Friday 30 October 2009

Defying sense...

Alright, to the one person reading this Blog I just bet you want to know what I think of Defying Gravity. It defies all laws of writing and common sense. Now I like bad TV shows, heck I like Galactica 1980, but Defying Gravity doesn't even have the excuse of just a bit of fun...

Let's tackle this head on. It's dull, irritating and monotonous. No that doesn't quite cover it, pick up a piece of blank paper and stare at it for 45 minutes and you get the general idea. Eventually you'll see some sort of pattern, but that's just your imagination. What you have is basically bland and unimaginative people wandering about a giant space ship that's sent around the solar system on behalf of some strange alien living in pod four. Quite why they'd do that is the mystery of the whole show but lets be honest I don't care. No one does and that's why it's been cancelled.

So why is it so boring and dull? Because, let's face it, space travel is dull. Seriously, it's like being in the back seat of a car or on a ferry. You sit there and nothing happens, you can look out the window or play chess. That makes thrilling television, so rather than let a story happen they have to force it. First with the Mystery arc plot (the alien in pod four) and then with romantic tension between the cast. Both of those are long term arcs. So what about short term... well nothing. It's all foreshadowing and romance.

Back in the day Star Trek the Next Generation would, in an effort to save budget and show off it's actors, write a bottle episode. Where the cast would just wander around the ship solving a problem. This saves them having to build new sets and pay guest actors. They were padding, but they had some good moments in them. I mention this because that's all Defying Gravity feels like, one long drawn out series of bottle episodes.

Now my big problem with this show isn't the shear dull story-line, but it's science. specifically, and ironically how it deals with gravity. In a good sci-fi show were asked to accept gravity, it's not feasible to try and replicate zero gravity for a TV show so they come up with a reason. Be it a technological advancement with Grav-plating, gravity nets or other tricks like magnetism and rotating sections. Defying Gravity opts for the latter, building the ship with huge spinning arms. Unfortunately they missed the fricking point. Spinning sections send the G-forces away from the ship yet in every shot we get it appears that gravity is pulling towards the central core and not away.

I know I'm nit picking here, but if you're going to go out of your way to explain something at least get it right! Another suggestion for their gravity (in the bits that don't spin) is nano technology in their clothes, being pulled down by magnets. Now I can understand people not figuring out gravity, it's a bit complex in the end of the day, but magnets? They've been understood for ages and nanoscopic robots would be in trouble. Why? Because any magnet powerful enough to produce earth like gravity would rearrange all the ions in them. The result would be frying the robots like throwing bacon on a fusion reactor. Even worse unlike gravity, that is constant at what ever height that you find yourself, a magnets pull is more powerful the closer you get to it. With obvious results (if it's earth like at head height then at ground level it must be so much stronger making it almost impossible to move your feet).

So that's Defying Gravity. Pointless, useless and a waste of time that irritates anyone with a basic knowledge of science. Give it a miss, but I'm a masochist so I won't.


Coming soon:- Sarah Jane Adventures season 3 and Stargate Universe

Monday 26 October 2009



Alright, this is something that I've had planned for years, literally. My Science Fiction novel The Other Side Of The Coin (working title only). I'm not going to give too much away I just want to show you this ship design and share a bit of back story:-

"At the start of the war the Razel refitted their vast cargo drones with small scale weapons, the goal was to use them as interceptors. Specialising in taking out their enemies missiles and fighters. Unfortunately their opponents quickly saw a flaw in this tactic and exploited it, overwhelming a single defensive angle and taking out the weapons first.
"In response the Razel developed Attack Ships. Small and extremely manoeuvrable craft with high speeds. Instead of small range weapons they equipped them with twined long range devices and two squadrons of fighters. While not as heavily armoured as their cargo transport brothers these artificially sentient ships worked in teams, fast becoming the most enduring icon of the war. Even after the development of the Fast Assault Cruiser and the humans legendary Lancer class Super-carrier..."

Saturday 24 October 2009

Flash Forward.

Ugh... Thanks to the glory of on demand Television for the internet I have been able to keep up with Flash Forward. The latest in the US stable of painfully plot-less, over blown and long winded mystery shows. Please shoot me now. Like Lost, Heroes and 2003's Battlestar I am left with a deep feeling of despair at every plot development.

The forgotten ancestor of this "new" trend of sweeping arc plots and adult mystery is, believe it or not, Babylon 5.



