A giant block of tasty, dystopian Velveeta ate my brain and all I got was this lousy subject line
So, um, yes. I was probably the only person in Alabama who cried when Max Headroom was cancelled, not because it was the greatest television ever, but because that sort of dystopian vision of the future, the decayed institutions and the seeds of complacency grown to blooming social rot and the little people surviving in the cracks and the scope of the good fight, where all Our Heroes can do is try to plug their fingers in the dike, is right up my alley.
I feel like this context is important for explaining why Dark Angel ate my brain, because objectively, it's not a great show. Briefly:
Cons:
* Jessica Alba's acting is… um. She's very pretty! And she does seem to improve after the pilot.
* The worldbuilding is… um. Remember how I thought Firefly had problems? I take it all back. Well, except for the part about how stupid the mylar wrapping on the Whorehouse of the Future was. I stand by that completely.
* The Jam Pony friends come straight out of a Central Casting stereotype list.
* The cheese. My god, the cheese.
Pros:
* Michael Weatherly's stubble.
* A truly excellent concept.
* The show does some interesting things with gender roles. (It also does some profoundly uninteresting things with gender roles, but hey.)
* The Jam Pony friends manage to breathe some spark into their Central Casting stereotypes, particularly Original Cindy-the actress steps up and OWNS Sassy Ethnic Friend and makes Original Cindy generally awesome.
* The opportunities to play Spot the Vancouver Actor are numerous.
* Michael Weatherley's stubble smoldering at Jessica Alba's iffily-acted wounded-doe eyes and vice versa. SMOLDERING.
The Concept
The concept, I reiterate, is fantastic, and not a little prescient. This is not a post-apocalyptic America, not one that has gone out with a bang, but a place that has sagged with a whimpering sigh into economic collapse and lurching authoritarianism after terrorists set off an EMP and destroyed much of the data on which the country's government and economy depended. And, like any other third-world country looking for a handout, the institutions are corrupt and serve the interests of those who run them; everyday people are on their own. This is excellent fodder for a lot of storylines.
As someone who is basically manufactured, genetically altered to have what amount to superpowers, Max could easily be insufferably good at everything, but so far the show has balanced that out by creating real consequences-she's missing pieces, physical pieces of brain chemistry that leave her fending off seizures, mental and emotional pieces from being neither entirely human nor growing up in a human way. She's on the outside looking in, trying to learn how to connect, never quite as unguarded as she is with her cohorts from X5, though she seems to be getting there with Logan. But, seriously, the motorcycle is too much.
Max's adversarial relationship with Lydecker is interesting because Lydecker has a little more depth than the average villain. As much as he sees these kids as tools, instruments, and as horrific as it is to think of them ending up back in his hands, he's also perversely proud of them; he's their creator and keeper, and sees them as his to do with as he sees fit. And as much as Max loathes the man, he was the authority figure of her childhood; she may shrug off his admiration, but he has a power over her that she needs to consciously break.
The backdrop of all of this is a multicultural patchwork urban setting where the wealthy can isolate themselves in relatively serene settings while the rest squat in half-finished high rises and shantytowns, or, if they're lucky, rent apartments in decaying buildings, negotiating an endless series of police checkpoints and surveillance drones as they go about their business, scrounging work or trading in the open air. It feels real, as long as you don't look at it too hard. The show makes a nod toward fleshing out a collapsed economy, though it falls apart some in the details--Max's building full of squatters has electricity and running water, there are nachos and plentiful alcohol at the bar while everybody bitches about food shortages and background television shows food riots, the employees at Jam Pony face no consequences for being punky to Normal despite the fact that supposedly these jobs are precious and rare.
Gender and Max and Logan
One of the things I do find appealing about the show is the nontraditional gender roles. Max fits very comfortably in the kick-ass Buffy mode, but more than that, the show puts the male lead in a wheelchair at the end of the pilot and he literally can't come to her rescue in any meaningful physical way, not without the help of other friends. So what Max and Logan have is a partnership of abilities-Logan has the technical expertise, the long knowledge and experience, and Max has the physical abilities and the tactical training. And while Logan is frustrated by his own disability, he very openly admires Max's strengths. That's powerful. And did I mention the smoldering? Because they smolder at each other. I do not think people are supposed to smolder at each other so much when they are complete strangers during what is essentially a robbery situation, for example.
