Category Archives: Some Spoilers
“Star Trek: Voyager” Season 3: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
Guys, if the marvelous Whitney Bishop is gonna keep telling you which episodes of “Star Trek: Voyager” to skip/watch, then I’m gonna keep publishing them. Enjoy! –Liz
It seems weird now that it’s pretty much the norm, but serialization is actually something that television — and Star Trek in particular — used to hate. The syndication model meant that shows had to be airable in whatever order the local broadcasters wanted to air them in, which didn’t lend well to embedded cumulative plots. Sure, there were certain shows that demanded strict continuity (see: Twin Peaks), but Star Trek series weren’t supposed to be among them. Deep Space Nine, in fact, got on the wrong side of its production company more than once when it made plotlines that stretched over several episodes. If you go read around on Memory Alpha, you see tons of instances where Voyager‘s cast and crew
alike make mention of this, usually grumbling all the way. Good for business, bad for art.
Season three is where the show’s lack of short-term memory really starts to show. Read the rest of this entry
Nick Tells Liz What Happened On “Survivor: Caramoan”
Dear Frank,
Another guest post! We are truly blessed. Loyal reader Nick really wanted to tell me about “Survivor,” and I cannot deny anyone the opportunity to tell me about stuff. It is, after all, one of life’s most unique pleasures.
Love,
Liz
Dear Liz (and I guess Frank, too),
Although some may believe that reality TV is worse than getting an STD or having jury duty, I still feel compelled to write in about the latest season of Survivor: Caramoan — Fans vs. Favorites. Because quite frankly, it was a treat!
If you don’t already know, Survivor is a show where 16-20 Americans are put on an island to compete for a $1 million prize. They participate in rewards challenges, where they get food or luxuries that make their camp life easier — fishing gear, tarps, blankets, etc. Then, there’s an immunity challenge. The winning team is immune for the week and the losers go to Tribal Council where they have to vote off one of their own. Our gracious host, Jeff Probst, then grills them about how much they hate each other. If we’re really lucky that week, there’s tons o’ tears and drama and it’s beyond great. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank Stuff She Forgot About “Firefly”
Dear Frank,
It is weird, being here in the year 2013, and seeing what’s happened to Joss Whedon — see a man whose name was synonymous with “cult not-really-a-hit” no less than three years ago play puppet master with one of Hollywood’s biggest, most profitable franchises.
The Whedon-directed Avengers grossed all those billions! ABC picked up the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D TV show he’s executive producing! He signed up for Twitter and got over 100,000 followers in like no time! Frank, Joss Whedon is en fuego!
Which is why it’s fun to look back at Whedon during his slightly more humble days — you know, when he had only three shows on television at one time–
Hmmm. It’s fascinating, isn’t it Frank, how Joss Whedon always seems like an underdog? Even when he’s doing insane things like making millions of dollars off a web series?
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Transmetropolitan”
Dear Frank,
So the first time I read Transmetropolitan, I was visiting Whitney, one of my oldest friends, in New Jersey. It was 2005, I was on a very random cross-country trip, and Whitney had a day job, and so spending the better part of 48 hours reading her trade paperbacks made sense.
Then, Transmetropolitan BROKE MY BRAIN.
By which I mean I loved it. Even though it BROKE MY BRAIN. And gave me nightmares. And did…
It did some other things, Frank. They mostly involve shouting. I shall explain.
Transmet, as it’s conventionally know, is writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson’s magnum opus for Vertigo Comics, a five year odyssey through an imagined future where genetics are easily manipulated, technology is something you swallow as pills, and we just call New York City “The City.”
If you read it in less than two days on a futon in New Jersey, it’s really intense. If you reread it in two weeks on an actual bed in Los Angeles… Actually still really intense. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Continuum” (Sorta.)
Dear Frank,
Sometimes this blog is a place where I provide a genuine public service for you and others, by telling you everything you might need to know about a certain media item so that you never have to consume it yourself. And sometimes it is a place where I just tell you about something I liked recently, and urge you and others to check it out, and maybe I don’t reveal too much about it along the way to enable said checking-out.
We’re doing the second thing today. Continuum, Frank! A show worth checking out!
Well, very specifically, a show worth checking out if (like me) you cut your sci-fi teeth on The X-Files and other genre shows that were shot in Canada in the 1990s. I don’t know what it is about the combination of grey skies, pine trees, and low-budget special effects that I find so charming, but any time I even sniff a hint of Vancouver or Toronto in a show’s exterior shots, I feel like I’ve come home.
So Continuum, which is not only shot in Canada but IS CANADIAN and is actually SET IN CANADA, had an easy in with my heart. And we haven’t even gotten to the strong female protagonist yet! Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank Why She Struggles With “Walking Dead” But Loves “Warm Bodies”
Dear Frank,
It’s taken me more than a few years to understand why (despite being a total slut for any sort of fantasy or sci-fi narrative) I don’t really like zombie stories: They make for very hopeless storytelling. I can get on board with post-apocalypse narratives; I can get on board with horror. But zombie stories combine the two, often in a dark gruesome way, and goddamn if I’ve always failed to really engage with them.
The exception, though, happens because of love. Always because of love.
Let’s start with The Walking Dead. If I had been single in the year 2010, I would never have finished watching the first season; I didn’t hate it, but I found it awfully bleak for regular viewing.
However, I was not single in 2010, and the guy liked the show and didn’t have cable, so we watched it at my place — when Season 2 premiered a year later, after my relationship status had changed, I realized that on the bright side, I wouldn’t have to continue watching it. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In... 