Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cold out there today. It’s cold out there every day; what is this, Miami Beach? Not hardly! And you know you can expect hazardous travel later today with that, you know, that, uh, that blizzard thing. The National Weather Service is calling for a “big blizzard thing!” Yes, they are. But you know, there’s another reason why today is especially exciting. The big question on everybody’s lips, their chapped lips: do ya think Phil is gonna come out and see his shadow? Punxsutawney Phil! That’s right, woodchuck-chuckers, it’s Groundhog Day! And to celebrate, The Sci-Fi Guys give you our SALUTE TO TIME LOOPS!
Poster courtesy of ADN.
In case you were sealed underground in a bomb shelter in 1993, Groundhog Day was Bill Murray’s amazing hit movie about a man forced to live the same day over and over again until he gets it right. Everyone in the world except for two shut-in invalids in Turkmenistan went to see this movie. Everyone of them loved it more than chocolate and sex. Because of the pure heavenliness of this movie and it’s amazing box office sales, Bill Murray has enough money to buy Saturn. Kinda sucks that we’re no not reviewing it, huh? Oh, well. We do, however, have a ton of great sci-fi/fantasy time loop stuff to cover. I need to throw out some love and thanks for this article, which I couldn’t possibly have done on my own. Fortunately I’ve got my girls watching out for me, so I’m not flying solo on this. Writing with me are Sci-Fi Girl and Mrs. X, who rock the sci-fi casbah whether the sharif likes it or not. But enough about us. Let’s talk time loops. Let’s talk The Twilight Zone.
There was a time, back when there was such a thing as independent local television stations in the United States, that The Twilight Zone could be seen with far greater frequency than it can now. And that’s a damn shame. I consider the gobbling up and mindless standardization of local television stations by national media conglomerates to be a fucking crime against American entertainment. It used to be that, while the big name-brand stations were pumping out afternoons full of soap operas and other completely unwatchable shit, local independent stations were rerunning old Twilight Zone and Honeymooners episodes, followed up with two or three hours of cartoons like Transformers, Thundercats, G.I. Joe, He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe, and all those magnificent Japanese cartoons that you couldn’t see anywhere else on American television. The major networks were too afraid to touch syndicated cartoons full of science fiction and violence and sorcery and characters that were not cute little animals. Independent local television stations made it possible for kids my age to get our first childhood taste of anime (of course, at the time, we didn’t have that word; it was ‘Japanimation’ back then, junior).
If you remember this, your eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and sometimes your joints hurt when it rains.
Local independents were also the only ones who could decide to change their scheduling and line-up every couple of months and do wacky shit like run back to back episodes of Star Trek at 9 and 10 PM on Friday nights, or have a 24-hour marathons of The Twilight Zone twice a year, or run the G.I. Joe and Thundercats movies in prime time, just because they fucking felt like it. Local managers had the authority to make actual decisions then, and if you didn’t live through it, I can’t describe to you how cool it was. There was nothing like it on network television, ever. It was really something special.
In the early to mid-1980s there were over 300 independent TV stations in the US. Only a fraction of those remain. There are only six independent television stations left in Ohio, and only one here in Kentucky. Canada’s got it even worse; there’s only one independent television station left in the whole country. Now almost all of those great little stations are dead except for their call letters. Everybody watches the same homogenized, centrally programmed fucking network garbage everywhere at the same time. I honestly feel a sense of loss about this, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I wish Sci-Fi Girl had been able to see how cool these little stations were. Her generation will never experience television like I did when I was a kid. I don’t watch TV much any more, and I think the loss of quirky, interesting local stations is a big part of that. Its hard for me to keep glued to the set these days. I remember TV before it sucked.
Television has fallen greatly in my estimation over the past 20 years, but the glory days were fuckin’ fine. Around Cincinnati, there were two major independents. The first was the always struggling Channel 64, WIII, “the I’s of Cincinnati.” Their transmitter was woefully inadequate; we lived a mere 30 miles from Cincinnati, and WIII wasn’t even a blip when you passed it on the dial. It may as well have not been there at all. But Grandma, who lived not too far north of the station, got it just fine. Saturday mornings at her house was all about 5:30 AM WIII. It was the only time and place in my world I could drink in such tempting Asian delights as Robotech, Tranzor Z, Voltron, and Starblazers. A bowl of cereal in hand, sitting in my Grandpa’s chair in my tighty-whities was the first time I saw a naked cartoon character. Robotech, Lynn Minmei, shower scene on the SDF-1. Guess the guys at WIII didn’t watch the tapes before they aired them. And I suppose anybody in the world like myself who was watching at the time – there were probably about ten of us – wasn’t about to make a fuss, because they aired anime for a damn long while. Sweet fucking Jesus, I loved these shows. Channel 64 didn’t have a lot to offer, but it did have Japanimation, and that was enough for me to love it ’til the day it died.
And then there was Channel 19. WXIX. King of Cincy UHF. The only television station in the nation to have it’s call letters reflect its channel in Roman numeral form. And, as far as any of us kids were concerned, the holy motherfucking grail of television. We lived down in a valley in the woods of Kentucky, and our television reception was spotty at best. Only on rainy days, or when the unknowable whims of the gods of electromagnetic broadcasting deemed us temporarily worthy, could we could get Channel 19. And when it happened, Frog Boy and I would be glued to the TV like that construction worker’s hardhat was glued to that steel beam. It was Channel 19, god damn it. That’s not just something you just turn off.
This poster adorned my wall for all of my teen years, and well into my twenties. I am not popular with the ladies.
