Taking A Look At Stargate Universe 1.0

There has recently been a DVD release of the first ten episodes of the most recent addition to the Stargate Tome, Stargate Universe. For some reason or another, the SyFy channel has put the show on the shelf for a few months here in North America (although there is talk that the show will be airing across the pond on the U.K.’s Sky channel before we get it over here). But that’s just talk.

Well, if you didn’t catch the first part of the first season and were thinking about getting this new DVD box set here are a few things you should expect.

The Battlestar Galactica Effect: No science fiction show can escape the influence of the 2003 reboot of the BSG miniseries and its subsequent TV show. That being said you can feel BSG in SGU, it’s in the bones of the show, its premises and its characters, even in the manner the show is shot.

The Crews Dynamic: No one is buddy buddy on the Destiny. Unlike the other Stargate series the crew that fills the roster of the Destiny Ship doesn’t get along very well together. There is a distinct separation of classes. There are the soldiers and the civilians and they don’t get along well.
Ancient Stones: The most important part of this show is its ability to take place in two different locations via Ancient Stones. These stones allow you to swap consciousness with another person’s body across the universe.
Good Special Effects: The special effects and locations for away missions look great and seem alien enough. Unlike what happened with both SG-1 and SGA, the former Stargate series, where every alien world looked way too much like British Columbia. How many worlds are full of cold, green and rainy forests?
Lou Diamond Philips: A very good supporting cast member, he is the only truly notable actor other than Richard Dean Anderson in the cast. It is nice that they use both Anderson’s and Philips’ characters sparingly, they make for a nice addition to episodes.

Highlights From SGU 1.0: (I Like To Spoil. So, Big Spoilers In The Following Section!)
The ‘Time’ Episode: The writers of the show did an excellent job with this episode. Time loop episodes are a mainstay for sci-fi shows but the way they make use of their Kino devices and how this episode ties into a previous one well. But by far the best part of the episode that features snakelike creatures that burst through their victims like something out of an Alien movie is the end; which unlike so many other time paradox episodes of sci-fi shows doesn’t complete the final and usually self-explanatory solution to the paradox.
The ‘Light’ Episode: In this episode the Destiny Ship is headed straight for a star in a solar system with no Stargate. This brings about an interesting moral dilemma where the overly altruistic representation of people Stargate usually has pups up and everyone would volunteer to stay behind and in some sweeping act of heroism the commanding officer makes the hard call and avoids any real dilemma over who lives and who dies. Instead, there is a lottery and the results of which are not well received by those left behind on the seemingly doomed Destiny. The reactions of the characters to their inevitable demise, is where the interesting part of this episode occurs. And even the people who were chosen to evacuate the ship aboard one of the ships shuttles were doomed to live out their lives on a rocky inhospitable planet which no real possibility of ever being rescued. There was a bleakness to this episode that really resonated and set the tone for the rest of the show (at least in my mind).
The ‘Justice’ Episode: A lot of the shows story comes to a head in this episode, which does make it an ideal point to break in the show’s shooting. In it there is a suspicious death aboard the ship and the highest ranking military officer on the ship Colonel Young is the main suspect. An expositive hearing is called and conducted by the civilian members of the crew. The climax of the episode and what turned out to be the first part of the series comes when after the cause of the death is revealed and Colonel Young makes a not-so-Stargatie kind of move and maroons an important member of the team on a planet with no supplies and little hope for escape.

Absolute Justice - Smallville Crosses The Line

Did anybody see the two hour special of Smalllville? It was a bit of a letdown, wasn’t it. Some people probably got a little excited when it was announced that Smallville would have a mini movie this season about the Justice League, or the older Justice League (which turned out to be the “Justice Society of America” or the J.S.A. for short). But it was somewhat disappointing in the end. There wasn’t any extra money put into it, so no great fights or special effects. There was probably less happening in this mini movie than in most one hour episodes. And the villain wasn’t exactly inspired. Having just one villain would be fine in a movie about bringing a team of superheroes together, but this guy was insulting to the viewers intelligence even when you don’t take show seriously. When the villain is a not so powerful short guy that throws icicles at people while dropping silly evil villain puns (let’s not forget the face glitter), it’s difficult to buy that he is the guy they can only take out together! This isn’t to say it was bad, just not as it should be.

Their real issue is the line they crossed. If the show does get a 10th season, it would not be good if they keep going in this direction. It had the feel, look and dialogue of a Saturday morning cartoon from 20 years ago. Wow, that’s campy. When they had the terrible idea to bring in Hawkman with his ridiculous costume, they crossed the line from an adult show about superheroes to power ranger territory. Granted, it’s difficult not to make these people look silly, but a guy with giant fake wings walking around is just too much. It’s a bit of a step backwards considering the serious, dark tone the show has been going for lately, which was working for it.

