Play My Cards Right

As I was driving back to work from lunch, I pulled up next to a car with a black bumper sticker on it that said, “These acts of aggression will not stand, man. –The Dude”

As I sat there, I began to smell pot, and the smell got stronger and stronger. It had to be the big lebowski car. All of his windows were closed. Yet somehow, this big lebowski car managed to stink up an entire city block with the smell of mary jane. Slowly I drove away, and the smell was gone. The dude abides.

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Let us swing away from politics for a moment and talk of THE NEW FALL LINE-UP!

I watched JJ Abrahm’s Lost last night. Originally a two hour pilot, only the first hour of which aired. For a TV pilot, it was near-cinema.

Story: around 50 people are stranded on an island after their plane crashes on a mysterious island in the pacific. Stars the guy from Party of Five, a hot girl, Merry and the guy from Millenium (who isn’t Lance Hendrikson), among others. One a doctor, one a hot girl, one a rock star, one an old weirdo. They are over 1000 miles off course and it is unlikely that they’ll be found any time soon. Also, there may or may not be a T-Rex/Giant Robot/Godzilla/Cujo on the island, ready to eat them all on a moments notice.

The “episode” opens with Party of Five waking up in the jungle, and he (and us) slowly makes his way out to the crash site, which is appropriately horrific. Very high production values, and the musical score was completely amazing. Remember when I talked about how the strings were put to good use in Alias? Well, JJ stole them (and maybe quality in general) from Alias and painted them all onto this interesting little morsel. Lots of death, explosions and body parts too.

Right when it was getting good, it was over, and we now have to wait until next week to see the conclusion.

All in all, its a pretty neat show, but its also a very strange pilot. Obviously the pilot is setting up the show, but by the end of the first episode, we really have no idea who the characters are, why we should like them. One can assume that there will be some kind of Lord of the Flies esque island society set up, as there are 50 people. But that is a very large cast. Are they all going to live? Are they all going to get picked off one by one? When will the sudden but inevitable betrayal finally occur? How can they afford a show like this? How big is the island? Big enought to sustain a quality show for more than a year? I guess we’ll see.

I will be watching next week. It seems as though the networks are taking a few risks with their hour long dramas this year, undoubtedly in hopes of getting some viewers back from HBO.

Update

I just watched part two…spoilers ahead…
(more…)

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OK, so you’re a big-three network and you’re trying to win back viewers.

I propose:

Limited run, 24 episode series. High budget, high production values. Advertise them like television events. Hire on well known stars to participate in them under the acknowledgement that they will only run for a year. Develop and script every episode prior to filming even the first one, and make only what changes are necessary due to circumstances beyond your control.

Hire a showrunner with a strong vision and round up a handful of writers who will stick through until the show ends.

Even if you don’t make all your money back during the show’s run, eschew syndication and start selling the dvds immediately, having recorded cast and production commentary as close to the show as possible- how bout record it the night it airs, to hear how people react to the show as it is delivered to America. Once its had its run, sell it on pay-per-view. Run it in syndication on your cable affiliates.

If it is hugely successful, produce a sequal. Not a second season, a sequal.

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Don’t forget to check out Lo-Rez Live. Hopefully I’ll be sending up pics from the coming festivities!

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Firefox 1.0 Preview Release is out, and while totally great, it BREAKS THE BEST EXTENSION OF ALL TIME. I speak, of course, of the Bookmarks Sync extension. Please sir, update it soon.
The new find feature, which places the find bar in a little toolbar on the bottom of the page, is a very nice touch:

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David O. Russell’s new movie. He of Spanking the Monkey and Three Kings. Check it.

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Do you know what I really hate? I mean really really hate? Synth orchestras!

The Flaming Lips are highly guilty of the use of such abominations on the later records. But you know who else is? FARSCAPE. AND IT DESTROYS MY BRAIN. Farscape is filled with such creativity, it takes me right out of the show almost every time they turn up the synth horns and strings at some melodromatic moment. Now don’t get me wrong, synthesized classical instruments have come a long way, but why would a show like Farscape, a show with such talent and imagination, rely so heavily on traditional forms, forms that are then weakened by bad synthetic reproduction. Would it be so much to consider the use of a synthesizer that doesn’t sound like its trying to reproduce other sounds. Look at the Sci-Fi soundtracks of the late 70’s/ early 80’s- Blade Runner, etc. People may think the Vangelis score is over the top, but it definitely adds to the otherworldly-ness of the piece. Is it so much to ask to have the people who score the show try and come up with something as creative as the show’s visuals, while maintaining the need to accent the show’s melodrama? Surely it can’t be that hard. In a show that seems to pride itself on bucking Sci-Fi convention, the score consistently supsends my suspension of disbelief and makes my mind look at Farscape like its just another crappy Sci-Fi Channel program. Too bad.

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