Channel 19 brought me my first taste a lot of things I love to this day. Transformers, Star Trek, Taxi, WKRP In Cincinnati, the really good syndicated episodes of The Real Ghostbusters that ABC didn’t air, Batman: The Animated Series, All In The Family, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – you name it, and there’s a 50/50 chance I saw it on WXIX first. But most of all, it brought me The Twilight Zone. One of the most significant reasons I write my little reviews and that I love sci-fi so goddamn much to this day is one that I don’t think I’ve written about until now. Its The Twilight Zone. While Star Trek reruns were always fun to watch when I was a kid, and the occasional goofiness of Buck Rogers or Battlestar Galactica were an okay way to kill an hour, Twilight Zone reruns were a must. Those were the shows you dropped everything else for.
Now that I’ve forced you to read the entire history of Cincinnati area broadcasting from the perspective of a child who was too young to have witnessed much of it, I should probably start talking about time loops, huh? That’s what this article’s about, remember? So lets talk about “Shadow Play.”
“Shadow Play” is not my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone, but its a damned good one. It focuses on a condemned man who is reliving his sentencing and execution over and over. Unlike Groundhog Day, the man comes to realize that he is, in fact, dreaming. But that’s not the point of the story. The point, a point made clear in Groundhog Day and in the two television shows reviewed below, is that repetition, to quote Stephen King, is Hell.
We fade into the story already in progress, as many episodes of The Twilight Zone do. We see a courtroom in which we witness Adam Grant being sentenced to death for the crime of murder. He looks equally worried and terrified, but not at the sentencing. He was worried before that. You see how this show was made? The Twilight Zone, unlike most shows then and now, assumed its audience was intelligent enough to pick up on what was going on without being spoon fed the details. We don’t need to be told that this man has more on his mind than being sentenced the electric chair. We don’t need to know what happened to him before this, or how he came to be there. All we need to know is right there in front of us, much of it acted out wordlessly. The tension is evident in every frame.
Enter Rod Serling. Rod was the genius behind The Twilight Zone and the undisputed lord god almighty of the twist ending. His straightforward delivery makes him the master of all The Twilight Zone‘s fucked up ceremonies, and I think its safe to say that everyone who has ever tried to equal him in the “Hello, I’m your host, and welcome to the most twisted part of Hell” arena has fallen laughably short. Anyone else in his position would have been tempted to go the Igor/Crypt Keeper route and act all mangled and fucked up. Not Serling. No, Rod appeared on screen dressed in a nice suit, hair neatly groomed, casually smoking a cigarette, voice level and clear, telling you in as plain and calm a manner as humanly possible that the worst fucking things in the world were about to happen to you, and there was nothing you could do about it. This guy was the man.
In the case of “Shadow Play,” he lets the audience see exactly what’s going on, then tells them they were right. It’s like the worst imaginable trip to the doctor. Before he spoke we were pretty sure we had cancer. Now that he’s done talking, we know we have cancer. That’s a scary difference. This is what Rod Serling had to say about poor Adam Grant:
“Adam Grant: a nondescript kind of man found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. Like every other criminal caught in the wheels of justice, he’s scared, right down to the marrow of his bones. But it isn’t prison that scares him, the long, silent nights of waiting, the slow walk to the little room, or even death itself. It’s something else that holds Adam Grant in the hot, sweaty grip of fear, something worse than any punishment this world has to offer. Something found only in the Twilight Zone.”
You see what he does? He ups the ante. We knew it was bad. He not only confirms it, but promises that it’ll get worse. We knew we had cancer, but now we know it’s inoperable and we’re in for a lot of suffering. This is one of the reasons The Twilight Zone was, and remains, so incredible. This is not just TV. Its masterful storytelling.
As the story unfolds, we watch Adam Grant make compelling arguments that everyone he encounters are all people he has known in his waking life who are now playing the parts in his nightmare of endless repetition from which he cannot escape. Time loops the same for him again and again; he is tried, found guilty, sentenced, then executed after an exhausting and ultimately futile attempt to get a pardon and end the dream cycle.
Speaking of old school Cincinnati TV, Rod Serling got his start writing what would become many classic Twilight Zone stories right here in Cincinnati. Click the pic to read about his Cincinnati TV career in the early 1950s.
You know what? I’m not going to tell you how it ends. Its too good. I’m not going to ruin it for you. I will tell you this: this is The Twilight Zone you’re watching, so don’t bank on a happy ending. Half of these shows end so horribly for the people involved that its amazing they made it on the air in the 1950s. Let me just sum up “Shadow Play” by saying that there is a point where death, dream, reality, and awakening come to a crossroads. Where a lot of bad television and movies would have resorted to special effects to tell this story, the guys behind The Twilight Zone opted for an even more effective technique. They quickly dimmed the lights in the studio, leaving the actors in absolute darkness, then faded to the next scene. It was amazing. It was SO much more impressive than any effect could have been. Fucking genius. Man, why don’t they make shows like this any more?
The next time someone criticizes your taste for liking sci-fi/fantasy (let’s be honest, it happens to us all), look them straight in the face and say “ROD FUCKING SERLING.” If they don’t immediately acknowledge that you have schooled them and that you are the complete lord and master of the Quick Stop, then they are too stupid to judge you, and you may move on your way secure in the knowledge that you are the superior life form. People like Rod Serling are not just good, they’re legendary. Son of a bitch, that’s good television.
While not as popular or well received as the originals, the 1980’s version of The Twilight Zone was a worthy successor to Rod Serling’s seasons, featuring some very good stories and plenty of star power. My favorite episode: 1988’s “The Curious Case Of Edgar Witherspoon,” featuring Harry Morgan from M*A*S*H.
