Somnopolis

….LLAMA!

There’s a popular story about how Ronald D. Moore got his first break in television writing. It starts with his convincing a girlfriend to bring him on a tour of the Star Trek set at the Paramount lot during the 90’s and seizing the opportunity to submit a spec script to a staff writer. Perhaps as a result of his sheer chutzpah, Moore succeeded in getting a place in the writers room and soon developed a reputation for coming up with scripts that explored philosophical ideas, with Deep Space Nine in particular notable for its religious themes and critical attitude to the Utopianism of Gene Roddenberry’s United Federation of Planets.

Since then Moore has shepherded his own show to the small screen, a remake of Battlestar Galactica that excited critics, thrilled fans, but failed to pull in the much-need Nielsen ratings. While being a well-written science fiction show with strong character arcs and an ability to inject topicality into the proceedings by riffing on the occupation of Iraq – Battlestar Galactica ended in its fourth season with an anti-climactic finale that has divided fans ever since.

But the enfant terrible who snuck on to the Star Trek set was not to be beaten. So next came the intriguing sounding pilot for Virtuality, mixing reality television with yet another quest for a new home for humanity. It failed to be picked up for development.

Back to the drawing board. A much-rumoured prequel to BSG began to take shape and finally Caprica, starring Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales and Paula Malcomson has arrived on our screens. Set before the outbreak of the Cylon conflict, it shows the events which led to the destruction of the human race at the hands of a ruthless robot civilization that they had created.

As such this is more a drama with the trappings of a science fiction show. There are no more space battles. The technology portrayed is advanced, but not so much that the world is almost recognizable to viewers as our own. Characters drive cars, use mobile phones and even dress in classic  American fashions, synonymous with the 1950’s, the post-war golden age of western culture. Moore has gone so far as to describe it as Dallas in space.

The story begins with a terrorist bombing. Two men lose members of their family in the explosion – Daniel Graystone (Stoltz) and Joseph Adama (Morales). The first through his grief will create the first member of the Cylon race. The other is the father of humanity’s last champion in the fight for humanity’s survival – Battlestar’s Commander William Adama.

For fans of the show this all no doubt sounds intriguing. After the final episode of BSG I felt I had more questions that needed answering than before. How did the Cylon monotheism evolve into the genocidal religious faith we find in the BSG pilot; how exactly did the frequently referred to Twelve Colonies of Kobol, which make up society, co-exist and what were the differences between them; is Daniel Graystone the unrevealed Cylon model spoken of by the Final Five; how can a race of machines be so convinced that they have souls?

Even as I list these questions though, they strike me as unimportant after-thoughts. I wonder if it is necessary to re-explore this fictional universe. Battlestar ended in an abrupt manner, with the characters finding some kind of peace after years on the run from a marauding enemy, reeling from paranoia and betrayal and finally suffering a crippling civil conflict within the fleet itself. There was a sense of completion though, the story had been told, regardless of what one may think about how it ended.  See the horrible connotations of the word ‘prequel’ following The Phantom Menace refuse to die away. There is a lingering suspicion that these fore-tellings only exist to capitalise on pre-existing fanbases, not due to any story being there to be told.

Caprica’s most interesting notion is that the first cognisant Cylon is Zoe Graystone (Alessandra Torresani), reborn into a bulky, masculine robotic body. Traumatised by her strange resurrection at the hands of her father, this pristine Frankenstein continues to maintain contact with the religious fundamentalist sect that was responsible for the bombing. The discovery that her daughter was a terrorist and most likely responsible for her own death, causes Amanda Graystone to breakdown publicly, revealing the truth of her daughter to an assemblage of mourners. Caprican society is depicted as being unaware of these rising religious tensions, too obsessed with its own privilege and comfortable way of life. For Battlestar academics, there are further nods to 9/11 and even Zoe the Cylon is not a world away from Maria the automaton in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. It is also a brave move on the part of former Trek writers Moore and Jane Espenson to base a show around the grieving process.

