Posts Tagged ‘tv’
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One of several blogs that I follow with Entrecard is a site called “Robot Armageddon”. I really enjoy the content as it basically talks all about current developments in robotics and in a tongue-in-cheek manner describes how these advances will eventually lead to robots taking over and/or destroying humanity. The site ranges from the factual and informative to the downright creepy, which is why I find it so fascinating.
Anyhow, I was honored to get to write a guest post the other day, and I wrote up a review of the disturbing Sico II robot that appeared in a number of films and TV shows in the past, most notably as Pauly’s robot in ‘Rocky IV’. I gave a write up about this particular robot, noted some of its appearances, linked to the site that developed this machine, and discussed the implications of Rocky traveling to Soviet Russia to train in the mountains while a maniacal robot was left at home alone with his unprotected family. It was fun to branch into something new and write about robotics, even if done in a silly way.
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I have my old buddy Al to thank for a number of things, namely introducing me to things like Jeff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds” and the wacky world of Edward Mulhare’s ‘Secrets and Mysteries’. Anyhow, he recently tipped me off to Stargate: Atlantis, and prior to his recommendation all I knew of Stargate was a motion picture from 10 years ago with decent music and special effects, and a Stargate TV show with the MacGyver guy and a bald character with an embossed shape on his forehead. Anyhow, I reluctantly requested the DVDs of season 1 of Stargate:Atlantis from the library per his suggestion, and I’m glad I did!
This show is just a lot of fun. It seems like this was written specifically for entertainment, without a lot of deep thought or philosophical topics. Rather, it’s just good, corny adventure. I really respect that the content is pretty clean, for the most part. Granted, I’m only through the pilot, but so far the worst aspects are just some minor language and a little bit of sci-fi violence towards the end. It’s on par rating-wise with the original Star Wars trilogy (and you can’t help but pick up subtle and deliberate references to Star Wars along the way.) The entire episode is packed with CGI-heavy sfx, standard canned action-adventure music score, and corny dialog and painful cliches, etc.) I love it!
The Major Shepherd character is just awesome! They picked a character that is just deliberately part Han Solo, part Captain Kirk. The writers didn’t aim to cast someone pretentious, or preachy, or lofty, etc. He’s just a fun action hero. Great stuff.
Unfortunately, the biggest negative would be the over-the-top creepiness of the wraith characters (namely the bizarre Marilyn Manson-looking wraith woman.) Throughout the first half of the pilot I was convinced that this was a completely kid-friendly show, but once the soul-draining of Robert Patrick commenced, I wasn’t so sure. Things got just a little too grizzly at this point, unfortunately. If they had toned that portion down just a tad, this could be a Saturday morning kids show. Well, almost.
Anyhow, I’ll probably view more of these. There’s a good formula going on here. It seems like the writers might be trying to have fun with some of the character archetypes from corny films, so you can’t go wrong there (e.g. the doctor with the outrageously-strong Scottish accent. Awesome!)
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