Science Fiction Entertainment, - TV shows, movies, magazines, books

The only thing I watch on SyFy is Ghost Hunters, it's the only reality show I watch. I used to like Amazing Race until it looked rigged.
The History Channel runs shows about Ice Road Truckers and Monster Quests. Travel Channel runs poker games. Sc Fy runs wrestling. Comedy Central hasn't been funny in 15 years, since it was Comedy Channel. A&E has Gene Simmons.
ION, WGN, and Amerian Life all runs some older classic shows at least. Makes me wonder why pay for cable.

Slide show:

Lame Vs Awesome Aliens

There's a new Sci Fi film coming out, District 9:

Heart-pumping, alien-laden 'District 9' is sci-fi at its finest

It's no secret that 'District 9' is really good

Some network is doing a remake of the old 1980s sci-fi series "V."

I remember the original series, and boy did I get love watching it every week.

Just glancing at the headlines, some reviews are saying it's a great remake, some are saying it's average, some seem to say it's crummy.

TV review: 'V' gets off to an entertaining start

abc's 'V' remake is very good, very timely

TV This Week: 'V' premieres on ABC


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Ah, V! My mom has a tape set of the original miniseries. When I was 4, the part where one of the visitors, Diana, swallows a gerbil whole gave me nightmares.

Looking back on it now, it's still awesome and still scary in a different, more metaphorical kind of way. I think they should rerun the original while they're pausing between airings of the new one.

I gotta give props to ABC for attempting to remake it, but you can't improve upon perfection.

---

EDIT: However, this quote, raises my hackles a bit:

Was this guy even watching the same miniseries? It wasn't clear from the beginning that the Visitors' fleet admiral, John, and his second-in-command Diana were the enemies. John seemed just like the dad of the kid next door; jovial, kind and reasonable... and who happened to talk funny. In the beginning, nobody knew their true appearance; they all appeared to be attractive (or at least semi-attractive) people.

The Visitors' takeover was gradual and, by the time the damage was done, it was 1940's Germany all over again.

And not all Visitors were enemies. William was a sweet guy, who came to realize that the intentions of his superiors were wrong and William genuinely liked the humans... and not for breakfast, so he later joined the resistance. My memory's fuzzy on the details, but he couldn't've been the only one.

Plus, the Visitors were recruiting young folks (reminiscent of the Hitler Youth) to squeal on their friends, family and neighbours. And some human adults were also working for the enemy, out of brainwashing, desperation or simply human greed.

On the outset, the original V seems like a cheesy 80's sci-fi series. It isn't until you peel back the layers and realize how relevant it was... and still is.

This post has been edited by Melissa on Oct 31 2009, 05:44 AM

(To anyone other than Melissa who is reading this:
If you hate spoilers, you might want to avoid this entire post of mine)

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Yep. From what I remember, the alien take-over of Earth on that show was gradual.

The aliens first show up disguised as human to hide their lizard appearance, and tried to convince humanity to trust them, because all the while they were stealing all our planet's water and figured it would be less of a hassle to do it all sneaky-like than fight it out.

(Or maybe they told us up front they wanted the water, but lied about how much they were taking, I don't remember.)

I think most Earthlings were suckered into thinking that the "visitors" were peaceful, nice guys at first.

I remember Willie. He was a traitor to the aliens. He was a shy, bumbling, guy who didn't have a lot of self esteem.

The Beast Master dude who played a journalist on the show (Marc Singer?) slowly started to figure out that the aliens were up to no good.

He would sneak around with his camera to film their secrets.

I don't remember the John character you mention, but I remember a catty brunette alien chick with short, kind of spiky hair (typical 1980s hair style), and I think a blond alien lady.

One of the two lizard ladies liked to kind of flirt with the Marc Singer character, if I recall rightly.

I always thought he was a fairly good looking guy, so I didn't blame alien lady for the crush.

I forgot the gerbil scene. I wish it was still forgotten. Shame on you for making me relive that.

I agree, it would be a good idea to air the original show to warm up audiences first.

My memory gets even more fuzzy about the show's ending.

Actually, I might have missed it altogether, come to think of it. My family was moving around the time the show was wrapping up.

I remember there was an alien-human hybrid girl who grew up in a matter of weeks, and one of the bad aliens tried to kill her (or something).

When she was still a baby, there was some long, drawn out and, IMO, totally boring plot about keeping her hidden from the evil Lizard aliens.

They would shuffle her from city to city. It was like "Where's Waldo" for several episodes, only with an infant.

They gave Hybrid Girl a boyfriend, the dark haired guy. I thought the show's quality started going down-hill around the end when they introduced all that stuff.

What really stands out in my memory from the show:
The orange prison issue looking uniforms with the caps the aliens wore, and their little shuttle space craft.

I just now saw the references to alleged Anti-Obama material in the show, which I find very amusing.

