Book Review: Storm Front by Jim Butcher

I watched The Dresden Files while it aired on SciFi, and while I thought the show had some problems, I found it entertaining enough to seek out each week. Also, it seemed to me that each episode got stronger as the season went along. So I was a bit disappointed that it got cancelled. Anyhow. Nearly a year later I get around to reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher.

Overall, it's an entertaining, quick read, and I can see why the novels got tapped for a TV series. On the downside, the novel has some character motivation problems. Namely, Harry's reasons for not going to the authorities didn't hold water for me, and it's never explained why, with all the magical power Morgan and company apparently have, they don't have the ability to check out Harry's alibi. It's like they're police who don't know how to dust for fingerprints. At times I felt there were moments where characters did things at the dictate of the plot, rather than the plot emerging from what the characters would believably do. It also struck me that some of the problems I had with the TV series -- mainly Harry's not-totally-believable interactions with Morgan and Murphy -- are apparently reflections of the novels, or at least reflections of the first one.

After reading Storm Front, I logged onto Hulu and started to watch the episode of the same name, and found I couldn't enjoy the series any more because so many things in the show struck me as misadaptations. For instance, Harry does magic right there in front of the cops at the crime scene, which he would never ever do in the first novel.

So, for me, the TV series diminished the experience of reading the original novel, simply because many of the most interesting elements felt familiar to me, and reading the novel has now ruined the experience of re-watching the series.

You might have an entirely different reaction, though. So, the upshot is, if you're one of the few urban fantasy fans who hasn't checked out Butcher's work, I encourage you to do so.

TV Review: Dead Like Me

"Dead Like Me" is a series that debuted in the summer of 2003 on Showtime; it was inexplicably cancelled after just two seasons.

This show was completely off my radar initially, but I was hooked after I caught two episodes at a friend's house. If you're any kind of science fiction/fantasy fan, this show is well worth watching if you can catch the re-runs on Showtime or if you know someone who's purchased the series box sets.

In the darkly comedic pilot episode (directed by Scott Winant, who also directed episodes of "Once and Again", "The West Wing", "thirtysomething", and "My So-Called Life"), we meet a disaffected 18-year-old girl named George (Ellen Muth) who lives in Seattle. While on her lunch break from her first day at a dead-end job, George gets hit with the flaming, hurtling remains of a space station toilet seat. Newly dead, she discovers she's to become an afterwordly wage-slave and join the ranks of the undead Grim Reapers who patrol the city extracting departed souls from their bodies and escorting them to their afterlives. Her lack of faith and direction in her life made her unsuitable for either Heaven or Hell, and as a consequence she became the final soul to fill the spiritual quota of the Reaper who harvested her; she must act as his replacement.

The show also starred Rebecca Gayheart (Urban Legend, Scream 2) as Betty, Jasmine Guy as Roxy, Callum Blue as Mason, Laura Harris (A Mighty Wind) as Daisy, and Mandy Patinkin (probably best known as Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride) as Rube. All played Reapers who tutor George in her new job and unlife. Harris was a mid-first-season replacement for Gayheart.

Being undead in this show's world is rather unglamorous: the Reapers still need food, shelter, and clothing, but they don't get a salary for the work they're compelled to do for the universe. So, they either have to rob the dead and squat in their apartments ... or they have to get a low-profile, dead-end job to get by.

The writing is top-notch; most of the scripts were done by series creator Brian Fuller, who wrote for Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and also did the script for the recent, very good TV adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie. The musical score and song selections were done by ex-Police member and veteran composer Stewart Copeland.

While the acting is uniformly strong, Patinkin is especially wonderful to watch. The special effects are very decent, and because this is Showtime, the series is fairly uncensored when it comes to language and sex.

