Tonight’s update is brief, and comes to you courtesy of the latest Sony demonspawn…which this household has spent much of the past 24 hours trying to conquer.

The new PlayStation 3’s 3.0 firmware update has come out, and a lot of gamers are wishing it’d go back in. Suddenly, our Friends lists have become big and blocky hot messes, each name trapped inside a gray box that would have looked slick on a website back in 2003.

And apparently, Sony must’ve felt that the PlayStation Store was too difficult for gamers to find; now, there are multiple Store links, scattered throughout your menu. Browsing your videos? You can jump straight to the PlayStation Store’s video department and buy more! Deciding which game to play? Well, why not just leap right into the Store’s game section and buy a brand-new one? BUY, PEOPLE, BUY! No, that’s not enough! BUY EVEN MORE!

The most irritating part of it all is that Sony seems to have overloaded itself with its high-reaching ambitions. While some people seem to have had a flawless update, many others report being unable to connect to the PlayStation Network, or appearing to be connected despite no one else seeing their status as online. Which, I don’t need to tell you, puts a serious damper on multiplayer gaming with your friends when you can’t find one another. Our own PlayStation 3 has been stubborn about connecting since the update. If it connects at all, it’s a long, slow process, but usually it just times out. Or disconnects within minutes. While I’m sure we’re stuck with the other changes, I hope the PlayStation Network connection gets back up to speed soon.

That said, the changes aren’t all bad–I like the new startup sound. The old rising orchestra was far too loud. Now, we don’t have to scramble for the speaker system’s remote every time the game console boots up. And the sparkles are a nice visual touch.

So, if you guys will excuse me, it’s back to trawling threads for more information on what good this 3.0 update is going to be. By which I mean, when the heck we can expect normal connectivity to the PlayStation Network.

Till next time!

Greetings, Turbo Teens!

Well, I have returned relatively unscathed from the wilds of West Virginia.  Didn’t even hear any banjo music or anything.  I know I promised a recap of the shoot I participated in over this past weekend, but unfortunately I have been asked to keep mum until September ninth.  That’s the day that the teaser trailer for the Plan 9 remake will go live.  I’ll give you all a heads-up when it happens.  I will say that it was a lot of fun and a great experience.  I should be able to pummel you all with photos once the trailer hits the web.

So, the question becomes “What do I talk about for the rest of my article?”  Well, it just so happens that the Encore channels have bailed me out yet again.  You may remember a couple of weeks ago that they bestowed upon me the gift of Crimewave, and I graciously passed the savings onto you.  Well, it appears that the Encore gods have noticed what an 80s nut I am, because they’ve been delivering the goods lately.  They delivered unto me not just one, but three morsels of delectable 80s goodness.  And I’m about to break them down for you right here:

Spies Like Us

This was one of those great comedy gems from the 80s, when Chevy Chase was still funny, Dan Aykroyd was still thin, and John Landis was still directing movies.  I remember watching this flick every time it showed up on one of the pay channels.  It came out right around the height of popularity for the original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players”, and it seemed like most of them were consistently churning out hit comedies all the time.  This movie also sported an abundance of amusing cameos – Terry Gilliam as Dr. Imhaus, Frank Oz as a test monitor, Ray Harryhausen as Dr. Marston, B.B King and Larry Cohen as government agents, Sam Raimi and Joel Cohen as security guards, and Bob Hope as himself.

But, here’s the thing – despite the impressive list of credentials, I sat through this movie last week noticing that the movie isn’t as funny as I remember.  I mean, it is still amusing.  I grinned through almost the entire film as scenes I knew from memory unfolded and lines I could recite by heart were uttered onscreen.  Yet, the movie didn’t quite hit me like it used to.  I still like Spies Like Us, but I don’t think I’ll be needing to catch it every time Encore shows it this month.

2010: The Year We Make Contact

Interesting anecdote – I saw this movie before I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In fact, I saw this movie a large number of times before I saw 2001.  I used to watch this every time it aired on one of the pay channels.  Certainly not the masterpiece that Kubrick’s film was, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it every time it came on.  The visuals alone – the Leonov and the Discovery silhouetted against Jupiter and its moon Io, the Monolith when it first appears before the crews of both ships… those images made such an impression on my young mind.

