TV

Clone Club Emails

In my personal quest to broaden the TV viewing horizons of my co-workers I have managed to get 13 other individuals to watch Orphan Black. To keep their interest up I have taken to issuing a Clone Club email about once a week of tidbits discovered on the web about the show. This week there were actually two emails sent because right after I mailed the first one, something really interesting came to my attention that I wanted to share.

First Wednesday’s:

Subj: A Clone Phone Ringtone, A Video and A Romantic/Scientific Relationship

A Ringtone – Now all you need is a pink cell phone cover…

A YouTube video – Tatiana Maslany talks to Space Channel about Season 2

A “Spoiler:”
Show runner Graeme Mason says that season 2 will explore Cosima and Delphine’s relationship, “That Cosima-and-Delphine relationship is as complex as ever. It stays romantic and stays scientific, but there’s a lot of gamesmanship going on”

Brian

Delphine: I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.
Cosima: Ah, like in a… not bad way?
Delphine: Oh, like… I have never thought about bisexuality. I mean, for myself, you know? But, as a scientist, I know that sexuality, is a… is a… is a spectrum. But you know, social biases they, codified attraction. It’s contrary to the biological facts… you know.
Cosima: That’s… oddly romantic. And totally encouraging.

Now today’s:

Subj: 10 Weeks, Down Under & A Fan Based Award

Only 71 more days, so if you watch one episode of Season 1 every Saturday night starting tomorrow, you will see the finale on the 19th of April, the same night as the premier of first episode of Season 2.

Last Tuesday night at 8:30pm in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide & Perth a combined 4.2 million Australians were watching the second half hour of a show called My Kitchen Rules. On Network 9, 1.9 million people were watching a re-run of The Big Bang Theory while only a total of 26,000 people were watching Orphan Black on SBS 2. Just like the continent, their idea of quality TV is upside down…

No Emmy, no problem. An OB fan has created a crowd funded award to give to Tatiana. There are several donation levels to choose from with different “perks” for each. My favorite level is The Helena, a $500 donation and you will get your own replica of the award, but I’m probably only going to be donating on The Beth level. This is already 1/3 of the way to reality, so hurry before it is too late to get in on it.

Brian

Mrs. S: I was tempted to claim the remains and feed them to you both on toast.

Resurection

While updating a blogging software plugin this evening it some how crashed and took the whole site down. I restored the database from a weekly backup that runs on Sunday nights. Everything previous came back, but things are just a little off.

The top transition text has changed and weirdest of all is when I try to edit a post, the text box where everything is entered, is blank. There is nothing to edit, yet the post still exists. And now I also have a yellow bar across the top of every backend page telling me that an automated WordPress update has failed to complete – please attempt the update again now. When I try, nothing happens, and the bar remains.

And if you would like a different take on the resurrection of the dead, I highly recommend a French (oh, no, subtitles) eight episode TV show called Les Revenants, or The Returned for us English speaking types. Very creepy story of the dead come back to life in a small mountain village, but not as shuffling zombies, but as exactly as they were just before they died with no recollection of the passage of time.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1279

Utopia

Utopia

I read an online review of Orphan Black the other day from a source in England, they are just getting it shown over there now, and the biggest complaint he had was the crummy British accents. They sound just fine to me and I watch a lot of British TV, but I’m not from there so…

The reviewer compared OB to a show called Utopia which I had never heard of. He said the way they were similar is that it put seemingly ordinary persons in extra ordinary positions and watched how they reacted. It had a six episode series run earlier this year on Channel 4 and after watching half of them I see that similarity, but that is the only one.

It is beautifully shot in very wide screen with a bright palette. The top image is from the opening shots of episode 2, click to see it full size to appreciate it. After episode one you see that there are two parallel story lines that will intersect sometime. The soundtrack is kind of quirky, but fits the show to a T.

If Orphan Black was a movie it would be rated PG, Utopia on the other hand would be rated R. While I have been busy spreading the word and coercing my co-workers to watch OB, the violence in Utopia is so Quentin Tarantino-esque that I don’t know who I would recommend the show to.

The Holy Grail of Watching a Televised Red Sox Game Realized

After trying all kinds of shenanigans over the years to get it so I could watch the Red Sox on television and listen to the radio crew call the game, turns out it was available all along. No audio and or video delaying software required, all I had to do was subscribe to MLB.TV, install their NextDef add-in and that combination is right there for the selecting.

I don’t see it tonight, but last night I could select no audio and just have the stadium crowd noise while viewing the game. Tried it for a bit, and while interesting, I couldn’t do it. Maybe if I just watched the game instead of my usual internet surfing multitasking…

Better Than Being There

img_mlbtv_smWhen I went to check out the start time for last night Red Sox game on their home page I noticed a news item that said get the rest of the season of MLB.TV Premium for $19.95. I’m in, no more watching badly pixelated streams off of European servers…. The HD picture is awesome. Why bother paying all that money to actually go to a game?

Watched part of last night’s loss, but today and tomorrow I will not be able to use it the watch the FRS, seems that when the game is selected to be carried by FOX on Saturday it is unavailable for watching on MLB.TV. Even if the game you want is not being shown by your local FOX station. Sunday’s night game belongs of ESPN and the same deal applies. Luckily today’s Red Sox/Dodgers game was on my local FOX channel so I could watch it.

It seems like this thing is really geared for the fan of a team who he lives nowhere near, because there blackout restrictions to protect sports cable networks monetary interests. Fortunately I’m a fan of of a team that is a thousand miles away, because if I was an Atlanta Braves fan I’d be blacked out.

The Church Of Orphan Black

The Church now has two acolytes, the Accounting Manager and the Payroll Clerk of the Valve Store(TM). Both have finished watching all of season one and have asked for their own copy of the show so they can re-watch it. In trying to grow my little religion I have had the digital copies of season one placed in the hands of six other folks at work for a while now, but none of them has actually watched any of it except for the clip of the first 3 minutes of the first episode.

The two that are hooked are female, the six that are not are male. Are the guys not watching it because of the female protagonist? Did the ladies dig it because of her?

Having run out of men to try and convert and with my previous success with the ladies, this afternoon and gave a set of DVDs to a woman who works in engineering department out back in the same offices as I do.

As I handed Cathy her the discs I thought to myself, maybe it has nothing to do with the sex of my prospective converts but the media applied. So if she comes back on Monday having watched all 10 episodes and loves it, I’ll have to try and pass along the DVDs to one of my hesitant male prospects.