Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On 25 Jul 2009, at 23:16, Richard Baker wrote: Gary said: I've also been watching Primeval on BBC America. SciFi Channel just started showing it. I didn't care for the first few episodes, but became hooked as the story arc developed. Of Course, BBC didn't renew Primeval and tonight's cliffhanger episode will be the series last episode. The BBC didn't renew Primeval because it wasn't a BBC series: it was made by and shown on ITV in the UK. Apparently it was ITV's attempt to counter the success of the revived Doctor Who but was somewhat less successful in the ratings. And now BBC Worldwide are part-funding 13 more episodes to start in 2011 with original cast and cliffhanger. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8280734.stm -- William T Goodall Mail : w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://web.me.com/williamgoodall/blog/ Two years from now, spam will be solved. - Bill Gates, 2004 ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On 25 Jul 2009, at 04:02, John Williams wrote: I just watched the 3rd season of Torchwood, which was a 5 episode mini-series called Children of Earth. What a disappointment. [snip] Then I looked at the Torchwood forum on imdb.com, and found that quite a few people posting thought Children of Earth was the best science-fiction they have seen in quite a while! One post even compared it to Firefly. Ouch. I quite enjoyed it. The ending was weak as usual for Davies. I'm trying to think of any good sci-fi on television recently, or coming soon, but the only thing I can think of is Dollhouse. Umm, and possibly A Game of Thrones, if it ever makes it to HBO, but that is fantasy, not science fiction. The pilot for _Virtuality_ was good, and they're still shopping that around looking for international partners so it may yet become a series. The trailer for the latest Stargate spinoff, _Stargate Universe_ makes it look like the best thing in that franchise for many years. In the new season TV the remake of _V_ starring Morena Baccarin and _FlashForward_ based on the novel by Robert J Sawyer both look interesting. _Lost_ and _Fringe_ both return. _Lost_ was excellent last season and I expect great things from the final season. _Fringe_ kicked up a gear with the twists and revelations at the end of the first season so it will be interesting where that goes. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
William T Goodall wrote: It reminds me of the (cancelled) _The Middleman_ series. Seems like the fate of every good series that does not become sentimental :-( Alberto Monteiro ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
John Williams wrote: I'm trying to think of any good sci-fi on television recently, or coming soon, but the only thing I can think of is Dollhouse. Umm, and possibly A Game of Thrones, if it ever makes it to HBO, but that is fantasy, not science fiction. It's not sci-fi, but currently the best show I'm watching is an Anime: Death Note. It's a supernatural horror turned into a detective story. But there are a few other decent shows that take sf elements. Life on Mars, which tackles time-travel, is a decent police story. Even House's final episodes of Season 5 were quite sf-ish. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
William T Goodall wrote: _Lost_ and _Fringe_ both return. _Lost_ was excellent last season and I expect great things from the final season. _Fringe_ kicked up a gear with the twists and revelations at the end of the first season so it will be interesting where that goes. I never watched _Fringe_. It replaced _Terminator_ in the Warner Channel (which I find quite annoying: they keep chaning the times and days, even placing good shows on Sundays (!)), and then I switched to The Hentai Channel aka Animax, and now I am totally captivated by _Death Note_. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On 7/27/2009 7:42:51 AM, Alberto Monteiro (albm...@centroin.com.br) wrote: William T Goodall wrote: _Lost_ and _Fringe_ both return. _Lost_ was excellent last season and I expect great things from the final season. _Fringe_ kicked up a gear with the twists and revelations at the end of the first season so it will be interesting where that goes. I never watched _Fringe_. It replaced _Terminator_ in the Warner Channel (which I find quite annoying: they keep chaning the times and days, even placing good shows on Sundays (!)), and then I switched to The Hentai Channel aka Animax, and now I am totally captivated by _Death Note_. DeathNote just ended on The Cartoon Network here. Hopefully they will run the entire series again. From my house it appears to be the best anime series ever. xponent Ryuk Maru rob ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On 25 Jul 2009, at 23:16, Richard Baker wrote: Gary said: I've also been watching Primeval on BBC America. SciFi Channel just started showing it. I didn't care for the first few episodes, but became hooked as the story arc developed. Of Course, BBC didn't renew Primeval and tonight's cliffhanger episode will be the series last episode. The BBC didn't renew Primeval because it wasn't a BBC series: it was made by and shown on ITV in the UK. Apparently it was ITV's attempt to counter the success of the revived Doctor Who but was somewhat less successful in the ratings. It was poorly promoted as well. I never watched the first two seasons when they aired because it looked a bit naff in the promos, but then I got the DVD set of the first two seasons off Amazon very cheaply when I'd run out of stuff to watch and enjoyed it. Apparently a Hollywood movie based on the series is in development but it won't have the same cast or tie up the cliff hangers at the end of the TV show. And the forthcoming AMC mini-series re-imagining of _The Prisoner_ looks like it might not be awful. