television

At first glance, I was unconvinced that Sanctuary was anything beyond a Torchwood clone, but without the clever anagrams or handsome swagger of John Barrowman. The DVD cover featuring a team of paranormal explorers defiantly challenging the audience, a team leader with a mysteriously prolonged life and a very dark past, the indoctrination of a newbie, a ridiculously equipped hub of advanced scientific equipment in an unexpected place – all things that would imply a dangerous similarity.

Sanctuary quickly moves into creating its own presence, though, even if it owes a lot to the science fiction shows and films that have preceded it, including the ‘monsters messed up my life and I want answers’ X-Files guy and the ‘menagerie of interesting beasts’ of Hellboy. Born from a limited series of internet shorts (which are repeated with slight variation and presented as the first two episodes), Sanctuary is certainly an interesting series, if only for the ‘what kind of wacky monster are they gonna find next?’ factor.

The series distinguishes itself by being filmed entirely on green screen, with at least ninety percent of the environments and creatures added in post-production. Perhaps it’s the unrealistically cavernous, sweeping interiors of the Sanctuary itself, or maybe it’s the camera angles that seem to come straight from video games, but it’s immediately obvious that the details which the actors are negotiating aren’t quite right. Perhaps this skepticism comes immediately from the thought that any show on the newly-christened ‘SyFy’ network couldn’t afford a set larger than a modest food court, but it’s a show that is very reliant upon technology. The bonus features spend a little time being impressed with all of this technological stuff, but while it’s not a bad show, I still feel like I need a little more convincing. Things all feel way too clean, even when they’re desperately trying to be gritty. Once I let go of my conventional TV wisdom and understand that I’m watching a cartoon, it’s a little more comfortable – but it’s important to remember that while computers can do neat things, they won’t be insulted if you build a set.

The series seems to exist in Gotham City – always dark, always rain-slicked, and with destroyed bridges just left to rot over the city’s rivers for displaced Dr. Zoidbergs to chill out on. It’s like the apocalypse is just around the bend, but again, it’s just a little too perfectly decrepit to be immersive.

Fortunately, the only real aspect of the show, the actors, are solid, and it takes some good actors to create a sympathetic bigfoot and a truly interesting villain. While it promises to be something greater than a ‘monster of the week’ show eventually, at least the monsters have nice personalities, and for what it’s worth, characters are developing. A serious injury sustained in one episode won’t magically vanish by the time the next episode comes around, and the team displays a winning chemistry, and are far, far less obsessively troubled than the Torchwood folks. I’m sorry – the comparisons make themselves.

The DVD set itself is very slick – shiny slipcase, four DVDs in a smart little cardboard folder, episode guide. The set spans thirteen episodes, and with each, the show seems to very slowly develop a little more depth and interest. The final disc is full of extras, including the original webseries, and some brief explorations into behind-the-scenes stuff, a few minutes of outtakes, and a few photos. It has the potential to explode into something enormously exciting and involving as anything I’ve ever seen, based on the exciting premise of protecting and rehabilitating potentially dangerous anomalies, rather than just gunning them all down with laserbeams.

I think that this is an excellent beginning to a series with much potential. Go out and pick it up to see for yourself.

It’s not often that I christen anything as ‘my favorite show’ in any genre, but in the category of ’sitcoms with laugh tracks’ (which I usually avoid like the plague), The Big Bang Theory is the hands-down winner. If I may digress into appropriate internet-speak, I LOLed. A lot.

I didn’t expect to like it. Ensemble casts gathered together under an unfortunate title that drips with crass innuendo is not my usual milieu, but even after the first season, the development of the characters is so solid and moving that it’s impossible to look away. Probably because I identify with them all too well. You know, except for the ‘having a good job’ and ‘being moderately successful’ parts. I’m definitely at least as handsome.

The second season was released last week on DVD, and despite my usual misgivings about sitcoms, I find it as infinitely rewatchable as The Office – a touchstone among the many TV comedies that populate the incoherently meandering wilderness of television. I can’t immediately think of any show that’s succeeded on such a narrow appeal, but it’s such a stroke of genius that it somehow stays afloat. They’re the nerds that you love, despite their incredibly visible flaws. It’s a lot of big words, one chick who’s not bad to look at, and situations that might otherwise be commonplace, were it not for the unique personalities encountering them. Nothing feels overwrought, and it all feels comfortable. In fact, it feels a little like a peek into my more social years. And I can still recognize every single action figure they have in their apartments, and at least half of the science stuff they say. It feels like the writers are giving me a gift for being a little smart, at least, which is the first time it’s ever been rewarded with anything other than ostracism or a fish fillet chucked at my head from across the cafeteria.

One key moment for me during season two is an observation that Rajesh makes about, well, life. While the geeks are discussing karma and dismissing it as superstitious and totally unscientific, Rajesh responds that karma is ‘practically Newtonian’, inasmuch as both ideas rely upon the idea that every action will have an equal and opposite (or appropriate) reaction. The fact that this genius notion that unites science and faith was so casually slipped into the middle of an episode just blows my mind, and is only one example of the strange wisdom that the show imparts about life and living it to its fullest, with both positive and negative examples. Yes, it’s kinda inspiring. It makes you believe that the dorky nice guy can get the girl without being blatantly stupid about it.

