Invasion! – a.k.a. “Heroes vs. Aliens” on the CWDC television shows

Supergirl x Flash x Arrow x DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (CW 2016)

Monday through Thursday nights this week saw something I don’t believe has ever been done on American television – a four-night, four-show, four-way cross-over event, one story told in multiple series the likes of which has only ever, as far as I know, ever been attempted in the comic books which are the inspiration for the only block of television shows I’m currently watching with any consistency.

Based conceptually on DC Comics’ 1988 three-issues-plus-a-myriad-of-cross-over-issues event entitled, as was each of the cross-over episodes from each of the series represented here – except for Supergirl – “Invasion!,” this epic told how the alien Dominators were determined to eliminate the threat they perceived to exist in the metagenetic potential of humankind giving rise to the dawning age of the superhero, and how a coalition of such metahumans ultimately beat back this threat to our existence.

It was ambitious. And although the execution ultimately fell short, on balance I found it very satisfying.

Star Trek Continues (2013 ff.)

Executive Produced by Vic Mignogna

I’ve been on a bit of a Star Trek kick, first inspired by my picking up the excellent Autobiography of James T. Kirk [LINK] but subsequently energized by my chance discovery a couple of weeks ago, of this tour de force.

I knew in kind of a vague way that there were various amateur fan-productions of Star Trek series available on-line. I avoided them. But then, a blog I follow occasionally through Facebook (American Catholic [LINK]) took notice of the latest episode. On a lark, I followed the link and watched the first few minutes of that newest offering – and was blown away! I immediately shared the episode, appending the exuberant comment, “This is GREAT ... Episode 05! ... I think I just found a new way to waste time -- I've not seen 01-04! ‪#‎BetterthanAbrams.”

The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (2015)

“Edited by” David A. Goodman

I will lead with the most important point: This is indeed the first-person narrative of the life  of the original series James T. Kirk, not the alternate-timeline doppelganger that is featured in the newer movies.

That having been established, this is an enjoyable book. It’s not great, but quite interesting. It’s not really a fleshed-out faux “autobiography.” It might better be termed “memoirs.” It’s constructed as a series of short vignettes, most of them several pages long but organized into about a dozen chapters (unnamed) spanning the 23^rd-c. lifetime of James Tiberius Kirk, most famous as the captain of the Starship Enterprise. There is a great deal of overlap with episodes of the original Star Trek television series and the subsequent motion pictures, but a great deal of “new” material on Kirk’s youth and linking the events chronicled in the TV/movie canon. What I found most interesting was the insight that is given into the mind of the heroic captain, who comes off in his own mind as a decidedly unheroic figure, filled with self-doubt and remorse for many of the actions that were celebrated in those stories, many of them necessary in the situations in which he found himself, but which he so often wishes could have been different and recognizes were driven – especially in the later episodes and even afterward – by an incredible hubris that had sometimes devastating effects on those around him. On the other hand, we do get a sense of the sterling character that inspired the great love and loyalty evidenced by his crew and friends. All-in-all, we get a very different view of Kirk that makes him a more realistic character than I think I’ve ever experienced him to be.

A.D.: The Bible Continues (12 episodes, NBC TV 2015)

Produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett

A.D.: The Bible Continues is, of course, billed as the even-longer sequel (of sorts) to the 2013 miniseries, The Bible, which aired as ten episodes on The History Channel. In reality, it is more properly a sequel, albeit with different actors, to the feature film that was adapted out of The Bible as Son of God (2014) [reviewed here: LINK]. That’s because its narrative would have to be inserted within that of The Bible while it follows directly from the conclusion of Son of God. But that’s really a minor distinction, except in the sense that it was an attempt to recapture the high ratings of The Bible on a weekly basis. Judging by the numbers reported in the Wikipedia articles [LINK and LINK], however, that didn’t really work out as hoped.

Our Monday evening Bible study group has watched and discussed every episode of A.D.: The Bible Continues for the past twelve weeks (finishing our discussion up tonight), using it to pace our reading of the first ten chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, which are the scriptures behind what was portrayed. The Biblical narrative is, however, wedded to an attempt at some larger historical context as well as a whoppingly big dose of imagination. Now that the series has concluded its original airing as of last night, I have some comments to make.

