Assorted Nonsense

**SPOILER ALERT**

My wife and I have watched a lot of excellent television in the last few years. We generally only watch one show at a time — all we have time for — so we prefer that time to be devoted to something good. We’ve watched Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Rome, Being Erica, X-Files, Journeyman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Carnivale, Six Feet Under, and so on, and enjoyed them all to one degree or another.

Recently a friend gave us the first season of Roswell on DVD. We enjoyed it well enough, so when Season One concluded we picked up Season Two.

I doubt we’ll be watching Season Three.

If a story works, I get lost in it, and afterward might admire the craft involved. If a story doesn’t work, my story editor instincts kick in, and I find myself wishing someone had asked my opinion before producing the darned thing.

Such was the case with Season Two of Roswell.

I’ve often thought about starting a blog specifically geared toward story editing. Even with good shows there would be plenty to write about.

One such blog entry might go something like this:

Roswell Season Two started off well enough, but it quickly became evident that either someone didn’t have their hand on the tiller, or just plain didn’t know what they were doing. (This is where the spoilers come in, though I’ll try to write in general terms.)

The writers were at their best in the first season when they only hinted at science fiction. But in the second season they went astray with full frontal science fiction that displayed a naive take on the genre, and some surprising inconsistencies. For instance, four of the main characters were supposed to have lived before on an alien planet. I took this to mean that their minds, or essences, had somehow been transposed into human form, which would have meant that the characters we were watching really had lived previous lives. They would have been reincarnated, in effect. And then along comes an episode in which there is another version of the four main characters. So according to this episode they’re clones. Well, clones don’t have previous lives. Dolly the sheep’s mind was not reincarnated from another sheep. Sure, physically she’s identical to a sheep that has lived before, but for all intents and purposes she’s nothing more than a twin to another sheep.

It’s perfectly fine (sort of) if the writers wanted to make the characters clones. Except that they also gave the characters memories of their previous lives. So they’re not clones! I would be surprised to learn that Dolly the sheep had memories from the sheep she was cloned from, because she was never that sheep. So the writers had a fundamental misunderstanding of the science they were basing their writing on, a cardinal sin of writing science fiction.

Was there wiggle room? I suppose. Maybe the true essences of the characters were in one physical set, and the other physical set were nothing more than clones. But this was never made explicit. So… nice try.

Another misstep. In the third last episode, one character becomes ill. She’s pregnant, and there’s something wrong with the baby. In the next episode there’s no mention of this, and all the tension generated in the previous episode dissipates. To me, the second last episode smacked of an episode that was supposed to have aired previously in the season, but was sandwiched in here late in the season (perhaps because it was an exceedingly weak episode) in the vain hope that it wouldn’t seem too out of place.

Well, it was.

And now the final major problem for me. A story arc through the latter half of the season involved a character who may or may not have been murdered. Turns out he was (hey, I told you there’d be spoilers). Virtually all of the information pertaining to his murder was revealed in the season finale.

Big mistake.

The story arc generated precious little tension. Hitchcock’s rule of suspense (gleaned from the classic Truffaut/Hitchcock interviews) is to reveal as much information as you possibly can without giving away the ending. Following this tenet, I would have advised the writers to reveal the murderer early on, during the third last episode (probably near the end of the episode). Once the audience learns information characters in the story do not know, dramatic irony is produced. They can watch in horror as the murderer cosies up to the other characters, wondering when the innocent characters are going to catch up to what they know. Or wondering when and how the murderer is going to turn on the other characters. The more information revealed early on the better, resulting in much less exposition getting in the way of the action later on. Without the necessary information, the tension is diluted, the ending expository and clunky.

It’s a shame. I had the sense that the executive producer, Jason Katims, is not without ability. He pulled it off in the first season. He wrote some standout episodes (the second season Christmas episode, while shamelessly sentimental, is a standout), but he appeared asleep at the switch during the second season. I’m afraid to even look at the third.

Yeah… I really need to get a job on one of these shows (he wrote, grievously over rating his own meager ability) (ouch! How Canadian of me…)

And on this auspicious occasion, check this out. Not bad for what apparently amounted to a couple of days work. Downright inspirational, I would say:

We just picked up a new vehicle the other day. A silver Hyundai Santa Fe… but that’s not the point of this post.

The Santa Fe came with a three month trial subscription to XM Radio… which is the point of this post.

