Death TV.

I think I've mentioned that I really don't watch TV normally. I salute websites like hulu.com that understand that sometimes I can't, or don't want to, watch TV during normal prime-time. And because I watch TV online, often I can quickly catch up through a huge backlog of episodes, given a few days and sufficient interest in the show.

I remember seeing ads for Pushing Daisies when it first started, but I never buckled down and checked out an episode, so I missed out, until now. But, having run out of episodes I can get ahold of (and nearly out of episodes, period), I hopped over to another series by the creator--Dead Like Me.

Similar to Pushing Daisies, the show is all about death, and death is in every episode. But Dead Like Me is far from the cheesy, sunshiney world created for a show on ABC. The characters are closer to our world--dirtier sometimes, or more angry, or more screwed up. There are still odd, arcane rules about how things happen, or should happen. The main character, George, dies and becomes a "grim reaper," but just as important as seeing how that other half lives, we get to see how our half deals with George's loss, how her family copes and moves on, or not.

The pilot brought tears to my eyes--death is arbitrary and unfair, and the show acknowledges that. The people who collect souls don't know much more than the people dying, as it turns out. So far in the series, George, the new girl on the job (and rather disaffected in life) keeps asking "Why?"

Why me?

Why her?

Why not?

Why do some people get to keep living?

Why do I keep losing people?

Conversely, her "boss," a senior reaper, basically keeps answering "Because." And he has experience to back it up--but the answer is often "Because. Sorry, but deal with it."

I can't wait to keep watching. I love this cast, and I can't wait for the leader of the pack of reapers to be proven wrong by the new girl.

~j

Night and Wordy.

Probably not too wordy.

I've got Pandora set with a few channels, and on one of them, Weird Al's White and Nerdy has played a lot. It got me to thinking--yes, Weird Al caused quasi-serious thought--about nerd culture and how so many people like the same sorts of things.

Chances are, if you could think of yourself as a nerd, you're at least comfortable with computers. You probably have some specialized knowledge, like programming. You probably have some sort of web-page dedicated to yourself or your projects. You may have at least tried D&D or another table-top RPG before, not to mention MMORPGs over the internet. You know who Weird Al is. You probably have a favorite comic book, even if you call it a graphic novel. Heck, you probably have a favorite comic book and a favorite graphic novel. You've seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and probably more Monty Python. You've at some point thought about and compared Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, and Battlestar Galactica.

Interesting trends. I suppose other sorts of people have their lists of interests, it just doesn't seem as wide and as specific as the interests of nerds. It may make us easy to identify, yes, but that's a plus, too--we can easily sense the presence of one of our own.

Nerd-dar. Yeah.

~j

Notebooks of Doom.

I've started watching the anime series Death Note. It is fun.

Things are totally turned around in this series. The protagonist is essentially a supervillain, out to rid the world of evil by having bad guys killed via supernatural means. He's an anti-hero supervillain protagonist. Ah.

Then we have the main antagonist. A hero detective with a secret identity--he's known only as "L"--who must put a stop to the new murder spree.

They both claim to be Justice. Very dramatically.

They show also features a demon who caused this whole mess but won't take sides and loves apples from the human world, some very dramatically drawn shots of a guy writing in a notebook, and some fun imagery during the opening credits. It's dark, I love anti-heroes, and the protagonist is as cold as they come, so far. I'm just wondering how they stretch this out into 37 episodes. Only four episodes in, the plot seems to be advancing fairly quickly.

More pros for the show include:

No giant mecha.
No magical girls.
No teams of people in similar but differently colored uniforms.

Also, no real violence so far. The last episode we watched had some gunfire, but it didn't hit anyone. People keep getting hit in less-than-random traffic accidents, though.

Anyway, I'll have to keep watching this one. It's a nice breathe of fresh air in the anime I've seen so far.

~j

Daleks vs. Rikti.

So, as a gamemaster, I can't come up with all the cool stuff in the world for my games. I need inspiration. As a nerd, I know of a ton of cool things that I can include--and since my players are mostly nerds, too, they can appreciate them.

It's the fine art of writing homage, and it works for gaming, too. And I'm convinced that the people who wrote Aliens vs. Predator know what I'm talking about.

