ROSBLOG —shapeshifter's
weblog of Roswell: the television show and the books—stories
of science fiction, romance, and coming of age, based on the 1947 crash of a weather
balloon or a...?
—and other science fiction on tv, in books, movies, etc. Page 12
3 456
In
this calendar, the Andromeda spaceship fittingly emerges from the
Stargate (shown in space in "Exodus" in the 4th season),
as the SciFi channel replaces Stargate SG-1's Friday night spot
with new Andromeda episodes. Note too the Enterprise in the upper
right. The various celestial bodies are from the latest Hubble images,
courtesy NASA et al. The starry background is, um, from someone.
Please let me know.
Click image for desktop size.
These
March 2004 calendars are derived from recent Hubble images. The
bottom
one is supposed to be of objects as they looked shortly (relatively
speaking) after Creation. The top one is star V838
Monocerotis (V838 Mon). Thanks to NASA et al for the pics.
Click image for desktop size.
March
2004 calendar screen capture from "Missing."
Selected because I work in a library...hopefully I still do, that
is. Annual evaluation time is here again.
Click image for desktop size.
"Blind
Date" first aired February 9, 2000 (just before Valentine's
Day.
As usual, click for a larger image. This one is animated by shapeshifter
for your enjoyment. If you put it in a web page, it will animate
when the page is loaded (refresh this one to see it in action).
It is not a continuous animation because those are generally annoying,
except, perhaps, in small avatars.
January
calendar screen captures from "A Tale of Two Parties"
and "Leaving Normal."
Click image for desktop size.
Welcome to the Rosblog of shapeshifter (aka lizmythologistshapeshifter
aka liz aka Nancy aka therealshapeshifter aka shapeshift-her). Anyone
who sends thoughts in an email
will be considered for posting on this blog. Please note: If
I do not add your comments, it might be because I am busy or didn't
get it, so feel free to send a follow-up email.
I am beginning this blog because:
FanForum's pruning policy means that threads must have frequent
postings or else disappear.
The current FF thread is about to reach 250 posts which will
also mean it will disappear.
SciFi's bb threads are difficult to track.
Blu5
and UPN-ll and
Foreverdreaming
are good, but I am a bit of a control freak, er, ah, I mean I
am an archivist. (I really am a degree-holding Librarian.)
Roswell is on an indefinite hiatus at SciFi.com and so postings
are likely to be infrequent, and I wanted to have a place that
was bookmarkable to which Roswell mythologists and members of
the Roswell Bureau of Investigation could return.
Send your own thoughts to shapeshifter
for inclusion in the Rosblog.
Friday, May 14th.
Andromeda may have been redeemed. It opened with the type
of banter that made it a shame that Angel is cancelled right
when the scripts got good. There were a few campy photo op
moments, and surely I'm not the only one who said, "You sure
don't look like a librarian," when the Miss America wannabe
appeared in the Archives. But then, I am a card-carrying librarian,
and a search for my name in any Internet Search engine pulls up
one of two articles in which my paper was cited, the title of the
article being exactly, "You Don't Look Like a Librarian."
If this was a private journal I'd say what else I've been told I
don't look like--but those of you who get it don't need me to say
it. But maybe I just liked the ep because of the Jane Austen reference.
This week's Smallville was high quality, but very much the
set up for the finale, which I should be back from Cali in time
to see.
I'm a bit bummed that I missed seeing any Roswell during
my lunch break because I forgot and put on half of a MacGyver
out of habit. It's indicative of our society that the actor whose
character refused to use guns is now playing a Stargate Command
soldier, who shoots people in most eps, in spite of the fact that
his prototype in the movie lost a son to an accidental gunshot wound.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Last Friday night's episode of Andromeda was an embarrasment.
The plot was disjointed, and some of the special effects were cartoonish.
Too bad, the concept was a good one--the AI's human adaptations
interfere with functionality, but the AI in turn interferes with
human survival. A real waste of a good plot device.
Beginning tomorrow morning at 10 CDT, the second 2 episodes of
the 4-part Roswell: The Hybrid Chronicles air, namely "Disturbing
Behaviour" and "How the Other Half Lives." From 1-4pm,
"Heart of Mine," "Cry Your Name," and "It's
Too Late and It's Too Bad" will air--a trio of episodes on
the irrevocable heartbreaks that occur during the teen years, sometimes
all in the life of an individual.
The "Talisman" episode of Smallville just aired.