Of course, those days of afternoon horrors with The Twilight Zone are long gone, like my beloved independent stations. Marking its further decline, Channel 64 changed its call letters to WSTR in 1990, and became known as “Star 64.” It’s death as an independent station came in 1995, when it became one of the founding UPN affiliates and changed it’s name to UPN 64. Channel 19, once a beacon of everything that equaled TV coolness, quietly became a charter affiliate of the newly formed Fox network in 1986. Channel 19 resisted unnecessary change and remained thoroughly awesome well into the early 90s, but started to lose much of its luster with the loss of, that’s right, its impressively cool afternoon lineup. The station changed its on-air branding to fucking “Fox 19” in 1996, and it has been dead to me ever since. I’ll bet the kids who watch it now don’t even know what The Twilight Zone is. That makes me sad. If you were one of the lucky ones like me, you lived to see these stations in their heyday and know what I’m making such a fuss about. My only hope is that some day, somehow, we’ll get local programming like this back again, and more kids will be exposed to mind-blowing shows like “Shadow Play.” I don’t mean to sound like such an old fart, but I swear to god, those really were the days.
The Twilight Zone pinball game was released by Midway in 1993. Midway gave the designer complete artistic control over the game, resulting in what many pinball enthusiasts consider to be the most complex pinball game ever created. Among its features are a working gumball machine which deposits pinballs, a working analog clock used as a timer, a small, separate playing field where the ball is propelled by magnets rather than flippers, the Powerball, a white ceramic ball which is lighter than a regular steel ball and is non-magnetic, and “Lost In The Zone,” a reward mode for skillful play in which the player has approximately 45 seconds to make an unlimited number of shots using 6 pinballs simultaneously. In addition to the theme music from the original TV show, the game’s main background music is a remix of the 1982 hit “Twilight Zone” by Golden Earring. Click the pic to check out some of the game’s very impressive features.
Next up is my little sista, Sci-Fi Girl, with her review of the Stargate: SG-1 time loop episode “Window Of Opportunity.”
I don’t know what the hell this is, but its from this episode, and people on the Stargate forums seem to love it. -Chris
Sci-Fi Girl writes: On planet P4X-639, the SG-1 team works to uncover the mystery behind an ancient device. Dr. Daniel Jackson and another archeologist named Malakai attempt to decipher the Latin-like language that covers the walls surrounding the device, but time is a pressing issue; a geomagnetic storm begins emitting radiation, and the travelers must finish their task before the radiation becomes deadly. Malakai, though, has plans of his own.
As the storm rages, Col. O’Neil calls Jackson to the Stargate. When he does not show, the team searches for him and finds that Jackson has been shot, and Malaki has activated the device. As O’Neil and Teal’c move to attack Malakai, they suddenly find themselves back in SG-1 headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain, 10 hours earlier.
Eating Froot Loops. ‘Cause they’re loops, see? Loops.
O’Neil and Teal’c are the only ones who remember being on P2X-639; the machine apparently was a time loop machine, so now O’Neil and Teal’c get looped to the past every 10 hours. Everyone else believes they‘re crazy.
I’m breaking off from the storyline here, but I would find that sooo annoying. I mean, having to sit through the same briefing 50 effin’ times? That’s just not cool… anyway, back to the story…
Props: Joseph Mallozzi is actually the name of the co-writer of this episode.
O’Neil and Teal’c find a way to keep notes and info around for the next loop. They and Jackson are trying to translate the Latinish language so they can go back, shut down the machine, and happy-do-da day. Of course, they only have 10 hours to do this each time, so when Jackson is translating and you have nothing to do, there’s nothing like juggling paper wads. Yes, that’s right, after you get sick from spinning in your chair why not teach an alien how to juggle.
It seems as though their getting nowhere and aren’t getting anything done, right? Wrong. At one point Jackson states, “If you know in advance that everything will go back to the way it was, you could do anything you want with out having consequences.” This seems to brighten their day; O’Neil has some ideas.
“Off the tee, past the event horizon, through the wormhole, onto Alaris, billions of miles, nuthin’ but ‘Gate.”
We start out by seeing the artistic side of O’Neil as we find him failing at trying to make a clay pot on a wheel. We then go on to see him ride through the army base on a bike with a little dingy bell. Then, my favorite part, O’Neil teaches Teal’c how to golf. And not just any golf – intergalactic golf! Yep, they open the Stargate to another planet and golf. Wouldn’t you love to set the world record for golf? Heck I could do it, and I can’t even hit 50 yards (just ask my gym teacher).
Ok, that’s all fun and all, but the next part I must explain for you nitwits out there who don’t watch Stargate. In the military you obviously can’t date anyone in your group-thingy. Col. O’Neil and Major Carter have feelings for each other that they obviously can’t express, so, as a non-consequential action, O’Neil resigns. When General Hammond asks why, O’Neil says, “So I can do this,” and a few seconds before they loop again, he dips Carter and kisses her. *sigh* How romantic.
Anyway, long story short, they figure out a way to shut down the machine and we all live happily ever after. Now that were at the end you may ask how many times they looped. Well here’s an answer: the episode only shows 20 loops, each loop lasting 10 hours (we established that part already), but at the end Carter says that the Tokra have been trying to contact them for 3 months! You do the math. ~Sci-Fi Girl~
Chris here. For those of you out there who don’t want to do the math, three months of 10 hour loops comes to a minimum of 216 loops. At least that’s what Wikipedia tells me. And I think we all know that there’s no fact as solid as a fact based on anonymously posted, unverified popular opinion…
[WARNING: GEEKSPLOSION IMMINENT! STOP READING IMMEDIATELY IF YOU ARE NOT A FREAKNERD LIKE CHRIS!]
