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thedeadlyhookGenerally difficult night - Toys woke up with an unexplained chill and the shakes, spent the next couple of hours bundled under our living room kotatsu table trying to warm up while I read WebMD entries about infections and malaria. Final analysis - he was just cold, although it scared the shit out of me enough to insist on him dragging his ass to the doctor's for a tetanus booster. I'm dead tired. With luck, though, I'll get to come along on a toy-shopping run today. Not that I can afford to buy much of anything, but with Toys-R-Us closing stores around the area, there are crazy deals to be found. Toys - er, the kind that come in a box, not Toys the Person - would be good right now. I could use a little frivolous fun.
In other news... Last night's SG-1 had a fun premise - the whole multiverse concept never fails to entertain. Multiple Sams made for a good sight gag, and I got a nice giggle out of the ego-tastic conversation of Chricton-on-Chricton... er, okay, I've forgotten the character's name again because Browder still isn't doing a lot to make him not Chricton. Filler, but enjoyable.
Atlantis, though... okay, no points awarded for the BSG ripoff plot. OMG, there's a bomb on Atlantis, a spy who could be anyone!, and yeah yeah yeah the suspicion and the oh-so-timely debate about whether or not to torture. Ugh.
First thing to get out of the way about why this topic bugs me - and this is going to be a bit of a poltical spiel, beware - torture is one of those items that TV and movie dramas, IMHO, have done their part in making the world more evil by suggesting that it works. Which it doesn't. The mythical scenario of a ticking timebomb - the plot used in this episode, to the letter - is just exactly that, a myth. History is very clear on the point that people under torture don't confess the truth, they confess to darn near anything their torturers want to hear. There are no statistics that suggest anything to the contrary, only episodes of 24 and the audiences that are manipulated into believing them. Because drama is compelling, drama works, and logically, emotionally, it sorta makes sense that if you knew where a bomb was located and you could stop someone from hurting you by confessing, you would... wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? Even if it wasn't you who planted the bomb?
So by that scale... kudos for Atlantis for bringing up the What If This Person is Innocent? point as a reason not to resort to torture, a nuance that's typically skipped in this sort of debate. Then, when the real culprit is discovered, they find out the truth not through torture, per se, but by shocking the Gua'uld into quiescence so the human host could come to the fore and provide the answer, a nice use of the actual sci-fi feaures of the Stargate world to do an end run around a touchy subject. So bravo to that.
But then on that note... the reports I'm reading make me very glad I'm not watching Galactica anymore. Earlier in the week, I'd penned a sort of too-sarcastic-to-post rant about the Sci-Fi Channel's incessant previews (something along the lines of, "Gee, a father opposing abortion because said baby is 'part of him,' while the mother has no say at all on the subject, and who gets to make the final call but a presiding male authority figure? I never would have thought to have framed an abortion debate like that!"), but it looks like the actual episode was even more wtf? than I could have anticipated. Magical cancer cure? Er, so can Cylons by detected by a blood test now? Or just hybrids? Strawman peace movement with suicide bombers? Okay, huh? HUH? HUHHH???
There's this thing I hear a lot, especially in the mainstream news, when BSG is discussed - arguments along the lines of "sci-fi for those who don't like sci-fi." Well, I like sci-fi. At its core, sci-fi is about asking theoretical questions - what if there was a race of intelligent robots who were biologically identical to humans, but who hated us and wanted to destroy us? - and then coming up with interesting trains of thought by way of answer. Those kinds of stories interest me.
Stories that duck and weave away from answers? That distract with shiny baubles and melodramatic devices? That fly in the face of logic and/or human behavior, just to be contrary and "not what you'd expect"? Er.... not.
All above with the caveat, of course, that I didn't see the actual episode. Like I said, ignore this if you're still into the show.
Movie notes: we rented Kamikaze Girls from the local Hollywood video, at the same time we checked out War of the Worlds. Our local Wherehouse, where we'd usually gone to rent summer-movie-blockbuster type stuff, had closed recently, so we'd gone to Hollywood by way of replacement. As it turns out, the savings weren't so great - two extra nights as opposed to the local very good video store, but same price - so we'll probably just give in and sign up for Netflix after all, but anyway, quick anecdote. We're browsing the store, and I find myself checking out their TV section, during which time I notice the big signs posted on the walls and shelf-tops, pimping said TV section: "The Best in TV!" The illustrations for this boast are: the Family Guy animated crowd, Keifer Sutherland's character from 24 (grrrr... torture), Fry and Bender from Futurama, and... Buffy and Spike. Aw.
But Kamikaze Girls rocked. I give it a rating of "Jawsome" plus "Airwolf," and a wave of my magical fairy wand to boot. There totally need to be more movies made about all-girl biker gangs. Totally.
In other news... Last night's SG-1 had a fun premise - the whole multiverse concept never fails to entertain. Multiple Sams made for a good sight gag, and I got a nice giggle out of the ego-tastic conversation of Chricton-on-Chricton... er, okay, I've forgotten the character's name again because Browder still isn't doing a lot to make him not Chricton. Filler, but enjoyable.