The CBS Supergirl Pilot

For a brief time last Friday, a "leaked" copy of the pilot episode for the upcoming Supergirl television show that will premier on CBS this November (as I understand it) was pretty widely available on the Internet, including Youtube. It's since been pulled, so that the links simply take you to a statement that the content has been removed at the request of Warner Brothers, but I happened to find it at a time when I had an hour or so to kill, so in a rare lapse I went ahead and viewed it.

Now, exactly why this pilot episode appeared is itself a subject of debate out on the blogosphere, with a substantial body of opinion holding that the "leak" was engineered by the network or the producers themselves in reaction to considerably mixed reactions to the official release of a six-minute preview a week or so earlier, which is still available:

The Flashpoint That Wasn't

The Flash season finale – which if you’ve not seen it yet, STOP:  BE WARNED – SPOILERS AHEAD  … Should have been called “Flashpoint.”  Because that’s what it was, except that it bypassed the view of the warped universe that was the subject of the miniseries.

 

What was Flashpoint?  Flashpoint was the 2011 DC miniseries where Barry Allen wakes up in a totally messed up world, one in which he had saved his mother but as a consequence had never become the Flash.  In one changed instant everything about the old Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe that had prevailed from 1985 to 2011 (with a couple of tweaks along the way – 1994’s Zero Hour, 2006’s Infinite Crisis) was altered – for the worse.  Sure, Barry Allen’s mother had lived, but he did not become the Flash, and the world was now on the brink of catastrophe, torn by warring factions between unstable super-beings because, to name a few other differences (DC milked it for all it was worth, of course – in addition to the seven-issue main story, there were something like fifteen ancillary three-issue miniseries telling side-stories; I read only the main story and a couple of the side-stories):  Instead of Thomas and Martha Wayne being killed and inspiring Bruce Wayne to eventually become the Batman, Bruce was killed, leading to Thomas becoming a darker, murderous vigilante Batman – and Martha becoming his archenemy, the Joker; the spaceship carrying young Kal-El was discovered by the U.S. military who had raised him secluded away from yellow solar energy; a diplomatic marriage between King Arthur of Atlantis and Princess Diana of Themyscira had been scuttled by an Atlantean assassination of Queen Hippolyta, leading to a global conflagration between the two superpower nations that by now threatened to destroy the world; and so forth.  To make a long story short, Barry eventually does find a way to regain his speed just as an Atlantean-Amazon Armageddon is destroying the Flashpoint Earth, he runs back through time and prevents himself from saving his mother … and the DC Universe is restored – except it isn’t.  It is now different than it had been before.  It was the “New 52” Universe that has prevailed since 2011. (The fact that I have grown to dislike the direction DC is going is beside the (flash)point (sorry, couldn’t help it!) – there were developments that I found increasingly repugnant even before; the New 52 just hastened things along, in my opinion.)

Veronica Mars (2014)

Directed by Rob Thomas

Veronica Mars is one of my favorite TV series ever. Far too good for the fledgling UPN/CW network when it debuted ten years ago, it survived only three seasons, but in that time it built a small but devoted fan following. By all accounts the cast and crew were as devoted to it as the creator and the fans, which is reflected in the fact that most of them returned for this long-awaited follow-up motion picture which became a phenomenon in itself by breaking several records on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter last year, in rapid succession attaining its first $1-million in the shortest time, surpassing its initial goal of $2-million in a mere ten hours, continuing on to receive the most backers of any Kickstarter campaign ever, to eventually end as the largest single Kickstarter film-project ever with almost $6-million. All without me knowing anything about it until it was over and done with.... I doubtless would have thrown in something. Alas, all I can do now is thank all those who were on the ball and so generous with their support, and enjoy the fruits of their efforts.  And I could do so much sooner than I expected, because Veronica Mars achieved another "first" when Warner Brothers decided to release it simultaneously in theatres and home video.  I actually purchased and downloaded it through iTunes.

