Dots & Slashes

Summer, 2003

In the TV world there's "cheers and jeers." In the movie world there's "thumbs up" and "thumbs down." Well, here in cyberspace, there's  (...) dots and (/) slashes. What news bytes hit their mark, and which should be "slashed" ? Here are the latest of them...

Comments? Suggestions? Send a note, and we'll add it to the list!

DOT : To video games showing this summer that the downtrodden entertainment platform can one-up Hollywood when it wants to. Not to get into a long list though this summer has been a slew of disappointments in the movie theater. Even the best of movies wasn't as awe-inspiring as it could have been (you know what "matrix" of which I speak; Good movies, just not as good as we hoped). Then video games like Tron 2.0 and Star Trek Elite Force 2 come out. Games that prove the best man for the job is often a computer...and a good programmer, of course. Finally, "movie based on a video game" sounds like a good idea.

Slash :  To season three of 24, and the fact that Sarah Wynter will not be a regular. If you kept tabs last season, the whole point was to build tension on what would be the first day of the rest of their lives for Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) and Kate Warner (Sarah Wynter). So, what do they do...? Spoilers notwithstanding; Sarah is signed on for a sort of story wrap-up guest role in the opener, though she's no regular, and worse yet, word is that's it for her character. Again; wasn't the whole point to bring these two love birds together in the show? What was the point of so many scenes of them together, then...? Are the scriptwriters thinking of making Jack into some neo-James-Bond, with a new girl every twenty-four-hours...? Let's all hope they aren't.

Slash :  To The Amazing Race 4, and its totally inane one-line blurbs of the teams this season. Sure, it the best way to summarize to a first-time viewer the whole nine yards about the two male players, Reichen & Chip, was to simply use as a subtitle whenever they were on screen, "Reichen & Chip: Married." However, the avalanche this key stone inspired was a bit unsettling. "Virgins" was the subtitle of the youngest team of chaste fiancées; "engaged" for another; "best friends" for another. Whatever happened to subtitles like "Richard [Hatch]: Corporate Trainer," "Susan [Hawk] Truck Driver," and who can forget "Dave [Johnson]: Rocket Scientist." I'm happy that Reichen & Chip are married. And Gay. They're married, and they're gay. They're a happily, gay married couple. Check. However, had they been on Survivor, the subtitles would've read something like, "Reichen: flight school teacher" and "Chip: financing consultant." Just in case you were interested. Survivor would've been...which is one of many reasons why that show's entering its seventh season, and Amazing Race is on the bubble these days. Think about it.

Slash :  To anyone who thinks the finale of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines didn't suck. Spoilers kept intact; some people loved it, some people hated it. However, the former group is defending their beliefs by claiming the finale was "logical" and "was necessary to the story," and that's just off the radar by a light year, my friend. For those who saw the finale (or don't care about major spoilers!), see Techtite.com's July editorial, and judge for yourself how "logical" this finale was. Here's a hint: it wasn't.

Slash :  To the overall shoddiness of the latest Tomb Raider game, Angel of Darkness. I was perhaps one of only a elite few remaining Lara Croft fanboys anticipating the latest Tomb Raider game with baited breath, only to be given a game that will, clearly, be the end of the series. Not that Lara dies (again!) or anything, though it's really that bad...and what's worse, there's simply no excuse for its flaws. Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb may not have had auto-save (darn it!!!), though it at least had tombs to raid, and had its subject matter in plain sight. This game seems like a murder mystery wrapped around a really bad action game engine, and that's just not the sort of ill respect that the Lara character deserves. Either give the Lara Croft game license to someone who'll respect it, or just let her survive in our memories as the classic game character we still love. Please...?

DOT : To a slew of cool summer shows. There's Sex and the City for the ladies, yes, though there's also Monk on USA, Stargate SG-1 on Sci-Fi, The Amazing Race, Big Brother 4, and yes, even Cupid (which sucks though at least it's new). Summer TV hasn't looked this good since the first season of Survivor.

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