Well, further to my prvious post, I watched a disk of Star Cops first, and a disk of Deadwood later. The latter had 4 disks total, the former 3. That I finished watching all the Deadwood episodes before watching the last Star cops disk shows with relative worth of each series.
I’ll deal with Star Cops first. Don’t bother buying this one. I’m not regretting buying it, and people with a penchant for late 80s fasion, cop shows and a reasonalbe attempt at a hard science TV show may be interested in borrowing my copy.
The premise is that it’s 2047 (made in 1987, they thought fasions wouldn’t change in 60 years?), there’s a moonbase, a Mars outpost and a lot of orbiting space stations, mostly manufacturies and science labs. “Where there’s life, there’s crime” is a repeated phrase through the show, and the main character is an “old school” British cop pushed into the job by a boss who doesn’t like his approach to earthside investigations.
Considering the obviously low budget, it wasn’t actually that bad. The science is sustainable, the crimes are mostly believable (if a little too contrived at times) and the premise is sound. Unfortunately, it hasn’t aged well. For a start, they refer to the Russians as “Soviets” which could so easily have been avoided (just Russian) would be fine and Gorbachev’s reforms were in full swing at the time after all. The fasions are horrible, and the technology looks dated even thoguh they’d obviously thought things through. Oh, one of the episodes covers the threat ot worm software in integrated networks. This was a shocking thing to them, and no non-military computer, including the channel tunnel, had any kind of protection. Oops, I guess Dr Norton never got around to existing in their timeline. Ah well.
Fun, but, well, only in a kitsch nostalgia sense; the acting at times is terrible.
I love it. Seriously, Ian Mcshane is no longer Lovejoy, he is Al, and it’s a well deserved award nomination. It’s an HBO production. For those unware, HBO (Home Box OFfice) is a subscription US cable channel that, as it’s subscription only, can pretty much do what it likes and be as “realistic” as it wishes.
Mcshane’s character does manage the occasional sentence without swearing. But I don’t recall an entire paragraph. WIld Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock; these are the characters we meet at first. Bill’s shooting is a central part of the plot of the early episodes, the build up to it followed by the trial after it happens. Despite knowing it was coming, the event itself still surprised me, and the way the characters are dealt with is, just, cool.
I’m going to watch it all again soon, and while I reckon it won’t be to everyone’s taste, if you like westerns, realism or just decent, adult drama then this is one to watch. I suspect, however, that my mother, a huge Lovejoy fan, will not be impressed. It’s a little too violent, and Al does have a penchant for murder.
Oh, the only real full frontal scene is a bloke, an ugly one at that. Funny scene though.
Next up, thanks to (http://www.livejournal.com/users/lithium_doll/144325.html) I’ll be watching Robin of Sherwood. Many many reasons why I’m looking forward to this one; first, I loved it as a kid, and they made multiple series so it wasn’t crap (Star Cops got dumped despite sequel material clearly written in). Second, it effectively launched the careeer of Enya. While that in some people’s opinions isn’t necessarily a good thing, for a TV serios to get a career off the ground is impressive. Third, well, my (then) uncle is in it a few times.
Ah well. That’s been my day pretty much.
July 24th, 2005
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OK, I’m in the office, unable to actually do any work as the phone is non-stop “you promised me you’d get back to me”-yes, I said I would by the end of the week, I can’t get work done if oyu ring me every 5 minutes asking why I haven’t done it.
People. Deosn’t help that next week is a quiet week in the school, more leaving than arriving; it goes up againt he following week but, well, that doesn’t help me.
Anyway, postman rang while I was shaving, my most recent DVDs have arrived.
So, if I finally get home, opinions.
Deadwood (starring Ian McShane and others, never watched an episode but it sounded good so I bought the series)
or
Star Cops (classic BBC cops in space, from the early 80s, I can remember being addicted as a kid but decided to buy it for nostalgias sake (should the be an apostrophe befor the ’s’ in nostalgias)).
Your opinions are sought…
July 21st, 2005
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Well, the benefits of working my balls of at the moment is my brain is on overtime and when it wonders, it wonders good. I solved my biggest work problem of the week Friday while eating lunch, inspiration came to me and I went back to the office and solved multiple problems with a few button presses.
I digress. I’ve recently (meaning since the General Election and specifically during and after the bombings last week) become a huge fan of journalist style weblogs. Given that, while I don’t want to be a journalist, I do have storng opinions on current affairs and wouldn’t mind influencing opinion in some way, I want to start writing one.
Which got me thinking; why not use my livejournal? It’s a weblog. Except, well, it isn’t, really. LJ is inward looking, a great way to communicate with friends, share information, set up communities, etc. But it’s mostly about building up communities within the membership, and to expand communities it needs to rectruit you as a member. You can blame for my account, and the increasing number of my friends that use LJ is a sign that LJ works.
So, I think I’ll keep using my journal as just that, a journal. So, options on weblogging.
I could set up an account with something like blogspot or typepad, right? I could also create a new, paid LJ account a la and set it up stylistically so it looks and acts like a blog.
Or, I could install some blogging software into one of my domains, set up a sub domain for it and use that. Or I might embed a new journal into a domain, depending on costs, ease and appearance.
Does anyone out there either have any ideas, preferences or opinions?
If, of course, you lot want me to use this journal as a weblog, let me know, but I don’t think it’s the best plan by a long way. Whatever I do, there will definately be away to access it via LJ, probably an RSS feed or similar.
One thing is set; it already has a name and a basic ideal. NotLittleEngland, for forward thinking British campaigning and politics, no small minded, backwards looking false pride. The logo is likely to be an updated Brish flag fromt he pre 1801 Act of Union, no St Patrick’s cross, possibly with the Welsh Dragon in the middle to show all three British nations.
(and, given the way my PC is chugging, it really is about time I sorted my finances and got a better one, any typos in this post are due to my typing going faster than my display catching up half the time. I’m not a fast typist as far as I’m aware.)
July 17th, 2005
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Firstly, for those in London; glad you know you’re all OK, the MD has told me to try and take next Friday afternoon off, so I might be up for the weekend again. I found this to be appropriate.
Well, we got through last Sunday (680 students in beds) and it looks like I’ll get through this weekend as well (791 students in beds).
That would make it the first July in 5 years that the person doing my job has succesfully managed to house everyone. I’ve even managed to get today off.
Avarage 12 hour days, and mostly finished at 10pm until last night when ewe finished at 6.30pm and went to the pub. My team are stars, the rest of the office that helped out were a godsend, and the MD was acutally useful and helpful, and coordinated a lot of effort.
Odds of me getting credit for all the plans working? Small. But at least I can be pleased with myself.
Went shopping today; bought a book (only one, I restrained myself), H2G2 pts 4&5 on CD and, well, some underwear. Laundry tends to get sidelined when you’ve barely time to sleep…
I rule!
July 10th, 2005
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