Actually, that's a great example, since that completely original idea came out in comics first. Comic books stories are shameless, and honestly, I like some of the stuff they come up with. Vampires, magicians, space aliens and mutants all fight evil together in the pages of comics.

Appropriately enough, a few years ago I ran a super-hero game I called Heroism 101. The setting was a slightly comic-book version of the University of Illinois campus at Champaign/Urbana. The tone was a sort of Spiderman/Buffy, and included characters like the hitman from Gross Point Blank and "Secret Asian Man" who was actually called the Master Thesbian, but the joke stuck. Yes, his super power was acting. As I was playing City of Heroes at the time, the metaplot involved the impending invasion of the alien Rikti race, built to model what they could do in the MMORPG.

All this was fun as hell.

And why not? RPGs are only a few steps from playing with action figures, where Luke and Han join Snake-Eyes to fight the evil alliance of Destro and Vader. We (sometimes) try to create realistic people for our characters, with wants, and hopes--but they have to live -somewhere-, know some people, and do something. In fictional stories we tell together for the fun of it, what's the difference if their surroundings seem familiar because we've really been to that place, or because we've read about that particular Wardrobe a few times?

What's important is to keep the tone consistant in the game--things can get campy quick. Which okay for a campy game, but less so for a game of high drama. You don't want to bring in things that will actually lessen a player's (or another player's) fun. As players, be forgiving as long as the tone isn't violated.

Just don't involve Captain Kirk. It never helps.

~j

Fairy Godmothers.

I'm fairly certain modern dramas can't have happy endings.

Or happy middles, and definitely not happy beginnings--though the beginnings are probably the closest. Where are the smiles? Where's the feel-good? Why is it that when I watch a TV drama, I get to see a slow, steady slide into a sewer of bad relationships, addiction, insanity and death? Are there no freaking heroes?

Okay, setting today's minor rant off is Rescue Me, with Denis Leary. I like Hulu.com--it's great. I don't have normal TV service or cable, so it's nice to be able to actually watch TV with the good ole' 'net. I know know I probably shouldn't expect shiny happiness from Leary--that's not his style, it never really was, and that's fine--he's good at what he does, which is pretty much make regular guys feel good about their lives. That has to be the draw for the show. I like the show--at least, I keep clicking on the next episode. Maybe I don't like the show, and I keep hoping for something good to happen to one of (God forbid) more of the main characters. Or supporting cast. Or bit characters. Or extras. Or animals. Please, anything but a Nine-Inch -Nails perfect downward spiral.

Maybe I need happy endings. I know I tend to empathize too much with main characters of shows. I'm that guy who can barely stay in the room if he knows the lead is about to do somethings embarrassingly stupid, even in comedies, where that's the gag. I don't know, maybe I should start watching older shows--buddy cop shows, something with little to no continuity and where all the problems get wrapped up in around 22 minutes. It just seems that -those- shows are too simple, don't portray anything like real people...

I know real people can have happy moments. Maybe someone should inform some writers.

~j

Peter Petrelli vs. God

I watched this week's episode of Heroes. It's a thing I do. I like comics, I like the whole super-genre, and the show has been a nice thing to come back to every...whenever they air one.

But I digress. This week, Pete challenged God, in a Catholic church, with prayer candles and in front of a Sacred Heart statue. I was like--woah. Did this show just throw crap in the eyes of "papists" everywhere? I know Catholics--I sort of am one, sometimes (a secret identity of my own)--and I know there are some (read: many) out there that will take offense to this scene. Even if it -was- Peter Petrelli!

Not to spoil things, but...I think the scene is very skillfully included and not at all offensive. The episode ends with things coming together a little for the characters involved--better times are just around the corner, and the footprints in the sand were identified as not Pete's. Probably because he can fly currently.

People question God in hard times. It happens--even the most faithful of the...faithful...do this. The show isn't making a judgement on God, or on the Catholic faith. It's portraying a more realistic character, and even suggesting (with the upturn at the end) that his challenge was wrong--but not Evil, or even Uncommon.

Also, I wanted to put "Sunday! Sunday! SUNDAY!" in the title of this post, but let's face it--Peter is a Monday night kinda guy. God -owns- Sundays.

~Jason