In the flesh

Zombies are an old concept and should be a film-maker or author with book or film* on the z’s scheduled tough.  In the flesh moves it on and gives it a nuance and  cool nhs makeover with a cure for the undead and name pds which is no document format and sounds medicalish.

It follows a small village and how they deal with the return of the undead to a more human form some welcome and others not so.  It has moments of genius and is interesting.  Such a tale could not be done by americans as they would have to credit check zombies before fixing them.

Brilliantly executed as we follow the humans and the returned humans. This brings zombies back as a innovative story device.  I recommend a view.

5/5 bananas

* read rather than see

Borealis

Is a tv plot that has promise but it appears that tv industry did not like for reasons best known to themselves.

Borealis is set in the future and is dystopian, theres that landing officer from bsg – who bombed the lawyer in a wild fronter twon reminiscent of the old west.

Some of that is boring, but the script seemed coherent.  But no more.  Back to reading books it seems….

Siemens and the bbc – one pure fuckup at peak times

As it is late december, the monkey house is not known for it telly watching* and we do entertain at christmas and that means the tv is not on.  Usually there is the odd hour of tv worth seeing with the rest can be ignored.  Last year our Sally wanted to see Darcey Bussell do some modern dancing (not the 30 second dancing snippets show) – and the crap iplayer care of seimens kept crapping out hence the deposit.

So off the tribe went to find me to fix it.  Except not my problem its like everybody in the same shop staring at the same bananas on the shelf while there be plenty of the bananas leaving with a banana is a bit hard.  Sally moans once too often about this and so i’m called back.  I decide to download it (windows only) opposed to streaming and here is when the fun starts.

I choose a small download of 400ish mb which then craps out at 200mb, somebody screams to call me ….  after some poking (this is windoze pc not my usual linux) thing claims to finish six fucking hours later.  NO its no hd, and its an hour long

I then have to cleanup the mess left in /downloads with crapped out media files of 7mb and less.  On clicking the file im told i need the microsoft media player not vlc.  The file does not play due to the wrong codec that (wma 3) who Microsoft wont supply on vista.  Geniuses them all i say.

What you don’t know is that i am sure i hear even more complaints when Sally gets round to not viewing this marvel of drm.  As to siemens,microsoft  and the bbc fuck you.

I wonder why people do the other thing than use the real thing.  Yeah that should hurt your brain for two seconds.

* theres a lot of crap on tv

The newsroom

is a drama which is mildly interesting covers a reddit influence so not really that eye opening to some.   Worth a hunt for 5/5 bananas.

Lost girl urban fantasy done right for tv (except in the us)

Lost Girl is a tv series, and unlike the other fantasy things like 17th, Grimm and Once upon .. it has sex in.  Its not american made naturally and i quite like lost girl being that the first i mention never got made, and the other two i do not watch.

Lost girl has a sense of humour in inventive and it has a high body count and has a interesting take on the book things (my blog).  It did a better fae than being human did.

5/5 bananas

American viewers on syfy (my blog) should feel sort changed since the show was edited not to offend the redneck christian demographic.  Oddly it appears nobody else was offended elsewhere.

Missing the plot on the tv stream catch up service

I was beginning to catch up with the vague tv schedule of something I have mentioned  and somehow missed one by a schedule reschedule , so I catch up the thing time and any ‘sexy’ moment* was edited out on the web site version.  i know this since somehow the reveal about x & y was known to x in the next episode complete with bedroom scene.

Perhaps with a key moment being removed on site made it less controversial, but makes the catch up idea a bit meaningless after all if the point of the thing is to catch up rather than deduce the fact from the version on tv.

* its not porn and if a man and woman in bed not having sex or doing stuff is removed any plot things might get confusing.  It means that tv can still kill best laid plans by censoring to the lowest common denominator.

Leanne Mitchell and the television talent show problem

I have no idea who Leanne Mitchell is apart from an item on a bbc news site some moons ago about a failed talent show concert tour that failed to get enough people to actually pay to see her in real life and other failures while singing a cover of a song we have all heard and whom nobody also bought.

The problem is not that Leanne Mitchell can’t sing [not that i have seen or heard of her] but the way fame to her with instant fame in a tv series solution* with two or three talent contests running it appears many persons whom watched x gain attention via tv is fickle and no means to be called talented.

Put another way: produced or organic ?  or how many self produced records would she have sold on magnatune where there are musicians with the t word.  Mind you i happened to come across one of the judges musical efforts and found he just was ‘stealing’ and remixing sounds.  It helped as to why Ms Mitchell while a winner is perhaps not the winner.

I’m sure the talent show template will need feeding more victims into it again soon.

* just add water, milk and teabag

Trek Nation.

Bananas likes some star trek, not all of it is great – However it exists and there are those whom grok it and other whom plain miss the point.  Roddenberry’s son Eugene was one of those in the latter category.   A documentary was produced which i got round to seeing and it explored aspects like hollywood accounting, and the human behind the utopia of trek.

The attitudes of younger son where interesting as to actually working as a low level coffee fetcher in the copyright monster failed to see what many saw as stunning and he did not.  The Gene Roddenbury legacy has its good points and bad but the piece is interesting as commentary on the many in the copyright machine whom don’t see the appeal of it.

Perhaps what is a too revealing is the way people of families get invited to advise likewise shows  whom never got the point of it to start with.

The Captains

William Shatner is that man. like it or loathe it for his role whom got right in season 1 .  He has had issues with typecasting, while not all series of star trek have been good (including the original seasons 2 and 3)  His documentary on that man perhaps explains the mistakes he made and his admission that the role is a rather nice way to be remembered for despite the apparent downsides.

Shatner (now 81) has his faults as the then young kirk, which you can read about here (my blog) But as he opens up and became the barometer of calling tv ratings crap means there’s some merit to his faults too.

He jumps on plane and visits the legacy of captains since some who where not as successful as he was and explores the similar values they have.   It is a telling documentary despite the unnecessary background piano music.

Perhaps the trouble with star trek is that is was too successful and offends the sensibilities of actors while it might be genre and not posh enough for the creative types, he offers some powerful and insightful moments when the fans and people who became engineers know and admire him then perhaps there’s more to star trek than meets the eye than perhaps an actor and creative types can ‘get’.

An insightful 5/5 bananas

rdm’s cancelled 17th precint

Had a cast of note – the reverend from kings, and stockard channing along with some bsg faces. and one from caprica.

It had a stunning worldview too, although the coroner from homicide life of the street (michele forbes) was hard to beat.

It certainly might scare your average fairy tales viewer with no vw beetle and camp actors.   Hell it looked like something i might want to watch.

But i wont as it got cancelled.  Maybe as it was lemming three at the same tv Zeitgeist and people like there grimm sugar coated than salty.

It was nice to see the reverend again.