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Well two weeks in a row something actually happened, and Tony’s questions about Mr. Bennet have been answered. Unfortunately, new questions have been brought up. But that’s good, I was getting so sick of asking the old questions I’m glad to have some new ones. Now this week’s episode was focused primarily on Mr Bennet and his oh so artsy black and white flashbacks. Warning if you’ve TIVOed this and haven’t watched it yet don’t read any further (Tony). Another warning; I’m writing this deep inside a medication induced haze. Blame any omissions, mistakes, or grammar errors on the Nyquil and Thera-flu instead of on my unwillingness to edit, which is usually the culprit.

So here’s what we know for sure:

• Mr. Bennet did not some how activate these mutant genes, or in anyway cause certain people to have their powers come to the forefront.
• Hiro’s dad is in on it somehow. By the way, how awesome is it that George Takei leapt out of the closet and got a real acting job. It’s been a busy year for Sulu.
• THE MAN is behind it. Just like the voices have always told me. Never trust THE MAN.
• The Invisible Man, Claude, once worked with Mr. Bennet. Until Bennet shot him like a vicious bastard. Cold man, that was cold.
• The Haitian is working with someone else, though we’re not sure who yet, apparently for now he’s working to keep Clarie out of the clutches of the people Mr. Bennet works for.
• And much like I predicted it seems Mr. Lendermen has something to do with all of this. Perhaps he’s the leader of the organization Mr. Bennet works for, perhaps he opposes them. Either way, I’m betting he’s going to be one creepy guy.
• Now here’s something that hasn’t been answered yet, but I’ve been pondering on since early this season. You know that necklace the Haitian wears, right? Looks a lot like Nicki’s tattoo doesn’t it? Hmmm…something to dwell on.

Okay, that’s all my flu addled brain can remember right now. And you should know my husband disagrees with me. He doesn’t think anything happened, at least not anything we didn’t kind of all ready know. But I stopped listening to his opinions when we got married, it’s in the pre-nup. We get to stop listening to each other. It’s a good deal really.

Ah, the age old debate over Mac’s and PC’s continue. Being a complete computer illiterate, I just use whatever someone puts in front of me. Which up until now has been a PC. Yeah, I have issues with it, and sure that Mac is looking sleeker, and sexier, and more tailored to my needs. But I’m one of those people who stick with something till I know it’s dead. Relationships, cars, television programs, I just hate change. Beating a dead horse is my past time (and before you PETA freaks send me hate mail, that’s a joke).

Still, the debate has got me wondering…what do the people of the future use, Mac or PC?

The Enterprise D, I believe uses the Trek equivalent of a PC, and here’s why…

Those stupid Bynars have got to be some kind of virus right? Or maybe spy ware. And we all know a Mac isn’t susceptible to that. But it’s not just the Bynars that make me think the Enterprise D is running on a PC. Let’s think about how many times their computer has gone down, been overrun by alien technology, taken over by nanties, or the holodeck has malfunctioned. By my count this happened at least two times a season. Sounds like a PC to me.

Battlestar Galactica…well this one is a bit harder. It seems to me that the original series BSG would be like the original Apples, you remember that flashing green cursor, right? But really, because of the computer phobia the Cylon wars produced the reimagined Galactica doesn’t seem that much more technically advanced. Now the Cylons, they’re running some super freaky, gooey gel Mac stuff. Not sure if I want any part of a computer that requires me to stick my hand in something that looks like snot. Even if it can resurrect me.

Not being a Mac user I’m not sure what kind of gripes you guys have about your computers (if any). But, given that most sci-fi series that run longer then a season seem to rely on at least one episode where their computers crash and burn I’d say most sci-fi television shows are using PC’s. So, I guess that kills that debate. At least it kills my interest in it. I think I see something shiny on the other side of the room. Gotta go.

Oh, by the way, my PC crashed while trying to write this. Oh the irony!

Sci-fi Channel reported on February 14 that they would be picking up BSG for 13 more episodes, and stated that it’s move to Sunday had improved the ratings by some 8 percent.

Now, I love this show, I won’t deny it. As far as good sci-fi goes on TV this is by far number one on my list. It’s dark, it’s edgy, it’s got some great special effects, the acting is spot on, those are all the positives. There are unfortunately a few negatives, especially in this past season. And I’d say most of it stems from one plot twist…the jumping ahead one year at the end of last season.

I know, I know if I was going to complian I should have done it earlier, right? Well maybe, but I was waiting to see how they pulled this one out of the bag before I started moaning about it. The idea of jumping forward a whole year was so “out there” in terms of television drama that I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not. And now I can say with complete conviction, it screwed them up. (Read more…)

I love Heroes, I really do, but it is prone to doing things that make me crazy. Like another show I really like, Lost, it is doing this new thing that seem to be the rage among TV writers: stringing us along for entirely too long and leaving major questions unanswered for even longer.

I understand that a show needs to keep us in suspense, but sometimes they take it a bit too far. This guy in Heroes for example, Claire’s Dad, is way too creepy and the show has been promising for a while now to tell us what the hell is up with this guy.

Some time ago, the show teaser for the next week’s episode actually announced, ‘And what is up with THIS guy?’ and showed Claire’s Dad.

Next week came, no answer. I still have no clue if this guy is good, bad or indifferent.

I mean, come the frak on, is he a good guy or a perv? What’s driving him to do this stuff? Does he have a power or not? What is his frakin’ deal? And more importantly, how long am I going to have to wait? It’s not like there isn’t a thousand other questions you haven’t answered yet. Give us something.

Lost does this to me too, except that it’s a little worse. Major unanswered questions linger for frakin’ ever. If they keep it up and don’t start answering stuff soon, they run the risk of becoming tedious and we’re not going to believe what they finally do come up with when they say it. We’ll start to lose interest.

