Jumping On The Casting Speculation Batwagon

As The Dark Knight's box office gross approaches fifteen googleplexes or whatever it is on today, yet more and more speculation surrounds the next movie in the series, and who would feature in it (even though not a single plan has been put in motion yet). The old rumours about Johnny Depp and Philip Seymour Hoffman playing The Riddler and The Penguin are doing the rounds, which is only slightly less imaginative a suggestion than Angelina Jolie sleepwalking through a part as Catwoman. Come on! We've had the definitive Catwoman already. Why would we want to mess with that casting? Even the utterly insane rumour that Cher will play Selina Kyle as "a vamp in her twilight years" couldn't be better (and besides, it depends on Cher agreeing to play someone described as old; surely anathema to her).

Anyway, in the interests of offering yet another opinion to the overflow of currently existing speculation, here are my thoughts on casting choices for the third film in the series, The Batman Is A Badman On The Run With His Bike (official title). Luckily, I don't have to think about who could play Robin. Nolan has pretty much ruled out his inclusion, which is good news for all who have yet to get over the painful memories of Chris O'Donnell in The Schumacher Debacles (which was also the title of an unpublished Robert Ludlum novel). I've got nothing against the character (the current incarnation, Tim Drake, is terrific), and right now I think Nolan, Nolan and Goyer can make even the lamest character relevant, but I do recall the amazing Batman Animated Series becoming about 13% less amazing when Robin was introduced, so I'm fearful of the impact he would have on the series. This is in no way linked to the fact that DC Comics have made Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, and the tragic Jason Todd all look so generic that it's utterly pointless trying to come up with suggestions for who could play any of them. Any chisel-jawed and nimble brown-haired male aged between 15 and 24 could play them. So that's no fun.

Though Catwoman seems to be one of the main choices for an appearance in Batman 3: Growly Growly PunchSneer, I reckon there are other possibilities for a female antagonist, something the franchise would benefit from now that the only female character in the series has been vaporised (and barely registered onscreen prior to said vaporising). Though The Joker has been incarcerated (and probably won't ever appear again, due to unfortunate real world events), his moll could still turn up. If so, who better to play Harleen Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn) than prat-fall specialist Anna Faris?


If I were to be honest, I was so impressed by the treatment of Ra's al Ghul (and Ducard) in the first movie, that I was almost disappointed at the end of that film when we were given a hint that the next film would feature The Joker instead of Talia al Ghul, which seemed to be a more natural progression. Of course, upon seeing Heath Ledger's performance, I forgot my objections. Still, the character could be a great addition to the Nolan-TheBatmaniverse, and who better to play the perfect woman than internet search engine hit magnet Moon Bloodgood!


Not all of the females in the Batman comics are antagonists, of course, and one of our hero's biggest allies was Dr. Leslie Thompkins. Until she went all unhinged and angry and became responsible for the death of poor Stephanie Brown. Except she was actually keeping her alive and hidden somewhere. Ah comics, if you were sensible half the fun would disappear! If this longrunning character was brought to life, I can't think of anyone better than Frances Sternhagen, last seen throwing things at Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist.


Of course, the success of The Dark Knight, and the amount of money it has made, will make the studio even more interested in the making of the third film, leading to the inevitable interference from suit-wearing coke-hoovers who think their job is to get in the way of "Creative". In which case, aged and kindly Dr. Thompkins will be played by acting colossus and pretty-clothes-wearer Jessica Alba.


Speaking of allies of The Batman, after Bruce Wayne was knocked out of action during Knightfall, his role as Gotham's protector was taken over by Jean-Paul Valley, who eventually became Azrael and then died or something. I don't know. I'm not the biggest The Batman fan, and only read him when he has a good writer on, like Grant Morrison. Anyway, there is a possibility (mooted by crazed Azrael fans, of which there are probably legion) that Azrael will appear in The Batman 3, and if that happens, there is only one possibility to play the long-haired foreigner; supermodel Fabio!


His name is Foreignese for Fabulous, you know. Of course, Jean-Paul Valley took over the Batman mantle after Bruce Wayne's back was snapped by the evil Luchadore of Lameness, Bane, who sadly appeared in Batman and Robin and Batgirl Too, which is of course one of the ten worst films ever made. Let's just say my response to the mention of Bane is similar to The Batman's reaction here.


Bane is ass. But, if we're going to have to put up with him stinking up the next movie, let's get a real luchadore to play him. Nacho Libre!


And Nolan needs to make sure Bane gets his ass handed to him by a weird goatboy thing just like in this photo, because there is no way he would beat the Dark Knight. It's just so wrong. Besides, there is a much more interesting villain mastermind out there (it's the brainy ones that stick in the collective memory, not the lumps of muscle). Many have suggested that Bats needs to go up against the evil genius Hugo Strange, whose slight frame hides a keen intellect. Who better to play such a character as late-period Richard Dreyfuss?


It's also nicely symmetrical casting, what with his real world familial similarity to Christian Bale.

