A Few Things

I’ve been watching SyFy’s (I F-ing hate the name change btw) new hit show Warehouse 13. Essentially it’s a show about that “secret government warehouse” you’ve been hearing about all these years. All kinds of supernatural relics or advanced artifacts are acquired and stored here so the general public is kept safe. Every episode usually revolves around the lead characters tracking down an object after some weird/supernatural occurrence happens. It’s not a perfect show as the investigations are laughable but it has a Buffy-esque charm that plays well. W13 could easily devolve into an artifact of the week akin to a monster of the week show but thankfully it’s mostly a character driven program with moments of humor. Probably the best things about the show (besides the excellent casting of Saul Rubinek) is that W13 is one of the best possible ways to do a “fantasy show” with a limited budget. It’s had a few hiccups but I feel it’s on good footing for a first season. It’s interesting to note that 50% of the audience for W13 is female which is a huge jump for the SyFy channel. The first season hasn’t even finished its run yet and a second season has already been green lit. On a comic book geek note CCH Pounder who plays the government agent Amanda Waller in Justice League Unlimited plays a similar role here as Warehouse 13’s Shadowy boss.

I’ve also been enjoying the BBC’s Being Human about a Vampire, Werewolf, and Ghost sharing a flat together. It sounds really corny and it kinda is but like Warehouse 13 I like that fact that there is almost no budget for the show consequently so much relies on the dialog and the personality of the characters. It rips off tons from the World of Darkness games (among other things) but BH has a certain charm. The first episode was confusing though because I felt that I had missed an episode and indeed I had. There was a pilot that had two of the three major characters cast with different actors and of course that pilot was not shown in the states. Check it out if you like “Thrift Store Horror.”

I tried to think of something fun to give my niece last month and for some reason Galaxy High School popped into my head. Why I thought a 23 year old Saturday morning cartoon would entertain a modern high schooler, I’ll never know. But my intuition was on the money as apparently she’s been watching the DVD set over and over like crazy. It’s too bad it only had one season.

I saw program about exoplanets over the weekend on the science channel. What the was really cool is that the show nicknamed planets that orbit pulsars as Zombie Planets because they are dead worlds created from the debris after the destruction of a whole system. Hmmm…


-Swinebread

Battlestar Galactica Finale

Oh I get it. Kera came back from the Ship of Lights, the phantom Baltar and Six were Seraphs, and the Japanese are making Cylons. Domo arigato Captain Apollo! Nice nod to the original show. Too bad the Classic BSG haters will never get it. Heh heh Heh.

Hey maybe Daniel could Count Iblis. heh heh heh


Oh and Overdroid.. you're barely a Cylon at all so suck it!


-Swinebread

Battlestar At The Bagdad

There is no better experience for a fan than sharing something we've enjoyed in a communal setting with people who feel the same way. Last night's viewing of Battlestar Galactica at the Bagdad theater and pub was that sort of experience. The fact that actress Katee Sakhoff was there with us just added to the joy of the whole thing.

I arrived a couple of hours early and the line already for the free screening already stretched around the block at about five hundred people. The theater only holds six hundred. Even with that I got pretty good seats that were close to the stage and had an even greater perk that I'll mention later.

The Bagdad theater has been around Portland since the invention of film. It's an absolutely beautiful old school theater with carved ornate pillars and Egyptian designs throughout it's interior. I have happy memories of seeing the King Kong remake in 1976 at this theater (and even better memories of seeing the original Kong at the Backstage theater directly behind the Bagdad which is sadly now a bar.)

The gorgeous Bagdad theater.

These showings have been hosted by local rock station personalities Cort and Fatboy. I listen to these guys on my commute home from work because, besides being super funny, they're both tremendous geeks who read comics, watch sci-fi, etc. With these guys you'll might hear references to Star Wars, Star Trek, Watchmen and Thundercats all within a five minute span of their show. You can see the appeal for me.

Before Battlestar began they started showing a live feed of the Sci-fi network as they were setting up. Next Generation popped on and the crowd cheered. That was when I felt like I was hanging out with the right people.

Hey, that's not Starbuck!

Just before Battlestar aired Cort and Fatboy took the stage. Of course they look nothing like I imagined from their radio voices. For one thing Fatboy isn't a fat boy. He's a short, skinny very buff guy.

