/** ************************************************************************ *** ************************************************************************ *** The Non-Sequitur Express *** In the country of the blind, no one calls the two-nosed man a freak. *** Published at fortnightly or random intervals by Phillip Thorne *** http://nsx.underbase.org/ *** *** Volume 2, Issue 26: Tuesday, 10 October 2000 *** ************************************************************************ *** ********************************************************************** */ OBSERVATIONS & C: Automated TV listings, discussion group, heads later. ERRATA & O+A+A: TF:TM DVD delayed, t-nov-7, TNG-eps-to-confuse. MOVIE REVIEW: Highlander: Endgame. MOVIE REVIEW: Digimon: The Movie. UPCOMING: Season premieres of "7 Days," "Cleopatra", "JOAT". plus Legalese, acknowledgements and opt-in/out instructions. /** ************************************************************************ *** OBSERVATIONS & COGITATIONS *** ********************************************************************** */ At least one of you has requested an HTML version of the Upcoming TV listings. Well, I'm working on it. I'm still manually researching via tv.excite.com, but I'm storing the results to a tab-separated file, and I've written a Perl script to produce the compact textual listings for this newsletter. I still need a module to output pretty HTML. After that I can think about an online SQL database with a searchable CGI or PHP front-end. And I need an adaptive algorithm to make extra room for the fixed-width mini-blurbs... Another of you has suggested an online discussion group, a listserv, dedicated to the contents of NSX. My hosting service uses QMail, a Sendmail replacement, and it *does* support lists -- but I don't know if the familiar Majordomo subscribe commands (or equivalent) work with it, or if all membership admin is central. In honor of the review of "Highlander: Endgame" I was compiling a big list of TV shows featuring severed heads, but I'm in a bit of a hurry. /** ************************************************************************ *** ERRATA & OMISSIONS, ADDENDA & ADMISSIONS *** ********************************************************************** */ The release of "The Transformers: The Movie" DVD has been delayed from 24-oct (as stated in 2.25) to 7-nov, according to BigBot.com, a directory of most- things-Transformerish. The U.S. and Canadian versions differ in their features. [Via www.bigbot.com/videos/] As always, this year's U.S. presidential election is on the first Thursday of November, which happens to be the 7th, not the 4th as I reported in 2.25. The episode of TNG that aired on thu-5-oct, "A Matter of Honor" (134/208), is not "Worf vs. Duras: Round One!" as I abstracted in 2.25. The first appearance of Worf's brother Kurn (as a Klingon exchange officer on the _Enterprise_) and the Duras family is in fact "Sins of the Father" (165/317). AMoH is the first appearance of the officer exchange program itself, in which Riker serves aboard a Klingon ship and juggles his oaths of loyalty. /** ************************************************************************ *** MOVIE REVIEW *** Highlander: Endgame *** Opened f-1-sep-2000 *** Rated R, 87 minutes, Dimension Films *** ********************************************************************** */ According to the "Highlander" franchise of not-entirely-consistent films and TV series, the occasional human is born with the potential to become a so- called Immortal, immune to death except by decapitation. Such a person won't know this himself, but can be sensed by mature Immortals, who may take steps to gain an ally or eliminate a future rival. After the proto-Immortal's first death (necessarily violent; slow poison won't induce the change) he becomes sterile, his bio-age is fixed and he can survive any number of horrible, painful injuries; should he kill another