electricinca.com

Just enough to get me excited for the return of Heroes and yet also revealing nothing at all about what we can expect to see in the second season of the show. In fact the interview that the BBC Breakfast show had with Adrian Pasdar and Milo Ventimiglia about season 1 which is currently showing on BBC Two revealed more.

Labels: heroes, TV

New York Times profile of Donnie Andrews the real life inspiration for the character of Omar Little in The Wire, probably inspired the creation of Dennis 'Cutty' Wise too. [via]

Labels: The Wire, TV

That was really rather bloody good wasn't it.

Perhaps I'm just still on the high from having just watched it but I'm currently thinking that this was the stand-out story of not just season three but of the new series entirely.

Very moving and awfully dark.

I thought what the Doctor did to the Family of Blood at the end was almost too dark for Doctor Who.

Labels: Doctor Who, TV

Just WOW! Best episode ever! The last few episodes of the season better be this good.

We're gonna be having some kinda of showdown between The Others and The Flight 815 survivors for sure when they come for Sun.

I hope we get the explanation for who or what Jacob is too. Also how the fuck does Richard not appear to have aged in 30 years?

I think Jacob in the very brief glimpse that we saw of him looked like Locke but with hair and a bit of a beard. Although given my theorising about what's going on that is probably wrong and it's not Locke at all.

I think that Ben became the leader of the Others because Richard recognised he had a special affinity with the island when he learnt that Ben was able to see his dead mother there and by that also have the ability to communicate with Jacob (who or what ever he might be).

I think Ben was able to summon his mother there in the same way that I believe Locke summoned his own father.

Ben fears that the Others may choose to replace him with Locke who seems to have a greater affinity with the island than Ben currently does. Richard undermined Ben's plan to remove Locke from the group by giving Locke the means to kill his father through Sawyer.

Perhaps Richard is the real man behind the curtain.

Labels: Lost, TV

Is it just me or does CTU LA seem to be the least secure Counter Terrorist facility on the planet. I've lost track now of how many times it has been successfully infiltrated or attacked it seems to have at least once a season if not more.

Hour 21 of Season 6 and it has happened again and been taken over by Chinese agents. Poor foolish Milo. This would never have happened had Bill Buchanan been left in charge!

Labels: Security, TV

Just watched the third and final episode of Adam Curtis's new documentary series The Trap on BBC 2.

Not all attempts to make the world a better place lead to tyranny.

I will come back to this later with a fuller review when I've watched all three episodes again, but I think Curtis has done yet again a fantastic job of solidify thoughts about modern society and politics that have been washing around in my head.

Labels: TV

Labels: TV, YouTube

This is usually the part when people start screaming.

Whiny little emo Peter Petrelli from the first few episodes would probably start screaming at this point but the new powerful Peter not so much I think.

Labels: heroes, TV

FREAKIN' DAMMIT!!!!! APRIL 23RD IS THE NEXT DAMN EPISODE!!!!

I can't wait that long.

Start spoiler.

I just knew Ando would be back. Perfect piece of sidekicking, get the hero's back without even telling him he's doing it.

The scene of Claire meeting Mama Petrelli was awesome. Is she part of the group that includes Linderman and Hiro's dad? Or was her husband? She seems to be acting against their interests in any case and has brought the Haitian over to her side.

I'm betting that Simone's dad was part of this group also and that we'll get to see Richard Roundtree again in some flashbacks, I thought it odd that he would appear so briefly in the two episodes he was in.

Again April 23rd!!! I have to wait until then to see the fight between Sylar and Peter. I really do hope it lives up to my expectations.

End of spoiler

Labels: heroes, TV

Well that last episode surprised me in a number of ways.

It played out very differently to how I imagined it might. I assumed that Michael's plan would go awry when Kellerman assassinated the President and I never thought we would actually get to hear the tape.

Secrets that could bring down the President in movies are like monsters in movies they are always much better before they get brought out into the light of day. But this time the secret was worth waiting for and one that I would never have guessed.

