Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Why Enterprise Was Just Kinda…Ehhhh…

I caught an episode of Enterprise on SciFi yesterday. The crew stops at a mysterious space station that magically repairs their ship, with our captain wondering “What’s the catch?”

I had checked out Enterprise when it first “launched” and just didn’t find the show interesting enough to continue. In viewing the show again with fresh eyes, I was left with these thoughts on why the show was just mediocre at best:

It’s not just that Enterprise was formulaic, it completely lacked personality and spark.

I really do like Scott Bakula, but as a starship captain riding the new frontier, he’s about as exciting as a piece of dry toast. Even our quirky alien doctor in sickbay (who provides some sort of relief from the monotonous voices of the rest of the cast) isn’t enough to make this show come to life.

If I were to recreate Enterprise, I’d want to see a swashbuckling, dynamic, crazy-ass captain who was willing to do whatever it took to protect his crew. I want to see a captain bristling with so much spark and sexual energy, he’s seducing aliens across the galaxy. Oh, wait, that was Captain Kirk!

I want the other characters to be just as memorable and interesting. Even though Scotty was a terrible caricature of a Scotsman, we all remember his soundbites. Can you say that about anything uttered on Enterprise?

Enterprise…you blew it. I shed no tears for your demise.

As McCoy would say: “He’s dead, Jim.”

What Do Sci-Fi and Yoga Have in Common?

Pretty much nothing, except for a fairly amusing and brief parody in a recently aired episode of Hyperdrive. However, if you are interested in yoga, you might want to check out my new yoga blog, Namasteph.

BBC’s Sci-Fi Comedy Hyperdrive

America can’t top Britain when it comes to the sci-fi parody. The BBC’s latest is Hyperdrive, which I caught quite accidentally on BBC America a few days ago. Not having read anything about it, I had gone into the show quite blind to the premise. It seemed it was a typical motley crew on a space mission sort of thing.

Hyperdrive is no Red Dwarf in terms of laughs. In some respects, it seems more like a regular space opera show with humorous elements. In the episode I watched, the crew had to get ready for a “J-level Inspection,” which is almost impossible to pass. The captain, depressed, handed down his duties to an overzealous subordinate who took dictatorial control of the ship until a riot broke out.

I wasn’t blown away by this. It was enjoyable, but nothing earth-shattering. I’ll definitely watch it again because it is entertaining, and maybe it will grow on me.

P.S. As a yoga person, I did enjoy the yoga parody where the crew were wiggling their butts in yoga class in what they called “puppy” pose.

The Illusionist

The Illusionist is not really a sci-fi tale, but it gets honorable mention here for the magical qualities that inevitably will appear in a movie about a magician. This is a terrific film with a top-notch cast featuring Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti (who first caught my notice in his fantastic performance in Lady in the Water).

The story is a classic one of love and fate: The magician is from a poor family; his love is a wealthy duchess destined to be married off to the evil prince. Along the way we see feats of magic that beg us to question what is real and what isn’t.

The movie leads up to a terrific ending, one that provides an incredibly satisfying feeling. Still, there are some questions afterwards (some of what is shown stretches credulity).

The film had gotten terrific responses at various film festivals and is definitely worth seeing if you are into magic.

Lost: Finally, Some Answers (or More Questions?)

This second installment of season three has been absolutely fantastic so far (though we’ve only had two episodes). And overall, season three has been much better than season two. I am truly excited about Lost again!

Tonight’s episode was the kicker - we finally get a clue as to the underlying secret behind Lost. (SPOILERS AHEAD!)

We find out what happened to Desmond after he turned the fail-safe key when the hatch blew. Somehow, he got kicked back into the past and started having flashbacks to the future. Only, now that he’s back in the “present,” he’s still having future “flashbacks.”

And as much as the producers have claimed this is supposedly not a virtual reality trip like the Matrix, there were some very Matrix-like things going on in this episode. Most peculiarly, the woman at the jewelry store who knew Desmond’s future. (It might be tempting to discredit this woman as a figment of his mind…except…he now is predicting the future just like he did in the “past,” so it’s fair to say she’s not just his imagination.)

The producers have also discredited the idea of time travel going on. So what the heck is going on here then?

I’m still processing the episode, but my first guess is that our friends at the Hanso Foundation have mucked up the space-time continuum in an attempt to direct fate…or, perhaps, during their psychic experiments, certain folks were able to jump back and forth in their lifetimes and tried to change the future…only, as they say, “the universe always corrects itself.”

It’s possible, too, that everyone in the Island is part of some mini-universe, a snow globe of sorts.

Who knows. Makes my brain hurt to think about it. More answers next week, though!

Idiocracy, or Welcome to America

An average man with an average IQ is put into hibernation by the Army for an experiment and wakes up 500 years later, when dumb people have taken over the planet. (See, it’s the dumb people who have too many kids, as explained at the beginning of the film.)

The film mercilessly satires American culture, from relentless corporate product placement to the over-sexing of America. The President of the United States, in the future, is a pro-wrestler and porn star who walks around in red, white and blue wrestling tights.

Luke Wilson plays the lead and does a decent job. (It’s surprising how much he sounds like his blonde brother.)

There are some funny bits in here. My favorite was the hospital receptionist, who had to select a button with an icon based on the ailment of the incoming patient - a pregnant woman is depicted with a baby falling out underneath her. But the laughs aren’t overwhelming. The problem with this film is that, in showing a dumb American culture of the future, the humor has to come from dumb people doing dumb things. (You’ll see a lot of mimicry of sexual positions here, for example.)

Still, this is a good satire and commentary on America. While it is way over the top, it should make you think just a tad about where we are headed.

Sadly, many folks who watched this film didn’t get it at all. If you ever read online reviews at IMBD or Blockbuster, you’ll notice that the people who write the shortest, least intelligible reviews usually respond with “That’s dumb!” when they don’t like a film. Many criticized Idiocracy for being dumb - but dumb it is not. If that’s the best you’ve got to say about this film, you are kind of proving its point.