Then there was the scene that simply made me gasp in sheer awe – millions of little monoliths, devouring Jupiter.  The sight of the giant black spot growing as an entire gas giant was being sucked into the vortex while the Russians and the Americans were trying to escape sent shivers up my spine.  Many years later, at the age of thirty-four, that image still gives me shivers.  I found myself still enjoying this film immensely when I saw it last week, especially now that the underlying social commentary focusing on the politics of the Cold War no longer go over my head.  And to be honest?  I thing I like it more than 2001.  As artistic and revered as Kubrick’s film is, I found it to be long and boring in parts.  I think I’ll watch 2010 a large number of times before I see 2001 again.

The Gate

I saved the best (or at least my favorite) for last.  When I saw that this was being shown on Encore, I immediately set the TiVo to record.  This is one of my favorite little-known horror films from the 80s, starring a young Stephen Dorff in his first film role!  Every time this cool little movie would show up on one of the pay channels, I would immediately be glued to the tube (are we noticing a pattern yet?  Yes, I spent a lot of time watching movies on pay channels).

The premise of this film is simple and fun – three kids are left home for the weekend.  They accidentally release an ancient demon from its dark abyss.  Kids save the day!

One of the things that impressed me when I rewatched this movie last weekend was how well the special effects held up.  There are some incredible stop-motion effects for the different creatures that end up attacking our young heroes that would make Ray Harryhausen (Dr. Marston!) proud.  In fact, there were moments where I couldn’t tell if the effects were stop-motion or little people in suits next to a blue screen.

I found myself enjoying this movie just as much now as I did when I was a wee lad.  It’s a fun little horror flick with some surprisingly good acting coming from our young trio.  Impressive, since they have to carry the film.  This one I’m keeping on my TiVo for awhile… at least until the special edition DVD is released in October.

I’m hoping that Encore continues this current trend of gifting me with 80s delights that I used to enjoy during my childhood.  Of course, for every classic rarity like The Gate, Encore seems to like showing abysmal crap like Date with an Angel and Mannequin 2: On the Move.

The Encore gods giveth, and they taketh away.

All these worlds are yours, except The Don.  Attempt no landings there.  Seriously, you’ll thank us.

Greetings, Star Sheriffs!

This is going to be a severely truncated “Meeting” this week.  My sincerest apologies.  In fact, this would probably be best-fitting as a new “Don Says…”

You know what?  Let’s just do that.

4. The Don Says…

The reason why I am unable to do a full article this week?  I’m prepping.  Some of you may remember last year when I played the part of a zombie in a DTV film called Skeleton Key 3.  The makers of that fun little flick – Darkstone Entertainment – have gotten themselves a slightly bigger gig.  They got official permission to do a remake of the Ed Wood stinkaroony cult classic Plan 9 from Outer Space.  This weekend director Johnny Johnson and his Darkstone crew will be filming the official promo trailer for the movie.  As an official employee of The D, I will be making my way up to West Virginia on Saturday to get my acting on in the trailer.

I play a hobo who gets eaten by zombies.

So, in order to prep for the shoot this weekend, I will be spending a lot of time going over the script, as well as getting my hobo wardrobe together.

So, though I may not be able to do a full article this week, I will make sure I bring my camera to the shoot and snap off a few pics to go with a recap for next week!

Until then, courage!

… I come back from a surprisingly good experience at Anime Mid-Atlantic (2wcOnline was made a guest at the last minute!) to find some rather startling news for two television shows coming back this fall.  First – “Scrubs” is indeed coming back in a new form.  It’s moving from the hospital to med school, with John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox) and Donald Faison (Turk) serving as instructors to a bunch of med students (the new regulars).  Expect the students to pop into Sacred Heart from time to time, allowing for former regulars like Zach Braff (J.D.) and Sarah Chalke (Elliot) to make guest appearances.

