Two great tastes that taste great together

I can't say these are two of my favorite things put together, but these are two things that mesh really well together, and it makes for some incredibly entertaining watching. I haven't laughed this hard since Borat.

I tried to embed the video in here, but it's not working. Bugger.

The End of an Era

So I'm borrowing the title of this post from David, who wrote about the same thing. Comcast is gone. Their customer service stinks, their service is unreliable and too expensive. I wash my hands of them. Our internet and phone is now handled by AT&T. Faster, more reliable, cheaper. Their customer service also stinks, but at least there's less reason for me to call them.

Now, normally, the end of cable would require an immediate subscription to DirecTV or somesuch (an option that I heartily recommend, by the way). Now, however, time is an issue, and I like to watch DVD's, and I like to play games (and the TV is GREAT for both). Battlestar Galactica isn't coming back until September or so, same with Heroes. Lost isn't coming back until January. And we can see all those on their respective networks' websites. The only purpose to continuing the cable service is to veg for an hour or two. Sure, we'll miss Pucca and Adult Swim and Alton Brown, but losing cable saves us enough that if we wanted, we could get two seasons of our favorite TV show each month and never miss it.

So begone, wicked Comcast! Never again will I bow to the filth you spew!

Pucca

Heidi and I have a new guilty pleasure: Pucca. We started looking for some fun, goofy cartoon on Saturday morning (y'know, sit on the couch, eat junky cereal, watch cartoons), and this was the best one out there (good cartoons are harder to come by these days). Heidi likes it because Pucca reminds her of herself as a little girl, and we both like how fun, innocent, and freakin' hysterically funny it is. We decided to regularly record it, and just watch it when we have nothing else going on.

It's based off of some wildly successful web animations, and has marketing galore all over Asia and Europe (less so here, but I'm sure it's going to pick up soon). It's a pretty simple premise: Pucca, a ten-year-old noodle delivery girl and master martial artist, has an insane crush on Garu, a ninja-in-training. Garu doesn't reciprocate, as he appears to be in his girl-cooties phase of life. There's a fair amount of comic action, as almost all the characters are the super-powerful ninja-esque characters common in Anime, but they're cute little kids, and it's just as much about the action as it is about little kids and their various crushes. Some of the humor is really witty, and other times it can be really slapstick. The flash animations were created with no dialogue, so as to enchance the international appeal, and this tradition is carried over to Pucca and Garu, as neither of them speak in intelligible words (although the rest of the cast speaks).

It's a guilty pleasure, but it's so charming and fun (and requires almost no commitment) that it has become a bit of a staple in the Fisher household.

John's Heroes Theories

Warning: Spoilers ahead. Also, if you don't watch NBC's series Heroes, you're going to be a bit lost.

OK, here's my theory about the end of this season. I've had it since December, but I'm sharing it now, as it seems to be leading in that direction.

We've all seen Peter's vision of him being the bomb that blows up New York, but I postulate that it is not him that is the "bomb," but Sylar. Both absorb powers, and both have a lot of them flowing around inside there. But here's something to note: Peter didn't start having his visions of him blowing up until he was near Sylar. Neither of them have a history of exploding, obviously, but Peter just has a lot of thoughts/powers/feelings running around in his head. Sylar has a blood clot running around in his. Remember Charlie, Hiro's girlfriend/obsession? The reason she didn't like to get close to people was that she had a blood clot that could turn into an embolism "at any moment." And Sylar ate her brain. Peter's absorbed maybe ten powers, hardly fuel for a significant explosion; Sylar's absorbed hundreds.

That's where I think the "Save the cheerleader, save the world" came in. It's not the explosion that's the end of the world (although I'm sure Our Heroes will do all they can to stop that), it's the fact that if Sylar ate Claire's brain, he'd be able to heal himself. He'd heal his blood clot without even knowing it was there. If he were to absorb Claire's power, he'd effectively be able to kill every super individual and claim godhood over the world.

Now, the explosion: We've seen the guy who can irradiate things by force of will, but he's been a nonentity. He shows up in a scene or two, and we're done with him for three or four episodes(maybe he plays a bigger role in the website stuff, I haven't checked that). It is my considered guess that Sylar will eat his brain, get the embolism and nuke the city. I'm actually guessing that the explosion won't happen (or at least not in New York), but that's how I see Hiro's vision of the future coming together; we don't lose one of the series' main characters, we lose the bad guy who really can't stay alive for another season for the drama to be effective.

