Pajiba

I'm sure you'll all be relieved to know that SOOTIKIN is not a word. It does not exist in the Oxford English Dictionary, Unabridged. It apparently is a made up word that has gained life on the internet because the make up definition is so disgusting.

So, New Amsterdam is New Torchwood? And John Amsterdam is Captain Jack Harkness?

Man, I would love to see this as a Whedon show. And no, I don't say that about absolutely everything, but this sounds like it would benefit from someone who can think a bit deeper than surface level.

The phrase is "poring over," not "pouring over." One of my pet peeves.

Now I shall read the rest of your column.

That's disappointing, actually. I was hoping this show would even out and become really good. Maybe I was hoping for another Angel?

I wasn't going to watch it, of course, until one full season had passed....I've learned my lesson about watching shows on Fox.

Eh...maybe I'll look up some episodes just to get the gist on my own...but I think I'll stick to my dvds for now until Terminator comes back.

Man, I would love to see this as a Whedon show.

Agreed. Alas, Mister Whedon has already made that show and it got canceled just when they were about to fight a giant dragon.

Also, if he can't find the love of his life in 400 years, he ain't trying very hard.

Ah, Joss....what can't you do? It's a good point, twig and Adere...shows like this just make me miss his genius more.

As a Jorneyman-watching, Quantum-Leap-purchasing, went-to-Scotland-on-my-honeymoon-because-we-loves-us-some-Highlander kind of dork who let out a fangirl squee at the mention of Hob Gadling, NA has won a spot on my TiVO by proxy. I've been checking and double checking the line-up since I read about it months ago. I'm not holding out for any Sliders-style quality but maybe we can hit a Time-Cop level of entertainment? Gotta love those low expectations.

BWeaves: if only. Alas, I don't think this show will be meta enough to be on the same level with Torchwood. How come the Brits have managed to figure out how to have a coolio show with a basic premise and not muck it up with the need for true love, relationship arcs, etc. etc.

Shadows of Dakaron & Adere: Word. Angel was great, it's over... why the need to keep repeating it, poorly? First there was Moonlight and if anything was a direct rip off of the basic premise (minus all the, you know, good stuff) of Angel it was that. Now the procedural and it's just Angel and Kate on the same team. It's like they've hit the same wall with the immortals that they have with the Tudors. Come on people, there are more stories out there, aren't there?

PS: did you know you can actually visit the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel? There is nothing there but grass.

lilianna28 - have you read any of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series? It's about Scotland and time travel and lots of other things. I'm rereading it now for maybe the fourth or fifth time...

mswas, I haven't read them yet but I will be fo' sho'. I have to break out of my current bodice-ripper rut.

I'm not holding out for any Sliders-style quality but maybe we can hit a Time-Cop level of entertainment? Gotta love those low expectations.

Ah, the sliding scale of geek desperation. And people even have to ask me why I enjoyed LOTR. It had writers! And a budget! And character actors who weren't all cousins of the key grip! It had a budget!

Alas, Mister Whedon has already made that show and it got canceled just when they were about to fight a giant dragon.

Fucking Hell, Adere, don't remind me.

Maybe we should amend the Pajiban drinking game to include mention of Whedon fandom and/or outrage?

I weep for the way Whedon has been treated by F(uckers)ox. I hope he'll find a niche again where we can appreciate his genius on a weekly basis.

See, I looked at this, thought that it could be good. Then I remembered that it would be on Fox.

Yeah, I generally don't watch things on Fox until they have aired for a little while. The Sarah Conner Chronicles is exempt from this rule.

Seth, while watching The Universe on History the other night, there was a guy talking about time travel. This man has figured out that a person can only travel so far back as to the point at which the machine was invented. This guy also sounded seriously insane so the sanity factor may cloud his opinion.

Melody, out of curiosity, what was his reasoning for only being able to travel back to when the machine was invented? I just tried thinking of a good reason, and couldn't come up with one.

