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Something to Watch: Online

My apologies to the 99% of the audience that already knows this, but it is in my Master of the Obvious contract that I have to get the word out to that final 1% that haven’t heard yet. I should also mention before we get started that the US Version of Being Human pilot episode is available as a free download from iTunes right now…

If you missed this past Monday’s episode of Chuck, you can of course watch it directly from its NBC website for free. This is something more and more networks are doing, making their programing available on multiple platforms to build their audience, a process known as convergence in the industry; making any show available to watch any time on any device. So if you didn’t catch The Cape when it was broadcast over the airwaves, you could watch it from that web page, pull it up from the NBC Video On Demand folder from your cable companies set top box, or pull down one of several viewing Apps for your phone or tablet, and see it free. The links I used in this example are NBC, but all the networks are doing it now; if you can’t watch a program on the network web site directly, they probably house it over at Hulu, iTunes, or YouTube. If you wanted it for your permanent collection you have the option of purchasing many of them from a number of distributors for download, Amazon and Apple being the largest and best established operations.

Cable TV companies have also been rebuilding their networks for convergence, for the same reason; they want the largest audience for their products they can get. So they now also have webpages for watching shows and Apps you can download to make their programming portable for no additional cost. The links I included were for Comcast, but all the cable companies are doing it. I used my login and the hotel WiFi to my laptop while half way across the country to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special, and it worked great. The Comcast App allows you to control your cable boxes remotely, check your voicemail, and so forth, with being able to watch the videos on your phone or tablet coming shortly.

Just announced, the Anime Network starts their free simulcast of Infinite Stratos this Sunday at 8:30 PM CST. They are getting a bit of a late start, so this Sunday’s simulcast will be episode 3, but they will also post episodes 1 and 2 at the same time so you don’t miss anything. This one is Mecha combat comedy judging by the description.

I wanted to mention that Fractale is finally available for viewing! This twisted little show stars a boy with virtual parents, a girl in a world with mostly guys, a villein class of bad guys that show evil promise, and an escapee from deep in the past whom only the boy can protect. With only one episode to extrapolate from all of my conclusions may be wrong, but I am enjoying the way this is starting out.

UPDATE: Soapbox Mode On: Thanks to pirates, it now appears only the first episode of Fractale will be simulcast unless the illegal sites are shut down. According to Anime News Network, the Fractale Production Committee has forced Funimation to cease the simulcast until such time as the illegal streaming and file sharing sites are under control. The question that confuses me the most is what sense does it make to pirate something that you can watch for free, especially when doing so means you might make it no longer available for legal viewing, possibly for years until the DVDs come out? Which is not to say there are not serious issues of abuse in the other direction, as best personified by the companies that want to censure the internet, and claim they are trying to protect against piracy when they are really trying to destroy the structure of the internet because they cannot get oppressive and invasive anti-piracy laws passed. There is already a body of laws in place, a courtroom adversarial response structure that allows for due process when piracy is suspected. You don’t need to install spyware/virus sotware on peoples computers to delete files without the users permission, and you don’t need to break the router paths so the internet doesn’t work properly. This is the core of why we have a judicial system, to keep idiots from either side from destroying what we have spent decades building. Soapbox Mode Off

From Anime News Network, The Sacred Blacksmith and Vampire Knights are both newly launched programs you can watch online from the Fall 2010 season. After watching the first episode of each, I will be watching the Sacred Blacksmith to the end of its run.

Tv Ratings Explained

One post a day is my usual limit, but I had to break my pattern for this one. I have just read the best TV ratings article ever, and since it is from the folks at Blastr, you know it focuses on Sci-Fi programming at its core. Trust me when I say Craig Engler has nailed it with his very first blog entry! He covers live viewing, DVR counts, streaming, and downloads. He covers with and without commercials and why they count differently, and he explains why the different flavors of online viewing each get weighted the way they do. And since he is from Syfy, all his examples are shows we know, which makes understanding his explanations that much easier. I was part way through writing this article, and now I don’t have to; he did it for me!

Primeval: Redeemed?

I loved season one and the first half of season two of Primeval, the Brit time travel show with the cheesy monsters. The second half of season two dragged a little, due to some poor plot line choices, most noticeable at the final episode. And the less said about season 3 the better, as they went desperately grasping after straws trying to keep the franchise afloat.

But it looks like they have found their way again with season 4, at least based on the first few episodes. They have re-introduced the dramatic tension from the previous seasons, and also re-introduced some of the core characters. After a year of living with Dinosaurs, Conner and Abby are both noticeably grimmer and much more focused then they used to be, which sets a new tone. The action sequences in the second episode of season 4 seemed much gripping than anything in season 3 as well. It looks to me like they have a decent shot at pulling it all off this time, and I do appreciate being able to see them on BBC America the same day they air in the UK.

Meanwhile, here is a Science Link that you might find entertaining, particularly if you are into molecular chemistry…

Outcasts trailer

From the folks who created Life On Mars (the UK version, not the failed US attempt), a new show is coming: Outcasts. No word on the exact start date yet, but the trailer looks tasty, and hopefully BBC America will continue their recent trend of airing Sci-Fi in the US the same day it becomes available in the UK.

Something to Watch: DVD’s

I didn’t find any new movies worth mentioning, but Roger Corman’s Sci-Fi Classics could be entertaining if you haven’t seen them. This set has 3 movies from 1957/1958, Not of This Earth which he remade twice afterwords, the first remake being Traci Lord’s first non-porn film filled with all the expected nudity, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and War of the Satellites. These have been unavailable to fans except for really poor copies for quite a while, and are worth studying for anyone interested in making good movies on extremely limited budgets. You should read Glenn Erickson’s review over at DVD Talk for a detailed understanding of what each of these films are.