TV Review: ABC's remake of 'V'

'V'
Three stars
7 p.m. Tuesday

One thing you can say about sci-fi fans: They're not stupid. Each TV show comes with its own history, mythology, rules, science and literary allusions - sometimes it even has its own language. How do you say "My brain hurts" in Klingon?

When sci-fi fans like a show, they really commit. They memorize minutiae, look for hidden themes, link to each other's websites, write fan fiction, and when necessary, dress like the characters.

Now "V" is arriving on ABC, and it comes with plenty of baggage.

Let the obsessing begin.

Quite a bit is established in the pilot episode: Aliens visit the Earth. They are startlingly attractive. They say they want to cure our diseases with complete medical services for all. They say that they're all about peace.

The world's reaction? "Yay!"

We meet the head alien as, in fact, a giant head, projected across the sky - not unlike the way Galaxhaar appeared in "Monsters Vs. Aliens," come to think of it. Her name is Anna, and it turns out that she is plenty media-savvy: She invites a broadcast journalist (the perfectly cast Scott Wolf) to interview her live, just as long as he doesn't ask anything that could make the aliens look bad.

Elizabeth Mitchell ("Lost's" beloved Juliet) is an FBI agent who has an inkling that the aliens might not be all that cuddly. She gets involved in the underground resistance effort, while her dishy teenage son heads in the opposite direction. Infatuated by the alien babes, he is recruited into a program that's not far off from the Hitler youth.

Judging by the first episode, "V" seems like a solid adaptation. But it doesn't have the mysterious spark it needs to make it compulsory viewing, the way "Lost" lured us in. The problem with a remake is that we already know what lurks beneath the aliens' faux flesh.

What it does have, though, is the potential to start quite a few debates. A few of "V's" hottest topics:

*Is the new "V" as good as the first "V"?

It would be difficult to top the horrific moment in the 1983 original miniseries, when the beautiful alien queen suddenly breaks character to pop an unfortunate guinea pig in her mouth. Don't even get me started on the lizard babies.

But yes, the improved CG effects alone make the new "V" worth watching. And the casting is promising. I loved seeing Alan Tudyk ("Dollhouse," "Firefly") in the pilot, and producers have teased that they will find roles for actors from the '83 "V." Dare we hope for Robert Englund?

*How do aliens fit in with our spiritual beliefs?

The short answer: Uncomfortably. Joel Gretsch ("The 4400") plays a priest who is surprised when the Vatican officially deems the aliens to be "God's creatures." There's not a whole lot of scripture on the subject, after all. But his formerly empty church is now packed with people contemplating their place in the universe. "Who wouldn't welcome a savior right now?" wonders the priest, but he's speaking of the visitors, not Jesus.

Is "V" anti-Obama?

We were relentlessly hit over the head in the original "V" with Nazi references. And now there's considerable buzz that this could be the religious right's new favorite show. For instance, the aliens preach about "hope" and "change," inspiring a devoted following. Obama? "We're all so quick to jump on the bandwagon," notes one character. Obama? We know very little about the aliens' background, and can't be sure of their real motives. Obama?

Personally, I wasn't picking up on any political agendas until the end of the pilot, when - SPOILER! - it's suggested that the visitors are responsible for all the world's unnecessary wars, its extremist movements, and the lousy economy.

It's a genius idea, really, and could be the key to the world getting back on its feet. We'll just outsource the blame. To the cosmos, if necessary.

Ah, I remember now. A good looking alien guy named Martin helped Marc Singer's character (the journalist) spy in various areas of the ships [highlight to read the major spoiler]and showed him the human food farm on one of the ships filled with thousands of people in stasis for later consumption[/spoiler].

There was also a pretty blonde alien girl named Barbara, who kinda flirted with Marc, like you said (in fact, she might be the same blonde alien chick you're thinking of -- her hair was long and wavy and kinda Californian/Farrah Fawcett styled). She [highlight for spoiler]gave him her uniform so he could stowaway in a ship-to-planet shuttle/vehicle (my Trekkie brain is thinking "runabout", but they wouldn't be called that in the V series). Anyway, once she was stripped down to her undies and human skin, she told him to stun her with her own weapon to knock her unconscious, so she wouldn't be implicated in his escape and could continue to operate covertly in the Visitors' peace resistance.[/highlight]

John was the "Supreme Commander" of the "small fleet" (small fleet, my ass!) that surrounded Earth prior to takeover. Here's the full episodes on YouTube, if you want to see the original miniseries again (the 16-ep series that followed was weak, but the two-part original and its three-part sequel -- subtitled The Final Battle -- still packs a punch).

V (original 1983 miniseries) - Youtube playlists:

V: Part 1
V: Part 2
V: The Final Battle

There's a new sci-fi/horror film out called The Fourth Kind. Seems to have gotten mostly negative reviews. Movie review: Nothing scary about 'The Fourth Kind,' starring Milla Jovovich

The New V, on ABC Network

Caught the premiere of the new "V."

