Falling Skies Finale - saving the world with a whimper, not a bang

Falling Skies was never without problems. The main character was forever speechifying in a way that could be boiled down to "USA! USA! USA!" and few opportunities were passed up to revel in American exceptionalism.

It's perhaps fitting that one of the characters gets so fed up with Tom Mason that he tries to kill him and sets off on his own because he's sick of listening to him... but at least the show didn't overstay its welcome.

There seemed to be a rather marked downturn in budget for this final season and while it's clear that Falling Skies was never cheap to make it clearly suffered from aspirations for a Hollywood blockbuster but on a TV show's budget.

Most perplexing though, is that the enemy for the entire show had one CRITICAL weakness - kill their queen (let's just call her Sarah Kerrigan) and they ALL die. All of them. Literally turning to ash. As this show rejoices in historical parallels to the American Revolutionary War... this would be like George Washington crossing the Atlantic, killing King George and that just destroying the entire British army.

It seems particularly baffling as prior to that magic bullet, things had been parsed in very much a resistance type way. The enemy was on the back foot after a series of hard won tactical victories... and then they allude to how the Queen is basically going to allow them to win (somehow) but all it takes is for the magical ER doctor Tom Mason to use a magical bioweapon grenade to kill her and commit genocide.

"LOLWUT?!" As the Internet is wont to say.

Was this supposed to be a climactic showdown? It felt as though someone suddenly got told "We're not getting another season." and it was 4:30pm on a Friday and they went "Oh, uh - then he uses this biological grenade thing and it kills all the aliens forever. The end."

Oh, wait - they had to do a bit more masturbatory "USA! USA! USA!" at the end. Naturally.

It just seemed to be an ending rather anathema to the whole programme's thesis.

Gotham is so bad, I think it gave me cancer

Gotham gives the impression of some subpar police show that was thrown back and told "You need a gimmick"... That gimmick? BATMAN! Kind of. Not really but you get the feeling someone said "Hey, Batman is popular and Batman fanboys are idiots that will lap up anything even remotely Batman related!" and with such a profound indictment of the bottomless, ruinous stupidity of fanboys - Gotham was greenlit.

It's quite possible doctorates will be penned on the terribleness of this show. For something to prime an audience on a show, it has one trick "HEY, YOU KNOW BATMAN STUFF?! Do you? DO YOU? DO YOU?!?!" because nothing else in the show is worth noting... well, nothing good.

The acting is wooden, the directing and editing is piss poor. We're supposed to believe that all these characters in Batman lore are interconnected from before the word go and hey, there's nothing wrong with re-imaginings but prequels are always a nightmare, even when well conceived and this is anything but that.

Catwoman witnesses the murder of Batman's parents, Jim Gordon (and Harvey Bullock) investigate. Montoya is tipped off it was a framejob (on Poison Ivy's father) by the Penguin, The Riddler works in the police department. Oh and obviously, they're all doing their schtick. Riddler riddles, Catwoman (a peri-pubescent youth) is flipping around the rooftops, Poison Ivy is always fondling plants, the Penguin starts out with an umbrella.

This stuff makes Smallville seem Shakespearean by comparison.  Even Arrow!

So bad it's awful.

Ended these Clone War have

The Clone Wars (the animated show) was really the one redeeming feature of the entire sorry mess that was the Star Wars prequels, managing to offer fantastic action as well as an idea of what the new trilogy could have been, if not for George Lucas.

The Clone Wars (the CGI show) has - by contrast - been a pretty bumpy ride. The tone has - even within some of the story arcs - changed with sufficient speed to give you whiplash. Going from comedic japes with misfit bands of droids, to serious heroic self-sacrifice. Big space battles and lightsaber fights to tedious discussion of galactic finance and lawmaking.

It was - in essence - the same panoply of ill fitting ideas that were cobbled together to form the prequel films... the problem is that some of these stories really didn't need to be told... did the world NEED Jarjar centric episodes? It would seem someone out there - perhaps Jorge himself - thought so... and one might argue "but hey, Star Wars is for kids!" Uhuh... that'll be why we have lengthy discussion of the taxation of trade routes, complex (and oft nonsensical) political machinations and let's not forget genocide, implied rape and torture, dismemberment and child murder! Oh, sorry - YOUNGLING murder (that makes all the difference, dontcha know?)

The issue is really that there were glimpses of greatness in the Clone Wars but attention seemed to shift all too quickly or there was a radical shift in tone but you would think that with the last season, they'd at least go for some kind of grand finale... such as they could within the confines of the time frame... but no, there's just a lot of navel gazing about the imminent destruction of the Jedi.

