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Good point, Jessie. Hope the Netflix campaign works out!

Yes, this I understand.

I'm not sorry for releasing Part 1 when I did. March 22, 2015 was too important a date to miss. However, completing the script for Part 1 a mere three weeks after the outline gave me a false sense of confidence. Part 1 was not terribly plot-driven and there were far fewer clues and setups than were needed for the payoff of Part 2. With Part 2, seemed fine in a general outline (or possible to rationalize) became illogical, nonsensical and incomprehensible when typing out actual scenes with events and dialogue. But it has gotten a bit ridiculous that a June 2015 script is coming out in October.

I wrote a scene today where Rembrandt encounters a double of Maggie who is a secret-agent-action-girl. Well. I think at 48, I have to call Maggie an action-woman. The plot and pacing required that Rembrandt convince this stranger that he is her ally and can be trusted. The means by which I had him do so is questionable in the extreme, but damn it, this had to move along.

I genuinely do not know if it's true to Rembrandt to have him declare that of all the sliders, Maggie is the one he knew best. Or if it's true to say that he knows her so well he can convince any Maggie-double that he's a friend. And also to say that Maggie gave him (off-camera) combat lessons during their two and a half years together. (But surely she would have?) But I think when writing tie-in fiction, you have to take some chances like these in extrapolating this way.

Something I really enjoy about fanfic -- many people have told me about the importance of not being self-indulgent in your fiction. Killing your darlings. Doing what serves the story as opposed to your personal fetishes and obsessions. But fanfic is a place where you can do all that. I was listening to the SLIDERS Rewatch podcast where Tom and Cory were joking about the Elston Diggs character of Season 3, laughing about how this silly character pops up in scripts and spouts expository dialogue to the sliders without any provocation, inexplicably telling strangers about his world and society like he assumes they're interdimensional visitors and need to be informed of what for Diggs would be common knowledge.

And when a scene required a receptionist, I could not resist making that receptionist Elston Diggs while presenting his bizarre expository dialogue as an indication of a compulsive mental disorder.

Okay. At the rate I'm going with the second SLIDERS REBORN script -- writing a scene or two on weekdays, writing large chunks on weekends -- it will be done by next week Sunday.

I was going to send Nigel Mitchell the script -- but I think that might be waiting too long. Part 2 was supposed to come out in June and I think I've integrated Nigel's input regarding the outline as best I can. One of his remarks was that while he could provide me with bits and pieces to add to the story, he was reluctant to suggest specific changes as the story was intricate and he found that pulling on one thread would unravel the whole thing.

I think, for September 30, I will post the first 15 pages of the script just to indicate that it's well on its way to completion despite the laboured development process. I'll have the first draft done by October 3 and I'll give myself a week to go through each page and punch it up, and then post the Part 2 script and the Part 2B novella (already written) on October 10.

Part 3 -- I think I'll reschedule that for a January 2016 release date, in light of all the issues I had writing Part 2.

"Slide Like an Egyptian." I honestly don't know what to make of this episode and my reaction mirrors Tom and Cory almost exactly. The episode is very strangely edited with scene to scene progression lost as character motives fade in and out of the story. Quinn's death is a moment in a muddled, confused, disorienting episode and leaves me completely cold. The sliders stumbling across a replacement timer that works pretty much the same way the old one did is just baffling to me. It knocked me out of the story completely. The scarab special effect is appalling. Why are the creators of Season 3 so utterly convinced that special effects will attract an audience when the special effects are so terrible?

I really can't figure out what the point of this episode was beyond David Peckinpah's wish to have the Torme timer destroyed and replaced with one he can call his own. As Cory and Tom note, Michael Mallory's advice to Quinn is meaningless nonsense. There's no real exploration of the Egyptian alt-history. This episode is a boring mess and it's hard to tell what they were going for.

With "Paradise Lost," we come to one of the most loathed episodes of SLIDERS ever made. Tom and Cory note all the obvious, glaring errors throughout the story from misdelivered dialogue to silly chronological errors and baffling contradictions in how this town keeps its secrets or discovered the immortality-granting substances.

"Paradise Lost" features two of the worst guest-characters on SLIDERS. Trudy is appalling, claiming to be trying to save innocent people while only ever providing vague, unspecific warnings that have never saved a single person. Laurie is a non-entity paraded in front of the camera as a Baywatch babe, so dull that Tom and Cory have trouble remembering her scenes. And there's an alarming lack of oversight such as Quinn addressing the Professor as "Max" or actors confusing the words "do" and "don't."