I adore B5 and still think it's one of the best shows ever made and as a work of fiction belongs along side Asimov's Foundation Books and J.R.R. Tolken's work. There are reviews all over the internet of Babylon 5, trying to remind people just how epic this show was. It's scale was galactic, spanning more than a thousand years. Vast war's where giants would stride across the stars, and personal battles with addiction. All this took place on and around a single Space station over five years. With a small set cast we came to know and love.

Babylon 5 worked for two reasons. They are simple and missed by all these new up and comers. The first is that EVERY mystery had an answer and that answer not only made sense but had been written and decided before the question was asked and the bred crumbs made. There are no plot holes, no solutions pulled out of thin air. Everything was carefully structured and put together carefully in an intricate web. You don't get that these days, often even when you do get an answer that makes a lick of sense it doesn't fit with what we already know. Then they pull out the "Oh it's sci-fi, it's not supposed to make sense" card. Just because it says "what if" doesn't mean you can out right ignore common sense and reality. It's called suspension of disbelief, not down right killing it and then dancing an Irish jig on it's corpse to Scottish bagpipes playing Waltzing Matilda!

The second part was characters. You got the impression you were watching people. They had highs and lows, friendships were forged and tested. They had flaws, hopes, dreams, pasts and loves. You felt sorry for them, feared for them. You watched them develop from who they were into who they became.

This spate of shows recently don't have characters, just a random mash of personalities. There are so many of these half formed identities running around. You can't relate to any of them and only remember a handful of names. You don't get lines or acting like this:-


That comes from the character, not the story line. That's how you write drama. Babylon 5 has a lot to answer for, it still over shadows everything that comes after it. Like Doctor Who in British Sci-fi or Star Wars.

In summery Lost makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. The mystery can never be explained to anyone's full satisfaction. From this we learn that we should have a sensible answer to a mystery before writing it.
Heroes has such a large cast they can't develop any of them and flitter about like the editor has ATD. From this we learn to write for charicters and connect with your audience.
Battlestar Galactica pulled plot developments out of it's arse. Never explaining plot holes and going out of it's way to introduce more. Ending the series by throwing everything on Deux ex Machina. No seriously they just said a God like creature arranged the whole thing and pissed off down the pub. What we learnt from this was stretching out a plot line artificially and not having the time to finish it is extremely annoying and alienates the Audience.

Flash Forward seems to have learnt none of this and is treading the same path all the others have.

This is a dark time for TV, soap opera story lines and pointless, aimless, stories that develop nothing. I'm so glad I can watch DVDs and Cartoons...

Thursday 22 October 2009

Oh for FUCKS Sake II. Missing the point

There are very few things that have me cursing. As I posted before, Lana Lang is one of them. Another is someone completely missing the point. Actually Smallville completely missed the point of Lana Lang, and romance in fact. A romance is supposed to be between two equals. Superman's love for Lois Lane is a humanising factor, made more believable by Lois's forceful personality and attitudes.

Anyway back to my point. Life on Mars US. Living in the UK I get really irritated when Americans remake our popular fiction, missing the point entirely. Life on Mars was more than another police drama. It was a testimonial and homage to British police dramas of the gritty 70s.

In the 70's there was a rebellion against the the button up, smart and cool spy image of James Bond. His exact opposite. While on the surface these officers were the lowest of the low, swigging beer and whiskey like water and calling women "slags" at their core everything they did was for the public good. Locking up criminals after beating them to a bloody pulp. Unfortunately the US version missed this. Why, because they didn't have the Sweeny, they had Starsky and Hutch. Buddy cop dramas. Their history is nothing like ours, we didn't have Vietnam, Watergate or hippy peace protesters. We had Mods and Rockers. Stones Vs the Beetles and the British arts and music scene. We have nostalgia for that time. It was a cultural boom. Anyone in America have nostalgia for Vietnam?

So the premise is not only retreating what's been done but are going over a dark time in US history. can you make it worse? sure. Spoilers here but in the end they turned it into a holodeck malfunction on their way to mars. I'm not kidding, seriously. A holodeck malfunction. Forget the leap of faith or the ambiguous meaning of life lets just make it a holodeck. I'm getting rather peeved just remembering it.

The same sort of thing happened when they tried to remake Doctor Who over there. They changed it from a horror science adventure to a bog standard sci-fi action show.

Look why don't we just try and forget the whole idea of exporting shows over to America. They just don't get it, just send them the originals and let them keep it. After all the BBC aren't remaking Star Trek are they?

Here, one of my all time favourites just to clam me down.



Ahh the 80's they were cool either side of the pond!