There's a large age difference between them, and that's something that I would normally not find appealing because there's often quite a bit of problematic power differential tied up in that big an age difference, and it doesn't help that everything about the framing and cinematography plays up Alba's vulnerable doe eyes and sex kittenness. In Max and Logan, it seems to play out more in the realm of experiential difference, though. Logan knows what it was like to have a normal childhood, connections to other people, what it was like before the Pulse, and what it means to have a cause and ideals. He's a rational thinker. Max operates on a much more viscerally emotional and physical level, and she has her training and what she is and is sometimes terribly, terribly young, but has an armor of cynicism that Logan could learn from. And while Logan tries to advise her sometimes, he doesn't try to tell her what to do, and he knows when to stand back and let her do her thing. I had really low expectations about the show because of the way I remember it marketing Alba when it was on, so I've been pleasantly surprised that it's as nuanced as it is about gender. Then again, it does try to have it both ways in "Heat." It's got its problems.
Overall, the voiceovers are terrible, it's cheesy as hell, and I'm really enjoying it. I have it on reliable authority that it starts sucking at some point. So there is that.
Still on deck: the last two episodes of Life on Mars, the last two episodes of Dead Like Me, all of Eureka (which I've seen a lot of squee and a lot of blech about in different places). The TiVO runneth over. Plus "The Maltese Crichton."
* * * * *
By way of sdwolfpup, I pass along the link to these hilarious Star Trek inspirational posters. I think I'm going to make "Technofear" my wallpaper at work. Hee.
* * * * *
Speaking of Max Headroom, I have a bunch of episodes on VHS at my parents' house, along with a ton of old Doctor Who episodes that I taped off of the local PBS station when I was in high school. My parents got a combination VCR and DVD recorder last year in order to transfer their giant library of my brother's soccer games from tape to DVD, and my father got it into his head to do the same for Doctor Who. I just got an email letting me know I have 80 DVDs of old episodes waiting for me when I go home. My Mom got on the Internet and looked up episode lists, made an Excel spreadsheet, and marked the ones that are on the DVDs.
This is both insane and really cool.
And it's proof that it's not just me-it's genetic!
* * * * *
We just had a meeting where my boss proposed a new header for our documentation website: "Everything you need to know, all in one place." The team liked "If you can't find it, you don't need to know it" better. Oh well.
I feel like this context is important for explaining why Dark Angel ate my brain, because objectively, it's not a great show. Briefly:
Cons:
* Jessica Alba's acting is… um. She's very pretty! And she does seem to improve after the pilot.
* The worldbuilding is… um. Remember how I thought Firefly had problems? I take it all back. Well, except for the part about how stupid the mylar wrapping on the Whorehouse of the Future was. I stand by that completely.
* The Jam Pony friends come straight out of a Central Casting stereotype list.
* The cheese. My god, the cheese.
Pros:
* Michael Weatherly's stubble.
* A truly excellent concept.
* The show does some interesting things with gender roles. (It also does some profoundly uninteresting things with gender roles, but hey.)
* The Jam Pony friends manage to breathe some spark into their Central Casting stereotypes, particularly Original Cindy-the actress steps up and OWNS Sassy Ethnic Friend and makes Original Cindy generally awesome.
* The opportunities to play Spot the Vancouver Actor are numerous.
* Michael Weatherley's stubble smoldering at Jessica Alba's iffily-acted wounded-doe eyes and vice versa. SMOLDERING.
The Concept
The concept, I reiterate, is fantastic, and not a little prescient. This is not a post-apocalyptic America, not one that has gone out with a bang, but a place that has sagged with a whimpering sigh into economic collapse and lurching authoritarianism after terrorists set off an EMP and destroyed much of the data on which the country's government and economy depended. And, like any other third-world country looking for a handout, the institutions are corrupt and serve the interests of those who run them; everyday people are on their own. This is excellent fodder for a lot of storylines.
As someone who is basically manufactured, genetically altered to have what amount to superpowers, Max could easily be insufferably good at everything, but so far the show has balanced that out by creating real consequences-she's missing pieces, physical pieces of brain chemistry that leave her fending off seizures, mental and emotional pieces from being neither entirely human nor growing up in a human way. She's on the outside looking in, trying to learn how to connect, never quite as unguarded as she is with her cohorts from X5, though she seems to be getting there with Logan. But, seriously, the motorcycle is too much.
