Gramarye

Well, maybe not. But close. I’ve been listening to the ??Eureka?? “podcast”:http://www.scifi.com/eureka/downloads/podcast/ and have been consistently impressed. Despite playing a dumb guy for a living (or, rather, someone with a lot of common sense and not a lot of book-learning), he has a broad knowledge of trivia, and can frequently go into some depth on the background material for the episodes.

He’s also engaged with the podcast, the sci-fi channel forums, etc., in a way that actors and other tv staff usually are not; most of them regard them as a marketing duty or as yet another place to goof off entertainingly (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but Ferguson treats them as an avenue of real communication between performer and audience — he points out that without the benefit of a live studio audience, the internet is one of the best tools an actor has to measure whether or not a performance choice is working.

It’s a little painful, however, to hear him trying to podcast while sick. Witty commentary and hacking up a lung should be rigorously separated — I speak as someone who has frequently suffered the consequences of not taking this principle seriously enough.

I’m pretty pleased with ??Heroes??, although it is easily one of the most derivative things I’ve ever seen. It’s not always fair to say, “Oh, that’s just X-Men,” because the X-Men mythos is pretty damn broad, and it’s certainly not as though the idea of a mutant-powered genetically different subset of the population began with X-Men; Alfred Bester certainly has them by decades, and I doubt he can claim to be the originator.

But in the case of this show, it’s hard to avoid feeling not just that one is watching a big-budget tv version of X-Men, but that one is watching a big-budget tv version of ??Mutant X??, the syndicated action series which could not (owing to Sony’s acquisition of the movie rights) speak its name, as it were.

But that’s okay; I enjoyed ??Mutant X??.

The other obvious derivation is ??Unbreakable??, which many, many, many people hated, but which I thought was terrific. ??Heroes?? combines the hero-everyman dichotomy of ??Unbreakable?? with the global perspective and conspiracy subplot of ??Mutant X??. One wonders, in fact, if this wasn’t part of the pitch, in the combinatorial hollywood fashion. (??Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang?? fans, all together now: “Native American Joe Pesci.”)

I find it very difficult to be impressed by this combination, but I also find it very easy to be entertained by it. Good enough.

Some of the characters do, however, break through to a deeper level of interest. The suicidal cheerleader is certainly refreshing (not everyone who wants to kill him/herself is a goth, and not every super-hero cheerleader is Buffy Summers — not that she didn’t have her suicidal moments, as I recall), and the little Japanese guy kicks ass. I’m also intrigued by alternate persona stripper person; I like the idea of a superhero with a power which could only possibly be at home in a horror film — although her character seems a bit cookie-cutter in other respects.

Now, the actual writing, in contrast to the character creation, so far is strictly okay, but hopefully that will pick up as time passes. ??Heroes?? is run by Tim Kring of ??Crossing Jordan??, and while that hasn’t necessarily been a groundbreaking show, it has strong plotting and dialogue, which hopefully will be true of ??Heroes?? as well. And hopefully ??Heroes?? won’t fall victim to the mid-season loss of momentum that contributed to the downfall of ??Surface?? and ??Invasion?? last season…. luckily, I didn’t catch the first episode until it re-ran last night, so it has a fair chance of avoiding the much-weakened Nick’s Law curse.

(I know no one liked ??Surface?? and not that many people liked ??Invasion??, but both had extremely strong season season endings, and it bothered me a lot that neither returned.)

Dinner consisted mostly of Fakin’ Bacon smoked tempeh (if you don’t know what tempeh is, google it — or, come to think of it, don’t; you’re better off not knowing) with some quasi-fresh chow fun type noodles, along with some obvious seasonings — hoisin, tamari, peanut butter, garlic, miso, rice vinegar.

Tasty; I ate a lot more than I should have.

MAKE: Blog: MAKE: Toast art

Feels a _lot_ like ??The Usual Suspects??; characters ranging from somewhat likeable to totally unsympathetic, heist action, etc. As a single episode, it wasn’t all that strong. However, the reason it didn’t feel strong is that a lot of threads were left dangling; the success of the show will depend on how well they’re taken up in later episodes.

The actors turned in what amount to solid b-movie performances, and the writing and direction were unremarkable. However, the question is, how dramatically will it unravel? The beauty of ??The Usual Suspects?? is the way the characters, who are experienced criminals led by a calculating master planner, fall to pieces. If ??Smith?? can replicate that, it will be successful; if it can’t — if it devolves into yet another heist drama — it probably will not be.

I should really get around to making a tea cozy at some point. But I can say with a high degree of confidence that it won’t be *this* tea cozy.

Craftzine.com blog: A Closer Look - Craft-Tea Tea Cozy

Mmm. I’ve felt bad about Skeet Ulrich, ever since I caused ??Miracles?? to be canceled by enjoying it. (Nick’s law, you may recall, dictates that shows I like have to be canceled within two seasons — we consider it to be no longer in effect following the insane success of ??Lost??, but it was fully active back when ??Miracles?? had its four episodes of airtime.) It’s nice to see him working again, and in a weird SF project to boot.

It’s not bad. It has a slightly Stephen King feel to it. (Oh, look. We’re a small town, where everything’s normal, except it’s not, because something horrible is happening, only we’re not sure what it is yet.) Some of the acting is okay, and the writing wasn’t bad. And in addition to Skeet, there were some other familiar faces — Sprague Graythingy, who was a supporting character on another Nick victim, Fox’s ??John Doe??, plays a schoolteacher, anad Shoshwhatsit Stern, the deaf girl from ??Weeds??, is there. Hopefully she’s going to get as much airtime as she does on ??Weeds??, if not more, as she kicks ass. Gerald McCraney is fine, as are the other actors whom I don’t know.

The premise is excellent, and is well executed, although I would have withheld the answering machine until episode three or four.

I’m still watching ??Six Degrees?? now, so no final thoughts, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen so far. It’s appears to be a genuinely cross-genre show. The storylines combine drama, crime, conspiracy, and who knows what all else. I’m extremely happy to see Hope Davis on TV, and the other folks turned in strong performances — even the chick from ??I, Robot??, whom I had a hell of a time trying to take seriously in that movie. Susan Calvin, my ass.

Of course, any time you have a show that tries to merge such disparate threads, you run the risk of losing the integrity of each. I have a relatively high degree of faith in JJ Abrams, who has a proven ability to manage minutely interrelated plotlines. So, I’m absolutely optimistic. The only thing that gives me pause is that the relatively low depth of story per character per episode (at least, judging by this one) means that it’s relatively hard to achieve a strong sense of connection. However, if Abrams can sell us Dharma sharks and fake beards, I’m sure he can make me care about cocaine addict photographers and middle-aged widows, no matter how much their storylines read like the summary of a lifetime tv movie.