Been watching a few episodes of the new (well, in its second season, but new to me) Robin Hood series on BBC America.

Think Hercules/Xena, only with fewer gods and more castles. In other words -- action/adventure with more attention to humor than historical accuracy or even very much drama. Nice enough video popcorn to munch from, but nothing to go seriously out of my way to watch every week.

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I actually enjoyed Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, both as the book and the 1971 Robert Wise (very faithful) movie adaptation (which I actually saw in the theater). Though more than a bit cerebral and talky, it's also tense in stripped-down man-vs-man Fail-Safe sort of way.

When we went to Iron Man, we saw a trailer for the A&E 2-night mini-series, coming up Memorial Day weekend. And my reaction to Margie was, "Hey, it's like The Andromeda Strain, only with car crashes." And it seems that was pretty close to the mark.

 Andre Braugher, who plays the nefarious Gen. George Mancheck in A&E's upcoming SF miniseries The Andromeda Strain, told SCI FI Wire that the show goes well beyond the original Michael Crichton book and 1971 movie version.

"It's very anticlimactic, the book and the film," Braugher (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) said in an interview at the miniseries' Hollywood premiere on May 7. He added: "You've got the Andromeda; it's suddenly somehow benign, but then you've got a reactor thing, you know? ... But that movie wouldn't have held up today, you know what I mean? So it had to be re-imagined."

The premise remains the same: A satellite falls from the sky, and most of the townspeople of a small Utah hamlet die suddenly. A group of top scientists, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone (Benjamin Bratt), race time in the top-secret underground lab called Wildfire to uncover the mystery of the deaths before the cause--a contagious agent called Andromeda--can spread.

Writer Robert Shenkkan has updated and expanded the story well beyond the parameters of the original 1969 book and Robert Wise's movie, taking a lot of the story outside Wildfire and boosting the action elements. "I think our screenwriter and [director] Mikael [Salomon] together have done a really wonderful job bringing that together," Braugher said.

Because, of course, the idea of a mysterious space contagion that might wipe out humanity if not identified and contained is simply too ... passé for modern audiences, too conventional. We have to do something to "boost the action elements." Like car crashes. And we definitely need a "nefarious general," and all those other "environmental, political and military storylines."

See, that's what was missing from Lord of the Rings -- a cabal of Elven, Dwarvish, and Human military juntists that were out to take over the One Ring to further their own purposes. Similarly, a remake of Casablanca wouldn't be complete without an examination of the European-Islamic relationships in Morocco and the imposition of French hegemony over North Africa. And let's not forget the animal abuse subtext that was woefully under-represented in Gone with the Wind, but will clearly need to be added into the next version filmed. And don't get me started on Bambi and the need to "punch up" the impact of strip-mining upon the denizens of the forest ...

*sigh* I'll still record it, though ...

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While there is a sense that the final two episodes of Torchwood were connected (by the last denouement scene of the first), in reality they are (NO SPOILERS) worlds apart in terms of beginnings and endings.

"Fragments" is, oddly enough, an origins show. Though Torchwood started off with introducing Gwen as the "grounded human" ingredient to the team and how she came to join them, the joining of the others into Torchwood Cardiff / Torchwood III has never been fully explained. Through an odd and artificial (but aren't they always?) set of circumstances, we get lengthy flashbacks in this ep of how Jack, Owen, Tosh, and Ianto joined. Needless to say, it all involved a lot of pain and personality dysfunction.

The Season Finale manages to explore, in an hour, everything that gets implied at the end of the previous episode, including two villains (well, one ... maybe), torture (of course), massive destruction, terrible loss, and a death, or two, or ... well, you get the idea. At the same time, most of the characters rise to the occasion, showing that, despite their more-than-occasional feet of clay, they really are worthy to be protectors of the human race. It's a gut-wrencher, and it leaves the team with as many questions as it does offer answers -- as in, where to they go from here? 

Good stuff, if "nasty, brutish, and short."