Of course, the chances of the movie featuring multiple villains are high, which means Bats would need some new allies. If Nolan is serious about resisting the temptation to include Robin on the team, perhaps he will end up with someone different. Helena Bertinelli (aka Huntress) has promise, being just as tortured as Bruce Wayne, and tripping along the line between good and evil just like Catwoman, though coming down more readily on the side of justice. Who could play such a dark and haunting character? A man in an expensive suit says, "What about that Eva Longoria chick that's on that Desperate Housewife Swap thing?"


Another suit would leap up, spilling his cocaine everywhere. "Fuck that, you jag-off. It's got to be Megan Fox. She's on the front of Maxim and GQ and Esquire and Loaded and Sports Illustrated and Boobs Not Covered By Clothes Monthly. I get an erection when I see pictures of her."


A battle would inevitably rage about which vapid and inexplicably lauded shell of a human should get the part, with Longoria losing out due to age (sorry Eva!), and Fox being disqualified because no one is sure how well she can work without cue-cards, which means the suits play safe and hire thespian powerhouse and smiling addict Jessica Alba.


That she is the wrong ethnicity as well as being about six inches too short to play the character means nothing. Warner will be happy with the inevitable slew of lad's mag covers featuring Alba wearing her "intense" face. Nevertheless, this is a better outcome than if Nolan decided to introduce Kathy Kane (aka Batwoman), whose deviant sexuality and liberal mindset is so disgusting to God-fearing folk that DC have had to disappear her character (and cancel plans for her own comic) as if she was a red-headed, gay, crimefighting Jimmy Hoffa. Is this because someone somewhere blames the last couple of Crises in the DC Universe on God taking vengeance on it for not heeding his fictional call? Only Pat Robertson can tell us, as he has friended God on MyopicassholeSpace.


Speaking of despicable real world people who have an iron grip on the minds of millions and who use that power to make them hate people who have never done anything to harm anyone else their whole lives, many people have noticed the similarity between The Penguin and trigger-happy Vice President Dick Cheney. Though it would give me great pleasure to imagine that he (non-fatally) shot Harry Whittington with a gun hidden in the handle of an umbrella, I have to say I think he is much better suited to play the obscure villain Kadaver.


If you don't believe me, check out this passage from his DC Database page.

Mortimer Kadaver is a murderous criminal possessing a morbid and sadistic obsession with inflicting pain and death. His hideout is filled with a wide variety of means of murder and torture, including an iron maiden, a guillotine, a hangman’s noose, and even a pool of quicklime. Kadaver enjoys feigning his own death by methods such as dressing as a vampire and emerging from a coffin, but he takes even more pleasure in meting out suffering and death to others who cross his path.

Except that Nolan would be smart enough to make sure Kadaver would never refer to what he does as torture. It's just Exxxtreme Question Asking.

To be honest, casting speculation about The Batman's gallery of amazing villains can be a lot of fun, but it often means we end up going over the same villains again and again, many of which have been portrayed in the previous Batman movies, with varying degrees of success. Do we need to see Mr. Freeze again, after being definitively portrayed by Arnie? Or Poison Ivy? Maybe as a cameo with her as a crazed eco-terrorist, as hinted at by Uma Thurman in the Schumacher movie, except this time played by actual redhead Amy Adams. One fan, whose dedication to the cause is to be saluted, has even posited an appearance by The Riddler as a Zodiac-style serial killer, which is an amazing idea. That's the kind of thinking I really respect. It's not the kind I use myself, though, so here are my thoughts on using some of the more obscure (or not-so-obscure) The Batman villains just to mix things up.

Cassius Clay Payne, aka Clayface, a blob of sentient shape-changing clay (perhaps reimagined as a master of disguise) could be played by human chameleon Mike Myers (well, if chameleons were very good at pretending to be different kinds of camera-hogging lech).


Tragic scientist Kirk Langstrom (aka Man-Bat), whose desire to heal ends up dooming him, could be reimagined as a Goth romantic whose desires lead to murder. Who better than Nick Cave?


Drury Walker, aka Batman mirror image Killer Moth, could be played by Jake Busey, because their chins are kinda similar.


That rationale also applies to Nathan Finch, aka the second Gearhead, whose cryogenic freezing and subsequent life as a cyborg could be reflected by Nolan's effort to use manipulated footage of Jack Palance to play this villain. Surely the enduring popularity of this character demands this level of effort and CGI wizardry.


Mark Desmond, aka Blockbuster, is a scientist who took drugs to become stronger, and ended up becoming an irrational brute, and so adding him to the new movie's roster of villains means we can have someone like Bane without having to have Bane in it. Therefore, bonus points. However, when I say he should be played by acting genius Nick Nolte (seriously, I <3 him), I'm inspired more by his terrifying performance as The Faux-Absorbing Man in Ang Lee's Hulk than any real life resemblances. That this mug-shot echoes Blockbuster's appearance is merely a coincidence.


Paul Dekker, aka Crazy Quilt, can control people using a helmet that manipulates colours and light. As lookalike John Waters once offended me with the excessive use of pastels in Hairspray, I say he should get the part of a murderer who incapacitates his victims using bright lights, just like the Princess Diana conspiracy theorists believe.