This episode is a clear reflection of how the Season 3 production is unprofessional. They commission scripts for SLIDERS even when the pitches clearly lack parallel universe story elements, which reflects the showrunner's indifference to the series. They permit scripts to be filmed without any concern for introducing guest-characters or scene-to-scene progression or reviewing dialogue, indicating that the script editor is not on the job. They permit actors to mis-read dialogue and do not do reshoots, suggesting the script supervisor is either incompetent or being ignored. All this leads to a nonsensical final product.

I think, earlier in the season, some of the Season 1/2 writers (Tony Blake, Paul Jackson, Nan Hagan) were still writing for the show they knew in Season 2, so you'd get episodes like "Double Cross" and "Dead Man Sliding" which merge the Season 3 spectacle/action approach with Season 1/2 storytelling elements. You had writers like Eleah Horwitz writing perfectly decent stories like "The Prince of Slides" and "Season's Greedings," aiming for the same. These were writers who, I think, were willing to do their own quality control on their material. David Peckinpah did the same for himself on "Murder Most Foul."

But then there are the scripts where the writers were either not reviewing their own material or there were changes being made to film material more cheaply and more quickly but without any concern for coherence or watchability.

In Season 1, Tracy Torme, Robert K. Weiss and Jon Povill were often rewriting scripts. "Last Days" and "Eggheads" were heavily redone. "As Time Goes By" had multiple writers working on the individual threads. "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome" was heavily workshopped. With Season 3, little to no effort in this area is present. "Paradise Lost" is a marker -- the Season 3 episodes that follow are mostly from scripts that have not been reviewed for basic professional standards (introductions, exposition, in-character dialogue, basic scene-to-scene progression) or have been rewritten in ways that aren't concerned with those standards.

"The Last of Eden" also reflects all the problems that result when scripts aren't being reviewed with these concerns in mind. Cory and Tom explore how the underground society makes no sense and are wildly inconsistent in the threat they pose and the timeline presented by the episode makes no sense whatsoever. The script raises questions about the Gineers that aren't explored in the slighest. The script plunges the sliders into a plot that makes no effort to explore the surroundings or the civilization in any meaningful or informative way, treating every guest-character in this episode as a threat or a mechanism to move the plot to its tedious conclusion.

Episodes like "Double Cross" and "Dead Man Sliding" showed that SLIDERS could give FOX the light entertainment and action-spectacle they wanted while still telling stories with alternate histories and strangers in strange lands. But in the end, the problem isn't even that Season 3 reducing alt-history for doing monsters and horror and fantasy. Any story is conceivably a SLIDERS story; even a story without a strong alternate history is potentially a SLIDERS story. The problem is that Season 3 is doing *bad* monster movies and horror movies and fantasy movies. This regime has no concern for quality or viewer enjoyment and "Paradise Lost" is the point at which this is consistently indicated in nearly every episode that follows.

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

David Peckinpah's family posted on the old Sci-Fi Board, protesting the fans' mockery and ridicule towards Peckinpah. Saying he was a wonderful father and a loving man. Informant replied, "What you have to understand is that when you run a show like SLIDERS, you are creating a legacy. People who don't want to be mocked and ridiculed really need to put some thought into what they're producing. I have no doubt that David Peckinpah was a solid citizen. Unmatched in his moral integrity. The last good man on Earth. His show still sucked."

After Peckinpah died, the family posted some stuff on IMDB about how the poor man was simply broken after his son died. And looking at SLIDERS -- Season 3 is a man in pain lashing out. Seasons 4 - 5 represent a man who has given up and simply wants to die.

The 'rock concert' environment of "The Exodus" can be seen in the gag reel. Lloyd is clearly hungover in "The Exodus Part 2," as are Jerry and Cleavant, in the Professor's eulogy scene. John Rhys-Davies was, I think, more irritated by the scripts, which led to Peckinpah despising him and removing his character from the show by sucking out the Professor's brain, shooting him, then blowing up the corpse. Sabrina Lloyd didn't like working with Kari Wuhrer. I have no data on how they felt about the on-set quality of filming.

In the end, yes, David Peckinpah is responsible for SLIDERS' downfall and had little-to-no credit in its continued survival on Sci-Fi. But he wasn't a demonic monstrosity. Just a man. Weak and lost. I think it says something about sobriety -- one must commit to living a healthy life for one's self, not for someone else, not even a beloved child. Be angry with him if you have to. But forgive him.

