Mabfan's Musings

One of my day job colleagues is an artist named Steve Rider, with whom I share a love of the TV show Doctor Who. A few weeks ago, Steve was showing me elaborate plans he had found for building your own Dalek, and I mentioned how useful I would find a Davros-style wheelchair.

Next thing I know, Steve has sent me the following piece of original digital art (posted with permission):

Dadros by Steve Rider Copyright ©2009 by Steve Rider. Do not copy.

I'm very pleased to say that as of this afternoon, he has also gifted me with the original sketch, framed.

Now I just have to find something for my daughters to annotate....

Last night ended my participation as a Book of the Month Club author in Joseph Mallozzi's book club, which he runs on his blog.

Joe runs the book club as follows. First, he announces the book a few months in advance and encourages everyone to go read it. Then, when the discussion week arrives, he posts his own thoughts about the book and encourages his readers to comment and ask questions. He passes along those questions to the author, who has as much time as needed to compose answers to the questions. Finally, Joe posts those answers on his blog, and the book club moves on to the next book.

It's been a lot of fun having I Remember the Future selected as one of the books for the month of May. I discovered that Joe's readers, while sometimes critical and analytical, are also very respectful. Whether or not they like a story, they explain exactly what worked for them and what didn't. And I have to admit that it was a thrill to have the book chosen by a producer of one of my favorite television show franchises. Joe noted my love of Stargate as well, in his introduction to the post with my answers:

When it comes to making a selection for our Book of the Month Club discussions, I like to take several things into consideration: recommendations, reviews, an intriguing premise, and, of course, whether or not the author is a Stargate fan. Well, when I learned that author Michael A. Burstein was an avid follower of the Stargate franchise, I was delighted to pick his book, I Remember the Future, for a May discussion. Michael is not only an established SF writer and fan of the show, but a blog regular as well and so it gives me great pleasure to turn today’s entry over to him.

Because I'm a fan of Stargate, I had an idea for an appropriate picture to go along with the post. Nomi agreed to the idea, and our friend Ari Baronofsky graciously agreed to take the picture and let us use it.

So the "author photo" that went along with my answers is a picture of Nomi and me posed with our DVD box set of Stargate SG-1: The Complete Series, which we purchased as a present to ourselves when it was released.

Anyway, here's the link if you want to see the picture for yourself, and maybe even read my answers:

Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog: Author Michael A. Burstein Answers Your Questions

And for any of Joe's readers who make it over here, a bonus question and answer. No one asked me what my favorite episodes of Stargate SG-1 were. So, in order of broadcast, here they are: 1969, Window of Opportunity, 2010, 2001, Wormhole X-treme!, and 200. Yeah, I tend to flock to the fan favorites....

What's that? My favorite episodes of Stargate Atlantis? That'll have to wait for later.

For those of you interested, in honor of the 100th episode of the TV show Lost, which airs tonight, I have the following piece up at SCI FI Wire:

Before watching Lost's 100th episode tonight, check out 14 other sci-fi milestones

The most interesting aspect of writing this piece for me was discovering just how few genre shows have made it to 100 episodes...

(And I couldn't help but notice that the 100th episode of Lost coincides with the 100th day of Barack Obama's presidency. Given the subject matter of Lost, this can't be a coincidence.)

I've been meaning to let people know about all of the following, just haven't had the time. None of this is Earth-shattering, but it might be of interest.

First of all, I reviewed the play The Superheroine Monologues for SF Scope. Unfortunately, at this point the play's run is over, but if you're interested in my opinion, you can find it at The Secret Lives of Superheroines – a review of The Superheroine Monologues: A Parody of Super Proportions.

Secondly, and a little more timely, I had an opinion piece appear on SCI FI Wire (soon to be Syfy Wire?) about tonight's season finale of the TV show Heroes. I managed to snag quotes from Paul Levinson, Bob Greenberger, and Miranda Thomas about the show; I thought Miranda's point about a need for a big battle was a good one. You can find the article at 5 things Heroes must do to deliver a killer season finale.

Thirdly, John Joseph Adams has chosen to reprint my Jews versus vampires story, "Lifeblood," in the anthology By Blood We Live (Night Shade Books). I suspect it's going to be a somewhat different take on vampires than the other stories in the book. "Lifeblood" originally appeared in the 2003 DAW Books anthology New Voices in Science Fiction edited by Mike Resnick, and I'm glad to see it come back into print.