They laid down the ground rules for when Katee arrived- telling us to keep it clean because her parents and boyfriend were going to be there. Then they got the crowd cheering in chants of "so say we all!" and doing the Battlestar clap. While they were talking Katee Sakhoff and her crew snuck in and sat just a couple of rows behind me. The crowd roared in approval when she arrived.

The episode was pretty good but to be honest I got a bigger kick out of watching Katee Sakhoff watch us react to the stuff that was happening. When Baltar would say something weasily and the crowd would laugh she seemed to get a tremendous kick out of that. Screen/ television actors probably don't get to enjoy this sort of direct feedback to their work very often.

After the episode had ended and we'd watched the previews they called Katee to the stage and she took questions from a line of mostly women. Judging by a big part of the questions Katee has a very big lesbian following.

She told some hysterical stories about Edward James Olmos (that model of the sailing ship he smashed up a couple of seasons ago was on loan from a museum and valued at 50k - "anybody else would've been fired") and a sad story about the actor that plays Sam who she's very close to in real life. He was apparently in an accident recently and may not walk again, which is why they had to put him in a tub in these final episodes.

Katee also talked about recently being diagnosed with Thyroid cancer and some of the other challenges she'd faced as an actress. She told about how she decided to get into acting after watching Jaws when she was six years old with her dad. This almost led to divorce among her parents. That story hit a little close to home as I did the same thing with our young daughter and Mrs. Wormer was none too happy.

All in all I found her very engaging and funny. She ended by apologizing that she couldn't be here for the finale next week.

That's Cort and Fatboy next to Katee.

The rest of us were told no photos with Katee but not KUFO employees.

- Dean Wormer

A Galaxy Far Far Away My Ass!

Robert J. Sawyer Rants about how Star Wars ruined Science fiction



part 2


part 3

Movie of the Week

My super at work tasked me with choosing a movie of the week. All this means is that I select some random movie and post its poster or a still from it in our work area. I don’t even have to have seen it. It’s one of those little cultural enrichment type deals.

Well, to keep it interesting I thought I’d post it here on Atomic Romance too. I’m not setting any rules for this, so maybe I’ll talk about the film or maybe I just upload a picture. We will see. This could be fun.

The first film up is Mansquito. I was telling the gang how awful the Sci-Fi channels original movies were, and they didn’t believe me that a made for cable movie was actually titled Mansquito. I've only seen about one minute of the film.





-Swinebread

Randomness

Spring over here to get the scoop on the pics from the Wolverine movie set. Looks interesting especially since I didn’t even know they were in production with this thing. It’s funny because I bailed on Wolverine and X-men comics back in 1991, and back then Logan was still this guy with a mysterious past. Later, Marvel started filling in his back-story. Those comics look interesting but I never felt the urge to read them. X-men burnout I guess (and the undoing of the Dark Phoenix saga). As it stands now, the Wolverine movie could be extra entertaining for me

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MSNBC conducted an interview with David Hajdu, author of the new book, “The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America,” see here

Here’s a section by Hajdu:

The interesting thing about comics, and why comics were early to be a source of economic and social power for young people was because they were affordable. I mention this in the book, but these were things that were made by young people, for young people, marketed directly to young people and priced for young people. And they’re the only work of expression, of art, that qualified as such. Kids could buy candy bars … but not much else, for a dime. There were no other forms of art or creative expression within their reach….

Comics and the late,’40s and ’50s were more popular than any form of popular entertainment. The way to fully absorb the power that comics had was to understand not just the reach, which was extraordinary, which was huge, but also that the content of those comics and the point of view of those comics and the sensibility of those comics was so radically different from that of anything else that young people can see. If kids are going to the movies, they’re not seeing anything like this in the movies. Movies were geared toward families. There was nothing like this.

We lost a lot when comic books were practically destroyed in the 1950s by small-minded people. Comics most likely would have been as big here as Manga is in Japan had this purge not happened. Many of the readers of these 50s comics were boomers; I wonder if this is was their first rebellion? …a rebellion that was crushed.

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The Sci-Fi channel has started airing a “new show” last week about a man that morphs between three alternate universes called Charlie Jade. It’s not really new as it’s been out in Canada and South Africa for a few years.

