Show prep: Enterprise - Kir'Shara - Kind of lame.

Future DVD: "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" cartoon streets on March 22. You get all 20 of the original 3-minute shorts.

New DVDs this week: THE ULTIMATE MATRIX (Warner Bros.) Beautifully packaged TEN(!) disc set includes deluxe remastered editions of all three MATRIX movies with all-new commentraks, THE ANIMATRIX, and six discs of documentaries and extras. Also available in a limited edition gift set that includes a Neo bust and 80-page book.

BOURNE SUPREMACY (Universal) Matt Damon is framed for an assassination, leading him into conflict with his old bosses, during which he begins to piece together his past. Wonderful action sequences highlight this hit spy thriller in wide and fullscreen editions. Includes deleted scenes and seven Making-Of featurettes.

DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY (Fox) A by-the-numbers plot doesn’t slow down this hilarious comedy in which Vince Vaughn must lead a group of misfits into a dodgeball tournament to save his gym. Widescreen and fullscreen edition come with commentrak, deleted scenes, alternate ending, featurettes, script and six Easter Eggs. Also available bundled with various other Fox comedies.

STAR TREK VOYAGER Season 6 (Paramount) 26 episodes on seven discs, plus featurettes.

FLINTSTONES Season 2 (Warner Bros.) Yabba dabba DVD set includes commentraks, featurettes, commercials, songs and more.

(O) GARGOYLES: Complete First Season (Buena Vista) Fondly remembered Disney action fantasy series.

Hmm. Here's one of those little bits of movie news that makes me raise my eyebrow. Probably because I read 12 pages of analyses when I got the news.

Pixar's next film, Cars, has been pushed back from November 2005 to June 2006.

Pixar's official statement is that they're starting to move out into summer blockbuster territory, when more kids can go to the movies. (Finding Nemo is their only film that's come out in the summer.) Wall Street says this is a stall tactic; that they're having trouble finding a new distributor after Disney and that they're doing this to buy more time.

But still, the bottom line is we've got to wait an extra 6 months for the next Pixar film.

Stay tuned.

Next Issue...Cars Looks Lame Anyway

Wow. I pride myself on being Mr. DVD - the guy with all the news on all the upcoming releases. So I'm always completely stunned when something slips in under my radar - especially when it's a DVD I'd give my right arm to own. Today, December 7, Disney is releasing....

Gargoyles: Season 1

this 2-disc set contains all 13 episodes from Gargoyles's first season. There's not much for bonus stuff, but what there is is gold. You get:

- Running commentary by Greg Weisman (series creator), Frank Paur (series head writer), and Keith David (voice of Goliath) on the 5-part pilot episode, Awakening.

- The Gathering of the Gargoyles: featurette on the creation of the show

- Greg Weisman's original pitch for the show.

In stores today!

Also out are Batman: The Animated Series - Volume 2 (which works out to be the second half of season 1, I believe) and The Ultimate Matrix Collecton, the huge-ass 10 disc boxed set of the trilogy

Next Issue...Showtime

Here's some valuable show prep:

A British bakery just ran a poll to find the top 10 cheesiest moments in movies. (It's to plug their new cheese crumpets.) There were some expected splits - men leaned towards action films and women towards romances - but the unanimous winner was Leonardo diCaprio on Titanic for his line, "I'm king of the world!" Here's the rest of the top 10:

Entertainment - AP


'Titanic' Tops Cheesy Film Moments Survey

1 hour, 38 minutes ago Entertainment - AP



NEW YORK - Although "Titanic" soared at the box office in 1997, according to a recent United Kingdom survey, it's most memorable line — "I'm the king of the world!" — sunk.



Baker Warburtons posed the question "What are your top three cheesiest moments in film?" to 2,000 U.K. moviegoers in celebration of the launch of their new cheese flavored crumpets.


The line uttered by Leonardo DiCaprio (news) was followed by Patrick Swayze's "Nobody puts Baby in the corner," from 1987's "Dirty Dancing" and Andie McDowell's "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed," from the end of 1994's "Four Weddings and a Funeral."