There are something like 200 channels on XM Radio as near as I can figure, some of them even worth listening to. But I don’t think I’ll be subscribing. For one thing, I’m perfectly happy with Q-107 and CBC Radio One and Two and the handful of other radio stations we generally have programmed into our car radio.

But the kicker came tonight, when I was listening to Channel 7, or maybe it was channel 6, and one of my favourite songs came on, an old Gerry Rafferty classic called Right Down the Line.

It just so happens that I have that song on my laptop’s iTunes, and it comes on every now and then when I’m riding the GO Train working on the Great Canadian Science Fiction Novel (page 292 right now, thanks for asking). So I know what the song is supposed to sound like.

I swear the song had been pitch shifted, as if compressed for time, to make it shorter.

I was appalled.

I had got in the car only moments before, when The Eagles’ Peaceful Easy Feeling had been playing, and it had sounded fine. But the instant Right Down the Line came on I knew something was wrong. It was like Right Down the Line by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I know a little something about time compressing sound files, having used it frequently back in my sound design days. We did a little experiment with ProTools one day where we calculated you could compress a half hour file about a maximum of 7.5% before the listener could tell you’d done anything, maybe a little less if the voices were familiar to the audience. But I hated doing it at all, and usually reserved that sort of thing for tweaking sound effects. Like creating giant screaming desert scorpions out of elephant cries.

I would never, ever do it to a piece of music. Not even 1.5 percent. Not even to a country tune. Especially not to a classic Gerry Rafferty tune.

I’m sure it was a one time fluke. Maybe just that once they really needed to shave off thirty seconds to get the cut in before the news. But even so the damage has been done. From now on every tune I hear on XM I’ll be wondering, fearing that it’s been time compressed. “Is the guitar solo supposed to sound like that? Is that a man or a woman singing?”

And that is why, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll not be subscribing to XM Radio when the three months is up.

Um, that and the fact that we can’t really afford it.

And then there’s being a Dad.

Sometimes I wonder what the girls will say when they’re grown, and they look back at my performance as a Dad.

“Left a little bit to be desired there, Dad,” they might say.

“Hey, I did the best I could given my limitations as a human being,” I might insist.

“Sure Dad,” E will say. “But what about the broom?”

Ah yes.

The broom.

Came home one night after they’d been with a babysitter. They’re always a little worked up after babysitters. Probably because they get a sense of how great the world would be without any rules. And then I come along and re-impose rules on their universe.

So this one night I’m keeping my cool, and they will. Not. Do. A. Single thing I say.

Parents sometimes wonder why they’re perfectly calm one minute and a raving lunatic the next. One explanation offered is that it’s because the kids are getting under your skin, but you’ve got your foot on the brake keeping yourself calm, right up until the point that they’re painting the dog and putting the cat in the oven, and then, attempting to save your prize rhododendron from the microwave you take your foot off the brake, but the other foot has been on the gas all along and suddenly you’re zero to a hundred and twenty in a split second.

That was me that night. Doing my best to remain calm in the face of two completely adorable but utterly out of control orangutangs, and failing miserably.

I’d had enough. I took my foot off the brake. Picked up one of the girl’s toy brooms. Threw the broom on the floor. As God is my witness I thought it would bounce. Instead it shattered into a thousand pieces.

I had the girls’ attention now. But I certainly hadn’t improved the situation any. Man were they mad, especially E, because it was her broom I’d broken. She was inconsolable, and I was ashamed, because this was not me. I was not someone who broke kids’ brooms, or lost control.

And I heard about that broom for months. I’m sure when I’m an adult I’ll hear about it again. I won’t be completely forgiven until the girls have children of their own, and discover that they too are only human. Just as I’ve forgiven my own parents for the odd bonehead move they made when I was a kid.

Now if I can just limit my own bonehead moves to the broom for the next nine years…

Special Guest Post:

Hi, my name is Mevalin* and I did a project for school about declawing cats. I want you to know how bad it is to declaw cats.

I chose this project because I wanted to help make cats’ lives better.

I don’t think it is fair to declaw cats, or shows respect. Declawing cats is like cutting off the top part of your fingers. A cat’ body is very well designed. A cat’s life depends on its claws. Cats need their claws to defend themselves. If you pull their tail, they scratch you. And if the cat sees a mouse it will stab it with its paw to catch it.

