Science Fiction on TV, blog tracking, and few other thoughts

Okay, this is Monday, and I should be writing Monday Morons, which I will get to a bit later.

Also, I am having so much fun with this tracking thing I think that I might start a new regular feature that lists the most interesting Google searches that have led people to my blog. I think I will call it Friday's Freaky Links, but that's still in the planning stages. Anyway, whatever it's called, it will probably start this Friday, and everyone is invited to tell me the interesting Google searches that have led people to your blog.

For example, last week someone found me while looking for stuff about the bridge collapse in Minnesota. Only, they didn't spell out Minnesota, and they didn't leave a space between bridge and collapse. So they ended up reading my post about the 2011 Superbowl being a bad idea, since the new stadium isn't finished yet, and for all we know it's going to collapse. Someone else found me by misspelling Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And they're are still a few people searching for a giant penis.

Also, someone found me me by searching for tied up and masturbated. I guess that they were disappointed, since I said that I had not been tied up. Sorry about that.

Okay, let's get to the science fiction. I hope everyone got to see Masters of Science Fiction. I seemed to be the only one in my group that remembered to record it while we were out. I wish that I could tell you that if you missed it you can watch it online, but I just checked abc.com, and it doesn't seem to be there. But, it is ABC, and they have been nice about that in the past, so maybe check again. While you're there, watch DayBreak if you haven't already, and if you were watching The Nine earlier it is back on, and if you missed last week's episode you can watch it now.

Saturday night's episode was called A Clean Escape, and it was based on John Kessel's short story. I liked it; my husband didn't. I can certainly pick the thing apart for you if you want, but I'm still going to say that I liked it overall. I won't discuss it right here, just in case you haven't seen it yet.

I HATE spoilers.

I was looking forward to a new show in the fall called Journeyman. So someone was saying how it was just a rip-off of Quantum Leap, but so far it doesn't sound like Quantum Leap at all, other than the obvious time travel. I suggested that it sounded more like the novel The Time Traveler's Wife, but maybe that is wishful thinking on my part. After looking at the website, I'm afraid it looks more like the British show Goodnight Sweetheart, which I liked at first, but then it just got to be about a guy two-timing his wife.

While I was talking about The Time Traveler's Wife, someone mentioned that they'd heard it was going to be made into a movie. Sure enough, it is scheduled for a 2008 release. I doubt that it will be as good as the book, but I'm sure I'll watch it anyway.

If you haven't read The Time Traveler's Wife, let me recommend that you do. Though, if you are like me, you'll want to see the movie first and then read the book. If I read the book first I usually don't enjoy the movie as much. But if I see the movie first, I still enjoy reading the book afterwards and getting to see if the movie was even close and what things they had to leave out to squeeze the novel-length story into a two-hour movie.

The Time Traveler's Wife is about a guy who travels in time a bit, but not with a machine or anything else I've ever heard of. It's just sort of a birth-defect. He is the first person known to have the time traveling gene. And this isn't something that he does by choice. He's just minding his own business, and then he finds himself naked in a different time. Usually, it is some other year in his own lifetime, and he often visits the same place and same people.

The first time his wife meets him, she is six. Later, when he is in his twenties, he meets her for the first time. She knows all about him, and he knows nothing about her. They have a very interesting relationship.

Back to television.

We'll also be getting a new version of The Bionic Woman, which I expect to be about as much like The Bionic Woman as the new Battlestar Galactica is like the original Battlestar Galactica. And speaking of Battlestar Galactica, I saw the actress who plays Starbuck in a clip of The Bionic Woman. I probably won't like it as much as the original, but I'll probably watch it anyway.

There's going to be a new series about a vampire on CBS, and I've heard a rumor that a cable channel will be doing another version of Kindred. Not quite sci-fi, but I like it anyway.

Speaking of vampires, it's August now, and I haven't even started on my Halloween costume yet. What the hell is wrong with me? So I'm trying to decide between creating something elaborate like I did last year, or just getting some fangs and/or horns and running around in my underwear. I've bought a few things just in case I choose the later, but none of them are perfect, so I'm still looking.

It might be time for a trip to the Sluts R Us store.

Back to the Masters of Science Fiction.

I think that it's time for a ***SPOILER ALERT***













































Okay, now we can talk.

A Clean Escape starts off with a woman finding out that she has terminal breast cancer and that she probably only has a few months or even weeks to live. Then we see her going to work. She's a psychiatrist. And she seems to have a very important patient. The patient has memory problems.

We learn things about both the patient and the psychiatrist. The patient is head of a company that creates top secret weapons, and he has thought about going into politics. The patient has a wife and two children. The psychiatrist has a husband and two children. Except that the psychiatrist's children are dead, and at some point she accuses the patient of killing them.

We learn a bit more here and there. Finally we learn that the patient is the President of the United States, there has been a nuclear war, and the only known survivors are the 871 people who live in this underground bunker. And they have spent most of the year trying to get the President to admit that all of this is his fault and that he remembers doing it.

I like the story, and I thought that the acting was good and all of that. Like I said, my husband didn't like it. The story is decades old and the cold war is over and the story is dated. I'm not sure that the threat of nuclear war is over just because we like the Russians now. And the weapon mentioned in the story was not a traditional nuclear weapon anyway.

So I could pick the story apart if I wanted. Why did they waste so much time getting the President to remember? Did the people need to hear that before they could put him in jail or something? There was talk about dropping the whole thing, because it was a waste of resources, but what resources? The resource being wasted seemed to be the psychiatrist's time. Did that mean that she never saw any other patients? Did she just sit in that office all day and wait for the President to drop by? And why is he still the President? Do the people just like him a lot? Why is a mentally ill President just allowed to roam about anyway? Do we still need to bother with things like impeachment? If there are only 871 people left, wouldn't we have different laws and make things a lot simpler? And if having the President talk to a psychiatrist is such a waste of resources, why does it end the way it does? After he remembers, that should be the end of it, right?

So, yes, I can find all these little things to complain about if I want to. There are entire books that pick about Star Trek episodes, but that doesn't mean we don't like them. Future episodes will have stories by Heinlein and Ellison. I'm going to keep watching.