Filmed gorgeously in and around Cape Town, this Canadian-South African co-production (2005, 20 episodes, plus one "recap" episode) centers on the adventures of the eponymous Charlie (Jeffrey Pierce), a private detective who, in the course of investigating a mysterious girl’s murder, gets catapulted into an alternative universe. Our universe. There he must unravel the machinations of the nefarious megacorporation, Vexcor, before... well, to say any more would spoil the surprise.

Charlie Jade breathes new life into the standard SF trope of the parallel universe. The show moves among three “present-day” universes: the Alphaverse, Betaverse, and Gammaverse. You won’t find Spock-with-a-Beard here; in fact, very few characters have alter egos. This—to invoke Spock again—is logical: given different life circumstances, most people’s parents wouldn’t have gotten together. Charlie comes from the Alphaverse, a Blade Runner-esque dystopia where Vexcor rules a totalitarian state of near-universal surveillance and corporate corruption. But Vexcor has a problem: the Alphaverse is running out of natural resources. Luckily for Vexcor, it has developed a universe-hopping technology that will allow the company to plunder the Gammaverse, a seeming utopian idyll of ecologically sustainable living. To reach the Gammaverse, however, Vexcor’s machine must punch a line through the Betaverse, our universe. And when Gammaverse terrorists blow up the Vexcor’s Gammaverse base, Charlie finds himself caught in the shock wave and stuck in Beta.

From Here

Trailer:


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Stephen Colbert's Make McCain Exciting Challenge! The first entries are in.



Also youtube has ton. Including one that used Dr. Zaius’ mini-me Bush here.


-Swinebread

BSG Comics

A lot of folks have been antsy for more BSG, and now that the last season is airing they’re getting their fix, but what does one do in the mean time? Well, I’ve been fulfilling my needs with the Battlestar Galactica comics by Dynamite Entertainment. The Battlestar Galactica: Origins title, which just finished its Dr. Baltar arc, was especially wonderful for filling in a lot of nice tidbits of Gaius’ back-story. What’s really cool is that folks involved in the production of the BSG show are actually working on the BSG comic books. They have inside information about the plot and will weave it into the stories they’re writing. Newsarama just finished up a five-part Q&A on Dynamite’s BSG efforts.

Part I (SEAMUS FAHE interview about his work on the show and his 4-part BSG Origins comic that delves into Gaius and number 6) Here

Part II (ROBERT NAPTON on his BSG Origins comic on Bill Adama, his thoughts on both of BSG incarnations and a Classic BSG one-shot) Here

Part III (BRANDON JERWA on BSG Season Zero set 2 years before the star of the series) Here

Part IV (OSHUA ORTEGA & ERIC NYLUND on their title Cylon War, which covers the first war between humans and cylons and it’s aftereffects) Here

PART V (Discussion of BSG in general, of a Helo/Kara three-part mini and a mini-series that deals with the final five cylons) Here

Not getting enough BSG? The comic just might give you more of that naturalistic sci-fi you’re looking for.

-Swinebread

Battlestar Galactica Season 4 Tonight

The beginning of the end is here. The final season of Battlestar Galactica at 10 P.M. on SciFi.

Here's a few vids

Battlestar Galactica Season 4 Promo



Battlestar Galactica: What the Frak is Going On? (season 1 to season 3 recap)



Battlestar Galactica Season 4 Preview (minor spoilers)


-Swinebread

Pop Randomness

Caprica is a go. After languishing in development hell while turd piles like Flash Gordon get made in to unwatchable shows, Sci Fi has finally seen the light (the green light that is) as it has nothing in the pipeline. Interest in the program should be high as Battlestar Galactica will finish out it’s run this year and fans are sure to be hungry for a more BSG.

Set 50 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica, Caprica follows two rival families--the Greystones and the Adamas --as they grow, compete and thrive in the vibrant world of the 12 Colonies. Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe to toe.

“I'm thrilled with the chance to expand on the Galactica world and get deeper into the origins of the story we've been telling," Moore said in a statement. "It's also great to have a chance at doing a completely different kind of science fiction series, one that's even more character-oriented and doesn't rely on pyrotechnics to carry the story."

