Archive for June, 2010

A good sci fi film is about atmosphere. It’s not just aliens or fantastical creatures, or even a futuristic setting. It’s a whole feeling that grips you while you’re watching it. At least, that’s true for good sci fi films.

This past decade I feel like we have been falling short. There are examples of a few truly great sci fi movies, but for the most part I have been disappointed.

The inspiration for this blog was the recent sci fi flick, “Splice.” After over a week since I saw the movie I am still unsure how to accurately describe it. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good. It was messed up. It was disturbing. It was just plain weird. And not in the ‘well, that’s what I want of my sci fi movies’ kind of way. More like a big WTF.
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“Heroes” is at long last dead, having finished its ultimately short reign this past season. NBC is stepping forward to pick up that superhero slack by introducing a new caped crusader as part of its upcoming Fall line-up, “The Cape”.

“From the visionary team of Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun comes an imaginative adventure about a dad who would do anything to protect his family.

Officer Vince Faraday was a good cop trying to clean up a corrupt city. Framed for murder and left for dead, he suddenly found himself separated from his wife and son and forced into hiding. Now, inspired by his son’s favorite comic book hero, he’s taking the law into his own hands, and playing a deadly game of chess with the powerful kingpin who framed him. With the hope of one day reuniting with his family, The Cape is sending a loud message to all criminals… run.” -NBC.com

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Supernatural is up there with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly for me for favorite TV shows of all time. It has everything I love in a series. Great characters (and not too many of them). Snark. Pop culture references. Sci fi/fantasy. Beautiful people. Good acting (usually). Great writing (usually). And a linear plotline with many stand-alones to help balance a season.

So what went wrong?

There is a part of me that wishes Supernatural had stopped after Season 2 (with a few minor changes to leave us with a feeling of completion), instead of spanning through 5 seasons with another on the way. I liked aspects of seasons 3, 4, and 5, but not the whole of it, and I feel like I could have, like I should have.

Now, in Season 3’s defense, that was the year of the writer’s strike, so it had to try and wrap up a normal 22 or so episode season in only 16. That really hurt the show at no fault of the creators, writers, or actors. But we were forgiving then because they had a good excuse.

After that, Season 4 was mostly good and introduced the fan favorite character Castiel, but it also introduced Adam. There were bad episodes well before him, but that was when the show started to lose me and my faith in it.

I can’t avoid spoilers in this particular blog entry, so be forewarned now if you have not already guessed that.
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