And the season finale of Terminator last night was fantastic! Exciting and emotional...please, please, please let them bring it back next season!

"So, New Amsterdam is New Torchwood? And John Amsterdam is Captain Jack Harkness?"

"Alas, Mister Whedon has already made that show and it got canceled just when they were about to fight a giant dragon."

Fuck me, I love this site. Those were my two main thoughts while reading this. (And thanks to James Marsters snogging Cap'n Jack, I have a handy link between the two! Thanks, homoeroticism!)

It kind of reminds me of Joan of Arcadia (Shaddup.) in the second season, drifting away from the .. you know.. actual original format of the show, and becoming another procedural drama.

"Also, if he can't find the love of his life in 400 years, he ain't trying very hard."

You haven't seen his pick-up lines. "Hey, baby. How'd you like to help a guy end his immortality?" Or "Ever been boned by a 400 year old?"

I don't know...after 400 years, wouldn't his pickup lines be more along the lines of "Been there, done that, many times, trust me, I know what I'm doing."?

You have to wonder about that, actually. How bored with certain activities would you be if you had been doing them for 400 years? After year 300 or so, it would piss me off to no end to have to brush my teeth in the morning, again, or shave the net beard off, yet again.

Shadows, or worse yet--400 years of laundry or vacuuming? Fuck all that! I'd quickly devolve into squalor, thankyouverymuch.

You said Primer.

I love you.

lilianna28 - some bodices do in fact get ripped in these books. So they should be right up your alley.

Maybe we should amend the Pajiban drinking game to include mention of Whedon fandom and/or outrage?

Is it really not in there? Wow.

Speaking of low expectations, is anybody else bracing themselves for the "Time Traveler's Wife" movie? I don't really have an opinion either way on Bana and McAdams (except I wouldn't have cast them myself) but I'm worried.

I wasn't planning on watching Sarah Connor but with Urbaniak's presence now I have to. At least the last two.

llism, I'd imagine it'd just be easier to find a new place to live every 5 years or so. And just get new clothes.

But yeah...everybody wants to live forever, nobody really thinks about the utter boredom of the mundane that would come about from that. I mean, if you're a painter or something, that might be different, since you'd never run out of something to do or something to be inspired by. But the common man? I can see me running out of books to read in a hundred or so years. I'd have caught up on all my DVD watching by then too. Teaching yourself to become a great piano player or cook wouldn't take all that long (RE: Groundhog Day thread).

Maybe we do have immortals walking amongst us...and we don't know it because they friggin kill themselves out of sheer boredom?

Anyone else reminded of an old MotW episode of the X-Files? This old crime photgrapher in NYC cheated death and already got bored with his curse after no less than 50 years. So, 400 years in the same city would make you a very, very grouchy fella. Especially if you haven't got any special powers on the side. Reminiscing about the old times when Coke still had coke in it and all.

Why the hell is it always finding your "true love" that breaks the curse/spell? (and what kind of burden does that put on the relationship from the get go?) Why can't it be something more interesting like - "finally becoming a genuinely good person" or "able to actually please all the people all the time"? You know, the sort of thing you can't actually decide has happened; the fates just say "yep, he's figured it out, he's mortal again" because wouldn't THAT be interesting? If you WANTED to be mortal again, you would go for it with gusto - and not knowing if you had achieved it or not would make doing things an immortal would do a bit more dicey and therefore increase the tension for the viewer.* And if you didn't want to give up immortality, well the moral ambiguity would be way more fun to watch than another procedural.

*(Fuck. I think I have to write that book now. Guess I should call my agent...)

Shadows--wholly agree. I can barely keep myself entertained over the weekend, let alone forever. Now, if that immortality came with the ability to eat whatever I wanted and never get fat, drink as much as I liked without ever being hung over, an unlimited bank account, and, oh, I don't know . . . the ability to fly, maybe? Now *that* would be a lifestyle I could get behind!