If anybody has any thoughts refuting or confirming this, I'm all ears. If not, I'm cool, too.

Sh'wah?

So, here's an enormous kick in the pants (and my thanks go to Richard for pointing this one out): HBO is doing a TV series based on what is arguably the greatest fantasy series ever written. Well, fantasy isn't so much the right term for it, it's more of a political thriller set in a fantasy setting, the Song of Ice and Fire. It starts with the Game of Thrones, and I'm currently on the fifth book, A Feast for Crows. Over the past five books, they started with one noble family ruling some backwoods area up in the frozen north. Over a period of four books, they promoted that family to a higher ranking in society, and killed off almost every one of them during the bloody, horrible civil war that has been going on since the last actual king's death in the first book. It's a little hard to read, because you're entirely unsure if this character you have grown to love is going to die shortly, or if the people their betting their life on are tinkering behind the scenes to bring about said character's demise.

But it's freakin' PERFECT fodder for an HBO series. Considering what they have done with previous series, this is going to be big, it's likely to be good (based on the source material), and it's definitely going to be a reason to get HBO. No word yet on when it's supposed to start production, but when it does, it's a gimme.

Geek Weekend

We had the first Geek Weekend party yesterday, which consisted of many friends coming over to worship at the Altar of Entertainment for several hours. We watched Firefly; not the whole series (although we feasibly could have), but most of it. Despite the hour-long socializing breaks between discs, we managed to stuff 11 epsiodes down our television-gluttonous gorges. It was freakin' lovely. Good friends came to hang out, sit on our couches, eat our food and watch far too much TV in one sitting. This is pretty much the reason we have the place that we do. Yes, my eyes are tired and my legs are cramped, but it was a successful day of fun geeking.

Lost vs. Battlestar Galactica

I've had the question in my mind which of the shows currently on right now are my favorite, as both Lost and Battlestar Galactica are among the best shows I've ever seen. Both are in their third season, and both have captivated me for a long time (I caught on to Lost late in the game, but spent a 3-day period catching up on it). Both of them have all the aspects that make TV shows addictive: Compelling characters, fascinating plotlines, continuing multiple story arcs for different characters, and mystery and intrigue. Up until very recently, I have been stunned by both, and each time thought that each show must be my favorite. And then the holding patterns started showing up.

In Battlestar Galactica, humanity is stranded on a crappy planet, surrounded by cylons. In the season finale, they jumped forward a year in time in the middle of the episode, in a very "what the hell was that?" fashion. The second season of BSG was split into two separate DVD sets, and you can't even buy them in a single set... and they're $40 each. The people of Battlestar Galactica did get off the planet, and got caught up in some crazy crap, and I'll get to that later.

In Lost, the season ended with the hatch exploding with three of our heroes in it. Three more were captured by the Others. The rest were back at the camp, which is "OK," because they tend to be minor characters. The three primary people are imprisoned, and we get to start a holding pattern here. What will happen this episode with Jack and Kate and Sawyer? Oh, they're still stuck in their cells. The first two episodes, which would have been great as one two-hour premier episode, were weak and flat. Last episode (an episode which seemed like a "hm, this guy is breaking his contract" episode), was about half commercials, and not a whole lot happened, except that it's clear they're introducing new characters, because they're busy killing off old ones. The "Fall Season Finale" is supposed to show next week, and to that I say "Wha? Did the season start?"

There lies the crux of the issue. Both shows started the season out in a holding pattern. Neither of them started out all that interesting, with our heroes being dominated by their respective captors. In both cases, we have a separated cast, each in their own little problem world (to some degree).

In Battlestar Galactica, most of humanity was on the planet, hosed, but fighting back. It ends up being a lose-lose situation, until they manage to break a message through to the people on the ships, who are on a skeleton crew, and soft from a year of doing nothing. But they do something. The two battlestars come back and rescue everybody in a rather spectacular fashion, destroying one of them, but also a lot of cylon ships. New alliances and new rifts are created in the cast, and new storylines and plot devices are created, with all the castmembers that we know and love. We do have a somewhat split cast, but for a very different (and quite intriguing) reason.

In Lost, our three primary heroes are captive to the Others, and they stay that way. They try to get out now and again, but they go back to their cells. Nothing much happens. Some folks try to mount an offensive against the Others, but nothing happens. Other folks try to seek out our heroes, but nothing much happens. Our heroes try to psychologically manipulate the Others, but everybdy's playing everybody else, so effectively nothing happens. J.J. Abrams has a talent for creating these fascinating shows that pull America in for two seasons, and then flush it down the toilet in the third season. I still have hope for Lost, but it seems like it's kind of winding down. I'll watch it for a while, because it has a lot of potential, but Lost is losing me.