The Weekend of the Doctor

Well, I do not remember the premier of Doctor Who fifty years ago today.  For one thing, it was only in England, and for another, I was only two years and five days old!  And, honestly, I'm only a very recent "convert" to Doctor Who fandom.  I was vaguely aware of the property maybe as early as the 1970s, when reruns ran here in the States on PBS, but it was only during my college years in the early 1980s that I knew anyone who actually watched the show, and under his influence I made a brief effort to get into it.  That attempt was fostered by the fact that the new Doctor at the time was Peter Davison (fifth from the left above), whom I already liked from his role as Tristan Farnon on All Creatures Great and Small, a show that I watched -- again in reruns on PBS -- with my father, who was a huge fan of James 'Erriot (giving it the proper Yorkshire accent my father always mimicked with reference to the show).  Nonetheless, the show really did nothing for me and I drifted away from it fairly quickly.  Frankly, the primitive special effects were a major reason, I admit.  It was only a few years ago, with the premier of Matt Smith (far right) as the latest Doctor, that I gave the show a chance again, and this time I was hooked, and have been ever since.  I even went back and watched Christopher Eccleston's tenure (third from right) on Netflix, as well as some of David Tennant (second from right).  But mainly I have gotten far more interested in the property as a whole, although I've not sought out and watched any of the "classic" episodes.  It's a bit overwhelming -- Where to start?

Quick Hits!

Sometimes I read or watch things quicker than I have time – or motivation, or perhaps even focus – to set down in a full blog post. Nothing against whatever those items are. I feel a compulsion to gratuitously share my thoughts on virtually everything, but sometimes get backed up, and I don't want this to turn into a barrage of short posts. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Anyway, hence the periodic “Quick Hits.”

Screen Shot
from iPhone Kindle app

A State of Disobedience (2003) by Tom Kratman

I've been meaning to blog this novel ever since I proceeded to it directly out of his Caliphate last month, but never got around to it. I reserve the right to come back to it with a more thorough review some time in the future, because I'm thinking I'll eventually read it again. Get past the somewhat contrived opening setting up the Texas Rebellion of ca. 2010 (as best I can figure it), as well as the very transparent identity of the utterly wacko and caricaturishly evil US President “Willie Rottemayer,” and it settles into what I think is a fair depiction of how such a valiant but ultimately outnumbered and outgunned attempt at secession from the rapidly socializing, increasingly morally repugnant and anti-Christian United States would likely proceed. Although it was written a decade ago, and in no way foresaw the explosion onto the political landscape of Barack Obama, just how much cultural, political, and social developments in the succeeding decade (really, mostly in the past five years) do seem to be have been foretold sent chills down my spine as I read. As much as Caliphate did [link], this book struck me as a prophetic wake-up call in the guise of a very compelling and exciting story.  As I titled my Amazon.com review, it seems "Frighteningly Plausible."

Gone But Not Forgotten

J. R. Ewing
1939-2013

Well, it was a fitting tribute Episode 8 of the returned Dallas on TNT earlier this evening, from the poignant variation on the opening credits' theme...

 ... through the great wake brawl and the surprisingly touching eulogies, to the final revelations that assure us that John Ross Ewing II may be gone, but the magnificent bastard, the greatest villain in television history, will not soon be forgotten.

Ave atque vale!

Quick Hits

Very quick notes on some stuff I've read or watched of late that I've not blogged about for whatever reason....

Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul, by Tony Hendra (2004)

I read this about a month ago at the suggestion of one of the members of our Monday night Bible Study group. I should have written something up before now, and I really didn't take good notes, so here you've got mainly just some long term memories and impressions. The author is a former writer and editor of National Lampoon – and probably more recognizable as the band manager in Spinal Tap – an unlikely spiritual writer if there ever was one! – telling the story of how he initially found faith through the inspiration of a particularly holy if somewhat unorthodox Benedictine monk of Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight, was for several years heady with the conviction that his own vocation was to be a monk of Quarr, suddenly found his faith as mysteriously vanished as it had appeared, devoted himself to another god, that of Comedic Satire, for a couple of decades during which he continually felt a draw back to Quarr and always needed the approval of Father Joe with whom he maintained contact and who never, ever, judged him, and eventually found his way back to a more mature faith. It is a fascinating story, although frankly I do not believe I would like Hendra at all – and find aspects of Father Joe's theology a bit dodgy. (Bear in mind, however, that here we do not get a direct picture of Father Joe, but rather Father Joe filtered through the lens of Tony Hendra.) And yet the book as a whole is quite touching, especially the ending, when after Father Joe's passing Hendra discovers that there was far more to this simple monk than he ever dreamed.

There is one line I noted from the book and want to pass on.  "You only parody what you once loved, and now loathe" (unknown page number as I long since returned the book to my friend).  I think there is a tremendous amount of truth to that statement, and I think it helps me understand why I have quite seldom ever cared for parody or satire.  

Green Hornet: Year 1, Volume 2 – The Biggest of All Game by Matt Wagner and Aaron Campbell (Dynamite 2011)

I read the first volume about a year and a half ago, not long before I started this blog. I should have gone back and reread that one before picking this one up, but managed to pick up the story pretty well starting at the mid-point of the twelve-issue series as I did. I could quibble over a few details where I know the status quo here doesn't match that of the radio show – not that I've heard that many episodes, but one that I have listened to is one where Britt tells his father what he's been up to, only to have his father tell him of another such masked man in their ancestry. With the William Tell Overture fading in and out as he did so, although some kind of legal reasons kept the radio show from invoking the name of that masked man, you know who it is. Unfortunately, the website where that episode was available in mp3 is gone now – probably, again, for legal reasons. Anyway, in this comic series, the death of the elder Reid is part of the story and occurs before Britt assumes the identity of the Green Hornet. Overall, however, writer Matt Wagner evokes very well the pulp-noir world of the 1930s, complemented very effectively by the art of Aaron Campbell.

Batman: Earth One by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank (DC 2012)

I surprised myself by enjoying Superman: Earth One immensely when, after a considerable amount of time post-publication I succumbed to a Science Fiction Book Club offer and picked it up cheap. “Surprised” because – as highly as I regard Babylon 5 – I've not been much of a fan of J. M. Straczynski's comic book writing. You can see more of my thoughts on that here. Anyway, I went ahead and preordered Batman: Earth One and received it along with my July month-end comics. I figured, as it was by Johns and Frank, it would have to be good. Boy was I mistaken. If you've not bought it, don't bother. The characterization of Batman here is unrecognizable. And the story continues certain trends in Geoff Johns' writing – and the new DC Comics in general – that are becoming more and more annoying to me. One being that he seems to no longer be able to write adolescents that are not annoying snots that you want to punch in the mouth. That's Johns. You can't even explain it as young Bruce's understandably angry reaction to the murder of his parents, because it's the kid's own rude arrogance that helps to bring about their deaths. I also noticed the continuation of the trend that established characters with significant “flaws” or departures from our cultural ideal of attractiveness are being reinvented as more cardboard punchout images of “perfection.” Here it's the famously slovenly Harvey Bullock recast as one suave dude who I figured, at initial glance, must be the equally famously handsome Harvey “Apollo” Dent before getting half a face-full of acid. Alfred also, to a degree. I have some more to say about this in my “New 52 One Year Later” retrospective that is in the works, so I'm going to leave it at that for now. Think about it, though, and you'll come up with plenty of examples before I even mention them. Anyway, the story's pretty sucky too, with a stereotypical sadistic monster who preys on children for the story's shock value. Don't waste your time or money.

Alphas (2011 ff.)

Who says advertising doesn't work? I'd heard of this show but not much more, until last month's stack of DC comics with its full-page advert brought it to mind again. I did a little research, found out that the first season of eleven episodes (twelve TV-hours) is available for streaming on Netflix, and checked it out. Why have I not heard more about this show? It's great! Nothing quite matches the first season of Heroes, which the basic premise is most like, but this is easily light-years better than the second and subsequent seasons of that show. And Rachel … whoa. We were only a couple of episodes into the second season currently appearing on the used-to-be-Sci-Fi-Channel (I refuse to use that new name), so with a minimal cost to purchase those episodes from iTunes, I'm pretty much up to speed.