Fourthly, Apex Publications announced that they're doing a book collection of stories from Apex Magazine, and it turns out that they're including the two stories I selected for the special issue as part of the book: “Waiting for Jakie” by Barbara Krasnoff and “The Last Science Fiction Writer” by Jamie Todd Rubin. If you want to learn more about Descended From Darkness: Apex Magazine volume 1, read their blog post Apex Magazine antho: Update.

And finally, the Falmouth Public Library in southern Massachusetts has invited me to participate in their SCI FI Author Panel on the evening of Wednesday, June 17. I'm particularly pleased to be invited to speak at a library because of my own connection to libraries in Massachusetts. One of the other panelists will be my good friend Jennifer Pelland, so I expect the audience that comes to the event will hear a lot of brilliant repartee. (At least, I'd like to think so.)

I'm looking for suggestions for the worst science fiction television season finale ever. (Not series finale, but season finale.) Any thoughts?

Joseph Mallozzi, a producer and writer on Stargate, has an interesting guest blog post up on the Apex Blog: I Should Have Stuck to Rubber Chickens:

Among the most common questions I get asked as an Executive Producer/Writer on the Stargate franchise are: “What sci fi shows influenced you growing up?”, “Can I send you my episode ideas?”, and, of course, “Why does my character get caught holding the rubber chicken?” In order: “None,” “No,” and “Because it’s a key plot point.”

He also keeps a regular blog, Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog, where Nancy Kress is answering questions from readers this week.

You know what's really cool? A New York Times columnist drawing a connection between current government follies and an old episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker:

...in one memorable episode, Kolchak was confronted by a politician who sold his soul to the devil in order to win a seat in the State Senate.

When I first saw this particular program, coyly titled “The Devil’s Platform,” I was covering a real-life State Legislature in Connecticut. My first thought was that accepting eternal damnation in return for a career as a state senator was a little like swapping your house for a pair of socks.

But lately I am beginning to wonder if, in our troubled times, being in a Senate — any Senate — actually is hell.

Go read Op-Ed: The Devil Made Me Do It by Gail Collins.

As I noted a week ago today, life is busy and will continue to be busy for a while. We're still in the midst of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, I've got deadlines at work, a publication party to plan, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped.

A few quick notes, though:

• Those of you who saw me feeling ill at shul on Wednesday, I just want to let you know that I'm feeling much better. Thanks to everyone for their offers of assistance.

• Nomi and I went to sleep last night thinking that the Sox had lost the game, thanks to this (now edited) post at Universal Hub: That's All She Wrote. My reaction to the win this morning: the Sox are playing Mets baseball. Or, at least, they're playing the way the Mets did in the 1980s when they would pull it off at the last minute.

• We've managed to catch some new TV. I'm glad to be watching Pushing Daisies again, and I liked the first episode of the American version of Life on Mars. (Maybe growing up in NYC has something to do with that.)

• Thanks to the Brookline TAB article, I was recognized in the Brookline Post Office as I was buying stamps. Maybe that'll help turn my book into a New York Times bestseller.

• The holiday of Sukkot really allows me to see what a cool Jewish community we've got. Nomi and I have been enjoying the hospitality of many families.

• The Carole and Paula in the Magic Garden DVD set is finally out! But I couldn't find my favorite song. ("I'd like to shake your hand, shake hands, I'd like to shake your hand, shake hands and how are you?") Anyone know if it's in any of the episodes they chose for the DVD?

Any questions?

Like many of us, I wanted to catch as much of the Democratic National Convention on television as I could. Unfortunately, it's been a busy week; gnomi's left ankle has been in pain, making it hard for her to get around; and we've had a few visitors pop in during the evenings. (Not to mention that a friend of ours gave birth yesterday afternoon to an eleven pound three ounce baby boy, and Nomi's helping coordinate meals for their family.) So although the TiVo has been dutifully recording C-SPAN's coverage, I haven't really paid much attention. (Besides which, Monday night there was a new episode of The Middleman on. How can I possibly watch the convention if it's going up against The Middleman? But I digress.)