So there ya have it. How to screw your characters up with examples of what to do and what not to do. You can hose your characters, but move the plot along. If there is the opportunity for change, take it. Make your characters fight against the odds and accomplish something. Maybe not end the oppression by the bad guys, but let them accomplish something. A lot of us are stuck in situations that we don't feel we can change, and it's inspiring to see people who are in similar situations, but do something, and do it to some result. I'm getting that from Battlestar Galactica, even in the last show, where someone makes a positive change, and someone else in the same place intentionally slides into their own personal hellhole. They made decisions that are going to impact them, but it was obvious that they made decisions, and those decisions changed their situations. Lost is (right now) all about people who are powerless to change their situations. So there ya have it. Battlestar Galactica maintains it's high quality, Lost is slipping.

The Amazing Screw-on Head

I just watched the pilot for a work of genius. The Amazing Screw-on Head is an animated pilot that may or may not be used on the scifi channel. The animation is a little clumsy, but the ideas presented and the performances and the writing were all freakin' crazy hilarious.

Screw-on Head is a mechanical head that works for President Lincoln to discover strange and unusual phenonmena (like a vaguely Lovecraftian and Steampunk comic X-Files). The show starts with a voice-over by Abraham Lincoln telling us that there are two histories; the public one, and the other one (the one with all the strange stuff that Screw-on Head investigates). At the end of the show, they hint at old civilizations across the North American continent with strange and unusual technology, and Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act (to disguise the exploration to the Confederates). In any case, Paul Giamatti voices Screw-on Head, and David Hyde Pierce does a fantastic job voicing Screw-on Head's arch-nemesis, Emporer Zombie. Screw-on Head has his companions: Mr. Groin (his faithful manservant) and Mr. Dog (who seems to be a dog who's sole purpose is to distract the bag guys, die, and then come back again). Emporer Zombie has his companions: two unnamed old ladies, a machine-gun toting monkey, and the vampire ex-lover of Screw-on Head (whose name escapes me).

This show has some of the oddest and most unusual twists I've ever seen. Emporer Zombie needs to know the information that someone he captured has, so he smokes him in a giant hookah. The evil Cthulhoid demigod who intends to devastate the world has been imprisoned for thousands of years in a turnip. All of these seem to be OK and could be handled well or poorly, but because the dialogue is so witty and brilliant, it ends up being a quirky work of genius.

See it online, fill out the survey, and pray that it gets picked up fo broadcast.

Doctor Who

A friend of mine from church got me the latest season of Doctor Who. It recently (last spring) was on the BBC, and he got pirated DVD's from a friend from Canada (I think). Previous iterations of Doctor Who were much more serious, and only derived comedy from the quality of their special effects (which were abysmal). In this season (which I got through in one day), I found myself laughing out loud many times. Keep in mind, this isn't quite the quality of Battlestar Galactica or Lost, but it's a fun show. It's starting up on Sci-Fi in March. I'll probably TiVo it, just because I'd quite like to see these episodes again.

Lost

So I wanted to see what all the hype was about. I'd heard a lot about this show, and it edged out Battlestar Galactica in the emmy nomination race, so I figured it was worth looking at. My friend Chris from LA was obsessed with it, and I trust his opinion on a lot of films and TV. However, all the episodes I'd caught on live TV, I'd caught at the wrong time, and they didn't grab me. So I knew Heidi's sister was obsessed, and I knew she was getting the DVD's of Season1 for Christmas, so I figured I'd bide my time. And I did. When we were over at Heidi's family's home on New Year's Eve, we started watching, just so I could see what was going on. Heidi and I finished the first season in three days.

I knew the second season was half over, and going to restart last night, and I wasn't sure what to do, but Chris to the rescue, he recommended I download the shows from iTunes. He warned me of the cost, which was noticible ($18 for 9 shows), but worthwhile. I was caught up in time to start the new shows live.

For those already obsessed with Battlestar Galactica through my recommendation (Heidi calls them my "minions"), this is very different, but just as good. the first season of this is actually significantly better than the first season of BSG, but the second season of BSG got better, and the second season of Lost is teetering just a tiny bit, so they're now on equal par.

Although I hate to recommend yet another scheduled timesink, I really recommend this one as well.