Bat-Mite, aka Bat-Mite, is a crappy reinvention of Mr. Mxyzptlk that no one really likes much, though Grant Morrison has just reinvented him as a possible figment of Batman's imagination. Typically bold Grant Morrison stuff. Could Nolan do such a thing? Recreate this nuisance in such a way as to make audiences like him? Only with a further, even more radical, reinvention.


You know I'm right.

Tom and Tad Trigger, aka The Trigger Twins, a pair of cowboys riding around Gotham and creating mayhem in a way similar to that of Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland in the mostly unwatched action comedy The Cowboy Way. As those guys are busy working with Paul Schrader or saving the world, The Trigger Twins, who surely need no Nolan-esque reinvention, should be played by two Owen Wilsons, because I really like Owen Wilson in Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights.


Arthur Brown, aka Cluemaster (the father of female Robin Stephanie Brown), is a bit like The Riddler, only less interesting. Nolan could make him more interesting by changing him from a mere murderer into a band of evil psychedelic musical murderers played by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.


Otis Flannagan, aka Ratcatcher, is often considered to be a gamma level threat (he is targeted by an OMAC in the current continuity in order to negate the possible complicating effects of his incredible powers), but why would Nolan choose to add someone like that to his movie? Instead, let's just hire someone who looks a bit like a rat. Jon Heder. That'll do. (N.B. I hate Napoleon Dynamite like it was a sickness.)


If any of these casting predictions come true, I trust I will get my due for being prescient. Of course, I could be horribly wrong with all of them, and as I'm prone to reflexively hedging my bets, let's just assume Warner Brothers suits have no imagination but lots of power, and replace all of those possible actors with Johnny Depp.

Dr. Emma Frost, I Presume

The trailer for X-Men Originals: Wolverine and Sabretooth Snarly Snarly FightyMuch has been leaked onto the internet since its first showing at Comic-Con (which, once more, I have been unable to attend ::sniff::), and I have to say, even though Wolverine bores me greatly, it looks pretty nifty. Things explode, mutants pose in front of carnage and yet seem unmoved by it due to their utter coolness, and Liev Schrieber, my sworn enemy, gets knocked through some windows. To quote Jean-Claude Van Damme, dat's gotta hurt!

Much as I would much rather have a Kieślowski-esque decalogue exploring the psychology of my favourite childhood X-Man Cyclops (what??!?), I guess this will be fun too. I may not be berserker crazy about Wolverine, but I really enjoy Hugh Jackman's interpretation of him (even though, seriously, stop crying in every movie, Logan). Whether David "Mr. Amanda Peet" Benioff's script is better than his work on Iliad-Lite aka Troy, or Gavin Hood's direction extends beyond the growling-into-the-camera or walking-away-from-'splodey shots we saw littered through that trailer, we'll have to wait and see. However, I do have one question. Who the hell is this?


Yeah, I get that it's meant to be Emma Frost, everyone's favourite bitchy psychic who isn't Miles from Lost. She's been in a holding pattern waiting to turn up in an X-Men movie, and now is her chance, and I really hope she gets more of a shot than Colossus or Jamie Madrox, because she is a fantastic character, especially when written by Joss Whedon or Grant Morrison. However, who is the actress? IMDb has no listing for her right now, and she looks really familiar, a bit like Julie Benz, except not (her Marvel involvement so far begins and ends with a part in the surely unnecessary Punisher: War Zone). Can someone help me out? It's been driving me out of my mind. Not unlike what would happen if Emma Frost herself were to use her incredible brainpowers to attack me.

So yeah, I'm glad she's in the movie, and is being played by someone who visually fits the part (i.e. an attractive blonde woman), yet though I understand this is an early leak, and it's a crappy YouTube copy of a mobile phone video, but seriously, this...


...looks like an effect discarded from the Roger Corman Fantastic Four movie. Please let her diamond transformation look better in the finished version. Still, that irked me, but at least I'm not an obsessive Deadpool fan angered to the point of insanity by the casting of a non-disfigured Ryan Reynolds, or a Gambit fan stamping his or her feet at the inclusion of that card-flinging dickhead in the wrong context ("Waaaah! He was never in Weapon X! How is he supposed to fall in love with Anna Paquin now?"). I can handle a potentially improvable effect, and might even overlook the casting of Dominic Monaghan as a featherless Barnell Bohusk (though I love that character, I can understand the reluctance to keep him the same as in the comics). Besides, check this out.


It's Keamy! Playing The Blob! And, from that crappy screen-cap, about to fight Ray Liotta. OMG YAY! I love The Blob. I guess the Kevin Durand fans who checked this blog out a month ago (::waves at Kevin Durand fans::) will be very upset to see the great man obscured by even more latex than Vinnie Jones as the Rubbernaut in X-Men 3: The Last Straw, but hey, it's still terrific news. Consider me excited over yet more mutant shenanigans.

Lost Countdown: No. 7

These reasons for loving Lost are entirely too pretentious, but it's my brain and adrenal glands responding to this, so you'll have to suck it, Lost haters.