The second bit of TV news is more depressing.  Bryan Fuller has officially left NBC’s “Heroes” again, this time to work on developing new shows for NBC.  For those who remember, Fuller’s return as writing consultant late this past season was the only thing that brought the show out of its downward spiral.  That sound you just heard was the final nail in the coffin.

Greetings, Legion of Doom!

As recently-appointed head writer, I want to try to contribute more content for this wonderful realm we all call Spwug.  One of the things I’ve come up with to do that is a new feature called The Don Says…

Appearing randomly each month, TDS will feature products, shows, films, music, or just general news items related to geek culture that either do not require a full article or that I just don’t have the time to do a full article on.  Each installment will be a paragraph at most and will be a quick summary of my initial thoughts and musings on said subject.

One of the nice things about doing a regular column like this is that it allows me to be able to report on whatever’s topical without having to wait for every Thursday.  I mean, how silly do I look when I finally get to report on something that’s already a week old?

Don’t answer that.

So, keep your eyes peeled for this new (definitely) and exciting (probably not really) regular series.  Could pop up on a Tuesday afternoon.  Could rear its ugly head on a Friday night.  Or, maybe first thing in the morning on a Sunday (yeah, that’s never happening).  The point is that an installment could appear on Spwug at anytime.  All the more reason for our wonderful reader(s?) to check in more often.

And to kick off this new series proper, here’s a one-two punch summary of two movies I got to see last weekend – Land of the Lost and Drag Me To Hell:

Land of the Lost – produced by the Kroffts themselves.  While not a great flick, it was a fun movie to watch and captured the spirit of the original series perfectly.  Of particular note, that giant crab scene that the trailers are showing plays out in a completely different manner than what most of you are expecting.

Drag Me To Hell – Classic Sam Raimi!  Not Spider-Man Raimi.  I’m talking about Evil Dead Raimi.  If you are a fan, you should have seen this film already.  It’s not doing well at the box office.  Go see it so that Sam will be able to make more classic Raimi horror films!

And there ya have it (a letter opener).  Expect to see these regularly, scattered throughout each month.  And expect a possible surprise or two in upcoming installments!

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Spwug, already in progress…

The Don is aware that he cheated by using his regular Thursday column to advertise for his new series.  Hush.

Greetings, Lunataks!

Remember how sad and annoying it was when Hollywood and Televisionland decided that remakes were the sure-fire way to go when it comes to making butt-loads money?

Remember those days fondly, because the new money-making scheme is called “the reboot”.

Birthed partly out of the fallout of last year’s writer’s strike, reboots are an attempt to breathe new life into a dying or dead franchise while making a quick buck – either by offering a brand new installment of an existing series with geriatric versions of our protagonists still trying to prove their mettle while popping daily doses of Centrum Silver or simply by throwing out everything that was beloved by fans of the original source material and creating an antimatter version of that material from scratch.  Several shows and films we grew up with have been popping up allover the radar with varying levels of success within the past year.  While Stallone was able to deliver a one-two punch last year (technically one of them came out just before 2008 started, but the receipts carried into 2008) with both of his surprisingly well done attempts – Rocky Balboa and Rambo, other properties – like Indiana Jones and “The X-Files” – were received much like one would when they find out for the first time that their horse is lame and would be served better keeping glitter and cotton balls stuck to construction paper.  Same thing has been happening on television.  “90210”?  Back and apparently a hit (I gotta scratch my head on that one).  The new “Knight Rider”?  Dismantled.

The trend continues this year, as three different reboots have already made their way into theaters – Friday the 13^th, Star Trek, and Terminator: Salvation.  I’ve covered the first two on this site already.  For the most part, both of them have proven to be pretty damn good and each one has gone on to make some decent bank at the box office (which, unfortunately, means that the “powers-that-be” will continue to milk this strategy until our children’s children are watching “Re-Lost” and The Bourne Resurrection).

So, how does Salvation measure up?

First off, there was a fair amount of controversy before the movie even completed its first set of dailies.  From script re-writes that had to be halted due to last year’s writers strike to the original ending getting leaked to the film’s star going on a YouTube-captured tirade, Salvation was already at a disadvantage going into production.