Warburtons reports that surveyed women opted for romantic comedy moments from films such as "Notting Hill" and "Jerry Maguire" while men preferred silly scenes from action flicks like "Top Gun" and "Braveheart." Despite the gender divide, 33 percent of the overall vote unanimously agreed on the "Titanic" yell as the cheesiest moment.


Here's the list of big cheese moments:


1. "Titanic": Leonardo DiCaprio's "I'm the king of the world!"


2. "Dirty Dancing": Patrick Swayze's "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."


3. "Four Weddings And A Funeral": Andie McDowell's "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed."

3. "Ghost": Demi Moore's "Ditto." to Patrick Swayze's "I love you."

5. "Top Gun": Val Kilmer to Tom Cruise: "You can be my wingman anytime"

6. "Notting Hill": Julia Roberts' "I'm just a girl... standing in front of a boy... asking him to love her."

7. "Independence Day": Bill Pullman's "Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

8. "Braveheart": Mel Gibson's "They may take our lives, but they will not take our freedom!"

9. "Jerry Maguire": Renee Zellweger to Tom Cruise: "You had me at hello."

10. "The Postman": A blind woman says to Kevin Costner (news): "You're a godsend, a savior." He replies: "No, I'm a postman."

Latest column's up! It's all about the Mall:

" How I long for the West Edmonton Mall of my youth! When West Edmonton Mall first opened up in the late 1980s, it loved flaunting its claim to fame as the world’s biggest mall. Everything about the mall had to be the world’s biggest. Biggest parking lot, biggest indoor amusement park, more submarines than the Canadian navy! It echoed everything that was wrong with the 80s: greed, excess, and consumerism run amok. "

Here's the whole thing

next Issue...Damn you all to heck!

YES YES YES OH GOD YES!!

The DVD announcement I've been waiting for has finally come. On March 15, 20th Century Fox releases....

The Lone Gunmen: the Complete Series

This 3-disc set will include all 13 episodes from the short-lived X-Files spin-off. Each episode will be presented in its original, widescreen format. (Yeah, turns out the show was filmed in widescreen in anticipation of HDTV, but cropped for regular broadcast.) For bonus materials, there'll be a few featurettes on the creation of the show, running commentary on a few episodes by cast and crew members and, the biggest of them all, the X-Files episode Jump the Shark. Airing in The X-Files' final season, Jump the Shark tied up all the loose ends from The Lone Gunmen and was, in essence, the final episode of The Lone Gunmen.

March 15th, baby!

Also coming out on that day is the 2-disc special edition of Star Trek: First Contact. Here's hoping they include the original DS9 opening with the bonus materials.

Anyway, I'm back from a day in the city. I swung by Cosmic City in West Edmonton Mall. If you're looking for a unique Christmas gift for me, you can get me the GeekMan action figure. I'm sure I've ranted about it before. Made by the Canadian company Happy Worker Toys, GeekMan is a tekkie action figure. He comes with removable glasses, a removable watch, a laptop, a PDA, and stainless steel travel mug.

And now, Happy Worker Toys has released its next two figures: BossMan (a boss action figure) and MoneyMan (an accountant action figure). BossMan comes with three changeable faces (happy, angry, neutral), a megaphone, and a stack of reports. MoneyMan comes with removable glasses, a calculator, a briefcase, stock certificates, and a piggy bank.

Oh, and I finally saw the Incredibles. It kicked ass. I'll have a proper review on the main site later.

Next Issue...The Antarctic Express

December 3, 2004.

Today's date is 12/3/4.

Wrote my first final exam today. My classmates were amazed when I started talking about my lucky hat and I went through my whole final exam ritual. I've always been deeply superstitious when it comes to final exams and midterms. This is the complete ritual:

- I arrive at school wearing my lucky hat. The lucky hat is a Star Trek: First Contact baseball cap I picked up in West Edmonton Mall in the spring of 1997. When I sit down to write the test, the lucky hat is removed from my head and placed in the top left corner of my desk.