Now, if this was coming out BEFORE Revenge of the Sith (and we didn't know about the upcoming Jedi massacre) then this might have some dramatic weight but... the only reason to watch this is because you're a fan and that means you know what's coming... and really, season six is pretty weak.

We KNOW that the Jedi aren't going to find out about the plan against them - although, the information they discover makes the whole "A PLOT TO DESTROY THE JEDI?!" bit in Episode III seem that much more idiotic but not by much because... well, it was already really stupid. It's just that after however many years of fighting, we have - near the end of the Clone Wars... the Jedi council going "You know, it IS kind of weird that a dead Jedi secretly commissioned the creation of a clone army that we JUST so happen to need to fight this war." Especially as the reason for finding said army was because of some elaborate machinations anyway...

It's all completely unnecessary set up for a film that came out nearly ten years ago... and it's not as if this is some complex backstory... Hell, compare the season 5 finale and this is just FLAT. In fact, bar an appearance in a vision absolutely no Ahsoka at all...

To sum up season six of The Clone Wars is easy - it feels like a bunch of ideas that had been deemed too lacklustre but ended up getting made for an unexpected final run.

Forward Unto Dawn

With Halo 4 out this month, now is as good a time as any to mention the Forward Unto Dawn... part of the rather considerable pre-release hype... it's somewhere between a mini-series and a short film, covering events preceding any of the games right at the start of the human-covenant war with short interludes that show the increasingly rampant Cortana (stuck on the eponymous ship - or rather, half ship - with Master Chief following the end of Halo 3) at the start of each episode.

It does start out feeling a little bit generic but given the time they have, they actually do a pretty decent job with the characters and this definitely has the feel of the Halo universe. Also, for a fairly small production it's actually quite impressive. Not only do we get to see Elites and Hunters but also Master Chief himself in an actual Warthog.

This does somewhat highlight that it would be difficult to build a film around Master Chief - what makes him work as a protagonist of an FPS (being a bad ass of few words), makes him rather uninteresting as a character. There's no doubting his bad ass credentials here but as usual, he's just a big ol' power armour wearing glass of water, all of the interest really coming from the students.

A must for any Halo or sci-fi fan.

The End Of Dire Spy Schlock Hunted

And so, Hunted ends not with a bang but a "wow, that's eight hours wasted." You can't blame the hacks that wrote this drivel though - actually, you can and should - they did their best (which would have to work hard and buck up its ideas to aspire to be mediocre)  in this last episode to make this try and seem like it was all terribly clever.

The attempt to make Hunted look like some intelligent interweaving story is truly laughable as an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach would be underselling the desperation apparent here. The gangsta's son (Steve) wife didn't commit suicide - SHE WAS MURDERED! But wait! THERE'S MORE! She was murdered BY HIS HALF-BROTHER! Tyrone - the nefarious black guy that worked for Dave. At his father's behest, of course.

Still not sold on how clever this is?! What if they explain why gangsta dad is hellbent on getting this dam? Because his son (the one that got murdered) was murdered by Polyhedrous - one of the evil multi-national corporations - twenty years ago and he wants his revenge! Except that his plan is upset by the fact the blackmail material he had on Polyhedrous (who killed over six hundred people) is fake!

Luckily for our heroine, being drugged and then drowned isn't a serious setback to her, so she activates her Jesus powers to resurrect herself and murder gangsta dad - just in time for her boyfriend(ish) to come in and inject her with the antidote because obviously for her to shake off drowning AND poison THAT would break the suspension of disbelief! Oh and being drowned let her remember the pivotal(?) event from her childhood that links in to the whole Hourglass thing. Handy that!

Oh and Sam gets shot. Again but shockingly - DOESN'T DIE! AND SHE GETS HANDED A BABY! What a twist?

New Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Show - Revolution

With the Walking Dead about to return for a third season (that hopefully doesn't bore us to tears like season two) and Falling Skies having finished not so very long ago, it seems that the post-apocalyptic genre is in favour and here is Revolution to jump on the bandwagon.

The start is one of those horrible, badly written scenes that only ever happens on film or TV. Someone rushes home and makes an urgent phonecall - in this case, a husband and father rushes home and calls up his brother and knowing that time is short, starts in the middle of a sentence so that instead of imparting useful information to his brother, he can waste time spouting lines for use in the trailer. Needless to say, that "EVERYTHING IS GOING TO TURN OFF!" is probably the least useful thing to tell someone thirty seconds before the "The Blackout"occurs - pretty sure your brother would have worked that out.

