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April 30, 2007  Longtime readers of this humble blog may remember my status as a Golden State Warriors season ticket holder back in the 2003-2004 season. Of course, I have long since moved away from the Bay Area, but I have never stopped believing that someday, somehow, the lovable losers at the Arena in Oakland would make a playoff run. Now, after having barely made the playoffs, the Warriors are one win away from what can only be called the most stunning first-round upset in NBA history. April 22, 2007  I discovered recently that long-dead TV actor Roger C. Carmel, most famous for his recurring role as lovable interstellar con artist Harry Mudd in two episodes of the original Star Trek (and one episode of the Animated Series), is interred at a large cemetery near the Brooklyn - Queens border. Naturally, I went there to pay my respects. There was already a solitary glittering stone of fool's gold on Roger's grave, which in my mind was left by another Trek fan. As you can see, I placed one of my own there. Interestingly, Carmel died only 15 days before The Voyage Home was released in 1986. In terms of other Trek graves, it turns out that Gene Roddenberry, Deforest Kelley and James Doohan were all cremated; Roddenberry's and Doohan's ashes were sent into space, and Kelley's were scattered in the Pacific Ocean. Other potential gravesites would be those of Mark Lenard, Gene Coon, William Marshall, and Jane Wyatt. April 17, 2007  I found a somewhat obscure BBC series from 2005 called Eleventh Hour at the video store the other day... This short-lived show marked the return of Patrick Stewart to episodic television. The concept, from former Doctor Who writer Stephen Gallagher, was really good: Stewart plays Dr. Ian Hood, a British government "science advisor" who is brought in whenever a situation demands scientific scrutiny: virus outbreaks, climate change research, and the like. Hood is given a bodyguard, played by some actress from Extras, in case the going gets rough. I found the first two episodes of the show to be rather compelling, mostly because Stewart is such a versatile and commanding actor. In the first episode, Dr. Hood is dispatched to find out who is trying to clone humans in the English countryside, and in the second he has to contain a fullblown smallpox epidemic. The direction is crisp and the characterization is strong. Apparently, Gallagher left the show after these two episodes, and the quality drops off precipitously after that. (There are only four episodes total, which is par for the course for 90-minute dramas in England.) Unfortunately, the show didn't really take off, and apparently no more series of it are planned. Of course, Eleventh Hour got me thinking about what a mad act of genius it was in 1987 to cast Stewart as Captain Picard. The show was formative for me and I love most aspects of it, but I think most people agree that The Next Generation would not have survived its rough early period if not for Stewart's presence. April 06, 2007  A blast from 2003, it's the Fast Food Rockers with the most amazingly irritating song of all time, "The Fast Food Song." |
