I'll admit that pun was a bit of a stretch, but Joss is back in the medium!
but...and you knew there would be, it's on Fox with a 7 episode commitment. Which most likely means that it'll suffer the same fate as firefly; poorly advertised and be given an inconsistent timeslot. On the plus side, the concept sounds very cool, and with Joss you know it's in good hands. Oh, and did I mention Eliza Dushku is the lead? The drama (...) stars Dushku as Echo, a member of a group of men and women who are imprinted with different personalities for different assignments. In between tasks they are mind-wiped, living like children in Dollhouse, a futuristic dorm/lab. They have no memories of their previous lives, until Echo begins to try to find out who she was. from the hollywood reporter
Knowing Joss' literary pedigree, I was hoping the title was an allusion to the Henrik Ibsen play, especially considering Whedon's predilection towards exploring feminist themes. I think it would be interesting to see Joss do something outside of the scifi-fantasy genre, but having him back on TV, even if it's not long lived, will be great.
shamelessly snurched from FSJ the striking resemblance between Alfredo Linguini, the young and incompetent yet hubristic and overconfident chef who is manipulated and controlled by rats in Disney's Ratatouille, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
I think one of the neatest things about Mormonism is how quintessentially American it is. It was born in America, features a great migratory story, pretty much echoing the Jewish Exodus, and makes no compromises (at least it didn't initially). It's all about Joseph Smith (yeah, that guy from the south park episode) who at a young age claimed to have met Moses and Jesus and had divine revelation. And young Joseph convinced his religiously divided family (his mother was a protestant and his father was a catholic if I remember correctly) to abandon their fates and follow him as the new prophet.
The religion draws alot of skepticism as the next part of the story involves Joseph discovering what would become the book of Moron, which involves mysterious golden plates of which no evidence remains, which claim that Jesus came to the new world and brought the word of god to the natives, which lead to a war between these new Christians and other natives.
The really interesting thing about Mormonism isn't just the mythology behind it, and how it perhaps doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny, but rather it's evolution. The book of Mormon was first published in 1830, not even 200 years ago, relatively speaking, it's a very young religion, and unlike other religions' formative periods, we have relatively accurate records of what was going on at that time. In addition, Smith lead one form or another of the church until his death in 1844. So we have a prophet, making prophecies for his people, including endorsing polygamy at one point, and creating the Mormon doctrine of baptism at death. So, from an objective, logical point, we can question these prophecies and perhaps attribute them to less than pure desires, but what about our other world religions? are their doctrines any better for their uncertain genesis?
Mormons believe in baptizing a soul after death, for a life after death that is quite unlike any christian concept. They believe that the body is completely reconstituted in heaven, and that your family in this world will be your family in the next. In fact, Mormons believe that the message of Joseph Smith is that we all have the potential to be like God by attaining the highest level of heaven. (yup, Smith's heaven has levels). And don't forget about those mormon missionaries you see going door to door, that's a key precept of the faith that everyone partakes in at a young age, and finances from their own life savings.
Definitely a polarizing religion, but the end result is a very tight knit group of faithful...minus the gays. Mormons don't like gays.
Battlestar galactica is the show everyone is watching, even those who don't claim to like Scifi, it's topical, it's serious and it's more weighty than those old greek words like hubris.
And I loathe it. I loathe it with a special enmity I only reserve for the premier of the province and anyone remotely associated with the name Chretien.
My problem stems from the entire concept of the show. It claims to be non-specifically topical, dealing with the issue of terrorism, ie how would the last survivors of earth survive whilst continually pursued by robots who are trying to become human (by killing the humans). As a result, we've got more anixt than Lilith Fair and the entire series of Dawson's Creek put together. Everyone's conflicted, so conflicted in fact that there's really no character development at all, everyone's in a rut with their father issues, or their woman trying to be a guy issues. The there's the self proud imagery, the women all fighting over phallic imagery and, my own personal favorite, is the pretentious names, not the least of which is the executive officer named Saul...yeah, like the biblical Paul before he converted. And shocker, Saul turns out to be a sleeper agent. I should mention through, that some of the actors on this program are spectacular, Mary McDonnell especially.
Anways, all this leads up to this month, where battlestar galactica (BSG), in preparation for it's final season, aired a 90 minute episode which features extra backstory to an episode from last season featuring Michelle Forbes (Ensign Ro from TNG) as an admiral of another battlestar who made more draconian decisions than the crew of Galactica. Now the previous arc did not show these attrocities but rather mentioned them as hearsay by the crew, which, in my opinion made the episode better, ambiguity makes for better motivation and better television. Instead this episode takes us through a catalogue of these atrocities in excruciating detail, while taking breaks to show us how none of the characters have really made any kind of headway with their issues, the previously mentioned father issues figure prominently.
scifi is going through some growing pains these days, the vaccum left by the absence of the star trek franchise on the small screen has made for some unexpected successes. Star trek had definitely run its course (and then some), but now we're stuck with an equally underwhelming array of programs, from the successes of Stargate Atlantis and BSG, to the cancellations of stellar shows like Farscape and Firefly, and Doctor Who which rose from the dead in 2005. This recent season of television, instead of bringing in fresh new ideas for scifi, has been rehashing old ones, a re-imagining of the bionic woman, a tv series based on terminator 2, and a new version of the prisoner is scheduled for next season. (the original prisoner staring Partick McGoughan is must see tv FYI). Interestingly, some scifi writers have abandoned network TV and are going into other mediums, JMS, creator of Babylon 5, has returned to his franchise with direct to DVD movies and Joss Whedon has abandonned the visual medium and is writing Buffy comics. The henson company is making webisodes of the their cancelled Farscape series with the hope of creating interest in a return for the series.
So where are the fresh ideas?
Scifi isn't the only genre to be suffering, what i'd term as the HBO genre is also in something of a tail spin, more on that next time.
I tend to rabbit on about Stephen Fry quite a bit, and as he's something of an unknown this side of the pond I thought I'd post a little something of his. He hosts a quiz show that's not really a quiz show, more an excuse for witty banter between himself and his comedian contestants. As he says, the points don't matter! enjoy!
color me surprised, Chavez's reforms were defeated by the slimmest of margins, of 51 to 49.
Honestly, I'm most surprised that Mr Chavez hasn't been using his already considerable power to influence the results. He was elected with a majority in excess of 60%, which, while not impossible, is pretty remarkable, and does raise the question of electoral tampering, especially in a country not well known for a long democratic history.
Speaking of electoral fraud, the white house had this to say; "It looks like the people spoke their minds, and they voted against the reforms that Hugo Chavez had recommended and I think that bodes well for the country's future and freedom and liberty," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
