• Television,  Writing

    The Truth is Somewhere: The Continuing Adventures of an X-Files Junkie

    It was 1993, and I was twenty-eight years old, still single, and living in student housing in southern Alabama. I was about to complete a bachelor’s degree with no real plans of what to do once that came to pass. One option was to keep working at the local airport and pursue my commercial pilot rating, the other to continue on to graduate school to get a degree I could actually use. Neither of those life choices seemed appealing at the time, mostly because my late twenties were to me what the teens are to normal folks: my formative years. Problem was, in those days, I couldn’t feign interest in anything…

  • Television

    The End is Always Near, and Hell is the History Channel

    As the end of January approaches, and New Year’s Day shrinks in the rearview, a question lingers in my mind. What is it about holidays that inspires “educational” cable channel producers to air every apocalyptic documentary in their catalog? Even if you think you don’t know what I’m talking about, you probably do. Flip through the channel line-up around the holidays, and I guarantee you won’t go far before you find something related to the hypothetical end of the world. It started a few years back, in the days of yore when A&E’s programming changed from arts and entertainment to ex-rock stars, bayou-dwelling people with enormous beards, and folks who…

  • Television

    Adapting Justin Cronin’s The Passage

    I absolutely loved Justin Cronin’s novel The Passage. A couple of years later, I really enjoyed the sequel, The Twelve. I liked the third book, The City of Mirrors, though I thought Cronin spent way more time on, let’s just say (for the sake of not spoiling anything) the backstory of a significant viral (Cronin’s word for a vampire) character than I thought he should’ve. The backstory was interesting, true, but it didn’t seem to contribute a lot to the overall story arc. That said, I was still happy with where the trilogy ended. The overview of the story: Scientists are trying to develop a cure for all the infirmities…

  • Television

    Four Things I Learned from Watching SyFy Original Movies

    It’s Saturday morning, and I’m just out of bed. I pour a cup of coffee, stagger into my living room, and grab my television remote. Back in my younger days, I’d have searched the channel guide for Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, Looney Tunes cartoons, or even Super Friends, but times have changed. Saturday in the AM isn’t what it used to be, entertainment wise, but there’s still programming worth watching, if you know where to look. Here’s a typical Saturday morning lineup these days: Piranhaconda, Piranha DD, Lake Placid 3, and Lake Placid: The Final Chapter. In case you aren’t among the initiated, these are all SyFy originals, science fiction movies made specifically for the SyFy…

  • Television

    Have Yourself a Very Troubling Christmas

    It’s that time of year again. During the holidays, we gather with family, friends, and pets. We hang out with folks we haven’t seen since last year, don sweaters that have inexplicably shrunk over the past eleven months, and eat and drink like we have no sense of propriety. The end of the calendar year is also packed with a lineup of Christmas-themed movies and television specials. By their final acts, most of these programs will leave you feeling warm and optimistic about humanity, but it’s easy to miss some of the more disturbing undertones and subplots. Kris Kringle drops the ball in The Year Without a Santa Claus, Frosty…