Ten years of TV

I've tried to keep this blog focused on sci-fi.

Blogs are supposed to be focused, or so I'm told by other, much more successful blogs. Go deep, go in-depth, specialize. Except I'm not writing sci-fi research papers and never will, so maybe it doesn't matter and it's time to write whatever the freakin' heck I feel like.

I was thinking about all the TV series I've watched over the last 10 years, what I liked, and what I didn't. Not what was objectively good (as much as anything subjective can be objective), but just what I responded to favorably.

After all, a show might have good writing, acting, pacing, cinematography, and direction, and still not be my cup of tea.

So I decided to do up a list. It has nothing to do with objective merits, however. It's not an argument. It's entirely, indulgently subjective, showing my bad taste in all its consumerist glory.

Went through Wikipedia lists of TV programs year by year. Some I'd forgotten about completely. Funny, that. And I stopped watching a lot after 1 or 2 seasons. Even ones I liked. Time issues? Just not really compelling? Dunno.

So how much processed entertainment have I consumed? Loads. Then again, it is over a ten year period.

I'll bet you're just dying of curiosity, aren't you?

No?

Oh.

Well, too late. I already wrote it up:


LOVING IT!
Game of Thrones
Breaking Bad
Mr. Robot
Battlestar Galactica (Season 1)
Suits (Season 1)
Damages (Season 1 & 2)
Orphan Black (Season 1)
Rick and Morty
Misfits (Seasons 1 & 2)
The IT Crowd
That Mitchell and Webb Look
Penny Dreadful
The 100
Fringe (Seasons 1 to 3)
The Wire
Rome
Firefly
Southpark
Band of Brothers
The Pacific


KEEP IT COMING:
Suits (Season 2)
True Detective (Season 1)
Homeland (Season 1-3)
Black Mirror
House of Cards (Season 1 & 2)
Boardwalk Empire (Seasons 1-3)
Battlestar Galactica (Season 2 and start of season 3) 
American Horror Story (Seasons 1)
Community (Seasons 1 & 2)
Deadwood
Madmen (Season 1 & 2)
Six Feet Under
Justified
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Americans
Jericho (Season 1)
Doctor Who (Infrequently)


PASSABLE TIME-WASTERS: 
Orphan Black (Season 2)
The Walking Dead (Season 1, 3, skipped 2)
Fear the Walking Dead
Doctor Who (Sometimes)
House (Sampled)
Sherlock
American Horror Story (Seasons 2)
24 (First few seasons at least, not sure when I stopped watching)
Law & Order (Here and there)
Stargate Universe
Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (Season 2, skipped 1)
The Tudors (Season 1)
Spartacus (Season 1)
Agent Carter
Lost (Season 1, first couple of episodes)
Angel
Jericho (Season 2)
The Killing (Season 1, first half or so)


NOT SO PASSABLE TIME-WASTERS:
Sopranos (Here and there)
Girls (Season 1)
House of Cards (Season 3)
Sons of Anarchy (Seasons 1 & part of 2)
Fringe (Seasons 4+)
Arrested Development (Season 1)
Caprica
Borgias (Season 1)
Marvel Agents of SHIELD (Season 1)
Star Trek: Enterprise
In Treatment (Season 1)


LIKE A CAR WRECK:
V
The Strain (Season 1)
Misfits (Season 3)
Battlestar Galactica (End of season 3)
Spartacus (Final season)
Vikings
Surface
Doctor Who (Currently)


DEAR GOD, TURN IT OFF!
Battlestar Galactica (Season 4)
Helix

Sci-fi Overdose: The Martian, Doctor Who, 12 Monkeys, Fear the Walking Dead, and Rick and Morty, etcetera...

I like sci-fi.

Really, I do.

At least, that's what I tell myself.

But you can have too much of a good thing.

Since starting this blog, I've written more about science fiction than, well, ever. Not only have I watched and read sci-fi, I've thought and written about it. I've stuck with some shows longer than I would have with the intent writing reviews.

Now I've got sci-fi overload. Time for a break.

Why? Things are bugging me that arguably shouldn't.

The Martian, for example. Thought it a super smart snore, even though the ad hoc science was awesome. People can do such wondrous things. Should have liked it. Didn't.

Jurassic World? All the spectacular visuals and none of the smarts of the original.

First several episodes of the new Doctor Who season? Didn't like them, either. Viewership for the show is falling (it may not come back next year for a full run as a result, just a few specials) and what are they doing? Fan service and convoluted plots that alienate casual viewers. The whole franchise is spiralling down into a black hole of self-reference.

The Before the Flood two parter had a much more appealing pace, and even gave the guest actors room to breathe and develop. There were some nice, creepy moments, too, but overall, it felt flat.