Anyway, this isn't just a power cut or EMP or anything like that but rather something that leads to ALL electrical devices (and even car engines, apparently) no longer functioning. So, as one might imagine, electricity being the basis of all modern society, things go to hell pretty fast and within a decade massive numbers of people have died due to starvation, government has collapsed and now an agrarian society has arisen - with militias pushing people around.

The show starts with the idiot from the start getting killed because his son is even stupider than him. For no particular reason, the militia take him instead of his dead father. Well, obviously his father is dead so he wouldn't be much use but as this pertains to the power going out - why exactly would he be useful given that the reason his father is being taken is because the head of the militia suspects his complicity in the Blackout? Not only that but as we find out at the end of the first episode, the head of the militia is not just friends with the protagonist who got a call from his brother about the Blackout but was RIGHT NEXT TO HIM when he got the call, seconds before the lights went out... and yet it took him YEARS to piece this together?

Also, granted this IS a post-apocalyptic fallen society and it's established that only the magical USB necklaces are somehow able to activate technology but the producers of this show DO realise there's a lot of technology in-between medieval and modern day, right? Granted, there's the small fact that we've had the apocalypse and to restructure society but surely this is a great fucking excuse for steampunk? Or at least SOME use of steam? It has been over a decade and apparently the militia has thousands of men in it... you know what would give them advantage? TRAINS!

Not to mention how unspeakably awesome that would be, to combine the post-apocalyptic and steampunk genres. Granted, this is a TV show and I get the impression that it's probably already horrendously expensive and that having a steampunk theme in it would make it crazy but this is one of those issues that needs to be addressed. OK, maybe they can't get electricity working - they're a little fuzzy on why car engines don't work but just kind of toss it in - but there's a LOT of stuff that's relatively easy to make that ISN'T electronic... and it's not as if they burnt all the libraries down.

Anyway, the main protagonists are the cynical swashbuckler (because bullets are rare and people have resorted to the use of muskets) that shall be named McGuyver (he seriously looks like his brother... no mullet though) and the plucky daughter that is trying to save her brother. The brother gets his own story too, being abducted by Fring from Breaking Bad and there's also a former tech millionaire and mother who lost her kids who are hiding the magical USB necklace and serve to forward the mystery plot.

Perhaps the nicest thing in this show so far is that in the second episode, McGuyver is about to ice some guy that is after him because of the bounty on him (basically, he's now wanted for the same reason his brother was and Plucky dun goofed and blew his cover) and of course, Plucky goes "YOU CAN'T KILL HIM!" In a lot of shows, we'd get shown that of course, Plucky was right... somehow the guy would help them later on or something and we'd all learn the "love thy enemy" stuff.

What ACTUALLY happens is that not five minutes later, he's escaped and has set up McGuyver and is going to haul him off for his reward. Naturally, this leads to the guy ACTUALLY getting killed and Plucky having to realise she dun goofed. Also, the episode rounds out with her killing a guy in cold blood - flashing back to a scene during the first weeks after the Blackout where her mother killed a guy who was stealing food from her family.

So, if there's any hope for this show, it's that it's not going for the usual cookie cutter morality tale. Or at least, that it has the potential to be something other than that. The militia have certainly been established as the bad guys but we'll just have to see how that goes... the mystery plot has already shown us that people secretly with technology are being stalked by someone... and really, the people behind the Blackout are the worst mass murderers in history... so, we'll have to see how that goes.

BBC's "Hot" New Cliche Wrought Spy Thriller - The Hunted

Since the worst excesses of the James Bond era -  where over the top gadgets, ridiculously oversexualised names and an abundance of one liners, it feels as if the spy genre has been trying relentlessly to purge itself of anything like that... unfortunately, the pendulum has really swung too far the other way and has created a tiresome sea of similarity, into which the BBC has now hurled another wretched offering - The Hunted.

From pretty much the first moment of the show, you're going to notice the washed out colours and you should get used to it because it's constant. As is the cutting of the camera, the director and or editor are seemingly unable to allow a shot to last for more than three seconds at the best of times and as soon anything remotely interesting happens (don't worry, these moments are few and far between) the cuts start to become so rapid they mean you've little idea of what's going on. With one notable exception, where we see a gratuitous shot of someone having a syringe stabbed in their eye... but this is from the people that made Spooks, a show most people will remember for having a rather graphic death by deep fat fryer, so presumably this is attempting to ape that.

