Addicted to these amazing screens Spy Vibe has been posting of the best sets from spy movies and television shows from the 1960′s.
Thea Lim does a doubletake on last Friday’s series premiere of Joss Whedon’s new Fox television series, Dollhouse.
After screening several episodes where – apart from being space cowboys and quasi-anarchists – the cast of the show wear kimonos, carry paper parasols, and talk about making pau, I started to get more and more annoyed. But was I just being a jerk? What was so wrong with the array of East Asian symbols and decor on the set of Firefly? Was I preventing myself from enjoying a perfectly good TV show by being some sort of yellow fever watchdog
The allusions to East Asia reflect some new age Orientalism, where the synthesis of Asian culture and history find it’s way as a backdrop to the large unknown mega corporation that runs the Dollhouse. Beyond the subtleties are more blatant rips, as observed by a commenter from the article:
There’s a scene you didn’t even mention that leaped out at me: When Echo is being brought back to the base, she passes another active dressed as a geisha getting loaded into another van (we only see her from behind, so no way to tell if she is Japanese).
I get that there’s a parallel he’s drawing between geisha and the “dolls” – but I also had a knee-jerk reaction of “Really? Is that where this is going?”
While I think that television shows shouldn’t be taken for face value in light of entertainment, race has always been a murky topic. It could be that I’m Asian myself, but this discussion of the pilot episode sheds some light on my dissapointment in the show’s premiere. It might be that the introduction to the plot has given viewers the parralel to the Dollhouse being an underground brothel in Chinatown and there is a lone cop in search of the bad guys who are running the joint. Sure, Whedon seems to be imposing the notion of ambiguity in whether or not what these ‘dolls’ do are beneficial to society as per their jobs to each particular client, but I’m waiting to see if it puts any spin on the ‘otherness’ motif that seems overused and pervasive when it comes to anything Asian in mainstream media.
i09 rants on last week’s installment of Battlestar Galactica:
What this means is that the destruction of the colonies, the cylon slave uprising, and the whole cylon vendetta against the humans, is basically the result of an atheist son being pissed at the way his religious mother imposed her beliefs on him. We’ve gone from justifying the cylon’s bloody war with a (somewhat understandable) quest for vengeance to justifying it by saying it was all the result of a sadistic, power-hungry mama’s boy mindwiping everybody and turning them into his war puppets.
I disagree with their review of the episode. I quite like the rapid turn of events in the final remaining episodes of the series. It’s unexpected yet fleshed out in a way that seems parallel to the original motifs of the show. There are power struggles on every level, from the internal conflicts of the main Battlestar Galactica ship, to the larger conflicts between humans and cylons, and now to newly discovered struggles within races the audience was not privy to until now. While it seems melodramatic, the theme of history repeating itself resonates strongly with the struggle between Cavil and Ellen. The concept of perfection, free will, and flaws all play to inevitable conflict that drives these continuing massacres and planetary wars.
What I hope will be unraveled by Moore is the attempt to find a resolution that can guide them away from what seems to be a fated demise.
Dollhouse premieres tonight on Fox. So far, reviews have been very mixed or a bit negative. The NY Times weighs in on the pilot episode that’s airing tonight:
Viewers may also have trouble maintaining interest in the perils of Echo, even if Agent Ballard can help salvage some of her memory banks. “Dollhouse” has an amusing premise, but the universe it inhabits in the early episodes is thin and bland. The sinister corporation behind the Dollhouse is ill-defined, and the show’s main characters are one-dimensional, including the real-life dolls. The plot lacks the metaphoric allusions and richly imagined contexts that enliven other science-fiction series like “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Battlestar Galactica.”
I’m just glad they make a very proper acknowledgement to Battlestar Galactica for holding it down in the sci-fi genre.
[qt:/blog/video/dexter.mov 620 350]
Ever since watching Showtime’s Dexter, a drama about the secret life of a serial killer, I’ve been addicted to the opening sequence. The week I caught up with season three, I had a craving for meat and eggs. Now I’m off to get a french press so I can grind and make my own coffee in the mornings. Thank you Dexter.
Via @selfedge, who’s on the fucking money right now.
Okay, I’m at a weekly Lost viewing party and will be dropping hella knowledge on you. Be warned, possible spoilers ahead!
Update: liveblogging is a bit sluggish with WordPress, but I will find a suitable time to hone and refine this much needed e-skill. Lost just isn’t as interesting as it is when you’re watching it by yourself, thinking hoping that Locke would just die already.
i09 elaborates in succinct detail about plotholes in Lost’s logic for time travel and the paradoxes it has potentially caused.
It’s interesting that – as far as I can remember – we’ve never seen what happens when Locke, Sawyer and friends “time travel” from the point of view of someone else. What does Ethan or Richard Alpert see, when Locke vanishes? Does Locke actually physically disappear, or does something else happen? I have a feeling there may be a surprise waiting for us there.
There has been a ton of time skips in the first few episodes of season five, and I would be very surprised if they dutifully patched up all the loose ends on this violent and abrupt ripple through the spacetime continuum. While the writers are opening Pandora’s box for associations between the DHARMA of yesteryear and our unlucky island crashers, I think they missed out on some key what-the-fuck moments.
FutureAlpert gives Locke his compass, so Locke can give it back to him in 1954. Does this mean that the compass is stuck in a time loop? Is there only one compass, which Alpert gives to Locke in the future, and then Locke gives back to him in the past? Or does the 1954 version of Alpert have two compasses now? Also, does Alpert only know to give his compass to Locke because he remembers Locke giving it to him in 1954?
It really gets so confusing that half the fun is yelling out theories across the room while it’s airing. I’m wagering, however, that the Time Loop Theory will be 95% accurate until the very end, save for any last minute rewrites or twists to the series finale in 20010.
The Amazing Extraordinary Friends
Apparently New Zealand has their own crew of Superheros…