Michael Lee's Train of Thought

I really like this interview from the Hollywood Reporter with Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof.

I also like how they're realistic about the future of LOST -- and really, any reasonably successful franchise comes back and is revisited at some point.

I can't wait for the last LOST season to start, as one of my favorite shows of the past decade.

Labels: lost, tv

One of the things I promised to do at CONvergence was to put together a list of the various DVDs that we recommended at the panel. It took a while to get around to it, but here we go...

1. Spaced
   
2. Jekyll
   
3. Second Coming
   
4. Bob & Rose
   
5. Coupling
   
6. Ultraviolet
   
7. League of Gentlemen
   

There are some shows that aren't available yet in Region 1 -- some may never be, but others may. We talked about Terry Nation's Survivors, which is getting remade by the BBC. And then there is also Life on Mars, which is getting remade for the American audience by ABC -- and probably delaying the region 1 release of the UK version. Primeval is starting soon on BBC America.

I probably forgot some that we mentioned as well.

Labels: convergence, cvg2008, tv, uktv

I'm really enjoying this season of Lost. I know that some people find the never-ending mysteries of the series frustrating -- but I think that is part of the fun.

It is amazing that a series over three series has been able to avoid explaining even some of the most basic rules of the universe that it is in. It is obvious that it is some sort of fantastical premise -- but it is not clear whether it is a science fiction or fantasy series, or "how much" of either of those it is. It is not always clear who the good guys are and who the bad guys are -- and certainly people do bad things for good reasons, and may do good things for bad reasons.

But despite being so vague about the rules -- I rarely feel that this is a show that "cheats" -- it seems to be consistently playing by the rules that they've set out. Even though we don't really know what those rules are.

Labels: jjabrams, lost, scifi, tv

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Spaced, a TV show by the people that later produced Hott Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. I'm glad to hear reports that this excellent series may be finally get a Region 1 release. It's awesome, and I think it should have a greater exposure in the US.

Labels: comedy, dvds, tv, uktv

It's fun to see how all of these various televisions shows relate to each other when it is graphically demonstrated.

Labels: tv

I've been thinking about how iTunes is now looking at providing movie rentals. And really, you can only "rent" a movie if you've got some sort of DRM that means you don't truly control your device -- because otherwise you can copy the bits to some other location and see it again.

Of course, that's one of the challenges of distributing data electronically. Most movies and television shows you only watch once. Others, you may watch many times. And really -- no matter how much space you have, video takes up a lot of room -- and there are many things I wouldn't worry about keeping if I knew that I could easily get them again later. It's why I like Netflix, even though I've been watching fewer DVDs from them as my life has been busier lately.

So the challenge is -- from a business standpoint, yes, I really want to "rent" video. But as someone who does not like DRM -- I'm well aware that it's really impossible to do that digitally if you want to control your device.

Labels: computers, itunes, media, tv

Last year I had observed that Heroes was the Geekiest show on televison. And we now know that Heroes:Origins will absolutely follow in that geek supergroup tradition as well.

Labels: heroes, kevinsmith, scifi, tv