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41840 -- William T Goodall Mail : w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://web.me.com/williamgoodall/blog/ You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or Allow? ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On 26 Jul 2009, at 18:56, Max Battcher wrote: Gary Nunn wrote: Warehouse 13 - After two episodes, I'm not impressed or hooked yet, but I'll give it a few more episodes. I got a kick out of the first episode and I think that it might have staying power. Certainly it is yet another monster of the week program (albeit substitute gadget/oddity for monster), but it is playful and fun. I really like the bits of steampunk in the Warehouse itself. Certainly there are some fun things in thinking about such a crazy project that it would bring such (later in life) enemies as Thomas Edison and Nicolai Tesla together to build such a bizarre facility... It reminds me of the (cancelled) _The Middleman_ series. There are neat hints that a deeper through-storyline is building and with Jane Espenson helming I've got a feeling that we can expect the show to cross a few boundaries that we might think are set in stone in the formula even though we've only seen a few episodes thus far. I guess most importantly is that it plays very well in a duo with Eureka (which thanks to the magic of Hulu end up scheduled on the same nights for me) and I think its good to have more science is awesome in television, even if it is pseudo-science as most of Warehouse 13 appears. Speaking of science is awesome on television, please tell me that you all are watching Better Off Ted? It's like The Office meets Eureka (with a dash of Arrested Development and a dash of Pushing Daisies); it's a fun comedy about (RD) middle management at a mega- science corporation, Veridian Dynamics, that builds crazy things like weaponized pumpkins and hover shoes. It's definitely the funniest program with two major show-stealing characters that happen to be scientists that I've seen. I'll have to try that show. -- William T Goodall Mail : w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://web.me.com/williamgoodall/blog/ And yes, OSX is marvelous. Its merest bootlace, Windows is not worthy to kiss. - David Brin ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On 7/27/2009 20:09, William T Goodall wrote: I'll have to try that show. If you liked The Middleman you should get a kick out of Better Off Ted. I'm hoping to get the Middleman DVDs eventually and the last episode comic sounds great. I also hope someone posts the reading of the final script from Comic Con in a useful fashion for those of us who couldn't make it to Comic Con... -- --Max Battcher-- http://worldmaker.net ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
Gary Nunn wrote: Warehouse 13 - After two episodes, I'm not impressed or hooked yet, but I'll give it a few more episodes. I got a kick out of the first episode and I think that it might have staying power. Certainly it is yet another monster of the week program (albeit substitute gadget/oddity for monster), but it is playful and fun. I really like the bits of steampunk in the Warehouse itself. Certainly there are some fun things in thinking about such a crazy project that it would bring such (later in life) enemies as Thomas Edison and Nicolai Tesla together to build such a bizarre facility... There are neat hints that a deeper through-storyline is building and with Jane Espenson helming I've got a feeling that we can expect the show to cross a few boundaries that we might think are set in stone in the formula even though we've only seen a few episodes thus far. I guess most importantly is that it plays very well in a duo with Eureka (which thanks to the magic of Hulu end up scheduled on the same nights for me) and I think its good to have more science is awesome in television, even if it is pseudo-science as most of Warehouse 13 appears. Speaking of science is awesome on television, please tell me that you all are watching Better Off Ted? It's like The Office meets Eureka (with a dash of Arrested Development and a dash of Pushing Daisies); it's a fun comedy about (RD) middle management at a mega-science corporation, Veridian Dynamics, that builds crazy things like weaponized pumpkins and hover shoes. It's definitely the funniest program with two major show-stealing characters that happen to be scientists that I've seen. The last few episodes rolling are on Hulu and the premise is gentle enough that you should be able to pick it up pretty quickly. Currently the show is on the back half (6 eps) of Season 1, which I believe is also doubling as the front half leading into Season 2. -- --Max Battcher-- http://worldmaker.net ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Max Battcherm...