When my prior experience with a director annoyed me…
Or my friends or reviewers I respect say something will annoy…
I am leery of wasting my time with it. The world is full of stuff and I need filters to help me sift through it.
Here’s the first fifteen minutes of “Helix”, the new series starting on SyFy. I applaud SyFy for actually putting on actual, well-funded science fiction. So I watched…
When you can say key dramatic dialogue before the characters, this is bad. I said “progress” and “his brother” in the first seven minutes.
The first scene with is a direct lift of “Don’t Fear The Reaper” from that version of “The Stand” with Rob Lowe.
Then the stereotypical butchy-lookin’-woman-saying-libtard stuff who was maybe lifted from the original movie of “Andromeda Strain”? At minute nine, the woman said “frack”.
Then I read: Ronald Moore, producer.
I hate Ronald Moore. I hated him on Star Trek. I hated BSG for its entire handwavium premise: Half-cylon? How does that happen, BSG fans? Anyone? I hate that he tries to make Deep Significant Points and screws up so badly.
I respect that he tries. God how he tries. He believes in what he’s doing. Unlike say, the asses behind “Prometeheus” who after dozens of drafts and millions of dollars still got the distance to the nearest star wrong and left the mistake in.
Ronald Moore is a light-weight. This show? God, it’ll have to do a lot to keep from being another squandered opportunity.