Barkerburgh

Sometimes, you’re busy on the computer and you were watching something on Teletoon but it’s over and you don’t change the channel because you’re trying to figure out just what the frack about Dreamweaver anyway and then this new anime-esque CG show comes on and you’re mesmerised, kind of like when you started to watch the Battlestar Galactica mini-series and had to stop rebuilding your computer because you didn’t want to miss anything and this is the same. ‘Stunning‘ ain’t too cool a word.

It’s like 2251 and the Earth is all broken up into chunks that still orbit the core. Some of the chunks are big enough to support entire communities. There’s a government body called the Sphere and pirates. Water is very valuable, cuz like where are you going to find it? Oh, the pirates are rebels against the corrupt Sphere. Everybody flies everywhere. There’s a flying machine that’s like a cross between the Nautilus and Nuestra Senora de Atocha.

The official site is here.

From the Wikipedia article: “Skyland, is a CGI cartoon developed in partnership in Canada/France/Luxembourg for the television channels Teletoon (in Canada), the NickToons Network (USA), Canal France 2 (France) and CiTV (Channel and slot on ITV1 in the UK). It was launched on April 22, 2006, at 7:30 pm on Teletoon. A one hour, worldwide preview was aired on November 26, 2005 at 7:00 PM or 8:00 PM EST and again and 11:00 PM as well as at 8:00 PM and 11:00 the following day. The show is produced by Paris’s Method Films and Toronto’s 9 Story Entertainment.”

They appear to have used motion-capture for the people, and realistically imaginative exquisite backgrounds. Tonight they had a chunk of Ile-de-France that contained the Metro station Charles de Gaulle-Etoile. I’ve actually been there. Who could have prognosticated?

This show is as pretty to look at as Dragonbooster, but with way more substance. I can say that authoritatively, having only seen one and a half episodes of Skyland (op. cit.).

Google string for ’skyland teletoon’

(Yeah, I know. I said I was going to watch every episode of Distraction. I’ve seen like three.)

PS, and apropos of nothing, Anneli can do Chewbacca, and I can’t. One of her family cats can do a better Yoda than I do.

1> ‘The Unit’ looks like a good show.

2> So does ‘Boston Legal’.

3> That poor kid in Detroit who the 911 operator told to stop fooling around with the 911 system…

4> I really should have been watching ‘Babylon 5′ years ago.

5> Dean Koontz’es’s book ‘From the Corner of His Eye’ is a good read, nicely constructed, even though hardly anything really plotty happens until about page 600.

6> ‘My Name is Earl’ gets funnier and funnier.

7> Venus Express!

8> I love this weather.

9> The last few episodes of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ have been kickass, except I missed it both times on Space this past weekend through bad TV viewing planning. I guess I need to take a course.

10> ‘Coronation Street’ is getting kinda wacky, but that’s good. It’s a little boring when things are normal.

11> Nancy Grace is a foul human being.

12> If I was taller, I could see farther in a crowd during an emergency.

The Yanks who don’t illegally and immorally download TV shows from the internet are finally going to get a chance to see the first season of the new Doctor Who.

That link is also an interesting but short interview with Russell Davies, Doctor Who’s nurse-practitioner midwife, God bless’im.

When I was visiting Guildwood a while back, I took a look at Reid’s list of movies and TV shows that he’s downloaded.

Here’s just a sample.

Now, I would never stoop to such a thing, and I have been rewarded.

Last night, I was transported by the new film “Doctor Who and the Christmas Invasion.” Now I know that all my immoral, unethical friends have already seen it but this was the first time for me.

It was a blast that rocked. I’d been waiting for it for a while and had my snacks and juice boxes all ready.

Yee haaaa!

It ran a little bit shy of its 90 minute time slot, and as a reward, I got to see the Christmas edition of Nick Park and Aardman Studios’ ‘Creature Comforts‘.

Now if you haven’t heard of or seen them, well let me just tell you that they took ‘man on the street’ type interviews and animated them in Aardman’s classic Claymation-type stop-motion style of those shows about the guy and that dog, only with animals as the speakers…

I say I was rewarded because my immoral and unethical friends who watched ‘The Christmas Invasion’ via download back at Hallowe’en probably didn’t watch it last night because of it was commercial television and so missed this little stocking stuffer.

It’s against my nature but I want so hard to feel smug. Really smug. The smuggiest. Smug-arama comin’ atcha down the train tracks! In-your-face smug-and-a-half.

But I won’t, because instead, I feel humble and blessed.

Na-na-na-Na-na-na!

I have not properly expressed my appreciation of the Canadian TV series Corner Gas. I have mentioned it before with appreciation, but I don’t even have a category for it, as I do for both Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who, without which life would mean nearly nothing. But for Corner Gas.

So here it is. Wait, I have to mention Robson Arms too, even though I’ve only seen one episode and it was funny.