Spoilers follow (select with your mouse to reveal)

Fucking incest! Man, now that's something I'm sure she wanted to keep quiet.

Very glad C-Note survived his suicide attempt as he's my favourite character and I really want he and his family to get the happy ending. In comparison I don't much give a shit about the fate of Michael and Lincoln.

Sucre and Bellick teaming up against T-Bag could be fun.

Spoilers end.

Labels: Prison Break, TV

Holy Mothering Fuck!

Company Man was a fucking superb episode, this is probably the best episode of the series so far.

You might be glad to know that Ted and Matt aren't even mind-numbingly boring in it, but the episode really belongs to Jack Coleman as Mr. Bennett he was fucking superlative.

The writers of Lost could take some tips from Heroes here this is how you write flashbacks that are both answering questions the viewers have and posing yet more questions for them.

We get introduced to Mr. Bennett's boss played by Eric Roberts and I'm pretty sure that he ain't Linderman as he seemed like he was answerable to someone higher in the Company.

George Takei is back as Hiro's dad and his presence in the flashback opens up whole new possibilities. I'm pretty sure he's not Linderman either but is probably the Japanese equivalent. Is Hiro adopted? If not does his father suspect he might develop powers?

Labels: heroes, TV

No fucking idea who Tim Hardaway is but George Takei's response to Hardaway's homophobic comments is bloody hilarious. As one YouTube commenter writes

See, this is it. This is exactly it. This is how the world should work. If someone does something to upset you or something along those lines, respond with good natured comedy and not anger. Takei is a good man for doing this. I wish most of the world could be this way.

A surpisingly intelligent comment for YouTube there.

Labels: heroes, TV, YouTube

The latest episode of Heroes was fantastic and things really seem to be heating up.

The development of Peter's powers has been brilliant. He's gone from having an interesting but relatively useless power, when it was thought that he could only mimic those powers of people he was in proximity to or had just been in contact with, to being probably the most powerful individual of all now that he can access all the powers of those people he's come in contact with and possibly the only guy who can possibly stop Sylar.

Hana, Matt and Ted's confrontation with Mr. Bennett at the end is yet to play out and one wonders what Claire will make of encountering yet more people with powers who like her are very pissed off with her father.

And finally it was a great shame to see Ando go but I predict he will return, his relationship with Hiro and the way they interact is too good a thing to be cast aside.

Labels: heroes, TV

Another classic bit of comedy from the Top Gear guys.

Labels: TV, YouTube

Brian Haw has been named as the winner of the Channel 4 News award for Most Inspiring Political Figure.

Mr Haw received 54 per cent of the votes cast by the public in the channel's political awards for 2007.

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, who embarrassed the Government by saying troops should be withdrawn from Iraq, came second with 18 per cent.

Tony Blair was backed by eight per cent and David Cameron by six per cent.

Clearly the British public have lost all respect for their political representatives in parliament.

Labels: politics, TV

Tonight's episode (well last Sunday's really but I was at work so watched this evening's repeat) of Top Gear has to be the comedy classic of the year. Firstly we have Hugh Grant discussing his testicles and then we had the Top Gear team trying to sell a trio of art experts on the artistic merits of their chosen Coupe.

James May went first with the Alfa Romeo Brera and had to be asked to leave after he rambled boringly on at length. Jeremy Clarkson had the Audi TT and waffled on about Bauhaus and then threw in random artisitic movements such as cubism that made no sense, and the Mazda RX-8 was taken by Richard Hammond who somehow made even more of a hash of his pitch than did May or Clarkson.

Bemusement level of art experts. Extreme. Guffaws by myself. Too numerous to count.

Labels: humour, TV

I've watched the entire fourth and fifth season of Smallville in the space of just over a week and if someone doesn't stop me I'll go right ahead and watch as much of the sixth season as has been broadcast already.