From here

Now we’ll get to see the first cylon war and the original toasters, Yes! (Don’t forget the new and final season starts next week)



Speaking of the dog crap that was Flash Gordon, it sounds like we got as close as we’re gonna’ to an apology from Sci Fi’s for their “interpretation” of the character:

(David) Howe says Sci Fi didn't treat the iconic character of Flash Gordon with enough care. In a few years, he says, the network may take it up again, with a fresh take and a bigger budget.

From here

“Oh, sorry we took a big giant dump all over Flash Gordon’s Legacy so we could try to squeeze a few bucks of profit out of a science fiction brand we ruined. We just didn’t want to spend any money on it… Our Bad!” Grrrr. It’s terrible shows like Flash Gordon that give sci-fi fans a bad rep in the wider culture. Plus, what also made me even angrier is that the FG actors were shocked that so many vehemently, and publicly hated the show. Hey guys? Do some research before you sign up for a program that totally sucks like reading the script.



I greatly enjoyed the last episode of The Spectacular Spiderman. They’ve really found a good balance between Peter at school and the demands of being Spiderman. Sandman was fun too. His introduction really worked well and reminded me of the comics. In the show, he’s just a thug that’s tired of Spidey bustin’ him every time he robs a bank, so he makes a deal with the super-criminal underground and “accidentally” gets powered up. Also, Aunt May mentions maybe Peter should take her friend’s daughter to the dance… some chick named Mary Jane.



A new Lone Ranger movie is on the horizon!

The writing duo, best known for their work on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, are in final negotiations to write a live-action big-screen adaptation of "The Lone Ranger" for Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

The project will be made by Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer Films in association with Entertainment Rights.

From Here

Wow, I can’t wait for the amazing CG effects, huge explosions, and Kung-fu fighting that’s sure to please western fans out there. Nothing says Lone Ranger like Jerry Bruckheimer. ….ugh…


Ever wanted to be knocked out and tied up? Of course we all do, but how many of you have also wanted to chloroform yourself as well? In a superhero outfit? I came across superbecca on youtube. She’s got a fetish site that’s all about woman, dressed up as supers, getting knocked out, tied up, and dominated. Take a look!



Here she is chloroforming herself



In what seems to be a very big precedent setting case, the Siegel Family has been awarded the rights to Superman based on Acton Comics #1. See Heidi MacDonald's take and links here. I guess there is a little truth and justice in the world after all.


-Swinebread

Battlestar Galatica Returns Sorta' Soon

April 4th is the start date of Battlestar Galactica 4th and final season. There will be ten episodes and then another mid-season break before the remaining shows are aired.

How about that pic? It's like real artistic and stuff. They pulled a Da Vinci.

Excelsior!

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?… Finale!

Well I think next week I’m gonna pick the Defuser again to be eliminated… oh, er NO it’s over. The 2-hour finale of Who Wants To Be A Superhero? came to it’s dramatic conclusion with the Defuser taking the title of Stan Lee’s next great superhero. Needless to say I’m not surprised the Defuser won… AFTER I learned a lot more about him that wasn’t revealed before. This police detective is a total comic geek. He plays video games all the time, has his bathroom made up in a hulk theme and has thousands of comics in his garage. That’s right. The Defuser was a total ringer. Check out the superhero after show interview with Feeback here. It’s so obvious now. I had thoughts at the beginning that he might win, but I gotta hand it to the editors. They made it seem like he was always on thin ice. But it was fun anyway so who cares.
Stan managed a few surprises this time around. The biggest being that there was no elimination. Yes, the Defuser, Hyperstrike, and Hygena, were all allowed to continue to the finals. It kinda makes sense though, I really had this feeling that Hyperstrike and Hygena were gonna be in the final round, but The Defuser had really done a lot towards the end to win me over as well. Everybody really stepped up to the plate. Hygena, by offering herself as bait for the dogs, found a perfect way for her to offer a plan and participate despite the fact that she doesn’t have the physical prowess or strength of Hyperstrike or the Defuser. And the two guys? Well, they performed heroically while getting savagely bitten by the slobbering doggies, so they all came through the challenge with flying colors.
One of the funny things about the episode was the fact that they all equally screwed up during a visit to a TV studio and the interview with Kennedy by revealing lots of personal information about themselves. They all let their guards down but it didn’t cost the heroes in the end.