Personally, I don’t think they have the answers yet; I think the writers are all making it up as they go along. They’ll read blogs (like this) and listen to viewers until they hear something they like and they’ll go… “Oooh that’s a good idea, let’s do that.”

So, with that in mind (since OF COURSE the writers of that show are reading this blog), here is what I think this guy’s deal is: He is a bad guy. He has raised Claire for his own nefarious purposes. He wants Clare to become an indestructible fembot that can walk into Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Parlors and take all the money out of the kiddie rides, walking out unscathed from the inevitable gunfire that would ensue from such heinous a crime.

Then he’ll use that money to fund research into genetically engineering Tolkien Elves, just to annoy Shannon.

There. One less thing.

I have a regular Sunday night routine (used to be a Friday night one, but they moved Battle Star Galactica on me). I gather a beer, chips and salsa, and camp out in front of the T.V for a couple of hours of unadulterated geek out time all thanks to the Sci-fi channel.
The Sci-fi channel and I have had a few tiffs in the past. They’ve butchered some damn fine books making them into a miniseries. Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea comes to mind, but I digress. The thing is, I was really getting to the point where I believed everything original on the Sci-fi channel was–to be blunt–shit. But, thanks to a few cylons who look like humans, a couple of messed up fighter pilots, and a narcissistic genius I was hoping the Sci-fi channel was on it’s way to redemption.
And for the most part they are, not only is their Battlestar Galactica but the miniseries The Lost Room was good, and the new Dresiden Files is warming up a bit. I even kind of like their new series Eureka .
Okay, so all that said I still have to ask. Are the people in charge of programming fracking crazy? I’ve noticed in the last few weeks a strange thing during commercial breaks. Wrestling commercials. And not commercials for their sister network USA, honest to god wrestling on the Sci-fi Channel.
I’m going to be honest, wrestling is stupid, asinine and juvenile just to name a few adjectives. But that’s just my opinion, I know there’s millions of people out there who love wrestling, I have no problem with that necessarily. My problem lies with wrestling being aired on a channel dedicated to science fiction and fantasy.
Not that I have to stretch too far to see that wrestling and bad Sci-fi have certain things in common.

1. spandex
2. large breasted women
3. nonsensical plot lines
4. bad guys who are bad purely for the sake of being bad
5. generally appeals to a mostly teenage boy audience

All that said, I personally think the people in charge of programming at the Sci-fi Channel need a serious kick in the head, possibly even a good stoning. It’s my belief people would do less stupid things if public stoning were allowed, but that’s beside the point. The point is, if anyone agrees with me we need to start letting these morons know it. Wrestling can be found on a ton of other channels, it DOES NOT need to be on the Sci-fi Channel under any circumstances. So anyone out there listening, let’s start some mass mailing, or serious grumbling to those people in charge over there. With any luck we can be spared the commercials during Sunday night’s geek fest within months. And that would go a long way toward healing the rift in my relationship with the Sci-fi Channel.

So, the other day I was bored. Anyone who knows me knows this is a bad state for me to be in, ’cause usually my mind starts wandering and bizarre images pop into my head. Impulses I can’t explain and won’t go into here make my fingers twitch. I generally try to avoid boredom as much as possible. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, as they say.

To keep myself occupied, though not occupied in any pursuit that would better humankind, I started surfing the net to find out what was going on in the world. By the “world” I mean that small corner of it that interests me, like all good Americans that would be 1) America 2) pop culture 3) celebrity gossip. Though not necessarily in that order. In my running willy-nilly across the web, just looking for something to fill the silence, I stumbled across this article from Slate Magazine written by Adam Rogers.

After first reading the article I was a little miffed. After all, the guy uses the word “geek” something like three times, and not in friendly terms mind you. He wields the word like a sword, “I dub thee GEEK”. His opening paragraph alone was enough to annoy me, never mind the rest of the article. Okay, I will admit it’s not a bad article per se. The subject matter itself is interesting. I just don’t appreciate the tone he uses to talk about sci-fi fans, or the genre in general.

“Ronald D. Moore, the executive producer of Battlestar Galactica, has created a great show with a goofy title. The title isn’t his fault, of course—he’s remaking a crappy 1970s sci-fi relic—and, in any case, it lured in an audience of geeks who will watch anything with the word star in the title. A few months ago, Moore told me (and, more recently, Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen) that the geeky title means a swath of Battlestar’s potential audience doesn’t tune in.” (Read more…)

If you are anything like me, chances are you’ve spent countless hours pondering your true inner self in relation to the iconic figures of sci-fi and fantasy. Who hasn’t wasted away an afternoon wondering if they could have been Aragorn, Dr. Who, or Spock? Or in the case of us women; the damsel in distress, the Amazon-like warrior, or the earth mother that all women come packaged in when it comes to classic genre fiction.

Well, ponder no more my friends. Thanks to the internet, we can now take multiple quizzes to determine just where we would fit in the grand scheme of speculative fiction. (Read more…)

I once heard someone describe the music of Yanni as the “sound track to life.” Now, I’m sure there are people out there who agree with this, and all I can say to that is, “Blah! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Sure Yanni’s okay, I guess, but the soundtrack to your life? Give me a break! You’re letting a man who has had some questionable taste in facial hair and obviously taken way too many Zanies set the tone and mood of your life. Are you people sleeping all day or sitting in yuppie coffee shops discussing the finer points of existential art?

No, dear reader, Yanni is not for me. But this comment about the questionable appeal of Yanni did get me thinking about what music and sounds I would want accompanying my day-to-day routine. I’m not just talking music here, I’m talking the quintessential bleeps, whooshes, and other overly-synthesized sounds that can only be found in science fiction. (Read more…)