This was initially going to be a post about the second arc of War Machine, but this arc has also been the final. Its been fun, and lasted just a little less than half the number of issues of the first ongoing, still, 12 issues is better than none, and at least calling it an ongoing showed confidence from Marvel.
First, the story itself, this concerned War Machine and his crew travelling to the US following the trail of the Ultimo Virus seen in the previous arc. This pits Jim directly against the US army, HAMMER and even Tony Stark's brother Morgan. During this he sets up Bethany Cabe and Jake Oh as armoured support and encounters his old buddies from the West Coast Avengers. The final two issues have Jim on trial for war crimes, mainly set up by Norman Osbourne as a distraction after Jim revealed inpropriatories by various Politicians.
Not to spoil for anyone trade waiting, but basically by the end Rhodey has beaten Osbourne (in a subtle way) is cleared of all charges and placed in his cloned body. In short he has been set to a basic point where he won't seem completely unfamiliar to movie audiences should he appear in Iron man after the release of Iron Man 2. But to the comic.
I've loved Greg Pak's writing, for starters it is very obvious that he has read a lot of War Machine, perhaps more than me. Yes he may have got hold of that "tales of the Marvel universe" where Rhodey looses the Eidolon warwear. It's not referenced but I believe he has read it. The art was a little inconsistent but again used various flashes which referred back through War Machine's history. The story itself really brought out Jim's humanity, despite his cyborg nature in this series, whether it was his past love and old friend in Glenda and Parnell respective, or his relationship with his mother as seen in the first issue of this arc.
Overall it was a worthy run, and I look forward to seeing much more of War Machine after his upcoming big screen appearance.
Finally, this is covered very well on my good mate Reilly 2040s Blog Here.
I will warn the intrepid reader (Hi) that this contains nostalgic ranting and may include rose tinted memories of the 90s. Warning over I miss late night TV.
Now, some observers may question me on this, after all, in our multi channel age there are many channels that broadcast 24hrs, and often with content the likes of which I’m nostalgic for. Indeed come the digital switchover this point will be technically moot, but this is a nostalgic rant so reality doesn’t need to apply.
It may surprise younger reader to know that as late as 1990, only ITV ran 24hrs (And skies were bluer, and chocolate tasted better and pints were bigger) now I first started being allowed to set my own bedtime at weekends around 1992/3 and at this point while on a Friday and Saturday BBC1 and Channel 4 might run programmes until as late as 2am sometimes after which on the BBC you got the national anthem and then dead air. BBC2 showed Ceefax until the morning and C4 was similar dead air. ITV however was a bizarre combination of eclectic programming.
ITV’s late night was where they aired shows that they reckoned were to grown up for a Saturday afternoon/evening, but too unpopular for anything resembling prime time. Indeed it is on ITV night time TV that Prisoner Cell Block H obtained its cult status amongst students. For me, initially it was the hope of some sex/nudity on TV (I was 12/13, these things were important and harder to come by then) but it opened the door to some great TV.
First and foremost, late night was where ITV would graveyard shows, so it was where you could see the War of the Worlds TV series, Old US shows like Magnum PI, The Equaliser and Hunter, and newer cop dramas like Hardball and Tropical Heat. Things which just have no home even in our current multi-channel world.
Similarly there was a odd selection of non-US programming, ranging from the good, like Video review show “The little picture show” to the average, like “The big E” (A cheap mans eurotrash) and the bad like “Whale On” (Find out why “Shock Jock” James whale is better on Radio) It had dross and some gems, but regardless it was better than the rolling quiz games we now get.
In the mid 90s ITV received competition as Channel 4 went late night, if memory serves it was only on Saturday nights, but it was a start. They also launched with an interesting array of programmes, most interesting was the showing of Anime series late at night. In fact Channel 4 went through bouts of brilliance in their Late night programming, it was all low budget, however this is the slot that gave us some great post pub TV (in the 90s Channel 4 were the masters) and we were treated to shows like Vids and Bits both gave a bit of an anarchic take on the film and video game review shows.
In short, yes we have much in the way of late night telly these days, but very little of it is purpose designed, and with late night gambling more profitable than low audience graveyard programming I can’t help but feel we’ve lost the choice to see some things that now don’t even get an airing.
Back in the mists of time LucasArts was virtually a by-line for excellent game. They really couldn’t go wrong and obviously Star Wars Licences were a big draw. In 1994 they released every fan’s dream. X-Wing, a space combat simulator that put you in the cockpit of the mighty X-Wing Starfighter.
X-Wing
The basic concept of the game is simple; you play a rebel pilot flying various missions for the rebels. The core game contained 3 Campaigns, leading up to the Death Star mission as seen in Star Wars Episode IV, and was followed by two expansions, Imperial Pursuit, which focused on the evacuation of the Yavin Base (Just because they lost the death star doesn’t mean the empire is just going to leave it there) and B-Wing, which focused on the development of the B-Wing Starfighter and the relocation to Hoth. These expansions were later available in a collector’s edition.
It was great, addictive fun, on top of the campaigns there were training missions which simulated real missions, or flight training where you flew down an assault course. This meant that I spent a lot of time on X-Wing. In fact, I never finished the B-Wing expansion (one really tricky mission) but overall it was great fun clocking up medals and the like. These were then displayed on your Rebel uniform which could be viewed on the menu screen.
X-Wing allowed you to fly The X-Wing (All rounder), the A-Wing (Nippy interceptor) and the Y-Wing (Heavy Bomber) with the B-Wing being introduced in the B-Wing expansion. Sadly it lacked the option to select the craft for the mission (Not really a biggie) and the weapons loadout (A bit worse); your wingmen were pretty useless as well. Also, while there is a fanboy thrill flying the trench run, I would have actually preferred it as a training mission since it kind of made you Luke Skywalker for the mission. I generally try and justify it by saying I was the guy who missed first, see I used my targeting computer rather than the force. Still, a few annoying missions aside it was a great fun game. The sequel was even better
Tie Fighter
Tie Fighter was a sequel in terms of technological advancement and release date, but didn’t technically follow on from X-Wing (This could be argued it does, as X-Wing ends prior to the battle of Hoth and Tie Fighter picks up just after) Instead it put you in the post of an Imperial pilot. Tie Fighter was bigger, more campaigns, more ships (With expansions up to 7 compared to X-Wing’s 4) and in general a more involved story.
A notable point is that you spend very little time doing “evil”; instead you fill the empire’s general role of keeping order in the universe. In fact an early mission has you performing customs inspections at an imperial post. The interesting part comes from the side missions, issued by a mysterious cloaked figure which allow you to progress through the ranks of the secret order of the empire. These uncover the imperial coups that feature prominently in the campaigns. For fans of the expanded universe you also get to serve under Grand Admiral thrown and fly on the wing of Darth Vader.
A criticism of the game would definitely how the game develops. It starts off being a different game to X-Wing, with the Tie-Fighters being flimsy beasts you really rely on your piloting Skills as the Tie fighter can take about 2 hits (And that first will fry half the systems) and the hardiest is the bomber (4 IIRC) but aside from the odd missions in the Assault gunboat (Which sacrifices speed and manoeuvrability for shields) and the Tie-Advanced (Much rarely deployed), you graduate on to always using some craft or the other which possesses Shields, letting the game fall into a more X-Wing like mould. It also has a little too much love for the Missile boat but that’s a personal preference.
These don’t get in the way of what is an awesome game.
The success lead to two sequels, the first, X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter was based more around Multi-Player gaming, and while it did feature a proper soundtrack (based on the CD) I really wanted (ideally and orchestral version) of Tie-Fighter’s specially created soundtrack included, sadly not to be. By this point it was beyond my machine and while it was popular, it sacrificed story for multi-player. However it is still played online.
Finally X-Wing Alliance, which went back to a single player focus and featured the opportunity to fly the Millennium Falcon, however it included some unpopular tweaks and failed to capture the imaginations like the predecessors did.
Still, like X-Com, if stable versions were released on Steam, I’d be very tempted to pick them up.
This finished up a while ago and I thought a review was in order.
I’ve followed just about all of the Young Avengers stuff, but this one had me nervous. In true Dark Reign style, we were going to see an all new team of kids, who may not be as nice and wholesome as our first team. Indeed 4 of the 6 were named after villains (Melter, Enchantress, Egghead and executioner) while the other two Coat of Arms is a bit questionable and Big Zero is a neo Nazi.
It was quite a shift but be assured, the original Young Avengers turn up and a big fight, mentoring and rebellion ensue. It was a nice touch of Cornell to have the Young Avengers try and assess and recruit some of the new batch, and indeed the new set’s turn to Osborne was equally predictable when only one of them made the cut.
Cornell’s writing is good and I thing he made the most of having a big set of original characters to play with, although he wasn’t too shabby with the existing avengers or the dark avengers for that matter.
