Monthly Archives: October 2013

So, as promised this week we will talk about the Big Bang Theory. Now, the reason I want to cover this show is not because of the number of references to 'geek culture' (e.g. the Green Lantern t-shirt dead centre in the pic above). No, the reason I want to talk about it is I can't work out what to make of it. Now I know a lot of people on here love the show, hell, the rest of my family seem to be addicted to it, but I can never work out if they are just taking the piss half of the time. Obviously I can only comment on what I've seen of it, but it seems to rely almost exclusively on the very old and tired stereotype of geeks being  socially inept, sci-fi obsessed losers (see the first Sci-fi corner, when we covered Star Trek, for further details). I will concede that this doesn't happen all of the time and sometimes it its done in very clever and amusing ways, but for gods sake, I grew out of stereotypes when I was 15. People say that TV, and comedy in particular, is based on stereotyping, but that isn't true (something we will cover on the next Screen Spotlight when we cover one of my two favourite shows of all time: Red Dwarf). Considering the success of things like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, New Doctor Who and the Star Trek reboot movies (in purely financial terms with the last one), stuff generally considered as "Geek Only" are becoming increasingly "For Everyone", so why keep bring up the geek stereotypes. No-one finds sports fans who collect their various memorabilia (signed baseballs, hats, football kits, old baseball/ football cards, posters etc. etc. I mean there's so much of this **** I could go on for ages) weird or funny, so why is collecting figurines of Star Trek or comics characters? And my main gripe, and this is purely personal, but because I love all of the comics, sci-fi, fantasy stuff they routinely use, it sometimes feels like my family are only laughing at stuff on the show because they recognise some of it from what I do (although I probably don't help myself in that respect).

But anyway, that's enough from me. As I said at the start, I know there's a lot of you who love BBT so it's over to you to convince me that I'm wrong about the show. Sorry for the rant, I've been ill all weekend and that's not conducive to being cheerful.

Next week we'll be going back to What Were They Thinking and looking at Marvel in the '90's.

I'm taking a bit of a turn from the usual Blog content this week. I am currently working on a new Canadian musical based on the true story of an inspirational young man.

In 1980, after losing his right leg to cancer, Terry Fox began his "Marathon of Hope". It was Terry's dream to run across Canada in an effort to raise money for cancer research. After running over 3300 miles at a rate of a marathon per day, Terry was hospitalized near Thunder Bay and it was discovered that his cancer had returned and was in his lungs.

Although Terry's dream and ultimately his life was cut short, his dream carried on in his memory. Since 1981 "Terry Fox Runs" are held across Canada and around the world each September and have raised over 600 million dollars for cancer research.

Since this weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, it seems appropriate as a Canadian and cancer survivor to honour a man who gave so much of himself to help others.

Check out this ESPN profile of Terry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjgTlCTluPA

I apologise to those 'machiners who are older than 30 here, but this weeks Big Question is aimed squarely at our younger contingent. Don't worry next week we will be back to ranting about comics. I think it will be about the worst superpower ever.

Considering that the new Pokemon games are coming out this Saturday, and considering its significance to certainly my generation, I thought we'd talk about some of the new stuff they're going to be introducing. However, first we need a question. So, what do you think of the changes they are making for this generation?

Warning, if you are avoiding any leaks before the release of the games, don't read on. However, I will not be discussing the unofficial leaks made since promotional copies of the games have been sent out last week.

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