/** ***************************************************************** * ****************************************************************** * The Non-Sequitur Express * If you can't stand the heat, go to the dentist and get it fixed.* * Published at fortnightly or random intervals by Phillip Thorne * http://home.earthlink.net/~pethorne/Reviewer/NonSeqExp/ * * Volume 2, Issue 7: Wednesday, 28 March 2000 * ****************************************************************** * *************************************************************** */ OBSERVATIONS: Policy Change, Freud, Medium Jumpers. UPCOMING: Heads Up, Animation, Primetime, Voyager. BOOK REVIEW: _Dune: House Atreides_. SOMNABULATIONS: Mulder dies in lift to find Monolith! ERRATA: Showtime, Max Steel, TR2070. plus Legalese, acknowledgements and opt-in/out instructions. /** ***************************************************************** * OBSERVATIONS * *************************************************************** */ Change in policy: if reader writes in with corrections or data, I *will* cite them by name (and URL) *unless* they specifically prefer to remain anonymous. Starting... just about... now. If you're advertising a topical website in your .sig, you *probably* want people to know about it. If you think you can apply Freudian or Jungian analysis to my Somnabulations and extract sordid details of my personal life, forget it. All you're gonna get is that I watch a little too much TV, remember *far* too much of it, and have a brain that excels at odd juxtapositions. In issue 2.5 I started thinking about novels that've made their way to the screen. So far I've found over 40 (with a disproportionate number by Jules Verne and Michael Crichton), but despite assiduous examination of the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) and Internet Speculative Fiction Database (www.sfsite.com/isfdb/sfdbase.html), I still have a few gaps in my analysis. Today's masthead quote is from the Mainframe CGI series "ReBoot." /** ***************************************************************** * UPCOMING * Series, Seasons, Episodes, Movies, Books * *************************************************************** */ Heads Up: Sat-25-mar: The Saturday morning lineup for FoxKids is: Power Rangers, Monster Rancher, Digimon, Digimon, Digimon, Digimon, Flint:First Time Detective (premiere), and Avengers. Hmmm, four hours of TV, of which three are dubbed imported anime and 0.5 are imported modified /sentai/. Y'know, I really miss "Big Guy and Rusty." I even miss "Xyber 9." Buy domestic! (Grin) One of those imports is a new-to-Fox anime series, "Flint: First Time Detective" (symbol: FFTD). From the one ad I've seen, it looks about as serious as (Pokémon/Digimon/Monster Rancher). Maybe less. Really makes you pine for the days of "Starblazers" and "Robotech" -- but if you want drama, watch "Roughnecks." Sat-26-mar-20:00: If you're in the Philadelphia area, you can catch "Arabian Knight" on UPN-57. This *seriously weird* animated tale, originally titled (if my memory serves) "The Thief and the Cobbler," took about ten years to finish because of its detail. Disney's "Aladdin" it is *not.* Beware the optical illusions in the floor tiles. Upcoming Non-Primetime Animated TV: 3 RSTC Metamorphosis 61/126 w 0322 2 RSTC The Ice Men Goeth 55/125 f 0323 3 RSTC The Face of Truth 35/115 f 0324 3 RSTC Betrayal 31/111 m 0327 * RSTC Trackers 71/131 r 0328 2 RSTC Hide 'N' Seek 74/134 w 0329 3 RSTC Checkmate 65/130 r 0330 3 RSTC D-Day 62/127 f 0331 RSTC The Mission 63/128 m 0403 RSTC Marooned 143 t 0404 * RSTC Court-Martial of Lt.Razak w 0405 3 RSTC Letters Home 64/129 r 0406 3 RSTC Mixed Signals 52/122 f 0407 Have I mentioned lately that www.foxkids.com is almost useless as a source of listings? SH22 The Sign of Four 121 m 0320-1600 fox TFBW A Better Mousetrap 109 t 0321-1600 fox TFBW Victory 112 w 0322-1600 fox TFBW Double Dinobot 114 r 0323-1600 fox TFBW Double Dinobot [sic] 114 f 0324-1600 fox PRLR Cyborg Rangers 106 z 0325-0800 fox FFTD Jitter Bug (premiere) 101 z 0325-1100 fox Avg Shooting Stars z 0325-1130 fox CSSM Monkey Puzzle Man 115 s 0326-1130 48 CSSM The Planet of the Humans 116 s 0402-1130 48 CSSM Felonious Monks 117 s 0409-1130 48 CSSM Little House on