It’s only being shown over here tomorrow night!

That is all. Thank you.

• Note 1: “Here” = Ireland, watching on Sky 1 (so also includes the UK)
• Note 2: “Tomorrow” = Tuesday night/24th March 2009
• Note 3. Yes I could download via torrent or Usenet, but despite the grey legal issues of downloading TV episodes before they are shown locally, I can also watch it on my TV when its being shown here, only one week later (I can wait), without having to get my hands dirty.

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That should be *Canada’s* Next Top *Model*, actually!

Battlestar Galaticia’s latest season had just finished on Sky One a week ago when my wife informed me that Canada’s Next Top Model was showing on Living TV.

Yes, I admit it. I’ve watched America’s Next Top Model. I mean, its a series about beautiful girls wanting to be models where the biggest concern is if they are willing to do a naked photo shoot? Okay it’s got Tyra Bank’s wannable Talk-Show host constantly trying to get the contestants to “show us who you are” (i.e. cry or reveal some dirt about their past), which drives me up the wall… but thank god for Sky+ and fast forward.

Anyway, they are doing a Canadian version and Sophie, my wife, sat down to watch it on Saturday. Obviously there is no Tyra Banks. They have some Canadian Model. But do you know who it is? Tricia Helfer (her official site). Who’s Tricia Helfer? Well she plays the sexy Cylon “Number Six” in Battlestar Galaticia!

I was suddenly dizzy. Campy Fashion Reality TV show crashing with Serious Sci-Fi Drama! It was nearly Cthulhu-esque… two worlds colliding together, other alien dimensions shifting into ours. I kept expecting Tricia to explain how they would be trained to the ultimate sexy human-killing Cylon instead of how Tricia was first spotted by a talent scout, while waiting in a queue, and how she became an international super-model!

(Previous weird Battlestar-Galaticia-ness: Calling your baby Baltar!)

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Well, lets get specific. What I mean is, I discovered that Vampire High was canned after one season and there is little or no chance of it being started up again. (see my previous post here!) (But it’s not all bad on the vampire front…)

And the Dresden Files TV show sucks. I haven’t read the books or played the RPG (there is one by the way, done by the same folk who did Spirit of the Century). I’ve watched the first three episodes on Sky 1. Quite simply, unoriginal and boring.

Let me go a bit about the Dresden Files for a moment…

The whimpering gay subservient ghost that hangs around the “wizard’s” apartment annoys me no end. Apparently, I’ve read on someone’s blog, is that in the books he’s a talking skull… now that would have been cool. The thing is, I can see what the original books were trying for, a kind of discworld-meets-supernatural-detective. But that doesn’t carry across to the small screen. Instead it comes off as a bad Charmed without the super-cute witches. They writers trying to “shock” the viewer with revelations but the usual audience of this kind of stuff know what to expect and the shocks are uninspired and are, well, shit. Then there is the incessant monologues… FFS show us, don’t tell us. This is TV! A sweeping city shot and some hard-boiled talk is… time to check what’s on the other channels.

Such a pity, because previously Sky was showing the SCI-FI channel mini-series The Lost Room. It was great. Loved the world, the plot came to a conclusion and major parts of the mysteries were revealed. I’d love to see the writers create another mini-series based on the mythos and they certainly left it open.

But did anyone notice? Lost is in its third season. Unbelievable. Can’t believe it’s still on TV. That is a series that should have ended in the first season. The creators of the Lost Room had it right and by comparison, the creators of Lost have it completely utterly wrong. As a roleplayer and GM, the problems of long-running stories are pretty obvious. Do you go for a chronicle that starts and concludes or is “rolling-over” based and just keeps going on, never really concluding or coming to a decisive point (though often a lot of the characters and players change)? In our hobby, a rolling chronicle can work… but not on TV! I losted interest (pun intended) in the middle of the second season.

Back to vampires. I’m really getting into Blade the series. It’s really well written. Very World of Darkness inspired too. Pity it’s already been canned.

That pretty much leaves me with Battlestar Galaticia. The new series has started and it has, so far, been great. The last episode however was a bit boring. Nothing happened. Bit worried it’s going down the same route as the second half of the last season. We’ll wait and see.

Oh damn, nearly forgot: Heroes has started over here. Seen about three episodes (I think) so far. I’m not seeing why everyone is ranting and raving about it, I’m afraid. and then people keep drawing comparisons with Lost which is really really off-putting. If it’s going down the route of Lost, I don’t want to watch it! However, I’m still currently watching it. So maybe it’s something to it. Lets see how it turns out.

Note #1: If there is anything I’ve left out, it’s either because I’d never watched it or I don’t know about it.

Note #2: I’m not really a “torrent” person. I like my TV as… well TV. Okay, let me put it another way, I don’t have time to spend setting up torrents and setting aside time to watch four episodes in a row. If it’s on TV, I’ll watch it. Er. That makes me sound lazy…

Update: 3 years later I decide to do an update, only because I happen to reference this post elsewhere. For the record, I enjoyed the last few episodes of Dresden Files. I think it deserved a second season, but now we’ll never know. And Heroes… well my god, that turned into a pile of poo. It has moments, but it’s terrible stuff, even for die-hards. Putting aside Battlestar Galaticia’s finale, I’d definitely give BG a thumbs up.

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I overheard a neighbouring cubicle worker talking about boys names for their new baby with someone else.

“We were thinking of Balthazar.”

I pipe in with:

“Wow. That’s a great geek name.”

“Geek?”

“You know, Baltar, from Battlestar Galacticia… the human with the cylons…”

“Eh, no. Balthazar was one of the wise kings.”

Doh!

Apparently Balthazar, which sounds very similar to “Baltar” which is the name of a character from the popular sci-fi show Battlestar Galacticia, is one of the wise kings from the story of Christmass.

Well, you learn something new everyday.

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