The episode depends on a gullible Pull-My-Finger villain, again, one ready to believe anything the doctor says, and so conveniently doom himself.

Someone should make a show: The Universe's Stupidest Space Invaders. 'Monsters' might be more appropriate, but 'Invaders' is catchier. Every week they'd show a bunch of alien morons who try and invade earth, only to be killed by dirty telephones, get eaten by a small dog, defeated by love, or vanquished by their fatal water allergy.

For over 50 years, Doctor Who has eschewed supernatural explanations, preferring (pseudo) scientific ones. 'Demons' would invariably prove to be aliens. Supernatural powers would turn out to be super science. Yet in the last two-parter, the show had ghosts. Not disembodied 'consciousnesses', or rogue information waves, but actual for realsies ghosts. Souls. Weaponized souls, in fact, turned into homicidal puppets by three written symbols.

That has major ramifications for Doc Who: if souls are real, where do they go? Are Heaven and Hell real now as well? Moffat seems keen on this question, and had a faux-Heaven (or was it Purgatory? Whatever...) last season, presided over by Missy. But that was the usual and expected high tech fake out. I don't remember any caveats this time around and it seemed out of character for the program.

Feeling ambivalent about Fear the Walking Dead. It's arguably sci-fi, set in a future affected by a fantastical virus. It's also pretty nihilistic. Standard for zombie fare, I suppose. The government is incompetent, the army malevolent and oppressive and untrustworthy to the point of cliche. Perhaps that is necessary to accelerate The Apocalypse.

Fear gives us a range of characters, from pacifist Travis on one end to ex-torturer war criminal guy on the other. Now, pacifism invites violence and is an extremist position that generally can only survive while protected within the body of The Leviathan, but contrasting it so simplistically against a torturer just feels cheap.

And remember, kids: 'Torture never works!' That's why Hollywood shows it working, over and over and over again. Make up your minds, people.

It's essentially Joseph Mengele vs. Ghandi, and in this universe Mengele is right every time. Because ya gots to do what ya gots ta do, it's a tough world, people are worse than flesh eating zombies, and squishy Liberal qualms will get you killed.

To nail the point home, Travis Gandhi McPacifist frees a young army soldier who was tortured by Salazar McMengele and whom the torturer is going to kill, to keep him quiet. The young man then comes back, and to underline how wrong mercy is, shoots not McMengele, but McMengele's hapless daughter, whereupon Gandhi abandons his ideals entirely and nearly beats the soldier to death.

It's a bit much.

Story beats like these, handled deftly, could be fascinating and thought provoking, illustrating how our moral choices are curtailed by difficult circumstances. But here it was delivered with the subtlety of a two by four to the head.

Too didactic.

When I look at all the anti-hero trend on TV, it's putting me off: serial killers, brutal mobsters, sophisticated cannibals, charming psychopaths, and worse are the new protagonists.

It's become anti-hero-palooza!

Even The Doctor is more of a dick these days ('She cares so I don't have to'). And it's a kids show.

Refreshing at first, an antidote to preternatural Brady Bunch optimism, but the pendulum just keeps swinging out.

Non-fiction teaches us about the world. Fiction shows us how to live in it. Moral lessons are invariably imparted by the best stories. Consequences are revealed for evaluation, but it's better done with subtlety than a bludgeon, or stacking the deck so heavily it makes the audience groan. Studies have shown that reading stories can expand people's ability to empathize. Stephen Pinker credits storytelling with changing attitudes in Angels of Our Better Nature. But you need a deft touch. The Martian, for example, delivers a message about perseverance and hope and ingenuity and self-reliance, but it's not punching you in the face with it.


On the positive side, Fear has a tremendously creepy ambiance, and great action sequences.  like the actors and their acting choices. I especially like the actress playing Madison. She has a quiet intensity.

But there are character inconsistencies, too.

For example, a doctor in the finale calls for extraction of herself, her staff, and her patients to an airbase. The med station starts to be overrun by zombies before the choppers can set down, so they abandon the rescue operation. Shortly thereafter the doctor says there is nowhere to go, and commits suicide (off-screen, but heavily implied). Hello? Where was she going to be extracted to, just minutes earlier, if there was nowhere to go? The med station was overrun, but there was no word of the helicopter destination being compromised. That didn't change, so why doesn't her character try and go via ground vehicle? More dramatic to kill herself. Yet it doesn't make the slightest sense and should have been caught by a story editor. It's a minor thing that didn't have to stick out.

Too piddly a concern? Too minor a nitpick? Yeah, maybe.

I am looking forward to next season though. Because they're going to sea, which means pirates!

