Alphas Revisited

Here's my little run-down on the new SyFy smash hit (!), Alphas:

But first, these few words—No entity less than SyFy itself has called Alphas a New Smash Hit.  The same verbiage they've bestowed in the past for such dreck as Stargate Universe and Ghost Hunters International.  Not saying that Alphas is in that strata, but SyFy’s self-aggrandizement must be taken not quite literally.

And now, back to the meat of the matter:

SyFy seems to have “borrowed” ideas and attitudes from the Fantastic 4, the Power Rangers, CSI, The Man From Uncle, Mission Impossible, the Jedi Knights, the X-Files, Kolchak the Night Stalker, and the Mod Squad.  Not a bad group to borrow from.  Grasshopper, you have chosen wisely.

Diversity’s not an issue here—we have a strong black man, an undefined ethnic female, a white guy stud with a possible checkered background, an autistic (or at least OCD) boy, and a bearded professorial white guy in charge.  Maybe they can work in an Asian and some gay, lesbian, and trans gendered folks later. 

Not that any of this is particularly bad.  The pilot was entertaining, and I’ll watch again when the opportunity arises—in the pilot, about the only issue that wasn't fully explored was spoon bending, but I'm certain that will come up later—

All in all, it's OK.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Very Simple Request

In the late 1970s (that would be during the Carter administration and THAT gas crisis), I drove a Datsun 1200 for a while.   It was a good, small, simple car, and I could afford it even though I had virtually no money. As I recall, it had 12 or 13 inch wheels, no power anything, a four cylinder engine, and a four speed manual transmission.   It was light weight with no amenities.   None.   It had an AM only radio and a tinny little speaker.   No air conditioning either—can you imagine?   No AIR??   On the freeway, when larger cars would pass, the jet wash would buffet the car slightly after the larger car passed.   It was orange, and it routinely got 35 to 50 MPG.   40 to 50 on the freeway and 35 to 45 around town.   When the tires wore out, it was about as expensive as putting new tires on your bicycle.   If it needed brakes, it was about as expensive as putting brakes on your bicycle.   Did I just repeat myself? Here's what the car did.   It provided reliable transportation
Read more

Karma

I see that the Marlin's Scott Cousins has been placed on the 15 day disabled list with a "lower back strain", and has been replaced on their active roster by Hanley Ramirez.  And that the Marlins are 3-18 since leaving San Francisco. Karma's a bitch.
Read more

Spring Training

It’s a sad season for fans of the SF Giants. Sad. I have no idea who these guys are—I read that they have employed 17 big-league coaches. Jeebus...17 coaches. The general behavior of the club is the same as an expansion club that’s trying to decide who it wants to be when it grows up. I also read that they’ve signed so many players and coaches that they’ve run out of jersey numbers and have issued “0” and “00”. Now, I don’t know if all that’s true, but I do read the McCovey Chronicles, and one of their pieces on the web site this week is entitled “ Which Fictional Character Do You Want To Manage The Giants?”. So it’s not just me. Fictional Character to manage? One of their suggestions was Elle Woods, and I think that’s just dandy. E ven at that, baseball in general is in trouble…..Currently over-regulated and over-sanitized with way too many “metrics” . Players are over-paid causing ticket prices to rise out of the range for a regular guy (such as myself) to go to game
Read more