Labels: TV

Apparently after the walkouts of a number of "celebrities" from the Big Brother house the producers are thinking of putting 'the only transexual in the village' Lauren Harries in followed by her mother. I'm not sure who I feel sorrier for, Lauren who will be entering that most tolerant of environments, the other housemates as Lauren describes her method of dealing with people she dislikes

I can go into their brains and turn all the taps on so the water floods out of their ears and their nose and mouth. In the end they go insane.

Or the viewing public, well actually I think the viewers deserve to suffer whatever happens.

The same can said of viewers of Day 6 of 24. They've really upped the improbability and insanity this time around and Jack is even more the unstoppable killing machine.

Having endured close to two years of torture at the hands of the Chinese (have they learnt nothing? Torture is wrong and ineffective unless it's being carried out by Bauer himself) he is almost immediately handed over to Islamic terrorists for yet more torture.

Having suffered a grevious stab wound to a nerve cluster in his shoulder Jack then rips out an unsuspecting terorists jugular with his teeth and escapes. He then proceeds to save the life of the leader of a different terorrist cell (who Jack has learnt has given up the terror game and wishes to enter the peaceful political process) from an airstrike carried out by the US military, kicksplodes a subway suicide bomber, shoots fellow CTU agent Curtis and then witnesses a nuke going off in LA.

All this and it's only been a mere four hours.

Labels: Terrorism, TV

The second of the BBC's Doctor Who spin off series The Sarah Jane Adventures has gotten off to a great start with their special pilot episode. Let's just hope that they can keep up this level of quality for the series proper and not go the way of Torchwood.

Coincidentally a half-year review of the Torchwood team has been leaked on to the interweb.

To: All Staff
From: HR Director
Importance: High
Subject: Half-Year Review - Some Essential Reminders

As we are all aware, we at Torchwood have undergone a drastic downsizing and restructuring exercise during Q1 and Q2 of the current period. Painful as the process has been, the Board is confident that we have now turned the corner and that the organisation is poised to build on its strengths over the coming months to emerge as a strong and vital entity with continued assured growth potential.

Brilliant stuff.

Labels: TV

Well briefly this year's Christmas episode of Doctor Who was in my opinion a load of crap and Catherine Tate was even more bloody annoying than I'd expected her to be. Yet another proof that RTD shouldn't fucking write these episodes as if we needed more proof.

And yet I was still excited by the trailer for the forthcoming Third season of the show. I'm a fucking lost cause really.

Labels: TV

I've rewatching season five of the tv show 24 in preparation for the imminent start of season six and I'm starting to feel some pity for the character of Rick Burke.

Who is Rick Burke you wonder?

He is the CTU interrogator/torturer played by Martin Papazian. Why should I feel pity for a torturer though? Well as if his occupation wasn't bad enough it seems that half the people he is asked to 'interrogate' by his superiors in CTU are entirely innocent and have no information at all for him to extract from them.

Not only that but when he does actually have a genuine suspect to interrogate, Christopher Henderson, Burke is knocked out by Tony Almeida before he can finish the job.

I had initially thought that Burke was in season four also but he is in fact the second iteration of a character whose sole purpose is to take over the role of torturer from Jack Bauer so that Bauer's heroics are not so diminished by carrying out such acts as they have been in previous seasons.

The season four CTU chief interrogator was an Agent Richards as portrayed by Butch Klein who has the thankless task of torturing Richard Heller and Sarah Gavin, who of course were innocent of conspiring with the terrorists.

Labels: TV

Myths over Miami is a fascinating article from almost ten years ago in the Miami New Times. [via]

On Christmas night a year ago, God fled Heaven to escape an audacious demon attack -- a celestial Tet Offensive. The demons smashed to dust his palace of beautiful blue-moon marble. TV news kept it secret, but homeless children in shelters across the country report being awakened from troubled sleep and alerted by dead relatives. No one knows why God has never reappeared, leaving his stunned angels to defend his earthly estate against assaults from Hell. "Demons found doors to our world," adds eight-year-old Miguel, who sits before Andre with the other children at the Salvation Army shelter. The demons' gateways from Hell include abandoned refrigerators, mirrors, Ghost Town (the nickname shelter children have for a cemetery somewhere in Dade County), and Jeep Cherokees with "black windows." The demons are nourished by dark human emotions: jealousy, hate, fear.