Complexifying (?) the universe with easter eggs and real-world Alternate Reality Games:

*Warning! This post contains many uses of the nebulous word, "metatextual"*

Did you know that the man who discovered electromagnetism was called Hans Christian Ørsted? Did you know that The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien (seen in the Swan Station) features an underground complex in which can be found a substance called Omnium, which can transmute itself into anything you can wish for? How many Wizard of Oz references have there been? Or Alice in Wonderland? Were you aware that the mark on the tree to point Juliet towards the case of "vaccine" is the same as that of the planet Ummo? Do you know that the guy who got sucked into the engine in the first episode was not only dating the flight attendant Cindy (kidnapped and brainwashed by the Others), but wrote a tell-all book about the Hanso Foundation that got banned, leading him to "write" the novel Bad Twin, which also exists in our world (and is a detective story about The Hanso Foundation and evil twins and isn't actually as bad as Carlton Cuse has made out)? Do any of these things matter to the plot? Not at all. In that case, why keep them? Just to make me happy, I'm tempted to say. Because I love Easter eggs even when they're pointless, and even more when, as I suspect with Lost, they add up to more.


A few years ago I went crazy with anticipation for the release of the sequels to my favourite movie, The Matrix. Warner Brothers and Silver Pictures went into hype overdrive, and I lapped it all up and asked for seconds. I rewatched the original over and over again, devouring books explaining the symbolism of every object, name or event on screen. The first sequel was everything I ever wanted from an extension of the first movie and more, expanding the mythos and throwing out numerous allusions to real world (or Matrix, depending on your viewpoint) religious and scientific ideas and motifs. I saw that movie so many times during that summer, building my excitement for the finale into a frenzy that was horribly shattered when Revolutions came out and seemed to be telling an entirely different story than the one I had expected (which was my fault), as well as sucking on a narrative and pacing level (which was the Wachowski's fault). I've given it a break since (and still maintain Reloaded is excellent), but at the time I was gutted. And yet, the experience of picking apart the dozens of textual and metatextual details still made me happy, and I don't regret it for a second.


It was around that time that I got heavily into The Invisibles, Grant Morrison's complex metatextual diary/call to arms that had finally been collected in its entirety by DC and Vertigo. My first runthrough was done through a perpetually confused squint. So many of his references made no sense to me that I had to get a primer to get the most out of it. Thanks to those two complex works, my library became much more esoteric.

Lost has the same effect on me. The references to real world books and people sends me scurrying to the internet at the end of each episode, to absorb facts about them not just to see how they fit into the Lost experience, but why the showrunners thought them interesting enough to get a mention. Sometimes the books are included just because the writers like them and want to promote them (Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume), because of a cool fact they like and want to include (Desmond saving Our Mutual Friend so that it is the last book he ever reads is actually based on John Updike's plan to do the same thing), or because the book has some thematic connection with the plot (The Fountainhead's protagonists are world-changing individuals not unlike the ambitious Alvar Hanso).


Similarly, the naming of the characters delights me, though I also regret not paying more attention while studying for my philosophy degree. John Locke, Rousseau, "Desmond" David Hume, and the most over-the-top one yet, Mikhail Bakunin. There are other connections, less obvious. Anthony Cooper, Kate Austen (okay, different spelling, but still), James Ford, Ben Linus (bit of a stretch, that one). I love that the actual character names are real people who lived in our world, but the aliases used by some of the characters (Sawyer, Henry Gale) match up with fictional characters. I think there might be some significance to the name Christian Shephard but it eludes me right now. The showrunners say that there is a point to this name-linking, but whether it is connected to the mystery or is merely another way to increase the complexity of the thematic web is not yet clear.

I love all of that detail, and think it enriches the narrative and gives the show an air of seriousness. I won't say it gives it an air of intelligence because I think it's plenty intelligent already without namedropping, but it does put the events in the context of the world of ideas as much as the onscreen drama makes it a show about action. It's an understatement to say that not everyone is convinced. John Patterson, the formerly brilliant and now increasingly curmudgeonly film columnist in The Guardian, recently railed against Southland Tales for its aimless complexity, and he had a point. That film meant nothing, probably on purpose. His main thesis, though, is complex works of pop culture and why they're "not as good as the films of the 70s, when Robert Altman blah blah, and Bert Schneider yada yada". You get the drift.

It joins a number of similar pop-culture artefacts, like John August's The Nines and the TV shows Lost and Heroes, among others, whose ambitions are not equalled by execution, and whose immense complexity often proves self-defeating. These are not stand-alone items either. Sprawling and expansive, with multilayered storylines and timeframes, most feature huge casts and, in the case of the television work, are possessed of enormously complicated "Show Bibles" (the ever-expanding encyclopedia of a show's mythos). Their stories spread everywhere, linking every character in a web of coincidence and interrelatedness.