It was packed with symbolism--both visually and script-wise. The
dining room scene with the kryptonite-green table runner and a bowl
of green pears alludes to (among other things) the cornicopia of
cultural and religious beliefs represented. The red cape/blanket
ripples behind Clark in a most Superman-like way as he rises again
to save the day--rising again, that is, as a type of Christ as his
father explains in the closing scene, that his son is both a "mild-mannered"
man and a Superman.
John Kent himself is a type of Christ--or perhaps the Father of
the Trinity--when he heals Clark, who is, in this series, still
the boy who does not yet perform miracles in public.
The representations of evil and the dark side seem to lean for
a moment toward the Buddhist, but, being an all-American kind of
story, in the end it is the New Testament image of Judas that is
invoked most strongly.
Similarly, though the Sword in the Stone image is blatantly replicated,
it quickly dissolves (in more ways than one) as we return to a Christian
allegory with the Judas revelation.
The American Indian politics ring true, but this is really a story
of the Western Culture in the sense that the institutions of higher
education in America today define Western. A viewer watching the
news of Iraq will (sadly) see cowboys 'n' Indians tales replayed,
but Smallville does not come very close to portraying the psychological
spirit of indigenous people.
Stargate SG-1's examination of religious theology is more
thought-provoking, but Smallville is center stage right now,
and it is pretty.
Wednesday, April 21
The "Truth" episode of Smallville just aired.
Well done and deep. Plus, I laughed out loud when Pete kissed Chloe.
Sam Jones III is an actor who knows what to do with a script.
A few weeks ago the Pastor of the church where I worship gave a
sermon about how the things that come between an individual and
holiness are generally not bad. For me, that's true, but there are
so many things. So, does a live-action, comic book drama that provokes
one to think about truth come between the viewer and God, or draw
the person closer? Probably both.
Long after sunset on Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004
Tomorrow, starting at 10am CDT, five episodes of Roswell
will air on SciFi. First the 2-part "Meet the Dupes" and
"Max in the City," then the first 2 parts of the 4-part
"Hybrid Chronicles" ("Disturbing Behavior" and
"How the Other Half Lives") and then, for the last episode
this Monday, "Viva Las Vegas." I'm puzzled as to why they
made an effort to show the 2-parter on the same day by running them
out of order, but didn't run the 4-part Hybrid Chronicles in one
day. IMO, the "Chronicles" were the beginning of the end
of Roswell, whereas "Max in the City" and "Viva
Las Vegas" were 2 of the best. Maybe the folks at SciFi share
my taste. After all, I am enamoured with Stargate SG-1.
I was thinking that Roswell was fading away, but I stopped
in at the MediaBlvd.com
board and noticed 2 separate research projects are underway on the
Roswell phenomenom--which is more or less why I created the Archives
in the first place--being a fan, a librarian, a webmaster by avocation,
and having a degree in Sociology and all...
But I just don't know if I'll ever get around to reorganizing and
classifying them the way they should be...
Oh, btw, in case anyone noticed, I took down the message board
for this site because the only folks posting on it were spammers.
But you can still contact
me
if you have comments, and I will quote you here if you so desire.
And since this blog is where I am supposed to alert my *cough*
following to new material on this site, I just linked to Behritall's
Adventures
in Fund Raising rant under Set
Visits & Fan Activities in the Archives. If nothing else, it
is a visceral account of how bitter some of us become in the midst
of what started out to be a charitable endeavor. Yep, been there,
done that, felt that myself.
And one last thing. I put off getting the Roswell Season 1 DVD,
and now the DVD player on my Gateway is dead, 2 weeks after the
one-year so-called warranty expired. If I'd bought the DVD when
it first came out, the DVD drive would have conked out before the
warranty, which can be interpereted as a deliverance from Roswellian
obsession or instant karma in the opposite vein or something. Regardless,
next time I'm gettin' a Dell.
Friday, April 2nd.
On the subject of mercenaries, my cousin's husband is part of the
group whose 4 members were killed and dismembered yesterday in Iraq.
Having said that, I trust no one will be offended when I relate
the following: When I heard a comment on the radio today by a U.S.
official claiming the perpetrators were "gouls," I was sure for
a moment he said "Goa'ulds," and then I thought he must be a Stargate
fan.
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Stargate 1969 was great. So was 2010, another time loop episode.
Monday (almost Tuesday), March 22/23
Tomorrow (Tuesday), the "1969" episode of Stargate
SG1 airs.
Wonderfalls is Ally McBeal in Wonderland. Celeste in the City was poorly directed.
Saturday, March 12, 2004
So I missed the premier of Bill Sadler aka Sheriff Valenti in Wonderfalls,
because I didn't want to watch the first half of the season finale
of Stargate SG1 at 10pm. But it's re-airing next Thursday at 8 CST,
so I plan to catch it unless I get out-voted due to The Apprentice.
