Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Reaper - Surprisingly Good!

I missed the premiere of Reaper because it was on during one of my favorite shows - House. With so many pseudo-supernatural shows out this season, I have mostly succumbed to apathetic overwhelm about it all - who has the time? Yet, I tuned in on Thursday night, when they aired the premiere again during Supernatural’s normal time slot. Good thing they did - they have a new fan!

Having no idea what to expect, I was quickly drawn into the show. The premise isn’t anything unique - parents have sold the soul of their first-born son to Satan, and the bill comes due when he turns 21. It’s the delivery that’s fantastic. We’ve got a bunch of slacker guys running around trying to find escapees from Hell and return them back to the pit. They aren’t that good at it, which is part of the fun. Among the implements provided in episode one: a magical hand-held vacuum - a “Dirt Devil,” of course, and superhero outfits that include household fire alarms.

My favorite part was when they got all geared up to go get the bad guy, but then realized that the Dirt Devil needed a recharge. Sooo funny!

This show had me laughing out loud - which is a rarity for me on TV these days. The only gripe I have is one small joke that included some animal cruelty, but otherwise, this was well-written and exceptionally well-executed.

I’m sorry this is on opposite House so I’ll have to record it for viewing later. Definitely one of the better new shows I’ve seen in a while. I hope it does well.

New Bionic Woman - Blah

I am open to the new Bionic Woman winning me over, but the premiere didn’t cut it for me. It was so trite, so typical of TV these days, and so utterly non-engaging that I found myself skipping over to watch the American version of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. The cockroaches swarming in that Indian kitchen were 10 times more compelling than the new Bionic Woman.

Special effects - pretty bad. Acting - not so hot. Bionic Woman’s little sister - bizarrely adult and too much of a supermodel for someone who appeared to be, what, 14? (I was a bit creeped out.) Jamie Somers herself - ehh. Katie Sackoff - probably the best thing in the show despite her clownish makeup. I know this got good ratings, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch this.

If it gets any better, let me know.

Moving This Blog to a New Webhost…Possible Downtime

You may have noticed…the site has been sporadically offline for the past few days. This is due to a really crappy webhost that I am in the process of leaving. They started off just fine, but lately I can expect some major downtime every few months that will often last for up to a week. The sites will go down, they’ll say they have fixed it, and then the sites keep going down for the rest of the week.

I have a bunch of websites, and I got an account with Dreamhost a year ago to test them out and also for the additional bandwidth. So half of my sites have been on Dreamhost for a year, and the other half (including this one) have been on the crappy webhost.

Well, Dreamhost has won out for being more reliable and affordable. I know some people who hate Dreamhost, but they apparently haven’t tried my other webhost (which will go nameless). Dreamhost isn’t perfect, but what webhost is? With their amazingly good prices, their generous bandwith allocation, and their commitment to the environment, I am now moving all my sites to Dreamhost.

The process will happen over the next week and this site may experience some downtime or strange errors while I get everything set up again. Thanks for your patience!

Sanctuary, a Web-Based TV Show

This looks interesting - Sanctuary is a science fiction show available online for a small fee per episode. While I’m not into monsters, I’ll try to check it out soon, if just to support the concept. We know we can’t trust television networks to nurture good shows anymore, so perhaps this is the start of a new mode of distribution.

Stephen King’s The Shining - 1997 Miniseries

In 1980, Stanley Kubrick directed the horror masterpiece The Shining. It’s something I grew up with (all the school kids used to mimic “Redrum” at lunchtime) and it is definitely a classic. So it was with low hopes that I popped in the DVD for the 1997 version of The Shining.

This is the version Stephen King always wanted to do - he was unhappy with Kubrick’s version, which veered greatly from the book. For example, Kubrick added a hedge maze instead of topiary animals. So King decided he wanted to set things right by creating a miniseries for The Shining. Continue reading Stephen King’s The Shining - 1997 Miniseries…

If You Were to Create a Sci-Fi Show, What Would it Look Like?

Here are some things I’d like to see:

I would like to see some sort of epic space opera along the lines of Star Wars, where swashbuckling, magic, and spaceships all combine for a really good ride.

What about cyberpunk? Am I the only one missing the heady cyberpunk days before the web was solidified? Back before there was a real Internet, it seemed easier to put out a film or a show about the imagined Internet. Remember Tek War and Johnny Mnemonic? Not the best, but I’m kind of missing the hand-waving computer interfaces and the goggled virtual realities. We could do updated cyberpunk, and better.

Alternate universes. I’d like to see something real imaginative done in an alternate universe. Not Sliders, something stranger and very bizarre.

How about you?