Sounds great to me. He criticises Heroes, saying it had failed because of the same overcomplexity. I'd say it's more to do with the writers forgetting how to pace their show, but whatever. Then he started in on The Nines (which I've yet to see), and then Lost:

Made up of three interlocking stories using the same actors - Ryan Reynolds is, successively, an actor, a screenwriter in a reality show, and then the star of his own TV show, ie inside the show's fiction - it piles inspired weirdness upon witty conceit upon many layers of pop-culture and TV in-jokes, to the point where the resolution to the story can only be a letdown; where the answers retroactively ruin and discredit all the questions. When all is tidily resolved in the final moments, you feel like an idiot for hanging around so long.

This seems likely to be the fate of many Lost viewers as well. Remember, the show's writers have almost as little idea as the viewers about where the show can go next. They might be 10 episodes ahead of us, but that's all. Beyond that, they're as clueless as we are. Each season sees another desperate opening out of the plot into another dimension, answering some questions but foreclosing other possibilities forever. As with The X-Files, the final explanation can only be a disappointment.

So why bother? Why even make anything that is ambitious or filled with metatextual references? Has he no idea what these things do? Firstly, the internet games such as The Lost Experience give valuable information about many aspects of Dharma Initiative's and Hanso Foundation lore, such as the Valenzetti equation, the Life Extension Project, and Magnus Hanso's New World Sea Traders company.


I admit, it's sad that less obsessive viewers of the show don't know of these aspects of the beautifully detailed Lost universe, and probably missed out on the subtly revealed news that the polar bears are on the island to be used for genetic testing by Dharma, in an attempt to keep them alive following drastic climate change. Without the urge to delve deeply into the show, information like this eludes viewers, but that's fine. It's their choice and I respect that. However, I do get mad when stupid TV critics who have no respect for the show bitch about it not even giving up any information about that one thing from the pilot just because they don't have enough respect for a heavily layered sci-fi show to do some research. They're genetically modified to survive a different climate! Get over it! Move on! Other stuff has happened since!

Secondly, as I said above, it nods to the viewer that Lost is about ideas and theories and allegories that aren't spelled out implicitly within the show. The characters don't debate philosophy and theology out loud, but their actions and their beliefs dramatise this debate implictly. The philosophical detail points us to that and provides a contextual framework for the attentive viewer.


As for the little touches like the brand names (Apollo chocolate bars, MacCutcheon whiskey), businesses (Widmore Corporation, Paik Heavy Industries, Herarat Aviation), and research organisations (Mittelos Bioscience, the Global Welfare Consortium, and of course The Hanso Foundation), having these things crop up within the universe over and over again (with connections revealed in-show or in-game) creates that sense of having a functioning, coherent fictional world, as well as giving the show context (it's as much about the scientific research world as it is a world where big business leads). Patterson might be convinced that storytelling only works when confined to the 90-180 minute duration of a movie, and anything else is time-wasting, but with the internet and long-form storytelling coming of age, we can tell stories of much greater complexity, with connections being made between characters, events, themes, organisations, etc., that could never be touched on in previous formats. These connections might seem like frippery, but they mean something to the viewer willing to invest time in finding out about these things.

A story told in a film can be a world. A story told in a complex narrative form like that of Lost can be a universe, and within that universe we can have that cathartic feeling of coming to a conclusion over and over again. The finale might suck and leave the viewer disappointed, but the outcome of the Lost Experience ARG satisfied people, and the scene where the mystery of how Locke broke his back was incredibly satisfying, and Charlie's sacrifice was satisfying, and over and over again we get moments of closure within the Lost universe that resolve things we needed resolved without finishing the story. It's not your parents' storytelling, Patterson. We've moved on. Come join us.

Sci-Fi Season Premiere Face/Off! (Results)

As anyone who has read both of my Sci-Fi Season Premiere Face/Off! posts will realise, I've pretty much given away the results already thanks to my extended Torchwood post, but there's a couple of other things I need to get off my chest about the two shows and the genre they represent, and besides, what's a Face/Off! without an arbitrary and complicated scoring system?

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Cast:
Lena Headey: +2
Thomas Dekker: +2
Summer Glau: +6
Dean Winters: +4
Richard T. Lewis: +2
Owain Yeoman: 0
Total: 14

I feel a little guilty about awarding a low score to Owain Yeoman, mostly for indulging in some very silly posing and chewing of lines. He's not actually bad. Perhaps he had little to work with. Still, it turns out he won't be in the rest of the series, and the main antagonist is going to none other than future character acting legend Garret Dillahunt. This blog supports that decision wholeheartedly. As for Headey, Dekker and Lewis, it's early days yet, and those scores might be rendered defunct soon.

Plot elements specific to these shows:
Convincing reactions to getting shot: -5
Tight plot: +5
The Sexxy: +1
Potential: +5
Badassery: +4
Conviction: +5
Total: 15

Having Lena Headey take a bullet to the shoulder for very little narrative reason and then have her miraculously heal by the next scene drops the score way down. It's slowly becoming a bugbear of mine, seeing people get shot (usually in the shoulder) and then moving on as if nothing has just happened. The Sexxy relates to the show's ambition in furthering the mainstream acceptance of sexual relationships that are not usually accepted by the masses, and as a primetime network there is certainly nothing as daring as this Not Safe For Work Flickr demonstration of
Terminator - on - Terminator lovemaking, but John Connor has obviously got the hots for his robotic bodyguard, which shows a progressive attitude to human/cyborg relationships, and there is some uncomfortable nudity at the end, so I'll give it a point for that. Even though, you know, eww.