As a result, the finished film has its faults.  There are some plot holes that are quite noticeable, especially after you take a moment to think back on the film after the credits start to roll.  The “new” ending feels tacked on, especially if you were able to catch the details of what the original ending was going to be from one of those popular movie sites.  Some character motivations don’t quite make sense.  Our main character and leader of the resistance feels forced into the plot.

Here’s the funny thing – even after giving all of that some serious consideration, I don’t care.  If there’s one great thing McG has done with this new Terminator franchise, it’s giving fans and casual movie-goers two hours of fleshbags vs. machines in a constant whir of non-stop action.  And I had an extraordinarily large amount of fun watching it.

The acting wasn’t bad, either.  Of special note – Anton Yelchin, fresh off his stint piloting a space wessel, does an incredible job channeling Michael Biehn in his performance of Kyle Reese.  That’s not to say that the other actors weren’t as good.  Sam Worthington delivered a solid performance as a man who isn’t what he thinks he is.  Moon Bloodgood (is she a D&D character?) held her own as well.  And you can never go wrong with Michael Ironside in your film.

Then there’s the extra, little nuances that McG added to the film to sweeten the fun.  An uncredited Linda Hamilton lends her voice as Sarah Connor to a couple of key scenes.  John Connor plays a familiar song over a boom box on the highway to draw out a couple of terminator-cycles.  The photograph of Sarah Connor makes a welcome appearance.  The origin of John’s face scar from T2.  And of course, the return of Arnold – the evil T-800 version (with original hairstyle!) – in a brief battle scene.

Oh, and then there’s a pleasant surprise – a Danny Elfman score that actually doesn’t sound anything like any of his other scores.  I watched the movie listening closely to the orchestral tones that accompanied each frame of celluloid.  Not once did I hear any of Elfman’s familiar cues or chord progressions.  In fact, I had to check the closing credits just to make sure I saw the opening credits correctly.  Yup, Danny Elfman did the score for Salvation.  And he managed to compose an impressive collection of companion pieces that actually sounded original.  Well done.

After mixing all of the above ingredients together, Terminator: Salvation ends up being a sum of equal parts crap and awesome.  Well, not really.  All of the elements that are really well done that make the movie fun and exciting end up tipping the balance in favor of being a good summer action flick to watch.  As I said before, even with the obvious problems the movie has, it still didn’t take away from how much I enjoyed it.  I walked out of that theater really looking forward to the next chapter of the war vs. the machines.

Unfortunately, the box office for Terminator: Salvation hasn’t been great, which means that the potential for a sequel looks grim.  And not grim like you’re-the-future-leader-of-the-resistance grim.  No, this is more like we’re-gonna-be-watching-Twitter:The Movie instead-of-original-films-or-even-remakes-or-reboots grim (don’t laugh – a Twitter project is in the works).

In the end, what we’re left with is a Catch-22: if Salvation does well enough at the box office we’ll end up getting another fun sequel.  Maybe two.  But, with that success on top of the success of Star Trek Hollywood gets further validation that reboots work and that’s what we end up seeing for the next fifteen years.  On the other hand… well, actually there is no other hand.  No matter how well Terminator performs Hollywood probably already has it in their head that reboots are a new cash cow and will be milking the teats raw on that concept for quite some time.

Time to go program my TiVo in advance for the “ER” reboot (coming to NBC fall of 2023!)

The Don will be back… and in greater numbers.

Greetings, Sectaurs!

I want to preface this week’s installment of “Office” with a single statement:

I am a Star Wars fan.

Ever since I was taken to see the first film back in 1977 at the age of three, I’ve been a fan.  That’s not to say that I didn’t love other science fiction, because it was through Star Wars that I became a full-on embracer of all things sci-fi.  I have a passion for almost every aspect of science fiction – time travel, parallel worlds, clones, space exploration, and so on.  You name it – if it exists in the realm of science fiction, my interest is piqued.

By that extension, I have grown to love many other movies, novels, comic books, television shows, and games that exist within the realm of sci-fi.  “Automan”, “Fringe”, The Matrix, The Last Starfighter, Dayworld, Ender’s Game, various comic books – my enjoyment of each of these is an example of my passion for science fiction.