Immortal, he'll gain the victim's lifeforce and skill. It's traditional for all Immortals to be proficient with a blade, ever-ready for the one-on-one duels that are the core of their so-called Game; eventually the last survivor ("there can be only one!") will attain some great, ill-defined boon. Immortals have walked among us for at least 5000 years; for almost as long, a secret society of Watchers has traced their movements and contests. The 87-minute film "Highlander: Endgame" is really just an oversized television episode, with production quality to match. The story is sufficiently self-contained that ignorance of the larger saga is merely a hindrance, not a fatal injury. Despite the title, it's only another chapter, not the end of The Game. There's plenty of blood, bullets, stabbings, slicings, impalings and carefully-obscured decapitations, plus one sex-nudity scene (or possibly two, depending how you count the interlaced-flashback); but very few profanities. It's probably no more explicit than the "uncensored" version of the TV series that airs outside the U.S. The plot traces almost 500 years of history through (in the standard fashion) bunches of flashbacks -- Scotland, Ireland, France. In particular, there's the obsessed rule-breaking crusade of one Jacob Kell (and gang), former Scottish priest, to kill every friend of Connor MacLeod (from the movies), merely because Connor killed Jacob's mentor when said mentor burned Connor's mom at the stake for witchcraft, just because Connor was displaying devilishly non-dying tendencies. No, I'm not trying to make this easier. One of those friends is Duncan MacLeod (from the series), and one of Kell's gang is Duncan's estranged wife Kate (now calling herself Faith). She's estranged because, when Duncan realized she was a proto-Immortal, he explained by stabbing her through the heart. On their wedding night. Owch -- not good with words, I suppose. Zooooom, it's a copter-eyes-view of the Scottish highlands and assorted castles! And a bunch of Immortals who retired from the Game by lying around IV-anesthesized in a crypt! And a Watcher laptop with an executive summary of cumulative kill-scores for each Immortal! And Connor convinces Duncan to kill him so he'll be able to defeat Kell! And all sorts of lightning and collateral property damage! And -- oops, I guess I just spoiled the film. /** ************************************************************************ *** MOVIE REVIEW *** Digimon: The Movie *** Opened f-6-oct-2000 *** Rated PG, 82 minutes, 20th Century Fox *** ********************************************************************** */ Why, I wonder, whenever a TV show XYZ is ported to film, is it titled "XYZ: The Movie?" "The Transformers: The Movie." "Pokémon: The First Movie." "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Do the adwriters fear "in theaters now!" will be misinterpreted, and the audience will go searching the UHF spectrum? The film is preceded by "Angela Anaconda Goes to the Movies," a 10-minute short to which you'll respond: "enough with the boosterism; I've already *bought* the tickets." Angela is the school-age title character of the eponymous FoxKids/FoxFamily animated series, which resembles the paper-cut- out pastiches from "Monty Python." In the short, Angela and friends must evade the supercilious superiority of the school's bully-blonde, and a hated teacher's high hair, before they can watch the hotly-anticipated film. Like other series-to-film adaptations, a little familiarity enhances the experience; but forget who-digivolves-to-what and "Digimon: The Movie" can be enjoyed just for the hilarious scripting and chimerical creatures. No stirring oratory here; just off-the-cuff oneliners and the occasional heartfelt tirade. These are kids, not professional superheroes, and their suboptimal improvisations are played for max comedy. The juxtapositions arrive fast-and-furious, a general public oblivious