I also sometimes wonder how much I really need to watch the conventions on television. Although I do consider myself politically aware and engaged, and I understand the civic importance of the conventions, the simple fact is that my own vote is not going to change unless my candidate does something terribly egregious between now and election day. I'm not a swing voter, and even though in the past I've split my votes across various party lines, in this particular election I feel very strongly about how I need to vote.

(If you don't know by now my political leanings, it's probably not that hard to guess.)

Despite those thoughts above, I still wanted to watch the speeches. But for the most part, I missed them. I did get to see Bill Clinton and Joe Biden speak on Wednesday night, but our watching of those speeches was interrupted by various things. (I'm very glad for the TiVo pause button.) However, there was one speech that I did not want to miss, and that one, of course, was last night's speech from Barack Obama.

I'm a very big student of history, and I like to keep track of anniversary dates in my personal calendar. For quite a few years now, I've had a note in my calendar that August 28 was the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. So the fact that Obama's speech was happening on the 45th anniversary of King's speech was something I've kept in mind ever since they announced the dates of the convention.

Others have spoken about Obama's exact words, and what it means for the Democratic party. For me, the important aspect of Obama's acceptance of his nomination is the sheer historic value. We've come so far. Last night, as I watched his speech, it was a moment to bask in history. The fact that an African-American man is running as a major party candidate for president of these United States, and that for the most part his race is a non-issue...it's amazing. I'm told that it felt like a major step to Catholics when John F. Kennedy won in 1960, and I know how proud much of the Jewish community felt when Joe Lieberman won the majority vote in this country as the vice-presidential candidate eight years ago. (Let's ignore for the moment what Lieberman has done since then.) Barack Obama's candidacy is another huge step forward, something that should make all Americans proud.

Okay, now onto the space program.

Folks may recall that back in January, after my candidate had left the race (and let's not say more about him either), I found it very difficult to choose between Obama and Clinton. I decided to base my vote on their plans for the space program, and at the end of the month, I asked people for information on their respective space exploration platforms. Sadly, at the time there wasn't much either of them was saying on this issue.

But now that we're heading toward the general election, we have more comprehensive statements from both of the major party candidates. A friend of mine (hi, M.!) pointed me to Presidential Candidates Outline Space Policy at the Planetary Society website. Both candidates provided text on their space policy, and the Planetary Society is offering them sans comment. I encourage people to go read them, and as for myself, I will add only two notes displaying my personal bias. First of all, Barack Obama's statement includes a section titled "Embracing Human Space Exploration," in which he endorses the idea of a return to the moon by 2020, whereas McCain's seems less specific.

Secondly, Obama's statement on space policy is longer.

Go read them if you have time, and feel free to come back here and tell me what you think.

And if you haven't been watching it yet, check out The Middleman on the ABC Family Channel. They need all the viewers they can get.

Beloit College has posted its Mindset List for the Class of 2012:

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

I've been reading these since they posted the first one for the Class of 2002, and I'm always amazed at what cultural touchstones students are either missing or consider to be as if they had always been with us. One of my most vivid memories was asking one of my high school students about this item on the Class of 2002 list:

28. "The Tonight Show" has always been with Jay Leno.

She agreed. I asked her if she knew who Johnny Carson was, and she looked into the distance and said that while her generation knew he had been the host of "The Tonight Show," they never really thought about it.

I'd like to see the Class of 2002's reaction to the list for the Class of 2012...

For those of you as interested in history, or New York City, or New York City history, or trains, as I am...

Tonight PBS's American Experience is showing "Grand Central," about the history of Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Grand Central Terminal opened on February 12, 1913, eleven years after the January 8, 1902 accident in Grand Central Depot that killed fifteen people. The show's website, Grand Central | American Experience | PBS, will eventually provide the entire episode for your viewing pleasure, as well as a program transcript. For the moment, however, it's still worth visiting for the old photos and newspaper reports. And they've got a teacher's guide!

I originally hadn't planned to discuss my thoughts on the "One Day More" story line that just concluded in Amazing Spider-Man 545 a few weeks ago, for two reasons. First of all, I didn't think anyone would be interested in my opinion. And secondly, I presumed that there would be so much discussion in the blogosphere that any of the points I might make would have been made already.

