July 2007 Archives
By Monty Ashley – July 8, 2007
Here’s the thing. I tend to think of myself as fairly hip when it comes to the world of geekery, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. I know what the hot new thing is, is what I’m saying. Which is why I felt a little awkward touring the Eureka sets when I was pretty sure I’d never heard of the show before in my life. I mean, that can’t be right, can it? It was supposedly Sci-Fi’s biggest premiere of 2006, and I didn’t even know it was on?
And I have to say, it’s exactly the sort of show it sounds like I’d like. A secret city in the backwoods of Oregon full of crazy geniuses? Lots of nutty superscience? Even one of those Houses of the Future you sometimes get in Tom and Jerry cartoons? I’m totally in. Especially once I hear that from time to time, Matt Frewer shows up as a mad scientist. That’s the role he was born to play! And I understand that there are occasional superscience mishaps, which are something I feel television could use more of. The day we were on set, they were preparing the Cafe set for some kind of Sonic Wave Pulse Explosion, which involved air cannons full of plates, and all the tables and chairs being attached to an automatic yanking device via metal cables. They’d also rigged a toilet to explode for some reason. Well, I assume there was a reason; they might have just been bored.
The sets were very impressive, although I kind of miss the days of cheesy two-dimensional sets that require the cameras to be locked down in position. These were all fully-immersive three-dimensional sets that seem like they’d be a lot easier on the actors. The walls all moved out to fit cameras in, but it was possible to stand in the garage set and really feel like I was in a working garage. The set decorations were all relatively realistic (until you looked closely and noticed how many things were just old VCRs and that 80% of the things on the wall were taken from the same two issues of “Science and Mechanics” (The December 1954 and one from 1957 — now that’s insider information!). But there were enough grease-covered car parts to make it even smell realistic. I did like the fact that the blueprints on one of the work tables were for the basement of a mental hospital.
In fact, the most impressive set I saw during the whole trip was the new Global Dynamics set, which is two or three stories and incorporates more connected locations than every 1950s sitcom put together. If you’re putting together a futuristic technology company, I highly recommend the good people at Sci-Fi set design. There’s even a hidden waterfall, and you know how important that sort of thing is.
The new season of Eureka starts on Tuesday, July 10, and Season One just came out on DVD last week. I really think they’d be better served having it come out a little earlier, to give people a fighting chance to get caught up. However, I have to admit that I personally have not gotten around to seeing any of it. I bought the whole season on iTunes (because I prefer to behave legally whenever possible), but it turns out that it’s hard to fit “watching television on a handy portable device” into my busy schedule. I admit that the problem might be my own laziness. It usually is.
By Monty Ashley – July 6, 2007
I am a fan of Flash Gordon in all his forms. The 1940 Buster Crabbe serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe is a huge amount of fun, the original comic strip is pure Pulp action, and the 1980 Sam Jones vehicle is, well, I guess it’s not exactly “good”, but I still derive a great deal of enjoyment for it. I realize this confession may undercut whatever credibility I had, but I think honesty is important on the internet.
So as far as I’m concerned, Flash Gordon is the most exciting aspect of the Sci-Fi Channel’s upcoming season, narrowly edging out whatever hilarious Sci-Fi Original Movie is coming up next. (It’s Supergator! Of course it is!). I was a little concerned that they’d make it too much like the 1980 film, or that they’d be afraid of making it too campy and go too far the other way. Grim-and-gritty works fine for Battlestar Galactica, but I think you want a Flash Gordon with a sense of fun.
The overall plot is about the same as usual: Flash Gordon is regular (albeit athletic) guy from Earth when suddenly aliens from the planet Mongo show up and start destroying things and taking a liking to Dale Arden. The crazy doctor Hans Zarkov is the only one who can help Flash, and things spiral out of control from there. There’s a little more backstory than usual (Flash’s father is missing; Dale is actually Flash’s ex-girlfriend; there’s an alien bounty hunter stuck on Earth and she likes the looks of Flash, and so on) but the general outline looks about right.
The set tour made me reasonably optimistic. Ming’s Council Chamber wasn’t as crazy and over-the-top as I had been hoping, but his Dungeon Torture Chamber looks pretty good. And I guess if you’re Ming, the ruthless (and merciless) ruler of Mongo, you probably do more business down in the dungeons than in the council chamber anyway. As you can see, I’ve convinced myself that this is a Ming who knows his business, and his business is probably going to involve constantly capturing Dale Arden, Flash Gordon, or Hans Zarkov, and holding them in impenetrable cells for about twenty minutes until one of the other ones breaks the prisoner loose. That’s my hope, anyway.
Eric Johnson, the gentleman playing Flash, has a good look for Flash Gordon. You might remember his as Whitney from Smallville. That’s what they tell me, anyway. I think it’s interesting that this Flash is a marathon runner as opposed to a football player, as in the 1980 movie. If I was in a mood for analysis, I’d start talking about how that indicates that this Flash is a “runner” rather than a “fighter,” but I suspect there’s actually going to be plenty of fighting anyway.
The important thing is that Flash is enthusiastic. Describing his attitude toward action scenes, Johnson says, “I’m a bit of a golden retriever on set. You throw a ball and I will go get it. And if you keep throwing it, I will keep getting it, because this is the best game I have ever played.” I have to think that’s a good attitude to have in a business where you have to do the same thing a million time in a row.
The other supporting characters also look about right. Hans Zarkov has been changed from a vaguely-foreign old crazy scientist to a younger comedy sidekick, but that just seems logical. In order for Flash to walk the line between “Dashing Hero” and “Average Guy Caught Up in Events Beyond His Control,” it helps for there to be someone else even more over his head.
We didn’t get a look at Ming. The word is that they’re trying to make this version of Flash Gordon less racist than the previous versions, so Ming (who won’t be called “Ming the Merciless”) probably won’t be a full-on Fu Manchu scheming oriental. You can see how that kind of thing might not fly in the 21st century. They actually mentioned that Ming might be blond, but I can’t promise anything. I did notice that his guards will be wearing pretty cool uniforms.
We did get a pretty good look at some of the costumes. The plan appears to involve a number of different alien societies, so I assume there will be some scenes among the people in crazy furs and and then a scene in the decadent high-society culture. That one sounds interesting, because there will be both male and female concubines being led around on leashes, although it won’t be the focus of the scene or anything. I approve of that kind of detail being thrown into the background.
Now, with all that out of the way, I shall proceed to bury the lede. You are naturally curious about whether they’ll be using the Queen “Flash Gordon” song from the 1980 movie. Well, we got mixed messages on that. Some people claimed they had no idea. But at least one Sci-Fi executive said that they’d found some indie band to either rerecord the song or remix it or something. The important message here is that somehow, some way, there will be a “Flash! Aaah-aaaah!” involved at some level. So there you go. Happy now?
Anyway, Flash Gordon premieres August 10 at 9:00. Personally, I’ll be watching raptly, although I am under no illusion that even with the recent popularity of Sci-Fi Channel shows, my tastes are anything ilke the general public’s. If they were, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne would be on DVD by now.
By Monty Ashley – July 2, 2007
This may come as a shock to you, but we at TeeVee.org do consider ourselves journalists. Well, some of us have day jobs involving actual journalism, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean that we try to approach our television coverage in as objective way as we can, allowing for the fact that most of what we write is either vitriolic dislike or unalloyed praise for whatever show or commercial has taken our fancy. Maybe “objective” is the wrong word. Let’s put it this way: we’re extremely subjective, but we try to be honestly so.
So I was a little uneasy about accepting the Sci-Fi Channel’s invitation to tour the sets of Eureka, Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, and Flash Gordon. Would I be able to maintain my integrity after being wined and dined on a fancy press junket? Was I ready to become a Hollywood Insider? Well, actually a “Vancouver, BC Insider”, but you get my point. I considered both sides of the question and finally decided: “Hey, I wanna see Ming’s Council Chamber! I’m sure I’ll be fine!”
So the Sci-Fi thing was billed as a “Digital Press Tour,” which I first parsed as a Digital Tour for Press, like they were going to do a set tour via videoconferencing or something. Instead, it was a Tour for Digital Press, meaning “Online Journalists,” meaning, if you sort of squint and don’t insist on too strict a definition, me.
The Tour itself consisted of set tours of the four shows, along with panel interviews with cast and creative people. It all sounds clean and aboveboard, until you consider that about half the photos on the DVDs we were provided involve members of the tour posing in front of Vipers and Stargates and whatnot. There seemed to be a concerted effort to dazzle us poor digital wretches with access usually reserved for people whose efforts usually appear in actual magazines and newspapers. Which I guess is the purpose of all press junkets, which is why Earl Dittman has a career.
Frankly, I think the good people of Sci-Fi were using us in an even more subtle way. Everywhere we went, we had a video camera pointed at us as we squinted at set details and learned the backstory behind the wardrobe. See, we were being taped for SCI FI PULSE, the Sci-Fi Channel’s video blog. I think the Sci-Fi Channel’s nefarious scheme was to allow web writers this access primarily so that they in turn could trumpet how up-to-date and internet-friendly they are. If so, it’s a clever scheme, and I salute them for it.
Anyway, it’s not entirely clear to me what standards currently govern entertainment journalism. You’ve got people like Kristin of E! Online, who have lots of insider content and information, but every so often they seem to fall into the trap of recommending something because they know a lot about it, not because it’s necessarily any good. (Note: I apparently cannot be bothered to use a specific example to back up my allegation of bias, which kind of undercuts my claims of journalistic integrity.) And on the other hand, you’ve got the “outsiders” like Harry Knowles, who — wait, Harry’s pretty much an insider these days too, isn’t he? Okay, skip him. My point was going to be that even that style of getting seduced by celebrity is more like real journalism than the people in charge of deciding which celebs are pregnant and which are anorexic. Also, I am unable to get out of this paragraph without referencing the 24-hour coverage of Paris Hilton. Aaaand I think that’s enough justification for why I went. I suppose you’d have stayed home.
So now I’ve just come back from wallowing in insider content, and my challenge is to generate some interesting content, because I suspect you won’t be that excited by “Vipers are smaller than they look, but Stargates are larger.” And since nineteen other organizations were on the tour, I have to try to come up with an angle of my own. Even fascinating little tidbits I picked up from scraps of paper left around the set are unlikely to be exclusives. I shall try to convey my own spin on things without being unduly influenced by the insider access. Although I will say that if you’d be interested in “a version of Wizard of Oz with steampunk influences, airships, and Alan Freaking Cummings as the Scarecrow,” you might want to keep an eye out for Tin Man.
Stay tuned for further installments…
