17 posts tagged “tv”

Watch for the CBC's big budget special effects.

Take that, Wombles.

I used a Christmas gift card today to complete my Babylon 5 DVD collection with Legend of the Rangers and Lost Tales. It's going to be a B5 viewing night tonight.

Doctor Who 2007 Christmas Special - Time Crash: http://www.stage6.com/user/SIMMLING/video/1860620/DOCTOR-WHO--TIME-CRASH--CHILDREN-IN-NEED-SPECIAL

Don't know how long this will be available online, better watch it quick.

Show us your favorite doctor.

My favourite doctor is The Tenth Doctor.

1. What new shows are you going to watch this year?
   --Heroes, Doctor Who, Torchwood (even though I've already watched all of this year's episodes on the Internet), Lost, Race to Mars, The Tudors, Journeyman (but I'll give it up fast if it sucks), Moonlight (yeah, I know, I know. It's yet another show about an angst-ridden vampire...), and if I have nothing else to do and want to watch TV, Bones and House.
2. What shows do you currently watch?
   --Nothing but the daily 6pm news on Global. I'm waiting for my new shows to start.
3. Name a show that was on when you were younger.
   --The Friendly Giant
4. How much tv do you usually watch?
   --Summer, almost nothing except for the news. Rest of the year, about 10 to 20 hours a week depending on how many of my shows are showing new episodes and whether or not I dropped any series because they turned out to be bad or boring.
5. Show us something you bought because you saw it on tv. --I bought this Serenity DVD because of the Firefly TV series.
   

   Serenity (Widescreen Edition)

The B5 Technical Manual, an online guide to B5's ships and technology - www.b5tech.com

NW-B5 Mailing List and Homepage - nw-b5

ISN News: The Zocalo Today - www.isnnews.net

The CGSociety website has articles on their work on the production of Babylon 5 The Lost Tales. Includes photos taken on the set during green screen filming and some great visual effects images. Spoiler Alert!! The articles mention events you may not want to know about until you view The Lost Tales yourself.

• Concept Art and Green Screen - Part One
• Atmospheric Visual Effects - Part Two

 

I just found the Babylon 5 group here on Vox. Looks liked it started up Tuesday. Jeez, what took me so long to find it!?!

Hang on, I'm going to post one of my B5 posts to it...

Special bonus, here's a picture of Jerry Doyle as my favourite B5 character, Michael Garibaldi, from my B5 trading card collection.

Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, scheduled for DVD release on July 31, now has a trailer viewable at babylon5.warnerbros.com.

I was curious about the solar eclipses depicted in the first and last episodes of this series of Heroes. So I did a little research.

Types of solar eclipses:

Central Total Solar Eclipse - At some moment and viewed from some place on Earth the centres of Sun and Moon coincided and the Sun was completely obscured by the Moon.

Central Annular Solar Eclipse - At some moment and viewed from some place on Earth the centres of Sun and Moon coincided but the Sun was not completely obscured by the Moon, leaving a brilliant 'ring' around the dark Moondisk.

Partial Solar Eclipse - At no instant and nowhere on Earth there was a total or annular eclipse, but the Moon obscured the Sun partially.

There are other variations but you get the idea...

Back to Heroes.

(1) Did a solar eclipse occur in Japan in 1671 as depicted in Heroes: How to Stop an Exploding Man?

Two solar eclipses occurred in 1671 that were visible in the northern hemisphere. One was a brief partial eclipse of the Sun (grey shaded area on diagram) in eastern Asia and Japan on September 3, 1671. However, it was not visible in Japan because the sun was setting or had just set at the time of the eclipse (light grey shaded area on diagram.) The other was also a partial solar eclipse, occured on April 9 and was only visible in Greenland and on the east coast of Canada.

At the end of Heroes episode, How to Stop an Exploding Man, (the scene is actually a preview for the next series) there is what appears to be a total or near-total eclipse. Subtitles indicate the locale is Japan in 1671. Perhaps in the Heroes universe this apparent eclipse will turn out to be something else entirely. The moon is not the only object that might pass between the Earth and the Sun in an imagined universe.

(2) Did a solar eclipse occur in North America in 2006 as depicted in Heroes: Genesis?

Genesis, the first episode of Heroes, was set (I think) in September of 2006 and this episode depicted a solar eclipse, apparently more or less coincident with the awakening of our Heroes' powers.

In fact, there were no total solar eclipses visible from anywhere on the Earth's surface in September 2006. There was only one total solar eclipse in all of 2006 and that occurred on March 29, 2006. It was not visible from North America. The other solar eclipse in 2006 was an annular eclipse visible on September 22 across the Atlantic Ocean in the southern hemisphere.

