Lost on Mars
Tonight I saw two TV shows: Lost, which I've only recently gotten into, and the American version of Life on Mars, which I hadn't seen until tonight.
I did not like the American version of Life on Mars.
I haven't completely placed why, other than it doesn't seem to have the strength of the British version; it's like they're going through the motions, but don't really mean it. Harvey Keitel does a pretty good acting job, but he's just not the same Gene Hunt, and he doesn't really feel like one of the two people who should be the focus of the show. And his relationship with Sam Tyler doesn't seem to have the same feel as in the original; the only tension between them seems to be artificial.
But maybe it's because the actor playing Tyler isn't doing a good job at all. Not as Tyler, but not as *anyone*, either. He lacks conviction, completely.
Now, as for Lost: episode was good, but vampyrecat guessed something about one of the "secrets", which I don't agree with, but I wanted to say something about. But I'll put it behind a cut, because it might be a spoiler, even if it turns out not to be true. Because Richard Alpert is (of course) still exactly the same in 1954 as in the present day, and because Juliette says that Alpert has always been on the Island, combined with the use of Latin, vampyrecat thinks Alpert may actually be an immortal Roman. I don't think this is true, but if it were, it might mean he's supposed to be Longinus. Longinus is the centurion who stabbed Jesus with a spear during the Crucifixion; his spear becomes known as The Spear of Destiny, which in some conspiracy theories turns up as a magical relic that grants its bearer total victory. Supposedly, Hitler was after the Spear of Destiny.
Anyways, Longinus is a Christian saint, for various reasons, but in a couple fictional works, he is kind of amalgamated with the legend of the Wandering Jew; because he stabs Jesus, he is cursed or blessed with immortality. The guy who recorded "The Ballad of the Green Beret" wrote a series of novels about this version of Longinus, and there was a 1997 TV series called "Roar" with the same approach to Longinus, although he's definitely cursed and somewhat evil in that version. If Alpert is supposed to be a Roman, they might be going that route...
... But I don't think that's who he's supposed to be. I think the use of Latin as the secret language of the Others is because they're supposed to be an old conspiracy, not because of something to do with Alpert specifically. There's been a number of books, movies, and TV shows with medieval conspiracies surviving into the modern day, usually with some connection to the Masons, the Templars, the Priory of Sion, or all of the above. That Dan Brown book/Ron Howard movie "The Da Vinci Code", for example. Or that TV show Millennium, which included Terry O'Quinn (the actor who plays John Locke... hey! Maybe Peter Watts and John Locke are the same person!) Or Umberto Eco's book Foucault's Pendulum, which is mainly important because, at the end of last week's episode of "Lost", we saw that the exiled Others have a Foucault Pendulum somewhere in Los Angeles. Coincidence? I think there's no connection between "Lost" and Eco's book, other than the show's creators thought it was a good image that suggested "really old conspiracy". Just like Juliette explaining away the Others using Latin as having to do with the search for enlightenment... "enlightenment" -> "illumination" -> "Illuminati".
So, I don't know what they're planning, but I think that we'll definitely see stuff about the Others using the Island as their base for a very long time through history.
I did not like the American version of Life on Mars.
I haven't completely placed why, other than it doesn't seem to have the strength of the British version; it's like they're going through the motions, but don't really mean it. Harvey Keitel does a pretty good acting job, but he's just not the same Gene Hunt, and he doesn't really feel like one of the two people who should be the focus of the show. And his relationship with Sam Tyler doesn't seem to have the same feel as in the original; the only tension between them seems to be artificial.
But maybe it's because the actor playing Tyler isn't doing a good job at all. Not as Tyler, but not as *anyone*, either. He lacks conviction, completely.
Now, as for Lost: episode was good, but vampyrecat guessed something about one of the "secrets", which I don't agree with, but I wanted to say something about. But I'll put it behind a cut, because it might be a spoiler, even if it turns out not to be true. Because Richard Alpert is (of course) still exactly the same in 1954 as in the present day, and because Juliette says that Alpert has always been on the Island, combined with the use of Latin, vampyrecat thinks Alpert may actually be an immortal Roman. I don't think this is true, but if it were, it might mean he's supposed to be Longinus. Longinus is the centurion who stabbed Jesus with a spear during the Crucifixion; his spear becomes known as The Spear of Destiny, which in some conspiracy theories turns up as a magical relic that grants its bearer total victory. Supposedly, Hitler was after the Spear of Destiny.
Anyways, Longinus is a Christian saint, for various reasons, but in a couple fictional works, he is kind of amalgamated with the legend of the Wandering Jew; because he stabs Jesus, he is cursed or blessed with immortality. The guy who recorded "The Ballad of the Green Beret" wrote a series of novels about this version of Longinus, and there was a 1997 TV series called "Roar" with the same approach to Longinus, although he's definitely cursed and somewhat evil in that version. If Alpert is supposed to be a Roman, they might be going that route...
... But I don't think that's who he's supposed to be. I think the use of Latin as the secret language of the Others is because they're supposed to be an old conspiracy, not because of something to do with Alpert specifically. There's been a number of books, movies, and TV shows with medieval conspiracies surviving into the modern day, usually with some connection to the Masons, the Templars, the Priory of Sion, or all of the above. That Dan Brown book/Ron Howard movie "The Da Vinci Code", for example. Or that TV show Millennium, which included Terry O'Quinn (the actor who plays John Locke... hey! Maybe Peter Watts and John Locke are the same person!) Or Umberto Eco's book Foucault's Pendulum, which is mainly important because, at the end of last week's episode of "Lost", we saw that the exiled Others have a Foucault Pendulum somewhere in Los Angeles. Coincidence? I think there's no connection between "Lost" and Eco's book, other than the show's creators thought it was a good image that suggested "really old conspiracy". Just like Juliette explaining away the Others using Latin as having to do with the search for enlightenment... "enlightenment" -> "illumination" -> "Illuminati".
So, I don't know what they're planning, but I think that we'll definitely see stuff about the Others using the Island as their base for a very long time through history.