From the kitchen I can only see the TV at an oblique angle. If I’m washing dishes I often can’t hear the dialogue, and if I am actually at the stove cooking, I have my back to the screen, which is not the most efficient way to watch TV.
It doesn’t stop me from trying, though.
Metal Hurlant Chronicles is Syfy’s new anthology program, an hour-long episode with two self-contained stories. Think Tales From the Crypt with a more SF or fantasy bent, and without that adorable cryptkeeper. The gimmick seems to be that that one principle actor plays a major role in both stories. The show is an import. At first I thought it was from Europe (and I may return to that theory); maybe French, but it could be Canadian.
Being Syfy, the minute they had aired three episodes they scheduled a “marathon.” So there I was, making chicken enchiladas and washing up, trying to watch a Metal Hurlant Chronicles story. I had missed the first six or seven minutes, and I couldn’t hear much of the dialogue. Here are my impressions.
— Oh, look. Two people having sex on a long plinth.
— Nice windows.
— Maybe it’s not a plinth, it’s just a very tall bed.
— Wow, the sex is so good the house is lighting up.
— Wait a minute, the house is burning up. It’s on fire!
— It’s not a house. It’s a spaceship, and it’s on fire.
— She’s on another spaceship, in a body suit, with a big old gun. Is this a flashback?
— Nice hair.
— They’re having sex again. Or maybe it’s the same time. Is this the flashback? And why don’t I get to see him?
— Her perfect hair swings from side to side. Maybe this is a thirty-minute, futuristic hair product commercial.
— There he is. Shirtless. Thank you. And he has nice hair too.
— Wait… three people standing in front of a podium. Or just a microphone stand. What’s this, The Weakest Link?
— Sex. Languid looks.
— Hair.
— Podium.
— Body suits! Corridors! Mood lighting! Big guns and a hope chest. Wait, a what? A big wooden box. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s a hope chest.
— Podium people. Dialogue I can’t hear.
— Stand-off with guns. Her, looking over the barrel of her gun, all sultry with the great hair.
— Him, looking over the barrel of his gun, all regretful with his great hair.
— Podium people.
— They fall! They shot each other! Even after the hair and the great sex!
— The hope chest survives.
— Podium people, with some voice-over exposition that I can’t hear over the running water and don’t care enough about to turn off the water.
— Credits.
Next Week: James Marsters (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) teaches us that just because the neighbor with the bomb shelter is creepy, it doesn’t mean there won’t be a nuclear war.