Okay, I wasn’t able to trust what I read, so I’ve just done the math for myself. The Wikipedia answer is wrong. You hear me? The price is wrong, bitch! The minimum three month span is the Jan-Feb-March stretch of 90 days (on a non-Leap Year). That’s usually 2160 hours, but in the northern hemisphere, where the SG-1 HQ is located, Daylight Savings Time sometimes falls on the last Sunday in March. The subtraction of the Daylight Savings hour makes for a minimum of 215.9 loops, assuming it is possible to only complete a partial loop. Conversely, the maximum number of loops would usually be 220.8.
If we assume this episode took place in 2000, the year it was first aired, the minimum loops really is 216 (in 2000, Daylight Savings Time fell on April 2nd, the first Sunday in April). However, if we assume the episode took place on the exact date it first aired, August 4th, then Daylight Savings interferes yet again. In 2000, daylight savings ended on October 29th, but the guys would have been looping until November 4th; that’s 92 days, or 2208 hours. We need to tack an extra hour on there for October 29th; in this scenario they would have completed a maximum of 220.9 loops. Of course, if the whole Earth was caught in this time loop, then all this talk about months, days, and Daylight Savings becomes completely immaterial, but I think the important thing to remember is that god damn, I am a fucking NERD.
Here for a little time loop music interlude, we have R.E.M.’s “Imitation Of Life.” Filmed to promote their 2001 album Reveal, this excellent time loop video took only twenty seconds to shoot (not including time for the elaborate set up). The loop plays forward for twenty seconds, then backward for twenty seconds, repeating until the end of the video. Shot with a single stationary camera, the final footage was then looped and different portions of the video were enlarged using the same pan and scan technology used to reformat widescreen movies to fit old school 4×3 television screens. This highlights different parts of the same 20-second story that are otherwise lost in the visual noise of the overall picture.
Next up we have Mrs. X‘s review of The X-Files contribution to the time loop genre, “Monday.”
Mrs. X writes: Greetings, Mrs. X here with, believe it or not, my first review ever of an X-Files episode on this site. When Chris asked me to review this particular episode for his special Groundhog Day article, how could I pass up the chance? Although I’m not a huge fan of this particular ep, you just can’t say no to Chris. If you do, bad things happen… bad things. Anyway, on with the review.
“Monday” isn’t particularly one of my favorite X-Files episodes. In fact, I wouldn’t even put it in my top 10. Don’t get me wrong; it’s watchable. But it’s not an episode I would watch over and over again, hahahaha, pun totally intended. This is a Season 6 stand alone episode.
For those of you not familiar with The X-Files (shame on you!), there are two types of episodes: the alien mythology arc episodes, which deal with all of the alien conspiracy stuff, and the stand alone episodes, which deal with weird, strange and paranormal phenomena, but have really nothing to do with the overall “mythology” of the show. Season 6 has some particularly great stand alone episodes: “Drive,” “Triangle,” “Dreamland,” “Dreamland II,” “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas” (with Ed Asner and Lilly Tomlin), “Terms of Endearment,” “The Rain King,” “Agua Mala,” “Arcadia” (Mulder and Scully pretending to be married), “Alpha,” “Trevor,” “Milagro” (one of my personal favorites, very shippy), “The Unnatural” (great shippiness at the end, written and directed by David Duchovny), “Three of a Kind” (great Lone Gunman centered episode), “Field Trip,” “Tithonus,” and of course “Monday.” Since this isn’t an all inclusive Season 6 stand alone episode review, I will get back to my review of “Monday,” but I highly urge you, dear reader, to check out some of these episodes if you haven’t seen them yet. Oh, and one more side note before I really get into the review — Season 6 marks the first season of filming in LA after they moved production of The X-Files from Vancouver.
Like I said earlier, “Monday” isn’t horrible, but in my opinion it isn’t great either. Sorry if its someone’s favorite episode out there, but I could take it or leave it. It was written by two veteran X-Files writers, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, and was directed by the great Kim Manners, whose name appears on many excellent episodes. The basic plot of “Monday” is, for lack of a better phrase, a rip off of Groundhog Day. The same day keeps repeating over and over again, except here no one is really supposed to learn any lesson or change their personality. It’s more of a study in free will versus fate. Are we destined to do certain things and meet certain people, and no matter what we do that won’t change? Or can we change events in our life through our actions, thus guiding our own existence?
The episode opens with what appears to be a hostage situation outside of a bank: lots of police cars, SWAT, and the head honcho of the X-Files at the FBI, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. A strung out, frightened looking girl runs to Skinner, warning him that she is reliving this day over and over again. This poor woman is Pam, but Skinner doesn’t know who the hell she is.
Cut to the bank interior: Mulder has been shot and Scully is holding him in her lap trying to apply pressure on the wound. Bernard, the would be bank robber now turned hostage taker, sees the SWAT team approach and blows up the bank with the bomb he has strapped to himself. The opening credits roll and we are taking to the hallway of Mulder’s apartment building.
The morning paper is thrown against Mulder’s door, waking him. The scenes in Mulder’s bedroom definitely make this episode worth watching, even if the story isn’t all that great. Anytime I can see David Duchovny shirtless and in some fairly translucent pajama bottoms several times in one episode, I’ll take it… okay, sorry, back to the review. So Mulder wakes up and realizes that his bed is soaking wet. His waterbed has sprung a leak.
A side note here: Mulder never had a bed until Season 6. He always slept on his couch. The bed was acquired by one Morris Fletcher whom Mulder switched bodies with in “Dreamland” and “Dreamland II.” Since Mulder has no memory of the events that took place in those episodes, he really doesn’t know how he got the waterbed, but he’s sleeping in it anyway. The floor is soaked, his alarm clock has shorted out, his cell phone is waterlogged, and he is late for work. On his way back from getting a pan from the kitchen, he trips over his shoes. This is a subtle thing that will change over the course of the episode as he travels through the time loop.
