Dead Like Who?

Ok. For those of you who haven't seen the prematurely canceled Bryan Fuller created (2003-2004) Showtime television show, Dead Like Me, just imagine Six Feet Under but the plot doesn't unfold around people who live and work in a funeral home, but instead centers around a group of people who are grim reaper's. Sound confusing? It's quite simple really. The main character and narrator, George (a wonderfully sarcastic young women) died at the tender age of eighteen, by of all things, a flying toilet seat that fell out of the sky from space. Sound bad enough? It gets worse. Upon realizing that she was dead and after getting over her frustration, she quickly learns that she was kept on this planet to fulfill the duties of a grim reaper. Their duties are simple, remove the souls of the living shortly before their death and escort them to the "afterlife."

Almost like Buffy, George has a "watcher" figure named Rube who she meets daily at the local cafe to receive her daily reaping assignments, which includes the first initial of the name (and last name) of the soon to be deceased along with the time and location of his/her death. On top of all this, George and her fellow reapers still have to worry about having a normal job (George is a secretary at a typically annoying office appropriately named "Happy Time Temp Services") all a while making sure that the rent is paid on time every month. Also, although the reapers are still "alive" and people can see them, they are not physically the same people that their family/friends knew. Their appearances are distorted and they look nothing like they did in their previous life.

Throughout her short journey on television, George goes through many personal battles that she must face while accepting her death and new job as "watcher among the dead" alongside those who have lived a longer life than she did and have also accepted their grimly faith. For example, in the first season episode titled "Curious George", George must accept the fact that she might never see her family again. However, it may not be so easy for an eighteen year old to accept on face value. Instead, she returns to her childhood home and although her family doesn't recognize her, she still wants to be part of their lives. Quickly learning that it may not be as easy as she thought, George learns the important lesson of the dead hanging around their past, which goes against all the rules of the reaper guidelines.

I could go into further details about why I love the show, but instead I will explain the reason why I chose to write my blog post on Dead Like Me. Besides its obvious connections to the supernatural, D.L.M is another example of one of those brilliant shows that got canceled way before their time. Just like Arrested Development, Wonderfalls (also developed by Bryan Fuller), and Freaks and Geeks just to name a few. D.L.M is a precious gem among recent crappy television and without the repeats on the SCIFI Channel, I might have never discovered/fell in love with its brilliant character development and dark/twisted story-lines.

 It's been recently announced that a direct-to-DVD movie will be released soon, which is set two years following where the television show left off. So unlike some of the other shows mentioned above (Arrested Development will hopefully be made into a movie, YAY!), Dead Like Me will have some closure for the fans and I can't wait to watch more of the reaper's crazy adventures! Ok, now I'm off to watch more television, in the mean time... tell me what you like about the show or other shows that were canceled too early that you thought didn't get their fair run.

More info on Dead Like Me.

Two-faced baby worshipped as goddess

How's this for a sign of the end times?

Baby born in India has two faces.

Carnivale Bibliography anyone?

For those of you contemplating writing your second essay on Carnivale, I have a bibliography of articles and such that may prove helpful (there is not a whole lot of academic research material available on the show specifically). Email me if you would like a copy and I can arrange to leave a copy for you in my mailbox, or leave a few of them outside my office.

Remember, your abstract is due on Thursday! Please bring a copy of it to class. Email me with any questions.

Your third blog post is due Thursday as well, although for those of you who have not done it yet, you may have until Friday...one extra day.

That black and white image at the top of my last post wasn't supposed to be there.

That's Howard Hughes standing atop the Spruce Goose.

It was supposed to be this.

Lost in Space, Old Versus New

In the late nineties, early oughts, we as Americans were subjected to what seemed like an unremitting barrage of terrible sci-fi(The Thirteenth Floor, Batman and Rpbin, and The Avengers) and based on television (Charlie's Angels, 'nuff said) films, but I think it can be argued that by far the worst film of this entire period was Lost in Space, a film that was based on a 60s television show that mercilessly sucked on all eight cylinders. It was painful. It was unwatchable. It was the movie that finally beat Titanic for the top spot on the weekend chart. I will always defend Titanic, even though I can admit its flaws, but seriously, this is the alternative? Lost in Space?

For those of you who might happen to be one of God's favorite's who have not seen the film, let me explain it to you. In the future, a family gets lost in space. That's about it, but to complicate things, they go through time as well as space, and Gary Oldman is with them. Naturally, the hero is Matt LeBlanc, who spends his time shooting at different things he doesn't understand/disagrees with, and has this metal mask that makes it look like the movie is going to be cool for a second, but of course isn't. They even pick up this big-eyed space pet. Sweet Jesus.

But the real accomplishment (in honor of the Pulitzers, which were announced today) is that they were able to make something worse than the original television show. The plot was essentially the same, save that Gary Oldman's character was in fact a mincing pedophile who never had anything better to do on this desolate planet than hang out with Bill Mumy. There was really only one set, which was pretty lousy, and they never get off the planet.

