Orphan Black

So back when Doctor Who season 7.2/7.5/whatever you want to call it where JLC shows up for good premiered, this TV show - about clones, who discover they're clones - premiered right afterwards. I watched it, and it seemed interesting, but it didn't hold my interest enough to watch the next week's episode.

Sometime after all the season finales, though, I ran out of new things to watch and gave this show a second try. And wow, was it worth it.

The basic plot is that our main character (and almost always our POV character) Sarah is a small-time criminal and deadbeat single mom, and one night she sees a woman who looks just like her commit suicide in the subway. At that point, she decides that the logical thing to do is to pick up that woman's bag and heels and take over her identity or at least her bank accounts. Then, she ends up discovering that this woman's life isn't magically perfect - in fact, both Sarah and the dead woman, Beth, are members of a group of clones that's being killed off.

Admittedly, the first three or four episodes are a bit slow. But sometime around episode six people outside of their little circle start discovering their secrets, sh#t really hits the fan, and this series becomes incredibly addictive. And the supporting characters are great, too: Beth's partner, Art, and the forensic tech, and her boyfriend, Paul; Allison's husband; Cosima's French friend Delphine; Sarah's foster mom, her biological daughter, Kira, and my absolute favorite of all, her flamboyantly gay foster brother and co-conspirator, Felix.

And that Emmy buzz surrounding Tatiana Maslany? She completely deserves it. At times, I completely forget it's the same actress playing all those characters - apparently, there's supposed to be nine clones that Cosima has tracked down "so far", but so far I've only counted six that I've seen on-screen (Sarah, Beth, The German/Jane Doe, Allison, Cosima, and Helena). The amazing part isn't just how she plays Sarah or Allison or Cosima - it's how she also perfectly manages the complexities of one clone trying to be another. A less skilled actress, if she played Sarah and Allison, for example, and suddenly was faced with the role of Sarah pretending to be Allison, might simply play that role the same way she plays Allison, whereas with Maslany's performance we still know that it's Sarah we're watching.

Although nothing will fill the gap that Fringe has left in my heart and schedule, this is definitely satiating my desire for brainy weird scifi! (Also, this makes keeping track of a different versions of each character in each of 2 universes in each of 2 timelines, plus one universe in a future timeline, look simple!)

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.

New midseason TV!

Now that Fringe is over... OK, I still haven't gotten over Fringe, and there's now an empty Fringe-shaped space in my heart on Friday nights. OK, there haven't been any Friday nights yet, but there will be.

New shows that sound interesting are Continuum (Syfy), Defiance (Syfy), Cult (CW), and The Following (Fox). Then there's Zero Hour (ABC), which looks like it might be compatible with my Ancient Aliens (or Dan Brown or National Treasure) bingo cards.

First of all, the pilots of Cult and Zero Hour won't air for another month or so.

I saw the pilot of The Following last night, and unlike when I saw it at Comic-Con, I saw it from the start. It has Kevin Bacon, making the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon even easier now, and one Shawn Ashmore, the twin brother of Aaron Ashmore who I liked on Warehouse 13 (Oh, hey there's two of them! I can live with that ;-) Plot-wise, it so far seems like there's a non-zero number of characters who will, sooner or later, end up doing stupid things that will result in me yelling at the screen. Oh, and it's about this retired FBI agent who is apparently now consulting (something that retired FBI employees get asked to do both frequently and for good pay, in a rare glimpse of realism on television. It's less realistic that they get paid to consult on catching serial killers). 

Defiance has Jaime Murray from Warehouse 13 (yep, I love that show) and also has a cool-looking MMO. Unfortunately, it does not have a cool-looking MMO that's compatible with Mac OS or Ubuntu Linux. Maybe the little things that are available On Demand will catch me up on what's going on? And there's this really neat website you can mouse around and check out. No, really. Sadly, we'll have to wait for April to see it. (And then it will be back-to-back with Warehouse 13. Yay!)

Also watched the pilot of Continuum, which is apparently Syfy's next entry in its (now) long and storied tradition of just straight-up importing stuff because Canadians are the only people actually making new scifi right now. Future cop winds up chasing down future terrorists in 2012 (really? Did they know they weren't even airing this until 2013?) but this seems like it'll raise a lot of interesting paradoxes about time travel and things, especially considering that Future Cop can't stop a present-day character from seeing glimpses into the future and knowing that they're going to be important and famous.

Slightly spoilery speculation for Continuum behind the cut...