When he finally arrives at work and informs Scully he has to deposit his pay check so that he can cover the personal check he wrote his landlord for the damages. Mulder tells her how his morning has gone, and she asks when he got a waterbed; this is another reference to the Dreamland episodes of which Scull also has no memory. Scully returns to the meeting she and Mulder were supposed to be attending, a tedious discussion of crime projections, and Mulder heads to the bank. On his way, Mulder passes Pam and looks at her; she notes that he’s never done that before. Mulder is waiting in line at the bank when Bernard decides to rob the place. Scully, who has left the meeting to go look for Mulder, walks into the bank, realizes what’s going on, and draws her gun on Bernard. Mulder draws his weapon, Bernard shoots Mulder, and then blows up the bank. Again.
Cut to the hallway of Mulder’s apartment. Again.
The paper wakes Mulder, his waterbed has sprung a leak (mmm… more shirtless Duchovny), and he goes through the same motions, except this time when he trips over his shoes, he falls backwards instead of forward. When he gets to work he rips his paycheck while opening it, another subtle change. This time around, he and Scully have a discussion about fate versus free will, which I think is what the story is trying to convey. Instead of Mulder going to the bank, Scully says she will go for him. He agrees to let her, but then realizes that he gave her the wrong part of the check and has to go to the bank to catch her. Of course Pam is sitting in the car as he goes by, and the longer the episode goes on the worse you start to feel for this poor girl who is obviously doomed to relive the same day over and over again, I can definitely see where it would take a toll. So Mulder goes into the bank, and, long story short, Bernard blows it up again.
Props: The watch Fox Mulder wore all this season was a steel Omega DeVille Prestige, which is made to display the date as a number. A prop with a fake day window was made for the episode; in reality, this model does not have a window that would show what day it was. The creation of this prop leads to a continuity mistake in the series; “Monday” originally aired on February 28, 1999, but below is Mulder’s watch as seen in the episode “Arcadia” on March 7, 1999. The watch now appears, once again, as a standard Omega DeVille Prestige without the day display.
We see the paper hit Mulder’s front door four more times, indicating the start of the same day, same events over and over again. On the fifth repetition, Mulder wakes up, the waterbed has sprung a leak, but he tells the person on the other end of the phone that he will pay for it and hangs up, a distinct difference from the last couple of times he has repeated the day. It seems that Spooky is starting to tune into what’s going on. Meanwhile, Pam has made her way into the FBI building through a tour group and found Scully. She tries to warn her of what’s happening, but Scully, a skeptic to the last, doesn’t believe her. Scully tells Mulder of the encounter anyway, and Mulder describes having an overwhelming since of déjà vu all morning. As if to test whether or not he has free will, Mulder tells Scully that he will use the ATM, which turns out to be out of order. Mulder chooses not to go into the bank, and heads back to the meeting. Unfortunately Scully has left the meeting to look for Mulder and Mulder follows her… back to the bank.
“I have had it with these motherfucking time loops in this motherfucking bank!”
At this point Pam gets out of the car and tells him that she has been doomed to repeat this day, she has tried everything to reverse her fortune, but it’s obviously up to Mulder to stop it. Mulder hears shots from inside the bank and goes in with gun drawn. Of course the bank blows up again, but this time before it does Mulder repeats to himself “He has a bomb, he has a bomb strapped to himself” over and over again.
We get to repeat the day one more time. Mulder is in the bank looking at Bernard, repeating “He’s got a bomb, he’s got a bomb…” Mulder walks over to Bernard, lays his gun down on the counter, and tells Bernard he is a federal agent and to take the gun. As many times as I’ve seen this episode I still don’t understand why Mulder would tell this guy to take his gun, but whatever. Now Bernard has two guns, way to go Mulder, and he tells everyone that it’s a hold up. Scully enters the bank with Pam and tells him to drop the guns. He says no, of course, and then there is the sound of sirens.
I don’t know why this guy didn’t think they would trip the silent alarm, but again, whatever – I didn’t write this episode. Thinking he was betrayed, Bernard pulls the trigger, but Pam jumps in front of Mulder and takes the bullet. Bernard realizes what he has done, drops to his knees and is handcuffed. Pam is now laying on the floor bleeding, Scully calls 911 and with her last breath Pam tells her, “This never happened before.” One last time we cut to the paper hitting Mulder’s front door.
He wakes up, only this time (much to my dismay) he is wearing a shirt. He is also sleeping on the couch. He looks at his watch and we see it is Tuesday; Scully calls and tells him Skinner wants their report on the robbery. She comments on Bernard’s accomplice and of course Mulder says that he doesn’t think she was an accomplice, but that she was simply trying to get away. The last shot we see is of the newspaper that woke him, and its report of the events of the day…
Watch pics courtesy of foxmulderswristwatch.com
As far as episodes go I would probably give it 4 Xs out of 10. It’s watchable, but really does get tedious towards the end. I also didn’t like the fact that it was never fully explained why Pam was meant to repeat the day over and over again. It gets points for shirtless Duchovny, but I thought it was really weak for a Gilligan/Shiban written episode. I also wasn’t a big fan of the Pam character; she was just a little too greasy and strung out looking. I understand that she and Bernard were down on their luck, but that whole unshowered look really got on my nerves. But I guess if I had to repeat the same day over and over again, I probably would say to hell with personal hygiene, too. I mean, at that point who cares.
There are many stand alone episodes in Season 6 that are much better than “Monday,” but if you haven’t seen this episode I would recommend watching it. And if you have seen it feel free to leave your comments and opinions about it right here on The Sci-Fi Guys webpage. Mrs. X signing off.
