Not to mention William Gibson’s Virtual Light (sci-fi bike messanger action story) and Johnny Mnemonic (hacker of TV channels broadcasting messages against the current evil regime). Also, the Matrix’s running-up-the-wall thing. There are other rip-offs too (the enhanced human idea has been done many times).
But, overall, I think it’s good TV. I’ll be watching it. We’ll see if they have enough ideas for several good episodes. (the second episode was good too)
And Spider-Man (with great power comes great responsibility, Max), Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (hey, look, I’m a Kourier!), and others that I can’t remember at the moment.
BTW, I think the second episode was so much better than the pilot.
Ditto: the second episode rocked.
I really like this show so far. Max is fetching, sassy and kicks ass. My only complaint is that she tends to furrow her eyebrows often and look like she’s this close from bursting into tears. Other than that, I’m hooked.
In the most recent episode we learned that she has some feline DNA, which makes her go into heat three times a year. Why, oh why can’t this show be on Cinemax?
<ahem>
I would like to announce that they film quite a few shots for this show right outside my office window. Thank you, thank you.
::bows out left stage::
<aside> And Kyla, yes, she is young. 18 I think. Still sexy though.
-nigel
“My only complaint is that she tends to furrow her eyebrows often and look like she’s this close from bursting into tears.”
I always thought that pertained to her having to go to the bathroom. Or thinking really really hard about something. I thought it was kind of cute.
They should address the nuked manufacturing industry vs. is there any TP issue. I would imagine 10 years later that someone would at least have figured out how to make toilet paper my the currently available technology. Of course their clothes don’t look old, so I guess someone is doing that too. But why then is real coffee so rare? Would an EMP affect crops?
Off the subject:
When does the Sopranos start airing again?
I saw it and I liked it. However, I hope the writers are good enough to keep the characters interesting without developing them too quickly. If not, I can see the show reaching the “jump the shark” moment before the end of the first season.
These are all interesting questions but me being an easy-go-lucky kinda viewer and all, I take most things in stride and just enjoy the ride.
Hey Justanotherguy…I really don’t know if I should tell you this, considering the outburst my boyfriend had when I told him, but…the Sopranos won’t air until…
March 2001. Sorry. Hate to be the bearer of bad news. 
What da fu–?
Thanks for the info, very disappointing indeed.
WHAT??? I’ll have no new eps of either Sex and the City OR The Sopranos???
Well, fuck.
No, this is Cameron (or somebody) ripping off material from another source. Of course it has to be one of the ones I don’t remember. It sounds like something Stephenson would have put in Snow Crash, but I’d like to think that I’d remember it. Also sounds like something that would’ve been in Waterworld, but nobody would be foolish enough to steal from that movie, so that’s probably not it either…
Xizor: I agree with you about them not “jumping the shark” (something painful sounding about that) too soon, but I want more banter between Max (mmm, Jessica Alba…) and Cale NOW. They’re a cute couple.
OOC, does anybody see this possibly turning into the A-Team (e.g., every week, Max gets this close to getting captured by the powers that be while helping innocent victims, but manages to barely escape at the end)? Next thing you know, Lydecker (sp?) will catch her and lock her in a warehouse that has a forklift, sheet metal, propane tanks, and a welding torch…
I remember now! The coffee thing is from 1984!
Due to the continuous war, real coffee, chocolate, and good cigarettes were accessible only to those in the inner circle. Protagonist’s girlfriend brings him real coffee in their hideout, and then they have sex. Great book, at least Cameron has taste in his blatantly copied sources. (Don’t get me wrong, pastiche of random things or not, I still love the show.)
“OOC, does anybody see this possibly turning into the A-Team (e.g., every week, Max gets this close to getting captured by the powers that be while helping innocent victims, but manages to barely escape at the end)? Next thing you know, Lydecker (sp?) will catch her and lock her in a warehouse that has a forklift, sheet metal, propane tanks, and a welding torch…”
Well, first, there would have to be alot more shooting of guns with nobody every getting hit.
I think the ‘welding’ thing only works with a mohawk and huge medallions, I don’t want to see that happen to Max, she is too cute. Maybe if they give her a sidekick. Mr. T isn’t doing anything right now, maybe he could be one of the escapees from an earlier DNA experiment. Or a replacement for Cale’s body guard.