As it happens, though, I've actually been asked for my opinion, since I'm not just a reader of Spider-Man, but someone who grew up in Forest Hills, just like Peter did (cf. my essay "The Friendly Neighborhood of Peter Parker" in the book Webslinger). And as I ruminated over the story, I realized that my thoughts on the story go deeper and further than just this one story itself, into the realm of general thoughts on serialized fiction.

So even if you don't read comic books, or don't care about the adventures of Spider-Man, I think you might find something interesting in here about the writing of franchised characters and the writing of fiction in general. Because I also bring into the discussion Stephen King, William Goldman, and the TV shows Lost and Gilmore Girls. Read on, or just cut to the end, which is a good bit and has Marvin in it. (Well, to be honest, Marvin doesn't appear at the end. But I do reveal if I plan to keep reading Spider-Man.)

( What Would You Do If You Only Had One More Day? )

Finally, for those of you who didn't read through all my pondering, the answer to your question is yes, I will continue to read Amazing Spider-Man for the foreseeable future. I may not be happy about this current development, but I still want to keep up with the life of Peter Parker.

So gnomi's sister just got her a present, which can be seen in the photo below:

Penguin Doctors Nine of the doctors as penguins, plus their TARDIS. Photo copyright ©2007 by Nomi S. Burstein. Do not reproduce.

Yes, those are nine of the Doctors from Doctor Who...reimagined as penguins by artist Pat Campbell.

If you want to know more, and to see some close-up pictures, check out gnomi's post, Why I Love My Sister, Part 275881264.

There's an old saying: once is heresy, twice is tradition, three times is sacred tradition. With that thought in mind, welcome to my list of the top ten movies of 2007!

As you can remind yourself by clicking on the above links, Nomi and I don't usually manage to see a lot of new movies in the theatre in any given calendar year. In 2005, we saw only thirteen films, and in 2006, we only caught ten. And yet, I revel in the absurdity of making a top ten list based on such a small sample. So the magic number for 2007 was again thirteen, and out of those thirteen, here are what I consider the top ten films of the year.

[Warning: There might be minor spoilers in the discussion. If you want to be safe, just read the titles, which are in boldface.]

( Michael A. Burstein's Top Ten Movies of 2007 )

And the three that didn't make the list? Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Hm. The three movies that didn't make the list are all the second sequels to a previous film. Hollywood, I bet there's a lesson in there for you.

(ETA: I completely forgot that I went to see Transformers this year, sans Nomi. I frequently joked that it was the greatest movie ever made, but if I even forgot to mention it when I first posted this... well, I guess that tells us something about the impact that movie made.)

Nomi and I have been watching the TV show Journeyman, and last night we saw what will possibly be the penultimate episode of the series. Although the original reviews of the show were weak, because of our lowered expectations we found the show worth watching, and we'll be sorry to see it come to an end. It's all about time travel and parallel universes, and it's quite well done. Furthermore, last night's episode got me thinking about the moral dilemmas inherent in time travel.

For those of you who don't watch the show, the premise is that a San Francisco newspaper reporter named Dan Vasser starts finding himself warped into the past with no real explanation of what's going on. His guide on this journey is Al Olivia, a woman he once was engaged to until she died in a plane crash...or so he thought. It turns out that Olivia is also a time traveler, and she knows that whenever Dan finds himself in the past, he's on a mission to make something better for someone. When Dan returns to the present, he always finds that he has changed someone else's life, usually for the better, but sometimes with a little worse thrown in. Over the course of the series, Dan's wife Katie and his son Zack have come to terms with Dan's random travels.

The show has toyed with what might happen if Dan interacted with his own past and changed his own timeline, but for the most part he's managed to leave his own life alone...until last night.

In last night's episode, "The Hanged Man," Dan Vasser accidentally leaves a digital camera behind in the 1980s. When he returns to 2007, he finds that instead of computers on their desks, people have "nanotechs," which use holographic displays and not the flat screens we all know and love. Digital paper comes over fax machines, complete with moving pictures, like a photograph in the Harry Potter universe.

And Dan's son Zack is gone, replaced by a daughter named Caroline. Apparently, the existence of new technology in the timeline altered the date and time of the conception of Dan and Katie's child. And to the show's credit, they do give a reasonable explanation for why this happened.

