Ancient Aliens: Underground Things!

So, the producers are endlessly creative about finding themes of. What they're not endlessly creative about finding, though, is content. Because currently they're showing pretty much the only four rock drawings that they ever show, including the "TARDIS rock art"

So there's an underground city in Turkey, that people carved out of soft volcanic rock. After a gratuitous image of a pyramid, we get to see inside this city. Apparently, although things that are obscured from space by trees are always in unbelievably straight lines that are perfectly lined up with constellations, aliens couldn't care less about things that are underground.

Then, they first of all suggest that this has to do with a Zoroastrian myth telling of a culture hiding underground to escape a global winter, and abruptly change tack to suggest that the people were actually hiding from a giant space battle that included at least one faction dedicated to wiping out humans. We're treated to an cheesy CGI sequence of spaceships firing on each other.

Now, we're in the American Southwest, discussing how a lot of the various tribes that live there have similar creation myths. They talk about some Hopi legends that indicate that people went underground for protection from "storms of fire and ice," and "cataclysms," and then go into a complete non sequitur about developing large eyes from living underground and cave paintings with large eyes, and then something about legends involving some kind of "lizard people" and "ant people", as the narrators described them. Then, they ask "If so, could some of them still be living beneath the surface of the Southwestern desert?" The next shot we have involves a van driving through the desert, implying that these people are actually going out alien-hunting in the desert. This is gonna be good! although alien hunting in the desert sounds like it might be fun if you do it with the right people


They're out at the Jicarilla reservation, home to an Apache tribe. They talk briefly with a Native person about the legend, and about stories relating to the nearby Archuleta mesa. Then, it gets better: They show a still photo of the mesa, complete with photoshopped moving sparkly rays!

Now, because it's the US Southwest and aliens alone aren't enough for a good conspiracy in that area, they talk about eyewitness accounts that "are not only true but evidence of a secret collaboration between underground aliens and the US military." Wait, what? The whole "The government experimented on aliens in secret laboratories in the Southwest" thing is a classic conspiracy theory, but "The government and aliens experimented on humans in secret laboratories in the Southwest,"  is a whole new twist on it!

Incidentally, the first commercial in the break is for a show called "The Vikings." From the commercial, I can't tell whether or not this is supposed to be a part of Ancient Aliens until the title screen and the "On the History Channel" bit comes up.

Now, we're in the Andes, discussing an indigenous tribe that lived there, and an Italian Catholic missionary who was given gifts that were "elaborately carved" and contained symbols that he didn't recognize. Apparently, the evidence that aliens were around hinges around the idea that in the 16th or 17th centuries, the Incas were still stuck in the very early part of the Stone Age or something. So, in the 1970's, there's a video of him... wait a second, there were Catholic priests going out to convert indigenous peoples in South America in the 20th century? And this hinges around the idea that, by the 20th century, it's unlikely that the Native tribes could've either made or found intricately carved things?

So, then, someone who's fascinated with these things decided to find out more. There was a guy who had claimed to have been in the cave in '46, and seen lots of things like metal books with strange writing, and things that looked - to him, at least - like some kind of mathematical formula. Someone else went searching for this cave in the 70's, dragged along Neil Armstrong, used an entrance found by the Ecuadorian army, and it appeared that large areas had been excavated. The biggest thing that they seemed to find in the cave was a stone ring. Hasn't anyone here read enough Tolkien to know of the dangers of finding rings in caves?

As of recently, though, they think they got the wrong cave, because they didn't find what they expected. They're very frustrated that they can't find the cave that has what they expect in it, because the local indigenous tribes are keeping all their caves' locations a secret.

Then, the Yucatan peninsula is next up. After following records from 17th century priests, they found a cave with entrances submerged underwater. Once inside, they found an underground temple, complete with a pyramid and bones. They point out that it's consistent with Mayan legends of the entrance to the underworld, with things involving bats, jaguar bones, and other things that could represent various pieces of the myth. But, here's where the circular reasoning comes in: Some archaeologists suggest that this place was intentionally modeled after their legends about the entrance to the underworld. But, our narrator suggests that the Mayan holy book was actually written about this cave! Because, of course, the Mayan underworld deities were aliens, come down from the sky, and were bloodthirsty.

Now, we're at the North Pole, which contains no indigenous human inhabitants, and probably not any caves, either. So the narrators tell us what, "according to mainstream geology," the earth is like! Aside from the fact that someone said "mainstream geology" completely deadpan, it gives an accurate and brief overview of the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core, and mentions that scientists figured this out by measuring gravity, magnetism, and seismic waves.

But, this is not a show to let any mainstream science get in their way, because they say "But no one has ever seen these areas."

"Could the frozen surface of the pole be hiding a gateway to a world within our surface world?" They ask, and promptly answer themselves by saying, "There are those who believe that the answer is yes, and what they believe is known as the 'Hollow Earth Theory.'"

