Ongoing X-Files Thread of Doom...

Again, not actually X-Files, but I don't want to open another Thread of Doom and don't feel like pestering the Admins to change this to "The Ongoing Stuff I Watch While Eating Dinner Thread of Doom." "Fast N' Loud."

I loved "Sell This House." Entertaining show with engaging hosts that had information that was actually relevant to my career. Then the station it was on changed formats. The BBC got greedy with its licensing so Retro only has maybe half the classic "Dr. Who" stories so it's bad enough that I've already seen them all several times since they got the show, but very frustrating when half the stories--and invariably the really good ones--are missing. Quest started out as kind of Discovery Channel but somehow wound up being mostly Bering Sea Pawn Shop Hookers and Story can go down Space Alien Bigfoot Conspiracy rabbit holes sometimes. They also jerk their standard programming around fairly often. Tuesday nights are "American Restoration." half hour shows about a Las Vegas guy who restores just about any cool old stuff. But not always. Anyway, I've also made it through the entire series and the rewatchability isn't that high. It's cool to see them restore a "pennyfarthing" bicycle but once you've seen it you don't really need to watch it again. So I've wound up watching "Fast N' Loud." One minor gripe is that it's an hour show but they've got it programmed in a 2 hour bloc and every build almost always takes 2 episodes, so I sit at the TV longer than I want.

"Fast N' Loud" is a Discovery Channel reality show about a Texas hotrod shop and it is largely entertaining if somewhat formulaic. And at least a little educational if you like fixing up cars. Personally I don't agree with their strategy--lower it so it drags on the pavement and drop in a ridiculously large engine--especially when they'll take a really nice, well maintained, all original car and chuck basically everything but the sheet metal. But it obviously makes them piles of money, so who am I to second-guess.

I mention this because they wrapped the series up last night so I was eager to watch tonight and see what the first season was like (I think it was on for, like, 9 seasons). And it's wild. Everyone's so much younger and the operation is so much smaller. It's like an ordinary garage. If a build gets behind they have to go out and find some cars to flip quick to be able to cover the bills. By the end the place is huge and fancy and there are logos everywhere and a restaurant and concert venue. Monster truck, dragster, merch shop, you name it. But the first season I think some of the logos are done with iron-on transfers and the shop could be your neighbor's place down the block. It's kind of neat, seeing how far they came. One of my gripes about reality shows--even going back to "This Old House" on PBS--is the need to constantly get bigger and top yourself. I remember an early "This Old House" where Bob and Norm were showing how to install fiberglass insulation in garage walls. These days it's off to some shop that will laser cut a custom marble staircase for them or something. Well, should get going.

So the syndication package for "Fast N' Loud" is more fucked up than Retro's current "Dr. Who" deal. They really didn't have any of Season 1 and it looks like we get maybe 2-4 episodes of the early seasons. They show two episodes a night and they're already to the end of Season 4 when they rebooted the cycle 2 days ago.

God's Plan is Fucking with my OCD tendencies again this weekend. Stormy weather. Bad reception.

First, Saturday. Forget what was on Story. Oh, Bible reenactments. Not terrible, I guess, but really not my thing. So I jump to "Black Sheep Squadron." And it's the pilot (no pun intended) episode. I've seen part of it recently but only the ending. It actually looks fairly entertaining. Still hokey 1970s television but kind of entertaining. But of course then the reception goes to shit. Nothing else on. X-Files is an OK episode I've seen recently, but not tremendously rewatchable. So I write it all off and fuck off online.

Tonight Story is showing some kind of series about the '90s. And...OK. As a fairly conservative/libertarian type, I've given up on mainstream media at this point, but back in the early 2000s it was interesting because things weren't so polarized and content providers were much more subtle about their bias. After about 45 minutes I'm picking up a definite liberal bias. It's very well done. Like, back before everyone drank the Kool-Aid. They portray it as balanced. They have conservative talking heads for the segments. But everything is always slanted just a bit to the left. And the liberal pundits always get the best positioning and soundbytes. Not the biggest issue when they were talking about the rise and fall of Netscape, but the next hour was on Newt Gingrich and the House post 1994 midterm elections and 10 minutes in I'd had enough. So I start surfing.

Nova on one PBS channel and something interesting on another PBS channel too, but I do kind of like commercial breaks so I keep looking. Oh! Comet first for "X-Files." Nope. "Sharknado" again. "A-Team" on H&I. But it's a terrible Season 4 episode. Eventually I settle on "Pawn Stars" on Defy. But I'm fucked by a bad signal again. By this point Nova is over and the next show is 2 hours (with no commercials because PBS) and the other PBS thing is about Mary Queen of Scots. "Pawn Stars" is very interesting because 1) it's only a half hour and 2) it's one with a crossover to "American Restoration," where Rick Dale is fixing up a 57 Chevy for The Old Man's birthday and it's bumping against the deadline. But with the reception it's fucking unwatchable. So back to Mary, Queen of Scots. But after 15-20 minutes (and again, no commercials) it's just not that interesting. So here I sit, drinking and fucking off online.

Maybe God wanted me to tackle the 3 months of property management statements I need to slog through but fuck that. I've already worked far more than I wanted to on a Sunday. I don't feel like trying to figure out what some bookkeeper was doing in December--especially since that will likely lead me to needing to make phone calls tomorrow--but my time is no longer my own because I agreed to contract for my friend.

Comet finally ditched "Sharknado" for "Terminator 2: Judgement Day." Came in for the 2nd half and almost watched it but there was a thing on dinosaur archaeology on Story that didn't suck. After that was some Soviet human-gorilla hybrid mystery garbage so I popped back to Comet for "X Files" and they were playing T2 a second time. I really don't have 2 hours to blow tonight (and as I see that it's been 2 hours and we haven't even attacked the Cyberdyne Lab, I realize it's 3 hours) but I haven't seen it in forever.

It really does hold up. It's a bit like watching Shakespeare or something, where at first the late 80s/early 90s aesthetic is a bit jarring, but once you acclimate, you don't notice it. And the movie is top notch. Really convincing practical effects, some of the earliest convincing (mostly) CGI effects. Neat.

Oh, a few more thoughts on T2: First off, the future the time travelers come from is 2029. WW3 happens in 1997. More interestingly, the movie isn't set in the present, it's set in the near future. "Terminator" happens in 1984, ending with a pregnant Sarah Connor. When theT1000 checks the police computer, John Connor is 10. Which puts the events in the movie around 1995 or so, but the movie came out in 1991.

The magician episode last night. Later episode but still has Mulder. Somewhat lighthearted and comedic. Atrocious 90s television budget CGI and plot holes you can drive a truck through. So basically a level of entertainment you'd expect from "The X-files."

Hack magician is doing shows for cash at a local amusement park. To silence a heckler he turns his head around 360 degrees. A few minutes later, when his park handler comes back to the magician's van to give him his cash he finds him apparently asleep--only to have his head come tumbling off. Roll opening credits. Spoilers follow--if it is possible to spoil a 26 year old TV episode.

Mulder drags Scully in because he thinks it's an X-file while Scully leans toward it being a murder. They track down the heckler, who turns out to also be a magician. Next they learn that the magician was fleeing bad gambling debts from a pretty shady character. Upon autopsy, Scully finds the headless magician had died of a heart attack perhaps a month earlier and that his head was carefully sawed off and then glued back in place with spirit gum. Also that the magician has an identical twin brother who works at a bank. They visit him and find his neck in a brace. Turns out he was also a magician and had done an act with his brother before they had a falling out. Mulder suspects the banker brother is actually the dead magician, who has done a switch to escape his gambling debts. Catch being that the banker turns out to be in a wheelchair after losing both legs in the accident that caused the neck brace.

Some other twists and turns happen but long story short, the 2 magicians are in cahoots because the heckler magician has an axe to grind with the shady character the other magician owed money to so they get themselves both arrested so they can have the alibi that they were in jail the night they robbed the bank and then hid where it would easily be found with the shady character. Mulder and Scully have figured this out but don't have any evidence so they let them go only--PLOT TWIST--Mulder also realized they'd stolen his identity so that they could clean out the bank with an electronic fund transfer. Earlier we learned that if you have an FBI badge number and the thumbprint of an FBI agent you can access a bank terminal to transfer funds (don't ask, it's the X-Files) and with magic tricks done by the magicians earlier in the episode, they've gained Mulder's badge number and have his thumbprint on a playing card. How do you use a thumbprint on a playing card to trigger a thumbprint scanner? Don't ask, it's the X-Files. Luckily Mulder figured this all out and foiled the future crime--but apparently is still willing to let the 2 magicians get away, bury the dead banker brother under then name of the dead magician, and let someone go to jail for a bank robbery they didn't commit. Oh, and how did the magician spin his head around 360 degrees in front of a live audience while being videotaped? Don't ask, it's the X-Files. (But if you must ask, bad CGI.)

So yeah, all told, a fun way to kill an hour but it isn't fucking "Citizen Kane."

