Yesterday, we had a public holiday here (Assumption Day). And by 'here' I mean just the part of Bavaria I live and work in! So the rest of Germany and parts of Bavaria had to work, while we could enjoy a sunny day with 30°C! You have to love our federal system and our not so total secularization sometimes

Back to TV, here a few new things I watched since my last TV related blog:

Flash Gordon:

This new SciFi series again takes on an old clas-sic and 'revamps' and 'modernizes' it. Worked pretty well for BSG, didn't it? Well, not so good for 'Flash Gordon'. I endured the whole over-length pilot of this show and while it wasn't laughably bad (at least you could have MST3Ked it then), it was just uninteresting and boring. It had a certain 'Smallville' feel about it (no, don't hit me yet, read on first... *ouch*), but without any interesting characters or story and the dialogs in 'Flash Gordon' are, well, bad. Oh, and hitting a big metal robot with your fists if you are not super-powered, should seem like a bad idea to anyone... I think having one of your show stars named 'Cliché' sums it up quite well. 4/10

Masters of Science Fiction:

This series of televised versions of short stories from famous science fiction writers was cut short by ABC even before the first episode aired. After watching the first 2 episodes I can understand why. Basically I see 2 major problems: A) Those are short stories, padding them to 42 min. air time just drags them out and removes the necessary punch of the obvious-to-come end twist. B) The stories are simply out-dated. The first 2 stories are clearly stories from the cold war, both dealing with the threat of nuclear holocaust and in that it has been done to death and doesn't have the cultural reverberation as it had 30 years ago.

Compared to the show above, at least it has competent actors and no cringe-worthy dialog.

Overall: 5.5/10

Californication:

I typically don't watch half-hour comedies, but this one was recommended to me (Thanks DJU!) so I had to check it out

The show centres around a successful author (or one hit wonder, not sure about that), played by David Duchovny (who seems not to have aged much since X-Files!) whose book was made into an (awful) movie with Tom and Katie. Also, he was left by his long-time girlfriend and mother of his daughter and also moved from New York to California. He is quite down, can't write a word (well, ONE word he can write) and tries to cope with his situation, which consists in sleeping with as many (strange) women as possible and pissing off a lot of people. Basically he is also sleeping with the women to piss off other people...

I really liked this pilot, but I can't say exactly why. It doesn't happen too much story-wise, it's not laughing-out-loud funny and no it's not because there is a different naked woman in every other scene But the whole feeling of the show, the acting, the characters just have the right vibe to me.

And there is one other thing: There are series that take me a couple of episodes to get into, some have me hooked after 5 minutes, but this series made me like it after a complete 2 seconds - and I don't think that what I saw in those 2 seconds was even intended by the director So I hope the spoiler tags work again, because otherwise you all have to skip through this boring explanation and also get the first 2 seconds (well, that's an exaggeration, it probably takes only 1.5 seconds) spoiled:

-- cut here --

Keep in mind, this show is called 'Californication' and this is the first shot of the show. Not even a spectacular shot, it's something every director seems to have in his repertoire and is using it:

So you have a close up on a thing that could be an old 19th century well or fountain, it's a bit dark, and out of focus there is a lot of water spraying like rain. So from this shot, we pan up and widen the shot: that is indeed a fountain, it is actually very sunny, the spray water comes from a lot of sprinklers and our protagonist drives by in his Porsche convertible! So I saw this shot (as mentioned, not even 2 sec. long) and thought 'Ok, this IS New York to California in one shot!' I warned you that this paragraph wouldn't be interesting.

-- cut here --

So to put it in numbers: 7/10

I also started (re-)watching the second season of Robin of Sherwood and the 'Making Of':

I found it hilarious that the first time that Guy of Gisburne comes up with and executes a decent plan to capture Robin Hood, his plans are sabotaged by the King and the Sheriff's brother!

As for the 'Making Of', it's from 2000, so already 7 years old, but boy have those actors aged, I barely recognized Michael Praed and would never have recognized Ray Winstone but for the lots of movies he makes these days. (Actually I thought: 'Wait a sec. THIS is the Ray Winstone from Robin?')

Anything else?

Oh yes, 'Burn Notice' was renewed for a second season! The series grows on me and I enjoy every new episode, so 'Yay' to that.

This happened today: 1977: Elvis Presley died in Memphis due to a heart attack.

What if?

Californication: If your greatest achievement, basically your life's work was warped beyond recognition by other people, but this 'warping' made you very rich in the process, how would you feel about those people, about the end product, about your own work?

Posted via filmspot BETA