Okay, Corner Gas. It takes place in the small town of Dog River, Saskatchewan, which, like the New York City of Friends or the Los Angeles of Blade Runner, is entirely fictional.

It’s make-me-laugh funny, even when I least expect it. They’ll say a line that’s funny, in, say, a scene five minutes into an episode, and I’ll laugh. Then, say, ten minutes later - or even right at the end - they’ll use the line again, out of the blue, out of left field, but still durn funny, and there I am blindsided, larfing again at the same line. Well, really the same joke in a slightly different context.

Now, there’s two kinds of jokes (for this comparison: there are at last official count, eight hundred and thirty seven kinds of joke in English alone - of the living languages, Hindi and Elvish have over a thousand each) . There’s the joke you see coming because of the setup. If you have a clue, the setup is like an answer on Jeopardy. “Aw, jeez, the question’s right there.” If you’re not paying attention, then good comedy, good jokes, depend as much on misdirection as anything fancy by David Copperfield or Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin (1805-1871). It sneaks up on you over here, when you’re looking over there. Good comedy - good jokes - are as delightful and manipulative as good magic. Whaddayano.

Corner Gas is as nearly perfect a TV comedy as there’s ever been. And it’s Canadian. And it stars a lot of Canadian stars - well, people who should be stars. Now I enjoy them all, but two of my favourites are the cops; Lorne Cardinal as Davis and Tara Spencer-Nairn as Karen. Not giving too much credit where credit is overdue. It’s an ensemble show, and the cop gags are always funny.

So that brings us to Brent Butt. Yes, il s’appele Brent Butt. He’s the creator and, inspired, plays the lead character of the show, Brent Leroy, who runs the gas station cum corner store that names the series. (See, I avoided the term eponymous, for no good reason.) His delivery is priceless.

Years ago, I remember thinking that the American cable stations were producing really cool stuff, outside the Hayes Code, the Mann Act and the Ten Commandments. This was before you could say ‘boobies’ and ‘underpants’ on Canadian TV.

Now you can, and when you have a nearly perfect situation comedy, you don’t have to. Although they skirt that ‘don’t have to’ sometimes.

Watch it and see.

Saw the Victorian Era Charles Dickens Cardiff not Naples and 1869 not 1860 episode on CBC last night, a good story in itself, and obviously a setup for the second Slitheen episode and so now I understand better how the entire series isn’t a series of episodes, but one long story with distinctive nodes, as it were and if you will.

I shall miss the Doctor, Rose, Mickey, the 51st Century American flyboy, even the nasty Daleks. Nasty, nasty Daleks, all flying naked in space like Cylons and killing people. Ick.

And how old is that new Doctor? Thirteen, maybe fifteen. New teeth, too.

No Battlestar Galactica until God knows when, now no Doctor Who until 2006 and no more Star Trek:Enterprise ever. Oh wait, that last one’s a good thing. So I guess TV’s not all bad.

Now check this out: The Cutest Dalek.

And welcome back, tnir.org!

Who’s here.

Okay. I love the new Doctor Who. I liked the Slitheen story-line. I liked the London Blitz story-line.

I like story-lines that combine other story-lines. It’s basic story telling. Vergil incorporated the Trojan War story and the separate Romulus and Remus legend with a (probably totally) made-up story-line about Aeneas and Dido, to explain the classic and traditional enmity between Rome and Carthage. (It was really territorial and small ‘i’ imperial ambitions and trade rivalries, but the slighted mad-woman love story schtick sold the whole thing a lot better than pie-charts and drawing pins on a map…)

So anyhoo, I think that maybe they shouldn’t have brought back the Slitheen so quickly (how ever much I liked the episode). It’s kind of like what all the Star Treks did in their first seasons, which was to bring out all the kick-ass TV SF tropes; in case the show didn’t last, they wanted to go out with a bang.

I don’t think this show has to worry about that.

If Russel T. Davies stays associated with it, I think this show will be around for a while.

Told you the Brits can do TV SF better than the Americans. Pace my beloved Battlestar Galactica.

There’s a picture of the next Doctor Who about halfway down this page.

It’s Italian text so no spoilers except for U-No-Who-isa…

Apparently the new guy is al momento impegnato nelle riprese di Harry Potter e il calice di fuoco.

Cool.

I loves me a little Doctor Who once a week or so. Nanogenes, 51st Century sensibilities and nobody dies!

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Ann Bancroft died on Monday. When I heard about it this morning I actually got a lump in my throat for Mel Brooks. I remember how surprised I was when I heard they were married. What a couple! What? A couple? What an odd couple!

I’m remembering how taken I was when I saw “The Miracle Worker” as a child.

Now I’m remembering how much I was befuddled by “The Graduate.”

Okay, now I’m remembering how much I enjoyed “To Be or Not To Be.”

I could go on.

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For fun, interest, and your own private Meadian Samoa, I recommend the discussions on plastic.com.