One interesting little fact that I've learned – Alphas occurs in the same universe as the same channel's recently wrapped up Eureka! (which a friend has been encouraging me to watch) and Warehouse 13. I caught the first couple of episodes of the latter on Netflix streaming and surprisingly liked it – I say surprising because the commercials had never piqued my interest. But when I found out there have been character cross-overs I thought, what the heck, it doesn't cost anything to check it out. And I will get around to Eureka! – eventually.

Mad Men (2007 ff.)

Actually, I watched the first season of this before I fell into Alphas. I can't blame anything except my own ennui for not picking it up before. There's a lot of well-deserved buzz about it. Several of my fellow professors are devoted viewers. Netflix, you're wonderful. I'm just old enough that the world portrayed is very much the world of my childhood … well, not the big city rat race, of course, but the early 1960s. When I run out of Alphas I'll be jumping back into it – with classes going again, I don't have nearly as much time to work my way through TV series, so it may be Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Unless something else strikes my fancy (cough – Warehouse 13 – cough).

The Tudors (2007-2010)

Can you tell it was summer break? I had actually started this over Christmas break, I think, watching BBC America reruns that I'd DVR'd. I think I actually finished it out via Netflix as well, before I took up Mad Men. Really good, in most respects. I know just enough of that period in English history (I'm more a medievalist than a Ren-Ref/Tudor guy) that I could catch them in historical faux pas, but not quite enough that they messed it up for me. I could doubtless have written more, but it's been a couple of months since I actually finished it up, so let's just leave it as something I would recommend. I particularly liked a very believable depiction of a sweet young girl warped by the repeated emotional traumas she was subjected to through the years into what history would know as Queen "Bloody" Mary Tudor.  And Sir Thomas Boleyn is probably the single slimiest, most evil character I've ever seen – anywhere.

The Books of Magic, by Neil Gaiman and Company (DC-Vertigo 1990)

No, that's not Harry Potter.

I've had this volume for several years but never got around to reading it. Since Tim Hunter and the Books of Magic are showing up in Justice League Dark these days, I figured it might be a good time to try to get up to speed. Gaiman, of course, is most famous in comic circles as the author of the long-running title, Sandman – which I've actually only read in the first two trade volumes. Something else I keep meaning to get around to. Actually, I'm investing in the current deluxe hardcover volumes of The Annotated Sandman and may well tackle it that way. There are a lot of arcane references that annotated versions can help the reader appreciate. In fact, I found it helpful to dig up a set of annotations to get the most out of this volume here.

Briefly, The Books of Magic was originally published as four “Prestige Format” issues wherein one after another four representatives of DC Comics' supernatural genre took a young English boy – whose mother is dead, who wears glasses, and has a pet owl (although it predates Harry Potter, Gaiman himself professes no belief that J. K. Rowling was even aware of his character when she came up with her own) – on a tour of the supernatural side of the DC Universe. They are, in order, the Phantom Stranger, John Constantine, Doctor Occult, and Mister E, and Timothy is faced with a choice, to live a normal life or to live a life in constant danger – but as the most powerful magician in the universe. Although Gaiman did not continue with the character, the foundation he had lain was firm enough that it resulted in a fairly long-running and highly regarded series following Timothy's further adventures – because you know what he chose. I'm anxious now to acquire the bound volumes of the Books of Magic ongoing series.

Caprica (2009-2011)

I almost forgot about this prequel/spinoff from the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica that I watched early in the summer. I actually intended from when I finished it to give it an in-depth post, but it looks like that will never happen so this will have to do. It is a show that makes you think. I think it says some interesting things about our own society, and even more so the culture of the Hollywood creators behind it. It's too simple, I think, to say that the overall spirit of the show is “anti-religion” or results from the typical liberal/atheistic predisposition to disdain religion. It's more a result of the clueless modern liberal/atheists' total misconception of religion. I think the most telling line in the series comes about half-way through, in episode 11, delivered by their archetypical evil religious person, Sister Clarice: “I offer you a religion that removes the need for faith.” Isn't this our modern world's idea of a true, pure religion … that would ultimately mean nothing?

