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meddowHollywood's complete inability to come up with an original idea is only second to the writing of female characters in romcoms when it comes to making me despair about the current state of big-budget entertainment, and rebooting Battlestar Galactica again, so soon after it was just successfully rebooted, just proves how ridiculous it's getting. First of all, why? The 2003 reboot only provided six years of acclaimed television, lasted longer than the original series and spawned a spin-off. Was is not successful enough? Secondly, there is no way comparisons would not be drawn. And I understand it, if they return to the original material (I haven't actually watched the original series), there would be no Roslin or Six (or any of the other skin-job model Cylons for that matter), Baltar would be properly evil rather than, well, Baltar, and Starbuck, Boomer and Admiral Cain would all suddenly be men. Weird.
I watched The Edge of Darkness recently, a political thriller about nuclear weapons from the BBC, which aired originally in 1985. It is bloody good. Basically, it's about a cop who witnesses his daughter's murder which causes him to investigate and in turn become involved in a conspiracy involving governments, environmental protesters, secret agents and some wonderful larger-than-life characters. It gets a bit nuts, but just when I think its skirting the edge of credibility, I remind myself that the French government sent secret agents half way around the world to blow up anti-nuclear protest ship in Auckland Harbour the very same year it aired, and so things really were a bit crazy back in the 1980s.
While normally when I watch old TV, I kind of have to adjust my mindset to take into account the low budgets, sub-par effects and the plodding pace, going on twenty-five years after it originally aired it holds up. It seems the BBC actually spent money on it, and the direction and pacing holds up by today's standards. And thinking about its impact, I think it's clear Ashes to Ashes in particular borrows heavily from it, and the daughter hanging about the main character after her death makes me wonder if it was the first time the ghost trope was used on television. These days, its hard to think of television shows that don't have characters talking to dead people.
I also re-watched Children of Earth, and if any one character gets to come back, can it please be Johnson? I've decided she's my favourite of the new crop, as not only is she incredibly competent and morally ambiguous but for a purpose, but they also bothered to give her a degree of compassion, a quality writers don't usually bother with in secondary characters of that nature. Plus, I want Alice back, but that might be because Johnson/Alice is my Torchwood OTP, as messed up as it would be. Oh, and I want Lois as the new Ianto and creepy dude as the new Tosh, because they'd get left behind in the hub while the rest go on missions, and watching Lois constantly one-uping creepy dude to keep him in line could make for great entertainment.
I watched The Edge of Darkness recently, a political thriller about nuclear weapons from the BBC, which aired originally in 1985. It is bloody good. Basically, it's about a cop who witnesses his daughter's murder which causes him to investigate and in turn become involved in a conspiracy involving governments, environmental protesters, secret agents and some wonderful larger-than-life characters. It gets a bit nuts, but just when I think its skirting the edge of credibility, I remind myself that the French government sent secret agents half way around the world to blow up anti-nuclear protest ship in Auckland Harbour the very same year it aired, and so things really were a bit crazy back in the 1980s.
While normally when I watch old TV, I kind of have to adjust my mindset to take into account the low budgets, sub-par effects and the plodding pace, going on twenty-five years after it originally aired it holds up. It seems the BBC actually spent money on it, and the direction and pacing holds up by today's standards. And thinking about its impact, I think it's clear Ashes to Ashes in particular borrows heavily from it, and the daughter hanging about the main character after her death makes me wonder if it was the first time the ghost trope was used on television. These days, its hard to think of television shows that don't have characters talking to dead people.
I also re-watched Children of Earth, and if any one character gets to come back, can it please be Johnson? I've decided she's my favourite of the new crop, as not only is she incredibly competent and morally ambiguous but for a purpose, but they also bothered to give her a degree of compassion, a quality writers don't usually bother with in secondary characters of that nature. Plus, I want Alice back, but that might be because Johnson/Alice is my Torchwood OTP, as messed up as it would be. Oh, and I want Lois as the new Ianto and creepy dude as the new Tosh, because they'd get left behind in the hub while the rest go on missions, and watching Lois constantly one-uping creepy dude to keep him in line could make for great entertainment.
