Hercule Poirot, Mystery By Night

Starting in 1920 the world began it's journey beside a curious and discerning little Belgian newcomer to British society. Mr, Hercule Poirot.

A creation of the great Agatha Christie, he can be seen as an amalgam of many living and fictional detectives of the day. But the unique combination of traits made the character beloved to this day. For Christie though the character became an annoyance, "a creep", but she had an audience for him so she had new stories published of his into the 1970's.

The small man in his impeccable clothing, the fastidiously managed mustache, curious walk, and broken English was idea to be contended with. He might seem a humorous figure, but in truth he was an experienced and knowledgeable investigator.

Once he was a respected Belgian police officer who rarely failed to bring his targets to the law. Respected and happy living in his homeland, his time there came to an end with the invasion by Germany at the start of World War I. Injured in the fighting he was taken to England as a refugee.

There he took time to convalesce and find his feet in this new land. Grateful for the security of England he decided to apply his skills anew, now as a private detective.

As a detective he was highly successful, often being called into cases of the highest echelons of British society to sort of thefts, murders, and disappearances. The work helped make him wealthy enough to eventually retire and only take cases of personal interest.

Dready. Set. Halloween!

October has sprung and it's time to start up or prepare a marathon of spooks, scares, macabrey, terror, candy, masks, rotten eggs...Sorry, I feel my mind is wandering onto other To Do lists.

And I was pleased this year that even in August I was seeing the Halloween treats coming out in some places. Christmas likes to make it's presence known so early, so Halloween needs it's space in our lives to. Oh, if only Halloween could move to grab Thanksgiving and push Christmas back.

But maybe I'm being silly.

Subspace Review: The Orville Episode 1 - "Old Wounds"

The Orville is going into it's furth week on air and I finally have a chance to sit down and consider just what we are getting.

Also of note, this week continues the shows move from Sunday to Thursdays. And I can't hate the change as that last week my DVRing of the show left we with only the first 10 minutes of the show. (Luckily it is available via streaming with some cable services and it is on Hulu and iTunes. So check it out if you haven't yet.

This opening episode, as with all pilots, is given the duty to establish the premise of the series, introduce the characters, and then start events moving. It is a simple story, but there's a reason since The Next Generation all Trek pilots are 2 hours longs. This first episode chose to work with just one hour. So it gets us into space, meeting an alien threat, and using some tech tech and quick thinking to save the day. It's a quick run jaunt. I'm sorry so people felt jilted by the episode, apparently.

It's the age we live in. We all eagerly await the Chance. We all eagerly await to chance to be hyped and find that next Binge Series or Put Bacon In It Trend. The chance to be affronted, to be offended, to be insulted that it's remake or re-imagining or another of a genre or dares have a given style. We wait for enough Internet Avatars to get weirdly pissed about a show or movie.

Trek was lucky up to Enterprise in how nascent social media was. Even for that show it was limited, mostly BBS threads. But, going back to TNG, I can only imagine the experience online is Twitter had been around when that show started. It would have been savage, brutal, and cruel. Suffice to say, I'm just tired of riding these damn hate trains.

So let's get to know the show!


The premise.

The Orville is a series that borrows heavily from Star Trek, which isn't a bad idea seeing as that's a 50 years old ongoing interest. The show takes place 400 years in the future in an utopian period of a flourishing Earth that is part of a grand galactic union of worlds and peoples.

At the same time, with it's humor, crass moments, human foibles, and New York setting in the first episode, I also flash to Futurama. It's weird to me how I've seen so few reference the similarity. If you hear about a scifi series with a comedic bent, you should have Futurama come to mind, especially with how heavily it borrowed from Star Trek itself.

Trailers in Short - Gotham Season 4 - Just Enough Prep Time

Tonight sees the return of Gotham to FOX, moved to Thursday nights this season. What shall we do?

Actually, just what will Gotham do?

I fell behind on Gotham review quite a while back and do need to go back and at least do season reviews for the show. I do want to take time to ruminate on where the series has gone. I was onboard for the show with the first season.

Many were uninterested, or choose to take a very conservative view of comic and Batman lore (You can portray character one way, the history can unfold only one way. The "one" way is "my" way.). But the show has played with conventions and origins, creating their own take.

The first season did have it's issues, characters misused or out of place, etc. But by the end of the season the world was gelling quite well. The weird and freaky underbelly of Gotham City was emerging. The second and third season built from there, getting weirder and freakier.

And this has been great. Some shows struggle to a stop over 3 or 4 seasons, needing to go suddenly weird and wild to stay alive. Gotham, by it's nature, only gets weirder and crazier. Cults. Secret Societies. Resurrected Madmen. Flamboyant Foes. Ridiculous Capers.

The show, since it's start has become more and more a comic book world. It's the point even dead characters return gets a shrug. And to me that is all to the shows advantage.

So let's recap a little just where the show was last year, and where we head this season.

Trailers in Short - Trekking it with Star Trek: Discovery and Orville

It is always a treat when you get to look forward to more science fiction on TV. And recent years has felt like it's given us a little boom in the genre with shows like Dark Matter, Killjoys, The Expanse, DC and Marvel shows, Rick and Morty, Dirk Gently, West World, Star Wars: Rebels, Orphan Black, and so on.

It continues with year with more, and in the Trek exploration vein to boot. How can I not be happy with that? Star Trek: Discovery and Orville.

What else is there to say to this but...

Oh, wait. Am I supposed to pick one and hate the other? Or, just hate both of them and demand they be cancelled now? Or, just ask why isn't Firefly being brought back?

I think I'll just sit and see if I enjoy what's a tap. Okay?