Yes, they're actually supporting the Hollow Earth Theory on this show. It's almost unbelievable, except for the fact that I've already seen some similarly preposterous things on this show, like that time that they suggested that destructive hurricanes happened because people had stopped worshiping Poseidon, or something like that.

Anyways, they try to give this theory credence by citing that Edmund Halley proposed this theory in 1691. I'd like to point out that, whatever else Halley may have figured out about astronomy, the time that he proposed that the earth consists of a matroishka-like series of spheres around an "inner sun", it was a mere sixty years after the Inquisition accused Galileo of heresy for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun, not vice versa.

Moving on, the show says that someone proposed that there were "massive openings at each pole", and reference the Jules Verne novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, and suggest that the interior might contain extinct creatures, or advanced civilizations. Further things they mention are "ray guns," "special weapons," and "flying saucers." This all seems quite implausible, so they ask, "Is there any evidence that such fantastic theories might actually be true, and has anyone actually be inside our earth?"

Of course, since this is Ancient Aliens, the answer is always "Yes, of course!" Aside from anything you might be wondering about Brendan Fraser, the person that they claim has been inside the earth is the explorer Richard Byrd. They claim that "Hollow earth theorists" - my next favorite phrase after "ancient alien theorists" - believe that on February 19th, 1947, Byrd flew inside the earth where the inhabitants used a tractor beam to land his plane, and then told him that they disapproved of humanity's use of nuclear weapons! Of course, since there's no evidence of this, the narrators' rational explanation is that the government covered it up, yet at the same time "staged" a naval operation supposedly involving him near the South Pole so he could "slip away to the other end of the planet, unnoticed by the media."

So, the episode ends with a bad pun, saying "Perhaps we've only just scratched the surface of our planet's underground mysteries."

Off-Topic: The Academy Awards

I'm going to keep it brief considering it was a 3-hour telecast...

The opening where Captain Kirk awkwardly kept telling MacFarlane he'd be the worst Oscar host ever? That was kind of prophetic. Since the list of things that merely fell flat, or were painfully awkward and/or bizarre (The teddy bear, anyone?) is too long, here's the short version:

Things that were overtly offensive:

• "We saw your boobs"
• The joke about eating disorders
• The joke about the show not being gay enough
• The joke about Quvenzhane Wallis having 15 years before she's "too old" for George Clooney

The actual funny things:

• The sock puppet "Flight"
• The intro for Christopher Plummer
• The time he simply said "The next presenter needs no introduction" and actually just walked off the stage without doing an introduction. (The presenter was Meryl Streep)

Entertaining moments that had nothing to do with MacFarlane:

• Jack Nicholson sitting in his usual seat
• The performance of "Goldfinger"
• A tie for Best Sound Editing
• Quvenzhane Wallis being freaking adorable
• Jennifer Lawrence tripping on the way to the stage
• Michelle Obama announcing the Best Picture winner
• That moment of suspense where we all wondered how it'd go over if Best Picture went to Zero Dark Thirty

Absolute worst moment unrelated to the show:

• The Onion's Twitter feed made MacFarlane look tame and inoffensive by comparison when they tweeted some 'satire' calling Quvenzhane Wallis (a nine-year-old girl!) the "C word."

So, yeah, that's it. I'm now an enthusiastic supporter of the 'Tina and Amy to host EVERYTHING!" movement again.

Zero hour: 1 x 02 "Face"

"One is the number of man. One is the number of you. But sometimes one is not one. Sometimes one is two."

Well, I'm glad to see that the principles of basic mathematics are out the window in this show. That's probably going to explain a lot.

[consider this your warning about spoilers, except that it's hard to call them 'spoilers' when the show's plot progresses in exactly the most convenient and predictable way possible, however illogical that may be]

So, then the FBI Agent and Our Hero are in the sub with Vincent, having found a Nazi that looks just like Our Hero, a fob watch, and a cryptic journal. The FBI Agent points out that it's best to kill Vincent now before he can wreak more chaos. Our Hero points out that if he's killed, he won't be able to say where Leila (Our Hero's wife/motivation) is, and Vincent understandably sides with him, so they convince the agent to back down. Then, Our Hero starts pestering Vincent about what the frozen bodies in the sub are, and why this random pocket watch is important, and what he knows, and he takes cell phone photos of the pocket watch, and in the process Vincent makes himself the most relatable character in all of this show by being annoyed at him.

Then, Vincent somehow blows up his SUV, hijacks the FBI's seaplane, and sinks the Nazi sub all at once. But, the FBI Agent and Our Hero somehow manage to get back to NY, where they start bickering again and Our Hero insists that his wife is still alive because he believes it.

The assistant is wondering why he can call the local police, the FBI, and INTERPOL, and they'll still tell them that they haven't made any progress in the case and they don't have any new information. I, personally, am wondering why he can just call up the FBI and INTERPOL and expect to get any information about one of their cases in the first place.