Oh, forgot to mention, I think they used actual magicians to play the magicians. Some of the tricks were CGI and camera trickery but they also took plenty of time to do some actual close magic with coins and cups and balls and such. It was fun and entertaining and the magicians did a serviceable job acting the characters.

Well, I was going to rant about non-X-Files things but this thread has become even more misnamed. Popping onto my local channel to see if it's "X-Files" or a movie. Or a T-1000 X-Files. It's none. It's "Comet has not renewed their contract with us. Stay tuned for future programming." So no more X-Files in the foreseeable future.

Dr. Who is pretty much dead on Retro too. Bad enough that they gutted the episode rotation, but now it's only on Saturday from 4-6.

Then there's... A lot of this is because DABL changed from a DiY channel to UPN 1990s black reruns. I miss my "Sell This House". Anyway, I increasingly embraced "Fast n' Loud" on Defy. Buildin' hot rods. I think there's fucking 10 seasons of episodes. So why do they only show the same half dozen episodes over and over and over and over? There was a "Fast n' Loud" marathon where they showed the Kyle Bush Pantera racecar episode. I didn't stick around long enough to see if they did the Hot Wheels Corvette, the Brady Bunch station wagon, the Bullitt Mustang and the other few episodes they seem to rerun over and over and over and over.

THEN there's Story. History reruns. Generally pretty good. But they had this bit where they did documentaries with historical reenactments interspersed and... Overall they're pretty good. But the casting and costuming is abysmal. Like, local community theater bad. They show the actor. Then they show a few portraits of the person they're playing. And they look nothing like him. It's like they saw the janitor and said "Hey! We need a General Burgoyne. You're a middle aged white man and you look about the right size for the costumes we've rented. Slap on this Spirit Halloween grandma wig and we'll start shooting."

Had a thing on about Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. And I guess at least they get credit for not making Hamilton Mexican. But I digress. The point is, they had Richard Dreyfuss host it. And--for whatever reason--he randomly switches between a sportcoat and a tie to a polo shirt throughout the show. Eventually he winds up in a sportcoat with a polo shirt. It is bewildering. Fuck, History. Would it kill you to find actors that actually look like the person they're playing? Barring that, at least doing hair and makeup to make them look like their portraits. I'm stuck going "OK. Kevin Nealon is Aaron Burr and Roger Daltry is Alexander Hamilton." And you could, maybe, make Roger Daltry and Kevin Nealon look like Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, but it woud probably involve makeup and restyling their hair instead of just going "here, throw on this frock coat and let's start shooting."

History casting and costuming weird Richard Dreyfuss

"Maltese Falcon" on Movies! tonight. You watch a movie when you're too young and you don't appreciate it. "Casablanca" is still my favorite Bogey movie, but this one moves up quite a bit after 30 years of living. More later if it comes to me.

I will say that it is possible that someone could do a decent remake of "The Maltese Falcon." It would be challenging, because it's such a well done movie, but possible. You can't remake "Casablanca." Bogey, Bergman, Sam. The fact that so many of the actors were actually refugees from the Nazis. It's lightning in a bottle.

Oh! I remembered the other thing(s). Costuming. Sets. Samuel T. Cogley as Wilmar the gunsel. Hats. Fedoras and blocking. I do Dr. Who--referring to Tom Baker, #4 in this case--and Indiana Jones. Both wear basically a brown fedora called a "poet", but it is blocked radically different. The Doctor's brown "Poet" fedora is blocked in what some call a "Tom Mix bash." Shape isn't that important but it is lower in the front than the back with a deep split down the middle. The Indy blocking is more involved. And I should mention this really only pertains to "Raiders..." Later films with different costumers, they just stuck a hat on Ford and called it good, but there's very specific blocking to the "Raiders..." fedora. It very much has a "stovepipe" block, where the felt crown does not narrow down as it nears the top. Actually it almost widens. Took a metal form, a lot of water and a fair amount of stretching to get my Indy hat about right. The Indy fedora is also markedly taller at the front than the back (the Tom Mix/Tom Baker hat is just the opposite). The final notable thing about the Indy hat is...how to explain it? The traditional fedora has a kind of bowl/caldera at the top. The Indy fedora is more...vagina shaped. It's got a slit that goes from top to back.

This last trait is not present in "The Maltese Falcon," but other than that, the hats track closely to Indy blocking. They have a crown that is higher in the front than in the back. The film is set around...1943? Trying to do the math as the story unfolds. I think the movie was made before "Casablana" so it seems like it should be earlier. "Raiders..." is 1936. Indy is from California. So it is a testament to "Raiders..." costumer Debra Nadoolman's attention to detail that Indy's iconic fedora has a '30s & '40s California look to it.