The problem for me though is this all seems too worthy for its own good. Attempts to fashion a human drama out of such outlandish ideas fall somewhat flat. I am reminded a little of Dennis Potter’s Cold Lazarus, which made a serious attempt to address its writer’s own experience of mortality using science fiction.  Screened posthumously on both the BBC and ITV out of respect for Potter, Lazarus was a major television event. Afterwards though reviewers ruefully admitted that at best the miniseries was self-indulgent. I worry that Moore is ploughing a similar furrow. Fans and reviewers of Galactica bent over backwards to celebrate its intelligence and daring, but in the end it was a well-written, entertaining science fiction show. Not a work of staggering genius.

Ronald D. Moore do not believe your own press.

Misfits

Channel 4’s late 2009 yoof show Misfits arrived on screens in November under a hail of publicity. Twitter channels were created for five of the characters on the show. There were also Facebook profile pages and video blogs on youtube delivered by the respective actors. Produced by Clerkenwell Films, Misfits was said to be the new Skins, another show courting controversy by featuring teenage sex and  substance abuse. Oh, but with superpowers.

It’s so much more than that though. Howard Overman’s scripts (in keeping with the American television writing tradition, he is the lead writer for the show) do not fall into the trap of slavishly imitating yoof argot. The premise of young offenders on ASBOs gaining superpowers due to a freak storm, manages to combine the best traditions of classic comic book origins (cosmic rays, radioactive spiders, spaceships landing in Kansas) with a sharp comment on how teenagers are treated by British society today. Superhero comics once played with popular fears regarding the effects of radiation, or the dangers of the atomic bomb. Now teenagers themselves are treated like some dangerous element. Adolescent foul mouthed polonium.

Our ‘heroes’ are Simon (an introvert who gains the ability to turn invisible); Alisha (’gifted’, with the ability to make anyone desire her simply by touching their skin); Kelly (the stereotypical chav who can hear what people are thinking); and Curtis (an aspiring Olympian whose sporting career is in ruins and has the ability to turn back time).

You may have noticed that’s only four out of the five. There’s also gabby Irish lad Nathan, whose power is left unrevealed, much to his annoyance.

Every superhero origin needs a dose of tragedy thrown into the mix. The Misfits (as good a team name as we’re going to get, although thankfully never used in the show) are forced to kill their probation officer when the effects of the storm transform him into a rage-fuelled monster. The first six episodes of the show (with a second season promised in May 2010) deal with the consequences of the group’s decision to cover up the death. It soon becomes clear, however, that they were not the only ones changed by the storm.

Thankfully Misfits avoids the cliches of ‘freak of the week’, shows like The X-Files, or Smallville. Each episode is focused on a different member of the cast and while the script does sparkle with great one-liners (especially where Nathan is concerned), it also succeeds thanks to the talent of the actors featured. Antonia Thomas as Alisha has perhaps the most difficult character, given that her character’s ‘ability’, inevitably raises the issues of rape and the sexualisation of women in popular culture. Her relationship with Curtis evolves due to their coming to an arrangement that allows them to both equally express their desire for one another, without coercion (and isn’t it nice to have a teenage show that promotes mutual masturbation, instead of the be-all and end-all of genital sex?). As for the failed Olympian, because he is a young black male caught on a minor drugs charge, he is unfairly been made an example of. Curtis (Nathan Stewart Jarrett) has the weight of a whole community sitting on his young shoulders. His feelings of powerlessness in the face of this pressure even extend to his own ability, which can only be activated unconsciously when he is feeling deep emotional stress. This gives Overman something of a neat out, as otherwise Curtis would have become somewhat godlike. Much like Hiro in Heroes. Kelly ‘the chav’, presents an overly aggressive front, but her power forces her to hear what people really think. Even her dog has an inner monologue, supplied by Phil Daniels in a brief cameo. Finally Simon the true outcast realizes his greatest fear – he becomes truly invisible to the people in his life. His habit of filming everything on his camera phone allows him to distance himself (but also incriminate the gang in their crime).

While Nathan’s power is not revealed until late in the series, he presents as an almost meta-character, commenting on the action as it happens. In the final episode he insists on finding the right kind of music track to ‘tool up to’, when the group are about to march into danger. His romantic advice to Curtis turns out to be a quote from Spider-Man. Even when burying the corpses of their probation officer, and one of his axe-murder victims, Nathan feels he has to quip: ‘I’m pretty sure this breaches the terms of my Asbo’.