This was probably just a onetime thing, or maybe this is the beginning of a spinoff. Who knows? Smallville is still good though, and it was light on the transgressions and didn’t do anything you wouldn’t expect from the show. It’s still a much better show in its 9th season and better than it’s ever been, so we’ll let this one slide. But we will end with a warning to Smallville: don’t you dare go power ranger on us!

Jersey Shore | “We Fucking Love You”

A love note to Jersey Shore and its impossibly amoral/irrational/self-involved cast (and realistically the show’s editors).

The people that populate the Jersey Shore are the worst people on earth or are the most honest representation of people since the Ancient Romans. They are decadent and overly sexualized and the only true concern they have revolves around their vanity. Lives filled with a daily agenda of working at a boardwalk shop leading up to the inevitable nightly booze and ‘creeping’. ‘Creeping’ an apt if not overly revealing description of nightly activities involving the picking up of ladies. The term creeping seems very honest seeing that grown men are attempting to convince women who are not in there proper state in order to have hot tub time with them. Creeping seems to be the New Jersey equivalent of asshole who takes advantage of young women who have had too much to drink.

The first time ‘The Situation’ actually bags a lady friend of his in the house’s hot tube only he does so while a house mate watches with another woman. But that is beside the point, the girl that was a little bit lit at the club was lubricated further with a bottle of champagne, so much so that after the water sports have ended she stumbled and fell while walking down some steps into the house. Classy?
Jersey Shore is either the most explicit example of a culture that revolves around the pleasures of excess the likes of which has not been seen since the reason behind the invention of the Roman amphitheater’s vomitorium. Or it’s just the result of a group of people who were captured on camera while on vacation doing things they would not be doing in another situation. It would be unfair to judge the cast of Jersey Shore solely based on how they appear to behave on the show and rather take what you’ve seen and chalk it up to MTV’s editing room and a few weeks of youthful drunken debauchery.

Here's what we love about the show:

Post-Drinking meals and the confused conversations ensue.

The obvious confusion the cast has in understanding the term classy. Can you judge what is classy when you yourself are nowhere near qualified to make that distinction?

Male vanity and female violence. Who knew it was ok to assault other people as long as you are a girl. And when did it become the norm for men to spend more time refining their bodies and clothing choices than their female counterparts?

Top Midseason Shows To Watch In 2010

The midseason has some pretty good shows on both network and cable. There are some series premieres and returning shows that are worth a look, if you didn‘t know about them already. So here is the list of the top shows to begin in midseason 2010.

1. Human Target

The top of the list is promising little show called Human Target. This is a concept show brought to us by Fox in which every episode plays out like an action movie. It has great cast: Mark Valley from Fringe and Boston Legal, Chi McBride from Pushing Daisies, and Jackie Earle Haley from Watchmen. It looks to be good popcorn fun with its action and explosions. The only thing could go wrong with this show is if it’s budget is cut in the future, since it relies on the expensive looking action.

2. Party Down

This underrated HBO comedy follows a catering service comprised of failed and aspiring actors, comedians, and writers from party to party. Entering its second season, Party Down is a very funny dark comedy, and although it takes a few episodes to get used to it, there is a lot of payoff.

3. Treme

Musicians in New Orleans. Doesn’t sound too compelling, but it is made by The Wire creators and stars the actor who played “Bunk” on it, who was arguably the greatest character of the series. So, good to check it out.

4. Lost

It’s supposedly the final season and the secrets will be revealed. Why not watch it?

5. 24

I don’t know about you people, but I need my Jack Bauer fix, and I definitely need to see him kill one thousand people in one day.

6. Breaking Bad

It’s a very interesting drama about a meth cooking duo. It has great acting and story. The third season should be good since the last one ended with Walt (the meth cooker) inadvertently causing a plane crash and many deaths.

7. Sons of Tucson

A group of kids hire a slacker to pretend to be their father to avoid foster care. This new comedy stars the man who played Sock on Reaper. Since that character was great and he seems to be playing the exact same one in this show, it’s worth checking out.

8. Southland

This gritty police drama which was recently dropped it network and then picked up by TNT is re-airing the first season before the new one, but the more explicit cable version of the first season. Now that it’s on a cable network, Southland should offer a lot to it’s viewers.

9. Justified

Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood) stars as another sheriff in a small town, but this time its set in modern times. It’s Deadwood in a contemporary setting.

