"The Gates," a supernatural mish-mash looking to be a Monster Mash
I took in the premiere of "The Gates." A few oddities about this show cropped up as I watched what pretty much looked to be a mashup of Eureka and Desperate Housewives. I find it strange that our protagonist family would have a teenager that was reading the brochure on a fortress-like community that boasted its gates had never been "breached." We learn later that perhaps something might eventually try to get in, but it's an odd thing to print in the sales literature that mortals could pick up. The show establishes from the first scene that there are vampires present, so it's kind of late to be coy with mentions of wolves later in a high school class and not have it come off like they're laying on the "Twilight" with a trowel. It also has one of the clumsiest love triangle setups I've seen in a while involving a laptop-based lie detector. In its defense, the program does get a lot of exposition out of the way. I'm hoping the setup makes more sense down the road, as "The Gates" seems to be a safe zone where vampires and werewolves (and perhaps others?) can live safely, or, at least, not be pestered by outside supernaturals. Though if that's the purpose of the place, why bring in a law enforcement officer that wasn't somehow properly vetted for loyalty/cooperation? It's as if they spent all their money on everything except (if you'll pardon the expression) human resources.
It could work out so long as drama isn't overshadowed by DRAMA and the writers have a few tricks up their sleeves. One of the writers has a lot of shows I've liked ("Miracles," "The Lost Room") under his belt, but his work on those were always in a producer capacity. So we'll see.
And regarding the lower of the two images to the right, it would have been hilarious no matter who was in it. It really was a cumbersome scene, in that we had someone get angry that his girl might like someone else, so he goes from man to wolf with no transition beyond a jump-cut to the object of his anger. The clothed guy is also a werewolf (he had his Bill Bixby(tm) brand contact lenses in to show he could change) and he proceeded leap out of the shadows and throttle a wolf in one shot that then instantly became the nekkid guy you see there in the next, preceded by the line "no, not like this!" I mean... it's like they were trying to burn the words "Monty Python Does Werewolves" into the screen. I'm guessing whoever scripted it wrote the bits with the lie-detector laptop, too.
This next paragraph is completely apropos of nothing, but it's something I finally ran across, and (this is so sad) it's something that's been bugging me for years. I once read a Dave Barry column where he complained that his brain couldn't remember important stuff from school, like the periodic table. Instead, his brain was trying to remember the theme song for a "Marathon Bar" commercial, saying that "this has become my brain's Manhattan Project." Okay, for me, it's also a commercial. I saw it a ton when I was but a wee lad and "basic cable" meant channels 2 through 13 (premium got you Showtime and ESPN). It was for Pioneer stereo equipment, and it had a pretty catchy jingle. A few years back, when YouTube hit critical mass, I thought that surely this masterpiece had been uploaded by now, and I went hunting. Nada. There aren't even any transcripts of the lyrics anywhere in so far as I can tell. I started thinking that I had imagined it... until today. So here it is, not only containing a jingle that's been stuck in my head for decades, but also some prime cuts of 80's fashion cheese: Catch the spirit of a true Pioneer, folks, and you might find some ideas for next Halloween. Thanks for bearing with me, and I hope someday to solve my other conundrum: Why the American Dairy Association changed their slogan "Behold the Power of Cheese" to "Ahh, the Power of Cheese."
And to any people in New York City reading this, some guy is building a fusion reactor somewhere near you. I blame bad influences from irresponsible filmmakers. :)
So that's several subjects all over the place. Here's some pre-fusion era links for your weekend websurfing:
- Forget the BFG-9000. The most powerful and cruel weapon in the original Doom is now the vuvuzela.
- It was Bruce Campbell's birthday this past week, and in celebration, these special soup can labels were created.
- Haiku is becoming ever more popular, thanks in large part to Twitter. Even superheroes are getting in on the phenomenon.
- "Team Fortress 2" has achievements for which much grinding is done. Little did the players working their way up the trophy ladder think they'd run into Laser Death Cat.
- It's more of a very complex game of solitaire with no punishment for guessing, but Doodle God is a light "let's see what happens when I mix this" game where your goal is to find all 115 "elements" by mixing together the four you start with.
- Just in case someone with loads of cash needs to demonstrate they truly live in a world apart, a gated luxury community is going up in Walt Disney World. If I could, I'd use one to have endless fun calling pest control companies to get rid of the mutant man-sized vermin running rampant near my home. :)
- Once again, those lucky lab rats are getting better medical care than us, like lab grown lungs.
- It's not the scene I would have picked if I wanted to sell a Batman DvD, but there's a new clip from the upcoming "Batman: Under the Red Hood" available for your viewing pleasure.
- Drink some caffeine before taking Ninja Run for a spin. Speed up or slow down, but always move forward in this side-scroller where you try to get as far as you can before your ninja skillz let you down.