Atlantis, though... okay, no points awarded for the BSG ripoff plot. OMG, there's a bomb on Atlantis, a spy who could be anyone!, and yeah yeah yeah the suspicion and the oh-so-timely debate about whether or not to torture. Ugh.
First thing to get out of the way about why this topic bugs me - and this is going to be a bit of a poltical spiel, beware - torture is one of those items that TV and movie dramas, IMHO, have done their part in making the world more evil by suggesting that it works. Which it doesn't. The mythical scenario of a ticking timebomb - the plot used in this episode, to the letter - is just exactly that, a myth. History is very clear on the point that people under torture don't confess the truth, they confess to darn near anything their torturers want to hear. There are no statistics that suggest anything to the contrary, only episodes of 24 and the audiences that are manipulated into believing them. Because drama is compelling, drama works, and logically, emotionally, it sorta makes sense that if you knew where a bomb was located and you could stop someone from hurting you by confessing, you would... wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? Even if it wasn't you who planted the bomb?
So by that scale... kudos for Atlantis for bringing up the What If This Person is Innocent? point as a reason not to resort to torture, a nuance that's typically skipped in this sort of debate. Then, when the real culprit is discovered, they find out the truth not through torture, per se, but by shocking the Gua'uld into quiescence so the human host could come to the fore and provide the answer, a nice use of the actual sci-fi feaures of the Stargate world to do an end run around a touchy subject. So bravo to that.
But then on that note... the reports I'm reading make me very glad I'm not watching Galactica anymore. Earlier in the week, I'd penned a sort of too-sarcastic-to-post rant about the Sci-Fi Channel's incessant previews (something along the lines of, "Gee, a father opposing abortion because said baby is 'part of him,' while the mother has no say at all on the subject, and who gets to make the final call but a presiding male authority figure? I never would have thought to have framed an abortion debate like that!"), but it looks like the actual episode was even more wtf? than I could have anticipated. Magical cancer cure? Er, so can Cylons by detected by a blood test now? Or just hybrids? Strawman peace movement with suicide bombers? Okay, huh? HUH? HUHHH???
There's this thing I hear a lot, especially in the mainstream news, when BSG is discussed - arguments along the lines of "sci-fi for those who don't like sci-fi." Well, I like sci-fi. At its core, sci-fi is about asking theoretical questions - what if there was a race of intelligent robots who were biologically identical to humans, but who hated us and wanted to destroy us? - and then coming up with interesting trains of thought by way of answer. Those kinds of stories interest me.
Stories that duck and weave away from answers? That distract with shiny baubles and melodramatic devices? That fly in the face of logic and/or human behavior, just to be contrary and "not what you'd expect"? Er.... not.
All above with the caveat, of course, that I didn't see the actual episode. Like I said, ignore this if you're still into the show.
Movie notes: we rented Kamikaze Girls from the local Hollywood video, at the same time we checked out War of the Worlds. Our local Wherehouse, where we'd usually gone to rent summer-movie-blockbuster type stuff, had closed recently, so we'd gone to Hollywood by way of replacement. As it turns out, the savings weren't so great - two extra nights as opposed to the local very good video store, but same price - so we'll probably just give in and sign up for Netflix after all, but anyway, quick anecdote. We're browsing the store, and I find myself checking out their TV section, during which time I notice the big signs posted on the walls and shelf-tops, pimping said TV section: "The Best in TV!" The illustrations for this boast are: the Family Guy animated crowd, Keifer Sutherland's character from 24 (grrrr... torture), Fry and Bender from Futurama, and... Buffy and Spike. Aw.
But Kamikaze Girls rocked. I give it a rating of "Jawsome" plus "Airwolf," and a wave of my magical fairy wand to boot. There totally need to be more movies made about all-girl biker gangs. Totally.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-21 06:25 pm (UTC)As for the pregnancy termination, just to calrify, it's actually Laura who orders that Sharon's pregnancy be terminated and, I assume, is the one to call it off after she's saved by the fetus' blood. And while Helo does make reference to the baby being part of him, his real issue with Adama is that Adama tries to undercut what he is about to do and ease his conscience by refering to the fetus as a Cylon, choosing to ignore that the child is half human. My issue with the president's decision is that I'm not sure why Sharon's child poses a threat to the fleet. Aren't they already regularly under attack?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-21 06:39 pm (UTC)Adama tries to undercut what he is about to do and ease his conscience by refering to the fetus as a Cylon, choosing to ignore that the child is half human.
Interesting. So it sounds like the stem cell issue finally brought the human-not human them back to the front. I was thinking that was one way out of this whole morass, hitting the Star Trek-style Sentient Beings Have a Right to Life button, but I thought that seemed like an unlikely turn for BSG.
I'm not sure why Sharon's child poses a threat to the fleet. Aren't they already regularly under attack?
Really! Honestly, about the only theory I could formulize at this point is that if it's something the Cylons want, It's Probably Bad, and part of their master plan. So maybe Roslin was playing by those rules, figuring to deny the Cylons something they Want... although then that begs the question of why the human fleet is being attacked while Pregnant Sharon is still aboard, if they're so concerned with the survival of her baby? But then I shouldn't theorize, being as far behind as I am with the plot stuff.