What's the lesson here, though? That when utter crap takes itself seriously and we don't get to see Dr. Zachary Smith preening about and making weird insults at a big robot, the ability to watch it at all goes way down.

To see Jonathan Harris pretend he didn't make the world a worse place, look here.

Everybody hates John Locke.

... no not THAT John Locke...

So I’m in a unique position writing this post because as everyone knows, I have not seen any of the episodes from the new season of “Lost”. I absolutely despise watching shows on television, being forced to sit through commercials and then have to wait a week (at least) to find out what happens. As such, I have seen all the episodes up until this point, but I have watched them on DVD. That being said, I am in a unique position, because I don’t know (nor do I wish to know) what is happening currently on the show.

But getting back on track, from what I gather listening to everyone I know who watches, everybody hates John Locke… everyone but me that is.

I constantly have arguments defending Locke, and while I understand why people hate him, I will qualify my defense of him with the statement that I’m not defending the character, his actions or motivations, I am defending the structure of the character, as a character.

Few people can deny the allure of the villain, and while there are many different types of villains, John Locke is one of the most entertaining types of villains. He is ambiguous, but all knowing. He’s not a mindless brute like a zombie or an “I know what you did last summer” type. He is calculated and mysterious. Just the fact that we had to wait until the third season to find out what the hell happened to his legs meant that we were constantly in a state of wonder, and constantly questioning him. Was it something huge like a train wreck, or perhaps he was paralyzed saving a bunch of drowning orphans from a great white shark. Maybe he was paralyzed drowning a bunch of orphans in a bathtub, or, likelier still, maybe his injury had nothing to do with drowning orphans at all! Like him or not, one couldn’t help but wonder what happened to him.

We also can’t help but wonder generally what his deal is. A great example of his mystery is early on, when he’s walking to the hatch (remember that thing?) with boon (remember that guy?) and he says that it’s going to rain, and then it starts raining immediately. He may be a prick, but it’s hard to deny the fact that he’s in tune with the island somehow.

Benjamin Linus is another great example of a villain in this same vein, and when the two of them get together its villain-tastic.

Admittedly, Locke comes unraveled in the later episodes, but early Locke is a lot of fun to watch. The villains are always the most fun part to watch, even when we look at simple superheroes, the heroes are always defined by their villains, Batman has Joker, Mr. Freeze, Two Face, etc. Spiderman has all of his lame villains, and Superman is just a stupid flying jerk… but I think I’m getting off topic here. Everyone loves villains, just look at this crazy guy’s page about villains, I even found an instructional page on how to become a villain .

John Locke is a great villain because you’re never really sure that he IS a villain, and ambiguous villains are the best. I think it was in the movie “Unbreakable” where Samuel Jackson’s character is talking about two different types of villains, and he says that you always have to look at the eyes, for the most dangerous types, you can see it in the eyes.

You might have to make a metaphorical deal with the devil... and by devil I mean Robot Devil, and by metaphorical I mean get your coat.

So we haven’t really talked about animated shows.

Nor have we talked about one of the finest animated shows ever created… I speak of course of “Futurama”

Amidst the science fiction genre are all manner of supernatural beings and situations. Aliens and robots are standard characters, and we can visit all different kinds of planets and situations that would not normally be possible. The beauty of "Futurama" though, is that all these things are done in a very intelligent way. Listening to the audio commentaries on the DVD, one can see just how much (sometimes unnecessarily complicated) thought goes into a lot of simple decisions. In a first season episode where the characters are on the moon, the animators and directors had long conversations about how to properly depict the moon, what side would be lit, what part of planet earth you would be able to see from the moon, and how the leftover lunar lander would be depicted.

In a later episode involving time travel, the writers and directors deliberately chose situations and events that would be rare, appropriate for the show, and SOMEWHAT plausible for the situation. They made the directorial choice to have time travel be something that could happen, but not happen so much that it could be done whenever the characters wanted.

In addition to the various supernatural characters and events on the show, “Futurama” does what any decent science fiction show does, and it does it very well at that. It comments on present day society. An entire show is dedicated to global warming, for example. Feminism, various prejudices, organized religion, and even issues regarding Native Americans are all fodder for the science fiction institution. Science fiction shows can get away with a lot of things that shows set in the present day cannot. The robot character Bender drinks and smokes cigars and is generally a self centered mischievous troublemaker, but he is a robot, so it’s ok.

“Futurama,” like most shows that were cancelled too early, has a very dedicated fan base that picks apart every episode, discovering all the nerdy in jokes, and techno-speak. There are many of these fan sites, but I stumbled across this one in case anyone was interested.

All in all, “Futurama” was a great show with compelling characters that supported its wonderfully fun vision of the future.

Finally, all I have to say is "I apologize.... for nothing!!"