Review: The premiere episodes of the “Doctor Who” spinoff “Class”

Class

The details

The “Doctor Who” spinoff “Class” played on BBC 3 and select markets this past Saturday and will play on BBC America sometime in America in 2017. The primary setting is Coal Hill Academy, a fictional school that’s been featured throughout the Doctor Who series, most recently as where Clara Oswald and Danny Pink worked as teachers. Being a focal point of the Doctor and his foes over the years, the grounds are rife with the various creatures of time and space interested in invading our planet.

The good

Love the theme song! Alex Clare’s “Up All Night” has had a special place in my heart for years, so finding it as the show’s theme song was awesome. The show has that DW feel, mostly from the cinematography, special effects budget, and wit, but there’s a new level of complexity to the emotions. Many times in a Who episode, there’s the “clear” good guy, the “clear” bad guy, and sometimes a twist where it turns out the bad guy was just an inter-dimensional wombat with a chromium thorn in its paw. Once the thorn’s removed, the issue is resolved, and the Doctor moves onto his next adventure.

The bad

Just like most premieres, the show is still working on finding its footing, sometimes trying too hard to shoehorn in some comedy to add levity to the violence and drama. But it’s to be expected with a spinoff trying to find its own voice.

The…different?

Not good or bad, just different, but Class is gory. Not quite “The Walking Dead” level of blood and guts, but the first two episodes feature a severed leg, multiple people being skinned like KFC chicken breasts, and a particular character sprayed with blood time and time again. One more time and I think we’ll have reached a comical point. I didn’t find it overly offensive, but it’s certainly more graphic than the regular DW series, especially for a series that I believed was sold to a younger demographic.

Judgement call

A presumption existed prior to the premiere that this show was gearing for a younger audience, probably based on the age and setting of the actors. But what we got was more of a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for a generation that’s used to seeing a man bludgeon a victim with a barbwire-wrapped baseball bat. I’ll take it. The tone and cohesion start from a much better place than any previous Who spin-off, and I’m hopeful it will only continue to tighten as the show progresses.

Review: “The Three-Body Problem” by Liu Cixin

Three Body Problem

The details

The story of the search for and eventually communication with alien life takes place in three primary settings–flashbacks over the course of the later 20th century while China races to communicate with alien life, present day where nanomaterial research Wang Miao discovers one day that he’s the only one who can see a mysterious countdown, and within a virtual reality game Wang Miao discovers called “Three Body.”

The good

The threading of the flashbacks, present day, and the game is done in such a way that makes you want to find out what’s going on. The slow boil of the pacing made me question at first how the story fell into the science fiction category, which seems laughable after the fact. (Keep in mind I hadn’t done any research on the story before picking it up. All I knew was that it was a hit in China.) Each time Wang Miao dives into the game, a rich and vivid world awaits him and the reader, making you wish he’d log in more often.

The bad

Blame it on the translation, but the dialogue is flat, and the info-dumps a little heavy at times. But the bad dialogue only helps to set up the stand-out character of Shi Qiang, the loud foul-mouthed chainsmoker who’s not afraid to get things done.

Judgement call

Though not without its problems, “The Three-Body Problem” was difficult to put down. But despite enjoying the first of the trilogy, I never saw any real need to pick up the next in the series. Will the Earth properly prepare for the inevitable invasion of aliens? Meh. Maybe. But that will be in 400 years–making the setting a vastly different world from our own and much more difficult to connect with.  Definitely pick up a copy at Amazon.com, and decide for yourself if you need to know how future generations deal with their impending doom.

Review: Kidneythieves’ “The Mend”

kidneythieves' The Mend

The details: In January of this year, nearly 1,600 fans helped fund everyone’s favorite industrial rock duo Kidneythieves’ Kickstarter campaign to bring “The Mend” to the public, resulting in over $75k. This is the second full album they’ve released independently and the first the band has crowdsourced. (Free previously crowdsourced a couple solo albums.) The passing of Bruce’s father pushed back the release date, but backers received their orders in early October.

The good: The production quality of the album is incredibly clean from the first note you hear after pressing “Play.” The album starts strong with “Fist Up,” a track that could have easily fit on “Trypt0fanatic,” and follows up with a slower but equally as impressive “Codependent Song.” Free’s voice rings out as strong and clear as ever.

