Category: TV

Tooms

2012-09-25, 8:28 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

Tooms is a great example of how an episode can be fucking brilliant even if it's riddled with plotholes.

First, there's Tooms himself. Last we saw him he was preparing himself a new nest. No reference to that, and indeed his psychologist doesn't even know about the nest thing and is legitimately curious when he sees him making strips of newspaper late in the episode.

Now look, I can totally see the shrink dismissing Mulder's accusations out of hand. I get that. But he should at least be aware of them. His reaction at the end of the episode shouldn't be "Oh, I didn't know you were interested in art"; it should be the slow and horrible realization that all that crazy shit Mulder was saying is actually true and this guy is about to eat his liver.

(Why Tooms is finally unable to resist the urge any longer at this moment? Plot convenience; no other reason.)

Plenty of other things like that throughout. Tooms travels through a sewer but then he hides in a closet and nobody notices the smell. The key to the mystery is a body he hid because it could prove his identity, which they ultimately do based on dental X-rays. So does he not ordinarily use his teeth when he rips people's livers out? Does he ordinarily use a knife or his fingernails or something and he just used his teeth on this guy for some unexplained reason? Was he in a hurry? If he was in a hurry, how did he manage to hide him in concrete? Were dental records even a typical crime investigation tool in the 1930's when this murder is said to have taken place? None of it makes a lick of sense.

And that he gets let out in the first place -- look, I don't care how fucking crazy Mulder's "he's 100 years old and can elongate his body" story sounds, the dude has a room full of serial killer trophies and tried to murder an FBI agent. Guys like that don't just get discharged after a few months.

I could go on -- his frameup of Mulder's pretty half-assed too, and there are any number of other false notes. But all of that? Fuck it. Because this is still a great episode. Tooms continues to be one of the greatest monsters in the entire run of X-Files. He, Mulder, Scully, and the supporting cast are all in truly fine form here. And the direction -- wonderful, creepy stuff, building toward a claustrophobic climax and brilliantly creative, satisfyingly violent resolution.

As far as mythology, this is the episode that introduces Assistant Director Walter Skinner -- essentially another government bureaucrat standing in Mulder and Scully's way and trying to shut down the X-Files, but played so ably by Mitch Pilleggi that he would later become a major character. Really, you can tell that by watching -- this guy is a one-off but Pilleggi is just so damn good that he turned into something else entirely.

And the Cigarette Smoking Man is back, hanging around Skinner's office, being sinister and not saying a word until he gets a single line at the end of the episode, Silent Bob-like. I think my favorite part is that Mulder and Scully never even acknowledge that he's there. There is no "Excuse me, but who the hell is that guy, anyway?" Hell, if you just saw this episode you could easily believe that he was a figment of Skinner's imagination.

So, in conclusion: Tooms is awesome, even if the script is really kind of a damn mess.

TV Computers are Stupid

2012-09-24, 5:17 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, Tech, TV

Last night I watched the first episode of Alphas. It's a decent enough setup; there's potential there despite its heavy reliance on an Idiot Plot.

But there was this one scene -- okay, they're watching a video. And then it cuts out. And the autistic computer expert kid goes and fiddles with some stuff behind the TV and fixes it, and then explains "It was the VGA display port."

Okay, first of all: nobody computer-savvy, least of all somebody with autism, would use the phrase "VGA display port". Because while VGA is technically a port for a display, DisplayPort is the name of a completely different interface.

Second: How the fuck could it be a problem with the VGA port if the video was working fine and then cut out? Did somebody step on the cable and accidentally yank it out of the TV? If so, how the hell come we don't see that happen and nobody makes any reference to it?

Third: VGA is only video. If the VGA cable got unhooked, why did it cut off the audio, too?

(The one thing that is perfectly plausible: a room full of people who are so dumb that they need a computer genius to check whether a cable is unplugged. That, sadly, is perfectly true to life.)

It's a little thing, and not really important to the story. But it's just so damn weird. Why is it in there? And why is it nonsense? Why couldn't it have been something that actually made sense? "You changed the channel instead of turning up the volume; you have to switch it back to VGA In." Something like that. Easy.

Here's the thing: fact checker is an actual profession. There are dudes whose whole job is to make sure that the physics on Big Bang Theory or the biology on Bones is more-or-less plausible.

And yet Bones clearly straight-up does not give a fuck whether its computers behave plausibly.

Last year had an episode where the new Moriarty character booby-trapped a skeleton so that when Angela scanned it into her computer it would load a virus onto it and make it catch on fire. (In last week's episode, Angela could not even pronounce "parameterized" correctly.)

Now, I get that, for a variety of reasons, TV shows and movies may not want to actually show Mac or Windows interfaces, and instead do some kind of MofOS mockup. That's fine and understandable. My complaint isn't "That's a fictional computer interface", it's "That computer interface does not seem to operate on any kind of rules or logic." Indeed, it's entirely possible to design a fictional computer interface that looks and behaves more or less like a real computer should; my recollection of last season of Dexter is that they did a pretty solid job of this, with only a couple weird moments.