They’ll explain the reason why she doesn’t get that giveaway barcode removed from the back of her neck: it’s not a tattoo, it grows that way.
I agree that a “weekly escape” would be a tacky plot device. It would be far more interesting to show Lydecker slowly closing in over the course of many episodes.
Coffee: I think it’s that the regime governing the US has protectionist laws banning foreign imports due to capital flight and balance of trade issues.
You guys are putting WAY too much effort into trying to make the premise logically coherent. I mean come on, the whole EM pulse thing is intended to provide an excuse for why the government is totalitarian. Hence we can have a smarmy conspiracy nut-male model working with our heroine behind the scenes to return truth, justice and the American way to the world. To get a BUYA about the way actual silicon chips and the American economy function is kind of missing the point. You know, the whole business of genetically engineering someone with cat DNA so that a human female has, rather than a menstrual cycle, an estrus cycle every four months is just a bit…well, let’s just say the EM pulse is the least of your worries. Say, does she still get bloated and irritable at her “time”, or does she just have the urge to claw the furniture? Do the male genetically-engineered kiddies mark their territory? you don’t wanna visit THAT apartment.
(BTW, if I were going to nitpick, I might point out that a cat’s estrus cycle is every 18 days according to my book “Vertebrate Life” 3d ed., F. Harvey Pough, John B. Heiser, and William N. McFarland, MacMillan Publishing, New York 1989).
I thought the show was okay, if a bit derivative, but far too much the usual standard television pap in its social views. Why can’t a show revolve around a strong young woman without having all the men in it either:
-weak and spineless and pathetic
-father figures
-total assholes
-a Hollywood chisel-chinned ultra-cool sex stud who nevertheless needs a good woman to iron out those little personal flaws he can’t see in himself until she bitches about them at which point, after suitable token resistance and a dramatic argument during which the male viewers go in the kitchen and make a sandwich while the females tell themselves “YES! YES! It’s JUST like that!”, he acquiesces and changes his personality to be more mature, you know - like her.
I didn’t see the second episode, but I predict that if this isn’t the pattern already shown, it soon will be.
The show has a decent premise, wherever it came from, but it needs to rise above the two-dimensional, standard network-style, American pale lager, characters we saw in the pilot.
FTR, I think Cale is, at present, probably the most interesting - though definitely not the most attractive - character on Dark Angel. Definitely not weak and spineless (despite having spinal cord broken, har har), or a father figure (at best a very Freudian one, since we know they’re going to get it on), not a total asshole, and though I can see such an argument occuring (though I seriously doubt we male viewers will leave during this show for anything), his character is written well enough that this may and should not be necessary.
(BTW, if I cared about nitpicks not only would I scorn this show needlessly, but I’d also wonder, “Don’t cats have the same 7 years per 365 days that dogs supposedly do? If so, wouldn’t 18 days be roughly three times a year?”)
I didn’t see the pilot and only about 15 minutes ( and not in a row) of the second show and figure it posesses about as much acting talent as a second grade play.
However, so do Buffy and Angel. Why is it when they are on TV, I am mesmerized? Why am I so weak? I use to have gray matter between my ears.
BTW, Jessica Alba is on the cover of the latest Maxim.
Speaking as a hetero female, she is one hottie.
( But too much of a desk job and her ass is not going to fit in to those leather pants.)
Shirley, I feel for you. Buffy and Angel have some great dialogue, but DA has Jessica Alba who, speaking as a hetero male, is spoogerific! For better or for worse, I have to tape Angel and BVS for a friend of mine whose TV is broke, so I get to watch them both every week… Don’t even know why I’m sharing this (probably to pad my post count)…
I saw the pilot and about 45 minutes of the second episode before losing interest and wandering off. I kept hoping something unexpected would happen but I kept finding myself thinking it was like a female-futuristic-version of The Pretender or something.
Sure, Jessica is stunning, and the fact that I can’t nail down her nationality, but that she appears to have foreign traits/features makes her all the more intriguing, but the show just didn’t do it for me.
That’s not to say I won’t tune in this week, I mean c’mon, all she wears is leather pants and bike shorts!