One demon is feared even by Satan. In Miami shelters, children know her by two names: Bloody Mary and La Llorona (the Crying Woman). She weeps blood or black tears from ghoulish empty sockets and feeds on children's terror. When a child is killed accidentally in gang crossfire or is murdered, she croons with joy. "If you wake at night and see her," a ten-year-old says softly, "her clothes be blowing back, even in a room where there is no wind. And you know she's marked you for killing."

I wonder where Dexter might fit into the mythologies of the street children of Miami.

Labels: TV

So we reach the end of season two of Lost and again we have had some revelations and questions answered but new questions are raised by it leaving us eagerly awaiting the new season.

The Skinner Box is not a Skinner Box!

I seem to have been a step ahead of John Locke on this throughout the season. I figured it wasn't real and was just a psychological experiment in the first episode of this season when Locke thought it was real. Then upon the discovery of The Pearl Locke lost his faith but I started to wonder if The Swan was not as I had first surmised a Skinner Box but was in some fashion real.

The Others are not as we were led to believe a bunch of barbaric survivors who had been stranded on the island in some incident many years ago. What are they hiding by pretending to have been reduced to a Lord of the Flies like savagery?

Danielle has been on the island for 16 years now and the Others predate her arrival, have they only recently adopted this false front following the Oceanic 815 crash or have they been doing it for many years? Kelvin tells Desmond about the Hostiles that live on the island, was this a reference to the Others?

Also the Faux Henry Gale tells Michale that they are the good guys when he asks who the hell they are.

They seem quite sophisticated and the fact that they are hiding their true nature would lead me to believe that they are quite possibly scientists working for the Dharma Initiative studying the behaviour of various groups of castaways and who must pose as yet another of these groups in order as to not jeopardise the results.

The way that the Faux Henry Gale was able to manipulate the Oceanic 815 survivors particularly Locke would suggest that he had extensive psychological training. Is he perhaps one of the scientists employed by the Dharma Initiative to study the participants in the Swan/Pearl observation experiment.

What the hell is the four-toed foot of a destroyed statue all about?

Labels: TV

I read in the Times newspaper today that NORAD were to move out of their nuclear bunker facility underneath Cheyenne mountain to a more regular air force base.

Unlike most readers of the story though my first thought on hearing the news was "Well what are they going to do with the Stargate then?"

Labels: Security, TV

I've never been to Crouch End but I can say for sure that it doesn't look anything the hell like it is depicted in the television adaptation of the Stephen King story of the same name.

It was a decent enough Lovecraftian horror story but the location made it nigh on unwatchable as it was so obviously an American town with a few added details like a red phone box (can't recall the last time I saw one of those outside of a US movie or television show lamely trying to make somewhere look like Britain).

For a better view of the real Crouch End I'd recommend watching Shaun of the Dead, a great movie and apparently it was filmed in Crouch End. Alternatively you could go on a virtual tour of Crouch End with views from the base of the real clock tower there.

Labels: TV

Andy McNab was on This Week tonight giving his take on the week. A week in which the headlines have featured every day the British military in some way from the 90th anniversary of the Somme to the deaths of two special forces soldiers in Afghanistan.

The programme turned to Andy McNab, best-selling author and former SAS Patrol Commander, to answer the following questions.

So what is the role of our armed forces in the modern world of warfare? And do we sufficiently care?

A number of interesting points arose.

Politicians that have never fought in a war have insufficient understanding of the difficulties of waging war and McNab sees this worsening as the next generation of people that have grown up on videogames and the embedded reporting of war from the frontlines grow up and take power in Westminster. He fears that they will believe that war is a relatively easy thing to carry out.