As a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, unfortunately I think this series fails. I just don't see how you can get from here to there. There are too many discrepancies. And falling back on the shock value of killing off the kid, Willie Adama, whom we'd sort of been getting to know over the course of the series and assuming would grow up to be Admiral Adama (although I'd already suspected there was something wrong with their time-line), in the last episode and giving lip service to a younger brother being subsequently born and named in his memory is just lazy and manipulative. Didn't they do the same thing with Jimmy Olsen on Smallville?

And I think that actually catches me up, more or less, at least with regard to those things I consider “blog-worthy”....

Cheers, and Thanks for reading!

The Return of Dallas

This post is, admittedly, a little late, but I just got finished watching the second episode of the new TNT show, Dallas.  Yes, the great night-time soap opera from the late 1970s-early 1990s is back, telling the story of the next generation of Ewings, their wheelings and dealings and backstabbings.  Best of all, J. R. Ewing is shown not to have committed suicide as was implied in the final episode of the original series, but is back, evil-grinning and chewing up the scenery with renewed vigor.  He truly is the epitome of the Magnificent Bastard.  During the early years of its original run, watching Dallas with my grandmother on Friday nights was a weekly ritual.  A generation later, I already have a new weekly ritual -- watching the new Dallas with my mother on Wednesday evenings.

Yippee-ki-yay and Cheers!

Richard Castle's Deadly Storm: A Derrick Storm Mystery (Marvel-ABC Studios 2011)

I mainly started watching the ABC series Castle for Nathan Fillion – like any fanboy, I've really liked him ever since his brilliant portrayal of Malcolm Reynolds in Joss Whedon's Firefly. And Stana Katic ain't bad to look at, either.  I can't say I've been terribly faithful in watching it. I tend to drop in and out, finding it a pleasant diversion that usually doesn't have any overarching story arc that compels me not to miss a week. I go through phases. Often, it's one of my summer shows.

Anyway, the premise – in case you don't know – is that Fillion's character, Richard Castle, is a best-selling crime novelist who, through connections with the New York City mayor, becomes a continuing ride-along, sort of an unofficial partner to homicide detective Kate Beckett (Katic's character) for research in developing his newest main character, Nikki Heat, the heroine of such works as Naked Heat and Heat Wave. There quickly develops, of course, a sexual tension between Castle and Beckett that is generally expressed through amiable sarcasm and bickering reminiscent of the old Bruce Willis-Cybill Shepherd TV series Moonlighting.

Richard Castle and Kate Beckett

In a brilliant multimedia move, the Nikki Heat novels have been appearing in real life (ghost-written, of course) since early in the series' television run. In what I at least consider an even more brilliant move, one of Castle's earlier series of books, the Derrick Storm novels, have been adapted into graphic novel format. Well, at least that's how it's portrayed in the TV series, as a plot point. Of course, it's really a (sort-of) ghost-written “adaptation” of a non-existent book, but the result is sort of the same – a graphic novel that duplicates something of the flavor of the Castle television series, albeit with different characters.

The authors (“of the adaptation”) are Brian Michael Bendis and Kelly Sue DeConnick; art is by Lan Medina. It's a pretty solid story that basically sets up private detective Derrick Storm as a quasi recruit into the CIA. One thing I like is how the character of Storm is written to closely duplicate the voice of Rick Castle in the television series. You can practically hear Nathan Fillion's speaking the words you are reading. Overall, the mood is very much like an episode of the series. There is the beautiful CIA agent who ends up saddled with this amateur, sexual tension and bickering resulting. But it departs from the generally light-hearted style of the TV series toward the end when tragedy strikes ….

