Category Archives: Television

Corona vs Chernobyl

For some strange and unknowable reason here in the depth of a global pandemic I have started re-watching HBOs Chernobyl mini-series. Brainchild of show runner and writer Craig Mazin the five-episode series follows the historical disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear powerplant following the explosion that ruptured the core and endangered million with its radioactive contamination. The series has won a number of awards around the globe and garnered praise for its acting, direction, and writing.

Mazin centers the themes of truth and lies at the heart of his scripts for Chernobyl opening the series with the question, ‘What is the cost of lies?’Given the lengthy time for writing, pre-production, and production Mazin’s work was not a direct comment on the Trump presidency but the applicability of those themes and questions are unavoidable.

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor number 4 exploded because of lies and because of the reliance of the system upon not only lies but that the lies of the authorities were never to be questioned. Lies hampered the recognition of the disaster and hampered attempts to mitigate its lethal consequences.

And yet dozens of scientists and engineers and bureaucrats managed to evade the lies and with the dangerous work of hundreds of thousands more and the sacrifice of millions more confront and contain the contamination. The Soviet system when confronted with the awful truth of the explosion and what it imperiled spent vast amounts of treasure and resources doing what was required. Mikhail Gorbachev the final General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has expressed the belief that the economic cost of the Chernobyl disaster was a critical factor in the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Which brings me to the global COVID-19 Pandemic.

The government of the United States, the world’s wealthiest and most technologically advanced nation/state, under the presidency of Donald Trump, aided and abetted by support from his governing party the Republicans, has lacked the courage shown by the brutal communist government of the former USSR.

The Administration has failed to spend the treasure necessary, has failed to muster the resources required, has left its citizenry to face the crisis alone and instead has continually counseled with lies resulting in a count of 150,000 thousand dead, a count that continue to rise.

Trump and his GOP enablers have plugged their ears, squeezed their eyes shut and like children pretended that the mess simply doesn’t exist.

This is not to praise the Soviet System. It was a brutal, monstrous, and evil empire responsible for the murder of millions. It subjugated and enslaved its own citizenry and that of its neighbors the world is better off with its collapse.

It is shocking however that a system so utterly reliant upon lies and the denial of truth rose to a crisis while a party that prides itself on virtual signaling its patriotism leaves its country to burn.

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Leave Fiction in its Period

Last night my sweetie-wife and I watched a portion of the BBC’s live presentation of The Quatermass Experiment. Written by Nigel Kneale and originally produced as live television in 1953 the shows centers on Bernard Quatermass and Britain’s first men into space with the disastrous and horrifying consequences of that first rocket flight. Kneale is one of my favorite television and film genre writers who produced material that was both thrilling and thoughtful. His ghost story The Stone Tape remains a beloved production to me.

In 2005 the BBC recreated the energy of live television with this new production of The Quatermass Experiment. Transposing the action to the modern-day United Kingdom. Instead of Quatermass’ Experimental Rocket Group being part of the British government it now stood as a private space launch concern. However, much of the dialog and drama revolves around the concept of a first flight into space and for 2005 that’s a concept that simply doesn’t carry a lot of sense of the unknown. The mystery of where the spacecraft flew to simply can’t be sustained in our current technological world. And while 500,000 miles is further than any manned flight actually flown it’s still in our own neighborhood and unlikely to yield up a story about aliens and monsters.

The Quatermass Experiment belong to its period just as numerous other stories that shouldn’t be ‘modernized’ such as The Manchurian Candidate or Fail-Safe, another experiment into revitalizing live television.

Works of art are products of their time, the social pressures and environments that both inspired and constrained the artists as they created and it is in their time they should remain.

 

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Comic Con Online

I won’t have a lot to say about this as I have never been a regular attendee of San Diego’s famous Comic-Con. My interest in the Comic industry has always been light, never a collector myself but during the 80s reading the issues purchased by my collector friends. That said I am not putting down the Comic-Con. It’s a tremendous event that now puts a global spotlight on things geeky and nerdy and I am thrilled that so many of my friends have such a good time most years.

The pandemic, just as it has with some many other fun events, canceled in person Comic-Con but the organizers have thrown together a virtual convention with panel discussions and presentations now available on YouTube. Yesterday my sweetie-wife and I watched a pair of these, first a cast discussion for What We Do in the Shadows, FX’s hit vampire comedy and this was quite enjoyable and then an interview discussion with Charlize Theron about her evolution in an action star and general all around badass on-screen.

