Firefly Returns (sorta)

Reading the title of this post might have given you the (false) hope that the cult-classic TV show Firefly was finally getting more than 14 episodes…but, alas, you would be mistaken.

(Yes, I let you believe it for a sec. Bad Marz. But, rather than just being mad at me, reflect! Reflect on why you felt that angry at my raising and dashing of your hopes and remember that it is because Firefly is awesome. It’s awesome and you love it and even that brief moment of hope was totally worth it because it reignited and reminded you of your love of this series.)

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, SHAME on you. Firefly is easily the one TV show that every single geek has to see.

Here’s your chance to watch it on TV, conceivably in the right order…already better than when it first aired. The Science Channel (of all things) is going to be airing all 14 episodes of the Firefly TV series on Sunday nights.

For me and other lovers of all things space cowboy, our favourite cancelled-before-its-time TV show is baaaack.

The Science Channel’s making it more science-y (and thus relevant to the channel’s title) by explaining the theoretical concepts behind the fiction. Apparently, terraforming might not be that far away.

The two hour pilot, Serenity, plays today at 8:00pm ET. Episode 1, The Train Job, will play at 10:00pm.  Every Sunday from now on, they’ll replay the episode from the week before at 9:00pm and play the next/new episode at 10:00pm. Watch it! That’s an order you should be happy to follow.

Batman III Villain Thesis (III of IV)

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Potentials for the next movie: Some Options

Penguin: just a mob boss with a quirky sense of dress and a pointy nose and funny name (Oswold Cobblepot? Really?What kind of parents do that to their kid and don’t expect him to grow up damaged?).

Although he’s one of the most recognizable/famous Batman villains, using him in the 3^rd movie wouldn’t really add anything to the story that we haven’t seen before (via Carmine Falcone and the misc. mob bosses in TDK).

Catwoman: She’d give Batman a chance to expand his crime-fighting duties beyond just street crimes and into more investigative things, like burglary. Could help him get back into the Gotham PD’s good graces by working with them to recover things she’s stolen, but it might be too quick a reconciliation after the end of TDK.

While she is a great Batman villain (definitely one of the most recognizable names), I don’t think she should be in the next movie mainly because she’s an actual romantic interest. Of all his relationships, I’ve always felt like the ones that were closest to working out were Selina Kyle and Talia al Ghul. Since Talia doesn’t seem to exist in the Nolanverse (or wouldn’t be able to without a little evasive manoeuvring around the backstory Ra’s gave us in BB), Selina becomes the one love interest that should be fully delved into.

The sexual tension between Batman and Catwoman is what makes her an interesting villain, and without that done properly, I don’t think she’s worth it as a villain for the 3^rd movie. Because Rachel only just died in TDK, it’d be too soon for him to jump straight into a real relationship.

Firefly: minor arsonist with a quirk. He could easily be a throwaway started villain or super-tiny side plot, just for filler. His psychological issues make him interesting enough to be included.

Arson’s a crime we haven’t really seen before, and could be an opportunity for Batman to develop/display investigative skills as well.

Mad Hatter: uses mind control chips in people’s hats. It could be interesting to bring in a paedophilic Alice-obsessed aspect to him in order to make him darker and creepier. Plus, he could bring in a technological/sci-fi aspect with the mind control chips.

But, it’s messing with minds again, and I think we got enough of that with Scarecrow in BB. The danger is that his Lewis Carroll obsession might come off as ‘crazy just for the heck of it’ if not done properly; it might be difficult to justify a Joker-level of crazy and pull it off again with a seemingly random literary theme.

Sh*t I’m Excited For This Week… 10/10/10

Wow. I didn’t even realize the date was 10/10/10 when I wrote that. May this day go down in thegspot’s blogging history!

What is truly special about this date in particular, though, is that we, Megawoman and I, are actually going out. That’s right, outside into the sunlight and where the trees breathe. As you can tell, I run two blogs and work a full-time job so… when I do get to go out I get pretty excited. As does Megawoman. I don’t mean to exclude Mighty!Marz from this but I honestly have not met her yet since starting this blog, though she is a great friend of Megawoman’s. I love all her entries, so I guess I could say that she’d be the third cousin I didn’t know was so awesome/have never met in my life.

So, Megawoman and I are going out on a Sunday night, in Hollywood–scandalous, I know.

We’re going to the Halo:Reach The Show performance at the UCB (Upright Citizen’s Brigade) Theatre. Yes, that Halo. You should probably know by now that anytime “halo” is mentioned on this blog, it only refers to one thing and it’s not that Beyonce song.

Nathan Fillion of Castle … ok, Firefly fame (more notably Firefly for us ladies writing this blog) is starring, and Rileah, Michele and Milynn of Team Unicorn are supposedly part of this show.