There were several touching moments as well:

When the superheroes all received action figures based on their characters, their inner geeks came racing to the surface. It was a nice light moment that helped reduce tension.

When they realized that no one was going to be eliminated and that all three would proceed to the finals, the look on their faces was priceless. Hypestrike said it best when he said there was a nomination not an elimination. Too be honest, I liked the fact that Stan didn’t eliminate anybody; it kept things interesting and spread the joy around.

Stan talked to the heroes individually, and the Defuser and Hygena’s stories really stood out. The Defuser broke down when he talked about his sister and his family needing a hero when he was young, and Hygena cried when talking about losing a her baby late term, but that show had helped her grow and she realized that she had the strength to try again. Hyperstike’s story wasn’t tragic but it did reveal how he took childhood teasing and turned it into a motivator to excel.

A really good choice was having the heroes meet their families before the final decision was made. Last season they brought them out after Stan’s decision and it was anti-climactic because we didn’t know who they were and what was going on. This time the loved ones helped build dramatic tension and provided nice cutaways, instead of shots of bored, confused nobodies in the audience.

There were a few things I didn’t like though:

The promotional trailers for each character were terrible. Why were they fighting medieval monsters, and dragons in the woods? Superheroes are a very urban, street fight kind of a thing. Ugh, They also recycled some footage from last year’s trailers. Hyperstrike’s had some redeeming quality using Toho Godzilla and Rodan footage. But in general they sucked hard. It was a nice reminder that this program is broadcast on the same station that the shows SCIFI Original Pictures.

Dr. Dark’s final confrontation with the heroes was a bit of a let down. They just blasted him after the stunt-training segment and left him there. There should have been some sort of bigger payoff and the superheroes should have handed him off to the authorities as part of their final victory. It was a lame end to a villain that helped make the show.

There was a missed opportunity as well with Dr. Dark. They should have allowed Dr. Dark to make some sort of funny final statement from Jail. It would have helped close the show.

I enjoyed this season for the most part although, it lost some of the freshness factor by being a second season. Stan and the gang will need to mix it up if they do a third season so it doesn’t get stale.

Stan's after show interview with Feedback here

Parthe-NON

Who Wants To Be A Superhero… Week 6!

Being able to predict who is going home next is obviously not one of my skills. The Defuser is still here and Parthenon was sent packing, which I’m surprised about. To be completely honest this is the first time I’ve really disagreed with one of Stan’s decisions. Parthenon was not my favorite character by any stretch, but he’s always done pretty well. Some might give a knee jerk reaction and assume they had to kick the gay guy off, but I think it was really a case of keeping the only woman left on the show, that woman being Hygena. I really like Hygena, however her performance I felt was not as good as the others overall. You see, if we go with the criteria that Stan used last week to kick off Whip-Snap, that being the whole performance of the hero up to that point, then Parthenon should still be in the final three. Yeah, he blew it with the kids but so did Feedback in season one and he went on to win it. On side note, Parthenon was really positive during his interview with Feedback at Scifi.com. He showed class and verve and I ended up liking him more as a person after the discussion.

What was good this week: Seeing the heroes interact with the kids in the classroom, and the heroes kenning a way out of the container trap even after a few mishaps.

What was not so good: Making the heroes look like fools in downtown LA.

I’m gonna pick the Defuser again because… well since Hyperstrike and Hygena were at the San Diego Comic Con promoting the show I get the feeling that they are the final two.

It’s interesting that next week is a 2-hour finale. Which means to me that the show is dragging and so SciFi wants to race to the end. Good Idea.

Promo for next week here.

-Swinebread

The Whip Snapped

Who Wants To Be A Superhero… Week 5!

Well, I called it… NOT. I picked the Defuser last week and it was Whip-Snap that went home. She just got too emotional one two many times. I should have recognized that, but due to the fact that she hadn’t been called up for possible elimination before I didn’t think it would be her. I like Whip-Snap. Her real life story seemed so powerful and inspirational, a gay African American woman who overcame poverty and all that, I would have liked to have known more. But this is contest, as Stan said, and superhero is supposed to be as positive as possible and all the blubbering just wasn’t cutting it.
But I still think the Defuser came very close to leaving. Whip-Snap did have the fastest time on the rat, snake, and spider hole crawl, but Stan has to take the heroes performance in total and the past performances have been lacking especially due to her breakdowns.

