There are a ton of projects that are better built as a limited series than as a continuous multi-season show.

I have a few thoughts about television series.

Steven Spielberg famously once said that he wasn't sure if people knew how to tell stories anymore. What he was referring to was the conclusion, the finale, and there being no sequel. No one wants things to end anymore. They just keep on wanting the story to go on and on and on, for whatever reason. Maybe it's kind of like another hit of Ecstasy (a well-known club drug). The audience just wants that dopamine release one more time, and so they ask for it from the creators of a story that brought them pleasure, and the creators end up spinning some filler (or stretching a plotline way out) because it means more money in their pocket. Only this made up stuff is sub-par because it was never going to be part of the original story in the first place. Sounds familiar, right?

My mom was always on guard for house guests that "Overstayed their welcome." Well there are stories that do this too.

Good Omens is a great example of a show that does not overstay its welcome. Short and concise, and taking few liberties with its story from the novel version allows it to play out in the brains of its audience and finish with a bang. On the flip-side of this, stories like The Man in the High Castle (Amazon), The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu), The Walking Dead (AMC), and American Gods (Starz), are turning in lackluster seasons because each of these was meant to explore a single interesting idea (and now its all about grabbing some money). This works great in a single book or in a limited series, but it starts to break down when it is extended into an exploration of the world around it.

I would even argue that Star Wars is another great example of a show that has overstayed its welcome. It had a singular idea, which was the arc (and the story) of Darth Vader. But the love for all of the extras from Jedi vs. Sith to bounty hunters to the world at large has fueled a never-ending amount of stories that can be told in the universe. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm one of those junkies that has insisted on more Star Wars stories. However, time may well prove (along with Lord of the Rings--I guess we will see) that it is (in fact) one interesting idea that has been stretched in innumerable ways and none of it is as good as the core story.

I would also argue that dystopian fiction is better as a limited series than as a continuous multi-season show. Here's why: dystopian fiction is kind of prophetic--it tries to speak to a particular tension in the present moment that readers can relate to and are bothered by. This tension becomes the backbone of a world, but it is ultimately not sustainable for long because tension needs to have some kind of resolution. The Man in the High Castle, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Walking Dead in particular fall victim to this trap. Season after season of the dystopia (just throw a rock and pick one) never resolving is not a way to continue to woo an audience. Who wants to just immerse themselves in a frustrating anxiety-inducing thing with no end in sight?

This is where (I think) good science fiction is better built for multi-season (or extended) storytelling. Science Fiction in particular is "speculative." It tries to imagine a working future in believable detail, based on existing trends, technology, and scientific theory. In dystopian fiction, if there is a "speculative" element, it is usually just a vehicle to get us to the prophetic element, to show us a nightmare scenario if you will. The latter mode doesn't play well with world-building, which is the core of multi-season storytelling. The former, however, is made for it.

Anyway, these are some thoughts, and now I'm interested to hear yours. Other than that, have a fine weekend.

The Infernal War Machine from Wizkids is available today and I'm super excited to get mine.

Look, I play Dungeons & Dragons. Y'all probably already knew that. But along with the hobby is a bunch of nerd gear that goes beyond dice and rule books. I also collect miniatures, and the maker of the officially licensed minis for Dungeons & Dragons is a company called Wizkids. Today, August 28th, is the day that their latest set, called Icons of the Realms Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, goes on sale.

In the D&D universe, there is not just one Hell, but nine of them and they are arranged like poker chip piled one on top of another on a table. The top most layer of Hell is called Avernus. In the past, it was ruled by a five-headed dragon. I've no idea who rules it now, because I haven't bothered to keep up. But the minis that are coming from this set are ones that I've wanted for a while now, because most of them are various kinds of devils (which I don't have very many of). And then there's this: the Infernal War Machine (look at the pics below).

This thing is 12-inches long (most character minis are only an inch high). According to the Wizkids website, these magitech tanks breathe noxious gas and ride roughshod over anything that gets in their way (and where devils are concerned it is probably their hated enemy, demons).

And it opens up. The vehicle "hood" is removable and you can place one regular sized character mini in the driver's seat.

It also comes completely apart so you can stick an army in the back (cargo) area.