For me the stand out character was the new bacth’s leader, Melter. Cornell builds a great take on the old Marvel trope of powers being more of a curse, and Melter, we discover has killed many people, often by accident, in fact often by comedy accident, with his powers. This makes him not just reluctant but utterly terrified.
My main criticism would be the hint that Big Zero and Egghead are an alternate universe version of Stature and Vision which wasn’t followed up, but with rumours referring to this new team as the Young Masters, we may well see them appear in some shape or form in the future, and I’m interested enough t hope so.
Daredevil was the jewel in the Crown of the Marvel Knights launch line-up, arguably the title they’d put the most behind. The had a celebrity writer, Kevin Smith, before his name was tainted with the three crimes, The last few issues of Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil Men Do, the never to be finished Daredevil: Bullseye, which kept Bullseye out of use for anyone else for years and finally Jersey Girl. But no, this was the late 90s and we all still liked Kevin Smith. Art was by Joe Quesada who was head of the Marvel Knights line. This was to re-launch the man without fear, this was guardian Devil. To an extent it worked, but not straight away. Issue 1 treaded an uncomfortable line with decompressed storytelling and action, not really committing to either. However the story developed with Daredevil acting erratically and his life falling to pieces, we had guest appearances from Black Widow and Dr Strange, in short it was a pretty big story. Ultimately Mysterio would prove to be the villain (Although there was a definite supernatural feel for a while) in a story that had a terminal end for both Mysterio and Karen Page.
Overall it was a good first arc, followed up by some pretty strong storylines such as the introduction of Echo. Later Matt was “outed” and this story ran through Matt’s breakdown and eventual arrest. The breakdown story, where he briefly tried becoming the Kingpin to keep crime out of Hells kitchen, was part of a storming run by Brian Michael Bendis, closely followed by the equally good work of Ed Burbaker. I had to drop the title for financial reasons at the end of Devil in Cell block 9 story but overall, while it may have had dips in quality Daredevil has been strong ever since its Marvel Knights re-launch, perhaps one of the only titles to manage this. It has weathered the big events like Secret Invasion, Civil War and Dark Reign by keeping as much as possible to its own stories. This is perhaps its strength.
It is worth noting for Marvel Knights fans, that the two greatest sources for imagery in the Daredevil movie were Frank Miller’s legendary run and Guardian Devil. Daredevil’s continuing success is undoubtedly due to the time it was knighted.
Reilly 2040 was probably wondering when I’d get to this, MAX, acronym for Mechanised Assault and Xploration, because MAE wouldn’t have been as good a title.
The Story, aliens come to earth and say “Hey, we bring technology etc, all we want is for you to colonise planets and mine stuff for us” and mankind says “Nah, no thanks” however some of the more unwanted groups, religious nuts, hard-line communists, Nazis, samurais, corporations and many more take the aliens up on this offer and go into space on giant ships. You play a MAX commander, a human brain in a robot body used to control ships in hyperspace where the human body can’t stand the stress. You then command the mechanical vehicles and units to colonise worlds for alien benefactors. Yes, it’s an RTS.
MAX came out in the mid to late 90s when Command and Conquer commanded and conquered all. There was a plethora of RTS games out at the time of varying quality; MAX had some interesting strategic levels. At the time being able to zoom from a worldview to very close up was pretty rare, also the fact that each faction used the same units meant that, upgrades aside, you could roughly judge how soon enemies would reach you. There was also the tactics of land, air and sea combat, with certain units being required to attack air units, and some sea units that could only be attacked by air or certain sea units (Such as submarines).
MAX seems to have been created initially as a turn based strategy game, which was then tweaked to work as a real time game, sort of. The game still requires turns to be taken, but in simultaneous mode everyone takes their turn at the same time, giving a real time feel. However this feature is what made MAX so addictive for me.
See, confession time, I’m not really that good at RTS games. I like them, but I’m not good at them. I loose track of things, get confused and have a habit of lumping all my units together in untidy charges. MAX offered me something more interesting, it had a multi-player mode called “Hot Seat Game” In this, each player took ether turn in sequence, but on one computer, so you could invite 3 friends round and spend hours playing MAX turn by turn. Better yet, if you weren’t good at RTS, you could play yourself. This is what sank time in for me. Huge 4 way battles with me running all players. Sounds dull but I enjoy it so much I still play it under emulation. Because it's not real time it allows me to drop the game at a seconds notice and react to my life’s responsibilities. MAX, you are great. You still steal my life though.
I recently posted about war of kings, and I’d like to take a specific point form this. That point is how to run an event, specifically crossovers.
Marvel has been picking up some bad habits of late, namely the multi-title crossover, where the crossover runs through alternate issues of different titles. It can be done well, such as, in my opinion, The Hands of the mandarin crossover between Iron Man, War Machine and Force Works in the 90s. The titles were pretty closely linked and we had guest appearances quite often (And indeed at one point War Machine finished his story and put in a call to Force Works to take over), second Iron man was part of Force Works anyway and the issues were written so the Iron Man issues were Iron man Centred, War machine focused more on War Machine and so on, they all told the story and all featured the others, but it meant you weren’t picking up an issue of Force Works and wondering why War Machine was so prominent. Similarly, while I wasn’t keen the Peter David penned X-Factor/She Hulk crossover was annoying but at least the She-Hunk issues were mostly she-hulk.
Anyway, I digress. I generally hate this sort of crossover, it adds another title that I don’t want to buy, (Utopia X) or it pulls characters from their interesting ongoing plot to a pointless crossover (Magnum opus).
Marvel has managed to occasionally pull some really good crossovers. This is because to me, good crossovers are more like tie-ins. Take War of Kings (Although both Annihilation events showed the same restraint) so, on the face of it, you have what should be a tie in nightmare, 5 issue Limited series, with the Darkhawk/Ascension tie ins, the Kingbreaker prelude and tie ins from Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova. However, restraint was shown. Nova focused more on the Nova Corps battling the criminal imperial guard we saw assembled in Kingbreaker, however you didn’t need kingbreaker to let you know the status quo, Nova handled that. Similarly the Guardians of the Galaxy are involved with trying to stop the war, helping Liandra reach Shi-Ar space and stopping the spread of the tear, but this is contained perfectly in their own title. The best example is Ascension, where several things that tie in elsewhere happen, but none require the reading of ascension to understand. Why did Darkhawk assassinate Liandra? Read ascension for the why, but it has no real bearing on the War of Kings plot. Why is Blastaar suddenly in possession of the cosmic rod, again in Ascension, but it’s not a vital plot point.
This has not been contained to just the cosmic stuff though. The Initiative recently invaded the 42 prison facility which was taken over by Blastaar in GotG. All you needed to be told was the prison had fallen and needed to be taken back.
Finally we see this seep through to what is fast becoming one of the more bloated events this year Dark Reign. In thunderbolts we see Nick Fury gunned down, only at the end for fixer to reveal he was an LMD. There is an aside saying “For more see Secret Warriors” and sure enough we do, in secret warriors we find out that the escape was partially orchestrated by the secret warriors, and indeed that the LMD was piloted by Phobos, son of Ares. This leads to some resolution between Ares and Nick Fury which may have bearing on Ares actions in Dark Reign – The List: Secret Warriors, where he secures fury’s escape from avengers tower. This I like, you can follow extra plot threads if you like, but your reading experience isn’t ruined if you don’t follow up. Of course, marketing don’t like that because it doesn’t directly force someone to buy another comic, but I wonder, does this method generate more readers in the long run, will curiosity draw in readers where forcing turns them of?
I was alerted to this show in an episode of “You Have been watching” and in Charlie brooker’s Accompanying Article. I was intrigued and despite the poor reviews thought I’d have a look.
The format is this, take two warriors from history, compare their skills and weapons and then put them into a simulation to see who would win in a fight. Bravo bought this and so I was spared trying to find “other” sources. In fact, the only episode bravo didn’t show was the final abandonment of good taste with the IRA and the Taliban in a 5 on 5 fight. No, I’m serious, that was the last episode.
Now, normally I like this sort of thing, historical warriors and study of tactics and weapons intrigues me and the vs. element was a nice hook. Shame this largely fails on the first part.
The problem stems from this being a Spike TV production, so it is designed to entertain first and if you learn anything on the way they unreservedly apologise. Each show has two experst from each warrior demonstrating up to 5 signature weapons in combat. Not a bad idea, my first gripe is that it is all about the weapons, armour is sometimes covered and tactics are hinted at, but you don’t get the impression that aspects like training and tactics are even considered (Something which we even got on Showdown: Air combat).