That enjoyment even extends to Star Trek.

Now, I’ve never been a Trekkie or a Trekker, but I’ve enjoyed and even loved many of the movies and television shows that have come across my viewholes for the past several years.  Hell, my favorite Trek film of all time is The Wrath of Khan.  I find myself popping that into the player about as often as I would The Empire Strikes Back.

Now, despite the fact that my being a Star Wars fan may divide some people on whether or not my review of the new film is a fair one, it is important that it is taken into account with what I’m about to say.

I loved the new Star Trek.

I know there’s quite a bit of controversy right now amongst the true Trekkies Trekkers Star Trek fans over this film.  I’m not going to get into that here.  I just want to explain why I loved this movie enough that I saw it twice in the theater.

To put it short and sweet, this movie made me feel like the Star Wars prequels should have – like a kid grinning from ear to ear as he embarks on a galactic adventure of epic proportions while it unfolds across a large movie screen.

I think J.J. Abrams did an amazing job here, especially with a script that wasn’t all that great to begin with.  He took a franchise that was slowly being strangled to death by Rick Berman and infused it with fresh life (if that isn’t one of the most iconic themes of science fiction, I don’t know what is).

He even did his homework.  I watched Khan with my wife and some friends before we went to see the new film, and I found that Abrams must have studied that film specifically – a lot of his cues come from the second film in the series. 

His note-taking didn’t stop there either.  He managed to make references to “The Next Generation” as well as “Enterprise”.  A lot of people think that Abrams just brushed aside all of the established Trek canon just so he could do a reboot.  Not true.  He was meticulous in how he inserted all sorts of little nods and homages to what had already been laid down before.  From the mention of Captain Archer to the Kobayashi Maru test to the acknowledgment that Spock had become an ambassador to the Romulans, Abrams has proven that he understood what all the fans loved and embraced it just as much as they did.  He also knew that some feathers needed to be ruffled in order to rescue the ship from being placed in moth balls.

The result?  A fun and refreshing marriage of fan service mixed with bold and new possibilities.

And the cast… holy crap are they impressive.  Chris Pine manages to capture the essence of Kirk without evoking The Shat.  He’s got the charisma, charm, and cunning down.  Zachary Quinto proves that he can do more than play a psychotic power thief.  His Spock is on par with Nimoy.  Karl Urban manages to steal every scene he is in as he channels the ectoplasm of DeForest Kelley through his performance.  Simon Pegg plays Scotty the way only Pegg could, and he makes the character shine.  Finally, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, and Zoe Saldana each bring their own energy to their characters (Chekov, Sulu, and Uhura respectively), while at the same time respecting the essence of those characters.

The charisma and chemistry of this cast alone makes this a strong film.  The best part is that each character is actually given a significant role in the movie, something the original television show or even the previous films had a hard time juggling.  Each of the main bridge crew is important, and they each get at least one moment to stand out.

There’s certainly plenty for them to do.  Sure – the plot may be a little weak, and you may notice that it does seem to resemble the basic premise of another Trek film, but Abrams manages to throw so much action and adventure at you that you’re having way too much fun to notice until the credits start rolling.  And by that point you don’t care, because you just got off of one of the most thrilling, enjoyable space adventures to come through theaters in a long time.

At least, that’s the feeling I got after seeing the film the first time.  And I enjoyed it so much that I had to go back for seconds.  That’s why I think Abrams got it right – he managed to capture the spirit of what made Star Trek so much fun back during the original series and during the early films (except The Motion Picture – boooring) and presented it to the fans as his way to show his love of the franchise, as well as offer the fans a new ongoing adventure to embark on.  Unfortunately, most of the die-hards are too busy picking apart every little continuity gaffe and contradiction to enjoy the essence behind what made them fans in the first place.

As for me, this film has done something I once thought impossible.  It certainly is an incredible feat – Star Trek almost turned me into a Trekkie Trekker guy who loves Star Trek enough to become part of its fandom.  It might not even take much more to give me that final push that will send me over to the Trek side.  I mean, look what it made me do:

I bought the whole set of Burger King Trek glasses!  I haven’t done anything like that since BK offered Return of the Jedi glasses back in ’83.