Reba, that actually is brilliant. I too have always found the "true love breaks the spell" device tedious and overplayed. If you write it, I'll read it.

Why can't it be something more interesting like - "finally becoming a genuinely good person"

Does Groundhog Day meet this criterion? He does get the girl in the end, though, so maybe not...

Why the hell is it always finding your "true love" that breaks the curse/spell?

seriously. SERIOUSLY. Love is great, ok Hollywood? We get it. There's one true love for all of us, spanning across time, space, the universe, cross species... it All About Love. All You Need is Love. Point has been taken, beaten about our heads, smashed in our faces and left to penetrate our minds for all of our existence. We. Get. It.

Why does the theme have to pollute EVERYTHING?

Reba: Spot on. The "true love" equals "redemption" baseline is pretty worn.

Er, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is actually Danish, not Dutch. And that's my Virgoan nit-picking for the day... ;-)

I had hopes for this when we met the barman pal, and when we saw that John had taken a photo of Times Square from the same position once a year ever since, I guess, the camera became available to the masses, and seemed to be using the same camera. That was a nice touch.
I began to lose interest when we found he was a cop. I think we have enough of those on TV. And the flashbacks, complete with wonky-eyed Native American spell-casting, were just laughable.

But I do like some of the casting (including Coster-Waldau, who I've never seen before but, woof!) So I guess I'll give it a chance. I want to see the lady doctor work it out and, presumably, track him down. She was vaguely interesting, though that may just be because she reminded me of Kate Walsh....

"Love is a very powerful force. Even moreso when it's focused into a coherent beam of destruction. Every time i cast hadoken, it siphons away some of the love in the universe. I'm not sure how much, but I'm given to understand the divorce rate goes up with each blast."

Speaking of low expectations, is anybody else bracing themselves for the "Time Traveler's Wife" movie? I don't really have an opinion either way on Bana and McAdams (except I wouldn't have cast them myself) but I'm worried.

Jay, I'm...nervous. I love that book so much, I haven't had an emotional reaction to a book ending since, well, the final installment of Harry Potter. I do think that McAdams is an inspired choice to play Claire. She seems to sparkle whenever she's on screen (and not just because she's gorgeous), and I think that vitality is needed to correctly portray Claire. As for Bana. I like Bana. I think he was genious in Munich. And I think he's charismatic enough to play Henry...but he may be too, I don't know...manly? Traditionally handsome? I pictured Henry as good looking, but more of the glasses wearing too tall for himself sort of awkwardness hot. I have really high expectations for this movie, I don't think there's any way it can do the book justice.

Add me to the Whedon droolers...I just rewatched the Angel episode Smile Time this weekend. Does Angel's visage in Muppet form ever stop being funny? No. No it does not.

"I'm going to tear you a new puppet hole, bitch!"
"You're a wee little puppet man!"

Genius. Obviously I am not one today.

I'm just tired of 'True Love' equalling 'The Hookup'. It's that crap Moonlighting myth that as soon as the characters actually get together, obviously there are no more interesting stories to be told. Or that there's only one way to have True Love.

But that's becuase a non-traditional story gets all the edges cut off by focus groups. Bleh.

An immortal who goes around making furniture and doesn't have a sword to chop-off heads in a battle for "a prize" is just wrong to me.

Oh and TV Whore just reminded me of:

Never cry over a whore....NEVER!!!!

Shadows - the only reason I can come up with as to why you couldn't travel back in time past when the machine was made would be if you had to be transported in the machine.

Also, the prevention of travel before the machine was made prevents a causal loop. If you could go back in time before the machine was made (it was made 100 years ago but you can time travel back 500 years), you could give a yourself, a relative, or someone else instructions on how to make the time machine.

Or maybe it is a strange kind of fail-safe, preventing you from killing or altering the lives of those who made the time machine. Or prohibiting you from going back to a time before different time-lines become available.