Four Years, Four Months, Nine Days, and 100 Episodes

I don't know how to express my feelings right now, other than to say that this is my very favorite TV show. I grew up loving the original Star Trek series and with an appreciation for all it's spun off, I discovered the amazing and tragically short Firefly, I became part of a exponentially growing fan community of Doctor Who which has endured for fifty years. As wonderful as all of those experiences were, this one still stands out.

It started when I saw posters like this. The premise was something I naturally was interested in, as a long-time X-Files fan, the production team looked promising, and the gorgeous, gorgeous visuals pushed it to "I can not wait to watch this live" status.

It didn't disappoint. There were characters I loved, interesting and original concepts, and super amazing special effects. But we lived in fear of Fox pulling a repeat of Firefly, and moving the show to the Friday Night Death Slot and then cancelling it due to low ratings.

Then, Fox ordered the second half of its first season. It wasn't the most surprising thing in the world, but still not something I had counted on. This first season ended by introducing the other universe.

It was renewed, happily, for a second season. It seemed to have escaped the fate of Firefly. Characters died, and alternate universe versions of all the familiar characters were introduced.

Then it was renewed for a third season. A more overarching plot was coming into view, and more about the characters were revealed. More attention was paid to the tiny, tiny differences between the universes, and the "art piece" episodes were introduced. In the middle of this, our worst fears began to come true: Fox moved it to the Friday Night Death Slot.

Despite this, it was renewed for a fourth season. Due to a plot point, the entire of both universes was changed, creating slightly different versions of the characters in both universes, and the stories became more intense and high-stakes.

As ratings held steady but low, the fans mobilized and created a Twitter campaign in which we made an episode-specific hashtag to get trending during the show's airtime. Then, somehow, what was almost a miracle occurred: Fox began cooperating with the campaign leaders, putting the episode-specific hashtag in the corner of the screen rather than the typical "#Fringe" hashtag. It meant, importantly, that someone at Fox actually wanted to renew the show. As time dragged on, the showrunners even went so far as to film two separate endings to the season depending on which decision the network made.

Then, a mere two weeks before the season four finale, the show was renewed for a final thirteen-episode season. This season was set in a dystopian future, with older versions of some characters, more new characters, and a number of character deaths, along with the impending sense of tragedy when the show finally would end.

In the end, I watched every episode. I bought every DVD season, went to the Comic-Con and Wondercon panels, swapped people at SDCC for the gigantic Fringe backpacks both years I went, got a fedora from that final panel, participated in a (successful!) fan campaign, and made some amazing internet friends.

Ancient Aliens: TIME TRAVEL TIME! And NAZIS!

Half of me just wants to make this entire post a link to Doctor Who on Netflix.

Alright, now that I've got that out of my way....

In the first 30 seconds you mentioned Hitler. Please tell me this isn't going to be about Hitler. Please.

"Could Einstein have accidentally helped the Nazis build a time machine?"Well, I guess it is going to feature Hitler....

I guess this week people watched "Let's Kill Hitler" and the Indiana Jones movies before producing this?

They're talking about Nazis potentially doing stuff in secret as if it's a question. Third Reich scientists carried out clandestine experiments on everything. Even - no, especially - implausible metaphysical type things. Are you seriously failing that badly at history that's only 80 years old?  Oh, and "Super secret Nazi technology?" Thank you for those precise academic terms.

For what is probably the first time, and quite possibly the last, in this show's lifespan, it argues that an ostensible spaceship crash is actually not a spaceship crash. Because it's a Nazi time machine crash.

"...rituals of stargazing, believed to enable time travel." Well, if you take the Wilfred Mott approach, I guess stargazing maybe can help time travel?

Sirius is apparently where these aliens came from, because why else would people in multiple, separate ancient cultures be fascinated by the brightest star in the sky?

Nope, that actually doesn't look like a representation of a spiral galaxy. That is actually a single spiral, and that is a series of concentric circles. *facepalm*

Inaccurate visual of the day: A discussion of neutron spins accompanied by a clip of people in a lab lit solely by green light, pouring something that looks like liquid nitrogen into something else.

Oh, they actually used the word "Stargate". I HAVE WON ANCIENT ALIEN BINGO!

No, they're mentioning the LHC now... even better.

And they just used the word "god particle."

Oooh, and they're talking about aliens like the "Roswell" aliens. And how they look like how some people think humans might look in the future. Once again, some kind of wibbly wobbly timey wimey logic they're using here!

Ancient Aliens: Founding Fathers/Illuminati, Meet The Extraterrestrials.