See?  I told you my being a Star Wars fan would come into play.  Or is that an ex-Star Wars fan?

The Don is dead, Jim.  Dead sexy, that is.

Crybringer here!  Miss me?  No?!  Didn’t think so.  That’s why I brought gifts! 

On a HUEG Gradius kick after firing up the old SNES.  Not much to say other than working hard on comics, doing more art posts here from now on (there’s great writers here that cover enough obscure topics for my tastes, lol) and looking forward to next week’s post.  

Also, I want a Ruger/Rugul toy.  Wouldn’t it be neat to have a little remote control zako of your own to annoy the neighborhood pets with and shoot your mailman’s cart with airsoft bullets?  Just a thought.

 [PLEASE CONTINUE.]

Greetings, Tribbles!

Apologies everyone.  My attentions have been focused on a friend and an emergency situation he found himself in this week.  Because of that, we’re having another meeting at the docks this week.

I wanna draw your attention to the new Star Trek movie coming out in less than a month (May fifth, for those keeping track).  There has been some light controversy surrounding J.J. Abrams and what his intentions are with a franchise that a lot of folks who know the Klingon language and have an affinity for green women (other than She-Hulk) consider holy.  Among those issues are things like casting, the fact that it’s a reboot (kind of), and the fact that a lot of minor details considered canon are being changed.  Some would say it’s almost worth quoting Shakespeare and yelling “Fire!” over.

I’ve been reading a lot of insider info from a couple of respectable movie websites, and I have read the prequel comic that IDW put out that was written by the same folks who wrote the new Trek script (which is also counted as canon).

I can say that I feel very confident that the new Trek will be quite good.  While not as geektastic as The Wrath of Khan, early reviews have all been positive, stating that it’s a solid little movie.  The continuity changes are actually on purpose and are tied into the plot.  And the actors hired do a great job of invoking the essences of their respective characters.  Not the original actors, but the characters.  So no, Chris Pine does not get all Shatnerian on your Trekkie Trekker Trekkie ass.  But he does capture the spirit of Kirk.

That said, there is one exception – Karl Urban, who plays medical cadet Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy.  I recently watched a clip that features an dialogue exchange between his character and Pine’s Kirk.

Holy crap.

It’s like the ghost of DeForest Kelley got all Sam Wheat into Urban’s flesh suit.  The man has all of Kelley’s facial expressions, vocal inflections, and body language down pat.  And it’s subtle enough that it doesn’t detract from the performance.  Instead, you watch the clip going, “Holy crap, it’s Bones!”

Don’t believe me?  Check it out for yourself:

Shivers, right?

The past couple of weeks have got me turned around from being skeptical to being excited about this film.  And the best part is that this movie should be able to do what Rick Berman constantly failed to do for the past several years – make a Star Trek movie that is fun for the fans as well as for movie goers who are completely unfamiliar with the adventures of the Enterprise.

And I’m anxious to see it.  Beam me up.

Dammit, Jim.  The Don is a Spwug writer, not a doctor.  But he plays one on TV.

Greetings, Superfriends!

First, I wanted to do a little shout-out – tomorrow marks my one year anniversary of being a writer for Spwug!! 

*cue applause and cheering* 

Yup, I’ve been a regular columnist for this web mag for fifty-two weeks!  And I hope they’ve been a better fifty-two than that disappointing series DC put out last year.  I plan to stick around here for awhile, so sit back and enjoy!  Now, as the Monty Pythons like to say, “Get on with it!”

I’ve given myself almost a week to chew on, process, think about, analyze, run through the machine, and about thirty other coined phrases one uses when they need to take time to fully absorb something they’ve consumed through one or multiple sense holes.

Almost a week later and I still feel unsatisfied – disappointed even – by the American “Life on Mars” series finale.

Why exactly?  Despite the swift cancellation before the body even cooled from its first only season, the American “Life” still managed to run one episode longer than the original British version.  And I found the original to be an engaging, well-crafted show.

So, where did the US version go wrong?