Fear the Walking Dead is Shakespeare compared to The Strain. Fun idea making vampires a sort of sentient virus / hookworm infection, but ugh. Stay away. It's gotten so bad it may one day be good for drinking games, but right now… not so much.

It's on the same level as Helix. I cut out of that after one season, despite the peppy soundtrack.

12 Monkeys surprised me. Thought they'd just drag out the original movie into an interminable multi-season slog that gets cancelled before the finale is ever reached. But it was an entertaining ride. Except, of course, for a weird character change midway through the season that didn't work. They say they set it up. I don't think they did.

I liked Orphan Black but lost interest when crazy psycho-killer Helena changed into quirky Auntie Helena.

That was just weird.

Not every show can be Mr. Robot: the characters here are so strong I'm on board no matter how bat shit insane the twists are. And they are cray-zee. This program has some seriously powerful writing, bro, and the acting is beyond top notch. Don't even recognize the actors, other than Christian Slater, but I expect to see plenty of them in future. The cinematography and wild, off centre framing, the score, the twisted characters… all superlative. The pacing is perfect, not needlessly frenetic. I'm learning a lot just watching the show. It's not for everyone, but give it a whirl. You may just like it. But it isn't SF.

The real and for true sci-fi program I'm enjoying at the moment is Rick and Morty. It's acerbic and cutting and endlessly cynical, but has the saving grace of being devastatingly funny.

Naturally the characters aren't terribly likeable.

Penny Dreadful, The 100, and Game of Thrones are all darkly brilliant, but they're on hiatus, and only one is really SF.

There's a big divide between being a consumer of fiction and a creator of it. As a consumer, I feel free to criticize and analyze, but as a creator, much less so. I know how hard it can be to create something, never mind something great.

On the one hand, TV shows have editors and writer rooms of talented people and resources to boot, so you expect a lot. On the other, they are working within tight timelines with restricted budgets, limited control, and under intense pressure from multiple directions.

As a wannabe writer, who the heck am I to judge?

So I'm taking a break from my amateur movie and TV reviews before I become more dyspeptic.

Books are another matter...

The Martian vs. Interstellar vs. Gravity vs. Prometheus

The Martian, based on Andy Weir's book, is about a paper thin character and his struggle to survive after being abandoned on Mars. He does so by eating potatoes grown in his own shit and using copious amounts of duct tape.

Basically, it's MacGyver in Spaaaaace.

I'm being facetious, of course.

Weir heavily researched his book, and everything in it is plausible. That Andy Weir researched all this in the first place is, and worked it into a novel, is impressive. That scientists figured out everything for Weir to research is even more amazing.

Human beings can do such miraculous feats, like going to other planetary bodies (we've already reached the moon). It just makes me think I must be part of a different species. The characters in the film are fictionalized versions of all the very smart people down at NASA.

The film spends a great deal of time on Matt Damon 'sciencing the shit out of' his predicament. Which, initially, is pretty cool. He grows the aforementioned potatoes, for example. He co-opts an older probe. He uses radiation for heat. And so on.

The only thing they don't spend much time on is the human element, and without interest in him as a person, interest in his situation wanes as the film drags on and piles on disaster on top of another.

He has no love interest, for example. No close friends. His parents are mentioned, once, but he seems in no hurry to speak to them. They are not invited to NASA to view his return, or to write to him, or, well, anything.

They cover his relationships with his coworkers a little, but it never goes more than puddle deep.

It could so easily have been different.

The human element here is mostly, if not entirely, afterthought.

Gravity takes something of the same approach. We start with the disaster, so there's little time to flesh out Sandra Bullock's character. But that's less of a problem here: she has George Clooney to play off of, and the film is really an IMAX roller coaster ride in space. No need for rumination. Because lookout, space debris! Gravity isn't a deep film, and doesn't pretend to be. That's not the genre.

The Martian, on the other hand, had potential to be far more affecting emotionally than it was.

Castaway got to me. The Martian never did.

Interstellar had dodgy science. Three habitable planets around a black hole? Where was the light coming from? One hour on the surface is a year aboard the ship? Say what? What would that mean for satellite TV reception?

My monkey-brained understanding is that, even with a 'perfect' star like ours, Venus is too close, and Mars too far away, to support life. We're in just the right spot. It can vary a bit, but not much. The idea of finding three planets with stable orbits around a black hole seems… unlikely. But hey, I'm no scientist.

It scarcely matters: if you put the science of Interstellar aside (and I only bring it up because I was told so often how accurate and real it was), the film is much more enjoyable. They establish an emotional connection, and background, between the protagonist and his daughter. Love is at the centre of the film. Powerful, primal emotion the viewer can connect with. It has a heart, however overwrought.  