Next is the weapons tests themselves, each weapon is pared with an equivelant from the other warrior and compared, in this they are remarkably incosistant, surely to accurately compare weapons they should eb tested in similar circumstances, and sometimes they are, usually on ballistics gel torsos, but other times we have tests on wooden targets, or skulls, or pigs vs ballistics gel, in short, trials obviously designed to show each weapon in its best light, but it irks my inner scientist. Second on the weapon test is that this could have provided some interesting history in how these weapons were adopted, origins and some general historical info (Such as how various pieces of asian weaponary is adapted from farm equipment for example). This is glossed over with a preference to seing a weapon in action and shouting “AWESOME!” it gets particularly tedious in contest such as Mafia vs. Yakuza and Green Beret vs. Spetsnaz, seeing what a halbeard or a Maori shark toothed club can do is actually vaguely interesting, but a gun, we know what that does, puts a hole in a person.
Finally its the experts themselves, and this is a criticism of the show rather than the people, who I’m sure are perfectly nice. They’re encouraged to smack talk each other through the show and it just makes the whole enterprise childish and tedious, yes the whoel series is pub argument territory anyway, but the “Oh yeah, well we can totally beat that” element just makes all the experts look petulant. The best experts were the two ex-Spetsnaz, who tolerated the bravado of the green beret equivalent with what looked like tired boredom. The closest they actually got to smack talk was when one finally caved and quietly murmered that he felt that the Green Beret training was a little too soft. This playground jibing is tedious when its enthusiasts, such as in Pirate vs Knight, but it gets somewhat uncomfortable in contests like Gladiator vs Apache, where the Apache was represented by an actual apache, yes, they’re an existing culture of people, while the Gladiator was covered by enthusiasts, the whole “My hobby is better than yoru culture” thing just didn’t sit right at all.
I’ll try not to extend this rant too far when I mention that Shaka Zulu never stood a chance in the battle against William Wallace since the version of Wallace used was the fictional one from Braveheart.
I know I’m dumb, I was warned, repeatedly. But I still expected better. Don’t know why, but I did. And you know what else, I watched it all, all of it. Why? I don’t know. Self Loathing perhaps.
On the forums they put forward suggestions for season 2. Mine are as follows:
Glasgow Ned Vs. Manchester Scally
A 5 on 5 bout obviously, who is the most irritating and possibly harmful small time criminal? The ned weapons could include kitchen knife, empty glass Irn-bru bottle, half brick and a plank of wood. The smack talk would be worth the admission price alone.
Chartered Accountant Vs. Estate Agent
Who would win in a fight to the death. I’d just like to see it happen.
Or better yet, lets leave what vestiges of reality we have behind
Klingon Warrior Vs. Peacekeeper Commando
Can the wild warrior spirit of the Klingons beat the Cold military organisation of the peacekeepers?
Spartan from Halo Vs. Space Marine from warhammer 40k
Both are genetically engineered armoured super soldiers, but will Spartan discipline beat the rabid faith of the marines?
And finally
Starfleet “Redshirt” Security Vs Imperial Storm trooper
One is good at dying, one can’t kill a fricking ewok, will the redshirt not die or will the storm trooper hit something.
Joking aside, I think this would suit the absurdity of the series, get some people dressed up as ficional warriors, do tests on weapons (Assisted by special effects) and do a mock battle.
Marvel’s other cosmic event has finally wrapped up (Ok I finally got out to buy comics) anyway it’s been quite a surprise, namely because its two run up titles (X-Men kingbreaker and Darkhawk) were a little lacklustre.
The story is of course about a second Kree/Shi-Ar war, only this time the Kree are lead by the Inhumans and their king Black Bolt, while the Shi-Ar are lead by Cyclops’s other other other brother, Vulcan. Also involved are the newly formed Nova Corps, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Darkhawk (or should I say Razor)
This was actually quite different to the Annihilation events, in that the tie ins told other aspects of the story leaving the main effectively a self contained story regarding the progress of the war as seen by Crystal from the Kree side and Gladiator from the Shi-Ar. The tie ins were of the good sort where they added to the story if you read Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy and Ascension, but didn’t detract from it if you didn’t, so Nova was really more about Rich’s battle with the out of control Worldmind/Ego and Guardians was half about their efforts to end the war diplomatically (With fun and disastrous results) and half about trying to avert the ultimate end to the war.
The end was spectacular, Black Bolt and Vulcan fight on a giant bomb, which eventually explodes tearing a huge hole in space, exactly as Adam warlock predicted. Warlock manages to stop its expansion but the cost is that he becomes his evil future self, The Magus, and at the cost of Phlya and Gamera, although I doubt they will stay dead.
We now have an interesting state of affairs to the cosmic marvel universe, namely there is an empire in chaos and a dirty great rip in space, Darkhawk is on the run as while under control of the Razor personality in his armour and the Nova Corps are back to severely reduced numbers (A nice touch is that all the new Novas are in trainee uniforms similar to rich’s old “Kid Nova” suit)
Overall it was good, well written with good art and really had the impression of a large scale galactic conflict. Tie ins were, as said before good but unintrusive and overall this was a good event, if lacking the “Galaxy is doomed” feel of the previous two, also a good example of how to run event tie-ins. Mainstream Marvel take note.
I had my fears about what spinoff we would get from this event; I feared it would be a Starjammers in the universal rule of no area of marvel must be without X-Men of some description, although Ch’od is brilliant. I’d have been happy with an Imperial Guard title or Inhumans, or a Darkhawk one. Instead we’re getting Realm of Kings.
Yes, from war of Kings comes Realm of kings, stuff is coming through the big space hole, and it looks like evil avengers. Fortunately we’re getting a couple of decent looking LS from it, Inhumans and Imperial guard. Not really happy about blundering into another event, but at least I don’t have another ongoing to pick up.
Recently Network Rail proposed a plan to build a new High speed line from scratch; it would be 200+mph, travel from Edinburgh and Glasgow to London via Birmingham and have a Journey time of around 2hrs 30 mins. Now, I think this is a fantastic idea, think about it, that is faster than flying. Some will say that the flight to London is under an hour, however neither Glasgow, Prestwick or Edinburgh airports are in the city centres, and factoring in check in times and all the interminable waiting that airlines seem to want you to do, and your City Centre to City Centre time is closer to 3-4 Hours flying. This link would be on a train in Glasgow, and 2.5 hrs later you’re in the centre of London. It’s cleaner than flying or driving, ok so electric trains are only as clean as the power station available, but it’s better than burning aviation fuel or diesel and way more sustainable. In fact not much of this project doesn’t make sense.
However I’m sceptical if it will ever get built. Its price tag is around the £34 billion. It’s a shame that the government won’t commit to such a high spend, considering the millions it will quite readily spend for motorway enhancements and a 3rd runway at Heathrow which seems to be wanted only by BAA and airlines. This is not all this project has stacking up against it. I can see the air travel lobby being pretty vocal in its objections to this project, after all, if it is faster than flying, and if the tickets aren’t extortionate, then it will take passengers from domestic flights, environmentally this is a good thing but airlines tend not to see loss of custom that way. It may also be scrapped by an incoming Tory government, which looks most likely. The Tories have generally shown a dislike for public transport (“This is the age of the Car”) and anything north of Birmingham. Until recently I would have said that the Scottish government would at least fund its side but after the scrapping of GARL I’m not so sure. Finally it is possible that the city of London may try to derail this project (Pardon my pun)
There was an article about a year or so ago, suggesting that regeneration doesn’t work and that we should all move to the south east. It was interpreted as a sign of fear from London that it may be loosing its importance to business. Back in the day you had to have a major office in London; it was how you did business. Problem is that London is expensive, and now many businesses are moving the bulk of their operations to regenerated areas like Manchester and Newcastle and leaving a shadow presence in London (Usually a few desks rented in a building) as modern transport and communications means that the city is only a few hours away. 2.5 hours from the central belt of Scotland to London would further erode any necessity to actually be based there. Hell, we could probably remove the second home allowance for many Scottish MPs because 2.5 hours is a commutable distance. Not an ideal one but definitely an option.
Of course, for everywhere else this is a great thing. And this is who should be getting behind the project, Local governments and big business should all welcome the chance to move away from the capitol, it means lower rents for business, and more interest for abandoned industrial towns. It means reduced overcrowding in the south and hopefully removing the need to build on flood plains. Basically, spend the 36bn, do it properly (No bloody PFI) have reasonable fares and this could be a massive boon to the whole UK.
I’ve spent so long on last years TV, and Virgin have spent so long putting on Chuck, that we’re now into the new season. Here’s a rundown on shows I’m interested in. The twist? Despite the axing of many a good show (Middleman, Knight Rider, Reaper) the end of BSG etc, I still have a pretty full schedule, frankly more of a schedule than I can watch. So, expect one or more of these to be dropped before the end of season.
Definitely Watching
Lost – Aside from the fact that the past few seasons have been great, I’m committed; I want to know how this ends. And I’m looking forward to this season as well, not just that we’ll get answers, but just in general, Lost has been really good of late. If I drop everything else I need to see Lost.
