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Alphas – Still in Beta |
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The newest shake-and-remake of the heroes-are-people-too concept debuted on SyFy this week with a not-ready-for-prime-time pilot. Alphas grabs hold of a few promising angles, but swings them wide of the mark. For fans looking for Syfy to re-up their sci-fi, don’t despair yet: Strathairn’s undeniable talent and a tighter control of pace and character could run Alphas up to big dog status.
 A sloppy opening and slow second and third acts do eventually coalescence into an episode with enough plot that tricks have room to turn, but the pilot does little to establish how or why the team works or the drama-at-large that they operate in – a story that would better be served by just jumping in and letting us watch them handle a case. It’s a little disingenuous to complain that Alphas is just another scrambled X-Men or Heroes, but the concepts Alphas uses to differentiate itself are less flavor and more full-plot-stop. The X-Factor/X-Files government-allegiances-or-not theme could be a deep well to draw from, but the pilot episode veers too deep into distractions.
The first act quickly drops the Manchurian Candidate set-up to switch to an unnecessary gearbox full of our heroes being everyday, normal people. The bio-science burble feels forced into place and the geek-joke of it mostly fits better with the tongue-and-cheek science of shows like Eureka and Warehouse 13 than the heightened realism the show is striving for. Grounding the team’s abilities in “real life” situations should need little more than seconds, especially in an audience-expectation field saturated with superpowers.
TV fans are used to characters taking stage when they need to, without backstory – and these stretched vignettes delay the scene we never really see – how and why this team works. Worse, the attempts to create government-control plot angles around Strathairn’s character result in a string of exposition-heavy nonsense where Strathairn’s g-man handler withholds direly important parts of the plot for absolutely no reason; in fact, keeping the secret is decidedly against his interests.
 
The big idea of the show is to ground the powers in enough medical realism to introduce drawbacks and characters flaws. That’s great – except this show is saturated with it to the point of inaction. The biggest offender is the kid who can see data – he’s a distracting influence on the pace and direction of scenes that already lack focus. The sensing girl, when she isn’t just an excuse for no-lab-required CSI graphics, is similarly socially awkward – leaving it to the too-cool-for-school psychic and uptight-ex-FBI-guy to take the lead – which they don’t.
The stand-out scene is the recruitment of the newest member of the team – a great piece of writing that comes too late. It introduces the POV character – the character who needs to learn what the audience also needs to learn – but the information has been awkwardly covered already. I won’t give away the fun, but if the pilot had taken more cues from the forward-story-motion of this scene, the show would be off to a great start.
Of lesser worry is that the plot mostly depends on the characters being woefully ignorant or confused… Of great worry is that Alphas isn’t even through the first episode before it goes full-meta: the central plot seems to be that the team exists to counter a team of evil Alphas whose purpose seems to be to counter them…
Now that Alphas doesn’t have to worry so much about exposition, the show could quickly become much, much better. A more balanced mix of the quirky, real-life bits with the heroics; a tighter focus on character-in-action rather than character-in-color, and a little more sense to the plot and Alphas could earn an A.
To quote the pilot: “This is where this gets interesting” – nope. Not yet. But soon. We hope.
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Doctor Who : A Good Man Goes To … What?
By. J. Lewit
I like what Stephen Moffat, current maestro-mind of Doctor Who, is trying to do… I’m just not sure he’s actually doing it. As much as I enjoyed “A Good Man Goes to War”, the mid-season finale, I was not stunned into critical quiet like I was for the recently stellar episode “The Doctor’s Wife”. There’s plenty of great writing here. Moffat excels on the details: the Sontaran Nurse is a treasure, and dialogue like Amy’s zingers don’t grow on trees, no matter where they grow in time and space. What I’m worried about is that the story was explained to me before it happened – and then – it didn’t happen.
Tell versus show doesn’t trouble me – that’s a fine rule for some, but there’s also a reason it’s called storytelling, and some are quite good at it. But if you tell the people what you’re gonna tell them, you better tell them, or have a spectacular trick that gives the lie the um, lie. The trouble is, that part of the story has no trick. This story’s narration describes itself in big phrases that for aren’t about the companion, but about the Doctor himself: this is when everything changes. So things are going to go kerflooey. And then, they don’t. The Doctor runs away by himself in his little blue box. That, if anything, is The Doctor qua Doctor.
Strangely enough, I’d love “A Good Man Goes to War” if I didn’t have to deal with how the episode described itself. The flesh technology plot is goofy-edged sci-fi fun, tone-perfect modern Who. Taking a philosophical turn from the Davies era “I’m the Doctor, Run” speeches is grand storytelling. I’ve had my guess officially in on River’s identity since the end of last season (the wedding scenes clinched it), which made it all the more enjoyable to see play out. Without giving it away, Moffat’s done something wonderful in creating a family for The Doctor that doesn’t drag his uncles and aunts into play – which is wise. I think the Doctor’s mystery demands his genetic relations stay off-stage. The episode was almost too full of wonderful.