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

So, "State of the ART." Like Cory and Tom, I don't mind this episode too much, although Arturo's aptitude with physics and mathematics seems to have gotten an absurd upgrade to the point where he's repairing robots! The purple sky is intriguing. Visually, this episode is kind of cramped and dull with its bland sets and soundstages and the editing is a little flat. But I didn't mind it too much. Not exactly thought provoking, however. I enjoyed Cory and Tom talking about whether or not they'd submit to being transplanted into robot bodies. Tom's thoughts on artificial intelligence were intriguing as he argued that Derec's 'emotions,' such as they are, don't represent any internal state. They're just programming instructing a machine to show specific symbols on its display, using a human face as its screen and human expressions as its graphic user interface.

At the same time, is the human brain or body anything more than a machine in itself, albeit one of biological components as opposed to mechanical parts? I dunno! Interestingly, Bob Weiss, co-creator of SLIDERS, is also an expert in robotics and is the CEO of a company working on robots that can perform surgery. (I don't think he's currently working on artificial intelligence.)

Then we come to "Season's Greedings," which is again a combination of the Season 1/2 alt-histories with the Season 3 approach of aiming for light entertainment. Unlike "Double Cross," the emphasis is less on action but ultimately about good triumphing over evil. Unlike "The Prince of Slides," this episode has something truly meaningful and important to say about the futility and pointlessness of consumer purchasing and consumer credit. And I like it a lot. It's heartfelt. It's sweet.

It's got an absurd and ridiculous climax where the sliders delete debt records to free everyone in the mall from their servitude -- I find it *very* difficult to believe there wouldn't be extensive backups of this stuff. I get the impression this script was written well before computers were as common as they are now and in our pockets. I enjoyed Cory and Tom noting how the friendly, cheerful setting of the mall is essentially a polite face on slavery, however, and I suppose that's part of why I don't quibble too much with how the story is resolved.

But certain things trouble me.

Quinn Mallory. Something has gone wrong with Jerry's performance and the scripting of the character. The physicality and the expression of the character have gotten confused. The scene that strikes me as most wrong is when Quinn and Kelly go to dinner. Quinn talks about his family's traditions. Jerry is completely out of character in this scene. He acts like he's accustomed to attention from women and enjoys it greatly.

I think a Season 1/2 Quinn would perform exactly the same dialogue, but with Quinn's usual reserve and slight social awkwardness, making it less of a performance and more of an awkward sharing between himself and a new friend. Jerry, however, plays this scene as completely flirtatious and intensely sexual and it's deeply uncharacteristic for Quinn; why would Quinn be flirting with Wade's sister at a time when Wade is hurting for family? Had Jerry modulated his performance correctly, it would have come off as Quinn trying to better understand Wade through understanding Kelly.

Instead, Jerry plays it like he's on a date. Tom and Cory highlight deleted scenes where Quinn was written to have had a crush on Kelly since their first meeting at Wade's house over dinner. That also doesn't sync with Jerry's performance. Would this confident, flirtatious, girl-chasing Jerry O'Connell have been at a loss for words when first meeting Kelly? Would he have been "unable to take his eyes off her," as Wade says in the script? No -- this version of the character would have asked Kelly out.

The other scene that really rubs me the wrong way with Quinn is Quinn pouncing on the mall manager at the end and punching him out with enraged satisfaction. I don't see why Quinn would do this; the man's business has been shattered, he's wanted by the law, his assets have been destroyed and his face is known to all. What was the point? Quinn knows when a guy is beaten; he doesn't enjoy inflicting physical pain. Something has gone really wrong here.

The ending. Oh, the ending. Yes, it's nice to see a happy ending. But I remember this article where Tracy Torme remarked that he felt Season 3 of SLIDERS (at the halfway mark) was doing empty, feel-good television. Everything is wrapped up happily at the end. All is well. The sliders open the vortex off camera to save money. And they leave. No twists, no thought-provoking endings. Just acceptable mediocrity.

Film director James Gray once remarked, there are two words in the English language -- "good" and "enough" -- that, when combined, are a recipe for low standards. "State of the ART" and "Season's Greedings" are certainly good enough -- but SLIDERS is no longer receiving the detailed care and love to characterization and viewer enjoyment that often made it great.

Next: The terrible truth of Season 3.

Maybe it's just me -- but I fail to see how missing episodes on Hulu and Netflix could truly prevent any of us from watching them anyway. I mean, we're SLIDERS fans, for God's sake. We may as well have invented the Internet when it comes to TV shows.

(I'm using various qualifiers in case Temporal Flux sweeps in and has exact and precise information that makes me wrong.)

I would be astonished if the real San Francisco has ever appeared in SLIDERS outside of stock footage of the Golden Gate Bridge.