- I wear the lucky shirt. The lucky shirt is a souvineer T-shirt from the Dinosaur Show that Edmonton hosted back in 1993. It features a T-rex skeleton that's a glow in all kinds of dark, flourescent colours. It was the last one on the shelf, and from that day forward, I've been deeply paranoid about washing off the T-rex decal. I only wear it about three times a year and wash it just once a year. For 11 years old, it still looks brand new.

- I take my lucky charm of the moment and place it on my desk in the top right corner. Currently, my lucky charm is a Spirited Away keychain that one of my students gave me when I left Japan. Previous lucky charms have included 50¢ coins and Star Trek pins.

- My notes (and textbook, it there's one) for the day's test MUST be in the same room with me. Under my chair is preferable, but if my teacher's one of those paranoid ones who demands that all bags and binders be thrown in a pile in the corner of the room, that's OK. This stems from the fact that I generally bring my notes with me so I can cram right up to the last minute.

- And then, when I receive the test page, I always, ALWAYS sign my full name: Mark Sladen Cappis.

The fact that I've been an honour student for most of my educational career is all thanks to this ritual. I'm certain that the average two hours I spend studying the night before has very little to do with it.

Oh, and some movie news today. After months of rumours, it's finally official. Chris Columbus, the director of the first two Harry Potter films, will be directing the live-action movie version of the classic Marvel comic book Namor, the Sub-Mariner. The script was written by David Self, who adapted the graphic novel The Road to Perdition for the big screen.

This really isn't much of a surprise. Columbus has always made it clear that he made his Marvel when he was a kid. He was even attached to direct Fantastic Four for most of the 1990s.

Next Issue...I Finally See The Incredibles.

So, here's some interesting movie news out of Japan.

Nintendo is looking into opening their own animation studio.

The goal is to produce animated films based on some of the properties they own, so that would be animated movie versions of Legend of Zelda, Metroid and Super Mario.

This is definitly interesting.

Next Issue...Zap Strikes!

OK, show in half an hour. Let's do some show prep!

- Nick Cassevettes has just signed on to direct "Iron Man." The screenplay was written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Spidey 2) and David Hayter (X-Men).

- First Fantastic Four teaser this Christmas!

- Kevin Spacey is Lex Luthor! One of the oldest superman rumours come true.

Enterprise. Part 2 of the Vulcan civil war. Too much talk, not enough action. Archer now carries the Matrix. Surak/Morpheus guides his way. Crazy stuff man.

Stress is what's wrong with society this week.

Next generation DVD is on the way, and it looks like there'll be a format war. Warner Brothers, Universal, and Paramount are supporting "HD-DVD." Sony is supporting their own format, "Blu-Ray." Essentially, the next generation uses blue lasers instead of the regular red. The higher wavelenght and higher energy allows more infomation to be encoded on a disc, thus allowing greater picture and sound quality. First discs and players on the market this time next year.

And don't worry. Everyone's saying that these will still be able to play old discs.

Showtime!

Dude! I"m so hung up on being the boss monkey this week I forgot to cut and past my standard Tuesday show prep. Today's notable new DVDs:

SPIDER-MAN 2 (Columbia TriStar) To avoid gouging fans over and over (at least for now) CTHE is releasing several different editions of this summer’s big hit on the same day. Includes all the expected commentraks, featurettes, bloopers, etc., in either two-disc widescreen or fullscreen editions, available separately or bundled with the first film. Also available is a Superbit edition, as well as a gift set that includes a comic-book, five postcards, a sketch book and a photo booklet.

DAREDEVIL Director’s Cut (Fox) Ben Affleck as the blind superhero, now in a director’s cut that’s a half hour longer, plus commentrak and Making-Of.

HERO (Miramax/Buena Vista) Beautiful, compelling Zhang Yimou action drama starring Jet Li, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung as master assassins. Are they out to kill the warlord whose army is conquering all of China? With Making-Of featurettes, Jet Li and Quentin Tarantino interview each other, storyboards and more.