the Primate 118 s 0416-1130 48 Upcoming Primetime (etc.) TV: * 7D The Cuban Missile 216 w 0322-2000 upn r Ros Blood Brother 107 w 0322-2100 wb N+A (Pr'emp'd) f 0324 B5 Darkness Ascending 515 z 0325-0700 tnt BCJ Ned Zed 101 z 0325-1000 tnt r EFC Pad'Ar 308 z 0325-1600 17 r SG1 Bane 210 z 0325-1700 29 r Cle Creegan 1202 z 0325-2000 17 r JAT Sex and the Single Spy 1302 z 0325-2030 17 r Fut Fry and the Slurm Factory 113 s 0326-1900 fox Sim E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt) 1019 s 0326-2000 fox r XF Hungry 703 s 0326-2100 fox r Buf Pangs 408 t 0328-2000 wb SAM (Pr'emp'd) t 0328 * GDB The Devil's Birthday 104 t 0328-2030 nbc * FGy The King is Dead 115 t 0328-2030 fox r Ang I Will Remember You 108 t 0328-2100 wb * FGy I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar 202 t 0328-2130 fox r 7D For the Children 204 w 0329-2000 upn r Ros The Balance 109 w 0329-2100 wb * N+A Lizzard's Tale 118 f 0331-2100 cbs B5 And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder 516 z 0325-0700 tnt BCJ Socrates' Sister 102 z 0325-1000 tnt r SG1 Spirits 211 z 0401-1500 29 r EFC In Memory 309 z 0401-1600 17 r Cle Flying Lessons 1205 z 0401-2000 17 r JAT The Floundering Father 1309 z 0401-2030 17 * Fut How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back 211 s 0402-1900 fox r Sim Faith Off 1106 s 0402-2000 fox r XF Chimera 716 s 0402-2100 fox Upcoming episodes of STAR TREK VOYAGER: If the recent airing order seems a little scrambled, it's because the eps are being shown by production number (817,818,819,820) rather than originally-aired season order (203,204,206,201). Elogium 204 w 0322-1900 Kes must become pregnant! 2 Barge of the Dead 603 w 0322-2100 Bad daughter Torres must... Twisted 206 r 0323-1900 Ship and Janeway go all wobbly. The 37's 201 f 0324-1900 Frozen alien abductees. 3 Barge of the Dead 603 z 0325-1900 ...save mom from Klingon hell. Initiations 202 m 0327-1900 Chakotay and Nog, er, Kazon. Non Sequitur 205 t 0328-1830 Harry gets home via anomaly. Parturition 207 w 0329-1900 Two squabblers and an XT baby. 2 Tinker,Tenor,Doctor,Spy 4 w 0329-2100 Doc's daydreams of command... Persistence of Vision 208 r 0330-1900 Save crew from delusions, Doc! Tattoo 209 f 0331-1900 Aliens inspired Amerinds! 3 Tinker,Tenor,Doctor,Spy 4 w 0329-2100 ...lure Sontaran* scavengers! * Actually, they only *look* like "Doctor Who's" Sontarans. Chief makeup artist Michael Westmore must be running low on ideas. /** ***************************************************************** * BOOK REVIEW * _Dune: House Atriedes_ * Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson * Batnam Spectra, October 1999 * *************************************************************** */ Frank Herbert's millenia-spanning saga of dynasty, ecology and apotheosis comprises the novels _Dune_ (1965), _Dune Messiah_ (1969), _Children of Dune_ (1976), _God-Emperor of Dune_ (1981), _Heretics of Dune_ (1984) and _Chapterhouse: Dune_ (1985). With his death in 1986, the cliffhanger end of the sixth book seemed destined to be forever unresolved. A few years ago, however, notes for a seventh novel were found in a safe-deposit box in Seattle, revealing to Herbert's son Brian (an accomplished novelist in his own right) his father's intentions for a spectacular finish. With the help of Kevin J. Anderson, he's amplifying those threads via a set of prequels. _Dune: House Atreides_ is set some 40 years prior to the events of _Dune_. Familiar characters are younger, fitter, or unborn. Any story set amid a ten thousand-year-old civilization is inherently /in media res/, but it nonetheless provides plenty of revelatory answers to the assumed premises of the first novel and its appendices. Whereas in _Dune_ the Imperium appeared to operate via hardcopy and AM radio, technology is far more evident in this story. That might be a concession to stylistic changes of the intervening 35 years, or possibly a hint of retrenchment in the Imperium's attitudes. Unlike certain volumes by other authors, it's difficult to get lost in _House Atreides_; each chapter can stand almost independently, summarizing the situation and character relations. To summarize the initial conditions... On Kaitan, throneworld of the million-world Imperium, crown