The bad: The album’s pacing is terrible. After a good start, the tracks quickly swerve into a slower electronic experiment, as if someone had swapped out their playlist with Collide‘s. Things pick up with “Let Freedom Ring,” but knowing the lead singer’s name is Free Dominguez makes the title/chorus seem like a corny joke someone made while having a goofy high. Without any noticeable guitar riffs or solos, one has to question the significance of Bruce’s contributions to the album as a whole.

Judgement call: Free and Bruce have frequently delved into the more electronic side of their genre before, so fans shouldn’t be thrown off by any of the sounds on this album. But anyone expecting a sequel to the tight “Trypt0fanatic” or even a shout-out to the hard-soft-hard-soft track sequence of “Zerøspace” (the full album) is going to find themselves dividing a quarter of the songs into their downtempo mix, a couple tracks into their rock/industrial mix, and the rest in the trash.

Continue to support the band by picking up their independent releases through the Kidneythieves homepage, but do so by picking up a copy of “Trypt0fanatic” or a t-shirt.

Hidden Gem

Yellow Media has a new ad campaign running in Canada about the “new neighbourhood,” which includes a video promising to transform the accidental or secretive nature of the local hidden gem into something deliberate.

This seems counter-intuitive to the hidden gem.  The hidden gem isn’t just the quality of whatever’s in the shop—it’s the story attached to it as well.  That story begins with “So there I was…” and has within it “…and suddenly, there’s this place…”

This ad campaign makes me think Yellow Media wants to destroy that story structure, to change it from “So there I was, running blindly from a sudden downpour into some alcove, and suddenly there’s this place I never noticed before promising warmth and a good meal” to “So I looked on an app for ‘food’ and this place came up. It had 4 out of 5 stars, so I tried it.”

While both stories can be true—both can be authentic—one seriously lacks that romantic touch that’ll sink the location’s magic into your memories like claws into carrion.  That place’s food or wares had better be spectacular or quirky, because otherwise, no one’s going to remember it exists.

Thanks, Yellow Media, for taking the magic out of the hidden gem.

Twitter Clean-up

Wow, am I ever getting sick of the people I follow.  I was about to say “sick of Twitter,” but that’s definitely not true.  I have five accounts that I consistently read (and even sometimes update).  Yes, I originally hated Twitter, but I’ve learned it has some phenomenal advantages for brands over Facebook.  And let’s be honest:  At this point, those two really are the only social networks worth mentioning.  This could change at any moment, of course, but it’s true now.  This minute.  This second.  Anything beyond is just a guess.

The writing account (@acoincidence) was originally the account I rushed to read, and with only 60 accounts followed, it doesn’t seem like it should cause any problems.  But when I was rushing to read it, there were only about 20 accounts followed.  So let’s do some clean-up.  Together.  Won’t you join me, friend?

90% or more of your posts about your new novel?  Gone.
100% of your crap either mundane aphorisms or how-tos on using Facebook?  Gone.  Moron.
Feel the need to “welcome” every new freakin’ follower you get?  Adios.

Actually, you know what?  Fuck it.  I’m already bored with analyzing the latest tweets to judge whether I should continue following people.  I’m simply wiping out anyone I’ve added from Pennsylvania.  Social media algorithms haven’t figured it out yet, but decent connections with people need more than one shared attribute.  Sometimes I get impatient and cast out a wide net to see what entertainment I can find.  And obviously, that can be a complete waste of time.  Sometimes.

You know what’s a better way of connecting with people?  By being awesome.  Mur Lafferty (@mightymur), Matt Wallace (@MattFnWallace), and Mignon Fogarty (@GrammarGirl) have blogs, appear on podcasts, release digital writings, etc.  But their Twitter accounts keep up a nice balance of humanity and advertisements.  The reason I enjoy their tweets is most likely dependent on the fact that I enjoy them as “people” (re: the personae they present in their media).  The tweets come second.

I’m down to 17 accounts now.  I’d like to get that back to 60+, but it has to be 60+ worthwhile people.  I gain nothing from wasting my time on aphorisms or how-tos on noun-verb agreement.  I know my basic English.  I went to school for that shit, thank you very much.  You know what’ll make me a better writer?  Not reading your tweets.  Not reading your guest-blogs on blahblahfuckityblah.  I’ll be a better writer by writing and only writing.  So stop wasting my time.