Washed out colours and ham fisted directing and editing aside, the story has our main character get shot TWICE in the first twenty minutes and yet, at no point is anything other than dull. A first episode really needs to grab you and yet, this was as dull as dishwater. The camerawork is so terrible that the action scenes - far from being exciting breaks from the awful dialogue are more likely to induce an epileptic seizure than actual tension.

And the dialogue really is poor. Another spy thriller cliche box ticked with the terse dialogue by various tight lipped characters... and it might be acceptable if it was just used occasionally to highlight stress and the rest of the time they talked like ACTUAL humans but these characters can't help but talk in soundbites and cliches.

There's no chance this can be a slow burner either, it's an eight parter... one doesn't really have time to burn anything but quickly when one is limited to eight one hour episodes... Really, there's just nothing to say about this show other than "don't bother". It has been done better in every conceivable way by others, so... there's no point in wasting time on this.

The UK has a history of SCI-FI that is chequered.

In recent years about all there has been is Doctor Who and Primeval... which are respectively mostly good and rubbish.

But the BBC will keep trying... and so, OUTCASTS!

A show that is struggling to get as many cliches as possible!

It's post-apocalyptic, it's an off-world colony, they had a virus that killed only kids, that have clones, they blamed the clones for the virus that killed their kids, the clones weren't able to produce BUT NOW CAN and as we're all of two episodes in - you can imagine we'll get some pay off on the vague and mystical notion.

The horrible acting, dialogue and just general tedium does NOTHING to make this show good.

Did the BBC learn NOTHING from The Deep? This is just another car crash. It doesn't matter if you get the budget or the high profile actors if the script is rubbish - it's going to be a bad product.

Why, oh why must the business hate and belittle writers? THEY MAKE THE SHOW.

Perhaps there was nothing to ruin here.

Being the massive cultural phenemenon it is, changes in the actor of the eponymous Doctor of Doctor Who are inevitably burdened with people shaking heads and saying doom. So, when Matt Smith was announced - there was a great deal of clucking about him being a mere 27, the youngest Doctor ever.

Needless to say, the first episode Eleventh Hour has silenced many critics because Matt Smith and new head writer/executive producer Stephen Moffat kicked the living daylights out of everything that fanfic writing loser RTD ever did. He's energetic but not like a child sans ritalin (Tennant) and expressive but not gurning (Eccleston) and while it's just the first episode, there is no sense he's going to spend his whole time moaning about how he killed all the Timelords or how he's "so sorry" about absolutely EVERYTHING.

The episode starts right where The End Of Time left off, with the new Doctor, trying to stop the TARDIS crashing into Big Ben... amazingly, instead of crashing into slum council estate to a Billy Piper wannabe, we get him going into a village. A village that is not London... OR CARDIFF. Admittedly, the series has gradually moved away from the extreme constrictions of the first RTD season but this seems a a good fresh start and the Doctor running through a village is distinctly old school Who...

There's no pointless referencing of pop culture, gratuitous injection of homosexuality and no horrible cheesiness that makes you cringe... not to mention that technobabble and ridiculous fixes for problem are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the Doctor himself observes that he saves the day with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver. Which is a nice touch - a far more innovative solution to the problem presented than the Doctor simply babbling wildly while jumping around like a jack in the box with ADHD.

There's a great deal more subtlety to both the Doctor and his new companion, Amelia Pond. They are much more understate... the show does not feel as if it is going to lapse into slapstick or schmaltz and the second episode had a chance for both. It's the kind of subtlety that you'd never see in an RTD script and generally struggled to emerge under his auspices and the Doctor has yet to be venerated as some incredible and infallible person - one of the primary flaws of RTD's writing of the Doctor was that in all of three seconds, everyone would think he was the best thing since sliced bread... things with Amelia have been a little different as the Doctor kind of dicked her around a bit... and she's apparently running away from her wedding.

So, thinks are looking interesting.

So... the first half of RTD's Doctor Who finale of finales has graced our screens... As one would expect, when a much loved character is about to be offed... it's fairly serious in tone but even that can't stop RTD from pushing in some totally inappropriate, unfunny comic relief - including flaming homosexual... As with a lot of two parters, it seems likely that come part the second, it's going to be obvious that a lot of the first part is filler.

John Simms is again wasted as an actor. He's a GOOD actor, whether it's RTD's script or the direction he received... or he's just hamming it up... it's all a bit much... of course, that said - given the visual effects used - it seems likely that most of it is down to RTD... so, it seems fair to give Simms credit for working with what he had.

If precedent is anything to go by, it seems likely that this will have an unsatisfactory resolution though...