The Martian's heart barely beats. It's more like an episode of Nova or something.

Gravity felt like a realistic portrayal of a disaster in space, as far as Hollywood goes. The rapport between Bullock and Clooney sold it for me emotionally. Especially Clooney's seeming sacrifice, and unexpected return. They managed to make me care enough that the action sequences, and Bullock's fate, mattered.

By contrast, the lack of emotional depth in The Martian made the film a long, slow slog. There's a great bit with the Council of Elrond, and some clever and funny lines, but it needed more than cleverness. There's no looking into the empty void. No real anguish at being abandoned. He doesn't plumb the depths, he's too practical, so when he rises at the end it doesn't carry much emotional heft.

You just don't give a shit.

Some critics are saying The Martian is Ridley Scott 'returning to form' after the disaster that was Prometheus. I saw that film: it was gorgeous, creepy, and well cast, but didn't make a lick of sense. But you know what? I'd sooner watch Prometheus again than The Martian. I was never bored watching the former, while the latter made me shift in my seat and look at my watch.

Yes, I still have a watch.

Prometheus has characters who are interesting basket cases. The engineers are cool and mysterious. The android is ambiguous in intent. There's a lot going on to look at and absorb. It's a mess, honestly, but it's an interesting mess.

The Martian, on the other hand, is a slighter offering, despite the science. Despite the realism, or perhaps because of it, the picture was boring.

That's a cardinal sin for a piece of entertainment.

It should be mentioned that the climax is pulse pounding and I got caught up in it, but getting there was far more painful than it had to be.

Ultimately, The Martian just raised my opinion of Interstellar, Prometheus, and Gravity (although I already had a high opinion of Gravity).

Is it time to let go of plausibility and embrace the universe altering power of love?

Just remember to bring duct tape.

In Defense of Zombies

Zombies tend to be silent types at the best of times, so when their reputation is maligned by elites, they just aren’t able to defend themselves. This is particularly true of criticism appearing on the internet.

Zombie don't type.

And so it falls upon others to defend their reputation from the wanton calumnies that percolate online.

For you see, lately, smug internet pundits have been bleating on about how the real danger in The Walking Dead franchise is other humans, not zombies. You know, because man is his own worst enemy, blah blah solemn wisdom blah. I take the point, especially on a thematic level, but come on: in the end, this is an overly simplistic cliché that’s been pushed to the point of absurdity.

The time has come to stand up for our humble, bumbling zombie friends. They may be unassuming, slow, uncoordinated, even brain-dead, but they still have it where it counts when it comes to collapsing civilization into a smoking ruin.

The zombie doesn’t brag. They're above that. They're brain-dead. But then, they don’t have to brag: their work speaks for itself.

First, without zombies, there wouldn’t even be an apocalypse in the first place.

Seriously.

How many people tried to eat your face off on your way to work this morning? Are 99% of your friends and family zombie chow? No? Isn’t that odd. After all, in the real world there are a lot more of those dangerous human things than in The Walking Dead. It’s populated mostly by zombies.

I wonder how that happened.

Me? I'd rather sit in a cafe populated by humans, rather than undead flesh eaters, but that's just me.

Typically, a war kills a very tiny proportion of the overall population, and most die due to disease or famine that are side effects of the fighting, rather than in actual combat.

Yet the lowly zombie, in short order, kills off 99% of the entire population of the planet. And they do it by biting. Up close and personal every time. No atomic bombs, no guns, no knives, no carpet bombing. No nerve gas, no gas chambers.

Just teeth.

The death toll of the Second World War is between 50 and 80 million, spread over five years. And that’s using every weapon humanity had at its disposal, from machine guns to a-bombs.

Pathetic.

Zombies? They kill SEVEN FREAKING BILLION in a quarter that time.

With their teeth.

I can't emphasize that enough.

That's like making a suit of power armour in a cave using spare parts and an old blow torch.

Many humans would die from disease and starvation, as transportation and supply networks collapse, but the show never covers this. And the disruption is caused by our modest zombie masses, anyway.

So I ask you: which is more dangerous? Human or zombie?

Yeah. That's right.

Suck it up.

So let’s all show our putrifying undead friends some well deserved respect.

Sure, the living could unleash nuclear Armageddon at any time. Send 70,000 nuclear warhead tipped missiles criss-crossing the globe to blossom and burst. But we haven’t. And it isn’t even looking likely.

Human possibility isn’t the same as zombie certainty. Zombies don't hold back.

Maybe if the characters in The Walking Dead decided the real enemy was, oh, I don’t know, the freaking zombies, they wouldn’t be on the brink of extinction.

Just a humble suggestion.