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Paranormal Television

It seems to be one of the latest TV (well, cable TV, anyway) crazes. Reality shows based on investigations into the paranormal. Now I'm not the biggest fan of reality shows--though I do love me some Iron Chef--but I must say I'm enjoying this trend. I think it has something to do with combining the not-quite-real reality genre with a not-quite-real field. Either that or I just like having the pants scared off of me.

Here are some highlights and low-lights of the current programs:

Ghost Hunters (SyFy)

Premise: Real-life paranormal investigators allow the Sci-Fi--excuse me, SyFy--Channel to follow them around.

Scare Factor: 5-7 (out of 10). The T.A.P.S. team has gone to some pretty scary places and uncovered compelling evidence, but the focus of the show is on education about and acceptance of the paranormal, so you won't have to sleep with the lights on after watching it.

Entertainment Factor: High. Early episodes highlighted tensions between group members; these days episodes have featured the hilarious double-act of investigators Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango.

Fakery? Probably not. Though occasionally the show features investigations where people have tried to pull a fast one on the team, these guys are terrible actors, so I think it would be pretty obvious if they themselves had fabricated something. Plus, most "hauntings" turn out to be the result of bad plumbing, anyway.

Ghost Hunters International (SyFy)

Premise: Familiar faces from T.A.P.S. and their affiliates investigate hauntings around the globe.

Scare Factor: 4-5. It's hard to be uncanny when you're so far from home.

Entertainment Factor: Medium. The revolving team members make it hard to get emotionally involved, though Irish investigator Barry Fitzgerald's attempts to sweet-talk the lady spirits is always a hoot.

Fakery? Probably not. Being a spin-off of Ghost Hunters puts it in the same credibility range, although their use of more "experimental" techniques makes me think that on some occasions they may be jumping to conclusions.

Paranormal State (A&E)

Premise: Penn State based paranormal researchers look into the paranormal with the help of "world-renown" psychics.

Scare Factor: 8-10. The team frequently do battle with the diabolical. Last season they had not one but two exorcisms!

Entertainment Factor: High. The show sets up team-leader Ryan Buell as its definite star and features a rather colorful array of regulars like melodramatic psychic Chip Coffey, who always cracks me up. Plus they often delve into other aspects of the paranormal such as UFOs or the Mothman.

Fakery? Maybe. The show's narrative style makes it scarier and more entertaining but also harder to tell where reality stops and fiction begins. Furthermore, it doesn't show the team getting much hard evidence, which makes it look like they're relying pretty much on the word of psychics.

Ghost Adventures (Travel Channel)

Premise: A bunch of dudes saw paranormal shows on TV, figured they could do the same thing, and shot their own pilot.

Scare Factor: 5-6. The pilot was creepy as hell, but I've found the actual episodes to be less scary.

Entertainment Factor: Medium. While it's funny to see a bunch of bros running around screaming because they've seen a ghost, it gets old and would be nice to see them be a little bit more professional once and a while.

Fakery? Probably not. While it's clear these guys don't know what they're doing, they probably don't know how to fake things convincingly, either.

A Haunting (Discovery Channel)

Premise: Reenactments of "real life" hauntings are combined with interviews with the participants.

Scare Factor: 4-7. Some of the hauntings presented are quite silly when you actually think about it, but the reenactment format allows for various techniques--like the voyeuristic ghost P.O.V. shot--to still make them scary.

Entertainment Factor: Medium-high. The bad acting and formulaic nature of the stories often makes it funnier than it's supposed to be.

Fakery? Likely. It's a docudrama, so entertainment comes first, and I would be surprised if a few details here and there weren't tweaked a bit to make them scarier, like how normal occurrences are often blown way out of proportion to make them seem like part of the haunting.

Monster Quest (History Channel)

Premise: Beasts of legend are investigated.

Scare Factor: 1-4. They seem to have covered all the good ones in the first season or two. Plus, they've done Big Foot more than once, which tends to take away some of its mythos.

Entertainment Factor: Low. The show is very dry, and it's hard to make killer jelly fish interesting.

Fakery? No. Though the show ultimately leaves its questions unanswered, cryptozoological evidence is almost always cancelled out by real science.

I know, I know. There are so many shows I've left out. If you feel that there's one I ought to have included, that's what the comment button is for.