I tend to break down every show I see into a mental chart of which character plays each part of Freud’s psychic apparatus. If Ren is the superego, than Stimpy is the id. In ‘Big Bang’, Sheldon plays the apotheosis of the superego, with a very large helping of Asperger’s to drive the point home. Howard is the lusty id (as well as Rajesh, when intoxicated), and Leonard is the guy who’s stuck in the middle, the reliable, human ego. And they’re all very, very smart. When was the last time a sitcom survived on having a cast composed almost entirely of geniuses?

This set includes four discs in a nice slipcase, and 22 episodes that are gone way too quickly, as well as three bonus features. ‘Physicist to the Stars’ is a discussion of the actual physicist who came onto the crew of the show to make sure that anything scientific that came up, be it a drawing on a blackboard or a conversation, was genuinely accurate and not just lots of fancy words thrown together to sound funny. Another feature is the usual ‘behind the scenes with the actors’ thing, discussing the show, and the final feature is a great reel of bloopers. I’m a total sucker for bloopers.

It’s awesome, and you’re missing out if you don’t try to catch it somehow, be it on TV or DVD or at the very least the clips on Hulu – while not enough to really grasp the depth of the powerful character development, are better than nothing. Check it out.

Tomorrow, August 11th, is the launch of one of the most collector-friendly postage stamp First Day of Issue in a long time.   The twenty new stamps, released in an eye-friendly frameable sheet, commemorate Early TV Memories.  The main dedication ceremony will be held in the Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the same venue to be used for the Emmys later this month.  In attendance will be some of the remaining stars connected with these famous shows, like Carl Reiner and June Lockhart, and some family members of departed stars.   Specific stamps will also get their own events, such as the Dragnet stamp dedication at the L.A. Police Academy at Elysian Park, the dedication for the three cowboy show stamps at the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City, and the Red Skelton stamp dedication, appropriately at the Red Skelton Performing Arts Center at Vincennes University, Vincennes, Indiana.

I know, a “big” postage stamp First Day isn’t as big as a lot of releases, like a movie or CD, but looking at stamps so far this year, this is the big one for collectors.  The price change this spring mired new stamp releases in doldrums, with the Simpsons stamps as the only issue of broad interest, and those were released in a normal usable form, unlike tomorrow’s new stamps.   The Early TV Memories set is clearly designed with the collector in mind: the entire sheet is designed to be kept as a single unit, with a stylish titled border with some extra images of the famous TV stars of yore.   These new stamps touch so much of Americana – stirring up hometown sentiments in Indiana, and the red-blooded history of American cowboys – that these appeal to almost everyone in some way, regardless of age and region.   Heck, I was born in the Seventies, and I still grew up with Lassie, The Twilight Zone, and I Love Lucy thanks to UHF TV stations and cable TV.   Nobody can deny the impact these shows have had on pop culture overall:  The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, Perry Mason, and The Tonight Show all set the bar for sitcoms, drama, and talk shows, and Red Skelton, Milton Berle, and Burns and Allen all are held in high esteem when it comes to the status of modern comedy.  No pop culture collector is going to miss this stamp set, either, giving philatelists some competition at the post office counter.

For the collector interested in finer details, it appears that the Early TV Memories stamps will have 6 possible plate positions, and don’t believe the promotional images, which often show these as 42-cent stamps.  Many of the promo images were produced last winter when the stamps were first announced, but the actual stamps have been revised to the current 44-cent stamp rate – keep your eyes peeled, though: this might mean there were early tests done at the 42-cent rate, which could be worth significantly more than the publicly-available stamps.  And, lastly, the first-day postmark for these stamps will be issued from the Cape Coral, Florida, Central Post Office, for the cities of Fort Myers, Cape Coral or Naples, Florida, until November.   If you’re just a TV fan, don’t worry about the details.  You can get your own Early TV Memories sheet at the post office for the face value of $8.40, and maybe buy two, so you have spares for actual mailing: stick a Joe Friday on the parking ticket when you mail in your fine, put an Ozzie and Harriet on a card for mom & dad, and, of course, stick a Rod Serling on that startlingly ironic package you’ve been meaning to mail to the eccentric (and possibly time-traveling) old man who lives in the abandoned lighthouse.  The introduction of television into America’s homes and lives means that there’s a postage stamp here for pretty much everyone.

I have a new obsession on Sunday nights and I want everyone to know it.

The Pawn Stars (L-R) BigHoss, Rick, Chumlee & The Old Man

It’s Pawn Stars, the History Channel’s new series which combines some of the best features of PBS’ Antiques Roadshow & History Detectives (minus the treat that is Wes Cowan — yes, I’m still stalking him) and adds, like chocolate syrup, a tasty layer of sinfully fun reality television. Sometimes, there’s even the fun of a Mythbusters blast as the cherry on top.