It was okay. Not really great, IMO, but not awful.

I'll keep watching, unless it becomes boring.

Recognized the alien "Anna" character/actress, couldn't think of where from, until I read in an article that she used to be a character on Fire Fly. (She had longer hair on Fire Fly; on this new "V" show, her hair is very short.)

I read in another article that the execs at ABC told the new "V" writers NOT to use the word "alien" in the new series. I don't know why not. Seems like a stupid rule to me.

Turns out that Sci Fi (sorry, SyFy ) channel did replay the original "V" series starring Faye Grant and Marc Singer two or three days leading up to the new, ABC-broadcast version of "V."

I had forgotten about the other big gross scene: the birth scene, where the camera does a close-up of the latex/rubber lizard alien baby.

Just think of the fun they could have re-filming that scene with today's special effects.

Stargate Universe

I caught the season premiere of Stargate Universe a few weeks ago and tried watching one or two episodes.

SU is so boring, I cannot watch it.

V-related

In other sci-fi news:
Lincolnite's 'V' collection may be one of the country's biggest

Nobody may be more excited about ABC's premiere of the "V" reboot Tuesday night than Lincoln's David Pinkerman.

The science fiction drama debuts at 7 p.m. on channels 7, 8, 107 and 108.

Pinkerman was in sixth grade when the original hit the airwaves, first as an NBC miniseries in May 1983, and later as another miniseries (May 1984) and a TV series (October 1984 to July 1985).

Since then, it's safe to say he's become one of the country's, if not the world's, biggest collectors of "V" memorabilia.

Last week, he filled four large tables at his church with his collection, which includes comic books, trading cards, autographed photos, walkie-talkies, shooting scripts, posters, a lunchbox, paperback novels and more.

He even has a lifesize plastic alien lizard baby, made from the same mold used for one in the second miniseries.

"The TV series really struck a chord with me," Pinkerman said. "It was more than the science fiction and action for me. I also enjoyed the story about human will and resistance."

Written and directed by Kenneth Johnson, the original miniseries was an allegory of the Nazi takeover of Germany.

The aliens came from a distant planet, offering to help a more-than-ready world solve its problems with its advanced technology, asking only for some needed minerals in exchange.

Eventually, their true purpose and identity were revealed by a band of resistance fighters. The lizard-like aliens were here to take over the planet, with humans as their food source.

The original series starred Marc Singer, complete with the 1980s feathered haircut, as a TV newsman who becomes the leader of the resistance. Jane Badler played Diana, the manipulative alien leader.

ABC is hoping to find success the way SyFy did with the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot.

The new "V" series, from executive producer Scott Peters, who wrote the pilot, uses the same premise as the original, but he has changed the characters.

The reboot stars "Lost" alumna Elizabeth Mitchell as a FBI counterterrorist agent and Joel Gretsch ("The 4400") as a priest who question the Visitors' arrival. Morena Baccarin ("Firefly") plays the enchanting alien leader.

Pinkerman, 36, runs clinical trials at MDS Pharma Services. His two children get a kick out of dad's collection, as does his wife, Susan.

"Sometimes we kid him about his 'science fiction,'" she said. "This really gives him something to focus on."

Like most kids his age, Pinkerman liked "Star Wars" - he just liked "V" more. That's why he feels his collection is unique to him.

As a youngster, he acquired the novels and comic books. Among the most-cherished is a comic book his grandfather gave him just a month before he died.

The collection went by the wayside as he grew older. But he got back into it in the late 1990s when eBay hit the scene, opening a whole new world to him. Some of his memorabilia has come from Argentina and Spain.

The jewels of his collection are several pages of original DC Comics comic book art from the original comic book series and some props from the show, including a laser pistol, Visitor technician cap and instrumentation from a Visitor skyfighter.

In 2000, he attended a "V" convention in Los Angeles, where he met original cast members. He also participated in a trivia contest against five other fans. He won, of course.

The new series gives Pinkerman the chance to expand his collection. He already has a 35 mm trailer, a button and pamphlet that's seen in the pilot.

"I'm very excited," he said. "Over the past 25 years, there's been talk several times about a revamp. Finally, it's happened."

Has anyone else been watching The Prisoner on AMC? I have, and it's a fairly confusing show, and it's very strange.

Help! I’m a Prisoner of ‘The Prisoner’

TV Review: THE PRISONER - 'Anvil' and 'Darling'

The Prisoner (2009) Disappoints

It Takes The Village: A Review of AMC's The Prisoner

The Prisoner -- Mind Control, Then and Now (Part One)

The Prisoner (AMC), TV Review

TV review: 'The Prisoner' returns, starring Jim Caviezel

The Prisoner: A Pretentious Reimagining