Another thing I don't get is how they still get away with this nonsense in an age where everyone has a computer.

It was one thing in the '80's and '90's when you could pretty much bullshit computers doing absolutely anything and most of your audience would be none the wiser. But in this day and age even your most out-of-touch viewer most likely owns a computer and has used Facebook.

And knows that when you look for a person, your computer does not say "SEARCHING ..." in a giant stupid angular font that takes up half the screen, then start cycling through black-and-white photos at a rate of several per second while making stupid deet-deet-deet noises until it finally finds the person you're looking for, then make more stupid beeps in time to the giant red flashing "MATCH FOUND" text across the screen, then pull up a page with white all-caps text in the Spider-Man font against a black background.

People own computers. They know what computers do and how they behave, at least on a basic, cursory level. So how come TV shows still depict computers as these flashy magic boxes?

I'd kinda like to write an episode of some TV show where a guy comes into one of these offices and then starts turning around with a quizzical look on his face every time a computer makes a stupid noise. And eventually starts asking people what the hell is wrong with their computers. "Why does it keep making that noise? Ugh, how can you stand being in a room with that all day? Jesus Christ, how can you read that all-caps, weirdly-spaced font?"

Happy Chuck Jones Day!

2012-09-21, 9:37 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Music, TV

Bending the rules on tonight's Frank Zappa post, but probably not as much as that time I used it to talk about Manos.

Per ComicsAlliance, today would have been Chuck Jones's 100th birthday. Click on over there to watch Duck Amuck. As for me, I'm going with Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa performing You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch with the Max Weinberg 7 on Conan O'Brien in 2000:

As Conan notes, that song's featured on Dweezil's excellent album, Automatic.

Gunston

2012-09-18, 10:27 pm
Categories: Music, TV

A Zappa interview by Norman Gunston, who is, according to uploader royism, an "Australian TV icon".

Zappa's got his usual grumpy interview face on, but I find it hard to believe he's not in on the joke.

On Suspension of Disbelief

2012-09-14, 8:35 pm
Categories: Stream of Consciousness, TV

I just watched the Darkness Falls episode of X-Files.

Here's the thing.

Aliens? Yeah, okay, I can work with that.

Scary Martian faces that possess people? Well, okay, I guess.

But bioluminescent bugs that can't stand light? That doesn't make a lick of goddamn sense!

And that's before we get into some of the finer details, like how when the gas is low and they don't think the generator will make it through the night, nobody even mentions trying to light a fire.

One line would be all it would take. Maybe say the ground's wet -- it looks wet enough in the last act of the show, even though it's sunny out when they're having the generator conversation.

Or just say that a little bit of light isn't enough to keep the bugs away. That could tie together with the climax, where the dude gets eaten by them despite being right in the headlights, and then Mulder, Scully, and Ranger Guest Star all get swarmed and nobody tries to open a car door to make a light come on.

This shit would be easy to handwave, but I as the guy in the audience shouldn't have to do it myself!

Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric

2012-09-13, 9:06 pm
Categories: TV

Continuing from Ghost Light; originally posted on Brontoforumus 2008-04-06.

Curse of Fenric makes a fine followup to Ghost Light. It's got vampires, Ragnarok, game theory, cryptography, World War II, sea monsters, time paradoxes, causality loops, and ancient exiled evil.

Most interesting is the "Battle not with monsters lest you become one" theme. I can't recall an American children's show ever uttering the word "Dresden"; hell, I'm hard-pressed even to think of one that actually showed a swastika. Acknowledging that the Allies were far from innocent in the war is powerful stuff for -- what was the expression Sharkey used? -- goofball foreign children's television.

The plot twists are obvious, the characters are simplistic, and all in all it's a lot easier to follow than Ghost Light. But simplicity aside, the characterization is excellent, particularly from the Doctor and Ace during the climax.

All in all, a great mix of elements, well-written and well-acted. I think I'm going to have to agree with the fanboys: it's a pity the show was cancelled just when it was starting to turn around.

Available on Netflix and Amazon Prime; well worth watching.

Great Opening Titles: Gravity Falls

2012-09-12, 8:18 pm
Categories: Announcements, Cartoons, TV

I saw this cartoon getting rave reviews as the latest in the trend of Adventure Time and My Little Pony -- a cartoon for kids with surreal humor that appeals to adults.

It had me at hello.

Hello.

Seriously, it's great. It's funny, it gives an immediate sense of the characters, the atmosphere, and the wacky world. The theme song conveys a sense of mystery and weirdness.

Also: there's a picture of Bat-Boy.

I knew this show was going to be great before the opening titles were over. And that's exactly what opening titles are for.

BTW I've added a little update to the bottom of Monday's Bissette/Ditko post. Bissette's posted a followup which includes some feedback from Craig Yoe, and there's some great insight in the comments besides.