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yendiSo I watched the pilot for the failed-to-make-it-to-series High Moon that SyFy aired the other night.
I figured that any Bryan Fuller project was worthwhile (his Mockingbird Lane was proof that NBC blew it, for example).
High Moon, on the other hand, was awful. Really awful. Like Sharknado bad, but without the sense of deliberate irony. And with bonus racism and awful science (as in, worse than Sharknado). Jokes about the folks behind it being high are obvious, but don't even begin to cover how bad this was.
I tweeted a lot about it. You can see my full Storify here.
But I figured this show merits a post, because people should be warned to stay far, far away from it.
1. It's racist as all fuck. Like, folks from India, when they go to space, decorate everything with Hindu gods instead of making functional space environs, because of course that's what they'd do. And the Japanese astronaut, beyond speaking broken English, also comes across as a Puffy Amiyumi wannabe and spends her time building space toys against her orders, including a giant fucking plastic dinosaur that completely comes out of nowhere. Don't even get me started on the musical cues.
Oh, and we get this bit:
Really.
I can't tell you how hard I facepalmed.
2. Even beyond the racism, the show's just fucking terrible. Dinosaurs showing up out of nowhere. A fucking ninja showing up of nowhere (and vanishing into protoplasm). The floating fucking eyes. The awful, awful F/X, which feel like something that the folks at The Asylum would sneer at. There's the southern and bellicose Secretary of Defense, played almost exactly like Rod Steiger's character in Mars Attacks, but with no sense of his utter goofiness being intentional or ironic in the least. And the expository dialogue! Every fucking line is awful, clunky stuff that every other character in the room already knows. It never fucking stops.
3. Oh, you want the plot? So there's a flower on the moon. And the people who find it somehow trigger an earthquake. And then there's tension between the Japanese, Indians, Russians, and US (because this was based on a John Christopher book from fifty years ago, and has paid no attention to geopolitical stuff since then*). And the Indian ninja attacks the lone survivor of the original explosion, leading to an international incident involving the the US general, Russian leader, and his lover who is also a spy for the US but actually a spy for a multinational and who has two hands that pop off like Thing from The Addams family but really (because they're robotic and very active) remind me more of something out a Phil Foglio Xxxenophile strip. And then things get confusing with the dinosaur and the plasm and the Indians all vanishing but their eyeballs floating in mid-air, and the monster who eventually just gets ignored. Oh, and then there's a cave at the end that's filled with flowers.
The point being, this is terrible. Really terrible. Like, someone should have pulled the plug at the screenplay stage, and again after each day's worth of production. There's no excuse for this travesty existing, and I'd be genuinely surprised if someone at SyFy doesn't lose their job over the money spent on it.
*Except, of course, for the fact that Christopher's novel had barely any mention of particular nation states, so this is all on Bryan Fuller and company.
I figured that any Bryan Fuller project was worthwhile (his Mockingbird Lane was proof that NBC blew it, for example).
High Moon, on the other hand, was awful. Really awful. Like Sharknado bad, but without the sense of deliberate irony. And with bonus racism and awful science (as in, worse than Sharknado). Jokes about the folks behind it being high are obvious, but don't even begin to cover how bad this was.
I tweeted a lot about it. You can see my full Storify here.
But I figured this show merits a post, because people should be warned to stay far, far away from it.
1. It's racist as all fuck. Like, folks from India, when they go to space, decorate everything with Hindu gods instead of making functional space environs, because of course that's what they'd do. And the Japanese astronaut, beyond speaking broken English, also comes across as a Puffy Amiyumi wannabe and spends her time building space toys against her orders, including a giant fucking plastic dinosaur that completely comes out of nowhere. Don't even get me started on the musical cues.
Oh, and we get this bit:
“6 of us, 6000 Indians.”
“What would Custer say?”
Well, Custer was fighting American Indians, for one. Also, what the fucking fuck, SyFy?
— Adam Lipkin (@Tsalmoth) September 19, 2014Really.
I can't tell you how hard I facepalmed.
2. Even beyond the racism, the show's just fucking terrible. Dinosaurs showing up out of nowhere. A fucking ninja showing up of nowhere (and vanishing into protoplasm). The floating fucking eyes. The awful, awful F/X, which feel like something that the folks at The Asylum would sneer at. There's the southern and bellicose Secretary of Defense, played almost exactly like Rod Steiger's character in Mars Attacks, but with no sense of his utter goofiness being intentional or ironic in the least. And the expository dialogue! Every fucking line is awful, clunky stuff that every other character in the room already knows. It never fucking stops.
3. Oh, you want the plot? So there's a flower on the moon. And the people who find it somehow trigger an earthquake. And then there's tension between the Japanese, Indians, Russians, and US (because this was based on a John Christopher book from fifty years ago, and has paid no attention to geopolitical stuff since then*). And the Indian ninja attacks the lone survivor of the original explosion, leading to an international incident involving the the US general, Russian leader, and his lover who is also a spy for the US but actually a spy for a multinational and who has two hands that pop off like Thing from The Addams family but really (because they're robotic and very active) remind me more of something out a Phil Foglio Xxxenophile strip. And then things get confusing with the dinosaur and the plasm and the Indians all vanishing but their eyeballs floating in mid-air, and the monster who eventually just gets ignored. Oh, and then there's a cave at the end that's filled with flowers.
The point being, this is terrible. Really terrible. Like, someone should have pulled the plug at the screenplay stage, and again after each day's worth of production. There's no excuse for this travesty existing, and I'd be genuinely surprised if someone at SyFy doesn't lose their job over the money spent on it.
*Except, of course, for the fact that Christopher's novel had barely any mention of particular nation states, so this is all on Bryan Fuller and company.