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BSG, the last webisodes, and being gay in the rag-tag fleet
As a dedicated Battlestar Galactica fan I can’t wait for the final episodes to start in January and I’m already enjoying the countdown webisode series, ‘The Face of the Enemy’ which features Felix Gaeta, two Cylon Eights (Sharon’s model) and a few very desperate, very lost, BSG crew. The first webisode went live today and sets up an pretty engaging storyline. It also featured one other bit of story that’s sure to get a reaction:
On his way off the Galactica, to catch a raptor to another ship of a bit of leave, Felix Gaeta says goodbye to Hoshi and they lock lips which is the first visible and openly gay male relationship in the series. (There are other mentions of gay couples, although the most notable lesbian relationship was between Admiral Cain and the poor Six who eventually turns up horribly tortured on the Pegasus; this left more than a few questionable readings possible about the consequences of non-heterosexual relationships!) I’m very much in two minds about the outing of Gaeta; I’m delighted that his sexuality is basically treated as completely normal – the big issue is Hoshi smuggling some painkillers to Gaeta, while their relationship seems normalised (or as normal as anything gets on the rag tag fleet). That said, I wonder if Ron Moore and the producers are playing it too safe leaving this sort of material for the webisodes? Their nature as online add-ons might just mean that the writers are allowed to push boundaries they can’t during the actual episodes (and kudos to Jane Espenson and Seamus Kevin Fahey for writing this webisode series), but for this to be a powerful and clear statement about the normalisation of same sex relationships in the world of Galactica, I’d really like to see this thread continue into the final episodes and actually screened on television, not just pushed to one side on the web.
For international viewers, we’re once again victims of the tyranny of digital distance as the webisode are geo-locked and only visible to those with US IP addresses; there will be lots of workarounds, no doubt, but for a short time until it’s pulled, the first webisode is available on YouTube.
Update: Apparently in the run of webisodes we find out Gaeta is bisexual, not gay; I’m not sure if this depletes the overall message or not … probably not.
Annotated Links of Interest: October 26th 2008
Links of interest for October 24th 2008 through October 26th 2008:
- (SPOILER) What happened when the lights went out. [Whedonesque] – Joss Whedon talks straight to the fans about Dollhouse: “Sadly, this is not a naughty post. It’s just Joss nattering on again. I thought it was time to check in with you once again, gentle viewers. Or readers. Or pictures-looker-ats (that might be viewers). Also listeners, sniffers, haberdashers, Olympic hopefuls, the elderly, the youngerdly, and the mighty state of Oregon (go Oregon-based sports franchise!) Welcome all. Welcome… to me. What’s me up to? I’m glad me asked. Me’ve (I’m not doing that any more) been working on a little show called Dollhouse. Yes, perhaps you’ve read about how it’s blazing an untrammeled path to surefire success, with nary a hitch or a hiccup, just pure blazing blazery, comet-like and meteoresque. What’s that, you say? You’ve read other things? Dark, Yog-Sothothy rumors about shutdowns and delays? Poppycock! They’re true. But I never pass up a chance to say “poppycock”. “
- Flunking Spore – John Bohannon [Science, 322 (5901): 531b, October 2008] – Apparently Spore fails to live up to the expectations of scientists and the promotional material for Spore might have been a little disingenuous: “So over the past month, I’ve been playing Spore with a team of scientists, grading the game on each of its scientific themes. When it comes to biology, and particularly evolution, Spore failed miserably. According to the scientists, the problem isn’t just that Spore dumbs down the science or gets a few things wrong–it’s meant to be a game, after all–but rather, it gets most of biology badly, needlessly, and often bizarrely wrong. I also tracked down the scientists who appeared on television in what seemed like an endorsement of Spore’s scientific content on the National Geographic channel. They said they had been led to believe that the interviews were for a straight documentary about “developmental evolutionary” science rather than a video promoting a computer game “
- The Medium – The Hitler Meme [NYTimes] – The New York Times on that Hitler (Downfall) meme: “On YouTube, we’re in a bunker, and the enemies are always, always closing in. The ceilings are low. The air is stifling. A disheveled leader is delusional. This is the premise of more than 100 videos on the Web — the work of satirists who for years have been snatching video and audio from “Downfall,” the 2004 German movie of Hitler’s demise, and doctoring it to tell a range of stories about personal travails and world politics. By adding new English-language subtitles, they transform the movie’s climactic scene, in which Hitler (played by Bruno Ganz) rails against his enemies and reluctantly faces his defeat, into the generic story of a rabid blowhard brought low.”
