I found Tin Man, a TV mini-series based on the original Wizard of Oz, to be a welcome update to the Wizard of Oz genre. Some purists would probably disagree, but I felt that it added depth to the original storyline. It retains many of the original elements of the story while expanding on them in unique and imaginative ways, bringing the O.Z. alive.

In case you haven’t had a chance to see it, I won’t go into the details of the story. My only minor criticism was Zooey Deschannel’s acting. I’m not sure if it was intended as part of DG’s character, but she didn’t seem to portray emotion very well. Other than that, everything was above par, at least as far as TV movies go.

If you haven’t had a chance to see it yet, I suggest you check out the official Tin Man website for the next showing. Even if you miss it once, Tin Man’s the sort of series that they’re bound to be rerun over and over again.

Watching these two shows, though, I can’t help but wonder which of the two hosts is the better survivor? Seriously, if you had to put money on either of them doing better than the other in any given survival situation, which would it be?

Bear Grylls…?

Okay, if the situation involves difficult terrain, Bear’s my top choice. I’ve often joked with my wife that his show ought to be called “Watch Bear Climb” instead of “Man vs. Wild.” The guy seems to go out of his way to find obstacles. In one episode, he even climbed up a ravine of smooth stone by bracing against both sides!

Another impressive thing about Bear is his ability to create shelters. In the rainforest episode, he throws together a lean-to in a few hours that looks like it would take anyone else a day to make. He’s definitely got the advantage here, considering Les’ igloo debacle. In situations where natural shelter is unavailable, Bears also gets my vote.

On the other hand, I have my doubts about Bear’s judgment. In one episode, he warns the viewer never go jump into arctic water since it could easily kill you, then proceeds to do so. Granted, he was doing it for educational purposes, and he’s definitely got guts, but he’s just too much of a thrill-seeker. If a situation was too challenging to resist, I think he might put his life in jeopardy.

…or Les Stroud?

Bear has a camera crew. Granted, they’re supposedly not allowed to help him, but he’s never actually alone, and they’d no doubt be prepared to help if he were in real peril. Les, on the other hand, is his own camera crew. He has to carry more weight as he travels and he’s truly alone when he’s out in the wilderness. If the survival situation requires a lot of mental and physical endurance, then, Les is my top choice.

Another impressive quality of Les is his ability to fashion survival tools from junk. I’ve seen him throw together spears, fishing hooks, traps, and an assortment of other useful things quite literally out of trash. In fact, he’s quite fond of tearing apart his vehicle for materials. He should really author the book, “101 uses for a car seat cover.” Clearly, if there are man-made materials around, Les would come out on top.

For this same reason, though, I think Les has a major shortcoming. All too often, he goes out into the wilderness with a random assortment of things on hand. Bear, on the other hand, rarely has more than his bowie knife. Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to see all the different uses you can find for seemingly worthless items, and certainly more realistic, but I can’t help but think Les relies upon them too much. As you get further away from human habitation, then, I think Les loses his advantage.

Obviously, both men are very skilled survival experts. Still, each has his own unique strengths and weaknesses. What do you think?

 

The final installments have just aired and I find myself unable to feel strongly about the show as a whole. It was good, but not great. The story was better suited for a full show than a mini series. Pretty much everything else was sub-par, including the acting, the dialogue, and the action. All in all, I’d give it maybe two stars, two-and-a-half tops.

That being said, I don’t see it becoming the cult hit that it seemed designed to be. The early episode airing seemed like a stunt to build interest. How much of a fan base can you build, though, when the series is barely better than an average TV show? Frankly, I’ll be surprised if the series goes anywhere after this. I expect it will be little more than a Sunday evening cable movie from here on out.

Obviously there was a lot of drama to sift through. Peter blew up, Hiro stabbed Sylar, etc. Fans of the series already know what happened, so I won’t bother going into detail. No, with the first season behind us, it’s time to speculate about the outcome of events and predict things to come next season. I for one can think of nothing better toward that end than to explain why none of the main characters died in the season finale despite events to the contrary. Here’s the breakdown.

