The Dead Zone

I've recently been watching The Dead Zone television series based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. I think the title is unfortunate. It seems to turn many people off. I imagine that they picture zombies or something. There are no undead in The Dead Zone. A more appealing title might be the tag line on the show's website: The Reluctant Psychic. The show is excellent. Like most Stephen King novels, the story is populated by normal believable characters who are exposed to extra-ordinary circumstances. King's genius, which I think is carried on very well by the show's producers, is simply that. What would happen if this extra-ordinary thing were acutally true. In this case, the main character of the story is demonstrably psychic. If you spend any time with him, you can't help but understand that he really can see the past and the future. What would that be like? What would it be like if such a person served on a jury and could see a vision of what really happened during a shooting? What would it be like if he were on a plane that was going to crash? How would the press react? How would the police react? How would it affect a politcal campaign. Is there, possibly, some greater reason why Johnny Smith has these abilities? Was he put in the right place at the right time by some guiding hand? They are all very interesting questions. The show does not hesistate to find the answers.

Kara Goes Home Again (Spoilers)

This week's episode of Battlestar Galactica, "You Can't Go Home Again", has a few small touches that I wanted to point out. After Apollo recognizes Starbuck's raider, there's a moment where they greet each other by rolling their vipers from side to side. The original Galactica has an episode in it where Apollo and Starbuck fly a captured Cylon raider back from a mission on a Basestar. They signal to the fleet's vipers that they are not cylons by "waggling their wings".

Another moment that I wanted to point out is a line from the deck chief to Apollo. He says, "You can push a man a lot further than you can push a machine." That's a very interesting line if you think about it. Does that line explain the course of evolution that the cylons are following in becoming indistinguishable from humans? An interesting question...

Battlestar Galactica

This is a great show. As a teenager, I was a big fan of the original Battlestar Galactica. Later in life I watched some reruns and learned the awful truth. It was really just another Glen A. Larson TV show. Perhaps I'm being a little defensive here. I was a fan of a lot of Glen A. Larson TV shows. He was the executive producer of most of the popular TV shows while I was growing up. I watched a lot of his TV. I'll admit I was entertained. Now, I'm twice as old as I was when those shows first aired. My tastes have developed. When I was that age I enjoyed grape juice. Now I enjoy a nice Pinot or Cabernet. That is the difference between the original Battlestar Galactica and the new Battlestar Galactica. One was a sugary indulgence and the other is a complex bouquet.

Yes, Starbuck is a girl. If I were Dirk Benedict, I'd be irritated that my writers didn't give me nearly as much to work with as Katee Sackhoff got. Sackhoff just pulls off an amazing performance. I'll admit I was skeptical about the female Starbuck. Starbuck was my favorite character from the original show. But, Sackhoff sold it perfectly. There's all the stuff that I enjoyed from the original Starbuck in there, but there's a layer of complexity sewn on top of it.

Then there's Baltar. It was always difficult for me to understand the motivations of the original Baltar. Why did he sell out humanity? So he could ride around in that baseship and make snide comments to his Cylon sidekick? Now, if Tricia Helfer had been on the battlestar, I could understand his motivation. And so, I can understand how the new Baltar got into the situation he's in. I particularly enjoyed the bit of artistry the writers employed working Baltar's dialogue with Number Six into the conversation Baltar was having with the people actually present in the room.

Then there's Edward James Olmos. Ever since the Bushido episode of Miami Vice, there's been a special place in my heart for Edward James Olmos. He's dead on for playing the new more complex character of Commander Adama. I love that the quest for Earth is just a myth that Adama resurrects as a focal point for his intrepid band of refugees.

I've told the TiVo to record it. I'll be watching...

Stargate Atlantis

I watched Atlantis. Same problems as Stargate. Any time I've seen O'Neil, I've always understood his point of view. He's the main character. Why put in any effort? He knows he's going to win in the end. There's really no need to work for it. It's going to happen one way or the other.

The view of advanced technology portrayed here is ridiculous. The Wraith should be embarrassed by their poor development of technology. You're telling my that if the gate builders had "portable life detectors" that the Wraith don't have any integrated into their defense system? They don't have a computer watching for unpredicted life signs? How about video surveillance? Maybe face recognition is a really hard problem, say harder than creating wormholes, but can't the Wraith's computers tell the difference between Wraith faces and human faces? Oh, maybe the Wraith have a strong sense of personal privacy and can't tolerate the invasion of personal privacy that would result from have cameras in the corridors. Yeah, they seemed like the sensitive sort.

How about simple strategy? Surely during their defeat of the gate builders, the Wraith must have developed some basic tactical doctrines about dealing with Stargates. Why did the Wraith even allow the Puddle Jumper into their system? Why don't they have a shield over the gate?

How about when the Puddle Jumper is trying to escape. Why would the Wraith allow them to fly through the gate? Even if they didn't have control of a shield over the opening , and they couldn't prevent the ship from flying through, shouldn't they have just flow through once the gate was open? Why wait until after the ship went through? Oh right, so they could fly into the shield at the other end and get squashed.

So, humans show up with Atlantean technology. That's obvious right? The Wraith must have scanned the Puddle Jumper. Their AI system must have said, "That's a Class B Atlantean Light Troop Transport." Wouldn't someone would have to wonder, "Gee, where might someone get that kind of technology?" Oh, how about Atlantis? So, now we have to assume that the Wraith don't know where Atlantis is. If they knew, they'd scout it out and annihilate the human infestation there. In fact, if they know where Atlantis is, why didn't they obliterate it long ago? Obviously the shield wasn't up over the gate or the power would have failed. If the Wraith don't know where Atlantis is, why was it necessary to create the shield? I guess I've got to suspend my disbelief by assuming that the Wraith know where Atlantis is, but don't know the Stargate Code to get there. They have some FTL technology that allows them to get there without the code, but it takes a significant amount of time to get there that way. That's the only way the human colony survives until episode two.

Or maybe the Wraith aren't the race that defeated the gate builders. We could hold out that hope. Although unless the Wraith are a particularly stupid species who have inherited their technology from their betters, I think we should expect better from them.