Backwards time-travel is one tricky motherfucker.

Is it too late or too early to start guessing when Pajiba will come out with a "I'm f-ing Seth Freilich" video?

Because he's a whore, that's why.

The Stew, those are some of the reasons I thought of, but like all time paradoxes, they have their own logic flaws as well, some of which you pointed out. That's why I was curious as to what he gave his reasons as.

Yeah, backwards time travel is a tricky mo-fo...that's why I stick to going back one hour every day, just to take the last cup of coffee in the break room right before I get there.

I read a review/synopsis of this over the weekend in our local paper. Sounded interesting in a "I'll do anything to avoid watching reality TV" kind of way. And Coster-Waldeau seems to be some fine eye candy, so yeah, I'll probably watch this.

Re:the Time Traveler's Wife-I really enjoyed the book;it was often hard to follow, but worth the effort. I remember thinking Hollywood will have to dumb this down to make a movie. I'm not sure the book will translate to film, but I hope I'm wrong. Yeah, low expectations all around.

So in other words, falling in love is a death sentence? Best reason I've heard yet for remaining single. Jay and Julie, I too am worried about the near certain travesty that will be 'The Time Traveller's Wife' on the big screen. That's one of my two favorite books ever; it's not very often that a book moves me to tears. I can't see any way to translate the novel to film without shitting on it.

Julie, my GOD I love that episode!

Lorne: Maybe you have some type of puppet cancer.

And the season finale of Terminator last night was fantastic! Exciting and emotional...please, please, please let them bring it back next season!

Posted by: Shadows of Dakaron at March 4, 2008 10:29 AM

All I remember is that the guy wanted to go back into time to prevent his father's heart attack. He used Einstein's theories and somehow determined that time travel can only occur from the point at which the machine was built. Dude seemed seriously off his rocker. The Universe is a really cool show. This was during the Unexplained Mysteries episode.

On another note, will everyone do me a favor and not spoil the finale of Terminator? Please? I had a huge paper to finish last night and could not watch it live. It is on my Tivo slated for viewing tonight or tomorrow, depending upon when I finish this damned thing.

Yeah, a dapper Metrosexual furniture-maker who takes 400 years to find the woman of his dreams? Is clearly gay.

Also, my husband and I saw Primer a couple years ago. He thought the reason I didn't like it was because I didn't understand the science and theories. Which I didn't. But come on, it's not my fault that science is boring.

Melody, I would not dream of spoiling it for you. If anybody says one word about it, I'll drive over to their house and bind and gag them myself.

Thank you! Shadows, you are my favorite person today for that.

All this wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff is clearly too complicated for non-Gallifreyan minds such as mine to comprehend. So I'm not even going to try - at least, not until I've had way more coffee...

Julie - Lorne: 'My little prince!!'

Vamped-out puppet Angel = one of the very few times I have actually snorted a beverage out of my nose whilst watching tv!

My favorite immortal is the guy in Hitchhiker's Guide who travels through all of time and space, telling every person who exists that they're a complete asshole.

Now that's how you spend eternity.

Hee hee...I love me some Lorne.

"Angel, baby, muppet, pumpkin..."

My favorite immortal is the guy in Hitchhiker's Guide who travels through all of time and space, telling every person who exists that they're a complete asshole.

Completely forgot about him! We have a winner! Now I want to be immortal so I can tell all of existence, personally, what douches they were.

Do you remember that character's name? Damn it, I need to reread Hitchhiker, my friend thought I was psychotic as I read it on the beach, that's how hard I was laughing.

Julie, Wikipedia says 'Wowbagger'.

I do not remember him...I was probably too busy laughing at Marvin :)

Wowbagger, taht's it. I could only remember it started with a W. Thanks, twig!