I normally don’t talk about DVD production companies here, but I thought I should mention Shout Factory, because I really like what they are doing these days. They are the ones who are releasing Roger Corman’s Sci-Fi Classics this week, along with a TV program I had about given up on seeing on the shelves, Dark Skies: The Declassified Complete Series from 1996. Dark Skies was arguably the best UFO Conspiracy TV series ever made, as long as the argument was that the X-Files covered a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with UFO Conspiracies, so it lacked the same focus. So that’s two genre sets in one week that lots of folks, including myself, have been eagerly awaiting. And that’s not the first time they have done this; back in August I went absolutely nuts when they released Max Headroom, the full American series. I had given up ever seeing that one come out by the end of the ’90s, and because of the impossible licensing issues involved I still doubt we will ever see the UK version of the show, also staring Matt Frewer as Edison Carter, released anywhere. I believe I also mentioned them when I found out they were planing to release ReBoot this March, one of my favorite western animation series and a direct conceptual descendant of TRON. And if that doesn’t cement their geek cred, come April they are releasing The Ernie Kovacs Collection, containing the majority of the surviving footage of television’s first and most important genius.

There are a few other TV shows being released this week, including Merlin: The Complete Second Season, which is licensed in the US to air on NBC. I first stumbled upon this show while channel surfing, hitting a random episode somewhere in season two, and not being overly impressed. Then a friend of mine talked me into watching it with her starting with the first episode of season 1, which was streaming on Netflix. Surprising how a show makes so much more sense when you see it in order, and I was quite drawn in as they introduced the characters and set the premises. I will avoid going into any rants about how Fox used that fact to kill Firefly, or any comments about how you can watch Doctor Who in any order you like, since he isn’t doing it sequentially either. Not being a Horror fan, I don’t know anything about the show Nite Tales: The Series, but it is also being released this week.

For Anime selections this time around, we have Kampfer – Complete Collection, a bit of a gender bender of a magical girl story, and Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom, where brain wiped assassins struggle to escape their masters and remember who they are. It is being released in two packages, parts 1 and 2, on the same day. It appears to have the better animation and pithier story, but I am not sure that trading the instant gratification of not having to wait to find out what happens is worth the higher price of having to buy two box sets at once. They should have included the option of a single Complete Collection box set at a reduced total price, for those who are sure they want the entire thing right out of the gate. If you don’t know if you want this in your collection, you can watch the subbed version online before making your decision.

Something to Watch: Online Pt. 2

I am still at the point of organizing my thoughts for this thread; which means I am retaining the limits of yesterday’s post on this topic, just to keep it somewhat under control.

The new Anime season has started in Tokyo, which means Crunchyroll has some new shows, and new episodes of some old favorites available to watch online. Besides watching on your computer, they have apps that play episodes on both iPhone/iTouch/iPads and Android tablets/phones, and many other devices. I watch mine on my iTouch, Cruz Tablet (Android), and Roku box, but I haven’t installed the disk on my Wii yet. All the Apps and software are free, and while you need a premium membership to watch the episodes the same day they air in Tokyo, you can watch them free a week afterwords. You do have to sign up for a free account if you want to comment, post, or review anything, but to just watch you don’t even need that.

One of the new titles that looks like it could be interesting is Kore wa Zombie desu ka?, about a high school kid who is snuffed by a serial killer and wakes up as a zombie servant/bodyguard to the beautiful necromancer who brought him back to undead (I couldn’t exactly say back to life, now could I?). This one gets my vote as the silliest show of the new season, in a good way. In the opening episode we find out the dead protagonist is searching for his killer to stop him from killing others, and we meet a second magical girl who’s magical transformation sequence is short-circuited by the presence of zombie boy. She winds up naked, he ends up wearing the dress and wielding the magical chainsaw; between them, they can just about defeat the monsters she normally battles. Gosick takes place in Europe in 1924, the story of a Japanese exchange student and a brilliant girl who attends no classes but lives in the library reading all the books and solving mysteries that baffle officials. I found the first episode very interesting as to characters and story line, and the teacher urging the protagonist to study ghosts and alchemists was a nice twist, but there is nothing about this that locks it to that year. The costumes are mostly from the 1860’s or the 1940s depending on the character, but nobody actually wears anything from the 1920s, and a few of the comments were also temporally displaced. Despite the story being unbound to its time, I fully intend to watch this series to see where it goes next; the first episode drew me right in.

I am not sure that Rio Rainbow Gate is genre or not, but the Blackjack Dealer and Roulette spinner known as the Goddess of Victory does seem to have supernatural powers and Ninja skills, so I will be following it beyond the first episode as well. And then there is Dragon Crisis!, which so far is the most fun out of the set (except the set is only a single episode per series at this point). In the opening half hour our normal high school student is pulled out of his summer school class by a beautiful second cousin just returned from America so he can help her steal a mysterious case from the Yakuza. In the ensuing chase and gun battle the case is shot open, and out tumbles the girl of his dreams who promptly torches the bad guys; it seems she is a dragon with all a dragons powers. She also has a vocabulary of one word, that being the protagonists name. It appears she has been dreaming of him as well. I look forward to seeing where this one goes.

Finally, I should say that Beelzebub did not impress me, despite having a wacky origin story. There are just too many things to watch to spend time viewing something that did not grab me; perhaps if I hear good things about it later I will give it another shot.