This has been a mixed bag season for Torchwood. The characters have been much more established than in the first season, but the plot arcs have been uneven. Gwen's marriage -- and her husband, Rhys -- have been spiffy. Owen's death and semi-resurrection were ... less so. Those two, plus Jack, have gotten the lion's share of attention, though Tosh and Ianto had a few good moments. It's still felt as though the show were still trying to find itself, to establish a theme a bit more solid than "How deeply can we screw with our cast and all they hold dear or want to?"   That's fine as the occasional bit, but as regular fare it can become a bit much.

That said -- there's a lot there to like. If they can get the tone more consistent while keeping everyone on their toes as they have ...

I have no idea what's ahead for Torchwood -- and, no, I don't want to know, though from what I understand, there's been no official word on a Series 3 from the BBC. If it does come to pass -- I'll be there.

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Fox, the eternal tease, has approved a second season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, up to 13 episodes.

Meanwhile, the DVD set of the truncated (9-episode) first season should be out in August.

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I loved this show when it was on back in 1985 or so. I'm glad to see my nostalgic fondness -- unlike so much else from the 80s -- is well-placed.

The Equalizer, Season One 

Overall
Story		Acting
Production		Features

Story: Tapping into the Reagan-era cynicism and fear of urban crime, and channeling a bit of John le Carré, The Equalizer tells the tale of Robert McCall, a former CIA (agency not named) agent who, tired of bureaucrats, politics, and promises he's not been able to keep, quits* and sets up a private detective/troubleshooting service to atone for all the Little People he's not been able to help or save -- the folks who are too small for the justice system to help. He advertises in the classifieds ("Odds against you? Need help? Call the Equalizer.") and mixes spycraft, intimidation, suavite, and unswerving resolve to take down everything from drug lords to political assassins to psychos to slumlords to Donald Trump (or a reasonable facsimile thereof).

The cases always have a personal touch -- he's not out to be a hero, he's out to help an individual, a couple, someone lost, someone who can't fight for themselves. Interspersed with all of this is McCall's continued informal involvement in Agency business -- using old contacts, borrowing help, his friendship with his old Control, and dealing with snarky Agency politics that consider him a dangerously loose cannon at best, an outmoded dinosaur at worse.

The writing is generally good. There's still a degree of "social / crime issue of the week," and 80s fashions and hairstyles and portrayals of "hipness" and painfully socially awareness and occasional preachiness are ghastly. On the other hand, there's plenty of grim and gritty, and the spy-stuff and bits where McCall takes the stage hold up extraordinarily well. The show is quite violent for its day -- not blood-spattering violent, but quite a few off-screen (sometimes barely) killings, often either brutal or coldly efficient.

The show also marked the early days of story arcs. The Equalizer has several, from McCall trying to rebuild his relationship with his son (for whom he was "never there"), to the political infighting in the Agency (as personified in the smarmy Jason). It's worth noting that while the episodes are largely "done in one," and justice is almost ultimately always done, there are plenty of cases where it's not all skittles and unicorns and happiness at the end, times where McCall may have won, but at a cost and with failures that clearly haunt him.

While sometimes there are aspects that are straight out of 1985, much of the show hangs together quite well, even for today's more sophisticated TV audience. Or, at least, for me.

Acting: Show creator Michael Sloan had to fight (and shop the show to a different network) to get Edward Woodward into the lead role, against naysayers who wanted someone more craggy and obviously heroic (and slender). It was the right course to take, as Woodward both looks and acts perfectly as the former ex-spy, alternately charming and lethal, beset by amateurs and leading professionals. He does a great job of dealing with the old Inner Demons from his past, and the challenges of the present -- always with a smile that never goes very deep, and the constant threat of an explosive, deadly anger.

The continuing supporting cast is primarily McCall's colleagues in and around the Agency. Robert Lansing does his usual enjoyable job as the lean and aging Control, McCall's friend and alter-ego on the other side of the professional divide. Saul Rubinek is appropriately despicable as (first season) Agency antagonist Jason. Keith Szarabajka plays the younger, trigger-happy Mickey Kostmeyer, the most frequent of Agency "assets" McCall borrows. There are a variety of others, almost all of them decent or better, as recurring cops, customers, or back-story elements.