prince Shaddam Corrino grows impatient with the century-long reign of his father, Emperor Elrood IX, and is persuaded by his boyhood friend Hasimir Fenring, genetic eunuch and master assassin, to advance his own ascendancy. Concurrently, the pair manipulate Elrood into seeking a synthetic alternative to the geriatric spice melange, the pivot around which imperial politics and commerce revolve. They invite the mysterious and reviled Bene Tleilax, master genetic engineers, to overthrow House Vernius of Ix and take its manufacturing facilities for themselves -- a plan that serves the additional ends of terminating a new Heighliner design that threatens House Corrino's tax revenues, and destroying Earl Dominic Vernius, whom Elrood has never forgiven for marrying his favorite concubine. The Tleilaxu, religious zealots, are motivated to suppress any Ixian device that trangresses the Butlerian Jihad proscriptions against thinking machines. The Emperor is only one corner of the Imperium's politics. Balanced against him are the Landsraad, a council of nobles; the merchandizing conglomerate CHOAM; and the Spacing Guild. The Guild's Navigators use the spice to safely pilot Heighliners instantly between stars; they have a monopoly on space travel, and hence on interstellar banking. The fifth vertex is the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, a secretive organization that manipulates the Houses to advance its own goal of breeding a new messiah, their Kwisatz Haderach. Finally, there is the desert world of Arrakis, the only source of melange in all the known universe; and whichever Great House currently holds the planet in quasi-fief. That lucrative privilege is currently held by House Harkonnen, but harvesting operations have been mismanaged the past seven years by Abulurd, the younger demi-brother of Siridar Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Even after he is replaced, the Emperor is displeased with the endemic ignorance about the true nature and source of the spice, and dispatches renowned Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes to ferret out its secrets. The perceptive Kynes soon realizes the now-arid wasteland was once a far more hospitable place, and determines to recruit the native Fremen to his cause: a complete ecological transformation. On its homeworld of Giedi Prime, House Harkonnen has been accumulating illegal reserves of melange, and the Bene Gesserit use that secret to coerce the Baron into their breeding plan, which nears completion. Meanwhile, Abulurd's cruel son Glossu Raban hunts eight- year-old Duncan Idaho for sport -- but the wily boy escapes to Caladan, home of House Atreides, enemy of the Harkonnens for millenia. On that verdant and pastoral world, Duke Paulus Atreides, beloved ruler of his House, is preparing to send his fifteen-year-old son and heir, Leto, to Ix, to study under his old comrade-in-arms Earl Dominic Vernius -- despite the fervent counsel of Lady Helena, daughter of House Richese (a commercial rival of Ix), appalled by its unholy explorations into thinking machines. Arriving on fabulous Ix, Leto befriends Dominic's son Rhombur and becomes enamoured of daughter Kailea. An inquisitive and hands-on boy, he discovers dissent impossibly brewing among Ix's working class, the supposedly-docile Suboids. /** ***************************************************************** * SOMNABULATIONS... * ...slightly fictionalized chronicles of my somnolent excursions * Saturday, 18 March 2000: * Mulder dies in lift to find Monolith! * *************************************************************** */ FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are once again on the trail of a creepy weirdo with paranormal proclivities. They've traced him to the elevator shaft of a skyscraper, conveniently equipped with periodic security observation chambers. From behind a one-way mirror, Scully peers out at their quarry as his doorless elevator cab passes upward. On the far wall, the counterweight (consisting of six 500- pound steel plates, stacked exercise-style) drops in synchrony. A short time later, they slide the window open. Mulder, wearing a yellow hardhat, is hoisted out into the shaft and uses a hooked pole to grab hold of the braided