Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: Tage on September 20, 2002, 12:53:24 PM
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For all the local Utah folks, does anyone know when Firefly premiers tonight? With Sci-Fi channel ripped from my hands, I figure I might as well give it a try.
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Yeah, I lost my sci-fi channel too. They replaced it with Univision, but somehow I don't think that's a fair trade. As for Firefly I think it's on at 7:00, but I'll try to find out more firmly. Want to make it a party and watch it over here?
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Yes, Firefly is at 7:00, it's the pilot which appears to be two hours. I'll probably be watching it since Sci-Fi repeats the same episode of Stargate for four hours on fridays. I hoping I get out of class on time.
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Okay so it was only one hour, the source I checked had it misprinted or had something against John Doe. I'm trying to decide if I liked Firefly or not. There were a lot characters, even for a pilot, yet somehow I don't think characterization is the focus at the moment. It seems to be trying to establish setting and plot points at the moment. I think I'll give it a solid "apathetic" score.
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I agree. It spent so much time establishing setting and an enormous cast of characters, so it's hard to judge it objectively. It has a lot of potential, though, so I'm going to be keeping an eye on it.
I also like John Doe a lot; as Tage pointed out to me earlier, it smacks very strongly of "Nowhere Man," which died all too quickly. John Doe had a much stronger start than Firefly, but it only had to deal with a couple of characters and didn't have to establish setting at all.
Dang it. I never watch TV on purpose--I just watch whatever's on when I have nothing else to do. If these shows live up to their potential I might have to start keeping track of them. At least they had the good manners to run consecutively in a convenient time slot.
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I'm not so sure about John Doe yet. Being set in Seattle helps it a lot (my childhood home). I just thought that the characters were a little hokey. I also don't think that they have adequately defined what John Doe knows and what he doesn't. It seems very arbitrary.
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Yes, I noticed that--there's obviously a limit, but they haven't defined well where it is. He only knows things that other humans already know (fo example, if he truly knew everything he'd know if and where there was life on other planets), and he only knows certain kinds of facts (he knows that a certain type of skeleton comes from a vegetarian, but he doesn't nkow where who kidnapped a certain girl. I assume from this that he must have been "given" knowledge from an earthly source, making him more of an encyclopedia than a clairvoyant. Yet this source did not include the criminal database for some reason--it seemed very strange for a guy who supposedly knows everything to be doing research of any kind. Why does he know that a certain token comes from a certain kind of washing machine, but he doesn't know which laundromats use that kind of washing machine? It seems a little arbitrary, as 42 said.
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*cries
They took away my Sci-fi channel and my TV Guide channel!! They're so mean. :(
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You know AT&T digital just redid their line-up. For us SciFi got moved from channel 77 to channel 160. SO we didn't really lose any channels they just got moved. I don't know if the same applies to you all.
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The rest of us all don't get digital cable, so the "move" effectively took Sci-Fi away from us.
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I thought Teikel had Provo cable. but it dosen't matter with Farscape cancelled who wants to watch Sci-Fi, There's nothing worth watching on it now.
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I do have Provo cable, they just changed. But you're right, without Farscape there really wasn't much else to watch (aside from MST3K, SG1, and old Quantum Leap episodes).
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SciFI doesn't show Quantum Leap anymore. So that's one less reason to watch it.
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And they refuse to show any of the MST3K episodes from Comedy central which have some of the best ones.
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Do they refuse, or will Comedy Central not let them? Sci-Fi doesn't seem like it refuses to show anything (since any other station would refuse to show half the crap on Sc-Fi anyway).
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According to the offical MST3k website Sci-Fi will not show them, sence a large majority of them didn't have sci-fi theams. So I beleave at the time that Sci-Fi got MST3K from Comedy Central thay didn't buy the rights to the first 6 seasons and now don't want or can't get the rights.
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Yeah, that's what I figured.
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At first, Sci-Fi was VERY concerned with making the show sci-fi-oriented, and that's part of the reason why they didn't buy the rights from the earlier seasons. Other reasons include the fact that the first few seasons were VERY spotty in terms of joke density and good delivery and the fact that other parties were gradually acquiring the rights to the films, making it impossible for the episodes to be rebroadcast.
Sci-Fi Channel's misdirected concerns about MST3K also forced the show to create a linear (and VERY stupid) storyline involving travelling through space and time in some kind of epic adventure. Needless to say, fans hated it and Sci-Fi eventually gave in, letting the show's creators do what they want. This is why the later Sci-Fi seasons are not all sci-fi and the interstitial sequences stopped including some lame plotline and went back to random skits and gags. Now, however Sci-Fi is gradually losing rights to the movies in their own episodes (like Diabolik, for instance), and that's why they're showing fewer and fewer different ones in reruns. They'll be doing reruns for at least one more season, but they mostly show the last season or two now because of the licensing problems (and to avoid reminding people of the terrible Planet of the Apes plotline - ugh!)