- YouTube Enables Deep Linking Within Videos [TechCrunch] – “It’s not a big new feature but it’s certainly one that will come in handy: YouTube will now allow you to send users to a specific point in a video by appending a short tag to the end of a video’s URL. It’s pretty surprising that this functionality wasn’t available earlier, as Google Video introduced the same feature over two years ago. YouTube users have been forced to rely on third party services like Splicd to do the same thing. To specify a point, append a tag to the end of your video link with the following syntax: “#t=1m45s” (you can change the numbers before the ‘m’ and ’s’ to edit the minutes and seconds, respectively.”
- Woman in jail over virtual murder [BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific] – “A woman has been arrested in Japan after she allegedly killed her virtual husband in a popular video game. The 43-year-old was reportedly furious at finding herself suddenly divorced in the online game Maplestory. Police say she illegally accessed log-in details of the man playing her husband, and killed off his character. The woman, a piano teacher, is in jail in Sapporo waiting to learn if she faces charges of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data.”
- Fan fury at Nine [TV Tonight] – Australian “Fans of Fringe who were unaware the show had been pulled from Nine’s current schedule got a rude shock last night and vented their anger in online messageboards. They were universally vehement in their displeasure with Nine’s programming. This site alone now totals 95 posts in one thread alone. Over on Nine’s own messageboard there were more furious comments: Fringe Dweller: C’mon channel 9, have some balls and tell the people why Fringe has been pulled! Oh I’m sorry, you don’t care about what people like. Maybe we could lose one of the four hundred different versions of CSI. God Bless ‘Two and a Half man’ where would you be without them. Maybe you can rename yourselves to Channel Two and a Half Men CSI Malibu!!! Why I’m at it, you pulled Fringe and we still have to put up with that The Strip crap.”
Dexter is on YouTube for everyone, not just the US (Update: Not any more.)
The first season of Dexter has been on free-to-air television in Australia, but no sign of season two and certainly not season three. The show has been coming first on the pay-TV channel Showtime, but with season two already finished, and despite season three already playing in the US, Dexter season three won’t be shown in Australia until January 2009. That is unless you happen to visit YouTube! As the New York Times reported:
After months of experimenting with long-form video, YouTube said on Friday it would start offering full-length episodes of some television shows on its sprawling Web site. The staggering growth of YouTube — five billion videos were viewed there in July — has come primarily from short videos that last only a few minutes. But Internet users are gradually becoming more comfortable watching longer videos online, prompting YouTube’s commitment to the format. “This is what the users want,” said Jordan Hoffner, the director of content partnerships for YouTube. With the addition of TV series like “Dexter,” “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Star Trek” through a deal with CBS, YouTube is catching up to other Web sites that have promoted long-form video for some time. Most important for YouTube’s owner, Google, the longer videos will include advertising before, during and after each episode. Google is under pressure to raise more revenue from the nearly four-year-old video sharing site. …On the CBS page on YouTube, classic TV shows like “MacGyver” are joined by “Dexter” and “Californication,” two series that appear on Showtime, a cable channel subsidiary of CBS. The company is selling its own advertising inventory for the series being shown on YouTube; the two entities will share the revenue.
For Australian viewers, news like this is almost always greeted with the caveat that the service will be geo-locked so it can only screen in the US. Just ask Hulu about that one. However, after reading that the CBS Showtime YouTube channel was completely accessible in Switzerland, I had to find out whether it was it would stream in Australia; and to really test things properly, I chose the first episode of Dexter’s third season which hasn’t screen here in Australia in any legal capacity. And guess what? All 58 minutes of the show streamed perfectly! (See update below.) In a spiffy new YouTube widescreen format, too. In that one click, the tyranny of digital distance has been overcome! Now, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that Showtime Australia ask that it gets geo-blocked in the near future, but for now it seems that there is a completely legal way to watch the latest Dexter and Californication in Australia, with a legitimate revenue stream flowing back to the producers (the episodes have advertising in them) and that’s a price I’m quite happy to pay! I just hope this trend catches on; Australians might even be able to pay for these episodes on iTunes as they’re screened in the US (or am I just edging into the land of wishful thinking now?)!