Joss Whedon must be starting to feel like he's not wanted on TV. After the success of Buffy and then not-quite-as-successful-but-almost Angel he went on to Firefly... which was much loved but kinda dicked about and short lived. So, now Dollhouse has suffered a similar fate.

Similar, mostly in dying a death. Dollhouse made it to season 2 only by conceding to considerable budget cuts and it wasn't many episodes into season 2 before the old pattern repeated itself. It disappeared from schedules, got shuffled around and then before the half-way mark... Dollhouse was gone.

Of course, there is an inherent danger to a show by a writer known for his ability to build characters, where at the end of every episode, a reset button is hit and her character is literally deleted... that and the fact Dushku really wasn't a great choice for someone required to show a very large range. Also, Dollhouse kind of suffered from the X-Files Factor - which is to say, there is an enormous global conspiracy... but all we get to see is people sitting in the same office...

For whatever reason, Whedon fails again. Maybe he needs to try something that doesn't involve waif fu?

The Water Of Mars... Well, if you want to be an uber fan and put that into an anagram generator... Do so. Anyway, the spacing of these specials has been pretty piss poor but then, that's probably not RTD's fault. You'll probably know he wrote this script by the "OHAI I HAVE THE BROTHER WITH THE HUSBAND!" bit... but we get "YES, THE ENVIRONMENT HAS BEEN BAD DUE TO POLLUTION!" so there's an environmental message... one of the events being subtly dubbed the "Oil Apocalypse"... actually, as far as environmental messages go - that IS subtle but that's more a result of them being generally anvilicious.

So, we don't really hang around in this adventure, Doctor Who turns up on the Mars base and says hi - for reasons of plot that will become apparently later, he materialises his TARDIS for about the first time ever - not in a cupboard but on the surface of Mars... which means he's mincing across the surface in a space suit. Anyway, in short order, the Doctor realises that this is a DOOMED expedition and that it's one of those fixed points in space etc. For some reason, this is related by the Doctor flashing back to the BBC news website or something - showing the obituaries of those on the base... which is a little strange but saves exposition.

Naturally, problems arise almost immediately in the form of WATER SPEWING ZOMBIES. Who were apparently trapped under the ice or something and now a SINGLE drop of their water will infect someone faster than you can say "28 Days Later". The twist is of course, these zombies are smart and can make water... so, they're kind of fucked. In fact, the Doctor ELABORATES to them just how fucked they are. Or rather, how their fate is inevitable.

They went on - at length -before this episode came out, that it would be the scariest ever (they seem to say that a lot)... but really, it's far more action than anything. The situation is fairly hopeless... but that doesn't equal a scare factor. Just a lot of heroic self-sacrifice etc. etc. It's really just an enjoyable yarn... which probably means RTD is saving himself up for his final episodes.

A lot better than Planet of the Dead and The Next Doctor... but that's not exactly saying much, is it? Also... why were these specials SO badly spaced? There were supposed to be four in 2009 but it seems there will only be 3... as the Christmas Special is going to be a two-parter that finishes in early 2010. Still, that means there are going to be specials in TWO months. Poorly planned.

To make a comment about remakes would be to tread upon ground that is walked all too regularly, so let us generously not mention that of the new V - which is, yes... a remake of the classic 80s TV miniseries. So, anyway - the basic story can be summed up (and the show even makes the reference) as the start of Independence Day with giant ships showing up over all the major cities on Earth. The big difference being that they don't explode monuments, they're all smiles and sunshine... OR ARE THEY?!

Naturally, too good to be true! As if good natured aliens would ever stop by Earth to give us something for nothing - because naturally, the space hooker from Firefly (their leader) tells us that they're just stopping here for a weekend break but they'll give us technology and stuff to cover the inconvenience... and this is in the first five minutes, including an entirely gratuitous and unnecessary jet fighter falling out of the sky and exploding.

The show doesn't waste much time in showing us that the aliens are plotting against us. In fact, it's pretty telegraphed by the way they behave - even if the end of the first episode didn't pull any punches in that regards... which kind of kills the suspense, beyond how. Oh, wait - no. They want to infiltrate human society. They don't really say WHAT they want... but yeah, then... if they're so technologically advanced - they could have tossed an asteroid at us and wiped us out to harvest everything.

Just the usual failing.

Lost has popularised flashbacks to an epic extent. The bandwagon is one that the whole TV industry has been all too keen to jump on... so, it's perhaps somewhat appropriate that Fast Forward should offer us the opposite... which is to say, a global event where near enough the entire population sees 137 seconds of their lives six months in the future.