… and inadvertently messes up a lot of the carefully crafted verisimilitude that is designed into this volume. By which I mean, the conceit that this is a product of the character we watch on TV is maintained through lists of Castle's “other books” on the front flyleaf; an introduction wherein Castle tells how his first heroes and inspiration for writing were found in comic books and consequently how gratified he is to find his work adapted into that format by “the remarkably talented Brian Michael Bendis and Kelly Sue DeConnick,” “brought to life beautifully by Lan Medina's artwork”; and several pages of plot-blurbs and cover images for his other novels – which is where it breaks down, because obviously whoever wrote the blurbs for the “other” Derrick Storm novels hadn't actually read this one! They are absolutely inconsistent with the tragic plot twist at the end of Deadly Storm which leaves a major character unavailable to play a central role in all those later stories.

Unless, this being comics, after all, we have a bit of retconning or rebooting going on here as well!

It's a faux pas that would not detract from the reader's enjoyment of the story itself, unless said reader has (as I did) already perused those blurbs for “later” stories before finishing this one, with the result being a sudden “Huh--? Wha--?” and a feeling of being played wrongly. I also wonder how Bendis and DeConnick intend to write their way out of that box in subsequent Derrick Storm graphic novels which have already been announced, given what seems to have been a very positive reception for this one. Just from reading various comic creators' blogs as well as comic-related message boards it's been apparent that Castle has a substantial fan overlap with the comic book community – probably like me many from our ranks were drawn to it by Nathan Fillion. But hopefully there have been some fans of the show who were not already comic readers who have been drawn into the graphic novel format by this book. That can only be a good thing.

In any case, I found this a very good little read, a bit different from your typical comic book fare. I recommend it as well as the Castle TV show that is its source to comic fans who may not have discovered them already, as well as anyone else.

Cheers, and Thanks for reading!

Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009)

Re-imagined by Ronald D. Moore.

Since last summer I have been watching the re-imagined version of the old TV series Battlestar Galactica via Saturday evening reruns on BBC America, two episodes every week. The original series (1978-1979) was something I really liked in its original airing in the immediate aftermath of Star Wars' reinvigorating the epic science fantasy genre, more for its ideas – the intimated connections with our own past, ancient astronauts and mythology, that “Life here began out there, far beyond the stars,” and so forth – than with how they were executed. And, to tell the truth, I was a bit of a hard sell on the new series when it first appeared a quarter century on. For all that it was stupendous from a special effects standpoint, my initial reaction to the direction it went was not positive. I found fault in particular with what seemed like an unlikely mishmash of contemporary – sometimes even retro – technology, styling, fashions, and the like with fantastical science-fiction elements. It seemed to me that those intimated connections with our own past were being thrown over as much as possible, retaining only enough to make the result barely recognizable as any version of “Battlestar Galactica” at all. Especially laughable were some of the names – “William 'Bill' Adama,” “Lee Adama” (with “Apollo” relegated to the status of his call-sign) – that for me at least ruined the suspension of disbelief that's necessary for the world-building that must serve as the foundation of a series such as this. They seemed to show a lack of imagination. I stuck with the rebooted series through the first two seasons, I think, but had lost interest by that time and seldom dropped in after that. When I did, occasionally, what I saw had departed so radically from the basic paradigm of humanity fleeing robotic aggressors that I had no idea what was happening, and an attempt to watch the last hour of the series to see how it ended made basically no sense to me except that they had found something that wasn't Earth but they were calling it Earth and therefore it was our Earth and they were our distant ancestors.

Nevertheless, a couple of my colleagues remained devoted to the show throughout its original run, enough so that they picked up the DVD sets as they came out, and they kept telling me I should have stuck with it. And when BBC America started its announced running of the entire series straight through I decided to give it another shot. It helped knowing that I would be able to watch it straight through virtually without interruption (there were the occasional weekends when it was bumped for a Top Gear or Doctor Who marathon), and that there was a definite end to the story.

That end came this past weekend.