I got the call last night that the Infernal War Machine was on the shelf. I asked them if I could come and pick it up tonight, but they refused saying that they can't sell before the August 28th sell date. So I guess I need to be patient until this evening when I get off work. Good thing my local game store doesn't close until 10 p.m. :)

The trailer for The Mandalorian makes me think that Disney spent all the monies on this to ensure that its excellent.

The Mandalorian trailer dropped on the internet last week, and my first thoughts were around how good it looked, how identifiably Star Wars it actually was, and how it seemed steps away from expected tropes. All of these things got me excited to subscribe to Disney +. In fact, I wish it was out already so that I could hurl money at Disney faster, and start watching it. I wonder if the assassin droid in the trailer is IG-88? When I used to run the Star Wars RPG from West End Games in my college days, I sometimes talked about what a badass I thought IG-88 might be. For the record, I also posed that a live-action Star Wars series told from the perspective of a bounty hunter in the galaxy might be fun to watch. That was thirty years ago. Glad to see that someone else thought the same thing and made it happen and with a reported $100 million budget for ten episodes (source The New York Times).

So yeah...if you haven't seen the trailer yet, click on it below and let me know what you think in the comments.

The Netflix series Altered Carbon brings up many questions regarding the subject of immortality.

For various reasons, I put off watching Altered Carbon on Netflix until the last week or so. If you haven't seen it, I think it's worth watching. The author of the series is Richard K. Morgan, and I'm familiar with this author through his dark fantasy series called, A Land Fit for Heroes.

The Altered Carbon film adaptation on Netflix follows a main character named Takeshi who is hundreds of years old because the human civilization has discovered alien technology to allow them to transfer their souls (called consciousness) into human bodies (referred to as sleeves). You come to find out that this technology was originally invented by a woman who simply had too much she wanted to do to fit into one lifetime. That seems like an admirable thing, right?

But when the technology was released unto the world, it allowed those with financial means to become immortal. Without death to keep people in check, a dystopian world emerged. The people who always had the power stayed in power, the people who always had the money just generated more money, and the evil that was always there was now allowed to survive in perpetuity. Basically, there is no upward mobility anymore, and there's no getting rid of bad ideas and tyrants, because the tyrants never die and never suffer the debilitating effects of old age.

This idea of immortality and how it is truly monstrous is something that I've thought about a great deal, and I think it hits really close to the mark of how it honestly might be if the likes of Peter Thiel (a very conservative billionaire) get their way.

The subject of immortality (as well) goes beyond just fictional study for me, as I live in the state of Utah (which is a kind of "special" place all to its own). As you may well know, Utah is heavily populated by religious people belonging to the Latter Day Saints. Many of them believe in an interesting afterlife, wherein family and friends are sealed together for all eternity and can enjoy each other's company for that same amount of time. This explanation is very simplified, and you just need to assume that it will be mostly if not all the way a blissful and happy existence. But thinking of immortality the way that Altered Carbon presents it seems to me to be the more realistic of how something like this could play out (if it is indeed a real thing). Unless personalities are altered--which (to be honest) would not make that person who they were on Earth--then humans are fundamentally flawed and awful creatures. They are judgmental, narcissistic, self-absorbed, prone to megalomania, prone to envy and greed, etc. So in my book, spending an eternity with any family member sounds like pure Hell, even if I were to believe in that kind of thing. And if people in the afterlife didn't possess those qualities because all needs were met, then I think it would be a very boring place, not to mention that I wouldn't recognize any people I knew to begin with because all the people I know have these qualities.

But I digress as I was talking about Altered Carbon and the particular view of immortality in which Richard K. Morgan paints, albeit with a "bloody" brush. In Altered Carbon, the eternal soul just jumping into bodies so that it can interact with the real world is horrifying. People treat their "sleeves" as disposable, and having an immortal life has caused many to become psychopaths...losing all connection they ever had to empathy. Immortals (for the most part) have become monsters. After having watched Altered Carbon, I think the show presents the idea that things coming to an end is actually a good thing for life, because the finality of an ending provides its own satisfaction that living an eternal life could never give. If this is true, I wonder then why so many people struggle with their age? Why is it so difficult for many of us to let go and to realize that death is just a part of life? Why have humans always been obsessed with immortality?