An interesting premise for a story, yes? Well - yes... it's an interesting premise. Shame about the execution. Several episodes in and it's hard to really care about any of the characters... You really need to care about the characters in this but whether it's the writing, the direction or the actors... it's hard to like any of these characters.

And that makes it difficult to really take any interest in the show. Apathy toward characters kills any real interest in the overall plot - which amounts to how the "flash forward" happened, who did it and why... but yeah, who cares about that when most of the characters are either bland or spend their time being angry and shouting a lot. Most of these people are constantly at the level of angry Rush from Stargate Universe. It's based on a book - maybe it's better to just check that out and save yourself the time.

Onward, ever onward the seemingly indestructible Stargate series moves - with four incarnations (yes, four - though few will have heard of the abortive Stagate: Infinity and fewer still watched it) it's hard to keep things fresh. So, we have a team sent to a distant galaxy and with no way home, trapped on an Ancient vessel and... NO, this isn't Stargate: Atlantis.

The premise is similar... but really it has more in common with Voyager and that was just a rehash of Lost In Space and that was really just The Odyssey (IN SPACE!). So, no real point in trying to poke holes in it for that. Also, there are obvious differences. The people aren't on the ship by choice - the ship itself is totally fucked... in fact, thus far the episodes have revolved entirely around the basics of survival. Which is in direct contrast to Voyager and Stargate: Atlantis - where just about everything was fine after the pilot episode.

However, someone clearly felt the plight of humans on an Ancient spaceship that is falling to pieces, stranded millions of light years from home with limited resources and no idea where they are or even if they're going to survive. No, that has to be padded with tedious flashbacks and Ancient communication devices. The occasional flashback is OK but the Ancient communication devices mean everyone can just chitchat with their loved ones - Voyager waited what was it... four years before they did this? AND THAT WAS VOYAGER! Still, all these flashbacks and

Beyond that, the cast is poor. Robert Carlyle is a capable actor but here it feels like someone said "HAM IT UP!" and he has chewed his way through entire sets... but his character is the only vaguely competent character other than Eli (MIT drop out/boy wonder) and Young (the barely tolerable O'Neil/Sheppard equivalent). Eli is the only one that is really relatable - he's kind of the equivalent of Daniel Jackson in the sense that he's the ordinary guy who is kinda dead ending in the world and then come men come along and BOOM, he's in his element.

To be honest, Eli is the only person seemingly capable of coming up with ideas and Rush is the only person that understands the ship. Young spends most of his time bitching about what a bitch Rush is... despite the fact Rush (who shouts at people because they've no clue what's going on) has been right... more than anyone. Not to mention the fact Rush is the person seemingly MOST concerned with the immediate task of survival, Young hasn't been sabotaging Rush but by ignoring him, he's not really advanced their cause. It's so manifestly obvious that they're stuck where they are for the time being...

In many senses, it is as if we're going through a further iteration of the Stargate dynamic. For those who followed SG-1 and Atlantis, this may be something that will be obvious. For those less acquainted... Stargate started out as pretty much PURELY military, the air force of all things... but as the show progressed, various tentacles of the government wrapped themselves around it and this somewhat culminated in the IOA - who served the same purposes as previous senators and various other people had... to be a thorn in the side of the SGC. Atlantis somewhat progressed this idea by being a mission led by scientists with a civilian administrator who had the final word... of course, she was rubbish... but it was a logical extension.

Stargate Universe is trying to give us something in the same vein... except that thus far, beyond having a mix of military and scientists... the power structure is clear.

All in all, pretty lacklustre. Poor casting, mediocre and lazy writing - making the senator's daughter an utterly unsympathetic... And really, who cares about any of these characters? They're just bland. It needs work.

Regardless of how much contempt, loathing and hatred is showered upon Twilight - no one can deny that while it has been roundly critically bent over a table that it made money. And so, it came to be - vampires were the new fad!

So - someone thought it was a good idea to make a Twilight imitation with the original title, Vampire Diaries - so you know it has vampires in it! This shows première is mind crushingly banal, it makes the last season of Smallville seem like Shakespeare by comparison. For no reason, we have our main vampire character enrol in high school. He establishes he's over 100 years old! Oh, there's something about one the girls being something important or something stupid like that and while vampires here don't sparkle... they're entirely immune to sunlight, apparently. Hence their ability to stalk girls at high school.

The female protagonist is some vanilla blandness that had her parents die - presumably of boredom. What is there to say of her? Oh, she has a brother who is apparently doing the drugs - coz he's sad. It's just so hard to care about this, it's generic good looking high school drama WITH VAMPIRES. Honestly, regardless of what you had to say about Buffy - at least it had characters that weren't such cardboard cut outs. It's ironic that one of that the brother is on the drugs because the acting in this show isn't bad - it simply isn't there.