But TA will re-air the following Monday & Wednesday at 7, at
which time Smallville will be re-running the "Perry" episode,
which is worth watching if you haven't seen it, but I have.
Today I saw a few minutes of what looked like the old TV series
version of Superman that I remember from my youth, but it was in
color. I wonder how they do that. Please post
the answer if you know.
Tomorrow, Sunday, at 7pm CST, Majandra Delfino aka Maria Deluca
will be starring in Celeste in the City on the Family channel,
which is 16 in this part of Chicagoland. Interesting how, just like
in the Roswell ep Behind the Music, Maria gets the bigger role.
Yes, we old folks are just sliding downhill with our old brittle
bones.
Grrr...My daughter just informed me that her show, Charmed, has
a new ep on at that time. But Celeste in the City will re-air
Monday & Wednesday at 7 CST.
Saturday, the 29th.
Roswell will air Monday on SCIFI, starting 10am CST with Summer
of '47, then EOTW, Harvest, Wipe Out, and A Roswell Christmas Carol.
Yes, this differs from the original sequence in which MTD and MITC
air before ARCC. I don't know if this indicates that someone at
SciFi cared enough not to break up the MTD/MITC 2-parter. or maybe
it's just their policy.
On the SciFi
SG board, someone waxed poetic about the "real purpose" of the plotline
being to demonstrate that US soldiers are heroes because they fight
to save humans from slavery. But the show was spawned from the movie,
in which the SG's purpose was to explore ancient and future worlds.
The fact that they chose to free enslaved people was secondary.
Still, if the
"real purpose" of American soldiers (and SG) is to free enslaved
people, shouldn't we be looking at why human beings in other countries
are toiling in sweatshops so we can have cheap sneakers?
Anyway, the
episode was better than any military commercial I've ever seen as
far as creating feelings of patriotism go. But I still think that
soldiers (and others) who die saving individuals are heroes apart
from the agenda which brought them into harm's way.
WGN News in Chicago just (7:35am-ish) reviewed the Roswell DVD.
They showed a clip from Destiny. Does
anyone know if they will rerun the review and when?
Almost Tuesday, Feb. 17, DVD Day.
I read on the SciFi Board that there's a CostCo selling it for
$36. That's the lowest I've seen outside of Amazon,
which is listing it now for $41.99 and free shipping.
Lately I've been watching Stargate SG1. I think Reggie recommended
it way back during a lengthy Roswell hiatus.
RTFC
ep 22 spoiler is up, but the full ep isn't supposed to post
now until the 19th. Too bad, I thought it would have been kind of
cool if it had posted on the release date of the DVD.
Tonight I saw--for the first time--an episode
of Stargate SG-1 entitled "Window of Opportunity."
I actually laughed out loud a couple of times, and I rarely laugh
at anything on the screen. But this was something to which I could
relate--time looping--something which has facinated
me for at least 37 years.
Loved the socks on RDA.
And yes, there are people getting hurt and
born and dying while I'm watching tv, but at least this show dealt
with all of those issues.
February 4, 2004
Grrrr...missed all of Roswell today for a job with incredibly stupid
people.
Summer of '47 and End of the World air March 1.
Feb 3.
Roswell airs on SciFi tomorrow morning - afternoon.
"SCI FI Channel has officially confirmed to SCI FI Wire that
the network picked up the options for the cast of its original miniseries
Battlestar Galactica before they expired on Jan. 31. But the pickup
did not signal any official decision about the fate of a possible
Galactica series, despite rumors on the Internet to the contrary.
"SCI
FI said that no decision has come from the network on whether a
series will be given the green light.
"The
Battlestar Galactica miniseries, which premiered in December, was
one of the channel's highest-rated programs. Galactica, based on
the original 1970s TV show, starred Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell,
Jamie Bamber, Katee Sackhoff, Tricia Helfer and James Callis."
Feb 2, 2004, Monday night, Ground Hog Day, day before "Super
Tuesday" in Roswell.
Roswell's airing this Wednesday (Feb. 4th) and then March 4th.
Hmmm...I think I see a pattern emerging. Perhaps the planets are
aligning? Check here
for specific episodes and times.
The ddd has a terrific,
18MB Roswell gag reel to download. Thanks to MandL for posting info
on downloads.
Saturday, January 31st.
Just formatted & uploaded:
A list of all 3 seasons' producers,
directors, and writers,
Compiled by jero. Thank you!!
