I just noticed on the Voice Chasers site that animator Art Clokey passed away on Friday, 8 January 2010. Read the obituary in the Los Angeles Times.
As one who has always been fascinated by puppetry and animation, I appreciate his contributions and offer my condolences to his loved ones.
The first time I watched my Star Trek (the original series) DVDs, I watched the episodes in the order in which they were made. They are arranged on the DVDs in the order in which they were originally aired, but I was interested in how the show developed as it was made, so I had to refer to The Star Trek Encyclopedia for that information. It meant I did a lot of switching back and forth between DVDs, but it was fascinating to watch the show’s evolution. I’ve started watching them again, but this time I’m just watching them in the original broadcast order — it spares me all the hassle, plus it enables me to imagine how viewers experienced the first run of Star Trek.
Here’s a bit of trivia in the form of a question I gleaned from one of tonight’s episodes:
Q: In the episode “Charlie X,” the Antares is referred to as:
Movies I’ve seen at the cinema this year: Slumdog Millionaire.
Movies I’ll see in the next few days: Gran Torino.
Television shows that need to air a second season now: The Middleman, Reaper.
Television shows that need to be released on DVD: The Patty Duke Show, My Three Sons (unedited and with the original music), Thundarr the Barbarian.
Television shows that need to be re-released on DVD because I missed my chance to buy them: Land of the Lost Season 1 (one of those rare instances of a DVD release with great special features).
Television shows that need to be released on DVD complete and in chronological order: Doctor Who: The Original Programme (Doctors One through Seven).
After watching the first episode of the third season of Heroes, I can state with confidence that I needn’t watch more. I can erase that viewing obligation from my schedule. I can also state that I do not need to watch Boston Legal this season. I am despairing enough from politics without any help from David E. Kelley. That leaves just two shows on my active viewing list, presuming they return: Reaper and The Middleman. Well, it leaves three if I include Samantha Who?, but I still need to watch all of the first season before I can watch the second (if it is renewed).
[Edit: I watched the second episode of this season's Boston Legal since someone recorded it for me, so I guess I'll stick with the show for now.]
I am excited about the first season of Lexx being released for the first time in the States in a complete box set (as far as I know), and the release of Quark, the science fiction sitcom created by Buck Henry, for the first time ever on DVD. They will comprise my October DVD purchase. (My September purchase was Space Ghost Coast to Coast Volumes 1-3 and The Brak Show Volumes 1-2.)
I am not at all happy about the DVD release of My Three Sons, which I was looking forward to buying. As mentioned on the back of the packaging, the program has been edited and the music changed. I’ll not launch a rant here at this time, but suffice it to say that I will never purchase a television show on DVD or any other format if it has been bastardized in any way. The customers who buy old television shows on DVD want to see those shows as they remember them. Period.
Thanks to Fox, I’ll never buy any television show on DVD ever again unless the entire series has been released. Fox decided not to release any seasons of The Bob Newhart Show or The Mary Tyler Moore Show after the first four. I don’t care what the rationale is, if one starts something, one ought to finish it. “Poor” sales are no excuse, because some customers decide to wait until the entire series is available as a set. They have been trained to have that expectation. Too often they purchase each volume as it is released only to discover that a “deluxe mega-set” of the complete series is released later, frequently at a lower price. Is this not an incentive for fans to wait?
On a happier note, I was very pleased to discover that The Tournament, the CBC television series mockumentary about a kids’ hockey team (and their parents) is available on DVD — the complete series in one set. Go Farqueson Funeral Home Warriors!
Season 6 of Curb Your Enthusiasm is finally available on DVD, so why haven’t I rented it yet? I only have 207 discs on my Netflix queue. Make that 209 now.
The Award for Most Redundant Name for a Robot in a Film or Television Show goes to Alpha 1 from the episode “Alpha” of the television show, The Flash. Alpha 1 tells us that her name stands for “Artificial Lifelike Prototype Humanoid Android One.” That could almost be a new game… called Alpha 1.
Rule Number 1. Make an acronym of an existing word.
Rule Number 2. Make it as redundant as possible.
Rule Number 3. Make it robot appropriate.
Example: Beta 2: Brainless Experimental Test Automaton Two
Alpha 1 is the newest addition to Robots in Film and Television.
In the current issue of Star Trek Magazine (Jul/Aug 2007, No. 6), there is an interview with Garrett Wang who played Harry Kim on Star Trek: Voyager. In it, he says something very revealing:
“Some people accuse Harry of being emotionless. Well, we were all told that the actors playing human characters on the show were required to downplay their roles. Why? Because it would make the aliens look more realistic! Can you believe that? And if we tried to sneak in some added emotion they’d make us re-shoot it.”
I can believe it, because it has been one of my loudest criticisms of the various Star Trek spin-offs. As early as the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I wondered why everyone behaved as if they were little more than robots with occasional emotive malfunctions. Now we learn that it was all part of the plan to make aliens more convincing. Oh, the irony.
It’s funny how fans look back at the original Star Trek and remark how believable the aliens seemed despite the sometimes obvious budget limitations. Why? Because the actors, both human and alien, acted believably. The human characters did not muzzle their humanity. On the contrary, in stories that often dealt with the unique triumphs and frailties of the human condition under circumstances of extreme emergency, emotions were often amplified. And did this subvert the believability of the alien characters? Most assuredly it did not. The more that human characters behaved humanly, the more believable their alien counterparts seemed.
Many of the actors came from a professional background where acting was considered an art and had previously displayed their talent in such showcases of science fiction drama as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, where great writing and great acting were the highest goals. Great writing and great acting, and by consequence great characters, were what attracted viewers to Star Trek. The special effects were window dressing.
So, why would anyone want to restrain actors from acting? Perhaps it all lies with the alien forehead fetish prevalent in the spin-offs. As prosthetic make-up is added to an actor’s face, his range of expression is reduced. In order to minimize this disadvantage, maybe they reasoned that human characters deprived of their full range of emotional expression would draw less attention to the aliens’ limitations.
The result, in the end, is that every character of every species eventually seems to be playing a Vulcan of varying degrees with rare emotional (albeit subdued) outbursts. This is somehow supposed to make the aliens “look more realistic,” but all it really succeeds in doing is making everyone look unrealistic.