Television

01/17/2017

The World is Quiet Here

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The post that you are about to read is not very pleasant, because anything regarding the tragic story of the Baudelaire Orphans is, by definition, unpleasant. While I have made the choice to relay the information, opinions, and theories that I have about the events surrounding the burning of the Baudelaire mansion and what became of the three bright, brave, and resourceful children that once lived there, you can make the choice not to read it. If you have mistakenly opened the link to this, close it, and continue on with your day. If you came here looking for puttanesca recipes, might I suggest another website. If you are averse, a word which here means “repelled by”, to forced child labor, secret organizations, or clowns, then do not read any further. You have been warned.

There are two kinds of people in this world– those who start fires, and those who put them out. Both feature in the Netflix retelling of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, though who is which is often difficult to tell. A firefighter, for instance, might put out literal fires as part of their job, but might cause figurative fires by creating massive problems that others then have to solve. A secretary might be very good at solving their boss’ problems, but might also be an arsonist. Lemony Snicket put himself in charge of putting out the massive figurative fire that is the mishandling of the Baudelaire Orphans, perhaps because he was too late to put out the literal fire that burned down their mansion and killed their parents. I myself have locked the door to my room and prepared the window as an escape route in case of any fire, literal or figurative.

After all, if there’s nothing out there, what was that noise?

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12/31/2016

A Year in Review

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Well, that’s it. If you’re reading this, you made it. Congratulations.

2016 hasn’t been the best of years. But even still, some good things were there. There were several major anniversaries, including Star Trek, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and others. Rouge One and Captain America: Civil War and Moana were fantastic. There’s a vaccine for Ebola, child mortality continues to fall, and DiCaprio won his Oscar. I’m not going to go through the pretense that any individual life, especially my own, was any more or less important to anyone else’s this year. I only really started in April, and it’s been somewhat scattered at that, but we had some good times here. I do this for a lot of reasons, but fun is certainly one of them.

If you’ve read this blog at all, you know I’m bad at these intro paragraphs, so let’s get into the content. Here are some highlights and hidden gems of this year.

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10/10/2016

Scary Sci-Fi: How Horror Built a New Genre

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Quick: what was the first Science Fiction novel? I, Robot by Issac Asimov (1950)? The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)? Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (1864)?

The answer is “none of the above”– what is commonly agreed as the first Science Fiction novel was Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published in 1818, written by Mary Shelly. Not quite what you’d think. Frankenstein, or, rather, Frankenstein’s monster, is a common figure around Halloween as the star of one of Universal’s classic monster movies. Frankenstein (1931) is a horror classic, and one of the first movies to be almost lying when it says “based on the novel by”. The novel is actually a lot darker, and more people die, but it also has a wildly different plot, so there’s that.

But still, since its inception, Science Fiction has been tied to horror and Gothic fiction. And historically, that makes sense– Science Fiction couldn’t really happen until science happened, and it also couldn’t really happen until the invention of the novel. Both of these things converged in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, during the Enlightenment. When you start learning the history of genres of literature, a lot of things begin to make sense.

Science Fiction is a very malleable genre. It goes with everything, like a good pair of jeans. Pair it with fantasy, and you have Star Wars. Pair it with historical fiction, and you have steampunk. Pair it with political thriller, and you have 1984, The Hunger Games, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451— basically any dystopian fiction. Pair it with horror..?

Much like a good pair of jeans, when paired, Science Fiction is more of a secondary genre. It lends its aesthetics and settings, sometimes a plot device or two, in order to service the main genre. Superhero fiction, for example, uses element of Science Fiction, but is mainly Action-Adventure. When Science Fiction takes the lead, however, that’s when things get interesting– especially when it comes to horror.

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10/02/2016

Robert Frost and The Unknown: The Poetry of Over the Garden Wall

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October is here! And with it, Halloween. While I’m not really a horror junkie, I enjoy a scary story every now and again. Over the next few weeks leading up to the 31st, I will be writing about some more spooky stuff for the occasion. But enough shop-keeping.

Image result for over the garden wall

Over the Garden Wall is a miniseries produced by Cartoon Network and created by Patrick McHale. It follows two half-brothers, Wirt and Greg, and their traveling companion Beatrice. They travel through a realm called The Unknown, which is filled with magic and monsters. Wirt and Greg have to find their way home without being caught by The Beast, a creature that plagues The Unknown. With the voice talents of Elijah Wood, Christopher Lloyd, Melanie Lynskey, and Samuel Ramey, it’s a beautiful art peice, and surprisingly dark for a TV-PG show.