Now, we're back with Vincent, and he threatens to kill Leila and dissolve her body in lye. Which will totally work, because people do it on crime shows, right? Anyways, he then asks her to prove why she's valuable to him in order to save her life. She says she can't, presumably dooming her.

Back at the magazine offices, the priest walks in, and everyone starts talking about how people always think that it's the End Times. Then, the priest goes on about how, in Revelation 16, the first angel pours out his "bowl", and "painful sores" break out on people. He explains that some people, although not him, believe that it refers to AIDS. Then, he says, "Next angel comes, pours out his bowl on the rivers, they became as blood."

Hang on, let's look at that: Revelation 16 is where angels pour out bowls on things, so that's one point for the writers. But...

• The first bowl is "...ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image." So if you consider that the show seems to be referring to this as HIV/AIDS, that creates some major unfortunate implications.  
• The second bowl is the seas becoming like blood, whereas the rivers being like blood is the third bowl, so they got those mixed up. It may seem like a minor mistake, and maybe could even be easily retconned, if it wasn't for the fact that a priest said it.

So then they open up this other pocket watch, and observe that the gears are soldered together. "This clock was never meant to work!" they say. "Who makes a clock that's not supposed to tell time?" Well, aside from the Doctor and the Master and a bunch of other Time Lords, I'd put shadowy secret organizations that a fake CIA division is involved with pretty high on the list.

At least not all of the clocks will have hidden diamond treasure maps in them. But, they have a brilliant idea: Maybe it's a celestial map! Of course it's a celestial map, because the characters' massive leaps to conclusions are always correct if they're necessary to keep the plot moving. So then they look at the time and date that the watch is stopped at, and pull out some kind of book, and somehow manage to figure out that the constellation needs to be viewed in Chennai, India.

Our Hero decides that more clues to this might be in the cryptic journal, but refuses to try to chase down the journal because the FBI Agent has it. The girl assistant agrees to, tracks down the FBI agent, they chat, and the FBI agent hands over the journal saying it's not of any value to the FBI so our protagonists can have it. The guy assistant sends a previously unseen flunky to go online and research plagues and AIDS and rivers of blood, and them him and the girl translate the journal from German.

Anyways, the assistants translate the journal, discover that some guy named Corben or something was a Nazi doing field research on this "Zero Hour" thing (isn't it so convenient how everyone used the same code name for it?) and that a private collector had more information. They track down the collector, and he's conveniently a fan of the magazine, so he's happy to help them out. Super uncomfortably, he's got an entire room decked out in a ton of Nazi paraphenalia, where he shows them a filmstrip kind of thing from the Nazis. It's about their expedition to India to talk to a girl who could reportedly talk to the dead, and this Corben guy looks suspiciously like Our Hero, which manages to make things even more uncomfortable.

Somewhere in here, we're shown a shot of a bathtub with a lot of empty jugs of lye. We can't see the interior of the tub so it's unclear whether this is meant to be a red herring in the classic vein of "No body, no proof," or whether the producers have simply decided that showing the body would be too much for an otherwise very PG-rated show, or perhaps if the producers simply could not be bothered to figure out what it would actually look like (much less have the effects department try to recreate it) if someone decided to attempt to dissolve a body in lye. 

In the meantime, Our Hero and the FBI Agent have made their way to Chennai. They sort of make peace and agree not to kill Vincent when they find him. Just as they're about to have nothing to talk about, Our Hero gets a call from the assistants informing them of everything they've figured out. So they go to find this woman, and the FBI agent mentions that the ideal of a Hindu woman being an apostle might be offensive enough for people to kill over it.

Back at the office, the assistants find a letter in a secret pocket in the journal. It's a letter from Corben to his wife, and it's going on and on like some kind of inanely mushy love letter. I think this guy is supposed to be the Rosicrucian/Nazi double agent? During this voiceover, we have a bizarre scene of the Nazi who looks like Our Hero giving a young Hindu girl something, and his Rosicrucian cross, and she puts a Bindi on his forehead. And I suppose it supposed to promote happiness and harmony and "we're all humans inside" but it just comes off as weird and extremely uncomfortable, although I'm not educated enough on Hinduism to know if that scene is flat-out wrong or just unlikely.

So Our Hero and the FBI Agent find this "Hindu holy woman," as they describe her, and bring her an "offering" of something. She tells them that Our Hero had told her to destroy the clock if she ever saw his face. Our Hero goes off on the but-I-KNOW-my-wife-is-alive tangent and so it's very important that she tell him her secrets anyways. She refuses, saying that his return would prophesy "the coming of the angel of death." I'm trying to decide whether this would be more entertaining with Terry Pratchett's version of Death or the Supernatural version.

