Archive for the 'TV' Category

Stargate SG-1: Disclosure

Saturday, August 5th, 2006
A short review about this SG-1 episode I saw, because there were a couple of things that I liked and that stood out for me.

In Stargate SG-1: Disclosure, several ambassadors of large nations are informed of the Stargate program by general Hammond and that irritating senator you love to hate. The ambassadors are invited to the SG complex, and Hammond talks them through all the components and the history of the program, step by step. At every step, the viewer is shown bits of previous episodes. I tend to hate episodes that are made up almost entirely of shows I have already seen, because it feels like I am being made to pay for things I already paid for. Here, however, it worked for me, and I think that is because these flash-backs actually served a purpose.

SG-1 has a very loose, but very definite overarching story line. A strong overarching story line makes its influence clear every time you watch a show. Even if you’ve missed three years of a series, you’ll be up to speed soon enough. But not so with SG-1: miss a couple of episodes, and you miss a little; miss three seasons, and you won’t know anymore what’s going on. This episode did a good job getting me up to speed.

The second thing I liked was a joke; I thought it was funny when the annoying senator complained about the haphazzard way most missions seemed to resolve; all of them ended well, but only after SG-1 put Earth or even the universe in terrible danger. SG-1 fumbles through each mission, but averts a bad ending at the very last possible minute.

This meta-humour seems to be a trademark of the Stargate franchise writers. In this case the senator almost seems to know about our world, in which we watch exciting SG-1 episodes, in Stargate Atlantis the characters actually do; the geeks in that series continually gush about Star Trek, as any geek in our time frame would.

Of course, I am stuck in an old world. Why doesn’t sci-fi channel just publish a video story line on their website, so that if I’ve missed bits, I could get a summary there?

Stargate SG-1, season 6, episode Disclosure: 7/10. Review by Branko Collin.

Posted in Review, TV | No Comments »

Hill Street Blues

Sunday, December 11th, 2005

As a young teenager I loved Hill Street Blues, and as an older teenager St. Elsewhere even more so. Seeing afternoon reruns nowadays the shows look seriously dated. But still, now and again I catch a glimpse of what I liked so much.

For instance, Frank Furillo has no time to talk to his ex-wife Fay, who wants to share her joy of having found out the baby she is expecting is going to be a girl. Then tough, hard desk-sergeant Phil Esterhaus, who has all the time in the world, and who also wants to be seen as the thinking empath, steps in and asks her all the right questions to enable her to share that joy. It has that insincerity in it that grown-ups have, and the lack of shame in showing it that seems like the lack of shame children have through inexperience, but is of course quite the opposite: lack of shame despite experience.

Either Esterhaus is tough, or he is touchy-feely. One of them is an act. And Fay knows it, because she plays the same game for pretty much the entire series. (Which is why she is one of those rare characters that you love to hate. Name some more in the comments please.)

I am probably not explaining it right, but it brought back some way of looking at the world that I lost somewhere while growing up, and could not even remember until something like Hill Street Blues reruns came along.

And what I liked back then about that scene was that grown-ups (embodied by the show’s writers) were capable of seeing that they were acting the way they were.

Posted in Review, TV | No Comments »

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

Monday, October 3rd, 2005

I downloaded this new series of people being forced to give up smoking, and how each of them is coming to terms with that. Battlestar Galactica (the new series) gets many things wrong, but it also gets many things right, and in the end that’s what counts.

There are a lot of movies and series that try and tie in to my childhood memories of Good TV. All of them try and recreate the feel of the old show; Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, tries to create the feel that somebody who watched the show as a child, but since has grown up, would like. That means things have seriously changed. But they have changed for the good: if you liked rebellious Starbuck as a young boy, you’ll love Starbuck now you’re a grown man.

Score: 7/10.

(This review is based on the miniseries, the first season, and the first four episodes of the second season.)

Posted in Review, TV | No Comments »