That's about all that's notable...not a lot wanted to go up against Spidey 2, I think.

Next Issue...More DVDs for me!!

Well, I have to share this entertainment news tidbit:

Godzilla got his star on the Hollywood walk of fame yesterday. He was on hand (or rather, the actor who plays Godzilla in the latest Godzilla film, in a very cheap Godzzila suit) to accept the star. It was Godzilla producer Shogo Tomiyama who gave the acceptance speech, though. "Godzilla cannot speak English, so I am here to translate," he said.

After this, the party moved down to Hollywood's world-famous Graumman's Chinese theatre for the world premiere of Godzilla: Final Wars. This is the 28th - and reportedly last - Godzilla film. Even though it's being sold as the final Godzilla film, very few people believe it. "Godzilla has been working for 50 years," said Final Wars director Ryuhei Kitamura, "so I think he just deserves a vacation." Producer Shogo Tomiyama reflected the sentiment. "So long as Godzilla can fascinate people, I believe he will be resurrected by new generations of filmmakers in the future," he said.

In case you're wondering why there's all this hype about Godzilla, it's because 2004 is the big guy's 50th anniversary. It should be noted that over the course of the last 50 years, Toho has proclaimed "the last Godzilla movie" twice. the first "last" one was Terror of Mechagodzilla in 1974. They figured the 20th anniversary was the best time to let it go. First resurrection came in 1984, when a new film was made for Godzilla's 30th anniversary. Then, the next "last" film came in 1992, when Toho announced that Sony Studios would be making an American Godzilla film, so they'd let the Americans do it for a while. Well, that film was Godzilla (1998), and reaction to that was so bad in Japan that it led to Godzilla's second resurrection, Godzilla Millenium in 1999. (In North America, it was called Godzilla 2000).

Anyway, Godzilla: Final Wars comes out in Japan on Friday. And, rumour has it, North American distributors are starting to put in bids.

Next Issue...What About Mothra?

Latest column's up! Temptation:

"I take a new route to NAIT every day. Now, I drive right by the Via Rail train station. The other day as I drove past, the train had pulled in and was picking up passengers. There it was, a silver traveller, ready to head for parts unknown. I honked my horn as I drove past, and all the people getting on board stopped to wave. Never had the temptation to blow off school for the day, buy a ticket, and hop on board been any stronger."

Read it all!

Next Issue...Call of the Wild

Urgh. I'm hating my homework. I'm working for a real, honest-to-God client now and they're getting picky.... Don't know how to break it to the teacher that I'm really starting to get turned off of writing as a career in radio.

Anyway, I was able to lift my head from the keyboard long enough to watch Ultimate Batman...I mean The Batman, and today was the introduction of Ultimate Mr. Freeze. Not liking this direction as much....

Quick recap of the varried origins of Mr. Freeze:

Original origin - Mad scientist, working on a freeze weapon. It blew up in his face, lowering his body temperature to sub-zero temperatures. Now, in a special suit to keep his body at sub-zero temperatures, he uses all kinds of freezing weapons on his crime spree.

And that's how it was until the animated series....

Batman: The Animated Series origin - Dr. Victor Freis was a scientist specializing in cryogenics. His wife was sticken with an incurable disease, so he froze her until the day a cure is found. But, the heartless company that was in charge of the project threatened to pull the plug. Dr. Freis fought off those sent to pull the plug, but there was an accident with the cryogenics...lowering his body temperature to sub-zero temperatures. Now, in a special suit to keep his body at sub-zero temperatures, he uses all kinds of freezing weapons in his single minded quest to gain vengeance for his condition and to do whatever it takes to save his wife.

Many agreed this was a much better origin for Mr. Freeze. DC Comics quickly adopted it as the "official" Mr. Freeze origin and it propelled Mr. Freeze into the A-list of Batman's rouges gallery.

Now...

