Friday, December 22, 2006

Seasons Finales Greetings

Prefect Slog
Americans just don’t get irony, I’ve often heard it said. Alanis Morisette is part-Canadian, so what’s her excuse? But my wife is American and she tends to do okay with it. I’m sure she’d agree that it was pretty ironic that now that I’m taking time off work for the festive season, I find I have a lot less spare time on my hands. The upshot of which is I’m not going to have time for a lengthy Christmas message here, but you know, I figured a simple ‘Merry Christmas’ just wouldn’t cut the cranberry.
So by way of rounding off this year’s blogging, I thought I’d just add an update or two to some of those discourses on TV I’ve rattled off over the past few months.
Farscape, first of all, warrants a mention, not least because someone was kind enough to ask me to post my thoughts on the final season when I finally got there. Really, it merits a blog entry all its own, and it will get one in the New Year. For now, I’ll just say that, far from spiralling away up its own nostrils (seeing as how it’s Christmas, I think a more polite metaphorical orifice is in order) it was/is – with many of the same sort of caveats I gave before – superlative sci fi entertainment. Most creative, dynamic sf show ever. And, in the light of what I now know about that 4th Season, Peacekeeper Wars strikes a curious balance: being both a generally satisfying conclusion to the journey, and offering an insight of just how bloody fantastic it would have been if they’d been able to close the story with a full 5th Season. But more on this at a later date. It’s a compulsion, and I don’t see why indulgence should be limited to this time of year :)
Meanwhile, Award For Most Surprising Season Finale has to go to Ghost Whisper. Wow, I thought, when this show wakes up it really wakes up! Not only did we get two whole helpings of Jennifer Love Hewitt (overdoing good things, see, it’s entirely in keeping with the Christmas theme) but they cleverly diverted attention with big disaster-movie level drama, while pulling one of the best Sixth Sense-style twists I’ve seen since The Others. It would be difficult to see this falling back to formula after that, but what the heck do I care, I’m on board for another season.
But for Torchwood, I think not. That show upped its game too with the most recent episode – Out Of Time, I think it was called (really, the series doesn’t even inspire much effort to check my facts). Credit where it’s due, that was the best yet, but in the context of the series I suspect it’s too little too late. Overall, i gets my vote for Most Awful Series I’ve Watched All Year. It's Space:1999 Series 2 Awful. In the interests of open-mindedness, it may yet win me over, but as things stand, it’ll have to deliver something way, way above its current par for the end of season to keep me from saving myself thirteen lots of 45 minutes next year.
And who can blame me? As it is, I’m going to have to watch the Sarah Jane Adventures on New Year’s Day, and the advance publicity seems to suggest that someone thought K9 & Company was just too adult and had to be toned down for a younger audience. But it’s Lis Sladen, isn’t it, and hence another compulsion.
Never mind. On the plus side, it is starting the New Year with Sarah Jane Smith and really there was many a year in the past I’d have liked to have kicked off like that! So on that note, Merry Christmas to everyone here and here’s to heaps of positive things in 2007 for all of you.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Merry Christmas to you and Mrs SAF - have a good one :)

SAF said...

Cheers, Stuart. And you've gone and changed your avatar - yes, I can notice these little details even through a haze of alcohol :) Bestest wishes to you and yours too!

Anonymous said...

Well J was concerned that people would think the photo of Jandek was me - no-one's going to mistake me for Jenny from Survivors though.

I could put an actual image of myself on I suppose, but that would be just...wierd :)

TimeWarden said...

I'm afraid "Doctor Who" gets my vote, not for being the most awful, as there's lots I avoid which I presume to be worse, but for being the greatest disappointment. I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again, but RTD is to "Who" what Fred Freiberger was to 60s' "Trek" and "1999".

I love the original run, loathe its continuation. It's a completely different show with the same title and some of the same character names but with precious little of its previous intelligence and none of its atmosphere. Creativity suffocated in pursuit of a quick Buck Rogers. And this applies to all three series aforementioned in my first paragraph.

Hope you had a good Christmas,

Tim

SAF said...

timewarden: "Hope you had a good Christmas"

Cheers, Tim - and hope you had a good one too. At least it's funny that we both see Freiberger as the baseline on the sci-fi scale :)

TimeWarden said...

Which three classic Whos did you get?

SAF said...

timewarden: "Which three classic Whos did you get?"

Dalek Invasion Of Earth. The Robots Of Death. The Hand Of Fear. (I know several folks who've said bad things about Hand, but I have fond memories of the lady Kastrian and besides it's SJS' departure story and my collection couldn't be complete without that!)

TimeWarden said...

It's "Robots of Death" I don't get on with very well of those three. "Dalek Invasion" is one of my earliest memories, not just of "Doctor Who", which my brother gave me last Xmas and I got "Hand" earlier in the year for pretty much the same reasons as you but it was "The Invasion" I couldn't wait to get my hands on even though I already own the videos!