If anyone is interested in the early episodes, my brother and I have a fairly good collection (about half of all the episodes) on tape, including the 3rd Comedy Central season in its entirety and most of the last 2 Sci-Fi seasons.
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I would be very interested in that. I've got a few on tape (including my favorite, "Werewolf,") but I'm always looking for new episodes.
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I missed Firefly today. Any good?
And I was impressed with John Doe again. I expected it to turn into just another crime drama, but they're keeping a strong element of Nowhere Man.
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I'm still ambivelant to Firefly, this episode seemed like it's still setting things up. We got to know a little more about the gigantic cast of characters and some more about the world. There was also a psychotic killer.
I'm still not a huge fan of John Doe, it's not bad, but it just isn't standing out for me yet. Though it did talk more about Seattle and the Puget Sound area which is always good.
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If this is our thread for discussing new sci-fi shows, then this is the place to say that I just watched Birds of Prey. It was surprisingly good, and not nearly as moody as the commercials made it look. I was kind of expecting a Buffy/Dark Angel mix, but it was more of a feminist Batman Beyond. All of the characters are women, to the point that when Harley Quinn showed up as the main bad guy I groaned in pain--she's a very good Harley, but I wish they'd thought a little harder and done something a little less obvious. Still, as comic book shows go it's pretty good, and the cast is engaging (well, except for Huntress. She's just surly and angst-riden, which in Hollywood passes for a round character).
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Even with that glowing recommendation, I still think it sounds generally uninteresting. Somehow an all-female version of Batman just doesn't do it for me.
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Was Birds of Prey ever a comic book? Or is it just a comic book type TV show?
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As far as I know it's not based on any comic book, but it does seem based (whether consciously or not) on Batman Beyond. You have the older ex-super hero with a mobility impairment who stays back at the base and acts as mentor/mission control, here played by Dina Meyer, from Dragonheart and Starship Troopers, as Barbara Gordon. Gordon used to be Batgirl, but according to this show she was shot by the Joker in a final act of revenge and is now paralyzed from the waist down. She stays in the secret lair and sends messages and advice to the field agent, in this case the love child of Catwoman and Batman, who makes snide remarks and beats up bad guys. If not for the youngest girl, a psychic with no technical or martial skills at all, it would be an exact female duplicate of Batman Beyond.
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Actualy birds of prey is a comic book and according to E! online it's still ongoing. It actualy stared way before batman beyond. But that aside what did you think or Mark Hammels cameo?
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Birds of Prey tonight was, as it was last week, on the thin border between cool superhero series and poorly written cheesecake. On the one hand, it had an interesting conversation between Huntress and the hip young cop who's trying to figure out all the paranormal stuff going on in New Gotham. On the other hand, that conversation took place when they were trapped in a sauna for five hours, and were thus forced to shed any extraneous clothing.
But the big problem (other than the bad CG cityscape we have to look at between every scene change) is Harley Quinn. Introducing a vast, overarching villain in the first episode of a series is a tried and true tradition, but going back to that same villain in the second episode is an unforgivable blunder in Fellfrosch's Book of Really Stupid Things. Why are we asked to believe that every single crime in the city leads back to single mastermind? Why can't there be other bad guys who want to do dastardly things? Using the same villain every single time is boring and annoying and, unless that villain is incredibly deep, a sign of shallow imagination.
Remember the TMNT cartoon, where the villain was Shredder and Krang every single week? Remember how stupid that was? I wish TV writers remembered.
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Stupid? You must forget the hilarious hijinks of Rocksteady and his partner is crime Be-Bop. Pure comic genius - like a mutated Abbott and Costello.
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Okay, sorry to bring this thread back on topic, but did ANYBODY record Firefly and John Doe from last Friday? Fellfrosch had assured me that he would, and then he didn't. If you taped them, could I please borrow the tape?
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I didn't assure you that I would, I merely mentioned that I should. Those two sentiments are fairly far away from each other on the spectrum of accountability.
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No no, I distinctly remember asking you if you were GOING to record them. You replied in the affirmative.
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Obviously, Tage, you didn't follow-up on your invitation to Fell to commit to recording Firefly and John Doe. ;)
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Very true. However, since you came with us to see Spirited Away, I was kind of hoping you'd recorded them, 42. Any chance you did?
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Hmm...let me think. No, I did not.
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Well Firefly is canceled. As of dec 13. UPN is thinkning of picking it up, but the production cost is high so don't hold your breath. Never watched it so i have no idea if it was good or not.
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It was getting good right when it got cancelled. That seems to be the way all genre television is going these days.
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It's official Firefly is now a movie http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/04/film.firefly.reut/index.html
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Fantastic!!!
Now I hope they do a good job with it....