The online presentation is a poor substitute for the crowded chaos that is Comic-Con and I dearly hope that my friends can soon return to in person geekery.

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Understanding Your Material

It’s interesting and instructive to compare two bits of film, though one is television, and their approach towards the military and their depictions of military men.

In Them! military characters confront giant ants created by mutation induced from the first atomic explosions. It is simply amazing to see the nuanced actions that are correctly capture in their bearing, their methods, and in their characters. One excellent example is when attacking a nest in the open desert and they are using bazookas as part of their assault. When you load that WWII weapon there is actually a wire lead that goes from the round to a terminal on the firing tube. I know this because I’ve watched training films from the war on how to properly load and fire the weapons. The characters in the movie correctly follow the weapon system’s procedure.

Nearly 50 years later in the iconic television series Buffy The Vampire Slayer the titular character Buffy is working with an elite special forces unit hunting down demons and monster in her hometown. When these best of the best warriors are briefed by a scientist on their next target thy have no questions for her and are silently dedicated to the mission and following orders. Buffy is the outsider and non-conformist with a string of questions and concerns.

This scene entirely misses the boat about what it means to be an elite warrior in U.S. service. These men are smart and those smarts are part of why they are elites. It is simplistic and reductive to think of special forces personnel as silent followers of orders.

The difference between the two productions likely comes down to the fact that in the 1950s nearly everyone knew someone who served and that close association informed the writing and production choices. For Hollywood of the late 90s and early 2000s people will actual services records in the production pipeline are likely to be rare to non-existent. Production companies get their writers and producers and directors from college and industry training with very few coming to film production later in life with the sort of life experiences that could help avoid these sorts of mistakes. It is also unlikely that anyone in the production system knows or knew anyone that served is such a capacity. All of us lead lives that are far too insular. Having veterans among the staff and having veterans review the material to help assure accuracy would be baby steps to getting such characters correct.

And the same is true for characters beyond those with military service. It is true for characters of religion, nationality, or ethnicity.

 

Representation matters.

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Quick Hits

I’ve started outlining a new novel proposal. I have already stepped through the five acts and bullet pointed all the major beats, Now it is time to produce a prose document synopsizing the story and show that to my editor. It’s another dark cynical SF story.

Also, I am working my way, finally, through Netflix’s Marvel Limited series The Defenders but so far, and I have watched six out of eight episodes, I am far from impressed. The writing on this one fails to lock into the voice for the various characters and they instead feel like that they have the shape of the personalities but lack the depth. There has been a tendency, possibly created by time pressures, to go for the most obvious plot turn or bit of dialog. Several times I have mentally delivered the upcoming dialog before the character on screen actually utters it.

San Diego has recieve3d the go ahead from the State Government to move forward into loosening social distancing restrictions and Saturday I will be at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore to sign stock of my novel Vulcan’s Forge.

 

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Mind Exchange is Fantasy Not SF

The final indignity for the original series of Star Trek was the episode Turnabout Intruder where a bitter woman, Janice Lester, used trickery and an alien device to swap bodies with Captain James T. Kirk generating some of the series most over the top performances from William Shatner.

The body swap, a fantastical process where one person’s mind is placed into the body of another is tired trope and one that should always be understood as fantasy not science-fiction.

The core erroneous concept for this idea is that there is a separation between body and mind, that our ‘selves’ exist independent of our bodies and thus could be transplanted into a new form like a sapling being moved to a larger pot.

Our minds are emergent properties of our bodies. The subtle and complex interactions of physical experience, hormonal balances, and genetics give rise to the varied and unique personalities of the human race. There is not independent mind to move from one body to another. It is the body that generates the mind and with a different body, or a significantly altered one, the mind is different. Numerous brain injury and disease cases bear witness to this fact of life.

All of that said, I think I have found at least one, far out but barely plausible method of telling a body swap story. Now to see if I can make it work.

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The Good News Post

So, there are several bits of new news to share this chilly December morning.

First off: Because I have a minor surgery scheduled this week and then a week off from my day job for recovery that mean I will not be working any more overtime. The money is nice, and I love chipping in and helping out my team at Kaiser Permanente but it’s really nice to get back to a normal schedule that allows for writing.