And Dan panics. His son Zack has vanished into the multiverse, replaced by a daughter he doesn't remember but whom Katie loves. Dan becomes determined to retrieve his camera, and to restore his son to existence. Even if it's at the cost of wiping out his daughter – which freaks out his wife, who doesn't want to lose Caroline. But of course, if Dan succeeds, she won't remember Caroline. And yet...this is still bothersome.

Let's look at the new timeline Dan created. What makes it any less valid than the previous timeline? Why does Zack have any more right to exist than Caroline? The show's answer to this is, to my mind, unsatisfactory. Basically, the other timeline is the "real" one because that's the one that Dan remembers and wants to return to.

But then, what about all the changes Dan has already wrought unto history? The entire point of this show, like Quantum Leap, appears to be that one man can travel into the past to make the present better. I think most of us would tend to agree that a 2007 with more advanced technology would probably be a better thing. And even if you want to argue the case, note that in the episode we saw, there was no evidence given that 2007-prime had any worse problems because of the advanced technology. If Dan feels it's wrong to change history so that Zack is replaced with Caroline, why doesn't he feel that everything else he has been doing is wrong too?

Also, how can he be so sure that he can fix the timeline? Even if Dan does recover the camera, we all know that the conception of any one individual person is unique. How can Dan be so sure that getting the camera back will restore the Zack he knows and loves? Or, in his agitated state, does this just not occur to him?

Journeyman has opened up the classic moral question inherent in time travel, a question that has been dealt with time and time again. It's too bad the show is probably doomed; I would have liked to see how they dealt with the issue.

On Sunday I was originally supposed to be running a writing workshop for an undergraduate class at Harvard, but the weather precluded traveling to Cambridge. I did try heading out briefly in the morning, and I kept slipping on the ice and snow, so I called the folks in charge of the course and we're going to reschedule.

Instead, Nomi and I spent the day ensconced at home. She took advantage of the opportunity to bake more homemade challah, while I gathered together some recycling.

We also finally got around to watching the episodes of the TV show Wonderfalls that we had never seen. A little background might be in order here for those who don't recall the program. Wonderfalls was a mid-season replacement that ran on Fox in 2004. The show focused on Jaye Tyler, a young woman with a philosophy degree working as a retail clerk at a Niagara Falls gift shop. Animal figurines start talking to her, and when she follows their cryptic instructions to help people out, her life gets complicated, but things usually work out in the end. (More information on the show can be found at Wikipedia: Wonderfalls.)

Sadly for those of us who enjoyed this quirky and charming little program, Fox only broadcast four episodes before canceling the program. However, the producers of the show (which included Bryan Fuller, the creator of Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies, and Tim Minear) managed to complete a full half-season of 13 episodes. Due to a fan campaign, Fox released the complete series on DVD in 2005, and Nomi and I bought it as soon as it came out. And as often happens, life got in the way, and we only managed to watch two of the unaired nine episodes – until yesterday, when we took advantage of the weather to watch the other seven.

One of the reasons I was interested in finishing the show was to learn why the animal figures started talking to Jaye. The producers of the show knew that they would not be making any more seasons as they were finishing the first one, so they stated publicly that they planed to present enough of an explanation in the final episodes to be satisfying. I wanted to see that answer for myself.

We're about to enter minor spoiler territory here; so if you have any plans to watch these episodes yourself at some point, you might want to stop reading now.

First of all, the producers of the show did do a nice job of bringing the story to a conclusion. In the final episode, "Caged Bird," we see that Jaye's life has taken a turn for the better, and we pretty much know how she'll end up. In the episode just before it, "Totem Mole," we get one possible explanation for why the animal figures talk to her, because Jaye finds herself talking with a deceased American Indian seer, which implies to the audience (or at least to me) that it is animal spirits who have decided to communicate with Jaye.

But it's actually in the antepenultimate episode that we find out what I consider a satisfactory answer regarding Jaye's predicament. (And a small thank-you to the producers for giving me a legitimate reason to use the word "antepenultimate.") During a climactic moment in a thunderstorm, the brass monkey in her therapist's office insists that Jaye lick the light switch on the wall. At her instigation, the monkey promises to answer her question of why the animal figurines are talking to her if she'll do what he asks.