elevator cable. He climbs to the cab (now a water-filled Houdini-like cylindrical plexiglass tank) and drops in, dunking-tank-style. Affixed to Mulder's chest is a silvery disc-shaped device. Bolts of electricity arc between the quarry and himself, killing them. They're instantly reincarnated/resurrected with improved karmas. The process repeats as the tank recedes into the Space-Time Vortex, a rectangular chasm shimmering with rostrum camera-generated interference patterns. Their countenances shift and flow into glowing angelic (i.e. bland) ideals. The tank finally drops out into real space, and the camera following it can obtain only blurry double images of the surrounding planetary system. It shifts to CGA colors and the royal planet Jupiter attended by its retinue of moons come into focus -- worlds, and a vast swarm of dark cubes. Beyond them is the Monolith, a vast ebon slab against the stars, one by four by nine. Flotsam has accumulated about it, like lint attracted to a sweater; among it a British police call box, circa 1960, upside down. Beyond the debris, huge grooves scar the otherwise pristine surface of its largest face. As the camera shifts to a new vantage, their oddly regular patterns are revealed as lettering: an address block. The mission controllers realize the entire artifact is really a giant sympathy card! /** ***************************************************************** * ERRATA * *************************************************************** */ Reader Lee Thompson (Webmaster, S.I.C.O.N. HQ, A Roughnecks Starship Troopers Chronicles website, www.nwlink.com/~sicon/) comments on the following topics from issue 2.6: 1. The Sci-Fi Channel is airing "Roughnecks" Monday through Thursday, but it's the stripped BKN feed; hence, they're skipping every fifth (Friday) episode. 2. In regards to KidsWB's "Max Steel," Foundation Imaging assumes rendering duties with Episode 8; it will also be improving the models. 3. Whereas "Total Recall 2070" was *shown* on Showtime (for its first season), it's not actually a Showtime Original (www.sho.com) as my phrasing implied. It's one of the many series produced by Canada's Alliance-Atlantis (www.allianceatlantis.com), including "The Outer Limits" (likewise aired on Showtime), "Earth: Final Conflict" and the upcoming "Dragonriders of Pern." "StarGate SG-1" (part of Showtime's "SciFriday" lineup) is produced by MGM. 4. TR2070 has been renewed for a second season in the US syndication market, though Michael Easton (Hume) will not return. Mr.Thompson claims the first season eps are being shown out of order. If by that he means "infrequently if at all," I agree. /** ***************************************************************** * Legalese * Acknowledgments * Opt-in/out Instructions * *************************************************************** */ All books, movies, television shows, toys and other creative works reviewed or analyzed herein are the property of their respective copyright holders. No infringement is expressed, implied or intended. The original reviews and analyses are themselves copyright 1999 by Phillip Thorne. Certain data may have been obtained from aint-it-cool-news.com, corona.bc.ca/films/ (Corona Upcoming Attractions), foxkids.com, the Internet Movie Database, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, roughneckchronicles.com, tv.excite.com, upcomingmovies.com, and/or other sites and hardcopy books and periodicals. If you're receivng this newsletter, you've probably intentionally subscribed to it. To cancel your subscription, send an email message to pethorne@earthlink.net with the words "UNSUBSCRIBE NON-SEQUITUR" or 'unsubscribe nonsequitur' in the subject line and/or body. Capitalization and punctuation don't matter, 'cause I'm doing this all manually. /** ***************************************************************** * ****************************************************************** * The Non-Sequitur Express * http://home.earthlink.net/~pethorne/Reviewer/NonSeqExp/ * Volume 2, Issue 7: Wednesday, 28 March 2000 * Copyright 2000 Phillip Thorne, pethorne@earthlink.net * ****************************************************************** * *************************************************************** */