So there you have it folks, our first ever SALUTE TO TIME LOOPS! Much love to Sci-Fi Girl and Mrs. X who made this year’s Groundhog Day celebration bigger and better than it could have possibly been without them. Scroll down and give them some props – this I command! And be sure to check back next Groundhog Day. You know, I have a funny kind of feeling we’ll be doing this again next year. And again, and again, and again, and again…
Great job you guys…way to go!
Damn Chris great nitpicking on the watch. As much as I know about the X-Files that is even a new fact on me. Very interesting. I didn’t mention it in the article, but some people say on day two as the camera pans past Mulder’s shoulder as he is sitting on his bed you can see he has a picture of Scully in his room. I have puased and slow advanced on the dvd and it does look like Scully, but I couldn’t tell cause it’s kinda blurry. However, being the shipper that I am, I will say it is Scully.
Thanks, babe, I do what I can. I threw in an extra half naked Mulder pic for you, just because I care. By the way, if I ever start a band, I’m naming it ‘Shirtless Duchovny.’ That’s one hell of a name.
Gillian Anderson is FINE. Mrs. X and I used to watch The X-Files together and talk about how much each of us would like to nail our respective objects of adoration. The regrettable thing about The X-Files is that Scully never really smiled or laughed much, but Gillian Anderson’s smile is absolutely stunning, particularly when she laughs.
How do I love her? Let me show you the ways…
[check back soon for the pics, my bitches]
Hey if you want to see Gillian laugh and smile watch the gag reels. You can find most of them on YouTube. Of course I have seasons 1-6 on video tape. I really need to get them transferred to DVD. But she laughs a ton on those and can really cuss with the best of them.
But 2000 was a leap year.
What the hell are you talking about?
In your calculations of how long the Stargate loop happened – did you take into consideration the fact that 2000 is a leap year.
I’ll be honest, I’ve been away from the InnerTubes for the past four days and had a lot of stuff to catch up on, like the new MS Yahoo! (R)(TM)(C) and all, so I only briefly perused this article and honed in on the “Major Geek” section cause, well, I’m a big damned geek too. Now that I’ve read it, I don’t think the leapiness of 2000 as any weight, but I just wanted to point it out.
For example. My birthday is September 9, 1975. My brother was born a year later, September 8, 1975. We’ve been telling people that we’re 364 days apart. Thirty years we’ve been telling people that, and then while doing some Java calendar coding a couple months ago Robin realizes that 1976 is a leap year. That means that we are 365 days apart. One year apart, nearly to the hour, different birth “dates”.
I look at it this way: as far as sibling go, in relation to the sun, the places that Robin and I were born were much closer than most siblings. I mean, you can say that you and your sister were born in the same room of a house, but in relation to the sun there could have been hundreds of thousands of miles between those actual space-locations. Robin and I? Not so much.
For Mrs. X…
THAT IS BADASS!!!!!!!!!!!
Q – Hate to be a nitpicking geek here, but when you take into account eccentricities in the Earth’s rotation and orbit, you and Robin are probably more likely on the order of hundreds of thousands of miles between exact birth space locations. That’s still pretty impressive though, because everyone else is on the order of tens of millions. Astronomically speaking, you guys were essentially born in the same damn spot.
“Give me a chance to tell the bard’s tale, and I give you my word on humble knee, whence you shall not say it wasn’t e’r to be.”
Attention fans of intelligent, truly funny television: there’s an Arrested Development movie on the way. This is awesome, awesome news for those of us who hate things that suck. Those of you who actually like things that suck can relax, too; According To Jim has been renewed for an inexplicable seventh season.
I heard about the Arrested Development movie, awesome! I will say I watched that show from the beginning and I loved it. I still watch the reruns. There are some great innuendos in many of the episodes and it’s just all around very well written and acted. If you haven’t ever watched it I highly recommend renting or buying the DVDs. Henry Winkler is great in it and as much as I don’t like Liza Minelli (sp?) I loved her as Lucille 2.
Mrs. X, did you happen to click on the X in the window? This is a very dangerous game you’re playing. You must leave no stone unturned, no clue uninvestigated. I left a document there, a document that has been hidden from the world since the early 1950s. This document contains sensitive information that THEY do not want you to know about. Secrecy is vital. I cannot allow one person to risk the fate of the human race. If asked, I will deny all knowledge of your operations. Good luck to you.
Trust no one.
VERY NICE!!!!!! Gotta love shirtless Duchovny with his hair all mussed up. On the XF2 front I recently read over at the X-Files Idealist Haven Spoiler Board that Skinner is indeed gonna be in the movie. This gets my hopes up a little bit that maybe CC really will give the fans what they want out of this movie.
I’ve got story spoilers about the movie, too. What I’ve heard fits in very, very well with the final episode. Not only that, but it perfectly explains the presence of the FBI agents played by Amanda Peet and Xibit. And, if I’ve read between the lines correctly and what I think is going on is actually going on, it makes other FBI agents a necessity. I’ll post the spoilers later today for whoever wants to read them.
AHHHHHHHH POST THEM NOW POST THEM NOW!!!!!!!! I swear I’m the biggest spoiler whore that ever was.
Spoilers coming soon…
You’re a tease :)……..the suspense is killing me
Chris reviews Christian Extremists
Welcome to my soapbox.
A lot of people probably don’t know that there is such a thing as the Chaplain of the United States Senate. This is a presumably religious person that opens every single session of the United States Senate with a prayer. The Chaplain is appointed by majority vote of the members of the Senate, and we have had one since April 25, 1789. It is a long held tradition of American governmental procedure.
