"Weaving is a man's game"

OK, so I thought I might be able to get my top albums of 2008 up before I left for Germany, but that's not going to happen. I'll get it up in January though, for sure. Besides, I've got a stack of new albums resulting from my usual year-end binge, and there's a reasonable chance that some of them will make the list (TV on the Radio, I'm looking at you!)

So, to make up for what I can only assume is a shattering disappointment, I'm posting the Season 2 premiere of Flight of the Conchords (legally!). It won't make much sense if you haven't at least watched the last episode of the first season. But if you haven't watched the first season by now, you should, because FotC is fun, and fun is good*.

Season 2 Online Premiere - Flight of the Conchords (US Only) - watch more funny videos

*this rhyme blatantly ripped from from Dr. Seuss.

Fables: The TV Show?

I wrapped up the comics primer I posted this past year with high praise for Bill Willingham's Fables series. I was surprised to learn today that it may actually be made into a TV series.

As the AV Club article mentions, this could either be really good or very disappointing. Any decent TV version of this series would have to have some incredibly high production values to be any good, and somehow I doubt ABC has the cojones to pony up that kind of money on something this risky. Maybe if they limited the TV series to Fabletown (which exists within NYC) and left The Farm (where all the non-human fables live) out altogether they could do it less expensively, but the writers would have to sacrifice several interesting story lines. I think the show is an ambitious idea, and someone in TV land knows some good story-telling when they see it, but I can't help but be a little pessimistic. I could maybe see HBO pulling something like this off, but ABC? Not so much.

Bender's Game (Is Over)

Watched the latest Futurama movie the other day, "Bender's Game." Despite the title, the movie is not a spoof of Ender's Game, which probably would have been a little too nerdy even for Futurama fans. It's really a send-up of Dungeons & Dragons, which is just nerdy enough, apparently.

There is an inherent problem with all of these Futurama movies, but it was never more evident than in this one. These "movies" were written so they could be broken up into 4 distinct episodes and broadcast on TV. That's a less-than-ideal way to create a cohesive story. The other two movies pulled it off reasonably well, but this third installment felt a bit more slapped together. What you get is something closer to the "Family Guy" style of writing--essentially a string of pop culture references held together by thinnest of story lines. I mean, the plot development that dumps the cast into a fantasy (as opposed to sci-fi) dimension makes no sense at all. The ground literally opens up, they fall through the crack, and suddenly they're in a land where Leela's a centaur and Farnsworth's a wizard. They're conveniently in the fantasy dimension for about 22 minutes.

This major complaint aside, I did chuckle out loud a number of times, just as I chuckle through Family Guy sometimes. I'm a sucker for pop culture references, but I've come to expect a little bit more from Futurama. The writers (and there were a lot of them for this movie) seemed to have phoned it in a bit here, which is unfortunate. Apparently there's yet another movie coming out--I believe there were originally supposed to be three--so maybe they'll try a little harder next time.

Nerd Rave: BSG 3rd Season

Since Clyde Squid did a BSG post on his other blog yesterday, I thought I'd mention that I finally finished watching the 3rd season this past weekend. I've finally caught up enough to be way behind again!

All I can say is that I enjoyed the entire season immensely, but that last two part episode blew my frakking mind. I've never been a huge fan of court room dramas (I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in this country who's never seen a single episode of "Law and Order"), but that was some trial. I'm not a huge fan of Apollo's character, but his rehashing of all the appalling things that various other characters had done over the past few seasons was incredible. And Baltar's exclamation after Gaeda's testimony may be one of my favorite lines of the entire series: ""The whole fleet knows this man tried to stab me through the neck. And you missed! Butterfingers!"
Shite...I still laugh every time I think about it.

I also loved the way the 4 new Cylons were revealed, two of whom are favorite characters of mine. One was not much of a surprise and one was a huge surprise. Oddly enough, the day after I watched these episodes, I accidentally left a crappy little radio on in our spare bedroom upstairs, which also happens to house the AC unit for the entire condo's central air. For the rest of the day, I kept hearing tinny music coming out of the ceilings and it took me a while to figure out where it was coming from. Thank goodness "All Along the Watchtower" never came on...

Anyway, I realize all of this is old news to you guys. Obviously I don't want any spoilers, but does the show continue to hold up in the next season? Season 4.0 arrives in mid-January.

Beast with a Billion Backs...Better!

After the first Futurama movie proved pretty disappointing, I wasn't getting my hopes up for the second in the series of four, The Beast with a Billion Backs. So I don't know if it's just because I had lower expectations, or if it's because it really was the better "movie", but I enjoyed this one quite a bit.

The plot revolves around the age old story: rift opens in our dimension, giant monster falls in love with and tries to mate with our entire universe, they break up but decide to continue dating...you get the picture. The first movie mucked about in time, whereas this movie mucks about in space. There is at least a bit more of a plot to this one, which was encouraging.

