Keeping Up With The Cardassians

Menacing Aliens Fodder For Popular Reality Television Show

The Star Trek folks sure know how to make aliens ugly.  I mean, not like the Horta ugly–that was just a blob of rock.  Not like the Gorn ugly–that was just a big lizard.  But those darn Cardassians on Deep Space Nine, man, they make you want to barf just looking at them.  Give ‘em eye ridges, sunken goopy eyeballs, and barnacles all over their faces, they said, and yeeeeecchh…there you go.  No science fiction is complete without menacing, ugly aliens, I guess.   And then give them slicked back mullets, because all aliens need those.

Let’s meet some of our Cardassian friends…there’s Dukat, and even though he has a few good moments, basically is just the evil leader-type, he would like nothing better than to get rid of our hero, Captain Benjamin Sisko (no, the good keptain didn’t make Internet routers, that’s Cisco).  Then there’s Damar, who sides with Cardassian rebels against the Dominion.  Finally, there’s Elim Garak, an ex-spy who opens a tailor shop on DS9.  Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a reality show that followed their exploits?

We could see their mom Kris and their adaptive step-Dad Bruce Jenner, who used to be on Wheaties cereal boxes–try to help manage their fashion careers.  Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney would get into various hyjinx involving photoshoots, trying to launch perfume and clothing lines, going on location, you know.  And you’d have to keep up with them.  Well, you could keep up with them by watching the show.  Not really the best title.  Wait…a…minute…those are Kardashians, not Cardassians.  Sorry.  The Kardashians aren’t ugly at all–far from it–and they don’t commit acts of Interstellar Aggression.  But check it out, even Wikipedia isn’t sure–they list them together on the same page.  To make things even more confusing, Khloe recently changed her last name to Odom.  Wasn’t he the shape-shifting sherrif of Deep Space Nine?  Guess I’d better grab a bowl of Wheaties and try to keep up.

Hey, Avatar: Roger Dean Wants His Islands Back

Remote Control Alien/Human Hybrid Claims Natural Resources For Prog

The upcoming James Cameron flick Avatar features a Space Marine named Jake Sully(played by Sam Worthington), who ends up controlling an alien body in order to help bilk the local aliens of planet Pandora–the Na’vi–out of some kind of mystical floating metal.  Apparently, said metal causes parts of the local geography to float as well…causing effects that are straight off of a Yes album cover, you know, the ones done by Roger Dean.   Who is, of course, famous for doing Yes album covers.  (Sorry, Starblazers fans, I know when you see “Space Marines” next to “Avatar” it gets your pulse racin’….)  James “Terminator 2″ Cameron directs, but James “Titanic” Horner does the music, so it’s a wash.  “Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that topographic oceans must go on….”

I’d say spoilers beware, but if you watch the latest trailer it basically tells you the whole plot anyway.  Sully falls for an alien girl (Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana) and after a period of painful moralizing, sides with the aliens.  Now, don’t get me wrong, some of the mechs the Space Marines use look really good, and the blue-skinned, frog-eyed Gungan wannabe Na’vi are kinda neat.  Me-sah likey da Na’vi.  I also liked The Navvie from the old Sega Genesis game The Chaos Engine, he was a big tough guy with a lot of hit points.  But I digress.  Nobody could ever figure out why he was called a Navvie(gator?) officially anyway.  Plus, the Cameron movie has Sigourney Weaver in it.  Big credibility points for that.  But when all is said and done, in a stupid future with floating space islands, Roger Dean will come and take back what’s his.  Because he’s famous, you know.  For doing all those Yes album covers.  That’s what he’s famous for.  Yeah.  Err, Yes.

Some things just never end, Buck. (Be-de-be-de.)

Welcome to the jungle, Buck. They’ve been talking recently about making a grittier remake of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, but, I don’t know, I’m getting tired of these gritty, dark remakes. I miss the cheesy, futuristic fun of the early 80’s Buck. (And I really miss the perfect bad girl/good girl tag team of Princess Ardala and Col. Deering…). I’ve got the entire series on DVD and occasionally need to relive my wasted youth watching the same Draconian fighter explode in episode after episode, or the same Stargate activate or, hey – didn’t I see that starship on an episode of Battlestar Galactica once? Oh, well – yeah, they did recycle some of the special effects, but it was all in the name of campy sci-fi goodness.

Oh, and sorry to poke fun at Axl Rose – I did actually quite like his Chinese Democracy album, once it was finally released after 15 or so years. Though, I think by that point he should have just called it an Axl Rose solo album, not a Guns’n'Roses one.

If Axl does make it to the 25th Century, maybe he can use that band Andromeda on his Chinese Democracy sequel.

