Fringeworthy

Science Will Kill Us All


Thanks to last year's Writers Strike, television as I knew it decided to curl up and die, leaving me with an ever-growing list of reality/game shows. Hole In The Wall, for example - if that's not a sign of the End Times, I'm not sure what is. Frankly, I blame the Hadron Collider for this. For one, it's very easy to see that whatever it's going to do once it really gets going, it's going to affect the past, and that's going to result in all this garbage on my TV. Secondly, it's becoming increasingly easier to blame just about anything on the Hadron Collider. For example, it will be magnetic fields from the Collider that causes Google Chrome to become self-aware, leading to our demise at the hands of the machines. See? It's not just easy - it's fun. We need something like the Hadron Collider, and I don't mean for scientific discovery. We need it as something to pin our fears on, to be the focus for a time when America, and likely the world, is feeling the squeeze of terrorism, global economics, and Dane Cook's movie career. Zing. But I do think that's true, that the Collider is a great way to vent frustration and concern - even though it sort of makes some people look like idiots of the Flat Earth variety. I also though it was ironic that on the eve of the Hadron opening up a wormhole, Fox would premiere it's big sci-fi show, Fringe. And it opened with a bang - with an airliner filled with helpless folks who soon become what I like to call "People Soup". Damn. Aside from hoping for a great excuse to break the chains of America's Got Talent, I also follow the works of JJ Abrams closely, because I am an devout LOST fan, and hope for the best here. Abrams' newest baby is about our world reaching that point where science and technology are on a runaway course where progress becomes carnage, though it seems to me that's more about science without ethics. Who knows, though - maybe it's all run by an AI that's gone mad. So far, the show is promising. Storywise, it's got a good hook, and if it can keep the plotlines interesting (like the "Question him" moment at the end of the premiere), we could have a winner. I'm not so sure the early "X-Files Ripoff" statements were entirely fair, since this has less to do with aliens and more to do with rogue science - at least for now. My biggest gripe with Fringe is that the writing seems hit or miss. Sometimes it was rather smart, but sometimes the characters fell into easy clichés and hard-to-believe decisions. Take, for example, the show's lead character, Agent Olivia Dunham. What started for a few moments as a strong female lead was prone to stereotypical female reactions, like when she meets Peter Bishop in Iraq to ask for his help, and resorts to tearing up and giving the "I need to save someone I love" line. My wife, who liked the show up to that moment, let out a cynical laugh and rolled her eyes. I felt the same way. Dunham would later take part in an incredibly questionable experiment with a very crazy Dr. Walter Bishop that involved getting a device shoved in the back of her neck, taking LSD, and being locked in a water tank. All this to save a guy that she seemed somewhat apathetic about at the show's start. And Dr. Bishop walks the fine and dangerous line of becoming a truly obnoxious and unwatchable character. I think his madness largely came from his wily beard, because once he shaved he was much more tolerable - kind of like Samson, but with insanity, not strength...


The success of the show will largely depend on creating episodes that play off what the premiere showed - which walked a fine line between today's horrors of science and far-out sci-fi, like Massive Dynamics' Nina Sharp, who has a very Terminator-esque (and totally bad-ass) robotic arm that goes lightyears beyond what we have available to amputees today. It's sort of like the weirder parts of LOST, but with even a touch more crazy. I'm also already hooked on the whole "Pattern" thing, almost as if it's 2008's answer to the numbers. What is the pattern? What does it all mean? Who the hell would do these horrible things to so many innocent people, and more importantly, why? I want to know more about the whole thing. With any luck, they'll slide in a few sly nods to LOST. Well, a guy can dream, right? In the end, it's largely good stuff, and it's a great excuse to try and put mindless reality programming behind me. If you didn't watch Fringe, I suggest you check in as soon as possible - it looks like this show might start to form quite a mythos, one you're going to need to get into on the ground floor if you want to keep up.

Gaming On My Mind

As is the rule, my Xbox 360 finally fell victim to the dreaded red rings. It was really only a matter of time, as each and every person I know who has a 360 has suffered the same fate, and I'm lucky I went this long without issue. But now, my entertainment center has a sad empty spot where my favorite hunk of white plastic used to be. It makes me sad. Even my latest spot of fun, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, is subject to the aftermath, as it sits trapped inside a now-useless HDD. Damn! In the meantime, I'm doing a few things to try and keep my mind off the demise of my 360. One thing that helps is Warhawk - lots and lots of Warhawk. Unhealthy amounts of Warhawk. And what really doesn't help is that this all happened at a real Catch 22 moment. I'm glad that the 360 tanked now instead of in a month or two, because I don't think I could deal with missing out on Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 when they hit. But right now is that time of year where nothing is really out - the result of which is you reading way too much about me and Warhawk. I have been toying with the idea of getting something like Mercenaries 2, which everyone seems to agree is a (wait for it) blast - but then I start to remember that I never bothered to finish Super Mario Galaxy. Poor Mario. So, as I do each and every August/September, I comb through my backlogged games and look for something to play that I might have let slide earlier in the year or one that deserves a second look. Uncharted is just such a game. Not only is the game strong enough to support a second playthrough, and remain fun, but thanks to Sony's new Achievements Trophies, I can at least feel productive. Also, I realized that while I originally hated Uncharted's mutant-filled ending, the game's entire plot was miles better than the one in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull... I'm also seriously thinking about playing Resistance again. I hate FPS controls on the PS3 controller, but the weird timeline and atmosphere of Resistance is worth the hassle. I'm also prepping for R2, which looks like one of the more impressive games of the year if it can keep up with the hype.


Looking ahead though, there's a serious clusterfuck a-brewin'. It's been a long time since a holiday season dropped so many great looking games on our heads, and I'm caught wanting them all and regretting not having some sort of device that extends a day to 38 hours - just so that I can have more time to enjoy them all. October is chock full 'o' games, and it seems the majority of them are being released in the span of a week, near Halloween. Dead Space began as another EA project that I was primed and ready to ignore - especially after Army of Two turned out to be such a let-down. But as time has gone on, Dead Space looks like less and less of the Old EA at work, and makes me think that (just maybe) EA is ready to use its place in the gaming universe to create a flurry of really awesome titles and franchises. I've heard nothing but great things about Dead Space from a multitude of sites, and it looks like it could have what it takes to be seriously creepy and take off as a new series with a somewhat unique feel. But how much time can I spend hacking up creates from The Thing when on the same damn day (give or take), the PS3 sees the arrival of LittleBigPlanet? I didn't care much about LBP at first, but all the talk about what you can do with the game, and how you can fashion your own levels and build set-pieces from scratch pulled me right in. Having spent months and months to fashion an epic quest via RPG Maker, the idea of being able to craft entire experiences appeals to me - especially since I can now share them thanks to the magic of the interwebs. Besides, Sackboy is a horribly cute little guy, and it looks like Sony is really pushing to make LBP and it's star the official mascot of the console. Will it work? Who knows - though it seems like the game's profile and the number of people talking about it has grown a lot in the last few months. Then, a week after those two big games, I have to deal with Fallout 3. Now, I'm not an Oblivion fan, but Fallout 3 is right up my alley, with it's retro-carnage look and dark humor. And a game like this isn't going to just need some attention, it's going to require almost all my free time... That's a tall order. It's just chaos. Too much awesome, not enough time.