What's your beef with Firefox?

My issue is simply that it's gotten bloated and slow -- but I still like it in theory. And with all the extraneous features stripped out.

I have now completed 1/4 of the Quinn-Arturo scenes.

In other news, I've discovered a really great web browser -- Pale Moon. It's a variant on Firefox. I really like Firefox for all the great extensions and the way you can customize it. But Firefox has become a bloated mess of a browser. And even on i7 processors and 8GB of RAM, it's prone to delayed starts and regular freezing up compared to Chrome's instantaneous response. I recently discovered Pale Moon, which is a build of Firefox that's extremely stripped down and lightweight. It has all the features of Firefox, but none of the absurd demands on the CPU and processor. The main subtraction is compatibility with older-generation processors and operating systems. I've been settling for Chrome because Chrome is fast, but I think I might switch to Pale Moon.

I don't think it's a good idea.

I don't think Tom and Cory completely captured my opinion, which is this: you can have new actors play Quinn the boy genius, Arturo the bombastic man of wisdom, Wade the moral crusader and Rembrandt the outdated showbiz icon. But trying to have new actors imitate Jerry, John, Sabrina and Cleavant creates an awkward uncanny valley effect where all the audience will notice is how the imitation is either wildly off-the-mark or close but not-quite-right.

It's also a crappy situation for the actor. Instead of trying to capture the emotion, intensity and dynamic of a scene, they're trying to capture what some other actor might have done with the scene. It doesn't make for a good performance.

Even Robert Floyd, whose Jerry-impersonation is perfect, wasn't keen on imitating Jerry. He didn't think it was a good idea for him to play Quinn 1.0 and only Quinn 1.0. because he felt the audience would get tired of it and he would simply be copying another actor. His opinion was that it would be best if he could constantly shift between Quinn and Mallory. That way, imitating Jerry would just be one part of creating something new.

So, "The Prince of Slides." Cory and Tom seemed to enjoy this one aside from a few small plotholes (specifically, the Duke nearly getting killed at his cottage, then remaining at the cottage for anyone to find him). They liked a lot of the well-crafted characterization with George being revealed as a pawn rather than a villain. The alt-history with America as a post-Revolution monarchy was effective for them and they also liked the expanded alt-history in the deleted scenes. I enjoy "Prince of Slides" too -- it's a strong combination of the alt-history of Seasons 1 - 2 with the action-spectacle approach of Season 3. This is how the average Season 3 episode should have been; an engaging, enjoyable, professional product.

But there are little things that irk me. First of all, monarchies are bull$#!t. I'm not an American, but I find "Prince of Slides" to be treacherously unAmerican. To put it simply, you people living in America are capable of governing yourselves; you don't need kings to be selected for you by right of blood and birth (a.k.a. luck). If God chooses your rulers in this way, he's not much of a God. I'm not saying Americans do a great job of governing themselves; I'm just saying that of all the ways to organize your society and move towards greatness, monarchies are the dumbest way to do it, choosing leaders by family rather than by demonstrable ability.

So, to see the sliders defending kings and queens is pretty weird, although "Prince of Slides" makes it an internal revolution rather than a revolt from an oppressed population. What's troubling to me is that the sliders barely question or critique this absurd system of government, with Arturo actively supporting it as he laps up the luxuries of royal life. This is troubling when contrasted with "Prince of Wails" where Arturo was both supportive and critical of such power structures.

I also really took issue with Arturo creating a false identity for Quinn as a "fitness instructor." Holy S-word. We have really lost sight of who the hell this character is, haven't we? I think Arturo would have presented Quinn as the Duke's scientific advisor; you'd barely need to alter the dialogue for this.

I adored how Cory and Tom protested Arturo being presented as a Swiss-Army-Knife who walks like a man, noting that Arturo is now an expert on royal decorum and can perform C-sections. And I really liked their irritation towards another bizarre backstory for Rembrandt; his revelation that Danielle is the reason he calls himself the Cryin' Man is... I'm not saying it couldn't work, but "Prince of Slides" doesn't hit the mark. I'm not sure why, and I'll need to follow up later, but the story rings false to me and Cory and Tom found it over-the-top in trying to elevate the Danielle character's importance.

They also found it strange that Quinn wins the swordfights. Well, Jerry O'Connell is/was a championship-level fencer who'd won many competitions. Given Quinn's sports-obsession, I don't think it's impossible that he a fencer as well as a surfer / basketball player / baseball player / football player / waterboarder etc..

"The Prince of Slides" is pretty good, but, as stated, I have some concerns.