Doctor Who – We have some specials coming up, and ultimately the regeneration of David Tennant to Matt Smith. Doctor Who usually appears on everything else’s off period as well which is a bonus.
Chuck – Again, probably advantaged by Virgin showing it late, so it’s likely to be on Virgin once other shows have finished. Hell we’re just finishing season 2 now, but it’s been so much fun I can’t see me abandoning this now.
Might be Watching
Stargate Universe – Reilly 2040 did a decent post on this so far and indeed I’m watching at the moment. The first 3 parter, Air was quite good, definitely a different direction. The series has made good use of the lack of a coherent command structure on board Destiny; I expect to see more conflicts from the large civilian population in the future. They’ve also added in the feature of the ancient communications device, allowing them to exchange bodies with people on Earth. I’m hoping this means we’ll see experts such as Rodney from Atlantis brought in on occasion. All that bound with a big ship that could house problems of its own and a viable “Planet of the week” premise if required (The hint that destiny will seek out planets that may help it run is intriguing). Downsides, I liked the lighter feel of the previous stargate incarnations, this series seems almost a little po-faced. Overall, hopefully I can keep with this
Flash Forward – Have caught the first 2 eps (Missed 3, putting child to bed) and it is so far rather intriguing. Yes it could well be the next lost, with its unfolding mystery etc. Only gripe so far is that none of the characters have really shone, they don’t interest me like the initial survivors of lost did. However I do like a good mystery and this series has set up the layers nicely. At its core is the constant question of “Is the future fixed” which leads into the mystery of why the event happened, who are the people who did not black out, all tracked through a board of random clues the main character was conveniently looking at during his flash forward. There were also some nice touches, we had consequences of everyone blacking out for 2 mins or so, plane crashes, car crashes and general disorder. On the other hand some people were doing mundane things like sitting on the toilet reading the paper. If I can keep the commitment, and if it doesn’t descent into X-Files/Season 2 Lost territory of never answering things properly, in short if it’s well planned, this could be very good. An extra gripe to Channel 5 doing ads every 15 mins. I realise this is probably the same number of ad breaks as you get when shown with US breaks, but it ruins the pacing of the show.
True Blood – this is technically last years TV, with Season 2 starting soon or already started. But being on Channel 4 means we all get to find out why we were so happy when Sky bought the rights to Lost. Still anyone with FX can catch it sooner so there’s a bonus. Series about vampires living among us has had nothing but good reviews from all who have seen it only caught some of the pilot and it could well be interesting. I’ve never been that enamoured by vampires mind you. Still, at time of writing all I can really tell you about is that we have a psychic girl who may start dating a vampire. True Blood lacks the instant hook of Flash Forward, but its later timeslot and rave reviews mean that it may be something I can keep an eye on easily.
Defying Gravity – Did you see the Docu-Drama Space Odyssey – Voyage to the planets? No, oh, shame, it was quite good. Defying Gravity takes this idea but dumps the Docu side, focusing instead on the Drama; it tells the story of a group of Astronauts on the star ship Antares on a mission to explore the solar system. Its blurb and episode summaries hint at a series focused more on realistic space travel and the dramas that come from it, such as relationships aboard ship and dangers from solar radiation and isolation. Reviews haven’t been positive but I like this sort of thing and so will most definitely give this more leeway than normal.
Heroes – What to say about Heroes, well the Beeb has lost confidence, that shows. To be fair they did it no favours scheduling it against Ashes to Ashes, not so much because one would trounce the other but way to knock a chunk off your own ratings. Anyway, apparently after the last good run of showing it near enough as soon as the US has (As Sky tend to do) they’ve now said they won’t be showing the next season until 2010. In some ways this is good, it means all my TV doesn’t hit at once and gives me a fighting chance to see something. Down side is, well frankly Heroes has never really found its feet after Season 1 and I’m not sure I want to go through another season. Yes it had highlights, but it has been a bit of a mess. Its like a relationship that’s petering out, You want to give Heroes one more chance, it promises to be like it was when you first met, but you fear you’ve heard that before, and we’ll instead have another year of going through the motions and being disappointed. Timing will see if I open myself up to this again.
Dollhouse - This really didn't grab me last year, until the last few eps, in particular Epitath One. Damn you Wheedon, this may well be worth a second look, particularly now Wheedon can judge the direction more clearly. Still, from the promo posters expect Dushku in a variety of outfits all the same.
Overall, considering the axings of last year, we still have a decent crop of shows to keep me entertained.
In this post I’m going to examine the two late entries to last years TV, both too late to make the television awards. However their respective channels, in this case Channel 4 and Virgin 1 got a mention so in some sense they were there. I am of course going to talk about Reaper and Chuck.
Chuck has been an absolute delight this year, providing a good few twists and turns regarding the status quo, such as the Fulcrum Intersect, and has managed to hit home exactly how precarious Chuck’s situation is, and how this is ruining his life. Meanwhile the antics of his supporting cast, particularly the Buy More crew have been fun, in fact so much fun that I wouldn’t really miss the spy stuff if it was gone. Either way, you care about all these characters from the heartbreak where chuck has to emotionally crush Morgan to save his life, to the strange Joy to an episode which finishes with Jeff and Lester’s band Jeffster doing a number. It may only get one more season, so my advice to the makers of Chuck, the finale of the final season should involve chuck telling everyone about the intersect in order to mount a comedy rescue of Sarah inadvertently destroying fulcrum in the process. This series needs a mad happy ending.
Reaper has been cut down before its time. It’s a shame because it’s similarly a great fun show. This season Sam has been trying to take on the devil, in mostly unsuccessful ways, culminating in a high stakes game of Quarters. Sam, as always could be annoying if not played just right, as it stands he carries off the right combination of slacker and miserable in just the right doses. As with chuck, a large amount of the appeal comes from the supporting cast, who were boosted this season with Andi, sock and Ben being joined by Sam’s Zombie dad, Nina, a demonic assassin who is now dating Ben and possibly the most fun Morgan, the Devil’s other son and Sam’s half brother. As always the show wouldn’t be complete without Ray Wise as the Devil. I honestly believe that if there was a real devil and he saw Ray Wise in reaper, He’d be annoyed that he wasn’t having nearly as much fun. A great mix of comedy and underlying menace.
At the recent Edinburgh TV Festival the Mac Taggart lecture was delivered by James Murdoch, Son of Rupert Murdoch Billionaire Tyrant and owner of News international. His speech attacked the BBC calling in particular for the online news service to be scaled back or completely removed, and argued that the only true guarantor of independent journalism was profit. This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with News international wanting to charge for online versions of their paper, and this being hard because
1, a cardinal rule of the internet is that it is very hard to charge for something that you previously offered for free
2, it is even harder to charge for something when someone else is offering a superior product for free.
Fortunately in a room full of professionals and educated people, this didn’t really wash, and most saw this for what it was, the usual Murdoch dislike of anything they can’t buy or drive out of business. However there are fears that in order to gain press support some backroom deals may well be made by both parties next election to begin the dismantling of the BBC.
Murdoch’s argument sounds valid, who wouldn’t trust an independent company, who have to make a profit over something government run, except the BBC has many safeguards in place to stop it being the governments propaganda wing. In fact the BBC has been one of the biggest critics of the government, even in its current gun shy state after the brutal attack the government made on it over the Iraq dossier. In fact if anything it’s the profit driven news companies who deserve more scrutiny as they show what news gathering would be like under a purely commercial model.
In Nick Davis’ book “Flat Earth News” he describes what he calls the “news Factory” an environment which exists when companies run news organisations for the maximum amount of profit. In these news factories such as those run by news international, staff are overworked and short on time, and in general stories are run direct from the news wire or indeed more often than not reworded from corporate press releases or other papers articles (A process referred to as Churnalism) with minimal to no fact checking. This leaves the commercial news operators wide open to distortion by PR companies, and the like. It also creates a style of journalism that stays away from dangerous stories, namely watch what you say about big companies, or anything not form an “Official Source” The BBC has fallen into this trap as well, although not as badly as those run by companies like News International.
The second problem with profit driven news is what I call the Daily Mail syndrome. The Daily Mail is Britain’s best selling paper, it is also full of distortions presenting a view of the UK as a nation swamped with foreigners all raiding our lucrative benefits system, while white hard working taxpayers foot the bill, it shows a Britain swarming with feral youths and crime, which naturally only hanging and the birch would solve. It also, as has been said by better men than me, has engaged in a rather odd project to classify all inanimate objects into those that cause or cure cancer. When questioned, the Mail defends itself by stating that it reflects the views of its readers, and I don’t doubt that, it reflects the worrying state of mind of little Englanders and paranoid xenophobes everywhere. It also pedals racism and constantly misrepresents the facts to fit its agenda. And this sells by the bucket load. In short, it works on a principle of “hell with the facts, tell them what they want to hear and we make money” That is what profit driven news gives you.