The premise is simple: People walk in off the street & try to sell or pawn their stuff for cash. It might be a custom made motorcycle, art, coins, a retro Pac-Man game (that sit-down version, like you played at Pizza Hut), Civil War weaponry, jewelry — who knows. Once it walks in, it’s up to the owners to figure out what’s real, what’s fake, & what will sell in their shop. Then, if all looks good, it’s time to negotiate a price.

But not just the retail price; the price the pawn shop is willing to pay so that they can make a profit (something you’ll be reminded of, so don’t worry if you forget that — they are used to informing folks that they don’t pay retail, customers do).

Along the way of determining the object’s price (a la Roadshow), there’s the story behind the object, usually with the help of an expert (a la History Detectives). OK, so maybe it’s not quite as in-depth as History Detectives… But it’s closer to that in terms of interest than the stationary table-talk of Roadshow. So there’s your two scoops of ice cream.

The layer of chocolate — the sweet stuff you might feel guilty about — is the reality show aspect. Since this is a real pawn shop, you’re also watching the interactions between the owners & staff of the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, located on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Three generations of the Harrison family run the place: grandfather Richard (aka “The Old Man” — sometimes, “Pops”), son Rick, and grandson Corey (aka “Big Hoss”). And there’s Big Hoss’ friend, Chumlee (aka “The Village Idiot”).

Rick With Helmet

Like most men, each one is charming in their own way and I’m not above admitting that along with learning how to identify an authentic Medieval knight’s jousting helmet versus a Victorian copy, I love the banter between the boys.

On one episode, Pops is convinced that in this economy they’ll never get $5K for a watch; but Big Hoss he can, so he challenges The Old Man to a bet. If Big Hoss sells it for $5K, grandpa, who’s worn a suit to work for 30+ years, has to buy & wear a pair of Ed Hardy jeans to wok — but if grandpa wins, Big Hoss, who doesn’t own a suit, has to come to work in a suit for three weeks. Ribbing ensues, the bet is on, and more ribbing continues while the show moves along & we are educated about actual collectibles — and at the end of the show, we see the loser pay his debt. How cool is that? Very cool.

But maybe not as cool, to some, as the cherry-on-top Mythbusters-esque moments.

While the Pawn Stars don’t engage in real science, they do fire guns & blow stuff up occasionally. Hey, they have to test that Civil War canon — if a weapon doesn’t fire, it loses half it’s value.

So I guess in this sweet Pawn Star sundae served on Sunday nights, I’m the chick who goes nuts or bananas for it. Take your pick. (I say I’m the banana; because I sure have a-peal.)

My only words of caution are that one, in case you didn’t notice the staffs stance & tats, some of the language is a bit course (doesn’t bother me, but some of the PBS crowd might faint if not prepared) and two (in case you aren’t already aware of the truth of “reality TV”), the show is scripted. Again, neither detracts for me. But then I’m a realist. Plus mom says I talk like a sailor. (But I do have a-peal, remember?)

Not only do I love the show, but now I can’t wait to get back to Vegas. I must meet the Pawn Stars & see that shop!

I’ve been on a hardcore DVD kick again lately, as I anticipate prying myself away from daily infusions of cable TV for budgetary reasons, but my love of British TV has also never been stronger. Jetting back and forth from Philly with episodes of The Mighty Boosh on my iPod, I’m beginning to recognize a small circle of comedic British actors and delighting upon seeing them in new roles… and what’s better than seeing the notoriously ornery Dr. House starring as a comically oblivious 1930s fop?

That’s honestly where my superficial curiosity began. Sure, Hugh Laurie was pretty great on Saturday Night Live, but what was he doing back in 1990, before he’d landed the TV role that would redefine his career? The answer lies in Jeeves and Wooster.

For the neophyte, Hugh Laurie plays Bertie Wooster; a wealthy, relatively useless aristocrat whose concerns rarely extend beyond social gatherings, interactions and the subsequent faux pas as a result of his general ignorance and lack of grace. In steps the indomitable Reginald Jeeves, a personal valet of preternatural intelligence and foresight, with a knack for orchestrating events of Shakespearean complexity to the benefit of Bertie – whether he’s aware of it or not. It’s a classic pairing of comedic personalities that might otherwise be grating when observed on their own, and pulled from the prolific writings of P.G. Wodehouse.

If you need a frame of reference, it’s the rough equivalent of Frasier, but without the laugh track. Oh, how I loathe the laugh track. Jeeves is a series that relies upon clever, dry, and sometimes surreal happenstance for humor rather than wordplay or much slapstick – but that’s British comedy for you. And because it was filmed in the early 1990s, the series has that comfortable, warm visual haze cast over the whole thing.

Jeeves and Wooster is a collection of 23 episodes, running about 50 minutes each. Each of the four seasons is divided up onto 2 discs each, packaged in a handsome slipcase with slim cases. Bonus materials are limited to a read-the-screen biography and bibliography of Wodehouse, which are repeated across various discs as space allows. Perhaps a retrospective interview with Hugh Laurie or something might have been a little fascinating.

Collectors should note that this is a repackaged (and better packaged) version of the 2002 boxed set. It’s due for release at the end of May for a price around $50, well worth the weirdly-funny and seeing Laurie and Stephen Fry play so well, and comedically overact, off of each other.