You may not like it when a cat scratches your carpet, but does your cat like it when you wash its new cat-licked fur? But seriously, try getting your cat a scratching post. Your cat will act like the scratching post is the carpet. I Keep my cats in a non-carpeted room over night so they don’t get into trouble scratching the furniture.

Claws naturally give cats great climbing power (if the cat is not deliberately handicapped by a human.) Cats’ claws allow them to establish footing for running, walking, climbing, springing, and for stretching. Scratching is a normal characteristic of a healthy cat.

If you have a lost cat and it has not been declawed, your lost cat would definitely be able to defend itself and hunt for food.

I want to be a veterinarian when I grow up so I can help stop declawing cats.

By the way, my three cats are much more happy not being declawed.

*Hint: Mevalin is my favourite name but my real name is private.

(SPOILER ALERT)

That’s right… Star Trek the animated series By J.J. Abrams.

Wait a minute, you say… J. J. Abrams had nothing to do with Star Trek, the Animated Series.

I’m talking about the new animated series.

Wow, there’s a new Star Trek Animated series, you say?

Yes, that’s right. Except that it’s not actually animated. It’s live action, a great big, full blown live action movie that just happens to feel kinda like a cartoon. Cause it sure as heck ain’t real.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy J.J. Abrams Star Trek. I did.

It’s just not my Star Trek.

And not just because J. J. is a self-confessed fan of Star WARS, as opposed to Star Trek. I believe he treated the Star Trek franchise with respect, and panache, and ability.

He just didn’t treat it with depth, or understanding. It was more a Star Wars sensibility. Space Opera as opposed to science fiction.

Oh sure, Abrams understood perfectly how to make it entertaining, how to keep the audiences amused and on the edge of their seats. Maybe too much so — at times it felt like J.J. was pulling out all stops almost in a kind of desperation to keep the audience amused and entertained, as if, were he to pause and take a breath, the audience might have time to reflect for a moment that hey, wait a minute, there’s something missing here.

This was Star Trek as a big cartoon, one dimensional characters, a plot completely devoid of any original, thought provoking science fiction ideas, and for all the lip service paid to the concept of emotion, no actual compelling emotion to speak of. Entire populations of planets destroyed, the death of a mother with barely any screen time — and not a wet eye in the joint.

There were some fine casting choices — I completely bought Pine as the young, pseudo-juvenile delinquent Kirk — insofar as I bought the concept of Kirk as a juvenile delinquent come Star Fleet Academy Officer candidate (which I didn’t, really). Zachary Quinto pulled off Spock satisfactorily, although I missed Nimoy’s deep, gravelly voice. (Curiously, even Nimoy lacked his usual gravitas in this movie, as though J.J. felt compelled to direct Nimoy’s performance at the same breakneck pace as the rest of the flick.) Simon Pegg was an entertaining Scotty, though I never really did see past Simon Pegg, and Uhuru was a fine Uhuru. Chekov was a cartoony Chekov, but then, Chekov was always a bit cartoony. The best for me was McCoy, perhaps because he most resembled the actual McCoy, but also because the character seemed the more grounded in reality than many of the others. But this had more to do with the presence of the actor portraying McCoy than the part written for him.

The best Star Trek for me was the first season of the original series. Written largely by professional science fiction writers like Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Bloch and Harlan Ellison. It explored what for me is true science fiction — the human condition in circumstances not currently possible. Abram’s movie is quite a departure from those days. Which is not to say that it is bad — just different. Fluffier.

That being said, I would not have advised Abrams to ape the original series. No, the smartest choice was to chart his own course, and not second guess Star Trek creater Gene Roddenberry, or any of the subsequent producers. Abrams has wisely kept elements of the original season, such as the heart, and the humour. But I do wish he could have kept just one more characteristic of the original series: some actual science fiction. One original idea.

Something, anything evoking a sense of wonder.

Maybe next time.

Apparently this is old news:

But old news or not, it’s surprisingly well done, and yes I’m certain that Nathan Fillion would make a great Green Lantern.

Can ya believe it?

In the comments section of my last post my own sister called me weird.

My own sister!

(Who actually oughta know, come to think of it.)

Now before you think there’s some kind of feud on the boil here, relax. I don’t hold it against my Littlest Sis. She’s a good pal and I know her well enough to know she didn’t mean anything by it. Heck, I am weird. And that’s a good thing.