A great example of the true faults with profit driven news occurred at the end of last year during Israel’s attacks on Palestine. The Sun, a News international paper, ran a story about Islamic extremists creating a hit list of prominent UK Jews. Sir Alan Sugar was on this list (And he successfully sued the Sun, more on that in a bit). The Story was sourced from a supposed independent Terror Expert named Glen Jevaney, who claimed he had been staking out internet forums for just this ort of thing. Jevaney was backed by Tory MP Patrick Mercer, A shadow cabinet minister, so official source. This story was published in the Sun with minimal fact checking. Several independent bloggers, most notably Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads (www.bloggerheads.com and I can only recommend you read his expose on this yourself) and that’s independent as in they do this for free, did what the profit driven media did not and looked into this. It transpired, and eventually broke recently on radio 5, that the person posting on an Islamic website about targeting high profile Jews was Glen Jevaney, he’d been trying to bait the residents into providing a story, and when none bit, he used his own posts as evidence of extremism. He was found out, not by professional journalists, but by enthusiastic amateurs who were not held to costs or deadlines.
So, to conclude, the BBC, if it has any problems at all in its news gathering, it is that it tries too often to emulate the commercial companies. James Murdoch is wrong; the profit motive provides shoddy journalism. The best comes from having time and the guts to follow a story in detail, do research and properly investigate. So far the profit medial provides none of this.
Well, this has ended, a 4 Part mini series (With 2 one shots) where Bryan Reed takes a shot at resurrecting the 2099 universe.
Initially I had high hopes for this, it looked more true to the original 2099 universe than Robert Kirkman’s Marvel Knights 2099, which had nothing to do with any previous 2099 save the date, however this series was badly disappointing.
I should at this point say, I was a huge Punisher 2099 fan, and really liked Spider-man 2099 under Peter David, and this looked kind of faithful. The plot centres on Alchemax sending the Punisher (Jake gallows, as nutball 2099 Punisher) back in time to supposedly kill off heroes. In fact he’s sending them to 2099.
This wasn’t quite the 2099 we used to know, it has the same people, and its corporate run, but in this world heroes are corporate mascots, the police are punisher themed for example. This is explained near the end, and we do get a brief glimpse of the real Doom and Punisher 2099. However the rest of this series was a pretty big disappointment. It is basically Spider and Wolverine in the future, but with a rather confusing time travel plot. What actually kills this series is its closeness to the original 2099. It feels tantalisingly close, so how have they got it so wrong, who decided to remake Spidey 2099 as a kid, and as a near carbon copy of the present day spidey? And who came up with an intriguing notion of a slight change to the 2099 universe, only to more or less use it only for backgrounds.
This is the real problem, it feels like setup, when what I wanted was my old 2099 universe back, and the setup of a new spidey 2099 who is markedly less unique and interesting than the original 2099 spidey, and a group of near enough X-men led by wolverine of the future just doesn’t wet my appetite at all.
In short, Reed obviously wanted to put his own stamp on this, but sadly it is too unique to be what I wanted, and too like the old universe to be something new (Which at least Kirkman’s one shots had in their favour)
Marvel, next time you want to do 2099, let peter David do it, in fact, bring back the first 2099 team.
Well, I’ve not talked about politics and transport for a while, and here is a post which kind of combines both.
Just recently the SNP has announced its new budget; something that has caused much consternation was the cancellation of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link.
Now on the political side, the SNP hasn’t exactly done itself any favours. They must have known that this would be unpopular. The Greens are already complaining that a public transport initiative was cut while road building continues and Labour are claiming that the SNP are anti-Glasgow. Now, I will come to the reasons that the project is claimed to have been cancelled in a minute or so. First I’ll go over how this could have been better handled.
The SNP should have known this would be an unpopular decision, and so I would have suggested a good offence with this one. I still expect to hear is that Westminster has cut the Scottish budget, and so this is their fault, but I think they already know that argument has incredibly limited mileage, regardless of how much the Westminster labour government does seem to want to show up the SNP. (Still sore about loosing the Scottish parliament as their own rubber stamp service I guess) A good direction would have been to blame the Edinburgh trams, as they tried to shut down that white elephant but were blocked, and the project has now spiralled out of control, they could have argued that there would have been plenty of money to pay for GARL if the Edinburgh tram project could have been canned.
The actual reason given, although the SNP haven’t really been playing it to its full, a pretty poor move politically, is that the costs were becoming significantly greater than initially stated. This is actually an intriguing angle. If they played it as stopping another Scottish Parliament or Edinburgh tram wild overspend before it started, they may get some more understanding and support on the decision, after all, they would be wildly slated if the project ran wild on their watch.
What actually confuses me is this, how do these projects run wild?
I’m an engineer, and while studying my HNC we covered contracts in a little detail, much has sadly vacated my empty head, but the basic Tendering process and contract rules have not. The basic gist is this. Someone wants a big project undertaken, say a building built. The client will usually provide a specification, plus surveys and all the information a contractor needs to make an estimate. The contractors will then make up a document explaining how they would conduct the project, what timescale it would be completed in and how much it would cost. The contract types generally hold bonuses for early completion, and also some bonuses for coming in under budget. Similarly there are penalties for running late, and generally any cost over-runs must be covered by the contractor. This works because it keeps both sides honest (It’s actually more complicated with clauses for various possibilities of delay but this simple explanation should fit)
However for some reason Government projects seem to work differently. For these if a contractor runs over time or over budget, the Government covers the shortfall, and I’ve no idea why. Why should costs spiral for a tender when a contract has been agreed. If we are farming big projects out to private companies, particularly high profile ones such as Trams or a Parliament building, then we should basically say “Well you said you could do it for amount X, that’s what we gave you, now we want our building to spec, if you’ve under bid, that’s your problem.”
Now back to the SNP, if they could commission some works, and have them come in on budget and on time, they could build a reputation for better practice on bug projects. No spiralling costs with this government. Sadly, from how it’s been played so far, this may be the breaking of them.
Savage She-Hulk was always going to be a tough sell on me. See, I got into the character reading Dan Slott and then Peter David’s runs on the character, and was one of those who thought that David’s run was cut short. Then again I was also holding out for a Lady Liberators title. So when the announcement came of a new She-Hulk I was more than a little sceptical.
Savage She-Hulk concerns Lyra, daughter of the Hulk and Thundra, who has come from a possible alternate future to find Earth 616’s most powerful man.
So, first the good things, the art is good and it was nice to see the real She-Hulk turn up. Story wise, it was ok. We see some good Dark Reign style manoeuvring, Osborne wants to take in Lyra to show that he should be running ARMOUR (the group in charge of alternate universe incursions) the twist on Hulks powers is a neat touch, Lyra gets weaker the more angry she gets, and her tamagochi companion talking watch thing is quite funny in the first few panels but isn’t a laboured joke.
Downsides, well, she isn’t Jen. And that is more than a fanboy whine criticism, Jen was fun, Lyra is pretty serious, art wise they weren’t afraid to make Jen pretty muscular and near Amazonian, while Lyra is definitely aimed more towards the cheesecake market, a shame as Peter David really was aiming to make She-Hulk Marvel’s wonder woman (In fact what they were also trying to do with Ms Marvel). Mainly, I’m just not as interested in Lyra, even in the final panel setup where she is She-Hulk, agent of ARMOUR.
In isolation, the story is patchy, basically act 1, Lyra Vs generic agents, act 2, Lyra vs. She-Hulk, Acts 3&4 Lyra vs. Dark Avengers (Who get about a lot) and so it really is pretty much fights interspersed with flashbacks. There is some interest in the alternate, female led future however, where Osborne has become head of everything and started marketing super powered enhancements, earth females are all that’s left of civilisation while males are factioned into representatives of the male dark avengers.
In fact I think I’d have preferred a story with Lyra set in her alternate future, that way it would form more of a She-Hulk legacy as opposed to looking like trying to replace the existing character.
It doesn’t help that for the moment She-Hulk appears to be MIA, with rumours of a red She-hulk appearing means the future is uncertain for Jen, for once, let’s hope the reset button comes in and Lyra is consigned to a historical curiosity. Sorry Savage She-Hulk team, but you didn’t manage to turn me around.
Don’t worry; some big comic stories are coming to an end. We won’t just have reviews of last years TV until next year.
Pushing Daisies showed its final season this year. I was quite surprised it even got a second season, not because of any low quality in the show; no it was because it was such a strange and quirky piece of TV that I am still amazed it ever got past a board of execs.
This series continued the adventures of Ned, A pie maker who can bring people back from the dead. It contained the usual, episodic quirky murder of the week combined with the ongoing sub-plots such as the Ned/Chuck/Olive love triangle and Emerson’s search for his missing daughter. As a nice addition the finale had a 5 minute sequence roughly establishing how things panned out for all of the characters, while leaving the door open for more possibilities such as the proposed comic.