British Actor of the Month

For this inaugural feature (shamelessly ripped off of The Park Bench's "Nerd Man of the Month"), I've decided to present my current British actor obsession. So without further ado, I give you

Eight Things to Love About Paul McGann

1) Withnail and I

McGann stars as "I" (though diehard fans know he's called Marwood) alongside Richard E. Grant's Withnail in Bruce Robinson's 1986 cult classic. Though Grant may get all the cool points--and good lines--for his performance as a self-centered, wittily caustic raging alcoholic, McGann's pensive, slightly paranoid Marwood is the heart of the film. And speaking of hearts, he'll steal yours as well with those blue blue eyes, razor sharp cheek bones, curly tresses, tight jeans that perfectly accent his--*ahem* Where was I? Ah, yes. This film truly deserves its place among the Criterion elite. Harry Potter fans beware, though. Richard Griffiths in this film will make you never look at Vernon Dursley the same way again.

2) Doctor Who (The TV Movie)

Now, McGann has occasionally referred to himself as the George Lazenby of Doctor Who. However, despite the fact that he's only "officially" played the role once, that is hardly an apt description. Despite the fact that the TV movie was pretty awful and created much controversy in the fandom ("The Doctor's half-human?? And kissing girls???") even the most skeptical of Whovians admits that McGann was pretty awesome as the Doctor. His Doctor has the same enthusiasm, eccentricity, and taste for Jelly Babies as Tom Baker's, but tempered by Davison's humanity and Pertwee's ability to dress himself tastefully. Furthermore, the Eighth Doctor had hundreds of more dubiously-canon adventures in BBC Books' Eighth Doctor Adventures and Doctor Who Magazine's comics, and, in not one but two series of audio plays by Big Finish, McGann himself actually reprises the role, giving the world yet another opportunity to listen to that soft, sexy voice of his.

3) He Has Three Brothers Who Are Also Pretty Good Looking

And what's more, Joe, Mark, and Stephen McGann are all actors, too. The four brothers appear together in The Hanging Gale, a miniseries about the Irish potato famine. (Though why the hottest one has to play the priest I'll never understand. *Sigh*) It's not exactly the best thing I've ever seen. For one thing, it was made for a regional outpost of the BBC--and it shows. For another, it becomes obvious which one went to RADA. But it is a good way to objectify four fine male bodies, something the world needs more of. Good luck telling Mark and Stephen apart, though.

4) Lieutenant William Bush

McGann plays Horatio Hornblower's (the also delicious Ioan Gruffudd) right hand man in ITV's movies about the most famous officer of His Majesty's Navy in literature. Now, Bush isn't exactly the most clever of men, and he really, really hates the French, but he's loyal, brave, and have you seen those uniforms??? I'd never be flogged for disobeying his orders!

5) Bristol Silents

McGann apparently is a lover of silent movies and is a patron of this film society. It not only warms my film geek/history buff heart that he supports film preservation and may be a bit of a film geek/history buff himself, but I've also heard that he sometimes sings at certain events. ROAWRR! Anyway... I wonder if he's read Silent Film Sound....

6) He's from Liverpool

You know, that industrial town in the northwest of England located along the river Mersey and known for its shipyards and pop groups like Gerry and the Pacemakers. (And that other one... What were they called again?) Which means that McGann sports one of the hottest accents south of Scotland.

7) He Dated Jane Bennet

Or rather the actress who played her. Now, dating Jane Austen's heroines (or their sisters) makes any man OK in my book, but this means that he's about two degrees of separation away from Mr. Darcy--um, I mean, Colin Firth. Plus, Ms. Harker "appears" alongside McGann in the audio version of "Shada."

8) Lesbian Vampire Killers

Isn't it enough just to have a title like this on one's resumé? Though reviewers over the age of 15 have said that this comic take on those lusty Hammer horror films fails at what the Pegg-Wright-Frost movies do so well, they do agree that McGann's performance as a vicar hell-bent on stopping his daughter from becoming a lesbian vampire is the highlight of the show. Whatever. Sounds funny, so I'm going to see it. If it's ever released here, that is.

Across the Converse

So yesterday I bought my first Chucks. (Converse's canvas Chuck Taylors, for those of you not in the know.) I've been contemplating buying them for a while because a) my Sketchers have for some reason decided to detach themselves from their soles, and b) they have proven to be the best shoes for running away from scary alien baddies.

