Posted by Science Fiction Author, Clara Bush
Friday night. Date night. Fun night. Party night. And perhaps your idea of a fun, date, party night is popcorn, a beer, and some SyFy. If that was your scenario for this last Friday night, you were lucky—and I hope in more ways than the premiere of 12 Monkeys and the opener for Season 2 of Helix.
Friday Nights On SyFy Return
(TGIFOSyFy)
As Promised
(In An Effort To Aid the Hurried Reader)
THE SHORT OF IT
It’s back to the good old days on SyFy, when Friday nights on the channel were your go-to for entertainment and escape from a week of hell at work and/or school. (Remember Farscape and Firefly?)
12 Monkeys’s premiere was a time traveling thrill ride with beautiful actors who had chemistry and a knack of presenting real conversations—at least as real as one can have with a time-traveler.
Helix’s new season takes on a whole-lot-of new. If you missed Season 1, no worries, you can just dive right into Season 2.
If you must choose between 12 Monkeys or Helix, because you’re taping Grimm, or because your time is too precious to watch both, my choice would be 12 Monkeys.
THE LONG OF IT: Keep reading
12 MONKEYS,
Would you hit the reset switch?
the premiere of 12 Monkeys
To like—the dialogue. Example:
To like—the hero is decisive and a man of few words.
Not to like:
It’s like someone yelled: “Put your hand on your butt. It’s showing.” Perhaps, a bit of better staging was in order. Or a longer dress. Or…How else could you hold a girl you are trying to rescue and you must use your time traveling speed to save your asses. (This is minor. And sorta funny.)
All in all, I can’t wait until next Friday.
Probe-filing of 12 Monkeys
- Director of the movie 12 Monkeys, Terry Gilliam, made the following remark when first asked about a TV adaptation of the classic. “That’s just ridiculous. It doesn’t have anything to do with me and no-one has contacted me. It’s a very dumb idea, if it was going to be any good, it would have to be written by David and Janet Peoples, who wrote the film.”
- The movie was inspired by the 1962 French science fiction featurette La Jetée by Chris Marker. However the short film doesn’t use the 12 Monkeys.
Helix 2: Do You Know The Way to San Jose?
( Granted, if you watch commercials, you already knew Helix 2 would be set on an island. I go to great lengths to avoid commercials, like I go brush my teeth during commercials, or empty the dishwasher or load up the dishwasher or tape all shows, watch later and FF through commercials. But my husband, however, loves commercial. Go figure.)
The new kid. He’s funny. And sexy.
To like : Some of the new humor even though it could have been written better.
Not to like: The question: “You brought a gun?”
To like : Better example of new humor:
Not to like: Unlikely plot advancement.
Probe-filing of Helix 2
- Writer Alex Mc Cown of Comic Central’s A.V. Club describes Helix as the stoned college sophomore of TV sci-fi. Meaning it’s… full of weighty philosophical notions and fun ideas, but no clue how to explain them or execute its plans.
- Series developer Cameron Porsandeh stated to SciFi Mafia that a major feature of the series is that each episode represents the events of a single day within the story: thus the entire thirteen episode first season takes place in under two weeks of in-universe time.
Doesn’t look like that’s the case in season 2, although we do get a daily count down. But during the opener, we get a scene that takes place 30 years later (Than what? I’m not sure). In the later thirty years, Dr. Julia Walker (actress Kyra Zagorsky) is dying of the newly introduced TMX-7 virus. AND she is an immortal, but not as in vampire! I gotta see how that plays out. Hope we don’t end up with polar bears.
***
blog post #85 by Science Fiction Author, Clara Bush
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