@worldmaker.net wrote: Speaking of science is awesome on television, please tell me that you all are watching Better Off Ted? It's like The Office meets Eureka (with a dash of Arrested Development and a dash of Pushing Daisies); it's a fun comedy about (RD) middle management at a mega-science corporation, Veridian Dynamics, that builds crazy things like weaponized pumpkins and hover shoes. It's definitely the funniest program with two major show-stealing characters that happen to be scientists that I've seen. Better Off Ted is the best new comedy I've seen in a long time. I particularly enjoy the Veridian Dynamics commercials. My favorite episode was the one where they installed new sensors for detecting if people were in the room, and they could not detect black people, so they had to hire minimum-wage white guys to follow the black guys around the building. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On John Williams wrote: Better Off Ted is the best new comedy I've seen in a long time. I particularly enjoy the Veridian Dynamics commercials. My favorite episode was the one where they installed new sensors for detecting if people were in the room, and they could not detect black people, so they had to hire minimum-wage white guys to follow the black guys around the building. Just watched it. Hilarious! Thanks... Doug ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On 25 Jul 2009, at 04:02, John Williams wrote: I just watched the 3rd season of Torchwood, which was a 5 episode mini-series called Children of Earth. What a disappointment. [snip] Then I looked at the Torchwood forum on imdb.com, and found that quite a few people posting thought Children of Earth was the best science-fiction they have seen in quite a while! One post even compared it to Firefly. Ouch. I quite enjoyed it. The ending was weak as usual for Davies. I'm trying to think of any good sci-fi on television recently, or coming soon, but the only thing I can think of is Dollhouse. Umm, and possibly A Game of Thrones, if it ever makes it to HBO, but that is fantasy, not science fiction. The pilot for _Virtuality_ was good, and they're still shopping that around looking for international partners so it may yet become a series. The trailer for the latest Stargate spinoff, _Stargate Universe_ makes it look like the best thing in that franchise for many years. In the new season TV the remake of _V_ starring Morena Baccarin and _FlashForward_ based on the novel by Robert J Sawyer both look interesting. _Lost_ and _Fringe_ both return. _Lost_ was excellent last season and I expect great things from the final season. _Fringe_ kicked up a gear with the twists and revelations at the end of the first season so it will be interesting where that goes. -- William T Goodall Mail : w...@wtgab.demon.co.uk Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ “Babies are born every day without an iPod. We will get there.” - Adam Sohn, the head of public relations for Microsoft’s Zune division. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
SPOILERS for Torchwood: Children of Earth below . . . . . . . . SPOILERS for Torchwood: Children of Earth below Here are just a few of the things that ruined the story for me: Hostile, bloodthirsty aliens show up and the first thing the government does is assassinate their elite special-ops team of alien experts, and destroy said team's base of operations which contains much technology and alien-fighting weapons. And the kill order goes through a politician's secretary and is sent by email, with a copy of the kill order kept in said secretaries sent-mail box. A pair of ordinary looking contact lenses have a built-in hi-def camera and an energy-source capable of powering the camera AND a high-power transmitter capable of undetectably transmitting video for miles (while being in direct contact with human eyes), but this technological wonder lacks a simple audio microphone. And the people who utilize this technological wonder can produce no other useful defensive or offensive weapons to help them against government assassins or hostile aliens, nothing except ordinary handguns and cell-phones. The government that assassinated their elite alien-fighting team just before encountering hostile aliens does virtually nothing to detect, locate, defend against, or attack the aliens that are demanding they be given millions of human children to be put to a fate worse than death. Instead, said government uses other special-ops teams to pursue the alien-fighting team members (who are still alive) and families of the alien-fighting team. Aliens with the capability to beam themselves down to earth from undetectable spaceships (and to beam millions of children back up), able to cause all the children on earth to simultaneously speak for them (or to each speak a different message depending on which country they are in), able to graft human children onto their bodies well enough to be used as something like an adrenal gland, and able to instantly synthesize out of thin