I’m going to miss this, its high production costs always meant it wasn’t going to survive in today’s cutthroat world of TV. As SFX pointed out in their preview of US Fall TV the wild experimentation of 2 or 3 years ago has past, scheduled next year is a long line of safe options, some promising safe options but safe none the less. Pushing Daisies shows what you can get when networks are willing to give anything a punt; it’s a series that the word Delightful was invented for, a small corner of technocolour joy in the grim dark world of modern TV, a series that could have a character in it called Randy Mann without it becoming annoying.
At the moment though I’ll have to bid a sad farewell to Ned the pie maker, to Charlotte Charles and her synchronised swimmer aunts, to Olive Snook and her random bursts into song and to Emerson Cod and all the other wonderful characters this series created.
The Initiative was almost on my drop list, Until the Disassembled storyline finished and suddenly its proper Dark Reign story kicked in. However that's not what I want to talk about.
Issue #27 mainly features the new Shadow Initiative, now not the black ops squad but more of a suicide squad made up of expendables. The issue is split into two parts, part two concerns the Shadow Initiatives mission to take back the negative zone prison recently conquered by Blastaarr in Guardians of the Galaxy and their slow realisation that they are now cannon fodder. However the first part is a story that is up there with one of the Initiatives finest stories. Yes, Christos Gage has written his very own washout.
The story is written from diary entries by Johnny Guitar, chronicling his and his friend Doctor Sax's progress through the villainous underground to eventually join the Shadow Initiative. Who, well in their own words, they fought Dazzler once.
Yes, Johnny Guitar and Dr Sax are every bit as Z-List as their names suggest. Gague however makes us feel for them, two small town losers, wanting to play music for a living but who fall into a life of crime and eventual super-villainy to support their families. It actually gives you a look about how so many of these small time criminals might decide to make up a themed costume and get a kicking from Daredevil once a month. In fact, the "Big Time" villain who tells them both to try super villainy and indeed later join Osbourne's initiative is none other that Pete Petruski, aka the trpaster, or as most know him, Paste Pot Pete, arguably the biggest looser on Spider-Man's list of foes.
Overall its a touching character based story, and you know what, I think this type of thing, a story focused on one character and their time in the initiative, could be this titles real power. I'm not against its arc plots etc, but more stories like "Washout" and "Even the Losers" would be great.
And on to another series that aired its finale this year. The end to Galactica had been eagerly awaited and not without some trepidation, could they do the series justice? Will we like the ending?
Fortunately this latter half season delivered, it delivered a lot. We have the fleet slowly tearing itself apart after the revelation that earth is a nuclear wasteland, reveal of the fifth Cylon and the cracking Mutiny. One of the funny things was how many comments that had come in last season over how annoyed Gaeta should be, he looses a leg and Starbuck just keeps getting indulged. Finally he cracks and the story is compelling stuff.
On the subject of Galactica I sometimes think its importance is overlooked. It’s getting mainstream awards and is frequently mentioned alongside non-genre TV. I may have harped on about this before but Galactica is so much more than normal crossover genre TV. Lost, Heroes even the X-Files were all set in friendly present day, its familiar and if you screw up your eyes you can pretend that you’re not watching SF, because all that SF stuff is childish and unrealistic unlike say 24 (No offence to any fans of 24 but it does get more outlandish than a lot of SF)
Galactica didn’t give you that comfort; we have humans living on a fleet of space ships being chased by killer robots. Try and tell me that isn’t SF. Surprisingly people saw through it, and aside from the odd patronising article usually citing how SF is normally for weird geeks with no girlfriends, but this is really good, it showed that crossover appeal can be achieved with a full SF setting.
While the credit crunch has sapped budgets, and indeed the Caprica spinoff looks a lot more like normal “Friendly” crossover stuff (Set on Caprica, but I’m curious how many SF trappings we will actually have) It shows it can be done. I just hope a writer takes advantage.
I mentioned this in my “Great titles you’re not reading Damnit” post a while back. Well it’s now gone. Final issue was out a while ago and I’m now blogging about this series as a whole.
Paul Cornell did a cracking job and produced 3 great stories but sadly the comic wasn’t creating enough momentum and lacked the wolverine factor that marvel requires these days (Bitter joke, sorry, try not to let it happen again)
Anyway, it was interesting to see Cornell’s take on captain Britain, really making him up to be our premier hero, and indeed how he expanded other characters, making pete wisdom a tactical genius, working wonders with Blade and spitfire and introducing a brand new character who really worked her way into my affections. All this in a comic based more around fighting magical foes than standard superheroics.
Ok, last issue was rushed, like he was desperately trying to tie up loose ends, indeed like the rug had been pulled out, but Cornell really did a fine job wrapping up plot threads and getting everyone to a satisfactory place. He also got in a good bunch of marvel UK cameos (Surprise Appearance, Yes)
I’ll Miss Captain Britain, for all it was an American comic for an American market, it felt British, it felt like one of ours, and in the current comics market, that’s a rare thing.
I thought I’d muse on how much it would cost me to realise one of my dreams, to own and run a classic British sports car.
I love old British sports cars, yes they’re unreliable, badly put together and slow, but they have so much charm and character. For my 30th my wife hired me an Austin Healey 3000 for a day, it wasn’t quick, had no power steering or servo brakes and a stiff gear change, and it leaked in the rain, but the roar of that straight 6 and the heads that turned never failed to put a smile on my face. I’m smiling now, just thinking about it.
So, I decided to find out how much it would cost, now compare the meercat was a little too searching when I just wanted a vague costing in insurance, so I’ll foolishly leave that out. I have however factored in a basic mechanics course, which run for around £200 as any sports car like this needs regular maintenance.
So, a quick search on the Austin Healey reveals that to buy one would cost £50,000, ouch. I could get an MGB, but they seem to vary between £3000 and £30,000, I’m guessing on quality and how late a model (the 1980s models aren’t nearly as nice as the older ones) Finally I looked at a Triumph TR6, surprisingly this came in with a more reasonable bracket of £12,000-20,000. That’s damned reasonable, and gods if I had 20,000 burning a hole in my pocket, you may just see me barrelling about in my own TR6
While this was mostly an exercise in pipe dreams, I’m actually surprised how affordable this is on the basic outlay, obviously repair costs are higher and all these cars are thirsty beasts. I would also need a secure place to keep them as a council estate near Johnston would see me loosing said car fairly quickly. Still, I am surprised at how cheap it is. What does surprise me is that people may have 50,000 or even 20,000 and will buy a BMW, or a big Chelsea tractor. Why? You want fun; you want what driving really is, ditch these big soft modern cars and drive a classic.
It will probably be next year by the time I’ve finished rounding up all of last years TV, probably why the Pie Man television awards is a better format. Still, I thought I’d make some comments on some series.
Incidentally, Reilly 2040 has done his own version on his blog, I heartily recommend you check it out (Obviously not you Reilly 2040, you being my main reader and all)
Anyway, one show which completely failed to register on either my awards or Reilly’s was Stargate Atlantis, which is odd considering it was its final season. To be honest, it was because for a large part this season was a little bit meh.
Atlantis always did suffer from padding, not network mandated; just it tended to run on the formula of
wrap up cliff-hanger from previous season
Padding episodes
Mid season arc
Padding
Final arc leading to season cliff-hanger
It worked, provided the previous, next and mid season arcs were good enough, it’s just that this season wasn’t particularly memorable. The wrap-up and conclusion to the season opener wasn’t bad, and the slowly developing arc with Todd the wraith was fun, but in general I struggle to remember any of it. One thing I will say is that Robert Picardo was a breath of fresh air to Atlantis, finally having a leader who could genuinely cause a little friction compared to Weir’s “No Col Sheppard, don’t do that or I’ll cry”
And that’s really it, in the end I’ll miss Ronin being hard, I’ll miss Sheppard and I’ll miss Rodney McCay and his rather charming romance with Dr Keller.
On the other hand we have Universe starting this year, which looked iffy, like Stargate Voyager, but then the announcement that it featured none other than Robert Carlyle has sparked some pretty serious interest. With an Atlantis TV movie as well I’ll still be following the Stargate crews for at least another year.
The CDCC footage of Iron Man 2 has been leaked, War Machine is confirmed. I have my reservations, but can't help being excited that I get to see War Machine on the big screen. It shows teh faith I have in Favereau to do the character justice.
I hope my faith is not misplaced, roll on Iron Man 2
I caught this series thanks to my daughter. Yes, it’s amazing how much discovery channel you can watch while feeding a 9 month old baby her breakfast.
Race to mars is a drama about an international joint manned mission to mars, while based on mostly existing technology, and so erring away from science fiction, it isn’t quite the drama/documentary that the BBC’s series regarding a tour of the solar system was (I forget its name but it was good too). This is definitely a drama.