Licking the light switch during the storm causes the power to go out in the building, a vital component to ensure a happy ending for the characters in the episode. And when Jaye goes back to the monkey, and insists that it fulfill its end of the bargain, the monkey answers her question in three words.

Why do the animals talk to her?

"Because you listen."

And that, to me, is a perfect explanation. Do we really need to know more? Do we need to know whether or not the animals are the voice of God, or the voices of spirits, or aliens, or whatever? No. Because what's important is not that the animals talk, but that they chose Jaye. They knew that despite her reluctance, she would listen and do what they ask. As upset as she gets at the animal figurines sometimes, she knows that following their instructions will lead to a better life for the people around her in the end. One gets the feeling that in the Wonderfalls universe, these voices have approached others before, only to be rebuffed when they discovered that not everyone has an open mind and a good heart. But just like the newspaper chose Gary Hobson in Early Edition, or the spider chose Peter Parker to become Spider-Man (as we learned in a retcon), the animals chose Jaye.

In short, the explanation is that it's one's character that matters. And I think that's a wonderful way to resolve the show.

7:30 PM: Arrive at home after running evening errands. Turn on the television set to see that the NBC Nightly News, at least, is still fresh and new (although an hour old from having been recorded on the TiVo). Surf the Internet.

8:00 PM: In desperation, put on DVD of the 2005 movie The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio borrowed from library. Watch movie to fill time. Charming adaptation, with interesting choices made the screenwriter/director, but not as good as the book.

9:40 PM: Panic. TiVo is recording NBC Monday night lineup. Are the shows reruns?

9:45 PM: Begin watching Heroes. Sigh of relief as we discover the episode is brand new. Enjoy plot twists and story ramp-up.

10:25 PM: Wonder how Tim Kring will actually manage to wrap this up by December 3. Take a few steady breaths to calm down.

10:30 PM: Begin watching Journeyman. Time travel plot, as usual, bends the brain and make us forget the lateness of the hour. Wonder what would happen if Dan Vasser and Sam Beckett arrived in 1988, during the last writers' strike. Would Probe still be on today? (Wonder if I wondered this before.)

11:15 PM: Attempt to make Jon Stewart-style joke in an effort to properly satire current political situation. Fail miserably.

11:20 PM: Pick up book to read before going to sleep. Hey, writers of books aren't on strike. Make a decision to read more.

11:21 PM: Books are boring. Sleep.

Those of us who enjoy television shows and movies as more than casual entertainments are probably all aware that the Writers Guild of America has gone on strike today. The last time this happened, in 1988, the strike lasted five months and killed a lot of TV shows. (I myself bemoaned the loss of Probe, a new show that broadcast perhaps five episodes before the strike brought it to an end.)

Almost anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I am a strong supporter of unions. I remember my father going on strike in the 1970s when I was a little kid, and how my family went for much of a year not knowing how it would turn out. But Dad stuck to his principles that the writers and editors of the Newspaper Guild deserved more than management wanted to give them. My father died in the strike offices of the Newspaper Guild seventeen years ago last Friday; it's not hard to see that I come by my support of unions honestly.

So it should not come as a surprise to anyone that I support the writers in their strike and hope that they succeed in negotiating a new, fairer contract.

However...

It may be perverse of me to say this, but in some ways I wouldn't mind seeing a long, drawn-out, protracted strike. It would give me a chance to catch up on both my reading and older entertainment options. Nomi and I have been watching old episodes of Doctor Who, and we're still in the middle of the DVD set of the series "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." We missed Veronica Mars during its three years of broadcast and have been meaning to catch up with it (again, via DVDs). It has not escaped my notice that the simple fact we have old TV shows and movies on DVD as an option to fill the empty hours of programming buttresses the WGA's arguments that their members deserve a share of residuals for the new media.

Of course, in the end what I hope for will have little, if any, effect on the final outcome. But if it weren't for the strike, we wouldn't have paragraphs such as this one, from the New York Times article "Screenwriters Picket as Strike Begins" by David Carr and Michael Cieply, describing the picket line outside Rockefeller Center in New York City today:

All of the trappings of a union protest were there — signs, chanting workers, an inflatable rat, and a discarded bag of wrappers and cups from Dunkin Donuts. The rat was borrowed from Local 79, an AFL-CIO laborers’ union, and commuted in from Queens.