air a deadly virus throughout a large government building...said aliens cannot synthesize a desperately-wanted chemical (or chemicals) for themselves. Every country in the world is instructed that they must provide 10% of their children to hostile aliens for either unspecified reasons or a fate worse than death, and this knowledge is somehow kept secret from most of the world's population, not mentioned in the news media. None of the other countries so informed decide to take action against the hostile alien confined in a well-known location, not attempting to capture, interrogate, kill, or bomb said alien. The prime minister of Britain, calmly working at his desk, has a trusted subordinate sent into his office, and casually informs him that the subordinate's two children will be given to hostile aliens to suffer a fate worse than death, and said subordinate will give a news conference saying how happy he is about this. The prime minister then continues calmly with paper-work at his desk. The subordinate, instead of trying to hide his family, calmly asks his secretary to submit the proper form to get a government handgun, then takes said handgun home and shoots his wife and children (one bullet each) and then shoots himself. The chief government assassin, who has spent the past several days abducting innocent women and children and killing everyone in sight, including her fellow agents, has a change of heart and asks one of her attempted-murderees to help her attack the aliens. The aliens who have an undetectable spaceship, and are able to transmit messages to all the children in the world and remotely-control the children to speak as they wish...said attempted-murderee having previously walked up to the alien with nothing but a handgun and declared war on the alien, then lamely shot a few rounds at the bullet-proof glass around the alien while the alien kills everyone in the building. The attempted-murderee, now that he is asked nicely by the chief government assassin, suddenly knows how to rig up a few pieces of equipment in a warehouse to transmit on the mysterious children-remote-control frequency to remotely kill all the aliens, even the ones on the undetectable spaceship, and all he needs is for his grandson to stand there and wirelessly resonate, shake, bleed, and collapse in order to accomplish this extremely timely alien-genocide. Personally, instead of pressing the KILL ALIENS button on my Harmony universal remote, I would have pressed the SEND JUNKIE ALIENS TO BETTY FORD button, but I suppose that might have over-stressed the government's universal health-care budget. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: Torchwood: Children of Earth
_Lost_ and _Fringe_ both return. _Lost_ was excellent last season and I expect great things from the final season. _Fringe_ kicked up a gear with the twists and revelations at the end of the first season so it will be interesting where that goes. I have to agree with John, Torchwood was a disappointment. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, I just expected more since the entire season consisted of only 5 episodes. I had hoped for more science fiction. Instead, I think they were going for the shock value of the storyline. I agree with John about Lost. Personally, I think the last season will either blow viewers away, or it will be lame. I hope they don't follow the trend that's developed in the last few years of taking 8 month mid-season breaks. Lost did that and it REALLY annoyed me when Battlestar Galactica did that. As for Fringe, it was just ok, until the last few episodes, then I was blown away. I'm very much looking forward to the next season. I'm a Eureka fan. I love that show even though it's silly and campy. Warehouse 13 - After two episodes, I'm not impressed or hooked yet, but I'll give it a few more episodes. I've also been watching Primeval on BBC America. SciFi Channel just started showing it. I didn't care for the first few episodes, but became hooked as the story arc developed. Of Course, BBC didn't renew Primeval and tonight's cliffhanger episode will be the series last episode. I have high hopes for Stargate: Universe. I just hope the commercials don't show only the best parts of the show. I miss the days of Farscape. Gary ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: Torchwood: Children of Earth
I hope they don't follow the trend that's developed in the last few years of taking 8 month mid-season breaks. Lost did that and it REALLY annoyed me when Battlestar Galactica did that. I thought that was due to the Writers strike? Simon ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
Gary said: I've also been watching Primeval on BBC America. SciFi Channel just started showing it. I didn't care for the first few episodes, but became hooked as the story arc developed. Of Course, BBC didn't renew Primeval and tonight's cliffhanger episode will be the series last episode. The BBC didn't renew Primeval because it wasn't a BBC series: it was made by and shown on ITV in the UK. Apparently it was ITV's attempt to counter the success of the revived Doctor Who but was somewhat less successful in the ratings. Rich ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