Nathan Fillion in Firefly, image via thewb.com

Now, Megawoman and I might have a ton of things in common, but we also have many things we stand on complete opposite sides of the coin about. These things include:

1. Boys. I like ’em Asian, she rolls her eyes when we hit up Koreatown.
2. Clothing. I work in the fashion industry, she wears the same thing every time we hang out.
3. Team Unicorn. She blogged about them, I don’t have that much respect for them because they pronounced “manga’ incorrectly. (Yeah, yeah, yeah I’m one of THOSE snobs…) At least they did not cosplay fail–you know exactly what I mean by THAT.

I am honestly lukewarm about Nathan Fillion and could care less about Team Unicorn, but I do like Halo.

Tickets are still on sale for $5 (you must reserve), so if you’re in the area on Sunday night, or you are a rabid Nathan Fillion fangirl or Team Unicorn fangirl/fanboy, this might be worth checking out.

More info at UCB’s official site, here.

Mighty!Marz’s Top Five Fictional Character LadyCrushes

In no particular order:

Zoë Washburne (Firefly): Of all Joss Whedon’s supposedly strong female characters, Zoë’s the only one I actually like. Strong and practically Amazonian, she still manages to stay feminine while being totally bad-ass. So many similar characters give up their girliness in order to be taken seriously; Zoe doesn’t ask for her position, she doesn’t try to prove herself worthy of it…she just is and there is no room to challenge that. She’s happily married (Serenity never happened; I’m in denial; shush) to a charming man who makes her laugh and loves her just as madly as she loves him. Oh, and she’s got mad gun skillz, great hair, and makes leather vests look even cooler than they already do.

Mary Poppins (Mary Poppins): In case the rest of this list didn’t display it, I really admire competence… and there is no one more ‘practically perfect’ than Mary. She’s good with difficult kids and can easily handle cantankerous adults. She can sing and dance and fly (with the aid of an umbrella or smoke and clouds or just for tea). She is magical and mysterious and can even talk to animals (both real and animated and artificial/attached to said umbrella’s handle). And she’s gorgeous and British and exists in book, movie and musical form because her awesomeness cannot be contained in just one medium.

Ororo Munroe/Storm (X-Men): Her back story is more like a fairy tale than a comic book heroine’s. She’s descended from a long line of African witch-princesses (yeah, you read that correctly: witch-princesses). She’s orphaned in Cairo and becomes a master-thief, is briefly worshipped as a goddess and then recruited to the X-men.  In the 80’s, she temporarily sported a mowhawk and wore all leather…and actually managed to pull it off. I’ve always been impressed by her personality: serene, subtly bad-ass, elegant, and always impressive. Her ability to control the weather makes her one of the most powerful mutants, and I love the way she also uses it in unexpected ways (Ex: breathe underwater through electrolysis, see the universe in terms of energy patterns, flash freeze people, fly, sense the world’s weather patterns, etc). She speaks three languages fluently, once picked a lock with her teeth while having the mental state of an infant, and carries an ancestral ruby that allows for interdimensional transportation when combined with her lightning.

Olivia Joules (Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination): She’s the only chick-lit heroine I’ve ever been able to relate to; I guess it’s just because we’re already alike and I want to be more like her. Instinctively, both of us tend towards ridiculous explanations for everyday things, and then have to talk ourselves back to more rational/less imaginative possibilities. She’s a British reporter (yay, accent!) who then becomes a spy for MI-6; she speaks several languages and has natural spy skills rather than acquiring them through years of special training. She’s also got this homemade emergency kit that she carries around with her but hasn’t had a chance to use much, which I totally admire (Nooo, of course I don’t have a similar ‘In Case of Apocalypse’ bag in my car. That would be silly…I haven’t finished packing it yet.) When the book becomes a movie, I want her to be played by Rachel McAdams.

Diana Palmer-Walker (The Phantom): Although she’s just the wife of a superhero, she’s not just a traditional damsel in distress. For one, they knew each other as kids, before he was officially working as the Phantom, and fell in love with him for him rather than his secret identity. And, yes, as the love interest, she has been kidnapped, like, a billion times (most of which were by cheesy villains who wanted to marry her) but she’s not wimpy while waiting for rescue. She’s got black belts in various martial arts, amazing blue-black hair, an Olympic medal in diving, speaks multiple languages, fences semi-professionally, had twins in skull cave in the jungle without pain-reducing drugs, was a nurse and is now the Deputy Director of the UN.

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Runner-ups: Alanna of Trebond (Song of the Lioness Quartet), Juniper Lee (The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), Polgara the Sorceress (The Belgariad), Lt. Colonel Sarah Mackenzie (JAG), Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies)