Jennifer Ouellette is coming to campus this week to give a talk about her book The Physics of the Buffyverse. Having never been a Buffy fan, and not seen more than snippets of a few episodes here and there, I figured I should at least watch a few representative episodes before the talk, just to… Continue reading Welcome to the Hellmouth
Category: Television
Planet Earth: Oooh, Pretty Pictures
I was pretty beat after returning from Boston yesterday, so I ended up watching bits and pieces of the much-ballyhooed Planet Earth tv show on the Discovery Channel. I can’t really assess it in detail, as I was flipping back and forth to the Dresden Files, but they certainly had some impressive footage of various… Continue reading Planet Earth: Oooh, Pretty Pictures
Hugo Recommendations
As Kate and I are planning to attend the Worldcon this year, we’re eligible to nominate for the Hugo Awards, which are sort of SF’s version of the Oscars, or maybe the Golden Globes (the Nebula Awards being the other). This is only the third time I’ve had this opportunity, and it’s always kind of… Continue reading Hugo Recommendations
Pop Culture Supercollider
One of those only-on-the-Internet, adventrues-in-D-list-celebrity videos: A YouTube clip of a hair metal cover band joined onstage by one of the teachers from “Saved by the Bell” and Dallas Cowboys snap-dropper Tony Romo, singing “Somewhere in the Night” by Journey. Romo really gets into it, and Mr. Belding drops the F-bomb a few times, and,… Continue reading Pop Culture Supercollider
The Dresden Files
I meant to post a comment on the new SciFi Channel series of The Dresden Files yesterday, but really, it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm. It’s not that the show was bad– if it was bad, I’d have no problem writing something saying that. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t all that good, either.… Continue reading The Dresden Files
Pimp Me DVD’s
Kate and I have a Netflix subscription that we’ve mostly been using to obtain various anime series. We’re running a little low on Japanese cartoons, though, having recently finished Martian Successor Nadesico, and with only four discs left of Trigun (two of which will probably be polished off while lolling around Friday after hosting Thanksgiving… Continue reading Pimp Me DVD’s
Fire Is Cool
There’s a nice article in the Times today about Mythbusters as science television. As is typical of the Times, it sort of overreaches with some of the conclusions: Their delight in discovery for its own sake is familiar to most scientists, who welcome any result because it either confirms or debunks a hypothesis. That sense… Continue reading Fire Is Cool
The Ex Files
Over in LiveJournal land, there’s this “meme” going around about describing fandoms as relationships. It’s not really my sort of thing, but it did lead Rachel Manija Brown to ask why so many people are so mad at The X-Files: I had a different experience: I drifted away slowly, I think during the sixth season… Continue reading The Ex Files
Subtle Battlerstar
I spent a while idly channel-surfing after we watched the final couple of episodes of Martian Successor Nadesico last night, and ran across the new Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi Channel. Lots of smart people like the show, but I didn’t get into the premiere, and the occasional attempt to watch it in sub-optimal circumstances… Continue reading Subtle Battlerstar
Cranky Poll: When Did MTV Lose It?
Today is the 25th anniversary of the launch of MTV, back in 1981, with “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Blogdom is, appropriately enough, full of people offering tributes and soliciting fond recollections of the days when they played music videos on MTV. See, for example, posts by Abel and Scalzi. Just to be contrarian, here’s… Continue reading Cranky Poll: When Did MTV Lose It?