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Help me! i'm languishing in all this supposed knowledge!

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Farscape Series Review

On my journey through the wild world of Farscape I had a friend constantly ask me if it was better than my beloved Battlestar Galactica. I still cannot give a definitive answer because they are such fundamentally different shows. They're like night and day. Yet very few shows, sci fi or otherwise, are so willing to go as far as Farscape does. It's world-building is consistently impressive, it's characters well-written, it's effects crafted with deft care (courtesy of the Jim Henson company) and it's stories expansive and complex.

Not what you'd expect from a show featuring a farting alien.

Telling the story of John Crichton (Ben Browder), an astronaut shot through a wormhole to a distant part of the universe, Farscape tells stories of immense beauty, heartbreak and hilarity. If i may be so bold: it is to science fiction, what Buffy is to fantasy. It is never what you expect it to be. You thought you'd see a show about space hijinks where everything is reset by the end of an episode? Here, have a several seasons long arc with ridiculously impressive continuity. You thought your lead was an infallible hero, ala Luke Skywalker? No, not at all. John Crichton is a flawed human being who makes tough choices and loses people he loves in the process. Aeryn Sun is just a love interest? Screw you buddy, Aeryn Sun will kick your ass and look good doing it.

And it all takes place on a living ship named Moya. It is a wonderful ship.

With a cast consisting of talent like Claudia Black, Anthony Simcoe, Virginia Hey and Gigi Edgely (all Aussies by the way!) this show doesn't lack for acting prowess. These actors have given me many emotions, especially Black, how she doesn't have a bigger career i will never understand, the woman just knows how to act. Simcoe brings both physical and emotional power to Ka Dargo and makes the audience feel his pain even through all those prosthetics, Virginia Hey brings kindness and subtle badassery to Zhaan, as you would expect from a Mad Max alum, and Gigi Edgely is a gloriously physical performer, a true character actress.

It is especially impressive that the latter three must act through full body make up/prosthetics. The show can also boast some great guests, Magda Szubanski, Bruce Spence, Rebecca Gibney and Rebecca Riggs all make appearances.

Along the way Crichton gains and loses friends, gets involved in a galactic war and comes face to face with some true horrors. But what viewers will take away from Farscape is its willingness to go all the way with its storytelling, it pulls no punches and takes its characters to daring places. I don't just recommend Farscape as a science fiction, i recommend it as an adventure, a fantasy, a comedy, a tragedy, a romance and an epic.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

CG discovers Leverage... Will die of lack of sunlight

So i just got around to watching the TV series Leverage, for those of you who have lives this is a relatively episodic show that is ALL ABOUT HEISTS. It's cast features Oscar winner (or was that nominee? does it matter? Jennifer Jason Leigh has neither) Timothy Hutton, Coupling's Gina Bellman, Beth Riesgraf (current queen of my heart), Aldis Hodge and Christian Kane. Kane's hair apparently always looks like that and was indeed not a bizarre character choice for Angel, which i sort assumed it was. I love it it so much and i want to touch it lovingly. Dat mane...

Alright so I've not completed it yet but here are my thoughts so far:
- it's rather hilarious (Bellman as a nun in a movie about werewolves = dying.)
- It's shockingly poignant (some of the characters have hilarious and entertaining backstories. Others have backstories like Nate and Parker's and i am going to curl up into a ball in the corner.)
- The actors have great chemistry, which is always a plus.
- The rising amount of neuro-atypical characters on television warms my heart and Parker is a great addition to the fold, even if it's not technically a disorder in her case but rather a horrible childhood (ball in corner.)
- The plots are inventive (let's steal a movie! let's steal a court case!)
- It's so damn fun.

I look for fun in my shows, it should be clear from things like Fringe and Buffy, both of which - despite punching me in the heart several times- are pretty laugh out loud funny. So something like Leverage should have been a no-brainer, but I didn't get around to it until very recently (I speak only of episodes in the first season in this post.)

I'm looking forward to completing more of this and here's hoping that maintains this level of enjoyment throughout it's five season run.


Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Why You Should Watch Battlestar Galactica

I went into Battlestar Galactica expecting something cheesy. I expected sub-par special effects, wooden acting and bad dialogue. Sort of like Star Trek: Voyager i suppose. If pressed to say why i ended up watching it i probably would have just said that it was to say that i had. After all- what could a show with a name like Battlestar Galactica offer?

Battlestar Galactica deeply touched and affected me in a meaningful and inspiring way.

If the amount of tears you shed during a show determines your favourite then Battlestar is the best show I have ever witnessed. I have cried more times than i can count in this series, from times of deep sorrow to times of utter elation. I believe that no other television show has ever held such an emotional grip on me. There is something so intensely beautiful within this series and it's mythology. You see I made several mistakes at the beginning of this series, chief among them was I thought the characters might be two dimensional (I was wrong) and that the Cylons were out and out bad guys. The latter was so horribly wrong that I just slapped myself in the face.

At first I was ready to vilify the show, I thought it was going to demonize religion in some way, hey i may not put much stock in it myself but I'll be damned that I watch someone be asses about the subject. But I was quick to the trigger, I was foolish and stupid, I didn't understand what this show was doing or where it was going. My sincerest apologies, really. I had never seen a show like you before BSG, I was looking for flaws because you were too great, it was making me uneasy. That i was forming an opinion on this aspect so early tells me that I had rather different expectations of the series - namely that i didn't expect this religious or spiritual theme at all. This really played with my expectations (and i loved it). Of course i dropped that 'are the Cylon's meant to be christianity? that seems rather insulting' thought pretty quickly. The shows intent became a far loftier one and yeah I feel like kicking myself for actually having that thought.

Battlestar Galactica created an entire mythology for humanity. One that took inspiration from so many pieces of literature, scripture, myths and religious ideologies that it would take a much smarter person than I to map it out for you.

It's not like this shown will gives you the meaning of life or anything, but it has enough emotional resonance and smarts to be able to tell a story that seriously asks what it means to be human.

But do you know what impresses me more than complex mythologies that actually give us answers? (Whether you accept them or not is down to personal preference). Characters I can completely fall for. Laura Roslin, William and Lee Adama, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, Gaius Baltar, Athena - anybody. Not a single one of these characters were without layers or richly told stories that weren't handled with deft care and love.

It's a military show, it's a space opera, it's a drama (with some very funny moments strewn in) and it's rich with political, war and religious allegories. Battlestar Galactica might just be one of my favourite shows ever. It also holds the ability to make me break down in tears in the space of a few seconds.

This is one of the most perfectly orchestrated (and i mean that both literally and figuratively, Bear McCreary's music is bloody fantastic) television series' in history. I also now realise why Sci Fi's (i'm not spelling it that stupid way) movies and many of their shows are terrible: they sunk all their money and talent into Battlestar Galactica and they're still getting over it. It's a work of pure joy, warmth, sadness, intelligence, spirituality and profound humanity.

And don't even get me started on the frakking special effects.