But the coup de grace is his true ‘origin’, the much hinted at theft of Pick ‘n’ Mix which landed him with an ASBO. It starts with a parody of The Big Lebowski, escalates into a riot and then features a cameo from British actor Dexter Fletcher as his estranged dad (who does uncannily resemble Sheehan).

Nathan is also refreshingly unsympathetic. He is aware that the ’script’, calls for him to find some kind of Breakfast Club-style redemption in his community service, but he refuses to bow to the John Hughesian logic of the situation. “This is a chance to network with other young offenders, we should be swapping tips, brainstorming!”

In the end Overman is not looking to ape Skins or Heroes as some of the press have tried to suggest. The failure of New Labour haunts the show, with the next generation being frog-marched into a right-wing future that will accept nothing less than complete obediance to the state. If anything Misfits is more reminiscent of early 2000AD, railing against the rise of Thatcherism and the government sanctioned attack on working class Britain, attracting the likes of Pat Mills, Robert Wagner, Alan Moore and Garth Ennis. This show is a call to arms if you like, eschewing yoof voyeurism in favour of genuine anger against a generation disenfranchised and abandoned on the shores of the 21c.

Oh it is something special.

You all know him of course. He usually plays lawyers, or doctors, a figure of middling authority. Perhaps he is so easy to cast in these roles because his bald head and spectacles suggest he is one of life’s middle managers.

Despite his vague appearance, Tobolowsky is something of an earworm, instantly familiar having appeared in over a hundred films and television shows since the early 80’s. Have a gander – Thelma and Louise; Basic Instinct; Seinfeld; CSI – Miami; Boston Legal; Freddy Got Fingered; Malcolm in the Middle; Garfield; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Deadwood; Heroes; Perry Mason; LA Law…

The list continues to grow, with a starring role in 1976’s Keep My Grave Open setting his career in motion.

Yet it was for his memorable scenes with Bill Murray in Groundhog Day that he is most remembered. Ned Ryerson, the insufferably annoying insurance salesman.

Ned… Ryerson. “Needlenose Ned”? “Ned the Head”? C’mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn’t graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?

What strikes me most about Tobolowsky is the genuine pride he feels for his career of walk-on bit-parts. He takes the time to fashion something memorable out of a cameo, without having the advantage of celebrity or a striking face. His scenes in Memento as Sammy – a key figure in helping us understand the dilemma of the protagonist, despite his story occuring in flashback – are heartbreaking and touching all at once. Then there’s Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party a documentary that focuses on the actor himself. He obviously enjoys a reputation as being a safe pair of hands, one who won’t steal the spotlight from the glitzy celebs, but at the same time will make a scene work and add that something extra.

Bringing us bang up to date is his performance as the music teacher cum registered sex offender Sandy Ryerson in Glee. Is Sandy a cousin of Ned’s? Or perhaps a long-lost brother who fled a dreary life in Punxsutawney for a glamorous existence treading the boards….as a music teacher in William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. His delivery of the line ‘Kill yourself!’ has had me chuckling for days.

Ok here’s my argument, in brief, as to why Glee is a fantastic show.

They featured a team of American football players dance in formation to Beyonce. Ladies and Gents, gay culture just went mainstream. Hold onto your hats.

What I love most though is that that entire plot idea of mixing football with dancing previously featured in an episode of the Snorks I saw when I was a kid.

I am sad to report I have only now discovered The Wire. This scene made me laugh out loud. I keep imagining how the pages of script must have read.

“Fuck”

“Fuck”

“Motherfuck!”

etc.

Well The End of Time was reliably anticlimactic. Bye bye Russell T. So long David Tennant. I bow in deference to Lawrence Miles’ assessment of the finale, copied and pasted from here.

1. Repeats of “The End of Time” will seem more tolerable if you try not to notice that the first hour is almost entirely made up of characters telling you what’s going to happen at the end, and that the second hour is almost entirely made up of characters reminding you what they said was going to happen at the end.

5. Look at it from Gary Russell’s point of view: after a decade and a half of writing stories based on high-concept ideas like “what would happen if the Nimon met the Macra?”, he finally gets to script-edit a multi-million-pound TV story which ends with the Master killing Rassilon. Using death-rays. From his hands.