I am an atheist, proudly. I loudly support and demand the separation of church and state. But I do find that there is something to be said for the preservation of longstanding traditions, even when those traditions run contrary to my personal beliefs, so long as they are harmless. This is called ‘tolerance’, or, as I more correctly refer to it, ‘not being a dick.’ And as an atheist who is not a dick, I have no problem with the Chaplain of the United States Senate, nor the tradition of the Chaplain’s Daily Prayer. It harms absolutely no one, is a dignified part of my American culture, and has never once in my life had any impact upon myself or anyone I know, negative or otherwise.
What I do have a problem with is fucking Christian assholes who make my country, and by extension myself and everyone I love, look bad. That I do not tolerate.
Despite all the whining and belly-aching I hear to the contrary, Christianity in this country is in under no threat of extinction. The religious holier-than-thous have, in the last decade or so, begun couching their rants in the guise of there being some ragtag holy army entrenched in a noble, desperate struggle for their very existence, all of which is bullshit. Christianity is ingrained in our culture, and its not going anywhere. Unfortunately, wherever you have religion you have religious maniacs, and America is no exception.
The fundamentalist religious nutjobs in this country are, despite the popular image we all have in our minds of turbaned Muslim suicide bombers, mainly Christian in nature. They hide behind the aegis of “freedom of religion,” which many people actively practice as tantamount to an exception from criticism. We are often taught to believe that anything that is presented in the form of a faith or a belief is 100% free from intellectual analysis or refutation.
Not so.
Many Christians openly practice a policy of “witnessing,” a none too subtle attempt to get people to convert to Christianity, or, more often, to their particular sect of Christianity. Most Christians “witness” to other Christians, and are not happy with any Christian that isn’t a zealot. The very worst of these are “Christian extremists,” a popular term for any Christian whom people are hesitant to more honestly call a nuisance, burden to society, mentally unstable individual, or dangerous terrorist. Christian extremists are the single most horrible perpetrators of the destruction of our American religious culture. Let me give you an example:
Beginning in 1817 and continuing until the 1950s, new members of Congress were given a copy of The Life And Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, a version of the Bible edited by Thomas Jefferson. In a show of his own personal beliefs, Jefferson literally took a pair of scissors to his personal Bible and cut away any passages he felt were statements about the supernatural. His goal was simple; he was separating the mythology from the moral. The resulting book, better known to most people as “The Jefferson Bible,” is an irreplaceable piece of American culture, literature, and philosophy, and represents Christianity as Jefferson believed it in its purest form.
But in the 1950s the tradition stopped. It was stopped by the same people who decided to place “under God” into the Pledge Of Allegiance, and it happened around the same time. Who did this? It wasn’t Jews. It wasn’t Muslims from overseas. It wasn’t any of the tiny fractions of other religions being practiced in America at the time. So who did it?
Christians. Christians tore down this American religious tradition. You see, Thomas Jefferson was a deist, a person who believes that God created the universe and then stepped back and watched it unfold with a very hands-off policy. He did not believe in Jesus’ divinity, the resurrection, miracles, or any other supernatural aspect described in the Bible. He sought to understand the pure philosophy of Jesus. In Jefferson’s own words:
“In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves… We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus… There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.”
The Jefferson Bible begins with an account of Jesus’ birth without references to angels, miracles, genealogy, or prophecy, and ends with the conclusion of John 19: “Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus. And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.” All said and done, Jefferson wanted nothing more than to be able to clearly understand who Jesus was, and what he believed. His bible is a focused study of Jesus Christ, and nothing else. But that wasn’t Christian enough for the Christians, so one of our oldest American traditions, one that passed along the Christian beliefs of one of our most impressive founding fathers, was swept away. Thanks to American Christians.
Fast forward to 2007. The procedural activities of the Senate are guided by what are called the Standing Rules of the Senate. They are a set of formal and traditional guidelines that tell Senators how to conduct themselves and the business of our government. Senatorial tradition states that each day is begun with the Chaplain’s Daily Prayer, which can be given by a representative of ANY faith. Bear in mind that there has never been a non-Christian Chaplain of the United States Senate, so there has never been any threat to the Christian standing of that office. There are, however, often guest chaplains that are invited to deliver a prayer, and these chaplains have been Jewish, Muslim, and any of the various branches of Christianity to be found here in the US. In 2007 the very fist Hindu prayer in a session of the Senate was offered by Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain from Nevada. It was an historic event, and in itself a piece of American religious tradition. Watch the clip below to see what happened.
You see? American Christians don’t want equality for all religions. They don’t want religious freedom. They don’t even want our own American religious traditions, which are based on hundreds of years of Christianity. They want a theocracy. They want exclusive rights to this country. This man, who was a guest of the United States Senate, was treated incredibly rudely by “good” Christians who, I think its clear, had come there specifically for the purpose of interrupting his prayer, a prayer being offered by a representative of the oldest major religion actively practiced on this planet. The third largest religion in the world. And I’m supposed to turn a blind eye to this because the Christians did it in the name of their religion? Because they were compelled to by faith? Fucking forget it. What about the name of my country? What about the way this makes Americans look? This man came to wish the Senate well in the name of his faith and his god(s), and instead of the decorum and respect that any Christian reverend or priest would almost certainly have received, he was treated abominably. This is reprehensible and embarrassing, and reflects very poorly on all of us.
I guess I can rest easy in the fact that, unlike the fucked up antics in British Parliament, this was not carried out by actual politicians. The “protestors,” as the media overly kindly called them, were in the observation gallery, and so were not actual members of the Senate. But still, is this what we’ve come to? Are the Christians in this country so scared of any show of faith that is not a duplicate of their own that they’ll disrupt the workings of their own government, the government of a country they claim to love, just so they can prevent someone from praying? From praying. What does that say about them? And what does that say about us as a nation?