Each character gets about the same amount of face-time, too, which I enjoyed. Like the first movie, there are a lot of references to the TV show, but they weren't quite as distracting this time around. All in all, I found myself laughing and enjoying TBWABB a lot more. But full disclosure: Meine Frau hated it. I doubt I'll be able to get her to watch any of the other movies, and she loved the TV show.

Special features on the DVD are OK. There's a "lost adventure" cobbled together from a defunct video game, a brief featurette with the oft-amusing David Cross (who voices the titular Beast), and a little video of a few of the voice actors. Speaking of which, Billy West, who does most of the voices on Futurama, is quite a character. The Onion A.V. Club interviewed him recently and it's an entertaining look at a very underrated talent.

So I'd certainly recommend this movie for any Futurama fans, but I'd also suggest skipping the first movie and going straight to this one if that's still an option. Or, you could just kiss my shiny metal ass.

Personal BSG Update: Done With Season 3, Watching Season 4

I finally finished Season 3 of BSG, and I'm almost caught up with Season 4. I have all of the episodes of the latter on my DVR.

Who still has VCRs? And of those, who wants tapes of Season 4? I'm debating buying a DVD recorder, but I question whether I can get it to work with my ancient TV. Thus, I'm also debating buying a new TV...

You really, really should see this shit.

Frank Black Is Satan

And Iggy Pop is Donald Rumsfeld.

Pegged My Geek-O-Meter

I saw this bumper sticker on my way out this morning and tried to take a picture of it.


It reads: gorram = frell x frack^2. Only in a NASA engineering town...

I want one.

Good BSG News

SciFi has decided to pick up BSG Caprica, the on-again, off-again prequel pilot/miniseries.

Nerd Rant: Heroes

So I've been watching the first season of "Heroes" on DVD. I realize that if you like and watch this show, the first season probably feels like ancient history by now, but I'm going to rant anyway. If you haven't seen the show but are possibly interested in watching it some day, don't read this post as there are major spoilers involved.

I'll start off by saying I've really enjoyed the show, though the episode I watched this morning (The Bug woke up at 4:30 and I couldn't fall back asleep) took it down a notch for me. It was titled "The Hard Part" and it's the third to last episode of the 1st season. Not only was the episode itself clumsily written, but more importantly it highlighted the weakest parts of the entire series:

Issue #1: The science on the show is crummy. That may sound ridiculous referring to a show about people with superpowers, but there a few simple things they could have done better. For instance, a major premise of the show is that these heroes are being found using the human genome project. As in the genome of every individual human on earth. Ludicrous. I'm probably more annoyed that the vast majority of people watching the show don't realize that the science being portrayed is just plain silly.

Issue #2: The creators of this show really wrote themselves into a corner with the character of Peter Petrelli, and it was most obvious in this episode. He's been having nightmares that he's going to explode and wipe out NYC. Of course, he hasn't absorbed that power yet, but he's still freaked out that he's going to explode. He finds out there's a guy in the city who does have that power. So naturally, he should do whatever he can to stay away from that dude, right? Wrong--he actively looks for him, and tells Claire to shoot him in the head if he gets the power, which he knows he'll get if he finds him. Then there's this dilemma: you realize you are about to potentially explode, killing millions of people. Do you A) use the ability to fly at supersonic speeds that you happen to have to get as far away from the city as possible...say out over the Atlantic Ocean somewhere, or B) stare at your glowing hands? Apparently B is our answer. The dude just has too many powers, and even if you buy that he hasn't learned to control them all yet, it allows for too many plot discrepancies.

Issue #3: The amount of exposition coming out this late in the season is insulting. DL and Nikki (or Jessica...whatever) break into Linderman's and discover that he knows all about them, and then proceed to explain to each other how he knows all about them and how terrible it is. I guess I'm used to better written shows that either explain just enough (BSG) or not enough (Lost). To have characters explaining major plot points after nearly 20 episodes is just kind of lame.

Issue #4: Does Eric Roberts have a facial expression other than "smarmy grin"?

I've got my eye on Aron Eli Coleite, the writer of this episode. Even if the last two episodes of the season are great, this episode stuck out like a sore thumb as not great. I still have high hopes for this show, unless someone tells me that the second season (what they were able to complete of it) sucks. But it has Kristen Bell in it, so it can't be that bad, right?

NBC to Offer Free TV Downloads

If you're like me and do not have cable, it's always nice to have options for watching TV. For some of my fixes, like Battlestar Galactica, downloading episodes from iTunes was the solution. For other shows, including 30 Rock or Heroes, streaming free versions were the way to go, but now, NOW, NBC is trying to stick it to Steve Jobs, as they are offering free downloads of their TV shows via NBC Direct. Sweet. Of course there are caveats, there always are.

In The Beginning...

To qualify my previous assertion that Squidbillies is one of the best cartoons ever, I present this.