First, a brief recap of what both shows were basically about:

Sam Tyler is a police detective (sadly, not one who plays by his own rules) who, while in the middle of an investigation, gets hit by a car and is rendered unconscious.  When he wakes up, he finds that he was somehow transported back to the year 1973.  The show follows him on his attempts to find his way back to the present, while at the same time still serve his duties as a detective amongst the less-than-politically-correct police procedures of the early seventies.

Now, I’ve watched both versions in their entirety, almost at the same time.  I enjoyed both of them for different reasons.  Each version brought unique perspectives to the plot and characters within their respective shows.

I think one of the first immediate differences one will note is that the UK version seems to have teeth.  The original “Mars” had plotlines that really messed with the viewer’s head at the same time that it was messing with Sam’s.  There was a harder edge – from the allowance of more profanity, to the instances of nudity, and even to the point where the show’s darker tone led to an even darker resolution for our protagonist Sam Tyler.

The US version has bite, but it’s more like when a crazy old coot who escaped from the local home convinces himself that you’re his grandson Billy and tries to gum your ankles because he’s looking for the secret recipe to the Colonel’s chicken.  The first ballsy thing the writers tried to do was ensure that their version of the show wasn’t just a carbon copy.  They had it start off similarly enough, but ended up going on a different direction altogether.

This decision, although appearing to be a stroke of genius that would certainly ensure that the US “Life on Mars” would be a surefire hit, would ultimately lead to its whimper of a final curtain call.

Part of the problem with this decision is that they didn’t execute it completely.  While the show did manage to feature episodes that were different in tone, direction and content from the original, they left way too much of the source material in.  This caused a lot of problems, from leaving in clues from the original that pointed viewers to the British ending (and, in essence contradicting their own planted clues that would ultimately lead to the ending they had planned) to episodes that seemed like a Frankenstein’s monster of bits and pieces hastily sewn together.

All of those things I mentioned aren’t even the worst offenses.  The show still managed to keep me on the edge of my seat every Wednesday night.  I kept coming back because I was invested in Sam’s character and his plight.  I was pulling for him to find his way home (unlike another Sam I used to watch who got screwed by NBC).  It was with all that effort I put forth in committing to the show where the final kick in the nuts was delivered:

All that investment was rendered null and void as Sam finally woke up from his cryogenic sleep to realize his trip to 1973 – hell, even his memories as a detective in 2008 – were all a virtual reality simulation designed to keep his brain activity stimulated while he and his crew was on its way to Mars for its first manned exploration mission.

All of emotional turmoil that Sam had endured.  All of the struggles he had to face.  The failures and victories, the conflicts and compromises.  The entire drive behind what made Sam’s character develop, as well as what drove the plot of the show.  All of it didn’t matter at all.

There was no pay off.  No real resolution.  No reward for dealing with all that we had endured with this character we had invested ourselves in.  Sam just woke up, was told his VR program had malfunctioned, shrugged as his real memories came back into focus, and then skipped merrily off to play in some red sand with his fellow detectives from 1973, who just happened to actually be his fellow crewmembers on the Mars mission.

What’s amusing was that the finale aired on April first.  And I thought for sure that this ending was an April Fool’s joke.  It had to be, because the fist in my gut certainly had a punch line to it.

Nope.

That was the ending.  And with that the show is over.  Now, I understand that with the announcement that they were being cancelled the writers had to put an ending on the show, especially since they were being given enough time to.  They even admitted that this ending was where they were going all along (or so they say).  The clues were all there (and they really were, although mixed in with the British clues like I already stated).  But they broke a major rule when it comes to writing – you never ever ever put the hero on his journey and then not have it mean something when he gets to his destination.

Unfortunately, the writers for the US “Life on Mars” didn’t seem to understand that, rushed ending or no.  The British writers did, which is why – although the ending was much darker – their ending fit perfectly with the rest of the story.  It brought the emotional ride Sam took us on to full closure and gave us an intense, sinister reward for our loyalty. 

In the UK ending, DI Sam Tyler took a header off the top of his present day police head quarters so he could return to 1973.  After watching the American finale, I’m inclined to follow him there.

The Don had an accident and woke up in 1973.  Now he needs a change of pants.