My weekend was fairly uneventful yet not boring. If you read my 'downtown' blog you may be shocked to find out that I only went downtown once this week. My liver and credit card statements both owe me thank you notes after the last few weekends [DISCLAIMER: I have multiple family members who read this blog so I feel obligated to reiterate that 1) No, I'm not a raging alcoholic. 2) My liver is quite healthy 3) Yes, mom, I follow the disclaimer on Bud Light bottles that advise one to 'drink responsibly' and there is no cause for alarm or reason to worry at night.] On Saturday night, I actually went to the driving range and realized with the help of a friend that my golf technique is quite awesome with the exception of nearly every aspect of my swing and my handling of of a) irons b) woods c) the putter. I do, however, have under control the operation of the ball retriever for those times when I aim for the water. Time to hit the reset button on my golf game.
On to the main topic of discussion. As I was eating the chorizo and bell pepper jambalaya that I made for lunch, I realized that there was nothing of particular interest to me on television. So I ended up watching this show on BBC called "Primeval". I had heard it did pretty well and had decent ratings and I admittedly was quite the dinosaur nerd as a kid so I figured the show had to be awesome. The premise of the show is apparently that anomalies start appearing all over England that allow 'creatures' from both the past and present to travel into our time period, of course wrecking havoc on everything in sight. There's a British intelligence agency apparently set up to track and contain these anomalies. So, apparently you get to see both dinosaurs and alien-looking things from the future in one show. How cool is that? (as a kid I was a huge space nerd. I'm definitely losing cool points with at least one person reading this blog). At first I was somewhat into it, it seemed (and still does seem) like an interesting concept for a show. Yet... the show kinda sucked. By posting this, I'm hoping that some Primeval fan out there reads this and runs to the defense of the show to explain to me how the show makes sense. I'm really just confused as to how such a big network could produce something so terrible. (I should point out that I did hear BBC declined to renew the show this year, but it took them a few seasons to figure it out.)
First, these anomalies are apparently just doorways from other time periods which you can go through from either direction. I don't claim to know anything about aliens from the future, but why would dinosaurs (in this episode the evil creatures were actually prehistoric birds that looked like dodo birds) see a doorway of blinding light and feel obligated to run INTO it. Then, apparently running through the anomaly gave these dodo looking birds a massive injection of rabies AND supernatural steroids because they proceed to chase after every human in sight with no good intentions AND when these poor folks try to speed away in their shiny new SUV the dodo birds OUTRUN them and cause them to wreck. Really? Apparently the natural instinct of a giant bird placed in unfamiliar surroundings is to kill and eat everything in sight. I suppose acting confused and bewildered would be too boring. Luckily, one of the main characters devises an ingenious, fool-proof plan to kill one of the birds. As everyone is fleeing through a field of unexploded mines he steps on the trigger of one of these mines. He waits until the bird catches up, and jumps off of the trigger just in time for the mine to detonate and obliterate the bird into "featherines" [pardon my newly created corny word]. Somehow, the person is so quick that he gets away unscathed. I've never stepped on an unexploded mine, but I have a feeling that minefields would be a lot less dangerous if you could simply run REALLY fast and outrun the blasts. In the end, the birds are fooled into running back through the anomaly by one of the humans cleverly deciding to play the sounds of a prehistoric dodo bird distress call via record player. Doesn't everyone have at least one vinyl of the classic prehistoric dodo bird distress call in their collection? The acting and story line were also far from exemplary. It was one of those shows where someone says "I think they're gone" and you immediately know that 3 seconds later the birds are going to somehow appear as if on cue.
The preview had me enticed to watch the show again for a few seconds until I remembered that I was not enjoying the episode that I was already watching. Please don't watch this show. On second thought, please watch it and tell me if the show I saw was a fluke or if BBC executives really were shortsighted enough to hire either the writing staff from the last "Indiana Jones" movie or perhaps some ninth grade English class from Iowa. Apologies to crystal skull fans and Iowans.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
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2 comments:
You honestly suck. If you had been through every single episode then you would know.
1. Yes animals are attracted to new things in thier environment. ie shiny anomalies. If you saw one you would go through as well.
2. In other episodes, the animals are not hungry and dont massacre people.
3. The birds and other creatures that come through that kill people are hungry. Yes a single man is not even a snack.
4. you obviously arent a soldier. Those were abandoned mines which do not have the same effect that they could once do. Yes the area will be minimized.
5. The bird call was recorded.
6. Exactly how old are you? This was for kiddies.
7. WTH is wrong with Indiana Jones or a ninth grade eng class from IOWA jeez.
Thank you for the kind words. Your anonymous post speaks volumes about the great faith that you have in your opinions and your unwavering commitment to standing by them. Kudos. I suppose to best way to respond to your comment would also be in list form:
1. No, I cannot say I would walk through a shiny anomaly. Some animals would I suppose. Your use of 'ie' in this instance is grammatically incorrect, please look up the proper usage of the Latin term.
2. Good to know. I'm glad you did actually come back with this statement. Maybe I'll watch episode 1 for fairness and see how it seems from the beginning.
3. Clearly they also have rabies.
4. If you are a soldier, you obviously have zero combat experience. To be sure of my stance, I discussed the scenario shown in the show with a friend of mine who was stationed less than 100 feet from a minefield in Afghanistan (the promised land for aged landmines) and he completely shot down the possibility of such a scene occurring.
5. I believe that all vinyls are recorded. Thank you for your astute observation.
6. ??? What, the show is for kiddies? Then why are you watching it?
7. Nothing is wrong with Indiana Jones, just the most recent movie. While it did provide entertainment value and "cool" special effects, the writing was dreadful. It was so bad that South Park dedicated an entire episode to talking about how bad the movie was. If you liked the writing, then your opinion on all other movies is hereby disqualified. As far as Iowa... you've got me on that one, nothing is wrong with a 9th grade eng class from Iowa except for the fact that they are not qualified to write for a show. Since Iowa has good schools, I knew that nobody should be offended from my statement...that and the fact that I've seen very few visitors from Iowa.
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