Peter Petrelli – Alive because he can regenerate and because he’s the counterbalance to Sylar. Sure, it was a nuclear explosion, but Claire didn’t seem to have a problem regenerating when she was exposed to lethal doses of radiation. Besides, he’s the most powerful good guy. Without him around, nobody has a chance of stopping Sylar. On that note…

Sylar - Alive because a good villain is never really thwarted until the very end. Yeah, that sword through the gut looked fatal enough, and everyone certainly thought he was dead at first, but then we all saw the trail of blood leading to the manhole. How did he do it? Who knows? Maybe he ate a brain we didn’t know about or something. However it happened, there’s no story (and no season two) without him in it.

Nathan Petrelli – Alive because we didn’t see him die, because there’s an easy way to let him survive, and because nobody likes to see a hero die. We saw the explosion, yes, but we didn’t see Nathan incinerated in the blast. Also, it’s entirely possible that Peter flew himself away at the last second, allowing his brother to escape the blast. Most importantly, though, Nathan finally turned out to be a hero, and it’ll be a very uplifting plot twist to see him live through his act of self sacrifice.

D.L. Hawkins – Alive because he was standing at the end of the episode. Gun shot wounds are no joke, but it wouldn’t serve the drama of the story for him to die of complications. The good doctor patched him up and he was walking with a limp, but it’s obvious that the wound was no longer intended to be fatal. Besides, it’s not like it’s the first time he’s been shot.

Matt Parkman – Alive because he went down too quickly. He pops a few shots off at Sylar, Sylar turns around and sends them back at him. It’s a (made up) law of drama that the degree of emotional investment in a character must positively correlate with the drama of his or her death. Matt has been in the story all season. He’s got a wife and child on the way, and Molly likes him. He may die eventually, but he’s not going to go so gently into that good night.

The point here is that, despite apparently lethal injuries, none of the characters were actually confirmed to be dead. That in and of itself suggests that the writers of Heroes are leaving open the possibility that they might be alive. The audience gets to hope against hope that the protagonists are okay and then feel uplifted when the protagonists make their dramatic reappearance next season. What can I say; emotional manipulation is just a natural part of the dramatic formula. I for one look forward to more of it when season two rolls around.

Unfortunately, many of the best animes get meted out at a sluggish rate of one episode per week, which is excruciatingly slow for the dedicated fan. On the bright side, if you don’t mind subtitles, it’s possible to watch a whole series in succession. Better yet, you can get it all online and watch it for free at Manga Spot. I only discovered this site yesterday and I’ve already taken in three new episodes of Bleach, none of which have aired.

Manga Spot is particularly handy for me, considering some of my favorite animes don’t come on until late at night. Now, if only I can hook my computer up to my TV, I’ll never need cable again.

Just yesterday, Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter himself, died. I, like millions of others, had seen his shows and met the news with a bit of disappointment. After all, he was a very entertaining guy. For many of us Americans, he embodied the Australian stereotype; whenever I think of the word “Crikey!” I think of Steve Irwin. It’s a shame and a tragedy what happened to him, and I’m sure he will be missed by millions of fans.

Still, I wasn’t surprised about the news for an instant. Like most, the first afterthought I had was, “How did it happen?” fully expecting that some dangerous, wild animal had killed him. My hypothesis was confirmed when I heard that it was a sting ray. This didn’t come off as shocking news, considering most of his viewers, at one time or another, certainly thought, “It’s only a matter of time before one of those animals gets him.”

On that note, I will say that I have no pity for the man. Those who choose to pursue dangerous occupations for whatever reason are all too cognizant of the risks involved. Steve Irwin was an expert in his field, even going as far as to warn his viewers of the danger of getting too close to a wild animal. To put it bluntly, he knew what he was getting into and he got what was coming to him. One can only tempt fate so many times before a tragedy strikes.

It reminds me of several years ago when Dale Earnhardt died. There was a big hubbub about it. Much to my confusion, people were shocked. Fancy that; a race car driver crashed and died. Nevermind that he was strapped in a metal cage hurtling along at 200+ miles per hour, something most people would consider a dangerous occupation. I swear, people were walking around, muttering, “How could this happen?”

Is it horrible that things like this happen? Yes, absolutely. Should we be surprised when someone famous dies doing something dangerous? No. Welcome to the real world, where bad things happen to good people who take risks. Mourn them if it helps you get by, curse their bad luck, but don’t be surprised when it happens again.