Solved: The Mysterious Mystery of Tiger Woods’ Mysterious Wife

Golf Star's Spouse Revealed As Thundera Native; Able to Use Mystical Weapon

For whatever reason, the media have decided to label Elin Nordegren Woods as “mysterious”.  The smokin’ wife of uber-famous golfer Tiger Woods, she has apparently been given the label just to draw viewer attention to the story of Woods’ SUV crash.  Now it seems like it’s part of her name.  I wonder if the Post Office knows?  Is it on her driver’s license now?  Do her friends call her “The”?  Do they call her Mz. Mysterious? Oh, it doth irk me so.  What has the poor woman done to deserve such a label?  Are they trying to build her up to do her own talk show or something?  There are much more important things going on right now than Tiger crashing his SUV, but even if I wanted to read the story, I couldn’t, because there’s that “M” word attached to his wife and alleged rescuer.

So let’s solve the riddle of the crash and the mystery of the mysterious Elin once and for all.  Here’s what happened.  Tiger Woods was actually attacked by Mum-ra the Ever-Living, late of Third Earth.  This caused him to crash the SUV.  Watch for it in the tabloids.  Mum-ra attacked “Tiger” because Tiger is secretly from Thundera, and is a Thundercat.  But he did not have the Sword of Omens with him, and was therefore not able to defend himself.  Cheetara–err, Elin, sorry–heard the commotion, brought out the Sword, shouted “Thundercats, Ho” and was able to generate a blast of energy to ward off Mum-ra.  Unfortunately, it shattered both of the back windows of the SUV. 

Why is this so hard to comprehend, newswriters?

What caused the apocalypse in “The Road”

A Nanobot “grey goo” attack? No… Nuclear war? No… Ecological disaster? No… It was the dreaded Zhu Zhu Pets. Once they were shown how to drive cars, these small robotic creatures managed to escape their human masters and wage a destructive path across the world. Only Viggo and his son survived, and they spend most of The Road trying to scavenge up the various plastic Zhu Zhu ramps and playsets in an attempt to end the Zhu Zhu rampage. Well, at least that’s what I think it’s probably about…

These Zhu Zhu Pets look pretty lame. Seems like robot toy tech is actually devolving from the days of Elmo, Aibo, and Pleo. Or I guess ten dollar robot hamsters are all we can afford now.

New V Finale: Billy Mays Lives

Waif-like Carnivorous Alien Dictator Ponders Infomercial Food Tools

The new remake of “V” on ABC ain’t that bad.  It captures a lot of the feel of the original, and while there’s no Marc Singer (Yay, Beastmaster) kind of hero, you do have fifth columnists, reporters, teenage boy spies, and so on.  Some of the plot elements are a little forced, what with the references to sleeper cells and all that.  But you know there’s leapin’ lizards underneath, and a bunch o’ face-ripping on the way.  Here, mousey, mousey.  Anna (Morena Baccarin), the alien leader, is still female in this version, but not in the big-haired 80s sort of way of the original, more like an emaciated runway waif with boy hair.   And then there’s…Scott Wolf.  From that 1990s melodrama Party of Five.  Sheesh.  Wolf plays sell-out tv reporter Chad Decker.  On his best days, his mannerisms and acting style suggest a sort of poor man’s Michael J. Fox–another sort of canine-named actor.  Fox played a character named Scott in his movie Teen Wolf so it makes some kind of sense….

But the season (if you can call four episodes a season–I think they call it a “pod” or something like that) finale ends with the main alien turncoat dude sending Anna a mysterious message, “John May Lives”.  Pshaw.  What about Billy Mays?  Our fallen, beloved infomercial hero?  I miss him hawking Orange Glow.  And Slider Factory.  Basically, a mold to make little tiny hamburgers with.  That’s what the aliens in “V” are planning to do to us sooner or later.  Let’s just hope they eat Chad Decker first.

2112: The Movie (A Canadian Apocalypse)

Canadian Rock Musician Ponders Future Apocalypse During Current Apocalypse

Well, if 1999 taught us anything, it was not to panic over a date.  It meant that even when the number of the calendar year does something weird, just forget about it and pretend it didn’t happen.  Because it’s just a number.   Now, there’s a lot of hype regarding 2012, the year of the Mayan Long Calendar change.  Big deal.  Don’t get me wrong, the Mayans were cool…they taught the people on the Galactica to play triad.  But if our current regular calendar–which billions of people use–flipping the thousands column did nothing, why should a calendar that no one has used for centuries make any difference at all? 