If there wasn't much to say about Defying Gravity - there's nothing to say about this. It's just so insipid and derivative. Sure, Defying Gravity stole a pre-existing concept down to the ship design but at least they tossed in mystery. This is just Twilight: The Series.

Bottom line: Try and forget that shows like this even exist - they will only diminish your will to live and increase your hatred of humanity.

Sci-fi is never easy as a genre on TV, you're instantly just by having that word in your description making a big demographic have their hand drift toward the remote control. So, in recent years shows have tried to move away from the archetypal aliens of the week and have tried to be rather more involved in terms of drama and characterisation. The most obvious and successful example being Battlestar Galactica, which was very much about the characters and their interactions.

So, it seems like Lost and BSG got drunk, fumbled around and had Defying Gravity, the newest shade of sci-fi bland. We've got a not too distant future situation and we're following the trials and tribulations of some astronauts on a trip around the solar system for MYSTERIOUS REASONS!

The first thing to notice is the irritating narration. This will come in pretty regularly - maybe they got the idea from Heroes! - and just try and make some obvious point about what has just happened. Also, it's incredibly opaque as regards the fact it's a voyage in space. Static caravans seem to be more in motion than this space vessel. Granted, in the solar system it's probably somewhat hard to convey a sense of motion as it's really only planets that you can see getting larger or smaller but that's what exterior shots are for.

Another thing to mention is - this is basically a long, drawn out BLATANT thieving of the concept behind the quite enjoyable BBC production "Voyage To The Planets" which is a two part docudrama about - you guessed it - a journey around the solar system with people landing on planets! Admittedly, it's a more pointless trip than in Defying Gravity but then Defying Gravity shamelessly stole the ship design.

There's really not a lot to say about this show - it has bland, generic flashbacks which were old news by the end of season one of Lost and the big reveal was just so lacklustre and not even a big reveal, so there is inevitably to be more magical mystery - if the show makes it that far, which seems far from certain. So - a dull, lacklustre show with forgettable characters with a premise clearly lifted from elsewhere and with populist elements dolloped on.

Bottom line: Don't bother - dull, bland and derivative. The televisual equivalent of beige.

When Heroes appeared a few years back it was met with universal adoration from critics and audiences alike. It made the initial hype of Lost seem luke warm by comparison. A story of ordinary people with extraordinary powers - mostly just trying to live their lives and yet all being drawn together by fate. Most people would agree that it was probably one of the most easily compelling pieces of TV for many years. In short - it was a well conceived and well executed, developed its characters and built up and up and up to a

The show - like many others - was somewhat inconvenienced by the Writers Strike but regardless, ploughed on. Naturally, when your entire first season is generally considered a televisual masterpiece -that's going to be a hard act to follow. Especially as almost all the storylines brought up were resolved - aside from a few people who may or may not have been alive or dead.

In many ways, this created an almost immediate problem for the show. There was no inherent direction for it to go. While the destruction of New York is far from the top of the scale of epic, the ending didn't really create any particular reason for the characters to stay together. This led to one of the biggest differences between season one and season two. With season one, we hit the ground running. We know there are all these people with special abilities and continue to build momentum with their interwoven tales. Season two was, by contrast - ponderous. As events pick up four months after the climax of season one - we find that, indeed - many of the characters have moved on and so we spend a considerable amount of time establishing this. Also, it's worth noting that a season slated for twenty four episodes became one that was eleven episodes... you'd think that would mean it was MORE intense.

It was lacklustre and introduced some characters that... just went nowhere... and a lot of story lines... that went nowhere. We had a whole character arc with Hiro that seems to have had pretty much no effect. We had Peter go through a character arc... that seems to have had pretty much no effect (beyond depowering him). Ditto Sylar. Ditto Claire. Ditto EVERYONE.

Season 3 was just a BIG mess though. Oh, we had plenty going on! It was just that we traded the sort of... real people dealing with powers angle for SUPERHERO SOAP OPERA! Now, that's not bad per se but we had so many "Oh, I wasn't really dead." And so on type stuff... and "I'm your father... no, not really." And so on. It's a soap opera in the truest American sense of the word.

The ante is upped in season 3, in that THE WORLD IS AT STAKE! Also, we go all X-men - because apparently everyone with powers must be contained... The Company was SO much more interesting than generic government goons taking people down. Yet, here we are in that scenario. It all feels so contrived. People feel as if they're being pushed around like bets on a roulette table, not drawn in by the string of destiny.