So, the "Desert Storm" podcast. Cory and Tom didn't like this episode much, nor do I. It's the spectacle-oriented version of SLIDERS but there is absolutely no energy, no drive, no excitement. The direction and editing of this episode are amateurish and incoherent, and the entire story is just a collection of setpieces pastiching the MAD MAX movies.

Ian McDuffie put it beautifully on his blog, noting that if people want to watch MAD MAX, they'll watch MAD MAX. They won't be interested in a cheap fan-film version that happens to feature the cast of SLIDERS. What's the point? The intense level of indifference within the production is disturbing; this is an episode where Arturo's illness is referred to as a *heart* condition when in "The Guardian," he was getting a BRAIN scan. God damn it.

And finally, "Desert Storm" is a scathing indictment of the LA production team on SLIDERS. A show so incompetent and incapable in its operation that it couldn't even avoid getting people killed. The stunt and safety standards on SLIDERS were so sloppy and lax as to be criminally negligent. Before "Desert Storm," there were constant visitors to the set; after "Desert Storm," production started locking down on visitors in an effort to cover up the circumstances Ken Steadman's death. SLIDERS in Season 3 was so bad that it KILLED someone.

And then we come to "Dragonslide." Oh, "Dragonslide." This is where I really gave up on SLIDERS. Tom and Cory didn't make too big a deal of it, clearly drained by "Electric Twister Acid Test" and "The Dream Masters" and "Desert Storm." But "Dragonslide" is the episode that flat out declares that magic exists in the SLIDERS mythos.

This is simply wrong. SLIDERS lends itself to many kinds of stories, sure. But the core of the show is founded on sliding as a scientific creation. A marvel of engineering. Much of sliding operates on how scientific principles are behind the wonders of the multiverse. And most SLIDERS stories, certainly the strong ones, operate on the sliders appreciating that the realities they visit operate on rules that can be understood and manipulated.

Tom and Cory took issue with the silliness. For me, the issue is abandoning any notion of rules. Within a work of fiction that operates on physics, mathematics, engineering and a loose sense of quantum mechanics, you can still have fantasy elements. You can have psychics and telepaths and present that a somewhat scientific concept from tapping the undiscovered abilities within the human mind. You can have monsters as the product of genetic engineering or cybernetic enhancement. It may be a stretch to call any of this science, but SLIDERS ultimately functions on the idea that the world(s) can be *understood* through reason and rationality.

But when you have people transforming into birds and magically taking over bodies and resurrecting and shapeshifting through spells, you've stepped into a level of arbitrary and, quite frankly, inexplicable fantasy. There is no reasoning or logic to how Quinn can come back to life or why killing Phillip Mallory would damn the villain. There's nothing for the sliders to investigate and understand. It's simply about manipulating meaningless symbols. Swords. Potions. Incantations. And SLIDERS simply isn't suited to this kind of storytelling.

When encountering psychics, the sliders learned the advantages and limits the psychics had and then formulated a plan. When encountering dragons and wizards, the sliders pick up magical objects. It doesn't call upon their intelligence, ingenuity, inventiveness or teamwork. "Dragonslide" also throws away any notion of world-building via an alternate outcome to a historical event. That sort of writing operates on applying logic, reason and extrapolation, and "Dragonslide"'s version of SLIDERS throws all that away in favour of magic.

Magic is a disservice to SLIDERS and its characters, and that's why "Dragonslide" is such an abomination despite being inoffensive as a piece of television.

Anyway. I laughed out loud when Tom and Cory balked at "Dragonslide"'s claim that the Rembrandt of the Pilot was getting ready to move in with Alicia Avo. That's just silly. The Rembrandt of Season 1 was clearly single and not desperate to return home to a lover from whom he'd been unwillingly parted.

"Dead Man Sliding" is a fun episode for me. Like "Double Cross," it merges an action-oriented version of SLIDERS with the Season 1/2 approach and the result is an engaging, visually captivating product. It's fun. The game show murder trial situation is delightfully off the wall. Jerry O'Connell's performance does a great job of distinguishing his double from the normal Quinn. Tom and Cory didn't seem to like Arturo, Wade and Rembrandt angsting about Quinn's situation, but I found the scene heartfelt.

Tom and Cory seemed to have a mixed reaction to Wade dressing up in club girl attire; on one level appreciating it, on another, having trouble connecting it to the mousey Wade of Season 1/2. I thought it worked; after two years, the sliders are used to putting themselves into different roles in order to survive. It's a very sudden jump, of course, but all TV in this era had massive character shifts between seasons to show maturity as episode-to-episode development was impossible.