The ones I really wanted are these blue high-top ones with the Union Jack on the back, but, as I hadn't seen them the last time I was at the mall, I had pretty much already counted on having to settle for just the plain kind, preferably in dark purple or navy. Alas, Journeys only had the solid color high-tops in red, white, and black--the former two screaming "I'm dressing like Doctor Who!" a little too loudly for my taste. But I fell in love with and eventually had to bring home a pair of brown and pink plaid low-tops. It was a hard decision because the black high-tops looked pretty snazzy. In fact, I may have to go back for them. High-tops are perfect for Iowa winters, right?

Now, I'm not exactly on the cutting edge of cool, so it surprised me that Chucks seem to be everywhere. Four other stores had them, and this is Coralville we're talking about here, so imagine how ubiquitous they must be at a real mall. And I don't think this is just a case of me not noticing them before. (Rather like the time I went all over the place looking for a pair of Doc Marten boots when they were right in the window of the Woodfield Journeys.) For one thing, the high school girl who sold me my low-tops assured me that she wears hers all the time, and that her little sister has, like, five pairs. And second, there were several pairs wedged between all the Harry Potter and Twilight merch at Hot Topic, a sure sign the kids are down with the Chucks.

But why so popular? And why now? The first thing that came to my mind is that David Tennant has become a fashion icon. But surely that can't be. After all, as a nerd who stars as a bit of a nerd on what is arguably the nerdiest of all nerd shows, Tennant is King of the Nerds. (Speaking of Tennant and nerds, I never realized just how accurate those action figures can be. They even got the two stripes on the white Chucks right!) There must be another explanation. Or are we suddenly taking our fashion inspiration from science fiction? What's next? Leia buns? Unitards?

Nearly a year ago now, I took stock of all the pseudo-blogging I had done on various social networking sites--livejournal, MySpace, Facebook, etc. I discovered that I a) did a lot of hard-core whining about my life, b) did an equal amount of unadulterated squeeing about various fandoms, and c) posted a lot of ridiculous stuff. (Curse you, memes!) So I decided to create a proper blog, something serious. I picked a topic: women and science fiction. It was going to show the world that women could be nerds--and proud of it! Of course, grad school got in the way (as grad school will do), so I was just getting around to start it a couple of weeks ago.

And then I discovered The Park Bench, who does exactly what I wanted to do and does it perfectly.

Well, there goes that idea, thought I. I still wanted to write a blog to keep my writing skills sharp for the day when Steven Moffat makes the misguided decision to take a chance on an unknown or it's discovered by the faculty that I'm merely pretending to be interested in a career in higher education and I'm swiftly booted out of here. (Whichever comes first, really.) But what to do? Sadly, I was left with no choice other than to be myself. (Hey! Come back here! I'll give you cookies!)

So expect lots of squeeing on the following topics: Harry Potter; Doctor Who (this is my latest find so expect a lot on it); Buffy; The X-Files; Star Wars; Lord of the Rings; Thursday Next; House; 30 Rock; The Office; Monty Python; Blackadder; British TV; British comedy; British actors; British, well... anything; the BBC; PBS; reality shows involving food; reality shows involving the paranormal; English literature (esp. 19th Century); Jane Austen; Oscar Wilde; the Jeeves stories; Beat poetry; Anne Rice; Raymond Chandler; Kafka; European cinema (the more pretentious, the better); graphic novels; action figures; doll houses and miniatures; vampires, werewolves, and zombies; classic rock; folk music; la France; history; politics; travel; trivia; existentialism; feminism; Marxism; writing; academics; Macs; cats; shoes; and irony. I know I've left something out here....

And I'm sure the whining about my life will be unavoidable. But hopefully the whining and the squeeing will be more well thought out, insightful, entertaining, literate, and, um, proofread than what I've done in the past has been. And here's to avoiding memes!

P.S.

I really plan to explain all the links and stuff on the side. So, to get started:

• Great Expectations belongs to one of my dearest friends. She writes very wittily about her relationship with God. And, uh, Star Trek.
• The Park Bench, as I mentioned before, is a blog for and about nerd girls.
• Paul Cornell's House of Awkwardness is a blog by one of my favorite Doctor Who writers who also happens to have created Bernice Summerfield, whom you will soon learn I think is the ultimate in cool.
• My Library Thing Catalog is where you can view a small slice of what is on my bookshelf.
• The University of Iowa is my current alma mater.
• Boston University is my former alma mater.
• Susquehanna University is my original alma mater. I have lots of alma maters.

P.P.S.

I am a shameless reposter. So if you're friends with me from other social networking sites, you may recognize a few things. At least until I run out of unoriginal things to say.