Friday 16 October 2009

Oh for FUCK'S SAKE!

Smallville is sort of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's reliable rubbish. Half fun, half annoyance and despite it's more stupid moments can still be enjoyable.

Tom Welling pulls off a fantastic Clark, at moments he's almost as good as Christopher Reeve. Rosenbaumb's (sorry for the SP) Lex Luthor is a fantastic villain. Showing that true evil doesn't recognise itself and is a journey, not a destination. Allison Mack is an amazing actress, making the most unbelievable exposition seem sensible. It explores Kryptonian heritage fantastically well. Making it a rich background rather than a convenient device for explaining Clarks powers. Most importantly of all it shows how Superman became the hero we know. It makes the impossibly powerful and almost godlike Kal-El a human at heart.

Still that doesn't excuse one blistering carbuncle that has festered in the heart of this show for more than eight years. Lana FUCKING Lang. This poster child for recycling plots spent the first six years as the victim, just screaming at anything that moved. "Clark save me!" and all he does is make moon eyes at the empty headed moron.
Kristin Kruek is the most annoying, brain dead waste of screen time I have ever had to sit through. She irritates the crap out of me. She can't act, is no where near as attractive as people seem to think and can't FUCKING act.

I was over the moon when I heard that she wasn't in season 8. At last the story could develop. Seven god damn years of pain and suffering could end. Clark could move on, we'd have development. Sure we'd have to put up with the scars and occasional mentions but that doesn't matter. New stories. It might get better, after all any story was made so much better by not including the hated one.

Now for a lot of reasons I won't go into I don't get digital or any more than the four basic British channels. So I get Smallville and most of the other US shows a little later (a year or so) than if i did. Nothing important, I can catch up on DVD. So I was excited to pick up Smallville season 8 this week. Spacing out episodes I've now see more than half way though this season. Even without Lex it's still showing a massive improvement. No longer running around in plot circles and some nice acting.
It was also good to see the relationship between Clark and Lois blossom.

Then along comes the one actress, other than Megan Fox, that I would insult. Kruek. Get rid of her, do not bring her back. Obliterate the slagging bitch. Okay maybe killing her is a bit extreme. Just the character. I can't stand her anymore, I just want Clark to move on and throw her out. Arse first into a meat grinder. Only then can the stories develop and the show work better. If we learnt anything from X-files it's that a will they won't they, on and off again romance has a limited shelf life. Four or five years. After that it can only go one way.

I just hope before season end she is gone for good.

Edit
She is, only a few episodes later. They found a way to get rid of her. Spoilers here but infecting her body with Kryptonite might not be the most original way to drop kick her out of his life, but at least it was total. Ladies and gentlemen... she's gone and good riddance.

If I'm honest one of my main complaints is the chemistry between Welling and Durance (Lois Lane) and how the constant flittering back to Lana is getting in the way. Those two have great onscreen chemistry and Durance's Lois is one of the best. She's no one's damsel and even when captured/kidnapped/in trouble she's still sarcastic witty and a real match for Clark.

Wednesday 14 October 2009

Lions ID Cards first draft




I'm working on some ID Cards for the Rossendale Lions. Now these are very much a first draft and it is anything but finalised. I just wanted to share the first draft.

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Monday 5 October 2009

Doctor Who



Okay then it's been a big week for doctor who and it's only just Monday. The new series of Sarah Jane Adventures is kicking off next week, (the new trailer is online can be found Here) They're also gearing up for The Waters Of Mars later in the month and this years animated short Dreamland that's coming just as soon.

So Who fans are on tender hooks right? yep, so they've decided to go one or two better.
First of all the above image has come to light. I'm a red blooded male so three guesses where my eye was first drawn too. My god the Doctor has a reputation for picking up attractive young women, but oh dear. What a pair of legs she's got (what did you think I was talking about?). We've seen her in a previous episode as one of the Sisterhood so we know she can act. After a bit of research on Matt Smith there's more than enough proof that he's also a good actor. Next year is going to be awesome.

Still to come is tomorrow. On the Official Doctor Who site we're going to be introduced to a new logo. I can't wait, I've always found the current logo a bit silly. There's too much wasted space between the letters and it doesn't have that timeless class the 70's logo has. Ahh well with any luck it will be cool.

Edit:-


It is cool, fantastic!

Friday 2 October 2009

Scrapbook Reviews Episode 01:- Introduction

Here's an introduction of something new from me.

Scrapbook Reviews


Enjoy