While it was clearly not shot on the biggest budget, no household names in the cast, CG is a few generations old; it made for remarkably compelling viewing.
As a slight interlude, the film Sunshine disappointed me. Why? Because Sunshine was so close to being a really good film regarding people doing a perilous thing in space. It should have been about people getting narky living in cramped claustrophobic close quarters and of genuine danger inherent in low tech space travel. Instead they gave us a monster man half way through. Fortunately Race to mars gets just about all its drama from the dangers inherent in flying a tin can to a distant planet, and its all the better for it.
SPOILER WARNING
There is actually a nice fake out near the end regarding a Martian Virus, not sure if it’s actually a spoiler but it made me smile.
So, if you can find this on the discovery channel again, I can heartily recommend this. Danny boyl, take note.
This is a series I’ve been catching and felt the need to blog about.
The premise is simple.Major Paul “Max” Moga, an F22 pilot takes us through some of histories most thrilling dogfights, looking in depth at the planes, pilots and tactics used.The key hook is that the series uses replica or surviving fighters is a mock-up to illustrate the dogfight while Max commentates from a chase plane.Why he needs to do this is unclear but it seems to keep him happy.
Now, I’m a bit of an aviation geek.I’m one of those people who enjoys playing with Microsoft flight simulator, just to fly.Love aviation history and do take a standard male pleasure watching programmes about Arial combat.This series has its high and low points.High points are definitely in the detail in which it analyses the aircraft, doing the standard tech spec analysis but combining this with sitting in cockpits to give an idea about what the pilot would actually see.The look at tactics and pilots is also interesting and the re-enactments are great for at least enjoying the view of old warplanes haring about.
The problems spawn from a problem that affects quite a lot of the Discovery Channel’s output, particularly in military documentaries.That is a heavy bias towards the US.Now I know they were very important in WWII but on occasion as a brit you do feel like shouting “Oi, we were there too, and for longer” There is also often a stereotypical American “Gung-Ho” attitude in the US documentaries that seems a little tasteless when you think about the subject matter (War) and seems almost childish when compared to the sombre approach British documentaries take.
Anyway, I initially thought my fears would not be realised as the first episode had a few surprises.It focused on the conflict between the F86 Sabre and the Mug 15.The particular focus was on the Pilot James “Jabby” Jabara, the first Jet Ace.Again, it was American-centric but this is understandable for a pilot with such an accolade.It also had some remarkable sense from the commentators, who did point out that Jabara was dangerously reckless in that particular battle.Normally US documentaries make legends of men who show Balls over brains.
However the US-Centric approach really has made the majority of the series a bit of a mixed bag.They seem short on legendary dogfights with US pilots, so we get some odd picks, in particular the legendary rivalry between the P51 mustang and the ME-109, no Spitfire then?And in quite a few of these dogfights, The mustang, The P38 vs. Zero and the Corsair vs. Zero (We see a lot of the Zero) it really is a US pilot in a superior plane, with superior tactics blundering enough to make the fight exciting.
If we got a second season I’d hope for a few non US dogfights (Russian, British, we were all in WWII) and perhaps some WWI stuff, but until then this will live as another promising series damaged by US bluster
In recent news, the Brew Dog brewing company has come under fire once again. People with memories may recall they had previous trouble over the branding of their beer, namely that they claimed it tasted nice and was enjoyable to drink. Both claims are true I might add, but it was considered irresponsible and to encourage binge drinking, fortunately they won the appeal. Now they are being called irresponsible for marketing a stout called Tokyo Star, which at 14% is the strongest beer brewed in Scotland.
This ticks me off, because once again people go after the smaller brewers. The Orkney brewery’s “Skull Splitter” beer received flack over its strength and its aggressive Viking themed packaging, however both Skull Splitter and Tokyo Star are craft ales, now while ale drinkers aren’t angels, we do tend to be more interested in flavour than just getting blottoed. Hell, a 350ml bottle of Tokyo Star will set you back £6, that’s pretty pricy for a binge session, and it’s a Stout, try binging on stout, I dare you, you’ll be too full to even contemplate antisocial behaviour.
Why does this tick me off, well, quite frankly, because people always seem to be going for the small firms producing craft ales, rather than the bigger contributors to alcoholism and binge drinking, cheap lager and cheaper ciders like White lightning. In fact its odd, but no one has a go at Carlsberg, for saying their beer is drunk by cool popular guys, and all the major supermarkets still get away selling packs of cheap chemical lager at knockdown prices (often down below 50p a can) so, when £6 can get you 12 500ml cans of tennents or Stella, or 1 350ml bottle of Tokyo Star, what do you think your binge drinking lout will go for?
I honestly think regulating bodies and the press now stay away from the big guys, pull up a big brewer like Carlsberg or Stella on their marketing and you’ll have a swarm of expensive lawyers set upon you, similarly if you push too hard at a major supermarket, so instead, as always the little guys get picked on. It really cheeses me off.
Reilly 2040 recently lent me the HC trade of DCs most recent big event, and I thought I’d put down a few thoughts about it, as well as on occasion compare it with the competitions event of around that time, Secret Invasion.
Final crisis was billed as “the Day evil won” and indeed on this front it delivers.Evil has pretty much won by about the middle of the story, which sees most of the powerhouses of the DCU out of commission, with the GLs trapped off earth, Superman away engaged in a pretty hard to follow adventure, batman captured and wonder woman turned.It’s all due to Darkseid, who I am partially familiar with as one of those uber-powerful bad guys.He’s using the anti-life equation to drag the prime earth of the 52(ish) in existence down into some sort of hellish pit.The build-up to this is pretty good and the main story where B-List heroes have to fight turned A-listers to protect the unaffected population is pretty effective.
My main issue is that it’s all a bit impenetrable for those unfamiliar.The superman beyond tie in is almost impossible to follow and many other parts are obviously set for dramatic entrances or appearances, where really, as someone unfamiliar I’m left wondering “Who?”It still makes for pretty good reading, as Alan Moore was definitely trying to do something a cut above the standard summer blockbuster.Sadly it is pretty hard to follow, particularly the superman bits, which are pretty impenetrable.The ending is also a bit of a Deus Ex Machina.
I suppose it’s not really fair to Judge Final Crisis from a new(ish) reader perspective.I am clearly not the target audience.For DC fans this may have been a huge payoff, I hope it was.For me, it was definitely better written, with more wild ideas and imagination than the slugfest of Secret Invasion, and it definitely has better pacing (Which even reading in full Secret Invasion is a mess) and better art.In fact, in just about all aspects, save approachability, this is definitely a better book than SI.But it’s not for new readers.
Well, this image has me very excited. Very excited indeed. It is the solicit for Thunderbolts 137 and it looks like 3 of the original Thunderbolts are back.
I hope this is some sort of plot where Songbird recruits some old friends to help her in her current battle with the existing T-Bolts, and most improtantly, that it isn't some dark avengers malarky where Thunderbolts have dressed up as Mach IV and Fixer as part of a plot.
Though I will do a more comprehensive review of this years TV, I thought I would first do my own mock awards ceremony for this years TV
For information, these awards are arbitrary, no prizes will be handed out and all the winners earn is Kudos or scorn.
Best New Series.
Actually quite hard this year, we’ve had a good wash of new stuff, much of which has been interesting, much of which has also been axed.This years award really has to go to
The Middleman, a fantastically fun, daft and always brought a smile to my face.A real highlight.
Best Series,
Again tough, Galactica was great stuff this year, Chuck has been first rate, the aforementioned Middleman was good and I really liked Knight Rider.But in the end one series has stood out as must watch unmissable TV, and that is…
Lost, a great example of what a series can do when it’s not required to attract new viewers or provide a set amount of standalone episodes; it’s been brilliant this year
Most Improved Series,
Tough one, we had quite a few already good series from last year, and very little wasn’t firing on all thrusters.Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was a contender; you could even make a case for the end of the final season of Galactica.But however for me it must be
Ashes to Ashes.This really has found its feet in its second season, to be honest because I thinkit stopped trying to fit what worked in Life on Mars into its different dynamics, elements such as the clown being a replacement test card girl never worked.It also helped that Alex is a lot more unsure and self knowing and that the Gene Genie is much more his old self.There were some nice twists on what we thought we knew at the end of LoM as well, particularly with the shock ending. Looking forward to series 3 in a way I wasn’t for series 2.
Most gratuitous T&A in a series.
A little award to show when a series uses rather too many opportunity to shamelessly include scantily clad women.Dollhouse was a contender, particularly the first few episodes being the televisual equivalent of one of those paper dress up dolls with Eliza Dushku pretty much being there to wear different outfits.Seriously I
was expecting her do to a Nurse and a French maid next.But Dollhouse wasn’t the worst offender, nope, the winner of this illustrious award must be
Knight Rider.We go to Vegas, well in Vegas we must have shots of women lounging in the sun wearing bikinis right?Right?And next week mike’s
mission take shim to a beach resort filled with insanely attractive people while later they infiltrate a millionaire’s bikini party.Seriously, did they get money form a bikini manufacturer as well as Ford?
