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| Monday, January 17, 2005 09:21 AM |
| Weekend in Review |
 by Fëanor |
- On Friday, a sizable group of us convened at TrackerNeil and Peccable's abode, at their kind invitation, to view the premier episodes of the new "Battlestar Galactica" series on the Sci Fi Channel. I must say, with some surprise, if you are looking for good television, this is it. Sci Fi hasn't exactly been reliable in the past with their original programming (the word "unwatchable" comes to mind), but this show is different. The first episode was instantly tense and riveting, from the very first scene. The premise is similar to that of the old show, but you don't have to have seen that one to get this one. It is, contrary to what you might expect, set in the present. We here on Earth have forgotten that we are actually just one of thirteen colonies settled by space-going humans many years ago. The other twelve colonies have lost track of Earth, but still remember their heritage and the star-faring technology that got them there. They are betrayed (however unwittingly) by one of their own to a hostile race of robots (supposedly originally created by the humans themselves) known as the Cylons, and must flee the colonies in a rag-tag fleet of spaceships. When we pick up the story in the premier episode (there was also a mini-series/pilot, which I unfortunately missed, but will soon be on its way to me via Netflix), the entire fleet has been in a constant state of wakefulness for some days, trying to escape the Cylons, who have been maddeningly and inexplicably catching up with them and attacking every 33 minutes.
In this version of the story, some models of Cylon look and act exactly like human beings, and some are even programmed to be unaware that they aren't human, until activated by remote commands to fulfill their missions--the perfect sleeper agents.
The story is interesting, the characters complex and fascinating, and the acting quite serviceable. The show is pretty chock full of action and drama, and follows multiple storylines in multiple settings, including one taking place on one of the overrun human colonies.
So jump on this one before the story gets too complicated for you too pick up, because it is worth a watch.
- On Saturday, with the help of poppy's parents, we finally caught up on our laundry a little bit. While that was going on, I finished off the Daredevil collection I'd picked up at the library. This was called Daredevil vs. Bullseye, and it wasn't quite what I'd expected. I would have liked either a comprehensive collection of all the issues of the comic that deal with his relationship with Bullseye and Elektra (which I guess would make for a pretty big book), or one particular story arc about these characters by one author (say, Frank Miller). The latter is what I thought I had, but the book is actually something in between. It's only six or seven of what someone decided were the most important issues from the series about the conflict between Daredevil and his enemy Bullseye. They are mostly non-consecutive, and leave the reader with a lot of blank narrative spaces to fill in. From the blurb on the back, I gather that the collection was put together hastily to prepare the uninitiated for the recent movie with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. The book starts with the introduction of Bullseye, in a comic written by Marv Wolfman, and moves up to slightly more recent comics written by Frank Miller.
A short, but unfortunately pretty accurate, review of the book would be to simply say Marv Wolfman, bad; Frank Miller, good. I don't know if Wolfman's style was just par for the course for comic-writing at the time, or if it's a particularly bad example, but man is it awful. It is totally overblown and ridiculous, with way more exposition than is necessary or even tolerable, and loaded with clunky slang terms that I don't think anybody ever really used. Seriously, why does Daredevil keep calling everybody "homer" and referring to his outfit as a "union suit"? Wolfman sounds like an old fogey trying to talk to the kids in their own language, so he can be "hep" and connect with them. It's like listening to Nancy Reagan try to rap. It's kind of horrifying.
Even so, I waded through these opening comics, absorbing the story and hoping that I'd get to better stuff soon. And thankfully, I did. It's amazing how much better the book got as soon as I reached a Frank Miller-authored issue. It was still a bit overblown and ridiculous, but the writing was just so much better that it didn't matter. Miller had turned the characters into believable people with understandable human flaws, he made them talk like people actually do, and he knew when to make them all shut up so we could just follow the action scenes ourselves without Daredevil constantly butting in to tell us that he was dazed from that explosion that happened in the last panel, or that he was thinking about trying to jump out of the way of that oncoming elephant.
Which is not to say Miller's comics are flawless. They're a bit cliche and melodramatic. But they get the story across in an interesting and engaging way, and give us things to think about, like the moral ambiguities and painful memories that torture Miller's injured human characters.
Also on Saturday, I got a chance to watch the majority of the Steelers/Jets game. I turned it on, and thought at first that the whole game was a waste of time. Obviously the Steelers would clobber the Jets. Why don't we just skip to the end?
Boy was I wrong. Ultimately the Steelers did indeed win, but it was far from a clobbering. The Jets fought them all the way and made it a true contest and a great game of football. They forced the Steelers into a desperate session of sudden-death overtime, where they finally collapsed.
- Sunday had been reserved for some time for another session of our D&D campaign. I was sorry to miss watching the Eagles game live, but I taped it and enjoyed it later on that night. Meanwhile, at Sarcasmo's, she, TrackerNeil, Peccable, Super Tarzan, and I joined together once again to explore the Forgotten Realms under the erstwhile guidance of Yagathai, our skilled DM. This time we finally got a bit of a dungeon crawl, and finally reacquired some weapons and armor, although not before entering the wrong room first and being forced to tangle with an army of disembodied hands, who nearly killed multiple members of our party (note to self: never enter the room that's full of evil magic first!). We spent the rest of the time dragging about our paralyzed halfling, and concocting crazy, Scooby Doo-like schemes to defeat said disembodied hands. There was also much equivocating about what to do when we came across some giant wild cats. We're very loath to involve ourselves in conflicts since the deplorable Crab-People Incident.
Long story short (too late!), a good time was had by all, nice new items were acquired, and I think we all feel a lot more prepared to face the rest of our quest, whenever that comes, and whatever it may entail.
When I got home, it was time to watch the Eagles game. With the magic of fast forward, I watched it in one-third the time that it actually occupied on the tape, and I enjoyed it quite a lot. We totally embarrassed the Vikings. Our defense has come a long way. They really rattled Culpepper. Moss wasn't much of a factor, and the Vikings' coach made a bunch of bad decisions (IMHO). Admittedly, they still managed to score a couple of touchdowns, but ultimately we won by fourteen thirteen points (oops), and I'm feeling a lot more confident about our chances in future games, even without T.O.
And with that, I conclude this entry. I hope everybody's having a tolerable Monday; I took off to do volunteer work, and am now enjoying a quiet evening at home with poppy. UPDATE: I should add that Aerenchyma, Mr. Knife, and poppy were all also volunteering, and that it was Aerenchyma who talked me into it in the first place. After we were done, she demanded that I go home and post to my blog immediately. So here we are. |
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