Second, pivoting of the subject of writing, our favorite local bookstore Mysterious Galaxy is saved! They have new owners and a new location so the store will not have to shutter depriving San Diego book readers, un-employing its staff, or leaving its various book, gaming, and writing groups homeless. Truly this had made this season festive.

And HBO’s Watchmen reached the season one finale and for once I am not disappointed by a project associate with showrunner Damon Lindelof. Quite the contrary, this series was fantastic. Every element plays perfectly in tune with the themes that grounded this version of the story and all the major points and developments were well established. The characters both as written and as performed simply captivated and for those that are the older versions of ones from the sources material managed to be true to their natures while exploring logical and consistent change from the thirty years that had passed. While Angela Abar (Regina Hill) may have been the protagonist of the story Laurie Blake (Jean Smart) took home favorite character prize from this viewer. Where the original graphic novel Watchmen centered thematically on the Cold War and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation with those ideas and terrors informing not just the plot but the look and feel of the story this Watchmen explored the lingering horror, hate, and trauma of racial injustice and bigotry. Starting off with the slaughter and destruction of ‘Black Wall Street’ in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921 and ending with crisis from Tulsa that threatens the world, Watchmen 2019 explores justice and the thorny issues confusing that concept with its petty cousin vengeance. Best off the season did not end with a plot cliffhanger. While the final shots left a terribly large question unanswered it did not fail to resolve the essential conflict or theme of the series. If there is never a season two the show is still full resolved and satisfying. Thank you, Mr. Lindelof, I do so hate cliffhangers.

 

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The Crown: Season 3

I’m shocked how much I have enjoyed the Netflix series The Crown. Never has the drama surrounding the Royal Family been of interest to me and yet when I started episode one season on I watch instantly captivated by the fantastic writing, the rich characters, and view of history that I had never before seen. Now we finally have season three and new cast to re create these characters as they progress into middle age and the new age of intense public scrutiny.

I was a little concerned about a new cast. I understood the need to do the change over, there is only so much that old age make-up can do and if w are to follow the same characters over a fifty year plus arc then that will dictate recasting the parts as the characters age.

My concerns were unfounded.

Of course Olivia Coleman, now an Oscar winning actor, performed magnificently, but she always so perfectly captured the same character as Claire Foy that in my mind when I recall a scene it can b either actor’s voice in my memory. Tobias Menzies, whom I have seen in so many parts that he has become part of the established background of many British shows, is fantastic as Phillip. He lays it differently than Matt Smith and yet I can still seem the same person. Menzies so excels at the quite interior scene conveying massive emotion and turmoil without uttering a sound that it is nearly criminal that the man does get even more work. He manages an evocative performance that is quite unlike anything I have seen from his past projects. Helena Bonham Carter as party girl Princess Margaret is charming and he scenes with Clancy Brown as LBJ are the comedic highlight so far of this season. (I am about 4 episodes in.)

The episode I watched last night that brought in Phillip’s mother was deeply touching and it awakened my missing my own mother. Family is family.

Over all this season holds up the powerful and personal stories that propelled the earlier seasons to well deserved awards.

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Television Review: The Mandalorian

November 12th Disney Plus went live and since I could get that and the streaming service HULU for the same price I pay for HULU I went ahead and signed up giving me access to the Star Wars  inspired series The Mandalorian.

Set during the chaos after the fall of the Galactic Empire in Return of the Jedi, the series follows the adventures of the titular and unnamed Mandalorian bounty hunter. Returning to the original Star Wars  aesthetic of a dirty, grimy and lived in universe the show is not about Jedi and the quarrels of feuding noble house but, at least at first, about the scramble for survival by less legendary characters.

The pilot episode sets up several aspect of the central character’s situation: money is tight, his people are dispossessed, and he suffered a traumatic childhood.  Given a missions that appears to be ‘off book’ by a mysterious employer, played by veteran eclectic filmmaker Werner Herzog, the Mandalorian is soon swept up into what appears to a deep conspiracy that may test his off practiced detachment from he fellow beings.

While short on characterization The Mandalorian  shows promises that we hope the grand arc will live up to.

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Posting will be irregular

At my day-job the busy period has started and with it tons of that sweet sweet overtime money so my posting here will be hit or miss.

Today enjoy this movie trailer for the dark horror movie version of a beloved television classic. While the pilot of the original series was a dark ‘monkey’s paw’ sort of thing this if straight up horror.

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