the outer limits

the very name implies reaching beyond the limits of human norms and yet, this show is so trapped in religious dogma and the puritanical limits and emotional blindness that comes with the black and white good vs evil narrow views demanded and needed to maintain the human norms... this is most especially true of the second coming of the show, the more modern version in color... and watching it in reruns on the chiller network emphasizes the fear-based mindset that limits the creative possibilities so the show barely surfaces from the human stupidity and prejudice and ignorance (complete with feeble attempts at titillation and the blurring of flesh) and distorted morality that fear-based thinking creates...

this explanation provides some insight into why the continuity and technical details were so poorly put together... the lack of science and simplistic dependency on it's a miracle for explanations of phenomenon is boring to the point of annoying at times... the choice of playing to human interrelations and suspense (portrayed in heavily over=acted weakly written soap opera-esque drama leaves so much to be desired... and the low-budget shows too well... and of course, there is the puritanical fear of nudity that renders the visual even more poorly posed and wrought with unnatural camera angle affectations...

In most cases, two separate versions of each episode were filmed. The rawer, less censorially restricted version was seen first-run on Showtime, while the less explicit version was prepared for commercial TV syndication.

the sad irony is that the producers decision to, well, here is how they explain it: the decision to avoid special effects unless they were dramatically justified was because the producers felt that space aliens and other monstrosities had become rather commonplace by 1995, and they hoped to set their series apart from what had become the norm. and how they could feel that using tv-drama techniques made old in shows like dallas (and many others) could somehow "set their series apart" is rather baffling...

there is some potential in some of the ideas, but to call the show the outer limits is a bad joke and a sad reflection on just how limited human thinking is in our collective lives...

dumb dvr

somebody's got to create a smart dvr (anybody?... anobody?... bueller?)... especially during football season, but not just in football season... sometimes shows do not start on time for one reason or another and the dvr says it is recording a show by title, but it is not, yes, the dvr is not only dumb, the dvr lies!... so when a show is delayed for any reason, the dvr records another show and calls it the show it was asked to record... stupid dumb dvr... luckily the show i asked it to record tonight is gonna be available on-demand, so i've just got to wait a few days and remember to go to the right on demand station (brighthouse has to make on demand so complicated cuz they are our friends, ya know)...

meanwhile, i have been away from the tv a lot since the last entry as i was out of town playing in a softball world series for my sunday morning league and since returning home, background tv was mostly football (including some fantasy football reports) with some us open and other sports tossed in... and some of the shows i've been dvring... dvr tv is the same as it's been so you can check previous entries for some babble about shows or just glance over to the right to see most of what is being dvred lately...

what are you kinda sorta watching lately? :)

more dvr

yes, this dvr thing is addictive (the current dvr shows are on the right), especially when some recent favorite shows have been on... i mentioned the on-going heroes marathon which continues at a pace of two shows per weekday and most of the through the wormhole episodes have passed through the dvr and into the brain, but there's so much more... the outer limits and alfred hitchcock presents and animaniacs are coming about the same as heroes at about two episodes per weekday... the old hitchcocks still hold up most of the time as stories, though the social interactions and wardrobe just gets more dated all the time... some of the outer limits, like other supposedly sci-fi stories, are betrayed by western religious blind faith (as if it's the only explanation for the unknown and even aliens follow western religious) it is quite disappointing to the potential of imagination these shows are supposed to be stretching...

some shows are just tossing a few episodes out there each weekend (or even just one a week like the river, which i skipped the first time around), so they are not all-at-once marathons... and editing is destroying some of these shows... like dead like me, which is so freaking edited it is a mockery of the original... and haven, which sometimes makes me wonder if stephen king had anything to do with the show... and the original twilight zone series was last week while dated, still... and just today the latest twilight zone series ran all day long... some of those were so cheezy, going for the laughs instead of the eerie (must have had some mediocre situation comedy writers mixed in with the mediocre drama writers re-writing the old episodes and inventing a few new ones)... and amazing stories are missing from the mix though... but there is at least some twists beyond the stale drama of reality tv...

obviously, a week and i am losing so many brain cells that i am forgetting how to express myself... excuse the boring, aye?...

watching the dvr

sometimes the tv comes out of the background and actually gets most of my attention... in other words, sometimes i actually watch the screen and listen at the same time... most of today was spent catching up on the end of season one and the start of season two of heroes, a show i might still want to re-watch even if i did see every episode the first time and even if the emo-eye candy of that particular cheerleader was not on the show... the start of season two was a major disappointment as so many loose threads were left disconnected and so many story lines just got stupid (a technical term for lack of or at least incongruous imagination... maybe they were pandering to superficial ideas for audience expansion or they simply ran out of ideas), but since i can auto-record and watch on dvr whenever i feel like it, i might watch season two and three since i missed some, maybe many of those episodes the first time around...

after watching and deleting all the heroes episodes, i moved on to dead like me and animaniacs and a few others and then a favorite personality, morgan freeman... i noticed that in between pandering to religion (maybe the producers thought a pure science show would not sell well) and titillating the paranoids (a popular selling point for any media these days), through the wormhole is pretty cool... one show i decided to watch more than once was the brain hacking show as neuroscience has always been a favorite field for me... and so i wandered through the ibrain and was happy to see the possibilities for stephen hawking (who is seventy?... wow, good medical science) and others with the same needs... and i think the visual dictionary idea is another fascinating project with many great potential uses... but then there is still a lot of exploitation (might as well ask marc salem... or moshe botwinick, for that matter) in the show, as in life... still, trial and error may take a long time, but like Edison, one might get lucky now and then...

terra nova

so i watched the entire series terra nova in two nights thanks to the new dvr and while it was mostly predictable, it had a couple of twists and a cast of characters i could sort of enjoy... i probably would not have watched it all week after week but the dvr made it easy as all the shows were on the same day so all it took was setting the dvr... apparently the show was cancelled by fox (the visionary station) and since the first season did wrap up the initial story, any next season would need a different premise... they left one interesting mystery in what they call the badlands and the rest of the story will pretty much be along the lines of land of the lost, so maybe that is why it was not renewed... i'd probably dvr it if it came back...

and then there's under the dome... another show i am watching on dvr... the show is unfortunately tainted by the drones on network television, i will dvr it and check it out when time permits... so far, so so, but i'll give it a season...

enter the dvr

not quite as dramatic as enter the dragon, but then, few things were as dramatic as bruce lee films (just a touch of sarcasm, no disrespect intended), but the fact is, we have a dvr... it's new to me, but jackson has been missing a dvr for years (not enough to pay for the extra cost and since i pay the whole internet and cable bill i wasn't looking for extra expenses, especially not this year)... brighthouse offered the dvr and an upgrade to the internet speed for two dollars less per month, so... we have a dvr... i believe you cannot record two shows at once (isn't that what the hopper commercial is based on?) so we are in the process of selecting the shows we can agree on when there are overlapping shows... gotta set priorities in life, after all... nyuk nyuk...

on a dangit note, i missed the premiere of some shows i wanted to check out... they could definitely make it easier to find shows... so i missed the first two episodes of under the dome... i will try to watch them online...

i have the time scheduled for the crazy ones (9/26/13 CBS)... and Believe (NBC) ... Fall Sunday ???... and In The Flesh (BBC) ... i don't know... and Intelligence (CBS) ... February 24, 2014... and Mind Games (ABC) ... Resurrection (ABC) ... Fall 2013... and The Crazy Ones (CBS) ... September 26, 2013... and The Hundred (CW) ... i don't know... and The Tomorrow People (CW) ... October 9, 2013... and Under the Dome (CBS) ... June 24, 2013... so i've got some more searching to do...

currently on the record series list are shows for both of us, shows for her, and shows for me... since we just got the new toy and we are in the summer season and still learning when shows are scheduled and all that, this is the current scheduled recordings... for both of us: ncis, ... for her (though i watch with her when i am home): rizzoli and isles, major crimes, top chef, ... and for me (she's not into sci-fi): continuum, warehouse 13, defiance, perception, futurama, ... maybe i'll update as we update, or maybe i'll add a sidebar list cuz, obviously, there are not enough of those... ah, the dvr is moving tv out of the background, a bit (we still do other things often when the tv is on, but we just may watch a bit more now that we have the dvr)...

cuz it's there, aye? :)

looking ahead

i explored a half dozen lists of upcoming tv shows and checked out what to look forward to on the television over the coming months and beyond today... i probably missed something but the shows i want to check out and the shows i might check out if i have the time are listed below and updated on the right sidebar... this first list are the shows i want to check out at least once...

Believe (NBC)
In The Flesh (BBC)
Intelligence (CBS)
Mind Games (ABC)
Resurrection (ABC)
The Crazy Ones (CBS)
The Hundred (CW)
The Tomorrow People (CW)
Under the Dome (CBS)

the Crazy Ones stars Robin WIlliams, nuf said... Under the Dome is based on a Stephen King story, again, nuf... Spielberg has a hand in another on the list and JJ Abrams yet another, but ultimately it's the concepts that have these shows on this list... most are psychological, supernatural, or futuristic science fiction themes (as if that surprises anyone who knows me)... a couple (In The Flesh and Resurrection) explore the zombie theme in a normalized setting - the zombies are not killing and eating people, but rather being assimilated back into society), not my favorite theme, but curiosity has me wanting to see how the assimilation aspect is treated... Believe and The Tomorrow people are themed around the potential powers of the mind beyond what we commonly know or can do today... Intelligence and Mind Games are based in psychology with some sci-fi psy-tech tossed in... The Hundred is based in a post-apocalypse future...

and the ones i might check out if i have the time:

24: Live Another Day (FOX)
Almost Human (FOX)
Area 51 (AMC)
Back in the Game
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX)
Joe Rogan Questions Everything
Michael J Fox Show (NBC)
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (ABC)
Primeval: New World (BBC)
Rake (FOX)
Sleepy Hollow (FOX)
Star-Crossed (CW)
Wayward Pines (FOX)

and while not all of the ones on the second list have science fiction or psychological themes, many do and the few that don't have a twist i want to see play out in an episode or few... if i can actually check them all out i've obviously got too much time on my hands, but chances are only a couple or few will climb into the top list on the right sidebar of the tv blog... hey, it's a tough job but i would do it if they paid me enough (if i actually watch a few hours of tv a week, that's a lot... but it stays on in the background a lot when music isn't playing, so i select what i want to enter my brain subliminally with some measure of careful scientific study, ya know?...

and shows i have not made time for but would check out if i could see the pilot and catch up:

Bates Motel
Crisis
Cult
Falling Skies (TNT)
Once Upon a Time (ABC)
The Blacklist

so what do you watch (or wanna check out) on television?...

softball is back

while the standard shows are the go-to background tv when i want sounds and visuals in the space, the women's college softball world series has begun and that will keep me company for a week or two... it's a much purer game than the nba referee dominated, egocentric, seemingly scripted, pro basketball played by a bunch of way overly entitled spoiled brats (and no pretentious marketing is going to give them the education and experience needed to have class and respect)... i much prefer to play sports than to watch, but when i do watch, i so prefer watching people playing for the love of the game and pride of the team rather than for money and ego-glory... most professional sports are reality-tv, entertainment tv at best...

anyway, watching nebraska play washington, it looks like nebraska has the slightly better team on all three levels (pitching, hitting, and fielding), though i've got to question a couple of the coaching calls on the nebraska side... both team pitchers seem to have a lot of nerves because there have been a lot of walks and hit batters... i don't think either team is going too far in this world series, but both are scrappy... after watching the first five innings, the washington bats need to wake up if they want a chance... nebraska has the edge in fielding for sure... the washington infield plays too deep and does not get the ball to first fast enough, while the nebraska infield is much better at all of the fundamentals... both are upset winners just to be in the world series and are a toss up to win this series... nothing to do with the game, but it is an interesting to see that most of the washington team seems hawaiian... anyway, being home a lot has it's perks... i shall enjoy watching this world series this year...

so much time on my hands - and loving every minute of it :)

nba on tnt

so glad there are other more interesting things on tv during this may madness of nba playoffs... the game is so reflective of the american culture, arrogant overpaid kids with little or no sportsmanship or class trying to show off... not every team, some do have exemplary class (san antonio lead by tim duncan, for one)... might as well watch boxing or hockey... as i've been saying since the beginning of the playoffs (i seldom watch the game before the playoffs), the knicks are a perfect example (as are miami and as were the lakers), egos inflated by their home venue, but they play like selfish punks and thugs who have no clue that basketball is a team sport and at times, appear to have no clue as to what the game of basketball is about... too many teams are like them these days, with one mega-star having amazing individual games now and then, but that does not work against a team playing together in a seven game series... what gives miami an edge (besides the refs who consistently call plays in their favor... lebron, of course, is the best example) is they have two of the best players in the game who've learned to play two on two ball pretty well... it's still not what the five on five basketball game was meant to be and teams that played like teams (like boston from the 60s and the knicks and lakers from the 70s... watch tapes and learn if you are really interested in the game)...