So this opened with a line that went something like "A stargate, hidden in our nation's capitol dome." And all this time I had thought it was hidden under Cheyenne Mountain!

Apparently, this time the thing that aliens are responsible for is founding the United States of America, although this is really, really stretching the definition of "ancient". It wasn't even 250 years ago!

The first proof of this was that strange lights were seen over the DC area once in the 1950's. These lights were not Soviet spacecraft, because the Soviets, continuing their long history of being perfectly open and honest with us during the 50's, said the lights weren't there.

More proof of this is that Benjamin Franklin met with people regularly to discuss science. Presumably, the aliens were informing him about science, including on what a brilliant idea it was to go kite-flying in thunderstorms.

Of course, at this point they inevitably bring in the topic of freemasonry. Surprisingly, they actually got someone who was an important part of the Freemasons to come on the show and say vague things about the organization. The general pentagram shape of some of the streets in DC was mentioned, but in their Conspiracy Theory Twist of the Week, they held that this was not necessarily something that the Freemasons did purely because it was their symbol, but because it was referring to stars and/or aliens told them to.

[think of the scene in National Treasure where Nic Cage looks at a dollar bill through a water bottle]

Then, we get on to the Washington Monument, which is noted to be the largest obelisk in the world. They give up on the opportunity to snicker at phallic symbolism in favor of saying it's some kind of transmitter. And that the layout of the streets around it also serve to radiate and transmit some kind of space energy through all that concrete and asphalt! I guess sort of like that big ferris wheel in London in the first episode of the new Doctor Who...

Then, the show went into their foray of completely baffling logic for this episode: They said that the reflecting pool meant that the obelisk went down as well as up, doubling its size, power, and/or effectiveness. Even my non-scientist consultant (aka roommate aka Jamie) pointed out that the image of the obelisk in the reflecting pool was really horizontal to the ground.

Then it's important that the Capitol was built on a hill. Because instead of hills being classic places to put things from the beginning of time because it was easy to see and be seen from there, this is somehow related to the Temple Mount in ancient Jerusalem.

Then, this episode closes out with a double dose of the misuse of the word "literally" - the phrases "literally in a vortex of energy"and "Domes are literally considered to be portals or gateways to the stars" are both said in a short period of time.

So, can we blame the current state of Congress on the swirling vortexes of energy from the stars? Or is their problem that they've become too out of touch with the space aliens?

Ancient Aliens: I'm Literally Shouting at the TV Right Now

Oh god. Why do I do this. WHYYYYY.

Right. To motivate myself to pick up a real science textbook.

So far we've got:
The author of Chariots of the Gods - which, as I understand from my archaeology book, was THE book of ridiculous archaeological psuedoscience that was held up as an epitome of everything psuedoscientific - was talking about something. Apparently, the fact that on the equinox, the edge of a shadow from a temple falls on another temple. Because geometry is too hard for humans to have invented on their own. Where does this guy think calculus came from? Does he even know what calculus is?

Someone saying that fire was of mystical significance to ancient cultures that had rituals involving fire, not because fire was, say, necessary to cooking food and surviving the cold, but because fire looked like spaceship exhaust.

Then someone said that the rituals associated with kings wear crowns coming from how aliens might look if their heads were backlit by something, because I guess human heads can't be backlit?

Think that was the flimsiest logic you've ever heard? Well, here's one even better: The proof that a certain ritual by an indigenous tribe in Mesoamerica was inspired by extraterrestrial visitors is that - take a moment to put down and swallow whatever you're eating or drinking, your keyboard will thank me - the outfit worn by the "medicine man" is almost the exact same shape as 20th-century astronaut suits!

[cue some kind of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff here]

Oh, hey, it's the "TARDIS rock art". Although I'd think it's more credible if they actually said out-and-out that it means the Doctor visited them.

"Star beings"? What? Is "extraterrestrial" not mysterious sounding enough any more? Since I'm going on a Doctor Who tangent, is a Star Whale a kind of Star Being?

"Maybe quantum entanglement is already occurring" *cue animation of Aurora Borealis*

Oh. My. Flying. Spaghetti. Monster. They're trying to sell DVD's of this? Does this imply that people actually buy DVD's of this?!? Why would you do that? (I will not take "but drinking games" as an answer because that's what Netflix is for)

Wait, this is almost literally Stargate. They're even talking about the importance of Abydos! I think I would buy the DVD if it actually was a Stargate/Doctor Who crossover.

Yeah, and we're done. Or at least my brain is breaking.