The Batman origin - Victor Freis was a petty criminal on the run from Batman. The chase ended in a cryogenics lab. In the fight, Freis got thrown into a cryogenic chamber and fought to get out. Batman tried valiantly to get Freis out, but Freis had already damaged the chamber. The chamber switched on, and Freis was both electrocuted and frozen simultaneously. Batman, believing Freis to be dead, took off. Some time later, the cryogenic scientists sprung Freis and learned that the accident had...lowered Victor Freis's body temperature to sub-zero temperatures. It ALSO gave him the power to shoot freeze beams from his fingers. So, using his new power to blackmail the cryongenic scientists into making him a special suit to keep his body at sub-zero temperatures, he uses his new freezing powers to go on crime sprees and get vengeance on Batman.

I gotta tell ya, not really impressed.

next Issue...Killer Frost

"Woah! How did I get here? Oh, why did I let Morpheus talk me into taking that red pill? Someone get me out of here! I have to get to Winnipeg so I can play Hamlet!" - arcane Keanu Reeves trivia resurrected for a YTV promo.

Just watched the last bit of the live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas on TV. My favourite quote from a movie review is a review for The Grinch: "Watching the Grinch is like having sex with your best friend's girlfriend. Yeah, it's great in the moment, but afterwards, you feel really horrible."

Next Issue...Stay Awake!

Who's a geek? I'm a geek!

This morning, I swung by the official Pokemon website. It's something I do about twice a month, because it's not updated very often. But today, I found out some very pleasing news.

When Pokemon 7 is coming to North America.

Actually, it's already come to North America. Turns out it had it's North American premiere at a massive anime film festival in New York last week. The rest of us have to wait until it's DVD release on February 15.

When I frantically had Mr. Anderson do translation work on the trailer (it came out in Japan back in July), he told me that the title was Pokemon: Visitor from the Fissure in the Sky. The English title is now Pokemon: Destiny Deoxys. Deoxys is, of course, the mega-powerful mythical pokemon that the plot revolves around.

I'm kind of excited about this one because the pokemon creators based the city this film takes place in on Vancouver. In case you're curious, Vancouver's pokemon world counterpart is "the technologically advanced Larousse City."

Hmm...sounds French.

February 15. As is my tradition, I'll be buying it at Superstore.

Next Issue...Still Trying to get Salamance

Show prep!

New video game: GoldenEye: Rouge Agent. It's the first James Bond video game where you're not James Bond! Instead, you play the assasin "GoldenEye," a disgraced 00 agent who now makes a living working for the bad guys. So, througout the game, you work for Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Scaramanga: the Man with the Golden Gun. There's some big name voices in this game. Judi Dench is back as M, the boss of 00s, Famke Janssen (Jean Grey from the X-films) is back as Xenia Onnatop, the assasin from GoldenEye who crushes men between her thighs, and Christopher Lee (Count Dooku in Star Wars, Saruman in LOTR) does the voice of Scaramanga; a role he played 30 years ago. In stores now!

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West Edmonton Mall is no longer the world's largest mall. That honour now belongs to the Golden Resources Mall in Beijing. At 6 million square feet, it beats West Ed by 1 million square feet. Check this out. It's got over a thousand stores, an ice rink, 280 escalators, and enough restaurants to fill two football fields.

But only 20 shoppers a day.

That numbers in dispute. The media says 20/day. The management says 50,000/day. Either way, it's still less crowded than West Ed at the Christmas season

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Today is Buy Nothing Day

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Two big movies out this weekend: Alexander, getting ravaged by the press, and Christams with the Kranks, which is getting lukewarm reviews. Interesting trivia bit: "Christmas with the Kranks" is acutally based on a John Grisham novel! the book is called "skipping Christmas."

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Well, folks. It's all over. The Alberta Provincial Election, that is. The count before I went to bed: The Liberals at 17 seats, the NDP with 4, and the rest Tory. This is a victory. The opposition made inroads!

So, it was an election with very little surprises. Critics were starting to dub it the "Kleinfeld" election, because it was an election about nothing. The only thing that saddens me was what the analysists were saying. They don't have exact numbers yet, but they are expecting a record low voter turnout; around 44% or so. And that just sucks.

I wonder if it's similar to what a friend of mine was saying today. After I gave her the lecture about how she should vote and how one vote makes a difference and all that, she said, "Yeah, but, I really don't know how to vote. I mean, I like my Tory candidate, but I hate the Tory party! So, I'll probably just spoil my ballot." That's kind of a dumb mentality, but it sure speaks to the need for election reform.

I think we should start doing things like they do in Nunavit. In Nunavit, there are no parties. Everyone runs as an independent. Then, once their legeslature is elected, the MPs vote for the premier and the cabinet. Seems to be working so far.

But, if I may be totally opinionated, the stupidest part of this election was the "senator in waiting" election. That's just a pointless, expensive exercise. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for senate reform. But, there's got to be a better way to make our point to Ottawa rather than spending $3 million on an election that, really, just arbitrarily gives a bored rich person a title.

Subject change.

I'm starting to think about Christmas. And I'm looking at the Christmas albums. I've been eyeing this one for the past few years but haven't bought it yet: Pokemon Christmas Bash. Yup, the pokemon Christmas album. With such holiday classics as I'm Giving Santa a Pikachu for Christmas.

Can't be any worse than this relic from the late 1970s: Star Wars: Christmas in the Stars. C-3P0 and R2-D2 sing Christmas classics, and some new Christmas songs. There's the one song that I've been dying to hear ever since I heard of this album: What Do You Get a Wookie for Christmas (When He Already Has a Comb)?.

Next Issue...How About a Hair Dryer?

Show prep show prep show prep!

Top 10 movies:

Weekend ending 11/21/2004
1. National Treasure
2. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
3. The Incredibles
4. The Polar Express
5. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
6. After the Sunset
7. Ray
8. The Grudge
9. Seed of Chucky
10. Saw

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It's the election. GO VOTE DUMMIES!

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Argos won the Grey Cup

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There's actually a singer called Jem:

Welsh singer Jem admits her musical career to date has been ``a bit of a comedy story.''

The 29-year-old, who was born Jemma Griffiths, is enjoying tremendous success in North America with her debut album ``Finally Woken.''

But it was just five years ago that she was finishing a law degree and working in the corporate world in Wales.

She says she always wanted to be a singer, but she was trusting her instincts to let her know when the right time came.

In the past two years, Jem has co-written a song that ended up on Madonna's 2003 album, ``American Life.''

She and her music have also been on the popular show ``The O-C.

Jem has been widely compared to popular Brit singer Dido.

She agrees they're vocally similar, but adds musically they're completely different.

Jem's North American tour has just run through Canada and will end next month.

--------------------------------------------------------

First things first. This week's column is a 10 Minute Vacation:

"It’s getting to be a busy time of the year. Between the Christmas shopping, end of semester projects, and the usual year-end depression, we could all use a break. But sometimes, the weekend seems kind of far away, and it’s still a good month to Christmas. So, what are we supposed to do? This is when we have our “10 minute vacations.” This is where we have our own special place that we take off to for a few minutes when a real break won’t do. "

Click Here for the Whole Thing!

Now, I'm on-air from 9:30 - 11:30 tomorrow, so I'm going to get a jump on the show prep. Tuesday is new DVD day, so here's the big releases:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - It's in widescreen and fullscreen versions. For bonus stuff, there's some featurettes, some games, 3D tours of the sets, and a new interview with creator J.K. Rowling.

Seinfeld: Seasons 1 & 2 and Seinfeld: Season 3 - One of the most popular sitcoms ever comes to DVD finally! For bonus materials, you get running commentaries by the cast on select episodes, pop-up trivia tracks, never-before-seen cut scenes, Jerry Seinfeld stand-up footage that was filmed but never used, and an all new 1-hour documentary about the show's creation. For season 3, you get pretty much the same, plus here's an interesting one: Kenny Kramer, the stand-up comic who was the basis for Kramer, interviews Michael Richards. Plus, there's also a special edition gift set of these 2 DVD box sets that comes with a copy of the script for the pilot, salt & pepper shakers from the diner they always hung out at, and a deck of cards.