As our protagonists leave, someone starts shooting up the area, and unsurprisingly, Vincent shows up. The holy woman willingly moves away from where she's standing, and Vincent steals the clock, then shoots her. So he's attacked on Catholic priest, killed another just a moment ago, and now has shot a Hindu holy woman. Not only is he on his way to becoming a serial killer (or perhaps a spree killer?), but a good DA could have a field day with hate crimes legislation after the next few victims. Anyways, as Vincent drives off, we're treated to a frankly hilarious scene of Our Hero reaching his hand through the fence towards the car and yelling "Leila! I'll find you!" as if he believes that Vincent is toting her around in the trunk of his car or something.

Then, Our Hero returns to where the Hindu holy woman is, and she's dying. Because this episode hasn't had enough awkward moments yet, the woman says with her last breath that she was wrong, and something about the darkness of the coming apocalypse, and that Our Hero alone holds the key to something (despite the fact that Vincent always seems to be one step ahead?) and if he continues chasing Vincent across the planet, he'll bring about the end of the world.

So, I'm not sure what I just watched. Lots of plot threads have been left dangling, and now I'm curious to see if this is a revelation-style apocalypse, and even more curious to see what the writers have decided that the secret that triggers it would be.

Off-topic: Stats!

Well, more specifically, the search terms that have led people to my blog:

This is going to get even more interesting once I start posting about the other conspiracy shows - I think I need to re-watch the pilot of Cult, and post about that, too.

Zero Hour: Pilot

So, the promos kept comparing it to National Treasure. How could I resist? This could be yet another opportunity to use [a slightly adapted version of] my Ancient Alien Bingo cards!

[This technically has spoilers, but they're not really anything that wasn't revealed in the promo. Or anything you won't know by the time the promo for the next episode airs]

So it opens with this probably-supposed-to-be-ominous voiceover:
"Twelve is a magic number. Twelve is divine. Twelve is both the beginning and end of time"

Yay, yet another show that makes me think the writers have been watching too much Doctor Who!

As far as I can tell from the preview, this show is about clocks. True to this implication, we see a flashback sequence where people are building clocks. At least, I think it's a flashback, because there are candles, but everyone looks suspiciously modern, like this is still the original pickup pilot.

Yes, it is a flashback! Apparently in the 1940's, because we see that there are Nazis. One of the characters quotes the "Nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom" Bible verse about the "End of Days." Another character says what turns out to be the most rational and intelligent statement in this entire episode: "Every generation has thought it applies to them and them alone. Every generation has been wrong."

Speaking of being wrong, the person quoting the verse cites it as Luke 4:22. But, wait! Luke 4:22 actually says, in the NIV:

"All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked."

So, aside from the fact that this show involves many elements of Catholicism and therefore managing to get a Bible reference wrong is an especially egregious research fail, let's continue.

Then, his friends retorts, "But never before have the dead risen!" That's right, readers! This show doesn't just involve Nazis, but Nazis and zombies! And it gets better! As they're sneaking around in this secret Nazi facility, they run across a baby with white eyes, and say "This child was born of no womb." And, because this isn't enough, a Nazi is shown holding a cross with the Rosicrucian symbol on it!

Then, the Nazis storm the cathedral, as people sneak something away. One old guy says "Not even God can help any more. Only the Twelve can." Seriously, this is so heavy-handed, who was writing it?

Anyways, so now that we've stuffed enough conspiracy theory elements for a Dan Brown novel into the first four minutes of the show, we go to modern-day Brooklyn.

We see a couple - later revealed to be the lead character and his wife - strolling through a flea marked or something. The woman buys a clock and goes somewhere, while the guy goes to his job. His job is running a magazine of some sort, which seems to be largely focused on cryptozoology, with a staff of precisely two assistants, a guy and a girl.

Then, he gets a phone call. His wife's shop is being broken into! When you discover that someone's breaking into the building where you are, is the proper reaction to:

1. Call 911?
2. Call and ask for your husband to call 911, who then shuffles off that task to his assistant.

If you guessed #1, congrats, you're right! If you also guessed that the reason #2 exists is because that's precisely what our intrepid heroes did, you're also correct.

Next scene, the police have arrived, and the wife is missing. The main character is angry that the police only asked "generic" (yes, that's the exact word he used) questions and haven't tried to figure out why the thief didn't take anything other than the wife. Apparently, the ideas that a) maybe the break-in was simply the means for a kidnapping and/or b) maybe he was scared off when he realized that someone was inside, calling for help, are both unsatisfactory. No, this must be a conspiracy!

A few hours later, the FBI stops by the guy's home! They say they know more than the local police, because they've "been working on this case for a very, very long time." Then, they ask this man if the name "White Vincent" means anything. They claim that he's the world's "highest-paid mercenary" (again, exact words) and that he's "on every no-fly list we've got." Because, in alternate-conspiracy-world, the TSA's no-fly list that nobody can even find out if they're on is insufficient.