It took a while to come to terms with that, though. You see, long before I became the virile hunk I am today, I was a gangly teenager. Hard to believe I know when you peruse the very model of masculinity currently typing these words. But I’m here to tell you that during my freckle-faced adolescence, on at least two (possibly as many as seventy-four) occasions, I quite clearly recall a series of young, attractive, frequently buxom young women calling me “weird.”

Few things wound the pride of a freckle-faced adolescent boy as much as being called “weird” by a young, attractive, buxom woman.

What did these young, attractive, buxom women base this on, you ask? Did I have some kind of facial tic? Was I given to shouting random words like “refrigerator!” in public places (like at least one friend in those days)? Did I stand in crowded elevators asking people out of the blue for another word for egg (like another friend in those days)?

No.

No, I was branded with the epithet “weird” because I dared broach unfamiliar conversational terrain in the presence of these young women. The meaning of life, questions of ethics, notions of honour and so forth.

It hurt at the time being called weird because I would have preferred that these young women like me. And in truth I don’t know that they didn’t, but certainly they found themselves on unfamiliar ground in my company, and had to respond somehow, and perhaps “weird” was just the first thing to come to mind. And no, I don’t hold it against them any more than I hold it against my charming Little Sis. I’m not suggesting that they were any less intelligent than me, and I’m absolutely certain that they’ve grown up into fine, upstanding individuals. I’m equally certain that between now and then they must have spent at least a moment or two pondering such “weird” questions as I posed then.

So my Littlest Sis has brought all that back, and I thank you Sis for reminding me how far I’ve come since those days, when a word like that could sting so much, and now doesn’t at all.

Yeah I’m weird all right.

Like a freckle-faced fox.

The problem with knowing your mother reads your blog is that it limits the amount of wild and crazy incidents from your youth you can recount.  I can’t write about anything involving alcohol lest it shatter her image of me as a clean cut mama’s boy.  (Of course, she already knows the worst story– the family picture with a ridiculously hungover me in her living room for a good fifteen years, to shame me, no doubt, which it might well have done had I ever been able to bring myself to look at the thing.) Fortunately, that sort of nonsense belongs to my distant past, and my misspent youth.

Nor can I write about frequent, perilous encounters with a wide assortment of drugs — because there WEREN’T any.

No, instead I am forced to write about the time I inadvertently cut my –

Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for interrupting this post. But we began writing it several months ago and inexplicably stopped halfway through the previous sentence. Sadly, we no longer remember what it was we cut.

Perusing the possibilities, we immediately dismiss the obvious: hair. How could one inadvertently cut one’s hair? Likewise toenails and fingernails; difficult to cut unintentionally. Lawn? “Honey I’m sorry, I inadvertently cut the lawn this afternoon.” I think not.

The most likely explanation is some kind of wound. “I inadvertently cut my (insert body part here).”

But what? What body part have I cut significantly enough in the last few months that it would make me want to blog about it? There was the loss of my left foot recently in that unfortunate lawnmower accident. And the time I accidentally lopped off my head shaving. But neither of those warranted wasting either your time or mine blogging about it.

Truth is, I think the only thing cut was the post itself, cut short, the victim of my lovely wife returning home, or one of the cats vomiting violently on the carpet, or yet another piece of space debris clipping the roof and scaring the bejeezus out of the children (”Daddy what was that?” “Just another piece of the Hubble, girls, go back to bed”).

If I ever remember differently I’ll be sure to let you know.

I’m pissed off at George R. R. Martin. He hasn’t produced a Beatle’s tune in years.

No wait, that’s another George Martin.

The one I’m thinking about is supposed to be writing the next book in an excellent fantasy series. But he’s taking forever doing it.

According to Gaiman, it’s his right to take forever doing it. Just like it’s my right to be pissed off at him for taking forever doing it.

(Yes, I know it’s taken me twenty some years to finish my first novel… shh!)

While we’re on the subject of Gaiman, I have to tell you that there are only three people in this entire world I’m jealous of, and Gaiman’s one of them. He’s producing the kind of work and living the kind of life I’ve long aspired to, with little hope of achieving at this point in time. Same for Joss Whedon (I forget who the third guy is… it’ll come to me).

Well, at least Whedon used to produce the kind of work I aspired to. (Harsh Joe, harsh!) (Well, my standards are high, and don’t forget, there’s jealousy at work there).

Still can’t remember the other guy.

Off to finish the novel now (page 288 of 363… so close!)

P.S. Thanks to my cousin Charles for the link. And for reading this blog… you may be the only one left, Charles (sniff!).