Cast/Crew Info

Georgia "George" Lass: Ellen Muth
Mason: Callum Blue
Betty: Rebecca Gayheart
Daisy: Laura Harris
Roxy: Jasmine Guy
George's Father, Clancy Lass: Greg Kean
George's Sister, Reggie Lass: Britt McKillip
Delores Herbig: Christine Willes
George's Mother, Joy: Cynthia Stevenson
Rube: Mandy Patinkin
Musical score: Stewart Copeland
Editor: Dona Nogan
Production Designer: Richard Hudolin
Director of Photography: Danny Nowak
Executive Producer/ Writer: Bryan Fuller
Pilot Director: Scott Winant

TV Review: Aqua Teen Hunger Force

"Shake power activate! Master is my name, and thirst is what I tame.
"Baffle yourself with flavor!"
-- Master Shake

"The bun is in your mind ...
"... So they gotta use bare hands. They're gonna rip out my eyes and thread an easy-grip handle through the holes. Please, God, kill me."
-- Meatwad

The Aqua Teen Hunger Force made their conceptual debut as characters on the "Baffler Meal" episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast

However, this version of the Aqua Teens is rather different. First off, they actually behave as though they're a superhero team, or at least attempting to be one. Master Shake is their leader, and he sounds and acts rather like Mooninite Ignignokt. Frylock is a childlike box of rippled fries who ineptly wields an amulet and a fry wedge sword; he has a high-pitched, lispy voice. Meatwad's voice and appearance are quite similar to the version we all know from the show; however, he is depressed and more intelligent than his show counterpart, and his face bears slight but noticeable resemblance to that of Strong Sad from the Homestar Runner cartoons.

All the Aqua Teen voices in "Baffler Meal" were done by Dave Willis, who at the time was a regular Space Ghost Coast to Coast writer and voice artist. Willis soon after co-created and co-wrote the ATHF series with Matt Maiellaro, who also helped write "Baffler Meal".

In the current incarnation of the show, Willis voices Meatwad, Carl, and Ignignokt, while Dana Snyder does Master Shake and Carey Means does Frylock.

"Baffler Meal" opens with an unaired scene of Space Ghost playing with a huge pile of mangled hamburgers at a fast food joint called Burger Trench. Someone hands him his bill, which is over $90. Space Ghost hasn't got the money and demands to see the manager, who is Dave Willis dressed up like an 18th century aristocrat named Colonial Man. The manager says he has a deal for Space Ghost, and threatens to have his head between two steamed buns if he doesn't go along with it.

After the episode opens, we see that the show has been taken over by Master Shake and his group. Space Ghost has, in exchange for letting the Aqua Teens run his show, gotten a houseboat and a really powerful speaker that causes his nose to bleed ("You will receive the second speaker upon the elimination of all hunger," Shake tells him).

We battle hunger with nutritious salt and oil-based weapons. We fight hunger and that is all you need to know, lever man."
-- Master Shake

Space Ghost of course becomes tired of Master Shake's constant talking, and he fatally slaps Shake and blasts Frylock. Moltar kills and eats Meatwad offstage.

The episode ends at a rock club, where Colonial Man and his band are singing the Burger Trench theme song to a rough variation of Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog". Space Ghost looks on in horror as he realizes that killing Master Shake has altered the course of classic rock.

It's a demented debut for the Aqua Teens, and it puts their inept superhero roots and the reason for their name into a context that's generally lacking in the TV show. The death of the trio at the hands of Space Ghost and Moltar also foreshadows the tendency of the show to kill off Carl and Shake only to have them return alive and well in the next episode (Carl dies in ATHF almost as often as Kenny dies in South Park).

---

Aqua Teen: A Brief Review

I started liking Aqua Teen rather against my will. I was spending time at a friend's house, and this friend was quite keen on ATHF. I initially thought it was crude, but soon it grew on me.

The first season of ATHF, like South Park, has fleeting moments of genuine demented brilliance. The second season likewise has some very funny bits, though some episodes are hit and miss.

The third season, sadly, was mostly miss. The last episode I saw left a fairly foul taste in my mouth, and I doubt I'll be watching it again.

Adult Swim staged a publicity prank in 2004 by falsely claiming that ATHF was going to be cancelled; if the new shows continue to be unfunny and icky (and I won't be there to see if they are, one way or another, and I suspect I'm not the only one) then I expect in a year's time the show's cancellation will be no joke.