to the Digimon combat transpiring just-around-the-corner. (Hmmm... they must be jaded after all those Godzilla attacks.) Sure, I'm a grizzled veteran of hard-SF, but the travel-sized Digimon in their pre-Champion phases are irresistably cute. Where else will you find a talking rabbitoid with inflatable prehensile ears, as devoted to its human partner as one of Anne McCaffrey's Pernese dragons? Ditto for the film's first act, chronicling Japan's first Digimon incursion. Tousle-haired young Tai Kamiya (inseparable from his trademark goggles, even then) frantically tries to hide a newly-hatched Digimon from Mom -- "we'll say it's a throw pillow." Little sister Kari merely thinks it's the greatest playmate ever, even when the gregarious bouncing pink head smooches them like a facehugger from the "Alien" films. The second and third acts occur years later and involve the isolated Twelfth Digidestined, a boy named Willis in Colorado. The second is the most imaginative Digimon plot I've seen, involving a hybrid Digimon-virus on the internet. Apparently Izzy gets his Netscape Navigator plug-ins from the same place as the radio astronomers in "Cosmos" -- and the screenshots of Japanese-version Windows9x are quite amusing. There's the requisite 50%-combat-by-weight, of course, with several new Digimon (many with a distinct "Evangelion" aesthetic) and additional digivolutionary phases. The film *does* look like an oversized TV episode, though, as the fat black outlines and recycled transformations attest. The CGI'd zero-g combat-within-the-internet is fairly impressive. The dozen songs in the soundtrack aren't particularly well-integrated with the plot. /** ************************************************************************ *** UPCOMING *** Series, Seasons, Episodes, Movies, Books *** ********************************************************************** */ HEADS UP... Tomorrow has the third-season premiere of UPN's time-travel series "7 Days" in its regular timeslot (w-oct-11-20:00, wpsg-57-upn), and Saturday we get the second season of USA Studios' syndicated "Back2Back Action" hour, consisting of "Cleopatra 2525" and "Jack of All Trades" (z-oct-14-14:00, wphl-17-wb). It seems wtxf-29-fox has moved its syndicated copy of "StarGate SG-1" to Saturdays 15:00 to permanently avoid confl-- err, contention with "Earth: Final Conflict" on wphl-17-wb. Remember, a star "*" means "new"! TOONS ETC... Digimon: Digital Monsters Weekdays (Mon-Fri) 16:30 30 minutes, TV-Y7, FoxKids Special Marathon sat-14-oct. Digi Digibaby Boom 112 y7 fox w 1011-1630 Digi The Legend of the Digi-destined 113 y7 fox r 1012-1630 2 Digi The Storm of Friendship 211 y7 fox f 1013-1630 3 Digi The Storm of Friendship 211 y7 fox z 1014-0800 Digi Gatomon Comes Calling 132 y7 fox z 1014-0830 Digi Out on the Town 133 y7 fox z 1014-0900 Digi The 8th Child Revealed 134 y7 fox z 1014-0930 Digi Flower Power 135 y7 fox z 1014-1000 * Digi The Good, the Bad, the Digi 212 y7 fox z 1014-1030 Digi City Under Siege 136 y7 fox z 1014-1100 Digi Wizardmon's Gift 137 y7 fox z 1014-1130 Dragon Ball Z Weeknights (Mon-Fri) 17:00 30 minutes, TV-Y7, Cartoon Network Weeknights (Tue-Sat) 00:30 30 minutes, TV-Y7, Cartoon Network DBz The Mysterious Youth 104 y7 ton t 1010-0030 DBz Another Super Saiyan 105 y7 ton w 1012-0030 DBz Welcome Back Goku 106 y7 ton r 1013-0030 DBz Mystery Revealed 107 y7 ton f 1014-0030 DBz Goku's Special Technique 108 y7 ton z 1015-0030 Gundam Wing Weeknights (Mon-Fri) 17:30 30 minutes, TV-Y7, Cartoon Network Weeknights (Tue-Sat) 00:00 30 minutes, TV-Y7, Cartoon Network GWg Portrait of a Ruined Country 9 pg ton w 1011-0000 GWg Hero Distracted by Defeat 10 pg ton r 1013-0000 GWg The Whereabouts of Happiness 11 pg ton f 1014-0000 GWg Bewildered Warriors 12 pg ton z 1015-0000 GWg Catherine's Tears 13 pg ton t 1019-0000 GWg Order to Destroy 14 pg ton w 1018-0000 GWg To the Battleground, Antarctica 15 pg ton r 1019-0000 GWg The