My own brother would be eternally young and immortal (I think) if he could be. So would many people. I don't think I would ever choose something like this for myself. Maybe it's because my own life's experience hasn't been all that great, or that there have been particular pains that I have endured that I really wouldn't want to relive over and over again. Rather than immortality, I think I'd choose maybe one more lifetime than the one I'm currently living. And maybe I'm saying that because I don't have the perspective such a long life would provide. I just hope that humanity never discovers a way through science to realize the ideas of Richard K. Morgan. If that happens, humanity may well enter an epoch of suffering unrealized by the crimes that history has thus far presented to us. Just imagine a world in which souls like Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot were allowed to continue forever. It gives me nightmares just thinking about it.

Spider-Man will no longer appear in MCU films and I think this decision won't really matter all that much.

So, news dropped yesterday that Sony will no longer be sharing Spider-Man with Marvel. I wasn't expecting this news, but it makes sense given that Far From Home grossed over a billion dollars and is due to take down Captain Marvel on its re-release (to show four minutes of extra footage) this weekend. I guess they didn't even consider Marvel's offer, which was to pay for 50% of everything going forward, and Sony pretty much just told Disney to stick it where the sun don't shine (maybe a little more polite than that). I think Kevin Feige and others at Marvel made some really great decisions in casting Tom Holland and in crafting the last two Spider-Man films (I feel like the character is on track better than he ever was before), and Sony definitely now has a good blueprint to create a successful Spider-Man film.

I remember the buzz of having Spider-Man join the MCU before Captain America: Civil War. I hadn't read that particular comic book, but a lot of the nerds I talk to and respect told me that Spider-Man was pretty crucial to the storyline. Please note that these are the same nerds who also stood up for Adam Warlock being crucial to the Infinity War storyline (which I had read and was familiar with), yet that character was completely written out of Infinity War and Endgame and no one noticed because the storyline didn't follow the books, yet was still quite good.

So knowing all of this...and then having watched Captain America: Civil War...I'm still not certain that Spider-Man was necessary at all. I don't think he was necessary for Infinity War or Endgame either. Don't get me wrong...I like that character and I think that he was a great inclusion and lightened the mood in several spots, but Spider-Man was never essential to Captain America: Civil War or any of the others he was in. I mean...what did Spider-Man even do? Take away Captain America's shield? Give Iron-Man someone to mentor and miss after the snapture? Help fight Thanos on Titan (which they ended up losing anyway)? All of those things could have happened through another character, easy. The only thing he was really good for was having a teenager to rope other teenagers into wanting to see the film (because they had a character that represented them).

Anyway, I guess my point to all of this is that Spider-Man going back to Sony seems like a good move at this point. It means Tom Holland will probably appear in the next Venom movie and that his appearances in future Avengers films will depend on Disney showing up with a truck load of cash, which they probably won't do because...why? I think I prefer the smaller plotlines anyway...where Spider-Man faces off against one of his rogues' gallery villains and they expand the world just a wee bit by exploring various characters Peter Parker interacts with. I will miss Happy Hogan, but I'm sure they'll have fun with the Aunt May character.

The great Stan Lee understood that the troublesome issues of the day belonged in Marvel comic books.

I hear all the time from white religious people in Utah about how they wish television, movies, comic books, and other forms of entertainment (they enjoy) didn't include things like feminism and other social justice warrior issues. I look to none other than the late Stan Lee for an explanation of why entertainers should never completely cater to the escapism crowd who (in their hearts) just wants to ignore the fact that our government is putting brown people in camps. This was such a refreshing find to stumble across on the internet:

For any of his faults, Stan got it. I just wish other people did.

Today I'm thinking about exploitation and I'm wondering why there is so much of it in the world today.

As I've gotten more aware of how the world works, I've noticed that a lot of life seems to be comprised of people who are looking for others to do unpaid work for them or to just flat out support their lifestyle of fun and play. It's a fascinating thing to observe, and I don't really have strong feelings about it either negative or positive. It just is, and I'm aware of it. Now, I'm not going to call this "unpaid work" by the term "slavery," but some resemblances to the images that particular term conjures into the mind do exist.