Obviously, when your first act is so full of win... it's hard to follow it up - BSG didn't have smooth sailing but almost managed. Lost utterly failed... but Heroes... just went to pieces.

DC has... a huge monopoly on characters that have become ingrained upon the collective cultural memory of the West. It goes without saying that Batman is probably only really in competition with Superman for the most ubiquitous... although, these days Batman is probably firmly on top in terms of popularity - not least due to the uber popular Chris Nolan Batman films.

Naturally, that was preceded by the Timmverse Batman: The Animated Series and the Justice League cartoon. Which are generally considered by fans and critics to be awesome. Even the somewhat weaker Gotham Knights is still pretty solid.

And then came THE BATMAN. Unashamedly aimed at the 5 year olds and mentally retarded. Mostly the mentally. Whatever the Timmverse was... was so quickly forgotten in this shameful embarrassment of that abortive nonsense. That well... uh.

Anyway, THE BATMAN finished. It was natural for fans to be apprehensive about Batman: The Brave And The Bold... It was pretty much proclaiming to be campy... but as it happens... it's pretty good. It's using some of DC's less known villains - but deliberately so... Blue Beetle is there, the Green Arrow and Batman have a rivalry. Not nearly as campy as one might think.

Batman is still kinda broody not the campy 60s Batman... or the pointless The Batman character... It was easy to see this as a futile venture but it has proven itself... It's rather enjoyable.

Red Dwarf was - once upon an early 90s - a popular sci-fi comedy TV show. Also a book. The TV show was a "cult classic" which translates into normal English as "something a few people liked rabidly". Despite that, the following grew and it became engraved in the collective consciousness of the nation. Then Craig Charles had an unfortunate run in with the law and things stalled for several years, before the generally panned seasons 7 & 8 - which seemed to substitute good writing for a bigger budget and totally changed the status quo by replacing Kochanski (played by a different actress) and then putting the crew on a fully populated Red Dwarf.

Season (or series) 9 starts with the status quo fully returned. Red Dwarf is once again populated by the four characters that became synonymous with the show. Of course, it's not too long before we get a stereotypical Russian science officer hologram appearing for... no reason. She does some exposition on how the sea monster in their water tank is their ticket home. There really isn't anything that funny here... the characters feel flat and beyond some bad taste gross out humour... there isn't a lot going on.

That's pretty much the entire first episode... pretty meh. The next episode sends our characters to Earth... but in the most horribly contrived barely fanfic level of writing. The characters find this is an Earth where Red Dwarf is actually... a TV show. Yes, you've waited for all these years for an episode that is essentially a giant 4th wall breaking fanfic. This involves the crew meeting a lot of people who talk to them about their show and even a reference to the TV CHANNEL the show is being screened on. They really couldn't slap it around your face anymore if they tried. They even get in a car version of Starbug - and they call it, get this - CARBUG! Yes, you'd best be wearing a corset or your sides may split. Anyway, for some reason they decide that they need to find the actor that plays Lister to find out how many episodes they have left. It would almost be a relief for a little slash fic type action to alleviate the dire writing. None of the cast even seem to give a fuck, they're all just phoning it in. Who can blame them?

The third episode starts with them pulling into Coronation Street - for those either too middle class or not living in Britain, that's the setting and name of the most popular soap in the UK, which Craig Charles starred in... so, more 4th wall fun - doing... not very much for a while and then ending up walking into the pub to find the actor Craig Charles... who then gives the exposition required for the story to continue by sending them to meet the show's creator. So, this has actually become self-insertion fanfic.

Grant Naylor explains to them... a whole bunch of rubbish, including the bleedin' obvious - that there have been REPEATED Blade Runner references (for no other reason that... because), right down to Cat leaving little origami figures everywhere - which actually has a reason but a very stupid one. There's a bit where it seems as if Naylor is in control, then he gets shot... then Lister uses the typewriter and essentially becomes God... then it turns out this is actually ALL JUST A DREAM.

No, that is not a joke. It was all a hallucination induced by a despair squid - so, yes. Not only did this read like a bad self-insertion fanfic set in an idiotic 4th wall breaking alternate reality with a pointless Blade Runner homage jammed in, it ALSO turns out to be ONLY A DREAM - and a rehashed concept that was done a hundred times better the first time around.

To summarise - it would have been better if they'd called it a day a long time ago. Series 7 & 8 were pretty creatively bankrupt but compared to Back To Earth, they are positively high art. Just about as bad as it could realistically have been without including George Lucas and Jarjar Binks.