Doctor Who and the 80's Revivals

Then and Now:
Doctor Who
Then: Rubber monsters, spaceships on wires, techno babble. B-
Now: Impressive CGI effects, a budget, real drama. A
Battlestar Galactica
Then: Soap Opera acting, cheesy melodrama, daggits and children. C
Now: Gritty realism, bleak dystopia, characters and great camera moves. B+
Star Wars
Then: Han Solo, light sabers, Darth Vader. A+
Now: Jar Jar Binks, way too much CGI, Darth Maul. C+
Not to mention: The Poseidon Adventure,The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Movie, Superman, Batman Begins....

Can you spot the Trend? Can we expect "Buck Rogers" soon? (Oooh yes please with Princess Ardala and the outfits she was almost wearing...).

Funny that any of these should have had me leaping on the couch like my 10 year old self did when most of them first came out. It may be age, general cynicism or just the new "grittier" take doesn't appeal to me, but I've now learned not to set my hopes too high.

Doctor Who is pretty awesome though....

Things that scared the crap out of me circa 1975

Kolchak: the Night Stalker
I've been watching the DVD of"Kolchak: The Night Stalker". 1974-1975, Darren McGavin (aka the Dad from "A Christmas Story") investigates supernatural phenomenon in Chicago. Lasted one season, but left an impression on me (apparently on Chris Carter as well, who said "The X-Files" was partly inspired by it). Not because it was scary - the monsters were about as scary as any space alien Captain Kirk or Doctor Who faced: cheesy guy in a rubber suit quality - it just had a good, scary story around the campfire quality to it. Especially the few episodes where the monster wasn't seen, or you only saw a vague glimpse of it.
There were a few sources of scary stuff in the 70's for a kid in suburbia. Here's a few that top the list:
The Exorcist - never actually got to see it, but the schoolyard stories about it were far more gruesome and horrifying than the movie turned out to be.
Rod Serling's Night Gallery - I still hate earwigs...
Karen Black in that movie where the demon doll keeps coming after her. Whoa geez, I can still see the teeth.
The "Movie of the Week" where the little evil gnomes live in the crawlspace. Kept me out of there.
And "Scrooge - the Musical". OK, sure - it was a musical version of "A Christmas Carol". But when the Ghost of Christmas Future pulls back his hood and there's a grinning skull underneath... that's when I started sleeping with the covers over my head. I was seriously scared by it. I think horror is most effective when it really comes out of left field.
Weird that I could sit through a good British Hammer Horror, Frankenstein or Werewolf movie, or even The Blob with people getting digested by a slime mold, and the thing that kept me up at night for weeks was from a musical.

"Sound of Music" messed me up pretty good too....

Sam and Max - Freelance Police

I'm not a gamer. This is not about video games. But this is good.
Sam and Max: Freelance Police has risen again.
Once upon a time there was a very funny comic that was turned into a "point and click adventure game". It was funny, fun to play and didn't hurt my brain. The company that made the game made other similar games like "Monkey Island" and "Full Throttle". I liked these games too. A couple of years ago, they said "we're making a sequel to Sam and Max". All was good. Then the Bozos took over. "This game is not what the consumer wants - they want more 'Star Wars' shoot-em up themed games, so we're canning all adventure games - piss off wankers" (OK I added that last bit).

This was not good. Apparently the game was all of 90% complete when they dropped the ball.

I'm not impressed with todays computer games. Oh sure, they look great, but the basic premise (and ask a gamer this) has not changed in ten years. the big sellers are "First Person Shooters" where you're a gun that shoots stuff. Ok, there's "real time physics" where if you shoot a chair, it falls apart like a chair would... and there's AI where if you shoot at someone they shoot back and might hit you... and there's multiplayer capability which means you and a bunch of other guys can shoot each other.... whee....


Anyway, Telltale Games has picked up the rights to the Sam and Max gaming world.

All is good again.