Looking back on both the bow-ties-are-cool and many-colored-coats-are-not history of The Doctor, I don’t see a great turning point in how he handles things. It is decidedly odd for the Doctor to go collecting allies across time and space – which I quite enjoyed – but that isn’t the thrust of the title or the way the episode explains itself, through River’s narration. Compare this episode’s actions to say, Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor destroying Skaro in “Remembrance of the Daleks”, or the monster-cides committed by Tennant’s Tenth. Time War, remember?
River Song explains a plot that doesn’t happen. The Doctor doesn’t rise to his highest height – and he doesn’t fall to his darkest depth. “The Waters of Mars” and the Time Lord Triumphant would have scored closer to that mark, and I’ve seen Amy, Rory and plenty of other characters more upset with the Doctor than anything that happened here. It feels like those stories where the character starts off “This is how I died”, and then they have a near-death experience and survive (… um … Davies did that with Rose, didn’t he? Oh well…).
Part of the problem is that the plot zips by. The turns are packed so tight that it doesn’t matter if their brilliant or not – the audience is still blinded, they aren’t even paying attention. What might be interesting in a time-travel story – the Doctor becoming the very enemy his enemies have come to fear because of his reacting to how they tried to defeat him. We might see that theme arise in the second half of the season, but hopefully it won’t be honed down into a soundbite. River Song’s revelation that the Doctor has become feared by those who know what he’s accomplished: that might have merited more than a few seconds.
I want to watch the Doctor reach those heights and fall so far – I want to watch his perfect plan to disarm a whole army and rescue an innocent from a uncertain fate without harming a single soul, etc., etc. – and then be broken when he loses - but that has to be what happens. It’s the wrong sort of misdirection to say “Demon’s Run” is the Doctor’s darkest hour – and then find out that he’s merely stepped in some “fooled you twice” goo.
What it all comes down to is this: when Moffat was writing for Davies’ seasons, Moffat’s were often the best episodes of the lot. Now, his seasons seem burdened with over-arching mythology and grand plot-arcs - I’d rather see story gems, self-contained masterpieces. Doctor Who is, by it’s very nature, one of the best devices for episodic storytelling ever conceived. My advice, Moff, and I’m just a lowly editor: don’t let the mythology, the fan-hype, the rabid-mystery-nonsense lure you into making every moment about the giant drama of The Doctor’s life. Give yourself the freedom to tell great stories. If that includes some epics, great, but let them breathe. Give yourself time to make them all happen.
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Webseries to Watch : Aidan5 |
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By Jeremy Lewit
Developed from an award winning 48-hour film festival short of the same name, online series Aidan 5 is well-crafted sci-fi noir fantasy, with taut writing and a unique visual language that allows the surprisingly no-budget production to portray atmosphere and action beyond the scope of most independent webisodes.
The most striking visual aspect of Aidan 5 is the sketched setting upon which the live-actors play. Shot in green-screen, the cast is placed in a black and white chiaroscuro dystopia, where drab and dark war with bright and striking. The controlled use of light and focus craft an environment for the mystery tale that never feels as surreal or as hoky as a description of the idea might suggest. Noir’s heavy reliance on grit is given something of the lie here, as it’s the drama of the picture composition that envelops the characters and traps them in their world.
As the producers intended, the use of drawn backgrounds and scenic props – from police desks to cloning tanks – allows a range of location and action sequences impossible to accomplish live without a set budget, giving this series much more bang-zoom than web audiences currently expect (unless it’s a branded-tie-in production with some hefty marketing dollars – and that’s cheating). Aidan 5 episodes have involved shoot-outs and flying cars chasing elevated trains; the action is fun, but more importantly, the scope it allows the writing and directing gives the series a filmic quality.
Despite comparisons to currently almighty comic-books and the films the sketch-set calls to mind (like Sin City), the real strength of Aidan 5 is the storytelling. The writing is spare and brisk. Atmosphere is a real concern, and since the directors can shoot almost anything they can storyboard, it’s gratifying to see that opportunity isn’t wasted in flashy shots. Directors Ben Bays and John Jackson craft moment-to-moment story arcs with a visual language that carries all the implications of the script that might be lost under less deft hands.