I've been so depressed since my kill-joy husband burst my time travel bubble. He asserts that you can't go back or forth simply because the world is never located in the same place so you'd likely transport into dead space instead of say...in front of John Lennon's apartment in 1980 (or any other useful time you'd choose). Shame. Surely though we could get some nerds working on sorting out the math on that type of thing, could we not? Math just isn't my forte...

The whole "You can't travel back in time past when the time machine was made, because the time machine didn't exist back then" doesn't really hold water, because you could make the same argument that you can't travel back in time past when you were born, because you didn't exist back then, either. So, it's either it's a time machine or it's not. If you can't travel very far back in time then it's just a "I want to sleep in late, but need to get to work on time" machine.

to clarify - I hold nerds very dear to my heart.

Replica, does your spouse watch The Universe?

That is what my husband gets all his weird science info from.

So you're saying that any time machine that was created would have to be a time/space machine by necessity? Able to transport through time and teleport through space? Now that's just plain ridiculous. Who would make up something like that? Jeez...talk about nonsensical science...

I'm not sure if I was actually that disappointed in the New Amsterdam pilot given that I didn't have terribly high hopes for it, but I certainly agree with your criticism. I think I'll give it a few episodes to settle in and see how I feel about it then before I make a final decision. A few personal complaints so far:

1. There doesn't yet seem to be any point to his work partner.

2. I must have missed the day in history class where we covered Magical Powers of the Native American Inhabitants of the East Coast because I would really like to know why, if they had the power to bring people back from the dead and make them immortal, they didn't use it more often. If nothing else it would have made for one helluva' party trick.

3. As you mentioned, a serious cheese factor including, but not limited to, a bad fake beard, the most advanced subway security cameras in the world, the idea that there is only one person EVER who we are meant to love (and that fate would be cruel enough to put that person 400 years out of our reach), and that sequence at the end, which I couldn't decide the purpose of: to burn up the last of their budget on digital effects or to just REALLY MAKE SURE we understood that this guy Amsterdam was the same guy we were seeing in flashbacks. You know, in case we're idiots.

BWeaves, I understand what you're saying but I don't think that argument works exactly. If you could travel back in time before a time machine was built then we would already have a time machine (assuming time travel is possible).

Though following that argument, you couldn't travel back in time before you first stepped into the time machine because it would be impossible to have multiple versions of yourself running around before you actually stepped into the time machine. Maybe things are like Futurama, and your time duplicate is doomed to die.

If you could time travel to any time period you want, then things would theoretically be impossible to change. Either your trip to the past has already occurred in history and events occur as they are written, or your efforts to change history are doomed to fail.

I could try to return to the past and change 9/11 so Bush didn't royally fuck things up but because I already know about 9/11 I cannot stop it (it has to happen in order for me to know about it). But say on my first try I realized I could've tried to stop it a different way, could I then go back and try again? And try 1,000 more times? But then on the first try why did I not see the 999 other versions of me, each trying? And if I was able to succeed and stop 9/11, how could the me of the future know to come back in time to stop this whole mess in the first place?

Shit gets crazy.

Glad to see that others got to the Torchwood and Angel parrallels first. I'm pretty sure I can safely say that the people involved in both of those shows could easily pull off this idea in a much more impressive way, seeing as they pretty much already have.

lilianna28, you're completely right about Torchwood being wonderfully constructed to accommodate for great characters and well established back story without resorting to so many fantasy cliches.

And it doesn't hurt Harkness is so easy on the eyes. And Ianto. And - after a few episodes - Owen. Can't wait for tomorrow night... hurrah for first view on BBC3!

Wow, that turned in to quite the rant...

Why can't you just build two time machines and send one to the past? Wouldn't that solve the not having a machine in the past problem?

Oh and, Forever Knight dealt with all these issues and so did the Highlander Series, BEFORE Angel and Torchwood. I'd go so far as to say that this is a lame copy of Knight with some weak "metro" Tradind Spaces reject.

So, is "murder police" the way you describe a homicide detective to the audience who needs the main character to be named Amsterdam just like the title of the show?