Then, the FBI agents start asking him questions about his wife, trying to figure out if she had any connection to anything that might make this "White Vincent" character take notice of her. This prompts a complete 180 in our character's behavior. Rather than being angry that people aren't going enough to find his wife, he now seems entirely concerned about the fact that the FBI thinks that maybe his wife was somehow involved with something less than perfectly pure and legal, and unbelieving of the idea that they may still want to find his wife.

So, after they leave, the guy pulls out the clock his wife bought earlier that day, which he correctly (but through an inexplicable leap of logic) assumes is the thief's highly sought-after item. So he takes the clock back to his office, where the assistants gather around and pull out a diamond. They see a "flaw" on the diamond, but after examining it closely and shining some light so it refracts on the wall, it's a map! With a spot somewhere in Canada marked! This is starting to feel almost like a plotline in Alias... but not as much as it feels like National Treasure 5 or whatever they're on by now.


Now, they're arguing about whether or not treasure maps really exist. Now, regardless of what they think, this is a map, with a spot marked and labelled on it. It seems pretty obvious that there's something important that someone wanted hidden at that spot.

So, they've decided that the only person who can explain it to them is a priest that this guy know. The priest explains to them that this involved Rosicrucians, but as monks or whatever, they probably didn't do the whole "treasure" thing, and therefore the map  Priest points out that rosicrucians probably didn't do treasure, so the place marked on map is probably lost city, in arctic circle.

Just as the plot might slow down, this guy gets a call on his cell phone! The person basically keeps asking questions about the clock, and asks the guy to exchange the clock for his wife. The guy agrees to that, and leaves the diamond in the church safe with the priest.

But, when the guy informs the FBI about this, he inexplicably decides to fudge the truth and tell them that the caller is demanding a cash ransom for his wife, not a clock. So, the FBI runs him through it, and says they'll track the caller. As the exchange goes down, although it's not clear which item is being exchanged, the FBI discovers that the caller was routing everything through a room in an empty building.

Then, it turns out that the priest was attacked, and the diamond was stolen from the church safe. The main character guy tells the FBI that "We are done" and says that the caller "got what he wanted." When the FBI asks what it is that the mysterious caller wanted, the guy apparently decides that finding his wife is not remotely as important as taunting the FBI, so he refuses to say and storms off.

Anyways, he decides that this mysterious person has gone to New Bartholomew, taking his wife along with him, and decides to go up there himself. The female FBI agent catches up with him at the airport, and once again he refuses to do more than obnoxiously hint at the fact that the FBI has no idea what's going on. The FBI agent points out that there's nothing he can do to stop her following him, and that she also has a gun and is allowed to take it on the plane, and says something about terrorists and convinces him to grudgingly cooperate with her.

Then, the two assistants, annoyed at being left behind, decide to track down the person who made the clock. They find out that he's 93, living in Bulgaria, and has neither phone nor email so the only way to talk to him is to fly out there and go to the address in person.

Then, we see someone who's presumably the kidnapper. He scratches a "zero" on the bathroom mirror, and takes out contacts, revealing creepy white eyes. Presumably, he is the white-eyed baby that the Nazis created. Presumably, this is also what the "white" in "White Vincent" refers to.

Anyways, the guy and the FBI agent have managed to get to the location of this "New Bartholomew" with almost GPS-like precision, only to find a Nazi submarine with a variety of bodies frozen inside. Apparently, they have managed to beat the kidnapper to this site.

The assistants track down the clockmaker, and show him the clock. Eventually, the clockmaker explains that in 1938, in a move so secret that not even the Pope knew because something secret could bring about the end of the world, so the Church invited twelve "New Apostles" to keep this secret. They were named things like "New Luke", "New Peter", and - you guessed it! - "New Bartholomew." Apparently, New Bartholomew was both a Catholic and a Nazi! I am not going to make any comments about the Pope here...

So, apparently our Nazi/Rosicrucian apostle, like all the other ones, had an individualized clock. The clockmaker goes on to give us a final voiceover. Apparently, the Nazis had figured out the first steps to achieving eternal life! And he says that it's important to find the clocks before "the enemy" does (what enemy? Are there still Nazis around?) and that the secret thing will pit "science against religion, country against country..." and that this giant upheaval is called "zero hour," because in the middle of hiding world-changing secrets from Nazis the most important thing to do is to come up with clock-themed names for everything.

So far, I've got two reactions: One, I'm disappointed that so far, we haven't seen anything about the dead having risen, and two, I'm wondering what kind of secret the writers could possibly dream up that could be that important.

Book: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

So, I was looking around for some YA fantasy featuring female protagonists or something, and someone reccomended this book to me. Sounds good!

The description on Amazon.com goes:

"Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight--she's a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king's thug.

When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change. She never expects to become Po's friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace--or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away . . . a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone." 