PS Could a few people reading this in Australia and elsewhere outside the US please click the link and let me know if the episode of Dexter loads for you? I’m curious whether this is a global release or it’s still geotagged somehow!
Update: Eight hours after this was initially posted, the inevitable “This video is not available in your country” message replaced the the Dexter episode in question when accessing from Australia. Apparently it’s blocked everywhere outside the US (even Canada; thanks for letting me know, Karen). However, not all content from Showtime on YouTube was blocked … as far as I can tell, it’s just the recent content and that which hasn’t been broadcast internationally (I can still watch the first episode of Californication, for example). Oh well, it was fun having full access for the half a day it lasted.
Update 2: I spoke too soon; now the only things accessible outside of the US are the promos and trailers. Looks like business as usual, trying desperately to keep the digital globe carved up into arbitrary geographic sales zones.
Dr Horrible Finally Available through iTunes Australian Store
A mere 54 days after it was released in the US (and after a few teething problems, free across the globe for just over a week), the three-episodes of Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog are finally available in the Australian iTunes store (and the UK one, too). The delay, I’m sure, is less about the desire of the Whedon boys to get Dr Horrible out there, and more about the challenges involved in pushing material into the various national versions of the iTunes store. This rather long delay serves as a fairly poignant footnote to the talk I gave a little while ago on entitled What Dr Horrible Can Teach TV About Participatory Culture. It seems there’s still some challenges even the bad doctor can’t immediately overcome. That said, it’s out now, so here’s a link to the Australian iTunes store; it’s $5.99 for the series, or $2.99 per episode.
In the meantime, the Evil League of Evil has been looking for a few more evil recruits, but you need to apply before Oct 11th!
Annotated Links of Interest: September 10th 2008
Links of interest for September 9th 2008 through September 10th 2008:
- Pirates become canon keepers [The Australian] – “Some commentators have suggested that it’s simply easier for studios to replace the entire score than to investigate music rights. In any case, an unannounced modern alteration is cultural vandalism, even if you don’t think the original work was any good. As a result the DVD is useless as a piece of cultural history and as a representation of an original work. With the internet full of sellers (often fans themselves) willing to provide the copies of this and other series taken from unedited broadcasts, the studio has taken a huge step towards legitimising piracy as a means of cultural preservation.” (A fantastic, if rather sarcastic, article by Kit MacFarlane arguing that piracy may be the only course open to preserve tv texts in the face of minor – and major – alterations made by studios and distributors on the way to dvd releases and more. )
- BATTLESTAR GALACTICA returns to iTunes…in HD [GALACTICA SITREP] – Battlestar Galactica and other NBC shows return to iTunes (US). If you’re logged into the US store right now you can get 4×03 (He That Believeth in Me) in HD for free (logged in to the US store, I say, not necessarily in the US!).
- Australia rated foot of developed world on school funding [PerthNow] – “Australia’s government spending on public education is the second lowest among developed nations, a new report has found. Turkey, Portugal, Mexico and Iceland all spend more money on public education institutions than Australia. … Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard says the new OECD Education at a Glance report highlights the need for the Rudd Government’s much-hyped “education revolution”.” (Yes, but WHEN is this much-vaunted education revolution actually going to start? It’s close to unforgivable that the once ‘clever country’ is so far behind in global terms.)
- Google Turns 20 (fiction) – “This month, September 2018, marks the 20th anniversary of Google as a business…” A provocative little piece of speculation fiction looking back from 2018 at the rise, and fall, of Google. A few ideas are a bit far-fetched (Windows Free?) but most are plausible; all beg interesting questions about current trends, from software design, to monopolistic practices, to (really) participatory culture!
- John McCain Gets BarackRoll’d [YouTube] – John McCain gets rickrolled by the all-singing, all-dancing Barack Obama show! LMAO!
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