Her interaction with the kids at the restaurant was great though, that big smile showed that she could be positive. If only we saw more of that.

Additionally. Ok, Yes everybody, this season of Who Wants To Be A Superhero is not as good as it could be. There I said it. Are you happy? Maybe the 1st season moved faster, maybe the people were more interesting, or possibly the newness factor of the show really helped sell it the first time around. I would encourage folks who are kinda iffy on the premise to check out the first season, especially for Captain Victory’s antics.

Doctor Dark Still rules though, he’s making the show fun.

Because he committed the big booboo of giving part of his costume away, I’ll pick the Defuser again to be eliminated next week.

I’m seriously starting to think that Hyperstrike is going all the way, although my personal favorite is Hygena for some bizarre reason.

-Swinebread

Garbage Gal Gone

Who Wants To Be A Superhero… Week 4!

No surprise this week as Basura left the lair, as she just wasn’t assertive enough. She’s defiantly an attractive woman. One of those arty types you might see on the East Side of Portland. I picked her to go and now Basura is gone. Despite the predictable elimination, I really enjoyed this episode as it had the same feeling as a first season show. When the costumed heroes have to walk around and ask the regular folks for favors, it’s always amusing. The extended Esureance commercial was kinda a surprising product placement on crack and maybe slightly annoying, but I hope they really did donate that $50,000 to that urban tree league. It’s gonna get tougher now as the remaining heroes all have more positive qualities than negative ones.

I must be enjoying this show much more than I thought, because I had a dream last night where I auditioned for a show called Who Wants to Be a Supervillain. I got to talk to Stan and the whole bit but I choked when I couldn’t come up with a good villain character, which is strange because I’ve got tons of ideas already. It must have been that comic con panel at scifi.com. see here

I’ll go out on a limb here, and guess that the Defuser will be eliminated next.

Next episode video promo here.

-Swinebread

The “New” Flash Gordon

“SCI FI is putting a 21st-century spin on one of science fiction's best-known names: Flash Gordon” – scifi.com

…And boy howdy, if by 21st century they mean really boring and lame, SCI FI accomplished it with flying colors. Imagine Stargate with only one world to travel to, X-Files with only one mystery, or Eureka with only one weird experiment and you get an idea of how dull this show is. I could go on and on about how this program is disingenuous to the Flash Gordon tradition established in the original comic strip but it’s entirely disingenuous to science fiction fans in general. Basically, the SciFi channel wanted something with name recognition to use for it's own purposes and unlike, say, Battlestar Galactica, which has been pretty good, they didn’t want to spend any money on it.

Flash Gordon should be about wild, amazing adventures on an alien planet with strange creatures and dastardly menacing threats of cosmic proportions. It’s the first Star Wars or Star Trek. Any adaptation, whether it’s played strait (the serials, the ‘79 cartoon) or for laughs (the 80s movie) understands that you’ve got to have that pulp sentiment, and larger than life action for Flash Gordon to work. This show strips away everything from the Flash Gordon franchise except for a few names. The script is terrible and the acting robotic. The producers want this show to be funny and cool. But it can’t be funny if the pulp elements are removed and it can’t be cool if it’s got a budget of two bucks. A Winnebago and a Bowling Ally are not the stuff of epic space adventures and Vancouver B.C. is not a good stand in for the planet Mongo. We should have had Hawkmen and spaceships from the beginning.

They are really hoping that nobody will notice how awful the show is. Sorry SCI FI we’ve noticed.

If your interested in Flash Gordon do yourself a favor and read the original collected comic strips or watch any number of other adaptations including the Serials, the 80s film or the 1979 Filmation cartoon.

This cartoon opening from 1979 is hundred times more exciting than the whole hour and half of SCI FI show.


How can adventures in a Winnebago and a Bowling Ally compare with that!

-Swinebread

Right & Wrong

Who Wants To Be A Superhero… Week 3!

Here’s a video of the show's Intro.