Robert Frost, you probably know. You’ve probably read “Birches” or “Fire and Ice”, and you’ve definitely read “The Road Not Taken”. Frost is one of several American poets, along with Whitman and Dickinson, that is regularly considered as an American within the canon (Eliot, HD, and Pound are often considered British poets, despite their American origins). Frost’s poems give an overall aesthetic of fall and winter, incorporating it into his poetry. Maybe it’s his name, I don’t know.

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09/09/2016

The Top 10 Most Important Episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series

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A lot of really cool Star Trek stuff has been happening in celebration of its 50th birthday– a new show is coming into production, there have been events all across the US, a couple of documentaries have been released/announced, and the new movie is the best one since Galaxy Quest.

Star Trek is a cultural phenomenon, just as much as its counterpart Star Wars. Spanning 5 (technically 6) television series, 13 movies, and countless books and comics and video games, Star Trek has influenced countless science fiction stories and real life technologies and advancements.  But it also has a complex series of influences within itself, an interweaving continuity with branches and parallel universes and all the temporal distortions that you could ask for. These “most important” episodes are important for internal canon and implications within the universe, but the Original Series was doing important things every day that it aired, possibly more than any other title associated with the franchise. But these episode gave ideas that allowed the series to exist beyond a cult show from the late 60’s. Ideas that kept the series alive.

Let’s go Trekkin’

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08/28/2016

Stranger Things Have Happened

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How great is Stranger Things? I’ve never been so impressed by original Netflix content. Daredevil had a solid first season, Orange is the New Black is good, but Stranger Things is just absolutely captivating. The writing is rock solid, the acting is incredible (Winona Ryder needs an Emmy for this), and the design of the show is beyond what it has any right to be. And it is so many things– people have called it so many things– that it only just slips the might what it isn’t.

Stranger Things is not horror. At least, it’s not just horror.

Now, I’ve probably called it horror in conversation, and if you love horror, you will love this show, but it’s not simply horror. I considered doing a “Breaking Genre” piece on this like I did for Star Wars, but this isn’t such a difference that it would make sense. And in any case, it’s a very specific genre that most are not as familiar with as they are Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Stranger Things is American Gothic.

Mild spoilers ahead.

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06/04/2016

5 Pieces of Media That Deserve a ‘Ghostbusters’ Makeover

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The was a great article in the Post today about how going to see the new Ghostbusters has become a political act. Basically, all the backlash against the all-female lead team has lead people into taking sides like this is Civil War. I’m not saying that movies and such can’t or shouldn’t be political, but a movie about busting ghosts probably isn’t meant to be. However, considering that we have people saying that it’s the worst movie ever before it’s even hit theaters, and between the terrible trailers and everything that happened with the Angry Video Game Nerd the other week, there’s obviously something that was lost in translation. It’s not just with Ghostbusters, Rouge One has experienced some similar backlash. To say that there are certain genres where the same groups of people are generally underrepresented, and that said representation leads to situations like we have now with these movies is the most delicate way that I can put it (and someone will still find offence in it.) If you read my post on remakes, I’m not inherently opposed to the concept of remakes, especially if it adds to the conversation or ultimately makes a better project than the original. I’m not saying Ghostbusters will, but they struck on an idea that could be used to help our current cultural climate, because the only way to fix this is to normalize the presence of women (both white and woc) in our media.

There are several pieces of media that could use such an update. What the new Ghostbusters movie has done is what is known in internet parlance as “Rule 63”– the concept of taking a piece of media and swapping out one gender for another. It’s along the lines of “What if Sam and Dean Winchester were Samantha and Deanna? How would that effect the work?” Or, like what Ghostbusters seems to be doing, simply telling a new story with some or all of the characters as women. People were recently campaigning for Gillian Anderson to be Jane Bond, and within the franchise, Judi Dench was one of the best “M”s put to screen. Skyfall wouldn’t have been the same movie if Ralph Fiennes had replaced her right at the beginning. It could also breathe new life into a franchise that needs updating or revamping.

Here are five pieces that I think deserve such consideration.

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