Conviction refers to whether the show has a seriousness of purpose, which is something I think is important in sci-fi. I'm not talking about humourlessness, something T:TSCC has in spades. It's more that the show takes the genre seriously and isn't sticking two fingers up at the fanbase. While it's easy to say that WB and Fox are cynically resurrecting an old sci-fi franchise and exploiting the fans by knocking out a cheap version of a fan favourite, Friedman has certainly given the show a lot of thought, and for the most part the cast play it straight. Points deducted for Chromey's "Class dismissed" line, which is both a nice nod to Arnie's catchphrase habit while being really lame joke at the same time. Badassery? Trying to kill yourself to make it slightly harder for Chromey to find your son is pretty convincing. Kudos also for using gun play to further the plot, and not just to be used as a pose. The action here, which is constantly life or death, is much more convincing than having the entire cast pretending they're on a YouTube homage to T.J. Hooker. In short, it wasn't ubiquitous, and it was exciting, as it should be.

Miscellaneous:
Originality: +2
Liveliness: +4
Enthusiasm for project: +4
Avoidance of cliche: -3
Unique Selling Points: +4
Production values: +5
Total: 16

While the show occasionally lapses into cliche, and borrows heavily from the movies, it still brings new ideas to the format. The time travel moment came from nowhere but even though it stretches credibility, it is still a great way to expand the format. Technically it's got a lot going for it, and looks like time and effort was spent getting it right. Though seriously, an FBI agent hunting them down? In future episodes will he be doing a hard-target search of gas stations, residences, warehouses, farmhouses, henhouses, outhouses and doghouses? Maybe FBI Agent James Ellison will come alive in future episodes when he has more to do (I'm sure I read somewhere he becomes a kind of charming comedy relief, improbably enough), but for now, it's pretty hackneyed.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles overall total = 45

The highest score in any Face/Off to date! Okay, so the score is out of 180, but still, that's something to be proud of. In a way I feel kind of bad for getting so excited about Terminator: TSCC, because in the scheme of things it's not the best TV show around. It's not even the best premiere of the season. It doesn't spend too long in each scene (which could be construed as a lack of faith in viewer attention spans), the performances and cast chemistry have yet to settle, light moments with Summer Glau learning human responses come off all wrong, and the current surprising level of invention might dwindle quickly.


But if it doesn't hang around to smell the televisual roses, that's because it's keeping up the pace. It's not necessarily a bad thing that it moves at a clip. This is an action show about fugitives, and the pacing serves the plot perfectly. The first two episodes contain more action than your average episode of 24, and more action than the entire run of Heroes so far, a show that could stand to learn a lesson from T:TSCC and pick up the pace.

And yes, it might not be a huge step forward for the genre, and it might smack of cynical exploitation of James Cameron's loss of Terminator franchise rights, but the showrunners seem to like the concept enough to do it justice and do it right. With regards to the source material, it's not too reverent, but it's in the right spirit, and I love it for that. It probably won't be as fondly remembered as the originals, and it won't enter the mass consciousness to such a large extent, nor will it make sniffy critics think twice about treating the genre with such contempt, but for an hour a week, we'll get some exciting, smart, competent sci-fi, and anyone even vaguely receptive to good TV will be rewarded. I wish the production team, cast, and writing staff (now including Veronica Mars ace John Enbom!) the best of luck.


Torchwood

Cast:
John Barrowman: +3
Eve Myles: -5
Burn Gorman: -5
Naoki Mori: 0
Gareth David-Lloyd: -3
James Marsters: +5

Total: -5

Boy, does the presence of Barrowman and Marsters help. Neither of them are great actors by any stretch of the imagination, but they pull this kind of stuff off with aplomb. Barrowman in particular is so likeable that I'm more than happy to ignore some really shaky choices. As for Marsters, the guy sure has charisma. I was lucky enough to see him and his band, Ghost of the Robot, in Highbury a few years back, and I've never seen a roomful of women react like that before. It was carnal carnage, half scary, half exhilarating. Plus, I've missed Spike. As for the rest of the cast, they fail, though I will give Naoki Mori a partial break. Her sorely underwritten character never gets to do enough to register onscreen. Hopefully soon she will be allowed to come into her own and show some acting chops.

As for the others, no mercy. Masticator has shaken his finger at me for dissing Burn Gorman in the past, maintaining he was excellent in Bleak House, and perhaps he was. He's a man of good taste. Here, though, he's not given a solid enough character to work with. His character arcs, in fact the arcs for everyone in the show, are randomly generated and inconsistent, so it's not wonder the performances are shoddy. The woeful twitchy direction doesn't help. I hope to see these guys in another context one day, to properly assess their abilities. Blame the show, not the actors, I say.