For example, I know people who are hyper-sexual and long for a devoted partner who will go to work 40-hours a week to pay for all the bills they rack up going on lunch dates, seeing doctors for various things, playing board games, and entertaining multiple guys and gals in that oh so special way (glamorized somewhat under the term "polyamory.") I know people who take on partners and then down the road, expect these partners to pick up more and more of the slack of caring for disabled individuals. And I know disabled individuals who really want a partner for doing all of the domestic chores and then some free sex here and there. I know people who "borrow money" with no intention to pay it back (another way to manipulate someone into doing something for them for free).

I know of organizations who couch unpaid work as evangelical volunteerism, or that use a religious calling as a thinly disguised way to make someone do a lot of unpaid duties. I know unpaid interns working for corporations. I know some former prisoners who tell me stories of work they were forced to endure while behind bars, which was essentially "unpaid." I know people who always have "their hand out," and it's because they want someone else to do the work they don't want to do (for free). I know people who feign helplessness to try and get free work out of someone else. And I know people who use emotional blackmail to enlist volunteers for lots of work (caregiving for an elderly parent comes to mind).

Becoming aware of this "fact" of living in the 21st century has become essential to my well-being and self care. I've actually found it "empowering," because I've learned that there is a never-ending pit of need out there, and that saying "Yes" to everything is dangerous to a person's health. If you do, you risk spending the rest of your days doing unpaid work for someone else, which can lead to bitterness, rage, and resentment (and other issues). And believe me, there is a never-ending supply of people who want you to work for them for free. Some will even be so ungrateful that they will criticize the work you've done for them for free.

And I wonder, sometimes, how many people out there are unaware of this fact. The curious thing about "facts" is that they are true no matter whether or not you believe them. This is a hard concept for some people to swallow, especially in this day and age of "fake news." I wonder how many people end up in marriages that, after several years of honeymoon, break apart because one spouse realizes that they are being worked to death. I wonder how many people understand that they are being "exploited" by an organization or a person. I wonder how many parents exploit their children for free labor.  And I also wonder how many people are honestly wanting to be exploited, because their self-esteem is so damaged that they long for a good exploitation with exultations of "Yes! Yes! Exploit me more!" I find the whole thing just fascinating to think about.

I have been careful in the past few years to avoid any opportunities where I feel someone or something might try to exploit me. And I must say, it's had a souring effect on my disposition regarding this particular word. People do a lot of things in the name of "love" whether or not they are actually feeling that emotion at all. Sometimes, maybe all it takes is someone mouthing "I love you" and there is no meaning behind it.

"Love" in my book is supposed to be Shakespearean. It's when two people who have great passion and respect for one another, come together and become greater than they are apart. But what I've been witness to are people who are afraid of living alone just taking anyone to cause the pain of aging to go away, or people see another person as a meal ticket and think "why not?" Or people who choose a partner because it allows them to climb higher in whatever social circle in which they reside.  It all seems to fly in the face of my heart, which is that of a true romantic. I suppose I should add to the stack of "the people I know" a nice helping of psychopaths. Yes, I know a few people who I think are psychopaths, and by the very definition of that word, they could not possibly know what love is. Yet...these people end up in marriages...and they say, "I love you" to their partner with as much emotion as a fish. "Whatever," I think to myself. "You do you" and all that, right? But it does leave me wondering why this happens.

I wonder why there is so much exploitation in the world. I also wonder why people fall victim to it every day. I do know that things are changing. Cheap labor is drying up, and I think that's a good thing. But I expect there to be a tipping point...that there will be violent pushback from the modern day "slave owners" who suddenly will be in danger of paupering themselves to get the help they need. There will be lazy people everywhere who suddenly will need to do the work themselves because they no longer have someone to boss around for free. Organizations may need to cut their bottom line to start paying unpaid workers or risk being destroyed. I honestly can't wait to see this happen, and I hope it happens within my lifetime. I love to witness a good wake-up call as much as anyone, and I can't wait until the "entitled" in our society come face to face with the fact that they may have to scrub their own toilet.

The Second Trailer for Netflix's Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is beautiful.

I saw this on my feed yesterday, so I'm putting it below for any who haven't watched it. I'm really looking forward to it, but I'm also reminded of how bland the Gelflings actually are. It's weird to see the eighties strip-mined and repackaged so fervently, what with Stranger Things, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Indiana Jones, Ghost Busters, and the Dark Crystal all making comebacks. Was it really that great of a decade for people to want to revisit? Nostalgia is a weird thing. Maybe it was the last decade where a lot of people felt truly safe and insulated from "the other," which is why all of this stuff is coming back into fashion. It also feels like Netflix dropped a boatload of money on this project.