Well, it might not make a difference to how the world turns out, but it makes a good stuff-blowing-up movie, what with John Cusack in it and all.  Me, I’d rather see Geddy Lee from the Canadian rock band Rush take on the Preists of the Temples of Syrinx…whoever the heck they are.  Maybe I’m just not getting it, but that song doesn’t make all that much sense, nor does the rest of the 2112 album.  It sounds pretty cool, though.  Hmmm…maybe there’s some kind of Canadian apocalypse in about 100 years…is that what they were trying to tell us?  You bring the touques, I’ll bring the back bacon, eh?

Jeff Paul’s Shortcuts To Skynet Millions

Reanimated Convict Becomes Heir To Untold Technology Riches

If you’ve ever been up really, really late at night maybe you’ve seen Jeff Paul’s informercial “Shortcuts to Internet Millions”.  You’ll know it right away due to the fact that you really don’t see all that much of Jeff himself, just the usual people playing golf, eating expensive food, lounging by swimming pools…all the hallmarks of a life of luxury.  Oh, yes, and his two perky, buxom female interviewers (Carmen Paulmbo, Stacey Hayes) who interrogate the suddenly well-to-do.  Surprisingly, they don’t seem to mind the questioning all that much. 

Poor Marcus Wright, though, will never have a chance to utilize Jeff’s scheme, no matter how well it works.  Marcus was a convict in Terminator: Salvation who donated his body to science (err, well, I guess he donated it to science fiction, like the comedian Steven Wright–no relation–said).  He wakes up with no memory and a shiny metal endoskeleton.  Skynet likes him at first–it thinks it’s his mommy–and wants to make him heir to the robot empire, but Marcus will have none of it.  All the Kristiana Lokken T-X models had already left, you see.  Anyway, after a long, drawn-out movie with a heck of a lot of yelling in it (which resembles Apocalypse Now quite a bit), the whole thing is set up for a few dozen sequels.  Marcus gets damaged, though; he might need to get some prosthetic covering from one of them there newfangled “V” type aliens.  One face-ripper to another, he could say: hey, bro, slap me some skin.

Who You Gonna Call?

Mean-Sprited Miser Aided By Paranormal Investigation Squad

Disney’s new adaptation of A Christmas Carol stays pretty faithful to the original Charles Dickens novel.  Makes for some pretty cool special effects, but some slow pacing and set up at the get-go.  You know the story, of course: penny-pincher Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by various ghosts of Christmas something or another, and he ends up changing his ways.  Bill Murray’s 1980’s version, Scrooged, had a bit more life in it, but the new version is in 3D, aided by the rubbery-faced Jim Carey.

Scrooge need not heed the advice of all the supernatural haunts, though.  He might simply have invoked a somewhat different incarnation of Bill Murray–in the form of Dr. Peter Venkman.  Jacob Marley?  Just a Class Five Full-Roaming Vapor.  Real nasty one, too.  Them Ghostbusters can’t be beat, cleanin’ up the Ghost of Christmas Future and his ilk.  Then again, Scrooge might not be willing to pony up the outrageous fees that Stantz, Spengler, and Venkman charge.  Proton charging?  One thousand dollars.   Trapment of Supernatural Entities?  Four thousand dollars.  Getting to sleep without having to face that nagging conscience?  Priceless.

Cash For Clunkers: Knight Rider

American V8 Muscle Car with Onboard AI Provides Generous Tax Incentive

Michael Knight, A Shadowy Figure on a Lone Crusade to buy a new car.  What with those crazy gas prices last year, he probably can’t afford to drive a V8 gas-guzzler…enter the government’s Cash For Clunkers program.  You can trade in your ancient petro-gulping behemouth of a TransAm for some inconsequential little conveyance like a Cooper Mini or Honda Civic Hybrid.  The leather jacket might be a bit of a stretch, then, Mr. Knight.  And please button up your pink shirt just a few more buttons…I can’t stand the sight of all that greying chest hair in that perpetual sunset you always seem to be driving around in.  And if you see those Dukes of Hazzard boys with that bright orange monstrosity of theirs, the General Lee, please send it our way.

BTW, in case you hadn’t noticed, they’re re-making Knight Rider again.  This time it’s supposed to be Michael Knight’s son.  Last time, it was “Team Knight Rider”, with five different AI vehicles, and before that, “Knight Rider 2000″.  You just aren’t going to capture the success of the original show.  And most cars have computers in them now anyways, it’s not such a big deal anymore.  (Still no video-capable wrist watches, though, I’ll give Glenn Larson that much.) It’s the Knight Industries Three Thousand this time, which sounds cool except that KR2K used the Knight Industries Four Thousand.  But “KIFT” sounds dorky, and reminds us of Amy’s boyfriend from Futurama.  No one ever listens to me about how to make a proper sequel, but here goes: resurrect KITT’s twice-kilt brother KARR (the Knight Automated Roving Robot), and let George Takai drive it.  Nuff said.