Plot elements specific to these shows:
Convincing reactions to getting shot: -5
Tight plot: -8
The Sexxy: +3
Potential: -3
Badassery: -8
Total = -21

Again with the speedy recovery from a GSW. I'm not expecting the show to replicate the actual bodily response to getting shot (vomiting, shock, unconsciousness), but having Owen operating as normal ten minutes after being wounded doesn't make him look bad ass, it makes the show look like it's not treating the event of getting shot as a serious event. And no, looped comments from him about needing some more painkillers are not good enough. As Torchwood borrows so liberally from Angel, perhaps it could rip off the season two episode by Shaun "The Shield" Ryan, where Wesley gets shot by a zombie policeman. He was off his feet for a few episodes, and was obviously emotionally affected by it. That was convincing. Owen's (and Sarah Connor's) quick recovery might be convenient in keeping the show moving, but if the episode cannot function without being derailed by the incapacitation of a major character, then they shouldn't get shot. It's a lazy way to create drama, and it drives me crazy.

The Sexxy is the most interesting, and most frustrating, aspect of the show. While homophobes the world over rail against the engayening of Doctor Who, I fall over myself to applaud it, and bless Russell T. Davies for putting gay characters and themes in a primetime family TV show. You hear bigoted cretins like Garry Bushell frothing at the mouth about it pushing the shady-sounding Gay Agenda down our kid's throats (usually in emotive and knee-jerk language like that), but it's a commendable effort to normalise something sidelined and treated with such fear and hatred. Look at DC and Marvel's terror over the idea of gay superheroes, and Marvel Editor-In-Chief's edict that every Marvel comic starring a gay character has to be labelled For Mature Readers Only. The message that sends out horrifies me, and Doctor Who is a great way to redress that kind of sexual censorship. If it was porn spread all over the TV then the terror would make more sense, but we're talking about people in relationships talking about said relationships and getting some kissing done, and not even that much of it, just a little here and there. That's all. Get over it! It's not some kind of evil force, or shadowy bunch of plotters trying to destroy the heterosexual tribe. It's just people doing what comes naturally to them and trying to get on in the world. Embrace it, haters.


As ever, what Doctor Who does well, Torchwood screws up. While it has an admirably open attitude to omnisexuality, as Canyon called it this morning, it does it in an emotionally false manner. It's great that Jack would hump, snog, seduce, and flirt with everything that moves within his vicinity, but whenever the show tries to add an emotional dimension to his urges, it falls short. I'll be charitable and assume he's meant to be someone who doesn't know what he wants, and is scared of the options dwindling before him.

That's the best we're going to get out of this, but that's the most sophisticated emotional writing on a show otherwise devoid of it. The couplings on the show mostly appear random and relentless. Yay for approaching these themes, but sometimes the show is overwhelmed by it all, which means the number of possible combinations of sexual partnerships is shrinking. If all of the characters hop from bed to bed, I give plus points for being bold, and minus points for doing it without a proper emotional underpinning, something that is impossible with such ill-defined characters. Seriously, Tosh's character seems to be a mannequin with a post-it on her forehead saying, "I love Owen from afar". Even after having alien lesbian sex for an entire episode, she still registered onscreen as a blank. Poor Naoki Mori.

You know, it just occured to be what this show actually is. Hollyoaks with aliens. I can't think of a stronger criticism.

Miscellaneous:
Originality: -6
Liveliness: -4
Enthusiasm for project: +4
Avoidance of cliche: -10
Unique Selling Points: +4
Production values: -2

Total = -14

Liveliness scores so low because yes, there is lots of whizzy photography and Avid fart editing, but the pace is so erratic it means nothing. You can whip the camera around as much as you like, but if the plot doesn't progress properly, with ebbs and flows and escalation towards the end, you're going to end up with a very dull and frustrating show. This episode was about 50 minutes long, but it felt like two hours, especially as it reached a natural conclusion ten minutes before the end. I'll give it better marks for enthusiasm. The showrunners obviously enjoy what they're doing, and there is some ambition here, but the relentless uses of old cliches and stock pulp sci-fi plots scupper the whole enterprise. Yes, having a group of Welsh space cops is a new one, and there is the odd touch of outside-the-box thinking, but the recycling of other, better, shows and books and films is lazy, offensive, and unforgivable. It's an insult to the other creators working in the genre. And the -2 for production values? The set designs and effects are wonderful, but the photography, editing, and sound design are amateur. What I give with one hand, I take away with the other. Okay, so they're not the most important things (which is why production values counts for only one mark out of 18), but if Doctor Who, a show on a similarly tight schedule, can appear to be made by competent professionals, why can't this?

Torchwood overall total = -40

A commenter has mentioned that I wrote so much about the last episode that I can't hate it as much as I say. While she missed the point of the Face/Off exercise (pick apart two vaguely similar thing and see where each of them succeeds or fails), there is some truth to that. We have enjoyed watching it for the sheer, "I can't believe something this FAIL has appeared on TV," value of it, but just like the hangover from a debauched night out, the aftermath is increasingly not worth the effort.