At times, however, the LA production style causes problems. Perrey Reeves (Taryn the bounty hunter) doesn't convince as a warrior. She's a fine actress, but the costuming puts her in a ridiculous skintight vinyl outfit. The result is that we don't see a character who is a capable hunter of fugitive criminals; it's a Hollywood actress in a revealing outfit.

It also results in a weird visual situation where when Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt, Arturo and all the guest-stars look like stylish models and nobody looks normal, the overall sense of reality is diminished. The Vancouver episodes felt like a physical reality inhabited by all sorts; the LA episodes are creating a reality that's only inhabited by people from magazine covers. Tom and Cory seemed to have fun with this episode, and I did too -- although it would have been better if it had been filmed by the Season 2 team.

I've never seen "Electric Twister Acid Test," but I loved hearing Cory and Tom read message board posts about the fan who adored all the special effects and found them to be the perfect representation of SLIDERS at its best.

I'm not going to listen to the podcast now. I'll listen to it during my commute tomorrow. :-) Thank you, Cory.

As for DAWSON'S CREEK -- I dunno! I watched it when I was 18/19 and I was kind of a Puritanical jerk who totally agreed with the show's characters holding Jen in judgement for the apparently horrific sin of having sex. I wonder if, rewatching it today, I'd see it as the authorial voice or merely the judgments of flawed characters. Also, I enjoyed Seasons 1 - 2 a lot, but found that when Kevin Williamson left after that, he took all the humour, fun and wit out of the series. Season 3 was crass and ugly; Season 4 was bland and I never made it to Seasons 5 - 6. Loved the series finale that Kevin Williamson returned to write, though.

Anyway. Matt and I are in that situation that even the very best of friends will find themselves in -- where we must agree to disagree.

My absence was noted in the "Fire Within"/"Prince of Slides" podcast. I have been working on SLIDERS REBORN. Most of my energy for SLIDERS is going there. Had a pretty intense story conference last night, too. :-)

I am gathering my thoughts on recent podcasts, but rest assured, I think the Rewatch Podcast has been excellent.

Sorry to hear about the tech issues.

Continuing with thoughts on the "GF"/"Y&R" podcast -- I enjoyed Tom and Cory performing the 29.7 exposition scene that was cut from "Summer of Love." They did a fun job of playing the characters and Cory and Tom's impressions of Jerry, Cleavant and John are very funny.

However, this makes me more certain than ever that imitating the actors for a SLIDERS audioplay would be a very bad idea. I'm not saying it's impossible: Robert Floyd can imitate Jerry's voice well and Bob Joles made a career of copying John Rhys-Davies. But at the end of the day, I think a new actor playing these roles would be better off playing *Quinn* rather than imitating Jerry. If Rob found the time to perform dialogue for me, I wouldn't ask him to play Quinn the way Jerry O'Connell played him. I'd ask Robert Floyd to play Quinn the way Robert Floyd would play him. Same thing with Tom and his acting troupe.

David Peckinpah!

Sorry for not commenting on your recent podcasts -- when there was no in-thread post about a new podcast, I missed it!

The "Greatfellas" and "Young and Relentless" podcast was strong in discussion but frustrating for me. I don't know why, but the volume kept dropping randomly throughout the podcast. I'd turn up the volume to hear, only for the voice to be booming. Then I'd turn down the sound only to find the volume dropped so low I couldn't hear what Tom and Cory were saying. This was also present to a lesser extent in the "Double Cross" and "Rules of the Game" podcast.

Anyway. I thought it was hilarious that Tom and Cory were so disappointed by the Cleavant/Clinton doubling in "Greatfellas." I always thought it was very well-handled, but Tom and Cory found it obvious, glaring and easily noticeable when Clinton played Rembrandt-1 or Rembrandt-2. I also enjoyed Tom's fixation on Wade-2 in "Relentless." Neither episode is spectacular for me, but there's a lot of fun cast interaction and strong scenes. Tom and Cory noted that "Relentless" seems to have some serious logic and transition issues throughout: Quinn is inexplicably threatened by the unimposing Kyle, Quinn and Wade go from being captive to in control after a commercial break. Torme says the crew was tired during this time as it was the last episode of Season 2 to be filmed.

I enjoyed the talk, but it was *really* annoying at times when the audio would drop out. I'll talk about the next podcast soon. :-)

Rob, I'm going to have to ask you to make up your own mind on this one. :-) Come on, do you really want ME to be anyone's arbiter of taste?

And now, for another installment of whiny first-world problems.