Honestly, I am glad I have watched this series through to the end. There's a lot of good. It is an incredibly complex story mixing issues of faith and reason, politics and space opera, free will versus fate or destiny, and so forth that I'm sure I only scratch the surface in trying to understand. I do still find the mishmash of sci-fi and mundane unsettling, at times jarring, even with the putative rationale in the overarching theme of the show, “This has all happened before, and it will all happen again,” based on an Eastern mystical paradigm of the endless cycle of existence – except that it's hinted in the final episodes that that cycle is being, or at least can be, broken, which itself may be an “addendum” to that theme. As to the visual stylings, I choose to interpret them as allegorical representations of the world that's being portrayed, kind of an extension of the basic (and necessary) practice of representing whatever languages the characters would be speaking as our own language. (For one way that in particular was carried off, and worked for me to add depth to this exercise in world-building, see my post here.) But ultimately I've gotten past that and am able to appreciate the show for what it is, one of the best science fiction TV shows ever. I think it would hold up very well to another watch-through now that I know (even better than I did this time) where it's all going. And if BBC America (or another channel) does give it another such showing, at a nice, steady pace of one or two episodes a week, I may try it. At four seasons – somewhere around eighty episodes – it's more than I'm going to invest in to buy the DVD set because I figure there's little likelihood of me making the commitment to watching it through of my own volition (especially since, at least for now, it's available on Netflix streaming if I do take a notion). If it's coming on a channel that will automatically pace me, I would, however.

Anyway, I just wanted to get some thoughts on the series down now that it's wrapped up. It's not perfect – what is, in this fallen world of ours? – and I don't think they had a clear plan at the beginning as to how they wanted the story to play out. But they did manage to pull most of the strings together in the end, leaving just enough unanswered questions to keep me thinking about it, as well as an ambiguous ending as to whether we are indeed heading down the same road toward man vs. machine conflict that has, they postulate, happened before. The overarching plot is, in the end, extremely complex even though it's laid out pretty succinctly in one of the last half-dozen episodes, and even then is easier to comprehend via a flow chart. Literally. Luckily, someone in the world of fandom has provided that:

Created by Billy Ray Stevens, Jr. Image from here.

Another resource I found invaluable in keeping things straight as I watched through the series – although you necessarily will have plot points spoiled if you consult it now – is the Battlestar Wiki. Looking at that page just now I see the news item, “BBC America is presently airing episodes of the Re-imagined Series beginning every Sunday at 7 PM,” which may mean they are wrapping back to the beginning and moving it from Saturday evening to Sunday evening. I also see that “CGI Supervisor Doug Drexler reports the special effects for Blood and Chrome are finished.” Blood and Chrome is a second prequel series to the Re-imagined Series, set during the first Cylon War and centering on a young William Adama. Perhaps it will be more successful than the first prequel series, Caprica, which I have never seen but lasted only about half a season or so. I have no idea how recently either of those items may have been posted, but it is good to know that there may be an opportunity for continued adventures in this universe, although I imagine they pretty much shot their wad as far as any kind of overarching mythology goes. And Blood and Chrome may well suffer from that. Time will tell.

One point in the finale that I do want to address. I think the postulated rationale for Colonial humanity's so willingly giving up all but the rudiments of their technology and settling down on the new Earth was quite weak, simply that it was time for a new beginning, a "clean slate."  A far better reason was actually set up and could have been rounded off with a line or two of dialogue. I'm being a bit vague on this since I don't want to give away too specific a plot point, but suffice it to say that there are still Cylons out there. Although they have reason to hope that the Cylon Centurions they know about may not be coming for them, there's no assurance of that – Adama himself says it's a “risk,” albeit one “worth taking.” Better not to draw attention to themselves with a fleet hanging in orbit, or too advanced tech evident on the surface. And there may be still other Cylons out there that they don't know about, with no reason whatsoever not to be coming for them. Especially in that case it would be best not to call attention to themselves. Hence the dramatic end to the grand old lady and the fleet, flying into the sun as in my post image above. I just wish a line or two had been inserted to that effect. It's a minor point, however.

In any case, I consider the time I spent over the past months watching this new Battlestar Galactica time well spent.

Cheers!