(3) This leads me to the following conclusions.

Maybe Heroes' writers really did intend to depict solar eclipses. Whether or not the eclipses actually occured in our reality doesn't matter. Heroes is a fictional story set in a universe that is very similar to our own but different in key ways that serve the story. E.g., Some people have super powers.

Or, Heroes' writers depicted something eclipsing the Sun, but it was not our Moon!

Interesting, eh?

References:

http://www.eclipse.org.uk - Look up the eclipse of your choice by year. Nice maps.
http://www.webmesh.co.uk/nice/eclipse2.htm - A list of eclipses from 1001 to the present.

Ok, I've mused about this for a couple of days and here are my thoughts on the last episode.

The future is not set in stone. Peter explodes at night on election day up in the sky, high above NYC. Or so it seems. In the future that Hiro visited in previous episodes we learned that the explosion occurred during the day, I think it was two days after election day. The visions experienced by Isaac, Peter and Sylar don't necessarily come true. And the events that Hiro and Ando see and hear of when they visit the future won't necessarily come true either. I think multiple possible time lines cascade off every event, every action but in our limited sense of the past, present and future we only "see" one of these time lines at a time. The line we're on and that we "see" is constantly being adjusted by events and actions in the present. Yeah, right. I'm starting to get that existential feeling now. Maybe I'll just move on to my next topic.

Will Peter survive? Hmmm, not sure but if I had to bet on it I would say yes. Mainly because he survived exploding before, er, I mean, in the future, well, in the future that isn't going to happen now. Or is it?

Peter, since he has Claire's power, might be able to regenerate. So could the explosion in NYC still happen two days from now?

Is Nathan dead? Yes. But maybe Candice (or Sylar, if he manages to get Candice's power) will impersonate him in the future leading to all sorts of mind-bending complications that I can't even begin to speculate about now.

Speaking of Sylar. Is Sylar dead? No. Too bad, Hiro should have taken his head when he had the chance. What does it take to kill this guy? Did he crawl into the sewer or was he dragged?

Will Parkman survive? Yes.

Will Parkman and his wife have a child with an amazing power? Hmmm... Someday there might be a Heroes: The Next Generation, heh, heh.

Niki now seems to be able to access Jessica's strength without actually being controlled by her. Is she going to be able to successfully integrate her split personalities? Yes. Some of the time anyway. I liked seeing her get a shot in on Sylar.

Will DL survive? Yes.

Is Linderman really dead? Yes, I don't think he can heal himself, only other people/plants/animals.

So Mr. Bennett's name is Noah. That has biblical overtones. Maybe Mr. Bennet will, metaphoricaly, build an ark and save all of the earth's species (including the species of humans with super powers) from extinction during some sort of global catastrophe. That's a real stretch for me. I'm not very good at metaphors, as you can probably tell.

Molly knows of someone who is even an even badder dude than Sylar. What is his power? It seems he might be able to "see" or telepathically connect with people who are thinking about him. It's not Mrs. Petrelli since Molly clearly said "he".

Does Mrs. Petrelli have a power. Yes, I just don't know what it is yet.

What's happening in Japan in 1671 and why did Hiro go there? Episode 1, Genesis, began with an eclipse and now we see another eclipse in 1671. How are they related? I think I'm going to do a little research into the eclipses.

Was that Hiro's father back in 1671? Is Hiro's father the Kensei? If that was him, what is his power? Bending time? Not aging? He seemed to be able to pass on his Katana fighting skills to Hiro very quickly. This could be a bending-time type of power. Or maybe some sort of teaching/training power.

There are other characters with really cool powers. What happened to the Haitian? Given his ability to suppress other heroes' powers, it would have made for a duller ending if he had shown up at Kirby Plaza so I understand why the writers would want to shuffle him off stage for awhile. I think he'll be back though! Hey! What would happen if Sylar absorbed the Haitian's power? Would that then suppress all of Sylar's other powers? It does seem to be an always on, passive sort of power so maybe Sylar would not be able to turn it off at will. Or what if Peter absorbed The Haitian's power? Maybe Sylar and Peter can't absorb his power because they would have to use their powers to do so. Whew, that eliminates that potentially messy plot development!

Candice was knocked out by Niki. Will she wake up and be a changed for the better, person. I don't think so!

Will we see more (or less, given that he can be invisible) of Claude? I hope so! Christopher Eccleston is great in this role.