I thought I'd try to make a go of it with my current hardware before buying a new laptop. Maybe see if I even really need one. My desktop is actually a 2009 laptop plugged into a monitor, keyboard and speakers. I haven't used it much for the last couple years because I was splitting my work between the tablet and mini-laptop (an 11.6 inch laptop, later replaced by the 10.1-incher that I ended up selling off). Today, I found the desktop a bit isolating and wanted to move around the apartment a bit, so I pulled the laptop loose from its makeshift dock and made it my new work machine.

And, well -- it's kind of lousy. I remember the HP DM3 being an aluminium marvel back in 2009 with a delightfully bright screen and eight hours of battery life. I guess LCD technology has improved a lot since 2009, because my crappy little 10.1 laptop had solid black levels and rich colours while this 13.3 HP DM3 laptop has washed out colours and the colour black is represented as a vague gray. The viewing angles on this thing are extremely limited. Netflix looks weird. And all the text on the screen looks so jagged and pixelated and ugly. I guess you don't notice such things until you've had better.

But that's fine! It's a work machine! As long as black text on white backgrounds stays readable, it's not a problem. Except -- my God, this machine is *noisy*. I guess in 2009, fan noise was part of the laptop landscape and when converted to a desktop, the actual laptop was under the desk and the noise was distant. But here I am, trying to write and the grinding, buzzing, noisy fan is a huge distraction. And the heat! The palmrest of this thing feels like a mini-space heater! The base of the laptop, resting on my calves/ankles, is like an electric blanket. And the spinning hard drive is so noisy! The awful T100, for all its faults, was silent; the spinning hard drive in the keyboard dock made no noise and the rest of the T100 had no moving parts and it never got hot.

The battery seems to last about 40 minutes.

I dunno. It's not great, but I am honestly asking myself if I really need better. I mean, the iPad mini screen looks great and I can use that for web browsing. I have a proper HDTV for movies and TV. I only need a laptop for typing long documents; this thing doesn't need to be a mobile multimedia machine. The T100 got on my last nerve after dust started getting under the glass and I sold it off in a fit of pique yesterday. The HP DM3 has yet to aggravate me to that degree. With a tablet and a home theatre PC in the living room, does a work machine need to any more than adequate? Dunno.

The $200 laptop was a final sale product, meaning no exchanges or refunds. While it came with an excellent manufacturer's accidental damage protection plan, I decided not to get it. I recently experienced a tech horror show with my Samsung Tab S 8.4 having a loose screen. I was able to exchange it again and again until deciding it was badly designed and getting a refund to spend on something else instead. I will never buy a computer I can't return within a trial period if it happens to be badly designed and manufactured. I think I'll save up for the Ultrabook and get by on my desktop for now.

I thought I had my T100TA in perfect condition now that Google Chrome is working -- but then dust started getting inside the monitor. That's right. Dust. This 10.1-inch laptop is so badly designed that DUST GETS UNDER THE GLASS. And the warranty has expired.

So, I'm going to sell this laptop off and buy a new one. God damn it. I have to wonder if my mistake has always been to go for low-cost, low-weight laptops, and this T100TA clearly had a lot of corners cut to make its low price point.
I'm prepared to spend more money on an ultrabook, but I find myself wondering if that's necessary. I always picked out laptops with the thought of carrying them around all day. But the truth is that with a smartphone and a tablet, a laptop can stay at home and I've never gotten much work down away from home on a laptop anyway. What work I did get done could have been achieved with a Bluetooth keyboard and Google Docs on the tablet or phone.

It looks like 15.6-inch-screen machines are the way to go now that mobility is less of a concern. Gosh. I wonder if they still have DVD drives in them.

It's unclear who's at fault, although there's plenty of blame to go around. It's hard to tell where things went wrong because even the most detailed accounts at this point are still offering generalities.

With FOX, they apparently cut three major action sequences, cut the budget by tens of millions and did so shortly before filming. After principal shooting was complete, FOX ordered reshoots. During these reshoots, Kate Mara had to wear an absurd wig because she'd cut her hair and she, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan were barely available and Miles Teller only slightly more available, meaning reshoots were done with Miles Teller on a greenscreen and with doubles for the other two. Trank, at this point, was still on set but had no say in anything anymore. One aspect of the reshoots was to remove the idea that Dr. Doom was the online handle for "Victor Domeshev." The reshoots were done with a completely different sensibility from Trank's.