A related point is the lack of clarity of mission and clearly defined rules of engagement. This is especially true for those on the ground in Iraq where they are required to act in a way that they have not been trained to do. With only the vague rhetoric of politicians to guide them coupled with the fear that any action they take may be seen as a war crime the soldiers on the ground have lost morale.

Finally is the fact that the British military is underfunded for it's purpose. Now I see this more of a problem of funds being spread too thinly as the British military tries to be all things to all people in effect a mini-US rather than insufficient funds being made available.

We have a perfect opportunity to reassess the British military soon as the question of the replacement of Trident is to be discussed (although both Blair and Brown seem to have already made their minds up). At the projected cost of £25 Billion does Britain still need an independent nuclear deterrent?

The Warsaw Pact plan Seven Days to the River Rhine which was recently released by the Polish government indicates that during the Cold War that Britain's independent nuclear deterrent really was a deterrent. But as the Prime Minister is so fond of saying the rules have changed and we face a new enemy.

We no longer face the enemy that we faced during the Cold War and I believe that Britain no longer needs an independent nuclear deterrent particularly when the replacement of Trident surely would constitute a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which this country signed in July 1968 and which commits us to long-term disarmament of our nuclear weaponry.

It is inexplicable particularly in the light of the British government's view on that other signatory of the treaty Iran and their burgeoning nuclear program.

How can me maintain our international standing when we don't respect the disarmament provisions of the treaty whilst insisting other countries abide by the non-proliferation provisions of that same treaty?

So I believe that
1. Britain does we not need a replacement for Trident given the changing geo-political situation and the nature of the new threat we as a country now face.
2. In the light that we do face a new threat in the form of terrorism which cannot be deterred by nuclear weapons surely the money could be better spent tackling a threat we do face rather than one we no longer do.
3. Our international standing is reliant on our honouring our commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the replacement of Trident would conctitute a breach. We could of course withdraw from the treaty but I believe that would be equally as damging to our international standing.

Labels: politics, Terrorism, TV

Watched Question Time (the show is viewable online here) on the BBC tonight and one of the panellists Melanie Phillips showed her typical restraint on the issue of Israel actions in Gaza.

She basically said that the Palestinian people deserve to suffer as they voted for Hamas and therefore are complicit in the murder of Eliyahu Asheri and the capture of Corporal Shalit.

I cannot but condemn the actions of those militants responsible for those two acts they are disgusting and evil acts but neither can I but condemn Melanie Phillips for her views and the actions of the Israeli military.

Israel vowed to take "extreme action" if the Corporal Gilad Shalit was not released and they have indeed.

Thankfully Israel has halted it's push into northern Gaza amid reports of new talks aimed at freeing its captured soldier.

The destruction of infrastructure in Gaza such as the bridges and power station was to put pressure on Hamas to secure the release of Cpl Shalit. But how can it be seen as anything other than collective punishment of the Palestinian people for the acts of a militant minority? Surely the actions of the Israeli military will do nothing but cause ordinary innocent Palestinians to become more militant.

Melanie Phillips apparently believes that they are already all extremely militant why else would they have voted for a Hamas government. The ordinary Palestinians just want to get on with their lives and voted for Hamas as a response to the corrupt Fatah government they had previously, who they viewed as being ineffective at securing a free independent Palestine.

I hope that this rumoured dialogue works as otherwise I cannot see the situation failing to escalate and further innocents being made to suffer on both sides of the conflict.

Labels: TV

The Doctor dropped the bombshell that he was once a dad during tonight's episode of Doctor Who.

I guess this is an allusion to the fact that he had a granddaughter named Susan in the William Hartnell episodes of the TV series and in the Doctor Who movies that starred Peter Cushing.

So it follows that if he has a granddaughter then he must at one time have had a child. The subject of whether he has sex is one that has been alluded to but never really expanded upon and as what is a family show it probably never will.

