I want to be classy about this so, all I want to say is one of my favorite podcasts has bitten the big one. It didn't podfade. It didn't even change that much. But now it displeases. I have to break up with it. It just slipped across a line in my mind between good and bad taste. Elements of immature frat-humor were always present, but when I start to feel like I'm getting dumber listening to a show and embarrassed to think anyone might associate me as a listener of a show, It is time to vote with my feet.
It might sound like I'm upset. It is a lost for me. It was free. It was fun. For awhile there was the illusion I was having fun with the podcasters and that was a high. But Podcasting should be the most fun for the show hosts. Otherwise, why do it? Now other shows need my support.
Here is a show that I urge you to try: Decoder Ring Theater This would not be for everyone's taste. It is a nostalgia trip. It would be great to play in the car on a trip with kids. The show is a group of voice actors bringing back the golden age of radio. In the past they have created Sci-Fi and The Shadow like serials, that are pretty much pitched to kids. The Red Panda series is “cute”. I prefer their current show of Black Jack Justice. A show about two detectives one male and one female. They are equal to the task and equals to each other. This series on Decoder Ring Theater is also cute, but a little more adult cute. I would say that kids 5-10 might go for the Red Panda and kids 12-45 might enjoy Black Jack Justice. Decoder Ring Theater holds the honor of being one of the few shows this tightwad has ever contributed actual money too.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Empty Dollhouse
I have just listened to Alyssa host of The Big Red Podcast’s review of the new TV pilot for the Dollhouse (Fox). I agree with Alyssa's comments wholeheartedly.
I watched with an intensity born from a love of Whedon's other series Firefly. I was on board if it was going to have a certain amount of eye candy, but the pilot was morally reprehensible.
I didn’t understand that Echo’s first “mission” was actually as a call girl until well into the second half, when one of her dumb memories made it clearer. This isn't the first televised play dealing with sex and currency, but the thing that twists this too far is the way the Stepford wives horror is presented. There is no loss of humanity, there is no consequence. There is no conscience depicted in the hero or elsewhere.
It’s a bad, bad, premise. But it is also stupid. If the Dollhouse business works so well, and their scruples are conditional, why don’t they become kidnappers and skip the pretense of any do-gooding? My wife asked me if at the end, the Dollhouse organization returned the ransom. And after considering it, I not only think they did not return the money, I don’t remember seeing them return the little girl. Maybe they flew her away in a helicopter and later made her into meat pies.
It had one decent (Whedon-esque) line at the beginning. “Ever try to clean a slate?” That is hardly enough to base a show upon.
Firefly fans would compare the character arc of River Tam and Echo. Their stories are inverse. River's brain is clumsily cut up by an evil organization. She struggles with the scars. Echo signs over her soul and joins an evil organization. She lives happily ever after.
I watched with an intensity born from a love of Whedon's other series Firefly. I was on board if it was going to have a certain amount of eye candy, but the pilot was morally reprehensible.
I didn’t understand that Echo’s first “mission” was actually as a call girl until well into the second half, when one of her dumb memories made it clearer. This isn't the first televised play dealing with sex and currency, but the thing that twists this too far is the way the Stepford wives horror is presented. There is no loss of humanity, there is no consequence. There is no conscience depicted in the hero or elsewhere.
It’s a bad, bad, premise. But it is also stupid. If the Dollhouse business works so well, and their scruples are conditional, why don’t they become kidnappers and skip the pretense of any do-gooding? My wife asked me if at the end, the Dollhouse organization returned the ransom. And after considering it, I not only think they did not return the money, I don’t remember seeing them return the little girl. Maybe they flew her away in a helicopter and later made her into meat pies.
It had one decent (Whedon-esque) line at the beginning. “Ever try to clean a slate?” That is hardly enough to base a show upon.
Firefly fans would compare the character arc of River Tam and Echo. Their stories are inverse. River's brain is clumsily cut up by an evil organization. She struggles with the scars. Echo signs over her soul and joins an evil organization. She lives happily ever after.
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