Max's adversarial relationship with Lydecker is interesting because Lydecker has a little more depth than the average villain. As much as he sees these kids as tools, instruments, and as horrific as it is to think of them ending up back in his hands, he's also perversely proud of them; he's their creator and keeper, and sees them as his to do with as he sees fit. And as much as Max loathes the man, he was the authority figure of her childhood; she may shrug off his admiration, but he has a power over her that she needs to consciously break.
The backdrop of all of this is a multicultural patchwork urban setting where the wealthy can isolate themselves in relatively serene settings while the rest squat in half-finished high rises and shantytowns, or, if they're lucky, rent apartments in decaying buildings, negotiating an endless series of police checkpoints and surveillance drones as they go about their business, scrounging work or trading in the open air. It feels real, as long as you don't look at it too hard. The show makes a nod toward fleshing out a collapsed economy, though it falls apart some in the details--Max's building full of squatters has electricity and running water, there are nachos and plentiful alcohol at the bar while everybody bitches about food shortages and background television shows food riots, the employees at Jam Pony face no consequences for being punky to Normal despite the fact that supposedly these jobs are precious and rare.
Gender and Max and Logan
One of the things I do find appealing about the show is the nontraditional gender roles. Max fits very comfortably in the kick-ass Buffy mode, but more than that, the show puts the male lead in a wheelchair at the end of the pilot and he literally can't come to her rescue in any meaningful physical way, not without the help of other friends. So what Max and Logan have is a partnership of abilities-Logan has the technical expertise, the long knowledge and experience, and Max has the physical abilities and the tactical training. And while Logan is frustrated by his own disability, he very openly admires Max's strengths. That's powerful. And did I mention the smoldering? Because they smolder at each other. I do not think people are supposed to smolder at each other so much when they are complete strangers during what is essentially a robbery situation, for example.
There's a large age difference between them, and that's something that I would normally not find appealing because there's often quite a bit of problematic power differential tied up in that big an age difference, and it doesn't help that everything about the framing and cinematography plays up Alba's vulnerable doe eyes and sex kittenness. In Max and Logan, it seems to play out more in the realm of experiential difference, though. Logan knows what it was like to have a normal childhood, connections to other people, what it was like before the Pulse, and what it means to have a cause and ideals. He's a rational thinker. Max operates on a much more viscerally emotional and physical level, and she has her training and what she is and is sometimes terribly, terribly young, but has an armor of cynicism that Logan could learn from. And while Logan tries to advise her sometimes, he doesn't try to tell her what to do, and he knows when to stand back and let her do her thing. I had really low expectations about the show because of the way I remember it marketing Alba when it was on, so I've been pleasantly surprised that it's as nuanced as it is about gender. Then again, it does try to have it both ways in "Heat." It's got its problems.
Overall, the voiceovers are terrible, it's cheesy as hell, and I'm really enjoying it. I have it on reliable authority that it starts sucking at some point. So there is that.
Still on deck: the last two episodes of Life on Mars, the last two episodes of Dead Like Me, all of Eureka (which I've seen a lot of squee and a lot of blech about in different places). The TiVO runneth over. Plus "The Maltese Crichton."
* * * * *
By way of sdwolfpup, I pass along the link to these hilarious Star Trek inspirational posters. I think I'm going to make "Technofear" my wallpaper at work. Hee.
* * * * *
Speaking of Max Headroom, I have a bunch of episodes on VHS at my parents' house, along with a ton of old Doctor Who episodes that I taped off of the local PBS station when I was in high school. My parents got a combination VCR and DVD recorder last year in order to transfer their giant library of my brother's soccer games from tape to DVD, and my father got it into his head to do the same for Doctor Who. I just got an email letting me know I have 80 DVDs of old episodes waiting for me when I go home. My Mom got on the Internet and looked up episode lists, made an Excel spreadsheet, and marked the ones that are on the DVDs.
This is both insane and really cool.
And it's proof that it's not just me-it's genetic!
* * * * *
We just had a meeting where my boss proposed a new header for our documentation website: "Everything you need to know, all in one place." The team liked "If you can't find it, you don't need to know it" better. Oh well.