The Tudors Season 3

This Showtime TV series has good acting,
and interesting plots, though fact and fiction are well-mixed,
and has some kind of love scene depicted in almost every single episode!

Most interestingly,
you get to see Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys-Meyer on the right)
going through marriage after marriage,
going against the church at every divorce.
I wonder how the people of England felt like then.

Drama with intrigue!

Coming Soon!

Fringe Science

Fringe follows the exploits of FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble), and his son Peter (Joshua Jackson) as they investigate aspects of fringe science (telepathy, levitation, invisibility, reanimation, etc).

All over the world, a series of apparent experiments collectively referred to as 'the Pattern' ( e.g., a newborn baby who rapidly ages and dies in one day, a bus full of passengers trapped in a strange substance like mosquitoes in amber) are occurring for reasons unknown. Olivia, Peter, and Walter are in charge of investigating these strange events to determine their source.

Connected to the Pattern is a company called Massive Dynamic, which is a leading global research company that holds the patents for a number of new and important technologies.

This new series by director J.J Abrams of Alias and Lost fame, resembles The X-Files, but with more science, terrorism and Homeland Security involved, and has a lack of (for the moment) the love tension between the male and female lead characters.

Already 6 episodes have aired, and it got better and better. It carries all of J.J Abrams's cliffhanger signatures, however, each episode has moderate character development and it is self-contained with a resolution, albeit a satisfactory one.

So far, 22 episodes have been ordered. We shall see how this season unfolds and if it is worthy of carrying on.

Mimetic Polyalloy

The wait took forever, but finally, season 2 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles finally aired last night, continuing what was a cliff-hanger from last season's 9 episodes.

>>>>>SPOILERS AHEAD!!<<<<<

The first episode of season 2 started with a bang, literally! And offered a lovely surprise. The title of this thread hints at the suggestion of a new terminator, and no, Robert Patrick is not reprising his role as the T-1000, instead a new female T-1000 has been sent back in time to ensure that Skynet is built at all cost! Here are some spoiler screen caps.

I'm sure that they could have thought of a more original way for Catherine Weaver to murder Mr Tuck, like let him continue peeing into the urinal and bite his dick off or something! After all, she was hiding as the urinal itself, snooping in the men's room indeed! I guess the traditional metallic toothpick seemed to do the trick, and it was certainly neat and easy!

To all my friends, beware, your boss might be disguised as the urinal and lurking in the men's room toilet to snoop on what you talk about behind her back! hahaha...

Enjoy!

The Final Season Has Began!

The final season of Battlestar Galactica began and the first 10 minutes was enough to glue you to your seats for the rest of the season!

I don't know if any of you were listening to the background music, but about 8min 29secs into the show, there was this part where Anders was flying in a Viper and the Cylon Raider was flashing its red eye at him and there was a "red eye" moment for Anders, the music suddenly changed to something akin to gamelan music, with bass, just till the Cylons retreated.

Gamelan music is music from Indonesia, be it Javanese or Balinese, it involves deep gongs, brass percussion instruments and chimes played together in an orchestra of at least 65 instruments. The music in the show was just 3 notes, I think it was something like E, C, F, followed by drum beats and it just repeated itself, that was deeply profound for Bear McCreary to compose music like that!

Even the opening sequence has also changed, the Cylons don't have a plan anymore, everyone wants to find the Final 5 Cylons, and we know who 4 of them are.

Here's something from the Simpsons to give you an idea of the parody of the series, toasters indeed!

The Final Season

It's really sad that television's best sci-fi revamped series, Battlestar Galactica, is coming to an end this season! With Stargate wrapped up, but leaving us with Stargate: Atlantis, there isn't anything else nicer to watch.

Well, here's the cast group photo for Season 4, done Last Supper style, from left to right:

President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell),
Natalie (Tricia Helfer, as a new No.6),
Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan),
Lee Adama (Jamie Bamber),
Gauis Baltar (James Callis) & His Internal No.6 (Tricia Helfer),
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Katee Sackhoff) & Samuel Anders (Michael Trucco),
Galen "The Chief" Tyrol (Aaron Douglas),
Sharon "Athena" Valerii (Grace Park) & Karl "Helo" Agathon (Tahmoh Penikett),
William Adama (Edward James Olmos)

...and someone else missing from the table!

Watch out for it!

Thoroughly Confused!

This past Sunday night's Battlestar Galactica saw some really interesting themes and at the same time, very confusing stuff. I don't know if it was deliberately done, but according to an interview with Ron Moore that I read, he said that it was a preview of things to come. And the season 3 finale episodes itself confirmed several things and redefined how you think of a Cylon.

The entire storyline was based on the final 5 Cylons, the recurring opera house where the visions and dreams seem to converge on, Hera, Gauis Baltar, and Starbuck. There are many spoilers ahead, so please read at your own risk if you haven't seen the season 3 finale yet!