It makes sense given that Disney, Universal, and Warner may be yanking back their licenses in favor of their own streaming services. Netflix needs to do something or it will become a barren wasteland. They need a library of original content, or they probably won't survive. That being said...this next offering looks good.

If you are looking for a different kind of superhero movie I highly recommend checking out The Boys on Amazon.

I'm about four episodes into Amazon's The Boys, and the first words that come to mind when thinking about this show are, "It's just too real." It is worth watching, and it's an open critique on how modern capitalism begets modern "crapitalism," and ruins just about everything it touches. Capitalism does have a proven means to drive success and invention. But it's also a mean, cruel, and unforgiving system, and its "cruelty" seems amplified when you have super-powered beings living among regular mortals on this planet we call Earth.

The premise is at first deceptively simple: these super-powered beings are not interested in being tyrants or gods. Rather, they are heavily invested in society. Just like the Kardashians or other kinds of famous people, they don't want to rule. They want to be a part of the "elite" members of society, the .01 percent, the people who are admired and looked up to as beautiful, strong, just, and wonderful. The people that us normals out here fantasize about sexually and emotionally and think, "Oh those people have got it so good. I want to be just like them." The "supes" of The Boys are "social media influencers" to the nth degree, and there's a profound narcissism about it all...the need to be willingly worshiped. And that's the noose that capitalism has around all of the super-heroed beings I've met so far in the series. And why do I say it's a noose? Simple: the lust for fame and fortune.

Corporations in The Boys drive the narrative, and in particular one called Vought. Vought's ultimate goal is to have superhumans adpoted as the primary form of national defense in the United States, which would allow them to gain a monopoly on defense contracts, given their dominance of the superhuman industry. In the show, the character we deal most with is played by Elizabeth Shue (it's nice to see her again as I enjoyed the works she did earlier in her career). She's an unlikeable corporate shill pumping breast milk in her office to feed her child, and treating all of the superheroes as the property of the corporation. Vought controls public appearances, team-ups, and stages battles. Everything boils down to making money for shareholders.

Where the show gets interesting is in how the superheroes adapt to the trauma of being corporate shills (slaves to greed and fame). Because they want the fame and fortune and exposure that Vought promises, they are willing to compromise on every single one of their virtues in order to obtain it. Women who become part of the seven are expected to service the men who are already there in sexual ways, and they must put up with an invisible man watching them use the bathroom while he jerks off. If they don't, they'll be kicked off the very precious team (which is the equivalent of The Justice League of America).

The most powerful superhero (with abilities clearly inspired by Superman) is an unscrupulous white man who feels deeply unappreciated for his contributions, but who ultimately is not ready to rock the boat too much at Vought. However, his incredible dissatisfaction with himself and the years of compromising his own morals for the corporation (which includes killing people who threaten to expose the superheroes for using dangerous performance-enhancing drugs) has made him treat all of his co-worker superheroes like utter crap. Homelander's become a nasty grandiose narcissist who has by episode 4 clearly lost every bit of humanity that he once possessed.

If you are looking for some non-traditional superhero fare, I would recommend checking The Boys out on Amazon streaming. As I said before, it's worth your time, and it validates a lot of what I think happens in our society once we embrace the evils of unfettered capitalism and allow corporations to rule our lives.

I know way too many older men who never grew up and it weirds me out more than anything.

Our society has lots of people in it, and more and more I realize how many older men I interact with just have old bodies. Their inside self never seemed to move beyond their teenage years. I've been editing a book written by a disabled man in his fifties this week. One of the things he proudly speaks about in his book regards an activity I'd call a temper tantrum (he thinks he's making other people...namely minimum wage workers...aware that stores need to accommodate disabled people).

First, a little background: the guy's in a wheelchair. If he goes to a store to shop, and the racks are too close together for his chair to comfortably navigate the aisle, he rips all of the clothes down going through the aisle (on purpose) until a store clerk calls him on it. Then he professes ignorance and says, "It must have been my chair. I'm sooo sorry." But it's an empty apology. He was throwing a tantrum because he didn't get what he wanted.

Other grown men I know are not in equal marriages. They say things like, "I need to be home by this and this time, or I'll get in trouble." I want to say, "Oh will you get a spanking? You naughty fify-two year old, shame on you." I know what they mean. A better response would be, "I told my wife I'd be home at a certain time. If I'm not home at that time, it's disrespectful. I respect my partner, so I'm going to leave." See how the blame shifts from the wife to themselves? I'd much rather hear that, but I don't.

When I told my friend, Meg, about these observations she wasn't surprised. She has a lot of experience with men, and she says that a lot of them get married thinking that their wife will be a replacement for their mother. She says it's gross and disgusting. I wish I could have put up an argument to counter her point. But seeing what I've been observing around here in Utah, I think Meg is 100% on the mark. But I don't understand why. Why are so many grown men wanting to act like infants?

It makes me wonder, are some of the mass shootings happening in our country a result of men throwing a temper tantrum? What the hell? Are we now awash in millions of men who are essentially fat unkempt children at the age of 45? I can't help but think that this is at least one factor that is unraveling the threads of what holds us all together. How can we even be on the same page of anything if what we're dealing with are minds that never left the teen years. Have you ever seen a class of screaming children? Multiply that by 150 million and give them all the ability to vote and you just might see the crazy that we're seeing today.

I know I'm an adult. I feel like an adult. I approach things like an adult. And I just want to say...I'm really disappointed with how my adulthood turned out so far. I thought I'd see a lot more parallels with myself to others who are my own age. The world has a lot of problems, folks, and they are adult-sized problems and not kid-sized ones. At first glance, we'd have the numbers to tackle these problems. But half of these adults are children, so they can't face them. It's mind-boggling. I live in a society that is populated by Peter Pans. I find myself (too often) wondering why so many men never escaped Neverland and chose to remain there forever. 

The latest edition of Microsoft Word that comes with the subscription-based Office 365 has a powerful artificial intelligence to improve your writing.

It is August 7th, and the first Wednesday of the month. So it's time for an all new installment of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. If this is your first visit to my blog, or if this is the first time you have heard of this blogfest, then you'll want to check it out HERE. As for my particular post, I'm not answering the question this month. Rather, I want to tell you about the shocking experience I had in using Microsoft Office 365 and specifically, Microsoft Word, which is one of the programs you get with that subscription package.

I had been asked to proofread and edit a small novella a co-worker wrote about his experiences as a disabled person, and yes, I'm getting a small amount of monetary compensation for my efforts. I'd previously used Office 365 rather lightly, doing some fun writing here and there, but nothing that I felt was worth a thorough edit as it was not going to be seen by a lot of eyes. My co-worker wants to publish their document on kindle, and I said I'd help them do that as I'm familiar with the process. After I got the document formatted to kindle specifications, I ran it through the checker that comes with Office 365, and I was absolutely floored by what happened.

The program caught just about everything. It checked for proper grammar, inserted commas and semicolons exactly where they were needed, changed "your" to "you're" exactly where it was needed, took out extra punctuation, replaced two and three word combos with more effective words that meant the same thing, and on and on. In total, it made over three-hundred changes in a matter of minutes, and I agreed and loved all of them. I have NEVER seen a program do this before. I was floored. And since then, I've done some research, and this is what my research turned up regarding this phenomenon (and believe me, folks, it is impressive):

The latest version of Microsoft Word now comes with an Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). From what I understand, this has permanently replaced the Spelling & Grammar pane that was featured in earlier versions of Word (think 2016). The A.I. taps natural language processing and machine learning to deliver intelligent, contextually aware suggestions that improve a document's readability. Some of the things I witnessed were 1) making phrases more concise, clear, and inclusive, 2) offering synonym and alternate phrasings, and 3) providing justifications and explanations (such as why "then" should be used in place of "than" in a specific context.

Anyway, I was so excited by this that I wanted to write about it so that all you insecure writers out there (just like me) can know about this. I honestly feel that Microsoft Office 365 is definitely worth the money, and that it is a HUGE upgrade over any other word processor I have seen to date. It can actually make you a better writer, by providing you with a powerful artificial intelligence ready to edit all of your words, and it's at your beck and call 24-hours a day.