So why go on about it? Does the world need my rage? Should it care? On a cosmic level, of course not, but sci-fi fans shouldn't let Torchwood get away with its plagiarism, its amateurishness, its ignorance of narrative rules, pacing, visual style, coherence, long-term story arcs, and a million other things. I love the sci-fi genre, and on British TV right now Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Primeval (which I've managed to miss by total accident) represent the only domestic examples with a large audience. Doctor Who has been rightly embraced, and though it has fallen flat a number of times, it is mostly wonderful, ambitious, imaginative, and challenging. I have no idea what people think of Primeval, other than, "That Hannah Spearitt's no Billie Piper but she'll do," apparently.

Torchwood, on the other hand, has been derided by many UK critics, but some have defended it in a half-hearted manner usually along the lines of, "It's better than last week, honest," which gets funnier every time it's trotted out. The worst kind of defence, though, is, "It's alright for this kind of childish thing," which makes me seethe. This was meant to be an adult show, and I'd foolishly misunderstood the meaning of that. I thought it meant it would be intelligent, and thought-provoking, and populated with multi-faceted characters who act like grown-ups. Instead, we get kids in old bodies messing about with toys and playing Cowboys and Indians (or Welsh People and Weevils), rehashing other people's ideas, unable to generate an emotional response in the audience because the characters have not been created with enough thought. As an example of what the genre can do, it's an embarrassment, and thanks to all of the pre-release promises that the show would address adult themes that Doctor Who couldn't go near, it makes it seem like adult sci-fi is indistinguishable from cheap Sci-Fi Channel mid-afternoon TV movie tat, except with more LGBT content.


For crying out loud, this is the country of H.G. Wells, Brian Aldiss, Ian Watson, Peter F. Hamilton, J.G. Ballard! This is the country of Quatermass, Sapphire and Steel, The Prisoner, Edge of Darkness! The UK knows how to create groundbreaking sci-fi, and yet Torchwood represents one third of the country's visible sci-fi output. It only really succeeds as an indictment of the generally poor level of screenwriting on British TV, and the flaws of the drama commissioning process at the BBC. We get something as empty as this and yet Grant Morrison's scripts for The Invisibles were refused by the BBC thanks to, according to Morrison, "a woman... who was connected with it that doesn't even know what telepathy is and keeps complaining about the story." It makes you weep.

The UK has to begin to do better. Watching multiple episodes of The X-Files or the trio of Mutant Enemy shows and then recycling the plots is not good enough. British TV is in the doldrums compared to the amazing stuff coming out of the US right now, and while we do have some world-beating stuff popping up here and there, and while I accept that there is an awful lot of shit on American TV, the disparity between the two industries is vast. And yes, there are differences in how the shows are made and funded and sold. I know that the commissioning system is very different here, and I know that UK shows can't expect to have budgets on the scale of Lost or even Bionical Woman. I'm not saying good TV needs a big budget. Battlestar Galactica is made on the "cheap" (relatively speaking), but as much as I love the big FX blowouts, it's the smart writing, well-defined and consistently realised characters, and challenging ideas that keep me coming back. Seriously, it's not just the pretty splodey.


Torchwood lacks ideas of its own, and as a highly visible sci-fi show, it needs to have something special to show off the possibilities of the genre. Perhaps all it has going for it is being a very bold piece of queer sci-fi, but as Canyon said while we endured last week's episode, LGBT sci-fi fans deserve better than a bunch of randomly sexed-up dorks acting out plots from better shows in the middle of Cardiff. Okay, I doubt BBC writers would be able to emulate the complex, language-distorting genius of Samuel Delaney, or even the progressive, sexually bold Culture novels of Iain M. Banks, but they could at least come up with some original plots, or even just create characters that act like real people, instead of caricatures that fail to resonate with the viewers as they do nothing recognisably human.

And yet I keep watching, even though I consider the show an insult to my favourite genre and the cultural equivalent of the embarrassing family member who smells of wee. Partially because last season there was one bright spot; an episode written by Sapphire and Steel creator P.J. Hammond. More scripts from him, or established sci-fi authors, or even Doctor Who star writers Stephen Moffat and Paul Cornell, and the show would begin to crawl back into my good graces. There has been some good news recently. According to Comic Book Resources gossip columnist Rich Johnston...

Chris Chibnall, “Torchwood" showrunner, writer of “Doctor Who" episode “42", “Torchwood" episodes “Day One," “Cyberwoman," “Countrycide" and “End Of Days," has been appointed showrunner for “Law & Order: London." I don’t think “Doctor Who" fans have heard better news for a good while. There were rumours he was succeeding Russell T Davies as showrunner. I guess those rumours have now been scotched.

Hells yeah. It's not over for the show. It can do better. It must do better. I'm sure sci-fi can survive one crappy TV show (it survived years of cheap Star Wars rip-offs, after all), but that doesn't mean we should praise a show just for being British, or let such weak showmaking go without pointing it out. We TV watchers, and sci-fi fans, deserve better.


Like Lost. Which is coming back soon. More on that later this week.

Holy shit

Grant Morrison's prediction about the world having real superheroes may be coming true. First sign? Mysterious meteorite irradiates an entire Peruvian village. Think of the llamas, meteorite! The blameless llamas!

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a 'strange odor,' local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP....'Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned,' he said.

I think we all know where this is going.