That being said Bernard Cribbins just has to scrunch up his Wombly eyes and my heartstrings get a good, firm tug. As for Matt Smith/Steven Moffat, I am cautiously optimistic. Who was in something of a rut and maybe this is exactly what it needs. A changing of the guard.

I am a little concerned to see so many of Moffat’s creations from previous episodes reappear in the trailer. Weeping Angels? River Song? This season may be as crowded as RTD’s first, which hit as many populist notes as it could, seeing as a second year wasn’t guaranteed. Britney’s Toxic, Simon Pegg, Big Brother, Trinny and Susannah  – looking back it all seems a bit desperate, no?

Returning to his own story concepts is of course fine, but I am worried that Moffat is too concerned with going with what is familiar to the established fanbase. For all my complaints about RTD, he gambled big and managed to transform Doctor Who from a nerd commodity stuck in the horizon of a convention-centre-black-hole, to popular Saturday evening fare. Hell he may have even staved off the evil empire of Murdoch from wiping out the BBC for just a little while longer. The merchandising alone…

Now if only someone would commission an episode from Miles himself.

My word. That was different. So I’ve just watched a Sunday Sci-Fi matinee film based on the Odysseus myth. It was an entertaining romp, that managed to conflate several Greek myths together and then add vampires.

Well of course.

I loved Greek mythology when I was a kid, although since I’ve discovered a nice sideline in adaptations of the same stories. Ulysses 31 is still a favourite.

This version has Arnold Vosloo as the canny Ithacan and a number of other familiar faces from genre shows playing his crewmen. The movie starts with the famous encounter with the Sirens, but then veers off almost immediately. Odysseus is freed from his bounds and joins in the battle against winged demons attacking the ship. And who is this fighting beside him? Why it’s Homer himself.

We’re not in Kansas anymore (damn you Jim Cameron!).

I’ve not had a good history with the recent glut of revisionist takes on fantasy classics, such as the dour Tin Man. Yet this managed to achieve something different. Yes the actress playing the goddess Athena was painful, and the inclusion of Homer lessens Odysseus somewhat – still Brook Durham and Kevin Leeson’s script demonstrates enough familiarity with the material to improvise with the plot.

The crew are shipwrecked by the winged demons on an island ruled over by an enchantress. She is revealed to be neither Circe, nor Calypso, but Persephone. What’s more the writers also mix in some aspects of the Biblical Lilith with Hades’ wife.

Maybe you can see where this is going. The pantheist universe of Greek mythology here gives way to Christian symbolism. The demons that stand in for the mythical sirens become Nosferatu style vampires. Homer stands side by side with Odysseus writing down his adventures as they are told to him. Much like Neil Gaiman’s script for Beowulf, it is implied that some of the Odyssey is invented for the sake of the Greek king’s vanity.

For all these changes, I actually enjoyed the movie. Strictly Sunday afternoon fare though.

Now have we fully recovered yet from the onslaught of JohnJoe? The precocious little brat whose appearance on The Late Late Toy Show put the fear of god in me, as he appears to be the reincarnation of Michael MacLiammoir! He’s also very fond of clocks.

Maybe the brats aren’t just fizzing out their brains on Wiis, Miley Cyrus and tie-in products to Michael Bay films. As suggested by this wonderfully inventive video for The Holy Roman Army’s track Stagger Gently Home. Featuring artwork by children from Drumphea National School in Co. Carlow.

Awww.

I really like the song too. Reminds me of the days of Donal Dineen’s No Disco. Oftentimes he would feature cute, esoteric music videos to excellent songs. Ah memories.

Comingsoon.net is reporting that Nestor Carbonell, a member of the cast from Lost, the show that catapulted J. J. Abrams into household name status, is rumoured to be a candidate for the role of Khan Singh in a future sequel to Star Trek.

Now beyond the usual Trekker debate over whether Abrams should be following the previous timeline so closely, given the stated purpose of this new sequence of Trek movies to be ‘completely different’ (does this mean we have to sit through the whales again?), I’m all for casting Carbonell. Not necessarily as Khan. I mean he could play Redshirt No. 36 for all I care. I just want the guy to have a gig.

He’s suffered people! He was in Suddenly Susan for christ sake! Plus….he is Batmanuel.

Ladies and gents, I give you a seminal moment from The Tick!