Star Wars: The Ewok Adventures - For those who just don't have enough Star Wars yet. This disc contains the 2 Ewok TV movies from the mid-1980s. There's absolutly no bonus materials. But hey, both movies on one disc, that's something, right?

Next Issue...Showtime!

Woo! There's a very optimistic rumour going around that The Flash: The Complete Series is coming to DVD next year! Woo woo woo!

I've always thought this was one of the greatest TV shows ever. Based on the DC Comic of the same name, and was actually quite faithful to the Silver Age character. John Wesley Shipp was Central City PD forensic scientist Barry Allen who, thanks to a lab accident involving a bolt of lightening, was given the power of super speed. When his brother - a highly decorated detective - is brutally murdered by a motorcycle gang, he learns that with great power comes great responsibility, and he becomes the Flash. Amanda Pays played his sidekick & love interest Dr. Christina McGee, a STAR Labs scientist researching Barry's powers.

Actually, it was a really interesting dynamic in the pilot between Barry and his brother. We learn that the Allens are a family of cops and by choosing to be a scientist, Barry was very much the black sheep. Even though he was a crime scene investigator (yup, CSI) and doing police work, he was seen as not being a real cop in the eyes of his father.

Anyway, I want to do some summaries of some very cool television I watched in the past 24 hours:

Enterprise: The Forge - Part I of the much-hyped "Vulcan civil war" arc. When there's a suicide bombing of the Earth embassy on Vulcan, Enterprise is sent to investigate. Among the dead, Admiral Forrest, Capt. Archer's longtime friend, commanding officer, and a major recurring character. Blame seems to rest with a religous cult called the Syranites, who follow a "corrupted version" of the teachings of Surak. So, while Commander Tucker takes charge of the Enterprise and continues the investigation, Archer and T'Pol go wandering in the Forge - a savage Vulcan desert - and home base of the Syranites.

It was pretty good. The continuity porn was in full force. Subtle referecnes to all things Vulcan that we learn in future generations. Vulcan Ambassador Soval finally determining to help Enterprise. It wasn't too bad. But I was still bored with it.

Justice League Unlimited: Wake the Dead - HAWKGIRL RETURNS, BABY! Hawkgirl's friend, the zombie strongman Solomon Grundy, is once again resurrected from the dead. But now, he's even stronger than he was before and he's going on a mindless, destructive rampage. He's laying waste to the Justice League left and right. And only Hawkgirl can stop him.

This is where Bruce Timm and his team has always kicked ass since Batman: The Animated Series. They are good at constructing character moments. Even in 20-minutes of solid action, there's always time for Hawkgirl to work through her residual angst over the final episode of Justice League. Great great great.

The Batman: Call of the Cobblepot - Bruce Wayne's fundraiser is crashed by the brash, young millionaire Oswald Cobblepot. But, this baffles Bruce because the Cobblepot fortune had long been squandered. While this is going on, Gotham City is plauged by a series of strange thefts perpetrated by trained birds. Naturally, this leads Batman to Cobblepot who, under the criminal pseudonym of "The Penguin," has resolved to rebuild the Cobblepot fortune through crime.

Now, the new Batman cartoon has been dubbed "Ultimate Batman" by most, so I was curious to see what they'd do for "Ultimate Penguin." Paul Dini in the book Batman Animated said that the main problem with the Penguin is trying to make him threatening. I mean, he's just a midget in a tux. Not much of a threat for the Dark Knight. So, it was curious to see what approach they'd take in The Batman. The result: in this version, Penguin has had some ninja training and is a fierce little warrior. His fights with Batman were reminiscient of Yoda vs. Count Dooku in Episode II. It was an interesting take.

Next Issue...It Is Written