The story follows Monkey D. Luffy, an optimistic young man who dreams of becoming king of the pirates. Over the course of the show, he manages to draw together a crew through sheer tenacity. Something that really struck me, however, is that all of them have very detailed personalities and backstories, with each new addition requiring several episodes and a grand plot line before they join up.

Among Luffy’s crew are Zolo, a former pirate hunter who uses a strange three-sword fighting style; Nami, a treasure-hungry navigator; Usop, a cowardly teller of tall tales who favors the slingshot; Sanji, a flirtatious cook with dangerous feet; and Chopper, a shapeshifting reindeer who also happens to be the ship’s doctor.

The story of the show itself is adequately detailed in the intro. Gold Roger, former king of the pirates, left a riddle indicating where to find his treasure when he died. Since then, numerous pirates, including Luffy, have quested to find it and become king of the pirates themselves. This is further complicated by the Cursed Fruit, magical fruit that bestows the eater with supernatural abilities. Luffy, having eaten the Gum-Gum fruit, has the power to stretch his body like rubber. Many of the villains of the show also have strange and unique powers from eating Cursed Fruit.

To those who are still dubious, I advise giving the show a chance. It’s a detour from standard cartoons, to be sure, but it’s absolutely worth watching. I, for one, watch it every chance I get.

In fact, Good Eats is one of the very few shows that my wife and I watch with any regularity. Alton Brown is fantastically entertaining. He approaches cooking like science, turning an otherwise mundane activity into a moderately interesting lesson in chemistry, physics, anthropology (not that he’s a nutritional anthropologist or anything), or whatever else might be significant. He even includes a lot of good health and nutritional tips along with his recipes. In the end, Good Eats doesn’t seem like a cooking show at all. It’s more like an educational program, but one that actually manages to be fun.

Of course, I probably won’t ever end up cooking any of the dishes on the show, but my wife has cooked several. So, while I might not care to fix it myself, I can definitely attest to the fact that Alton Brown’s recipes exemplify the title. Combine that with some great food for thought, and it’s a half-hour of genuinely Good Eats.

There really isn’t anything not to like about Star Trek: The Next Generation. To me, it stands as the archetype of the genre, even moreso than the original. Picard is the man, Riker is a player, and Data is downright cool. The series has a nice balance of drama and comedy. Best of all, even the longest plotlines span only two episodes. Unlike other sci-fi series, it comes in short, one-hour bytes that can easily be watched on their own without needing the context of every other. For a nerd like me, it’s a great way to unwind after a long day at work.

My personal favorite of all Star Treks, however, was Star Trek: Voyager. I realize that this leaves me in the minority, but I have much more respect for Captain Janeway. There’s something about one ship against the entire quadrant that has a lot of appeal to me. Captain Picard got to sit at the helm of Star Fleet’s flagship inside (or at least close to) Federation territory. Captain Janeway, on the other hand, was on a small ship far from any backup. There’s an undeniable element of danger that wasn’t present on Next Generation. Until the series ended, I never missed an episode.

I honestly never had a great deal of interest in the other Star Trek series. Deep Space 9 looked cool, but it had such a grandiose plot that I never had a chance to get into it. I would watch one episode, miss three, and then have no idea what was going on. The original Star Trek series was a joke of bad writing. I refused to watch after they saw Abraham Lincoln on the main viewer, floating in space. As for Enterprise, I just never found the characters very appealing. Maybe there’s something about the name Star Trek that just has to be there to connect it to its predecessors.

The background of the show is summed up quite simply in the introduction. In the future, human beings move to other planets beyond the Earth and eventually start fighting. This take on things isn’t really a new concept, but it only provides a glimpse of the show’s richly developed setting. I’ve seen very few genres convincingly mesh hyper-advanced technology with medieval farming implements, but Firefly pulls it off nicely.

I absolutely love the theme song, although I was disappointed to find out that it isn’t a shortened version of a full-length song. Only recently did I come to realize that Nathan Fillion, the actor who plays Captain Reynolds, also played Caleb, a villain from the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I guess I just didn’t catch the connection at first since he wasn’t talking with a country accent.

The show also features a wonderfully diverse set of different characters and personalities, but doesn’t come off with horribly complex plot lines despite this. I have yet to decide which character I like the most simply because they’re all played so well. I highly recommend this show to anyone with even a passing interest in science fiction. I, for one, will be watching it as much as my schedule allows.