I just wish they had published a photo of the inflatable rat.

Those of us who enjoy serial storytelling in the science fiction/fantasy genre apparently have a lot to look forward to this season. The networks announced a larger proportion of shows within the genre than usual, and it would appear that our current golden age of television is continuing.

Last night, there were four shows on that Nomi and I were interested in: Chuck, Heroes, Journeyman, The Big Bang Theory. Sadly, The Big Bang Theory and Chuck are on against each other, but we managed to catch a preview of The Big Bang Theory on our TiVo previously, so we didn't have to play TiVo-VCR games to catch it last night. (We also could have watched the pilots of Chuck and Journeyman that had been released over the Internet, but we never got around to it.) Technically, TBBT is not a genre show, but it's about Physics graduate students, so there's a certain possible genre interest attached.

The short version: NBC has put together a very well constructed Monday night of television.

The long version: See below.

Chuck:

The premise of this show is that Chuck, a technically proficient but socially awkward fellow who works tech support at a chain store, has a database of government secrets downloaded into his brain. He ends up working undercover for a CIA agent and an NSA agent, and wacky hijinks ensue (as they say).

Chuck is a nerd, but he's definitely our kind of nerd. I won't go so far as to say that I'm like him, but I know many people who are, and they're the coolest nerds around. His social awkwardness is come by honestly, given his bad breakup story, and his good heart comes through as well. Probably the most important quality for a TV character is audience engagement, and Chuck has that.

The show was well-written and well-plotted, with perfect set-ups that paid off in the end. The characters seemed very fleshed out and realistic; even "Captain Awesome," for the few seconds of screen time he had, came through as more than just a stereotype. We're very much looking forward to enjoying more of this show.

Heroes:

This show just continues to be fun to watch. There's too much for me to go into details at the moment, but I will say two things. First of all, I am intrigued by the new mysteries that they began presenting in this episode.

Secondly, and best of all, is that my favorite character actor, Stephen Tobolowsky, appeared on the show as a representative of the mysterious company. Tobolowsky is an acting genuis; if you don't recognize his name, take a look at his IMDB page (which I linked to) because you've surely seen him in something. Seeing him spar with Mohinder in the way only Tobolowsky could do was terrific.

Journeyman:

Being the time travel fanatic that I am, I was already predisposed to enjoy this show. However, some early reviews suggested that it was mediocre, or weak at best. So I guess I went into it with low expectations, which turned out to be a good thing, because I ended up liking the show more than I probably would have.

The premise is that Dan Vasser finds himself uncontrollably traveling into the past, apparently to make changes that will improve the future. Sort of like Quantum Leap, but without the help of a home base to tell him what he's supposed to. And Vasser always travels back and forth with whatever he's wearing and carrying on his person at the time.

The biggest problem I almost had with the show was the question of why was this happening to him. In some cases (such as Early Edition), I'm willing to accept that we may not have the answer; but given the extremely dangerous consequences of Vasser's time trips (such as his disappearing from a moving car that subsequently plows into other cars), I needed more explanation as to why this was happening.

And although the show didn't provide that explanation, it did provide a clue that something is going on to cause all this. The clue was significant enough to make me want to watch more.

But I did have one problem with suspension of disbelief. People tend to change their appearance rather significantly over a ten or twenty year period. I found it hard to believe that Vasser could pass himself off in 1997 to his friends as the contemporary model.

The Big Bang Theory (CBS):

I first heard of this show from an article in New York magazine. They had screened the pilot for a group of graduate students in Physics at Columbia and asked their opinions. Most of their opinions were lukewarm, at best. I felt the same way. The two main characters are ridiculously nerdy, and the sitcom setup was very cliched. (I rolled my eyes when Kelly Cuoco's character said her shower was broken, because it was obvious what was coming next). Frankly, the only line I laughed at was when one of the graduate students complained to the other that his theory requires 26 dimensions in order to work out correctly. There was no laughtrack attached, implying that the writers didn't realize what a great line it was.

I will admit that I'm mildly curious to see where the show goes, so I may tape a few more episodes. But in the grand scheme of things, I won't feel disappointed if I miss them.

Nomi knit me a Dalek!

Click here for Nomi's full Dalek construction gallery of pictures.

Extermiknit!