Category Archives: television

Tuesdays

Overlord is going to be very busy doing it’s Tivo-thing on Tuesday nights. Fringe and 90210 at 8. Eureka and Reaper at 9.

Actually, I can’t imagine watching more than the pilot of 90210, but still, what’s up with Tuesdays? Speaking of 90210, the TV Column in the Washington Post had a funny piece about the debut of the original Beverly Hills 90210, since FOX didn’t make the new show available for advanced screening:

TV critics, and viewers, were underwhelmed: “It’s apparently part of a new experiment in comatose television — a show where things almost happen but never quite do. You keep checking your pulse to make sure you haven’t died,” wrote The Post’s Tom Shales. “The 90-minute premiere of ‘Beverly Hills, 90210′ . . . [gives] you the feeling you’ve been watching for 90 days,” added the Los Angeles Times’ Howard Rosenberg.

TV columnist Lisa de Moraes noted that by refusing to screen the show, the network got way more hype and publicity than if they’d just forked over the goods.

They’re very clever at Fox. I notice they’re “letting” Fringe fans build the wiki for them. How very generous.

Numb3rs

Today I’m going to watch Obama’s speech, so no spoilers, ok?

Last night I was actually able to sort of focus through the pain and drugs long enough to watch a little TV, we watched the first 5 or 6 episodes of Numb3rs, a show I’d been avoiding because Rob Morrow annoyed the shit out of me in Northern Exposure. Now, I realize that it was Northern Exposure that I found so annoying, not Rob Morrow. I might be able to work up to Galactica 1980 by the weekend, but not yet.

When they first broadcast Numb3rs, CBS showed the episodes out of order, and so they’re in that same goofy order on the discs so the character development is sort of confusing. It’s ok, though, cause I’m not going to remember much of it anyway.

The lesson Numb3rs wants to teach us is: Mathematicians and Physicists are Teh Sexy.

We knew that.

not to be a telecomm nerd or anything…

[This might possibly contain Eureka season 3 spoilers, I’m not sure]

I love the show Eureka, which means Husband is now required by law to love the show Eureka. I think one of the shows charms is that any type of technology is possible in the universe of Eureka, and they never bother to pause and awkwardly offer an explanation. We’ve all agreed to suspend our disbelief and we all live happily ever after.

We just started watching season 3, and at the end of the second episode a character is watching an old filmstrip of an A-Bomb test in Eureka. She does a doubletake as she reads the label on the film canister. The date is 1936 (or maybe 1938 – the image was a little grainy). The first A-Bomb test at Alamogordo, New Mexico was in 1945 so this is a big discovery for this character. But she’s missing the big picture – that’s obviously not the only secret advanced technology they had in Eureka in the 1930s. The label instructed anyone finding the canister to contact the Department of War is the seal was broken, because the film was top secret. The phone number was a 202 number, which is authentic as far as it goes, being the current area code for Washington, DC. The area code system wasn’t developed until 1947 and it wasn’t implemented until 1951.

I’ve got to get out more, I think, because I knew that right off the top of my head. That can’t possibly be healthy.

I want to believe

I can’t imagine the rumors that Dan Quayle is joining the cast of Dancing with the Stars are true. Nevertheless, I’d like to believe it for a day or so, if you don’t mind. It’s a nice change of pace from contemplating the McCain campaign’s statement that John McCain doesn’t speak for the McCain Campaign. Here’s the link to the story Keith Olbermann did on Countdown, for some reason I can’t embed MSNBC videos on my site.

Delia Derbyshire, Doctor Who & Dexter

I got this excellent link from Alec:

A hidden hoard of recordings made by the electronic music pioneer behind the Doctor Who theme has been revealed – including a dance track 20 years ahead of its time.

Delia Derbyshire was working in the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop in 1963 when she was given the score for a theme tune to a new science fiction series.

She turned those dots on a page into the swirling, shimmering Doctor Who title music – although it is the score’s author, Ron Grainer, who is credited as the composer.

Now David Butler, of Manchester University’s School of Arts, Histories and Cultures has revealed for the first time the existence of 267 tapes found in Ms Derbyshire’s attic when she died in 2001.

[read the whole article and listen to soundclips]

And now, a slight Dr. Who digression, with spoilers for the episode aired last night on SciFi and also sort of, but not exactly, for season 1 of Dexter.
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