We at least find out 4 of the final 5 Cylons: Tigh, Tori, Tyrol and Anders are all Cylons! And what a revelation indeed! The basis of how and why they are Cylons is confusing. An Internet friend and I have come up with 2 main rather sound theories, however, pls feel free to poke holes in them:

1. The recurring theme here is "All this has happened before, it will happen again." The Lords of Kobol created "humans" as robots and "humans" evolved to become living beings, and perhaps destroyed the Lords of Kobol. "Humans" later decided to recreate a race of robots in their own image (probably play God) and call them Cylons, whom they later fought with and who also evolved into humano-cylons. It's like a cycle happening over and over again.

2. The Lords of Kobol created both humans and Cylons together, sort of like how Cro-Mags and Mammals evolved on Earth. Somewhere along the way, divergent evolution occurred, Cylons got wiped out either in a catastrophy, through war, or the humans themselves wiped them out. Humans evolved as the dominat species and Cylons, only a few, merging their "bloodline" and mingling with humans until the time is right where they recreated themselves. And later on, watched the further evolution of their race. In this case, they already had evolved humano-cyclons, this we see in the final 5.

These are all theory and speculation, based on what we've seen so far. What else is there really to answer all the questions posed on Sunday night's season 3 finale?

There was another unanswered question, perhaps the most nagging one of all: Starbuck. How did Starbuck survive the explosion of her Viper in Maelstrom? She she one of the final 5? Apollo saw Starbuck within the Ioanian Nebula, could it b e a hallucination as so widely speculated in the forums out there now? Or is she now stuck in his head like how Number Six is stuck in Baltar's? His very own personal inner Starbuck? Of course, if that were true, Starbuck would have appeared in the cockpit with Apollo rather than in another Viper! I can't seem to find any theories.

All the colonial ships losing power in the nebula, could it be some form of radiation? Possibly the thought that it was like a jump-start for the final 5 to awaken and begin their final duties, to either stop them from reaching Earth, or to help them reach Earth in a truce? This also begs another big question: Is the last remaining member of the final 5 on Earth together with the 13th tribe that settled there?

So many questions, so little answers, well, we just have to be patient and find out more next season, won't we? In the meantime, feel free to comment on the 2 theories we discussed with above.

So say we all.

Torchwood

BBC Three has announced that it will make a Doctor Who spinoff, Torchwood, the centrepiece of its fall schedule, launching the sci-fi crime thriller series in October 2006.

Spinning off of one of Doctor Who's most memorable characters, Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), Torchwood will be set in present day Cardiff (that's Wales to you lot) and will surround a group of covert criminal investigators called the Torchwood Institute, an organization commissioned by Queen Victoria and tasked with investigating alien technology. The team will be headquartered at The Hub, located beneath Cardiff Bay, the site of the TARDIS' landing in Boom Town and the location of the rift discussed in The Unquiet Dead.

Created by current Doctor Who writer/producer Russell T. Davies, Torchwood stars John Barrowman as bisexual time traveller/con man Jack Harkness and Eve Myles as former police officer Gwen Cooper. Astute Doctor Who fans may remember Myles from the Who episode The Unquiet Dead, where she played the role of the similarly named Gwyneth. (Whether Gwen and Gwyneth are the same character has yet to be confirmed, but the fact that Myles' previous Who episode dealt with the rift adds credence to that theory.)

Joining Barrowman and Myles are Bleak House's Burn Gorman, who will play Torchwood Institute medic Dr Owen Harper, and Absolutely Fabulous' Naoko Mori, who will reprise the role of Dr Toshiko Sato from the Doctor Who episode Aliens of London.

Doctor Who writer/producer Russell T. Davies has written the first of thirteen episodes. He'll be joined on the series by writers Chris Chibnall, co-creator of Life on Mars, and P.J. Hammond, creator of 1980s cult classic Sapphire & Steel (which starred Mori's Absolutely Fabulous castmate Joanna Lumley), among others.

Torchwood is, of course, a clever anagram of Doctor Who and was originally used as a codename for the current incarnation of Doctor Who, before taking on a life of its own during the series. Also of note is that all the characters have already shared a same-sex kiss, in one way or another, indicating that the show moves into the bisexual realm, making it ground-breaking on TV, at least in the UK, I seriously doubt it will ever be shown here.

Already the seven episodes till now have shown some fascinating developments with the team. However, there are sources and forums that rate the series as a no-brainer, stating that the characters have no depth, this is complete hogwash. Each episode develops the characters brilliantly, their humanity, how they deal with the unknown and aliens being on Earth, the alien tech that they find. Although it looks like they're fumbling through it all, making it up as they go along, they do go on along nicely, making mistakes as humanly possible and learning and evolving in the process, that's the beauty of this series, the stories have twists and turns, unlike the typical American series that have a fixed way in which things must happen and the eventual outcome.

So, it's farewell to Mulder and Scully from The X-Files' brand of sci-fi crime thriller. Enter Torchwood, where anything and everything mysterious and alien doesn't have to be a government conspiracy that hinders your investigations over and over again till the end of nine bloody seasons. This series is at least a team effort, real-imaginative story-telling, light visual effects and closure at the end of each episode.

9 out of 10 stars