The Andromeda WTF is this still running award.
Due to the credit crunch this award in on Hiatus.In truth, no series this year have really fallen into this criteria.Heroes is close but I’m not quite ready to kill it just yet.
Best UK Network/Channel.
By rights this should be the BBC, their in house product has been of a good standard and they’ve learned the lesson from Sky in showing their import (just the one mind) very soon after its US airdate.Sadly they produced a fail so epic that it disqualifies them from the best channel award, they scheduled Ashes to Ashes against Heroes, they effectively went into a ratings war with themselves.Call me harsh but I do think it was a massively dumb piece of scheduling, particularly as they made Ashes to ashes, hold it for a few weeks, its not like people can torrent it until you’ve shown it (Aside form knock offs and test tapes).I also stick by my rule with the BBC, they should never have the same sort of thing on BBC 1 and 2, normally this is a criticism levelled at sport, never
have both showing sport, but its equally valid for something I actually enjoy watching.A shame because the BBC really did do well this year and sadly with a heavy heart the award must go to
Sky 1.Asidefrom settling their Tiff with virgin Sky had a good selection of top shows, all shown usually within days of the US airdate.Granted Next year they’ve lost 2 of their genre heavy hitters in Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica, but I would bet on them nabbing Stargate universe and wait to see what they look into nabbing to replace Galactica.Still they shouldn’t rest on their laurels, the BBC would have taken them this year and Dr Who is back next year, plus if Virgin 1 ever gets their act together it could actually be a contender.
The PirateBay award for Services to bit-torrent,
the award given to a channel which has delayed showing a series for sol long that you might as well Bit Torrent it. There were two main contenders, and its been a tough call between them.One is Virgin 1.It’s trying its best to be a free Sky 1, but whether the problem is in the schedulers (Where did you get these guys, Channel 4?) or the contracts, they have a pretty poor record with showing TV after its US debut.Virgin have 2 flagship genre shows, terminator and Chuck.It took an age to get the new series of terminator on (Perhaps something to do with not showing it until bravo finished S1 repeats, dumb idea regardless) and they decided to opt for the particularly poor option of only showing one property at a time, so we’ve had to wait even longer for Chuck.
However, Virgin 1 are not the worst offenders, that must go to
Channel 4, ah yes, channel 4, do you wonder why we all groan whenever you get a genre series.Remember Babylon 5 and the incredible floating timeslot, it was like you wanted it to fail “Wednesday at 6, ok then Sunday at 7,still watching, Thursday at a time decided by the phase of the moon.And let’s not forget how you hacked Angel to pieces and buried SG1 and Enterprise on T4.So, what have you done to incur my wrath.Reaper.Remember it, entertaining show, bit monster of the week but great fun.Where is it, Series 2 long wrapped up in the US, but where is reaper, I know you have it.Oh, unannounced return on Friday nights.Thanks for that C4.
Only the Good Die young award,
An award of series that were great but axed early.Middleman was a serious contender for this but I reckon I’ll invent an award for what happened to it.Nope this one goes to
Pushing Daises, A great dollopof gentle whimsy, we never expected it to survive, and I worried that the quality would eventually dip.This one has Cult series written all over it.
Never given a proper chance award,
for good shows that should have had more done for them, and would have been higher rated with a little more commitment from the network.ThisGoes to
Middleman, it was almost doomed out of the gate, No one saw it coming because ABC Family seemed to keep the existence of the show secret.A damn shame as I reckon with even some marketing this could have been huge.
Most promising 1st Season.
Hmm, tough one this, Was tempted to give it to Knight Rider or Middleman, but both have been axed and so it’s a bit of an empty award if they don’t get a chance to follow it up.Instead I’ll name
Being Human, for a series based on a premise that seems to be the start of a joke, they’ve built up a universe and a mythology around their Ghosts, vampires and werewolves.This is impressive since, being a UK series it was substantially shorter than its US counterparts.Season 2 will be on us in a few months and I really can’t wait to see the fallout
Most Off the Boil Series.
For a series that was once great, and isn’t rubbish, but just doesn’t seem to be hitting the target at the moment.
Heroes, to be honest, its been off since season 2, its actually quite odd to think that during Season 1 of heroes it was Lost that seemed to be floundering around, going nowhere and Heroes was just blowing it out of the water.How things have changed.They’ve tried improvements, and some made for good TV, problem is I get a real feeling that the show runners have no idea where they’re going, and the series is floundering because of it.I think the negative response to series 2 shook them, possibly they had a plan then, but now they’re just scrambling to try and keep people happy.Great TV this does not make.
The Reilly 2040 Worst padding award.
Named after a good friend and fellow blogger who is begging for the US to consider 13 episode seasons rather than give us 7 episodes of dull padding a year.There is only one choice for this year’s winner
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.When this series is advancing its plot, its top stuff.I mean really good.However when its padding it can be dire.This series suffered form too many padding single episode stories and not enough advancing of the plot.Shame because what we saw of the plot was brilliant.To paraphrase the person this award is named for, “I nearly fell asleep during an episode set in a sleep clinic”
Worst network interference,
for when networks damage perfectly good series through stupid interference.A contender for this was Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.The call from Fox for more standalone episodes and fewer arc plot ones gave us the padding I lambasted in the last award.However possibly the worst example has to be
Dollhouse.It had an intriguing concept, and there is definite promise in some of the later episodes, but once again Fox intervened with acall for more stand alone and less arc plot.They probably asked for more changes which resulted in re-writing and in cases shooting the pilot and the first 5 episodes.From what the rumbles are, it was so Joss could take the series from where Fox wanted it to still work with his longer
plans.As a result, Dollhouse has been a bit of a mess frankly.
Pie Man special award.
An arbitrary award given to a show for reasons of my choosing.Winner is
Chuck.Chuck is great fun, and series 2 (What I’ve seen of it Virgin 1) has been good so
far.Chuck wins the special award because I’ve not seen enough of it to compete for another category, and also because it is the series that could stand alone on its supporting cast comedy sub-plots.
Graceful retirement award,
An award for a series that has retired before its gone woefully downhill.This could have been Pushing Daises, but I reckon it had another year at least in it.Nope, it has to be
Battlestar Galactica.Great ending, and it ended, wasn’t axed and left hanging (terminator) wasn’t run out until you were begging for no more.It ended, story told.Well done
The McMillan’s Pasties – now with over 20% real cow, a true lunch treat – award for shameless product placement
An award for a series that has a marketing man’s fingerprints all over it.Who else but
Knight Rider.So, KITT is a mustang, not bad, I likes my muscle cars, but he can turn into other vehicles in a massively unlikely way, fine, it’sa silly show, that’s why I love it.But for some reason, KITT can only turn into cars manufactured by ford.What next, the Autobots only transforming into cars manufactured by Chevrolet?
Guilty pleasure award,
for a series that wasn’t particularly good but which I found strangely enjoyable, but probably wouldn’t tell too many people.
Bonekickers.Ok, was it Genre TV, probably towards the not side of the grey area.It was dumb, its history was flawed and for a team of archaeologists they seemed to destroy every valuable find.They wrecked Excalibur for gods’ sakes.However it was daft fun and I have a wee soft spot for it.In no other series will you see a man attempt to fight an armed man by quoting significant dates from history at him.
Worst treatment of a series.
This is for a channel, network, or other body who I reckon has mistreated a series.Naturally Channel 4 and Virgin 1 were both contenders, 4 for Reaper, Virgin 1 for the late arrival of Chuck, ITV were even in the running for the graveyard slot for Pushing Daisies, and no publicity for season 2.But the award for Worst treatment of a series has to go to
Virgin 1 for their treatment of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.So, you have a big show from the US, what do you do?Well, let’s start it late.That’s fun.Make sure some people have given in and started bit-torrenting by the time we show the first episode.Next, oh this is better, you know, why have we been putting this high profile show, which we clearly have spent money on buying and publicising, on at a peak 9pm slot?People might watch it, nah, lets shunt worlds most violent neds on at that time and push it back to 10, that way it’s probably on too late for people who want to sleep, or have a job, or like to watch the news.And gods help you if you want to catch the +1.Good Job virgin, really nice.
So, its been long and rambling, but perhaps this will spur me on into actually writing up some stuff about what I’ve said on here in more detail.Review of the year, here we come.
This was initially going to be a post about the second arc of War Machine, but this arc has also been the final. Its been fun, and lasted just a little less than half the number of issues of the first ongoing, still, 12 issues is better than none, and at least calling it an ongoing showed confidence from Marvel.