one reason i like charles barkley is, through instinct, intelligence, or naivety, he says what a lot of people are thinking but most if not all are afraid to so... he is not pc... he does not toe along the company line... and many times, he speaks truth no one wants to hear or believe... the scripted nba, for instance... for years people swore wrestling wasn't scripted, foolish fans... the nba is obviously scripted to some extent, maybe a lot... and espn plays right into the soap opera... ridiculous overblown drama on reality tv is the american way these days... what is obvious is the same physical interaction between players can happen a hundred times during a game and a few times it's called a foul, purely at the referee's discretion... and too often those specific foul calls come at points in a game that turn momentum toward one team or another... too often those specific foul calls determine who wins a game or a series... so thank you charles barkley...

"i know the nba wants miami in the final, but come on man" ~ charles barkley

and thank you tnt for putting him on the air... the talking heads on the others stations are so bending over backwards to please the corporate network execs and corporate nba, they take the joy out of the game... sir charles (and shaq and kenny on tnn, were remarking about the ridiculous referee calls between commercial breaks and this particular statement was made supporting shaq and kenny's similar statements during a review of the biased calls by the refs during game the first half of game two of the conference finals... ridiculous technical fouls on indiana, while miami is allowed to argue and provoke much more than indiana does and nothing is called... i am waiting for them to notice how many 3-second violations are called against indiana just as someone is going in for an easy layup... besides the ridiculous disparity in foul calls, 3-second violations taking away point opportunities from indiana and giving more point opportunities to miami is the rule the refs follow...

bad tv

ever see fire from below (it's a movie)... the first ten minutes have to be the worst written movie with the most illogical premise i've ever seen and that is saying a lot... just watching it made me feel stupid and distracted me from whatever i was thinking about writing about after the basketball game, which i grudgingly watched because i like tim duncan and tony parker and therefore i like san antonio... as usual, the refs dominated the game, calling three cheap fouls on duncan in less than a minute which lead to a come back by memphis and as if there was any doubt that the refs were deciding the outcome of games (scripted sports really suck), the flop acting job that game memphis 4 points to tie at the end of regulation should be a fine (as flopping and faking injury is a fine), but the refs bought the acting and called a flagrant foul... to a man every announcers was laughing at how stupid and wrong the ref's call was... but the refs game memphis the overtime chance (while ignoring calls that should have been called all game, like the one on randolph that knocked duncan down in overtime that wasn't called) and memphis got the overtime... great script... san antonio won because duncan would not be denied, but it was still the refs game way too much... all first quarter hard fouls across both arms were ignored, then petty fouls were called almost entirely on san antonio (san antonio went almost the whole 4th quarter without taking a foul shot... tired memphis who are known for aggressive play who were playing poorly suddenly stopped fouling in the last quarter?) in the last quarter, especially the last seven minutes...

meanwhile, just when i though fire from below couldn't get worse there is "bubba" (you knew he was bubba cuz his speech was a stereotype of backwoods english and he wore a baseball cap with "bubba" on it, duh) going to the out house and of course the fire from below sought him out and below the outhouse to smithereens... somehow, the whole intact toilet can crashing down to the ground a hundred feet away (directly in front of the camera) and it was not only intact, but did not smash... must have been dropped there from about ten feet or less... no talent in this movie anywhere, especially not the writers or director...

then you've got the backwoods black guy making out with his girl in the pick up truck who needs to take a leak and of course the fire from below finds his urine stream and boom... then it shots into the back of the pick-up as the stereotype girl drives off (seems it doesn't want her, just the hay in the back of the pick-up) and it ignore the girl and the other girl who pulls her out of the truck down the road...

but the worst part of the film is the scientific premise of the story that there is some sentient isotope of lithium that seeks out people and boats to burn them and blow them up... it, the fire (burning lithium?) is supposed to be seeking water, but comes up out of a lake in a straight line and it flies over a lake chasing a water skier and then a boat... then suddenly, no more fire after it blows up the skier and boat... so much for the premise that the lithium isotope burns when it mixes with water... the most amazing thing about the sentient deliberate people killer lithium isotope that burns when and where it wants to and smells like rotten eggs is it waits for the cameras to be on it to do it's thing... it seems to takes direction better than any of the actors... unless it's the director making the actors look bad, or at least helping...