Last night, I watched the first episode of Kindred. I hadn’t seen it since it first aired in 1996, just a couple of months after we’d moved into our house in Wallingford. I remembered it as being bad but, oh dear god, I forgotten how bad. The acting sucked. (Apart from Mark Wotsisname–the English actor who played Julian.) The writing–well, ‘As you know, Bob’ doesn’t cover it. (Sometime in the first three minutes one of the characters–the worst, really, the cop, who, sadly, was meant to be the star of the show–said to his buddy, “Have I left anything out?” and Kelley and I both shouted, gleefully, “Not really!”)
It was Vampire Dynasty with cheese topping. Add in the weird side-slide smear and audio thump-and-crackle of VHS and you get an idea of what we went through for an hour. Yep, a whole hour. We were mesmerised by it’s horribleness: little mongeese watching a tacky toothless cobra swaying side to side with its wig slipping. Blimey.
If there isn’t a burn ban here in Seattle tomorrow, we might ritually incinerate the tape.
What was the worst thing you’ve seen this year?
Nicola Griffith 
As a player of Vampire: the Masquerade, the RPG it was based on, I watched every episode. I called my fellow gamers on the telephone during commercials to basically gasp “OMG” at how awful it was. In fact, just this weekend a friend & I were quoting it back & forth at each other. “Clan Brujah is a relatively young clan…”
I can't watch V or Caprica; I know people like them but I don't understand HOW.
Has anyone seen Burn After Reading? I just saw it last week and was begging to be put out of my misery within 15 minutes. Brad Pitt made it almost enjoyable because his acting was so entertaining, but really. There's no escaping how awful my experience was.
Saying that, it took second place to A Scanner Darkly with Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder. I guess it fits in as sci-fi; the entire movie was acted out then penciled in to make it a pseudo-cartoon. Ohmydeargod. Where was the plot? I think they lost it behind the sofa and never found it again. Painful!!
I can't watch V and I gave up on Lost years ago.
True blood
I don't care what anyone says, it has to be the trashiest show I've ever seen. Not even good trashy, just yuk. I couldn't make it through the first season.
However I did like Kindred in spite of it's flaws.
Mordicai, I loved the original V: luscious cheese. This one is earnest and boring. I don't know how they managed to make it boring; it's a gift.
ssas, Lost–gave up on that during the first season.
transceptor, I think our tastes are diametrically opposed. I really liked the first season of True Blood (it's slipped since then, sigh).
Nicola, yeah when it comes to True Blood I have found that I am very much in the minority.
I did like the original V, I remember watchign it's original airing with my father and we both enjoyed it. I haven't seen the new yet so I don't really knwo where I stand on that.
Just about any SyFy (gah, that renaming thing irks me) Original Movie fits the bill. Cheese with an extra helping of cheese and bad acting. Saturday night at our house is a mock-fest.
What gets me is once in a while well known actors show up in them, and not just in older movies where you can forgive them for trying to get their careers off the ground. I watched a vampire flick made in 2006 or 2007 that starred Lucy Liu and Michael Chiklas. Did they have some sort of contractual obligation to fulfill, or did someone have incriminating photos?
Cathy, I think they just want to work. Some of it will be the need to make money but more will be about actually *working*. A writer is lucky enough to make her own way–sometimes we privilege what will make money, but the work is still up to our standards–but actors depend on a whole ecosystem. I sigh and feel for Names when they show up in cheesefests. Then I add them to my list of actors I'll write a part for. One day.
“Then I add them to my list of actors I'll write a part for. One day.”
I'd watch whatever that may be, no matter who was in it, in a heartbeat : )
Forgive me, but Twilight – and the book version as well. It's a serving of pointless angst with a side order of nonexistent climax. I'm a very forgiving reader in that I would accept sparkly vampires if the writing were good enough to grip me — but it's not. Somehow it just comes across as The Vampire World meets My Little Pony.
Sorry, I'm not usually this crass . . . I was just highly unimpressed and don't understand the hype.