However I have an alternate theory to explain the existence of a granddaughter, especially given that she appears to be human rather than Gallifreyan. She may in fact be the daughter of a human that The Doctor picked up and adopted as his child much in the same way that Death adopted a child in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books.

Coincidentally the name of Death's granddaughter is Susan.

Labels: Sex, TV

BBC News: Billie Piper to leave Doctor Who

Actress Billie Piper is to leave Doctor Who at the end of the current series, the BBC has confirmed.

But the corporation refused to comment on reports that her character, Rose Tyler, would die in the final episode.

"It has been an amazing adventure and I can confirm it comes to an end, for now at least, as series two climaxes," the former pop star said.

Not really that much of a surprise as I'm pretty sure it was said that Billie would only be staying on for the second series back at Christmas. It has also been heavily hinted at that something dark and sinister is to befall her character, but I bet she doesn't die and will make cameo appearances in episodes of future series.

Labels: TV

The Idiot's Lantern, the seventh episode of Doctor Who, was creepy fantastic.

A wonderful episode that was really quite disturbing and if hundreds of thousands of kids across the country don't have nightmares about 'The lady from the TV coming to get them' tonight I'll be surprised. This one did have the fear factor.

Fabulous bit of writing by Mark Gatiss who also wrote the excellent episode from the first season The Unquiet Dead.

It was perfectly cast I thought. Maureen Lipman was outstanding as the villain of the piece and both Ron Cook and Jamie Foreman were great in their roles as Magpie and Eddie Connolly.

The shots of a faceless grandmother and that of a faceless Rose will stay with me for many days I feel.

Labels: TV

Just found at YouTube something that made me very very happy. Gummi Bears

I loved this cartoon series as a kid.

Labels: TV, YouTube

If last week's episode was like old school Doctor Who at it's best then this was definitely new school Doctor Who at it's best. You would never have had a story like this in the old days which was basically a love story involving the Doctor against a typical time travel background.

The robots would have scared me as a seven year old more than anything else so far this series. Like Sophia Myles said in Doctor Who Confidential they were like sinister clowns. Smiling but deadly, it can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Madame Du Pompadour was great, she was intelligent, brave, commanding and very beautiful. I could fucking fall for a woman like that.

Godspeed my lonely angel

I thought it was heartbreakingly poignant stuff.

Fucking Cybermen next week. Cool.

Labels: TV

Just finished watching the third episode of The Street on BBC One that I'd recorded from earlier. This was a truly gut-wrenchingly powerful piece of drama.

The tension was built so well that I was having my emotional insides being ripped raw along with the characters to the point near the end where I felt that Neil Dudgeon's character Brian was on the point of topping himself only to be saved by the call on his mobile from his wife with the news that the truth had come out.

Brian has returned home having left becuase his wife Ann (Lindsey Coulson)didn't believe him, but these events will have altered things between he and his wife. There's no going back now they only can move on from here and hope to build a new trust.

I'm annoyed I missed last week's episode because on the evidence of tonight's and the first episode which starred Jane Horrocks this series is shaping up to be the best drama of the year.

Labels: TV

Thanks to John McMahon of Straight to Hell for this link.

Channel 4 in their '20 questions' series of promos for their channel have had a recent ad banned but it is viewable on their site at the link below.
http://www.channel4.com/ads/index1.html

Labels: TV

"Davina McCall's placenta from when she had the bambino."
- Avid Merrion

Labels: TV

-The main reason I went into medicine was for the laughs, that and the pussy.
-Egg in soup. The food of champions.
-You're the most sensitive person I know and I know God.
-I'm a one track lover down a two-way lane.
Words copyright Garth Marenghi.

Garth Marenghi is the most prolific horror writer in the UK see more of his beautiful words at http://www.garthmarenghi.com

Labels: TV

ER Helicopter crash maniacs
Fucking hell carnage central
You okay? Just a little dizzy
Hypertension with a rigid belly
http://www.nbc.com/ER/episode_guide/212.html

Labels: TV