Guest stars read like a who's-who of 80s and 90s talent. Filming in New York, just as Law & Order does, meant being able to drawn on a huge pool of actors.

But the show centered on Woodward/McCall -- as demonstrated when a heart attack left him unable to participate late in the series, which rapidly went downhill despite some fine talent brought in to backfill. He nails -- or creates -- the character perfectly as someone you want to be able to call, but perhaps don't want to really know ...

Production: The Equalizer was the first TV series to film in New York for a long time, and it makes effective use of the city ... from the shiny and aristocratic to (more often) the grimy, run-down, decaying and dangerous. 

The cinematography, in general, is quite good in this season. There's a lot of conventional TV angles, but also a lot of more sophisticated tricks and techniques. 

No discussion of the show is complete without mention of the soundtrack by Stewart Copeland (The Police).  Alternately driving, disturbing, humorous, and rich, it set the tone for the show (literally) as much as the city did.

Features: This 5-disc set is slender on features. The premiere episode has a good commentary track by creator Michael Sloan, and there's an episode from Season Two included, but that's about it.

Overall: While I put on a brave face and wallow in nostalgia all to often for TV shows from my youth, The Equalizer is truly worth the watching and has been worth the wait.

So, when is Season Two coming out?

Other links:
The Equalizer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Equalizer" (1985) (IMDB)

*According to the premiere commentary track, the original main titles was a Prisoner-esque silent montage of McCall slamming down his resignation.  

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I can't believe March is over. Yeesh.

1. Wiki Woman - An article on the Wikipedia wars on both Obama and Clinton's pages.
2. Most Awesomely Bad Military Patches 10 | Danger Room from Wired.com - Tenth in a series of stunningly improper / un-PC / goofy "morale patches" for various military organizations. This page has a list of the previous entries. I don't know whether to be appalled or to giggle or both.
3. Triviagasm: Far Out SciFi Worlds of Sid and Marty Krofft - I loved the Kroft stuff as a kid. Well, some of them. I was a big Bugaloos fan and Lidsville follower, And, of course, Land of the Lost rocked. Most of the others, though, I never got into.
4. Writing for Firefly and Battlestar - From the only person who did both, Jane Espenson.
5. Exchange: HBO's 'John Adams' (Parts 1 and 2) - A discussion between historians about the mini-series. I'm going to revisit this once I've read the whole thing.
6. Commentary: Inside the Twisted Mind of the Security Professional - A Bruce Schneier discussion of how security professionals see things differently -- and why maybe we should (sometimes) do the same.
7. Pulp of the Day - A pulp magazine cover a day -- complete with caption contest. Cool.

Filed under :: Blogging :: Elections 2008 :: Homeland Security :: Media :: Media - TV :: Potpourri
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BG comes back next Friday, 4 April. Here's a new trailer/ad for the (final) season.

It looks like my least favorite plot twist (no spoilers here) is still in play -- but it looks like plenty of action and angst are ahead, so I suppose I'll just have to watch ...

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Various bits JMS revealed at WonderCon last weekend, including the comics he's doing (and has done and will do), movie scripts he has in the pipeline, the future of B5, a spec script I very much want to see happen, and the formatoin of his own production company.

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It's the 54th anniversary of the Commericial Color TV -- the RCA CT-100.

The RCA set had a 15-inch screen and sold for $1,000, which has the buying power of $7,850 today. That's more than enough to take your pick of 50-to-60-inch plasma screens with up to 16 times the screen area of the 1954 model.

[...] It was the RCA standard -- with its backward compatibility to existing black-and-white broadcasts -- that came to define the market. Few families wanted to clutter their living rooms with one box for color and another for black-and-white.

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From the most insightful political commentators of this era.

Oh, and in case you missed it in the comments ... this.

Filed under :: Elections 2008 :: Fourth Estate :: Media - TV
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