More to the point, there’s a real story that doesn’t wallow where it might, but really moves along. Aidan 5 follows a detective through 2064 as he investigates the murder of his own clones. As the episodes progress from the first (which mainly expands on the action of the original short) the world is explored alongside the case, including the politics and social standing of clones. What might have been cloying or silly is rendered emotional and succinct, with strong performances all around. With sharp bits of noirish dialogue and narration, the story never lingers; refreshingly, some of the plot zips by so fast that the casual web viewer may miss an important moment.
Series leads Bryan Michael Block and Maya Sayre (Detectives Aidan and Riley) deserve big kudos – lesser chops would scotch the tone and drag the noir-heavy lines down into sketch comedy, but Block and Sayre deliver nuanced performances. The two actors bear a little resemblance to D’Onofrio and Erbe in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, as does their characters’ relationship – one tortured soul and one soul torched slowly by her own quiet, supportive strength. One of the real strengths of Aidan 5 is the central duo’s dynamic development, and the episodes are doing a fine job of playing slow and steady here, letting each moment speak for itself.
That’s the general win here, a simple strength that can be overlooked by a critic busy with the details: each scene here gets something done, an easy enough thing to say, but as they say, harder to do. Net audiences will enjoy these honed bits of dark, sci-fi fun. New episodes are scheduled to release on Fridays. Check back on Myouterspace.com for interviews with the series creators and actors, to be posted soon.
Webseries to Watch: Aidan 5
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Doctor Who Review: Curse of the Black Spot |
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By Jeremy Lewit
Pirates! According to the current spate of Disney epics, this word is supposed to be shouted with a kind of reverent bewilderment, or if you prefer, a bemused, facetious spite. In kind, Curse of the Black Spot continues this new Doctor Who season’s dip into a more American flavor of action-adventure television. It was X-Files in the Big Sky West last time, with a little Apollo Moon landing spice, and now we’re running laps around the poop deck with a few mangy curs.
Our curs our still British, who’ve stolen shiny treasure from somewhere colonial and feel bad about abandoning their wives and sons, of course, but there’s plenty of parrots and yo-ho-humor. It’s definitely still Doctor Who, the classic sort where a spooky bit of nonsense gobbles up all the bit players one every four minutes or so. There are already detractors, I’m sure, of an episode that feels claustrophobic compared to the sprawling, epic feel of the season opener, but lack of scope isn’t really the trouble, rather a kind of frenetic spinning in place is what keeps this plot from properly getting off the page.
I’m here to say “low-budget” and “rubbish”, the epithets most often thrown at smaller-scale episodes, really do mischaracterize how the mark’s missed here. One-offs in Doctor Who are all increasingly feeling like little interstitials between openers, closers, two-parters and guest-star-written-game-changers. With only thirteen episodes a season, if we aren’t shoving the Daleks back into the Time-War, undoing the paradox that eats all of existence or regenerating the Doctor, then we’re just waiting around for the season’s secret notes to play out.
I like a self-contained Doctor Who episode. I don’t need all of the series-long mystery story, in fact, I prefer the best of the one-offs like Moffat’s Girl in the Fireplace and Blink, which are perfectly good at being what they are: good stories. In this case, the Doctor lands on a becalmed pirate ship beset by a strange curse and gets accused of being a stowaway before ensuing himself in the wackiness. It could be the plot of a classic episode, and I don’t think its any the worse for that.
The episode plays the first beats of the premise too long, but it has a solid concept with a good finish. The babble behind the plot twist felt a little tired, but that was done with good humor. The real trouble with Curse of the Black Spot is that it was too fast and too slow – its too-many clever little one-liners, its self-impressed imagery, all without really establishing a strong story or mounting an adventure that’s more than the set-up for the next joke – or the next flash-bang. Part of the running gag of the episode is that the Doctor comes up with more wrong theories than fill an episode of House, and that leaves our heroes pretty much running in circles, rather than digging into some good high-seas hijinks.
I don’t like giving plots away, so I won’t – but I will say that by the ending there is a good story here, its just that we don’t really use it. It’s as if the writer didn’t really like the premise, and rushed those bits through the Doctor’s mouth so we could spend more time on the spooky music and, of course, make room for the season mysteries: Amy’s sliding window makes a prominent, anachronistic shot across the bow, Amy and Rory have to debate whether they should spill their big secret and the Doctor spends the episode’s sting staring at Amy’s will-she-won’t-she sonogram.
I like Matt Smith’s Doctor making jokes about hats. I like Karen Gillan’s Amy and her charmingly ignorant, cutlass-waggling braggadocio. I don’t exactly like the turn in this episode or the explanation for it – I feel like Doctor Who has gone to both wells in the modern series – but the real criticism of this episode is simply that it doesn’t take the story elements and craft a ripping good yarn. Take that! Ha-Har!
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by terrafovea 5 replies.
