Sunday Musings

Well, I can finally see the end of the current project. There are only three weeks to go and a few straggle days on the back-end to do pick-up sites and what not that refused me the first time around and have now been brought into the fold with an understanding that I will be arriving and was actually asked to do so by persons of much higher rank than they. I’m hoping to wrap up the whole thing by Feb 21 and then get on with more interesting and important things such as writing and trying to get some sort of stable job that doesn’t involve driving 100+ miles a day and standing in the rain, cold, or sun for any given day. There are only 53 sites left and at my current pace of three a day six days a week it should all work out. The straggle days also include a couple of full day round trips to only grab single sites on the periphery of nowhere. To say it hasn’t worn on me would be a lie, but it should seat me decently to take a bit of time off to focus on the more important things and to participate in whatever capacity is bestowed upon me in the pilot shoot in March. It would have been grand if the pilot shoot had been mine, but these things are fleeting at best and since I’ve made almost no contacts since I’ve been here rather an impossibility as well.

As you may notice from the contents of the “currently reading” portion of the sidebar I rewarded myself the other day with an extravagant expenditure of money for comics. I’ve also bee back into watching some shows that have begun to show again after the holidays. Some are good, some are interesting, and I don’t really waste my time with the ones that are neither. Current purusals have included but have not been limited to:

DIRT – I’m not really sure if this show has quite found it’s footing, but it’s at least interesting and enjoyable enough to continue watching to see if it does. I have a sneaking suspicion that the original script centered more on Don the schizophrenic photographer than it did the inner workings of a gossip rag but was reworked so that Don would have some sort of grounding. Truthfully though his story lines are still the most compelling and interesting. The set-ups of following certain celebrities as they are destroyed slowly though the actions of the magazine are OK, but they should take a queue from ENTOURAGE on these. Courtney Cox is engaging and has moved nicely from her Monica character with her independent film roles and this that I don’t see that character’s residue even so much as linger about her.

ROBIN HOOD – This was the BBC’s new series from last year. I’m about 8 episodes in and am only continuing to watch it because of my affinity for Robin Hood. The show is an odd mix and works only on occasion. It’s period, but the language seems too updated and the action often contrived. Maybe they’ll pull something out for the second season, but for now it’s unfortunately a bit of a limp effort.

THE DRESDEN FILES - The pilot wasn’t bad, but the pacing seemed off and the story was a bit lack luster. It’s sort of the reason that I find myself drawn to writing 2-hour pilots of the things I create, because when you have to do so much world building, and hour is never really satisfying. I’m surprised that Sci-Fi didn’t go this route anyway, because then if it didn’t pan out they’d have a decent 2-hour movie to slash onto DVD. The truth is, I think the Fred Ward CAST A DEADLY SPELL Det. Harry Philip Lovecraft movie from the 90s was more enjoyable and they probably should have looked to it for structure. The Dennis Hopper follow-up WITCH HUNT was even better than Dreseden wants to be. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it as I do all shows of this ilk because the well is so very dry on this end of things. However, I will stick with it for now and hope it can get beyond the CURSED cliché and move into darker more interesting territory. How Sci-Fi can make something as engaging and original as THE LOCKED ROOM, and then let THE DRESDEN FILES just be lackluster I don’t know. Maybe they fall under two different heads of development.

LIFE ON MARS – Another BBC outing that I’m late coming to and have only just seen the pilot for the first season’s first episode, but it’s yet another in a string of very well put together and amazingly original efforts from the BBC. I’m pretty sure the first season just showed this last year on BBC America, so if you have that channel, look for it. I’ll forgo my explanation for what it’s about and simply place someone else’s blurb here:

“Sam Tyler (played by John Simm), who after being hit by a car in 2006 finds himself back in 1973. There, he is working for Manchester and Salford Police CID under DCI Gene Hunt (played by Philip Glenister). Over the course of the series, Tyler faces various culture clashes, most frequently regarding differences in approaches to policing between him and his colleagues. The series also features a strong ambiguity concerning Tyler's predicament: it is unclear whether he really has travelled back in time, is in a coma in 2006 and imagining his experiences, or is really from 1973 and mentally unstable.”

ROME – Season two is well under way. Enough Said.


The rest of last season’s shows I’m going to continue to watch are as follows:

30 Rock
Battlestar Galactica
Gilmore Girls
Heroes
Lost
My Name is Earl
Studio 60
Veronica Mars

All for now.