gregtrotter

12:26 am: Happy 4th of July!

07:54 am: Crazy Credits
Was watching Top Secret!, and I noticed this in the credits:


Rest of the world? Wouldn't that be the Eastern Hemisphere?

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08:42 pm: When I look all around, I can't believe the things I've found
While I haven't seen the theatrical release of Land of the Lost yet, I have been catching up with all the old shows from the original 70s series.

Land of the Lost was the first TV show I really fell in love with. But, hey, I was six, and it had dinosaurs, and what more do you really need?

The next time I saw it was as a young adult, and I was struck by how good the stories were. I mean, some of the stories have very sophisticated science fiction concepts like closed universes and paradoxes.

Now as I've watched the entire series, I still enjoy the stories. Well, the stories from the first two seasons, anyway.

You remember the first two seasons -- the classic "Marshall, Will and Holly" years, when the lived in the cave. The writers were some of the big guys in science fiction -- names like Gerrold, Niven, Bova and others. The Pakuni had their own language, developed by a linguist, and as the episodes went by, the Marshalls learned most of the limited Pakuni language, and the Pakuni picked up a few English words.

After season 2, things changed. Spencer Milligan, who played Rick Marshall, left the show in a dispute over merchandising residuals. Specifically, he felt that since his face was on every lunchbox in America -- including mine -- that he should get some of the money from that. The producers disagreed, and he was written out of the show.

Also written out of the show were some of the largest sets: the cave interior and exterior. So, the Marshalls had to find a new home, that happened to be much smaller in scale. Also, the producers apparently decided that all of these great SF writers were costing too much money, so they went to unknown writers, and the quality of the script took a nosedive.

Also, two of the three Pakuni got laid off, and the third, Cha-Ka, suddenly mastered the skill of conversational broken English, so no more talking in Pakuni.

Even the opening sequence was screwed up in the third season, as they're chased by Grumpy (the T-Rex) to their new home, but after they run in, it's Alice, the Allosaurus, who is roaring.

It's a perfect example of jumping the shark. If you have a chance, check out the first two seasons of what was quite possibly the best written children's show ever. Feel free to skip season three, though :)

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08:22 am: Law and Order: UK
So, yesterday I downloaded a few episodes of the UK version of the Law and Order franchise. We watched the first episode last night, and here's some thoughts.
( Cut for spoilers. And, there aren't really spoilers. Well, sorta. But, really, no. )

11:26 pm: Idol Musings
( LJ cut for those that don't watch American Idol )

Tags: idol