The world-building in this book is a bit light for how I prefer my high fantasy worlds to be built, but still very realistic. For example, not everyone is born with a "cool" Grace like killing or fighting - instead, it's mentioned that some people are Graced with more or less useless skills like the ability to climb trees unusually well. And this does qualify as "high fantasy" pretty well, because although there aren't (so far) elves or dwarves, there are still plenty of castles and kings and swords and all of that.

Then, there's the character of Katsa. She's quickly taking her place as one of my favorite literary characters. She's not just a "strong female character" in that she can swing around a sword. She's also persistent, intelligent, and rather feminist. While there is romance, as one could guess, it's not your typical YA romance, either.  She actually takes time to think about, and discuss, what kind of relationship she wants, whether or not she wants children, and so on. She makes it a point to teach other young women how to stand up for and defend themselves.

There isn't much in the way of a plot - Read the blurb, assume that Katsa and Po end up travelling all around their known world for a while because high fantasy wouldn't be high fantasy without the main characters spending copious amounts of time riding horses from point A to point B in multi-day journeys, and it's pretty straightforward. The book's biggest problem is that a genre-savvy reader could probably see the plot "twist" coming from about halfway through the book, but otherwise, it's a solid start to the series.

My DVR: Cable & Foreign Shows

OK, so in this case, "DVR" may be a bit flexible, if the foreign shows aren't being imported sufficiently quickly. I'm also not quite up on what day these are on, so they'll just be listed by network:

Doctor Who (BBC America)
Oh, that classic BBC show. I've made many friends over it, and converted many more friends, and now you can go to Target and see people wearing Doctor Who t-shirts. And this year is the 50th anniversary! 

The Hour (BBC America)
It's like Mad Men meets The Newsroom, about a young woman who's made a producer of a new BBC news program in the 1950's. Plus, you get to laugh at Ben Wishaw's character (pre-Skyfall) constantly referring to the female lead as "Moneypenny." 

Mythbusters (Discovery)
If you need to know why I DVR this, you probably not only haven't seen it before, you probably don't even know what it's about.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Hub)
Yep, I watch it. But, for the record, it's really cute, and has super awesome lessons that even I sometimes need to hear repeated. 

Project Runway (Lifetime)
I was introduced to this my first week after moving into the dorms freshman year of college, during its 3rd season. I've been sewing for ages, and I love pretty dresses, so I've kept watching! 

Teen Wolf (MTV)
It's my new addiction! And I blog extensively about this one, if you can't tell ;-)

Continuum (Syfy)
As an earlier post mentioned, I've only just started watching this, so I can't really say a lot one way or another. 

Warehouse 13 (Syfy)
I started watching it because I loved the premise - when I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, I always spent so much time wondering what else was filling up that warehouse, and thought the idea was so cool - and stayed for the characters, hilarious references to history and literature, and the heartbreak and emotional drama that the writers put us all through. 

Rizzoli & Isles (TNT)
My very favorite detective/forensics show ever, not the least because it features some really awesome female characters. Yay! Also, they're basically me and my roommate: I'm the blond socially awkward Irish girl, and she's the brunette part Italian Boston native.

Ancient Aliens: JACKPOT!

The idea that sparked a "nonfiction" book, this entire "ancient alien" theory, and one of the largest and longest-running sci-fi franchises.

Yes, this is it. This, blog readers, is the inevitable Aliens Built The Pyramids episode.

So, we start out with a random UC Irvine professor defining a "pyramid" as anything square and larger on the bottom and smaller on top. He suggests that pyramids are some of the very first structures humans built because they're so stable.

So far, it's just various people remarking on how many different places that one can find pyramids. And then our resident "Ancient Alien Theorist" says that the "greatest mystery of all time" is the question of who built the pyramids and how.

The next big question that this man asks is, why build the pyramids so tall? I don't know, why don't they ask the person who made that building in Dubai that's a freaking half mile tall?

So now they're talking about Egypt in 1940. I'm not sure which of the two (or more?) media franchises that deals with 1940's Egypt that I should start referencing now...

They mention that the sides of the pyramids are slightly angled in, and that the sun shows it at the solstices. "This implies that whoever built this was aware of the solar cycle." If they really think that ancient people couldn't have counted to 365 after millennia of practice or figured out which directions were east and west, they really need to read a Boy Scout handbook or something...

"Mainstream scientists believe..." Wait, WHAT? Stop right there.

They presented and opposing viewpoint.
THEY PRESENTED AN OPPOSING VIEWPOINT.
THEY PRESENTED AN OPPOSING VIEWPOINT.

Let's pause for a second and celebrate this momentous occasion!

But wait! Now that we've got the shred of good scientific research out of the way, we're getting into real pseudoscience, not just stuff that relies on ancient people not being able to handle 10th-grade math!

"It's possible that the earliest pyramids were made as beacons."  Beacons of... what? To what? But then they say that the Mayan pyramids can't be seen from above. Which either means they're still going on the "can't handle basic geometry" tangent, or else means that their beacons can pass through trees.