I haven't even seen this show yet, and already I'm disappointed. I can't watch the Sarah Conner Chronicles. What I've seen so far has been painfully stupid. She moves all around and registers John in public schools, and does it all under their real names? Fucking, puh-lease.

So, I've got it on the DVR schedule, but I'm expecting that I will thoroughly hate it.

I hate Fox.

Spork- "murder police" is the terminology used in The Wire to describe homocide detectives. They don't call them "cops" at all on the show, only "police."

I assume it's the Balm'r way of speaking, but not sure. It sounds fucking cool when they say it though.

Spork, I believe "Murder Police" is a reference to The Wire.

Oh, and I agree, I hate Fox too, and the Conner Chronicles is painfully stupid.

It's not that the acting is so bad (although I wish Lena Headey would stop with the gorram brooding), it's the writing. They use the same old "let's write as if the audience can't remember 2 minutes ago, and repeat every storyline and name in every line of dialogue" that Fox uses on all of it's show.

I'm limping through to the finale, but doubt I'll be back for next season. Too painful.

That's what Munch always said on "Homicide" too.

That turncoat.

Thanks, guys. Never seen The Wire.

By the way, I grew up in Bal'mer and I'd never heard that. Didn't hang around too many cops, though.

It must be a Simon/Burns thing then (they're the EP/creators of The Wire and Homocide).

sadly no, Melody.

He doesn't feel the need to justify/reference anything during his expository meanderings on the nature of time and space. It's just his way (which truly bursts my geek bubble...how can you argue all your misspent teen media gleanings against, 'just, No.'?)

le sigh. at least he's cute. and can cook.

docsmartypants, good call on the Magical Natives.

This show sounds terrible with ye olde find your one true love plot, as if we all only have one true love, and as if it takes 400 YEARS to find him/her! That doesn't give me a lot of hope for my own love life. Lazy hacks!!!

Plus, who the hell would want to live in New York for 400 years? That guy is living my personal hell, no way am I going to watch that show.

Spork... "never seen the wire" is a sentence that hurts to read.

Run, man, do not walk, but RUN out and start watching it.

Seeing as I'm stuck for new shows to watch I'll probably end up trying this one out when it arrives here (good ole Blighty, always so far behind you guys...*sigh*)

Julie - agreed on the Eric Bana thing for Time Traveller's Wife. I was picturing more of an Adrien Brody type myself. Why can't I be a casting agent instead of a PA??

He isn't Dutch.. He's DANISH.
I'm certainly going to tune in but in the back
of my mind I am thinking that those jerks at Fox
are going to end this show.

Having only skimmed the comments, I'm just going to shrug and say that I liked the show well enough. The second episode tonight was pretty good, and the guy's not bad to look at. Since I only have 6 channels and new TV elsewhere isn't back, I'm sure I'll watch it more.

This show's premise was lifted almost intact from the book "Forever" by Pete Hamill...if it turns out that Amsterdam can't leave the island of Manhattan, Hamill has a great case for plagarism.

The shows I used to watch got lost in strike limbo. I like the premise of New Amsterdam - the immortality angle, what would happen and where would a person's head be at after 400 years. I like the actor, and the flashbacks insofar as they add depth to the character's perspective. Agreed on the Mega-Cheese factor: the gackalacious One True Love angle (who wants to date a guy who wants her because she might help him solve his problems?), and what's up with Native American women working their magical-mystery-mumbo-jumbo on a white dude from Europe, like they've got nothing better to do with their ̃mysterious Native American powers than save invading white dudes? What other cultural stereotypes can be exploited here? Why couldn't the writers make it a pilgrim chick accused of witchcraft or something? (So maybe he moves from Massachusetts to New York.) The show's concept is cool. They could do so much more with it, but they probably won't because hey - it's mainstream TV!

Dead on arrival! BTW, TSSC rulez!