.

TV: The Failure of “Star Trek: Enterprise”

This may be a funny thing for a long-time fan of Star Trek to say, but here goes:

Let Star Trek die. Let it rest in peace. Let it die a noble death before it gets any worse.

LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge) said it best: “Star Trek coming to an end is long overdue. They ran it into the ground and made so much Star Trek that it ceased to be special. If they bring this back before a decade is out I will get a high-powered weapon and start picking off studio executives.”

Amen.

I used to love Star Trek. Back before there was a SciFi Channel, pretty much all you had was Star Trek. Those were innocent days, really.

In the original Star Trek, everything was Technicolor. We had an old-fashioned country doctor, a Scottish engineer named “Scottie,” and an alien complete with pointy ears.

In the Next Generation, things had evolved to a late 80s bland earth tone color scheme, but the cheese was still there. We had a talking android named “Data” (what a cliche of a name). A blind man who needed a clumsy visor (we all called it a “banana clip”) instead of eye implants. And don’t forget Deanna Troi looking ever so concerned, with her ridiculously tight outfits and heaving bosoms.

The Next Generation evolved to become a pretty darn good show, after a somewhat lame and embarrassing start. From there, we moved on to Deep Space Nine (which also started off rocky and got to be fantastic at the end) and then Voyager.

By the time we’d hit Voyager, however, we had a zillion movies and nowhere else to go. Voyager started to settle in to a very predictable, programmatic groove. After a while, even the dialogue seemed to come straight from a Star Trek recipe book. Trek had stopped being fun.

Voyager had its good moments (most notably, the Year of Hell series of episodes), and Seven of Nine almost singlehandedly saved it, following Deanna Troi’s lead with her heaving bosoms, but replacing the cloying concern with icy sternness.

But it just wasn’t breaking new ground. That show, if I recall, got cancelled short of its planned seven years, so the Powers That Were could bring us Enterprise.

“Star Trek: Enterprise” was doomed from the start, however. They just got it all wrong. If you are going to start a Trek series out before Kirk and Spock, then why not bring back what made the original Trek fun? Starting with some freakin’ color uniforms for starters.

The whole production, from the bland set design to the bland characters, was just waiting to die from the get-go. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Scott Bakula. And hot muscular Trip practically getting it on with heaving bosomed T’Pol right in the first episode, with their steamy decontamination scene, was highly promising. But pretty soon, Enterprise got bogged down in what made typical episodes of Voyager a yawn-fest.

It just got too formulaic. The writers had watched too much Trek, and had gotten too mired in Star Trek language and mythology to do anything interesting.

Don’t get me wrong…Enterprise was still entertaining, and it seemed (as it went on) that some story arcs were developing. Unfortunately, I never hung in there that far. I have just seen too many away missions, too many conversations with the captain, too many scenes of the not-so-human character (Spock, Data, Odo, Seven of Nine, and T’Pol) trying to find their friggin’ humanity.

Trek might have flipped things around and actually put a human in an alien environment - rather than the alien trying to be human, how about the human trying to be alien? That might of been interesting…whooooops…I forgot. That was done. That was “Farscape.”

So farewell, Star Trek. It’s time for you to go. Thank you for paving the way for mainstream TV shows such as “Invasion” and Sci-Fi Channel’s “Stargate” and “Battlestar Galactica.”

I will not shed a tear. There will always be “The Wrath of Khan” on DVD. Always.

KHAAAAAN!!!!!!!!

TV: Not Quite Digging “Battlestar Galactica” Yet…

OK, I’ve only gotten to episode four from season one of the new “Battlestar Galactica,” so I maybe I just need to keep watching to get sucked in more…but…and pardon me for complaining:

Why do all the uniforms look like they came from an Army Surplus Store? Can’t the costume designers come up with something more imaginative?

Why are all the civilian characters dressed like it’s 1995 America?

Where is all the cool Egyptian themed stuff from the first “Battlestar Galactica”?

Can’t the president have a more imaginative disease than cancer? If they fly spaceships, shouldn’t they have some way to at least put that into remission?

When will this show stop being so darn serious and depressing all the time? I liked the dark quality to the mini-series, but when it comes to the ongoing show I wouldn’t mind some comic relief somewhere.

Now, maybe that last bit is fixed somewhat as the characters grow but I have to say, I am so disappointed in the obviously American look and feel of everything in this show. In one episode, a bunch of pilots actually started chanting what seemed to be a standard military chant. In another, a funeral included a 21-gun salute.

Please don’t expect me to buy that humans across the galaxy somehow evolved to become so darn *American*. At least steal some costume ideas from the Chinese, like cheesy old “Buck Rogers” used to do.

I will keep watching, since the show is still good, but I had to voice my complaints. Thanks for listening.