Not very good shows to watch: Chuck, The Tudors, Caprica

Steven Seagal’s Lawman | What Do You Want See In Future Episodes of Lawman

Is anyone else loving the shit out of Steven Seagal’s Lawman? “That’s right… Steven Seagal.” I just caught up on some older episodes and man there is just something entertaining about Steven Seagal as a real life ‘reserve’ sheriff. And I know what it is that makes this show so fun to watch. Seagal is a weirdo, that’s right he’s stSteven Seagal Collection: 4 Film Favorites - Under Siege / The Glimmer Man / Above the Law / Fire Down Belowrange. No one ever said that actors in general were everyday salt of the earth type people. They have to be kind of strange otherwise we wouldn’t want to watch them so much. According to Seagal he has been training dogs to fight since he was a child for ‘protection’. And in the episode where the lawman was working with a new dog, training him to attach along side another dog that Seagal has had since he was a pup, Seagal makes it a point to say that the dogs need to get used to him being aggressive towards a home invader. Then they ran through an exercise where Seagal, and his two German Sheppard’s collectively attack one of the dog trainers. It wasn’t exactly the perfect display of a man/beast killing machine but it was still fun to watch.

There is another thing which is very funny about Seagal’s interactions with the community that he helps police. Every time he and his crew of geriatric auxiliary police officers pull over an African America man, once the detainee recognizes Seagal they always insist that they don’t like his movies but some old female family member does. “My grandma she loves you”, “My wife… she loves your movies, she has them all”, I take it that older African-American women have a real Steven Seagal fetish. Maybe, it is just a way for the people he pulls over to bust his balls a bit, or there is a secret society of elderly African-American women dedicated to the film catalogue of Steven Seagal. These are the things that keep us coming back and watching more of the Lawman in action. Who knows what else will be revealed about the mysterious Steven Seagal by this show?

What we would like to see in future episodes of Lawman:

• Mr. Seagal in a firefight with an armed assailant

• Mr. Seagal getting into an unarmed fight with an assailant

• Mr. Seagal running after an assailant

• Here more weird stories from his past, in particular the one about him getting into a fight with Jean-claude van dam at Sylvester Stallone’s house back in 1997 (It happened people and I want to hear about it)

• Steven Seagal’s family, is anyone else interested in seeing his family, he always says that he is a family man but we have only seen his dogs. Are his dogs the family he is talking about? Or, this is our theory… every member of his family has a ponytail, and that’s why they won’t show them on the show, I’m sure of it. Hopefully a future episode will confirm these suspicions of a ponytail filled family tree.

The Best TV Characters Of The '00s

The decade is almost at a close and it’s time to look back at the last ten years of TV’s best characters. Unlike other lists of the same sort, this one consists only of characters that were introduces within the ‘00s. So, here is Keep Up TV Tome’s list of TV’s best characters for the ‘00s.

‘Admiral William Adama’ BSG
‘Dr. Gaius Baltar’ BSG
‘Leoben Conoy’ BSG
‘Lora Roselyn’ BSG
‘James “Sawyer” Ford’ Lost
‘Dawn Draper’ Mad Men
‘Roger Sterling’ Mad Men
‘Jesse’ Breaking Bad
‘Lew Ashby’ Californiacation
‘Hank Moody’ Californication
‘Wash’ Firefly
‘Gregory House’ House
‘Dexter Morgan’ Dexter
‘Charlie Day’ It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
‘Clay Morrow’ Sons Of Anarchy
‘River’ Firefly
‘Alpha’ Dollhouse
‘Eric Northmen’ True Blood
‘Jonny Drama’ Entourage
‘David Brent’ The Office
‘Seth Bullock’ Deadwood
‘Mr. Wu’ Deadwood
‘Al Swearengen’ Deadwood
‘Trixie’ Deadwood
‘Ellsworth’ Deadwood
‘Sheila Keefe’ Rescue Me
‘Joan Holloway Harris’ Mad Men
‘Walter Bishop’ Fringe
‘Sock’ Reaper
‘Denny Crain’ Boston Legal
‘Alan Shore’ Boston Legal
‘George “Job” Bluth II’ Arrested Development
‘Rodney McKay’ Stargate Atlantis
‘Dean Winchester’ Supernatural
‘Doug Wilson’ Weeds

Brittany Murphy Dies At 32

It was recently announced that actress Brittany Murphy has died from a cardiac arrest at age 32. People can speculate as to why this happened, but as it stands it seems she has died from cardiac arrest. Brittany was reported to have been fired from her last film project and on account of that had been the but end of many late night talk show hosts since then. It is a shame that she passed away, especially around the Holiday season. Condolences all around to her family, friends and fans.

Her Most Memorable Films Were:
Clueless
Cherry Falls
Just Married
Don't Say A Word
Boys Don't Cry
Sin City