Clark
and Lana both inexplicably try to kill Chloe after receiving mysterious
e-mail from the Sommerholt Institute...
Shades of holy interconnectedness,
Batman (and Dirk Gently)! How weird is it that the show is aired
just as the latest email worm hits computers in the audience population.
Molly, do you read me?
Please stop already!
I am not using my computer for anything politically or economically
significant! Hmmm...unless...that's the point.
But, wow, they must be very
Molly-esque over at the Smallville set. Recall when the opening
scene of the "Perry" episode (aired 10/29/03) talked about
solar flares and debuted at the very moment such flares were impacting
the earth? We went from images on the news to images in the opening
of Smallville without so much as a pixel change.
The show is way too violent
for my taste--but then so are comics--but that's why they're comics,
not live action, right?
Still, awesome opening: light, color, choreography,
cinematography. And yes. Lois Lane. But of course. And equally awesome
ending. Lex as Lex with Lex Lighting. And between these two
bookends, how many references to libraries? Are any of my fellow
MLS's counting?
FV Okay, when
was the decision made to make Tess Alex’s Killer?
RM Um...
FV And why Tess?
RM Well it was “why Tess” because we were starting to work towards
the idea of Tess leaving the show, and you know... that Max would
have to make a decision, and to sort of underline ultimately that
she was evil in... and I think, I’m trying to remember now, I think
that we came up with that, that part of the plan after we had done
the episode. And it was one of things, it was just sort of a breakthrough
thing that came from the writers as we got further into the plot
and we were starting to talk about, you know, things we would never
forgive Tess for, and killing Alex was really one of them.
FV And in season 1 and the beginning of season 2 she was becoming
more in tune with her human side after Nasedo was killed, then she
came out of nowhere as the deceitful alien. Why?
RM Well the idea was more like, we wanted her to... And she wasn’t
so much in tune with her human side, she was just getting better
at it. She just sort of got better at blending in. She was always
after Max, that was sort of a constant, her thing was to get Max
and to have a baby by Max, and that was always the motivation, so
she just got better at being appealing really, rather than suddenly
having a change of heart. At least that’s how we saw it as the writers.
And I should correct something I said earlier: Now that I remember,
we did decide that Tess had killed Alex before we did that episode.
That’s one of the things that made that episode work...
FV ...right...
BTW, Battlestar Galatica is on the financial bubble at this moment.
Will it burst or float away?
One minute to Friday, Jan. 23, 2004
Okay, at left I give you a February calendar. Now I am going to
read a chapter of the late Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic
Detective Agency and fall asleep. I think D. Adams would like
to be referred to as "late" by those who appreciate the
significance of it.
Friday, Jan. 16, 2004
FanForum poster loua has had a 21-page
article published in the scholarly journal, European Journal
of Cultural Studies, vol. 5, no. 1 (2002), pp. 471–491. It is
titled: "Off topic: Oh my God, US terrorism!’ Roswell fans
respond to 11 September." Here's a tidbit:
Some forums
do not allow [Off Topic] posts at all. However, on and after 11
September, it became clear that the truly off topic posts were those
that referred only to Roswell as if the terrorist attacks had not
happened, for example those messages that attempted to determine
if Roswell’s Kyle had indeed slept with alien teen Tess. In some
instances, participants expressed that they perceived these posts
to be inappropriate, but in most cases such posts were simply ignored.
(Stein 474)
I remember starting the Sept.
11 thread on Fanforum and having it closed by the mods for being
Off Topic. But shortly afterward, plumeria reopened it. (Part 2
of that thread is archived here.)
Sunday, Jan. 11, 2004
A new episode of Smallville airs Wednesday, Jan. 14, 7pm CST,
titled, "Asylum."
I only have dial-up, but MandL on the SciFi
BB has been finding some great Roswell videos of cut scenes and
such on kazaa lite. Titles to look for (and share!) include:
* Roswell
- Rumours (S1 Promo)
* Roswell - Still me Trailer for season 1
* roswell-rehearsal-eotw-cutscene
and
* Roswell cast behind the scenes and having fun
MandL says about this last
one, "It also has just few seconds of the cut scenes from 'Sexual
Healing'. Like Liz's extended fantasy where Max hands liz the towel
in the shower. Though, it is a music video so you can't hear anything."
It seems everything on the Roswell boards revolves around Tess
these days. It amazes me how so many still want to find a way for
her to be innocent. And that is possible. But it's not in the scripts
or tv tie-in books released to date. Ah...it feels so good to type
my opinion here and not worry about about anyone getting all uptight
and misunderstanding. Or, if they do, it seems no one ever posts
and opinion. hint, hint