Now, they're talking about how a large Buddhist stupa was "a place where man connected with the gods."

Except, the concept of "gods" is not central to Buddhism. It's true that the beings at their highest level(s) of enlightenment could be loosely considered "deities", but worshiping, praying to, or otherwise attempting to please them is not something that really meshes with the Buddhist beliefs about how to attain that level of enlightenment.

And, because we don't have enough circular reasoning yet, the show is discussing how people make pilgrimages up the stairs of some pyramid or another because, according to the hosts, it's a metaphor for a journey to the stars. (I suspect that they did not consult anyone practicing any of these religions) But why are they a metaphor for a journey up to the stars? Because, the stairs actually did literally take people from ancient wherever-it-is up to meet extraterrestrials!

So, now the conversation returns to where pyramids are, with China as the location of the moment. "While some researchers believe they were tombs, others believe that they are pyramids, covered up by the Chinese government." Well, alright, there's no reason that they can't be both, but carry on...

Now they're asking, "Why is the Chinese government attempting to hide these ancient structures?" I don't know, does anyone in the Western world have a good understanding of why the Chinese government does anything? These people probably don't, judging from their complete ignorance of millennia-old Eastern religions.

"Ancient Chinese emperors claimed contact with extraterrestrials...." Pretty much every single leader of every single vaguely nation-state-like thing since the beginning of time up until the 19th century claimed some kind of special blessing or avenue of contact with their deity of choice. Which, on this show, means "extraterrestrial."

"Countries that want to ensure that the truth of their extraterrestrial origin will never be known." Apparently, whoever's saying this - likely That Guy With The Hair - has forgotten that they're well on their way to claiming that every single country on the planet (including the USA), if not the entire human race, has extraterrestrial origins. I give them until halfway through next season.

Fast-forward through some almost identical stuff about buried pyramids in Bosnia, that do not provide any additional opportunities for snarky pictures.

And the narrator just used the words "forbidden archaeology." As if there's an archaeology police that will arrest you if you start talking about aliens. Instead of just side-eyeing your psuedoscience and not publishing you in peer-reviewed journals. Even Stargate SG-1 got that one right.

So, apparently they're done with ancient pyramids, because now they're talking about a "massive pyramid of fiberglass" financed and built by a Russian defense contractor, in Ukraine. This defense contractor, around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, believed that pyramids produced "energies that could affect biological and non-biological materials." Congrats, that's every kind of material on the planet. And what kind of energy, by the way?

"The Russian air force knows this." Yes. The Russian (or Soviet) air force is exactly the most technologically advanced, well-informed air force in the world!

Then they asserted that "...by placing materials within the pyramid it promotes growth, it promotes health, it promotes longevity." Um, citation, please? Oh, wait, they just used the phrase "Pyramid power."

Happily, the show has gone back to topic ancient Egypt!

They said, verbatim, "The pyramids seem to be placed where the energy is..." which is quite confusing considering that they seemed to be promoting the idea that pyramids somehow created "energy" right before the last commercial break! And, the ambiguity of this energy continues - it's referred to as "cosmic energy" and "underground energy", but they never go as far as specifying whether it's electromagnetic energy or what.

And, this is the line that we've been waiting for, right here...

"Could ancient civilizations have built pyramids to mark sites of extraterrestrial contact?"

I just don't have words for that one. Except that.... alien ship landing platforms.

Now, they're saying something about "Is it possible that the Mayans, and other ancient cultures, could have been given information about energy pyramids blah blah from aliens?" [Author's Note: My brain kind of gave out here, so transcription is somewhat incomplete] "Blah blah (probably 'ancient astronaut theorists') believe that the pyramids of Giza could produce enough energy to reach not just across the planets, but across the universe!" And once again, they don't mention what kind of energy these pyramids supposedly produce!

Now, they're finally getting back to some remotely (and I mean very, very remotely. Like, makes Antarctica look just next door remotely) scientific attempts to explain this theory.

So, what they're talking about, is that in '77 and '87, an electronics engineer did experiments on top of the pyramid. He was using not just standard equipment, or equipment that had been tested or calibrated to ASTM standards or anything, but equipment he had designed himself. And then, he says the words "energy field." I believe that Neil deGrasse Tyson has something to say about this...

If I could only follow one Twitter account, this would be it.

Then, they go on to state "He developed, in his laboratory, a method for generating this pyramid energy so he could do research on it." Alright, excellent! Methods? "... a model pyramid and centrifuge and alternating magnetic field..." and they say that this creates a "bubble" that could block all electromagnetic radiation, even gamma rays.

They include a photograph of this equipment. Notably, the equipment is not blocking electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum.

Now, it gets really, really fun and psuedoscientific. This makes the preceding episode sound like amateur hour. Ready?

Supposedly, this model pyramid became weightless (which I take to mean "levitated", unless the person in question actually had it on a scale at the time), started moving, aligned with the constellation Orion (It's the First Law of Pyramids: All pyramids somehow align with Orion) and - get this - went into hyperspace.

Now, they're mentioning something about string theory. Let me take a minute to tell you what I, as a physicist, think about string theory: It's either a completely brilliant or completely crackpot theory, but either way, it's what happens when you mix theoretical physicists and mind-altering substances.

Anyways, now they're saying the pyramid acted as a time machine, and something about... wait, "weird electromagnetic vibrations"?  Um, electromagnetic vibrations are no fancier than light. Granted, they can also come in the form of radio waves or microwaves or infared or UV or gamma radiation, but if you hear someone say the words "all electromagnetic radiation", replace it with "light." If it sounds improbable, laughable, or flat-out wrong, they're probably being imprecise at best, or maybe even outright psuedoscientific!

So then they close out saying that nobody built more pyramids like that because aliens stole the blueprints or something (yes, they said "blueprint") and something about gateways and "advanced otherworldly technology" but, very sadly, they didn't say the word "stargate" once in this episode.

And, fortunately, that's over. I don't think my brain could've handled any more.

Ancient Aliens: DISASTERS!

Now we're blaming every great big disaster on aliens. Once again, a Doctor Who link is only appropriate...

So, is this going to get insensitive at any point in the episode, or are we going to stick to dinosaurs and Pompeii and hasn't negatively affected anyone who's currently alive?

Oh, wait, they started off with the Japan Earthquake in 2011. Wow. This is so much more astoundingly insensitive than I thought it would be!

This is apparently bolstered by the claim that UFO's were sighted over Japan shortly after the earthquake and tsunami.

Fortunately, now they're back to ancient Mediterranean places, and they're talking about Poseidon. Let's all take a moment to let that sink in: This show, which airs on a channel that purports to be about history, is actually promoting the idea that major earthquakes are caused by angry, invisible, superpowered beings, instead of things like plate tectonics.

And they're angry because you aren't building them statues and temples any more, because nothing will make you think that you should start worshiping random long-forgotten deities like a natural disaster! Yet, Virginia Beach continues to somehow get hit by hurricanes despite having a large statue of Poseidon/Neptune on the shore. (Also, I totally found a photo of Medusa texting while looking for an image of that)

I'm sorry, that was the sound of... well, it was several sounds, including the entire scientific community doing their best Jean-Luc Picard impression, some young-earth creationists also laughing at you, and whatever small tremor happened somewhere in my county as I was typing up this very post.

Oh, and now the Haiti earthquake! This show is coming in as a late but strong contender against Pat Robertson in the "Who can say the most offensive thing about the Haiti earhquake" category.

They used the words "powerful thunderstorm" in the same sentence as "essentially nuclear-level destruction across the US." I think they're misunderstanding the words "essentially" or "nuclear" or more likely both.

Finally, they're back at the Flood, which seems like the logical and inoffensive place to start. They get points for noticing that the "Hebrew Bible" and "Islamic Koran", as well as the Epic of Gilgamesh, all contain similar stories.

And then they mentioned Krakatoa, which was kind of

They used the word "Chariot of the Gods" without referencing the book, or having the author on to talk about it!

Then, someone actually said the sentence,"Ancient extraterrestrials are hollowing out volcanoes to use as a base." Hang on a moment, I didn't put in a "Someone made a movie/TV show of this" square on my Ancient Aliens Bingo Cards! Because that is literally the plot of a Doctor Who episode involving Vesuvius.

So, now they're presenting the theory that aliens created deserts such as the Sahara. Rather than deserts being hot an inhospitable because that's just what happens when you get something in a place with low humidity and no water source, or that animals tend not to live there because it's hot and inhospitable, their explanation? That aliens zapped it with some kind of water-and-life destroying force or something. I don't know, I'm not paying that much attention now.

But, now they're back to repeating some of their most popular lines - for example, that every stylized human shape looks like an alien/spacesuits, and that ancient people were fascinated by the brightest star in the sky because it was where the aliens came from.

So, let's take another moment to sit back and comprehend the massive Occam's Razor fail here.

Now, they're talking about something like "certain comets that are programmed to bring life... certain comets that are programmed to bring destruction" with the implication that some alien/deity/beings tried to warn some ancient cultures about comets.

Seriously? What's the point of telling an "ancient" culture about an impending comet? What are they going to do about it? Build a spaceship out of rocks and sticks to put a nuke (also made out of rocks and sticks) in the middle of the comet?

Finally, they end on the Yucatan crater, asking "could it have been a planned event? If so, why?" Their proposals were that the dinosaurs needed to be killed off so the planet would be safe for humans. But, why? Why does it have to be humans, specifically? Why something so soft and squishy and tiny? Most importantly, why not let dinosaurs evolve until they're sentient? Because sentient dinosaurs would just be AWESOME.