With Trank, the charges are that he went to set drunk and wasted regularly, completely unable to communicate with cast and crew at times. He refused to collaborate with others and put a black barrier around his monitor and set up a tent to keep everyone out. When there were problems, Trank would make himself unavailable. He was reportedly abusive towards Kate Mara and Miles Teller as well as to FOX representatives and producer Simon Kinberg. He also trashed the house that FOX was renting for him and defaced the owner's decorations. It was also reported that Trank gave bizarre direction to the actors, telling them when to blink and breathe. The only defence I've heard of this beyond a denial is that Trank was completely demoralized by FOX cutting his budget and set-pieces.

From FOX's end, they found that Trank's footage was unusable or unacceptable or incomplete -- not clear what the exact issue was. FOX's view was that reshooting the movie was unavoidable because the material Trank had either could not be assembled into a complete film -- or at least not a film they wanted to release, although it's pretty clear that this disowned-by-Trank version is also not a film they wanted to release. Until more information is available, we can only speculate whether the fault lies with FOX, Trank or both.

That said, Disney fired Trank from STAR WARS after hearing of his behaviour on FANTASTIC FOUR.

It's not just the origin of the F4 that are stuck in the 60s. It's the entire concept. Reed creating world-altering technologies all by himself within his own company as a one-man operation with no military oversight, no corporate sources of funding and no government involvement. Risky and perilous scientific expeditions carried out by a genius and three people with no scientific credentials at all, carrying out their work in public in the middle of New York City as celebrities.

It's somewhat believable -- not plausible, but believable -- in the less technologically advanced world of 1961 where even the concept of celebrity existed in a pre-social media era. This concept doesn't work in 2015. The comics get away with it because of the absurdities of a superhero universe. For a film, the entire concept of the FANTASTIC FOUR has to be reworked for a modern era and that changes the tone, the characters, the setting -- everything that makes the F4 a charming creation of 1961 extended into 2015 has to be reconsidered as a property beginning and continuing in 2015.

I really appreciate the kind words.

Part 2 has been delayed again. I finished the script. Mostly. There are a couple places where I put in __________ to add a plot device later and some scenes where I just wrote a brief summary because I was in a coffee shop and there was too much background noise to write dialogue. Unfortunately, I realized that there is a *massive* plot hole in the climax that explains what the hell is going on with Laurel and reality. The explanation raises a question for which I have no answer whatsoever. This problem didn't stand out to me when writing the outline; it is glaringly obvious when the characters are discussing it. I think I have a solution, but I need to go back and redraft scene after scene in the earlier pages. The script is not ready for Nigel to edit yet.

So, I think I am going to push the release back to September to give me time to rewrite the script and send it to Nigel to review it. Argghhhh.

I don't have the details. A part of me wants to see this as FOX's doing -- I mean, this is SLIDERS and X-MEN III and X-MEN ORIGINS WOLVERINE all over again -- studio interference done with no professionalism or concern for quality. Except it has to be said that this is something that happens with all big studio movies and TV shows. It happened on FRINGE with Jeff Pinkner and Joel Wyman; it happened on the X-MEN movies with Matthew Vaughn and Bryan Singer. And it happened on SLIDERS with Tracy Torme and F4 with Josh Trank.

Pinkner and Wyman and Vaughn and Singer and Whedon and Shane Black and others are people who seem to be able to work with the studio and handle all the mandates and restrictions while working hard for a good product. Trank, from these reports, got discouraged and just gave up, staggering onto set drunk because he was so unhappy with FOX and managed to lose not only F4, but the subsequent STAR WARS job he had lined up.

Nearly everyone Josh Trank worked with on F4 seems to be against him, suggesting that he was professionally dysfunctional across the board with every co-worker.

I wish Quinn would bring me a cure for the common cold and a double of Dan Harmon who would write my scripts for me.

*sneezes*

I don't know if skipping ahead on TORCHWOOD would help; I just know that Seasons 1 - 2 were largely panned for exactly the sort of thing you're pointing out, especially presenting a rapist as a heroic and moral figure. Season 2 was a mild improvement, but TORCHWOOD is fundamentally flawed. It claims that the organization is composed of professional elites, but they're all squabbling, immature morons who respond to every bad situation by making it worse. And the show presents these arguing, unfaithful, self-indulgent loons as characters in a 'mature' drama.

I do recall on a defunct message board a horde of posters screeching at me that the writer didn't intend for it to be rape, so I shouldn't refer to it as such. CHILDREN OF EARTH and MIRACLE DAY are well-liked, but that rapist character was turned into a zombie and then killed off after Season 2, if that's any help. Personally, I am steering clear of TORCHWOOD and any show that presents self-indulgent gratification as maturity.