Well, I picked Mr. Mitzvah to be 86d and he was. No big shock there. He was always wimping out during the challenges, so it was only a matter of time. In fact, he would have been gone last week if Mindset hadn’t been such a jerk. The big surprise came when Stan had the super-folks come back to their power cubes for another, immediate elimination and poof, Ms. Limelight was gone too. She’s a nice person but she couldn’t take the pressure. Plus, her antics were getting old. I won't miss her. So, I was right and wrong with my prediction, although I did pick Ms. Limelight two weeks ago.


So we’re down to:

Hygena, Defuser, Whipsnap, Basura, Parthenon, and Hyperstrike.

Since I have to guess, I going with Basura to be eliminated next time.

Having a Supervillain directly involved with the challenges really adds to the fun, Doctor Dark rocks! …in goofy Silver Age Kinda way. Mu-hahaha

Who Wants To Be A Superhero is so cheesy, but I love it. The premise is so simple, but it really works for me. Part or the reason I have such an affinity for the show, I think, could possibly have something to do with dressing as a superhero and acting out the part. I might blog about this someday… I must stress might here.

Next episode video promo here.

-Swinebread

Who Wants To Be Eliminated? ...Mindset

Who Wants To Be Superhero… Week Two.

Wow, I would have picked Mindset to be eliminated if I had known that guy was such a clueless dick. Talk about no social skills and no empathy. How could he possibly think Stan made the wrong decision kicking him off when he insulted Ms. Limelight, and deliberately threw a challenge? It’s like he was playing a game in his own fantasy universe rather than dealing with what was really going on. Hey, Mindset get outta the basement and interact with humanity. This wasn’t a role-playing game. Bees were really stinging your teammates.

On A side note, I like the fact that there is a lot more supervillains this season. That was really missing from last time around. The fake news stories are a nice touch too.

I’m picking Mr. Mitzvah to get 86d for next time ‘cause his personality quirks aren’t funny anymore. I like his Stan designed suit the best of all the heroes though.

-Swinebread

Who wants to be a Superhero? and Comic Con thoughts

I enjoyed the 1st episode of season 2 of Who Wants To be a Superhero? They’ve obviously got a bigger budget with more special effects and a longer season. I liked the fact that no one was eliminated right off the bat as happened last year. It’s kinda sad that we never got to know Levity, from season one, because he was kicked off so soon. So it’s nice that everybody got a real chance this time around. With an expanded season, it seems like there will only be one elimination per episode. That’s a good too because it will be more difficult to figure out who has been kicked off ahead of time.

1st impressions:

Basura: Weird arty girl that you wanna get to know.

Braid: bored homemaker, good costume.

The Defuser: Cop guy who took Superhero “values” to heart.

Hygena: Funny homemaker, this season’s fat mama.

Hyper-Strike: amped up wild man with real skills

Mindset: the stereotypical comic fan, classic scifi silver age hero

Mr. Mitzvah: Spoiled rich guy with interesting personality quirks.

Ms. Limelight: Miss Airhead, but nice enough.

Parthenon: sorta classic golden age style mystical hero.

Whip-Snap: down on her luck, gal who is glad to be here.

The fact that feedback went around and told everyone they were on the show was a nice touch, with Whip-Snap’s reaction the best of the bunch.

Should I guess who is gonna get kicked off next? I’m really terrible at that sort of thing but I’ll say Ms. Limelight is gone next time around.

I watched some of the coverage of Comic Con on G4. It was nice to see the reveal with the news that Karen Allen will be in Indy 4. Maybe there’s hope Lucas won’t screw this up… …maybe. Here’s the vid:

I’m also getting excited about the special edition DVD of Blade Runner, but the interview with Ridley Scot was kinda lame.

The Neil Gaiman interview was much better and now I’m looking forward to both Beowulf and Stardust.

Some of the hosts on G4 show are irritating with their fake enthusiasm and no comic book knowledge comments.

I was also happy to learn from Heidi MacDonald’s blog that Mark Waid is now the editor-in-Chief of Boom! Studios. They’re making big waves with great comics, why not bring on a big name.

-Swinebread

Who wants to be a superhero? Tonight!

Don’t forget, Who Wants To be a Superhero? Season 2 premieres tonight at 9:00 P.M. on the SciFi channel.

Details here

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

Don’t forget, It's coming back for a second season on July 25, 2007. Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

Here’s the trailer to remind you why the first season was so good... for many different reasons.