Sorrowful Battle 16 pg ton f 1020-0000 PRIMETIME ETC. PROGRAMMING... * Buf The Replacement 502 pg wb t 1010-2000 * DkA Heat 103 fox t 1010-2100 * Ang First Impressions 203 14 wb t 1010-2100 * 7D Stairway to Heaven (season premiere) 301 pg upn w 1011-2000 * Vgr Imperfection 702 upn w 1011-2100 s 1015-0100 * Chm Magic Hour 302 pg wb r 1012-2100 r Inv Tiresias 404/ sfc f 1013-2000 f 1013-2300 * Fky Subject: Three Thirteen 103 fox f 1013-2100 r SG1 The Other Side 402 pg sho f 1013-2200 * Cle Baby Boom (season premiere) v1220/201 pg 17 z 1014-1400 * JAT Shark Bait (season premiere) 1319/201 pg 17 z 1014-1430 * SG1 302 29 z 1014-1500 s 1022-0400 * EFC Sins of the Father 402 17 z 1014-1700 s 1022-2330 * And An Affirming Flame 102 17 z 1014-1800 r Inv Ralph 104 48 z 1014-2000 Vgr Blood Fever 857/314 57 z 1014-2000 Fut (pr'emp'd by baseball) fox s 1015-0000 Sim (pr'emp'd by baseball) fox s 1015-0000 * Ros Surprise 203 wb m 1016-2100 * Buf Out of My Mind 504 wb t 1017-2000 * 7D Peacekeepers 302 upn w 1018-2000 * Vgr Drive 703 upn w 1018-2100 * Chm Once Upon a Time 303 pg wb r 1019-2100 abc wpvi-6, cbs kyw-3, fox wtxf-29, ind wgtw-48, ind wfmz-69, nbc wcau-10, pbs whyy-12, pbs wybe-35, upn wpsg-57, wb wphl-17; fx F/X, plx MoviePlex, sfc Sci-Fi Channel, sho Showtime, tnt is TNT, ton Cartoon Network, usa USA. 7D 7 Days, Ang Angel, B5 Babylon 5, Buf Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chm Charmed, Cle Cleopatra 2525, EFC Earth: Final Conflict, Fsc Farscape, Fut Futurama, Inv The Invisible Man, JAT Jack of All Trades, Lex Lexx, Ros Roswell, SG1 StarGate SG-1, Vgr Star Trek: Voyager. STRIPPED SF... Star Trek: The Next Generation Weeknights (Tue-Fri) 21:00 1 hour, TV-PG, WFMZ-69 The Dauphin 136/210 t 1010 Contagion 137/211 w 1011 The Royale 138/212 r 1012 Time^2 139/213 f 1013 The Icarus Factor 140/214 t 1017 Pen Pals 141/215 w 1018 Q Who? 142/216 r 1019 Babylon 5: The Widescreen Edition Weeknights (Mon-Fri) 19:00 1 hour, TV-PG, The Sci-Fi Channel Deathwalker 113/109 m 1009 Believers 105/110 t 1010 Survivors 111/111 w 1011 By Any Means Necessary 114/112 r 1012 Signs and Portents 116/113 f 1013 TKO 119/114 m 1016 Grail 109/115 t 1017 Eyes 122/116 w 1018 Legacies 115/117 r 1019 A Voice in the Wilderness/1 118 f 1020 /** ************************************************************************ *** Legalese *** Acknowledgments *** Opt-in/out Instructions *** ********************************************************************** */ The set of creative works herein reviewed and analyzed, including the subset {books, movies, TV shows, toys}, are the property of their respective copyright holders. No infringement or endorsement is expressed, implied or intended. The original reviews and analyses are themselves copyright 2000 by Phillip Thorne. Certain data has been obtained and aggregated from, repeatedly and in particular: Excite tv.excite.com The Internet Movie Database imdb.com Star Trek Continuum startrek.com Upcoming Movies upcomingmovies.com If you're receiving this newsletter, you've probably intentionally subscribed to it. Or possibly you've procrastinated in subscribing and I'm sending it to you anyway. Or maybe you're a family member and I'm demonstrating that I'm still alive. In any case, to cancel your subscription, send an email message to pethorne@earthlink.net with the words "UNSUBSCRIBE NON-SEQUITUR" in the subject line and/or body. Capitalization and punctuation don't matter, since I'm doing this all manually. /** ************************************************************************ *** ************************************************************************ *** The Non-Sequitur Express *** http://nsx.underbase.org/ *** Volume 2, Issue 26: Tuesday, 10 October 2000 *** Copyright 1999-2000 Phillip Thorne, pethorne@earthlink.net *** ************************************************************************ *** ********************************************************************** */