Dominion on SyFy is based on the premise that God has vanished, and most of the lower angels tried to wipe out humanity as they blamed humans for offending God. Michael, the one angel to side with humanity, believed God’s disappearance was a test for the angels, which they failed.Continue Reading
I’ve quite taken to the BBC program The Musketeers, based on The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. I particularly appreciate: Dropping the “three” from the title, since it’s really about a group of four. One’s just a Musketeer sidekick. The musketeers actually have muskets, which you never see in screenContinue Reading
Syfy recently embraced an unlikely premise: create a TV sequel to a movie few saw and fewer liked. Thus, out of Legion came Dominion. Dominion occurs 25 years after Dominion in a world mostly destroyed by angels. God turned his back on the world, and the angels believe it isContinue Reading
HERE THERE BE A FEW SPOILERS I’ve previously written about how alternative-history needs a basis in history. Other forms of fiction frequently benefit as well, and Game of Thrones is no exception. Dragons and whitewalkers aside, George R.R. Martin wants Westeros to feel somewhat familiar to us. He also wantsContinue Reading
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. I HAVE NOT READ THE BOOKS, BUT THIS DISCUSSES EVENTS UP TO THE END OF SEASON 4. No matter how much I make up, there’s stuff in history that’s just as bad or worse. –George R.R. Martin All sorts of things influence writers: people they know,Continue Reading
The TV show Cosmos has managed to not offend me for several weeks, and this last episode certainly didn’t offend, it merely annoyed. In its introduction to our understanding of the stars, host Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses a variety of myths surrounding constellations, particularly about the Pleiades. Among the ancientContinue Reading
I have a love-hate relationship with historical movies. I don’t expect them to be documentaries, and if they get someone interested in a person or event or time in history, terrific. (One of my issues with Reign is that it references nothing historically important and puts most of the focusContinue Reading
I, like many of my friends, greatly anticipated the restart of Cosmos by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I like many things Tyson has done in the past, and he has a reputation for explaining sound science in language average people can understand and enjoy learning about. But he’s no historian. HisContinue Reading
In its early years, the History Channel was full of historical programming. Most of it was about World War II, so damn near everyone called it the Hitler Channel, but it was actually history. Today, not only do I not watch the History Channel, I actively warn people away fromContinue Reading
In an amazing fluff piece on ABCnews.com, Noah (“It’s Like the Bible…with Explosions“) designer Mark Friedberg explained the effort put into creating the ark: In a featurette released by Paramount, Freidberg described the ark’s basic construction. “The ramp is meant to serve one function, for reptiles to be able to getContinue Reading