Upon its completion in its final form, circa 1820, Jefferson shared his Bible with a number of friends, but he never allowed it to be widely published during his lifetime. His reluctance appears to have been based on his conviction that religion was a private matter, as well as his desire to avoid slander and criticism. I guess religious intolerance in this country is just as old as religious tradition. Maybe they go hand in hand. Or maybe I’m just being overly cynical, I honestly don’t know which. The biggest pity of all is that, if you listen to the prayer Zed offered, it closely echoes the sentiment of Thomas Jefferson himself. “May he stimulate and illuminate our minds. Lead us from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light.” How is that at all different from what Thomas Jefferson himself was trying to do by better understanding Jesus? Zed was praying for the very thing that Jefferson sought by cutting up his Bible; enlightenment through thoughtful, meditative understanding and reason. Maybe if we as a country had held onto the tradition of The Jefferson Bible a little more faithfully rather than let reactionary fundamentalists strip away one of our oldest traditions, this man who came to wish our government well would have been shown the respect and dignity he deserved, and by extension, so would every person who proudly calls themselves an American. That’s my 2¢.
QUOTE. THE. FUCKING. TRUTH.
I can only hope that one day society will evolve to the point where it realizes how divisive and unnecessary religion has become. I’m sure it will never (if ever) happen in my life time.
Well, we’ve had religions for at least the past 50,000 years or so that we know of, so I wouldn’t count on them going away any time soon. But I agree with you wholeheartedly. I don’t have a problem with people worshipping whatever they want to worship on an individual level. But when they’re too insecure too do it on their own and they start gathering together, things end up going horribly wrong. This is always the case. I can tell you exactly how it happens.
Say you have a bunch of people who agree to believe similar things, and they come together as a group. Their beliefs are eventually assigned a structure which they can all agree upon for the most part. That belief structure turns into a mythology. Dogma is built around the mythology, and thus forms a religion. Those who are able to remember and pass along the mythology and dogma are granted a special status as a holy person, and from that point on, things are in the toilet.
The holy people, who will eventually come to understand that they are completely unnecessary and can be done without, will, like anyone threatened with losing their livelihood, seek any means they can to ensure their positions in their society. Usually this is done by selling themselves as a medium for the supernatural, an exclusive conduit through which magic works (psychic surgeons, Catholic priests, oracles, medicine men, miracle healers, etc). Beliefs contrary to this interpretation are a threat to the status of the holy people, and will often be incorporated into the dogma as sins. In addition to being contrary to the religion, these sins will be made socially unacceptable, and often punishable by law. Thus the holy people, as the only means of accessing magic, become irreplaceable to those who believe in the mythology, and it becomes socially disadvantageous to believe otherwise.
Many holy people will discover that this is an excellent way to accumulate wealth and power. Eventually the accumulation of wealth and power will lead to a conflict with the dogma, in which case the dogma will be altered to suit the needs of the wealthy, powerful holy people. The function of the dogma will have changed at this point from a simple religious structure to a means to accumulate and retain wealth and power. All else will be secondary, though the believers in the religion, and sometimes even the wealthy and powerful holy people themselves, may not understand it as such.
With the change of the dogma will almost always come an uprising of people who are unwilling to accept the change. This uprising will either be put down by the wealthy and powerful holy people, often violently, or it will result in a split in the religion between the traditionalists (orthodoxy) who refuse to alter the dogma, and those who accept the alterations (non-othodoxy). The financially and/or politically weaker of the two will form a separate sect of the original religion, and the process begins all over again, eventually resulting in an entirely new religion. In this way multiple religions are formed from a very small number of basic ideas. For example, the early Hebrew polytheistic religion split, resulting in monotheistic Judaism. Judaism eventually split, resulting in Catholic Christianity. Christianity split, resulting in Protestantism. Externally, none of these religions would be considered the same as the others, but they all share many common beliefs and values passed down from the original early Hebrew polytheism.
Eventually the multiple resultant religions will begin to compete for resources, leading to political and financial conflict (and often physical conflict as well). At this point, any socially successful religion will have supporters within one or more governments, and those government structures will evolve to support the religion to some degree. In this way, even the most primitive societies with social government organizations (tribal councils, village elders, constabulary, city-state governments, etc.) support the religions in that society, and are supported by the religions of that society. An attack on the religious institution becomes an attack on the government, and by extension, the society. Any attack by one religion on another will result in an attack of one state on another, which results in wars and constant aggression between societies. This was true in the days of tribal conflict, and it remains true to this day.
There is no successful religion on this planet that has not followed this pattern. I’m not sure if the fading out of religion that you hope for will ever come, but if it does, it will be over a span of millennia. You and I will never see the end of it in our lifetimes.
Interesting little piece of completely random info for Mandy and all the other Firefly/Serenity junkies out there. Nathan Fillion (Mal), Alan Tudyk (Wash) and Adam Baldwin (Jayne) all did voice acting for Halo 3. Apparently the game developers were big Firefly/Serenity fans, too. According to Wikipedia “the personality each of these actors are given in the game match those from their characters in Firefly.” At several points in the game, Adam Baldwin is heard to shout “Have a taste of Vera!”, a direct reference to Jayne’s treasured gun. Jayne’s Serenity line “sure would be nice if we had some grenades” can also be heard.
I guess it’s to be expected given Hollywood’s lack of originality these days but 20+ years later seems a long time between “sequels”.
Of course, Lucas did it with “prequels” so I guess timing is really irrelevant anymore.
Pirates Of The Caribbean 4? What’s the point of that? I just bought the third movie and it completely blows. It made very little sense and is so detached from the tone of the first movie that it was almost unlike a sequel. It was more like a really big budget film with wonderful special effects and a story that was MIA. It was as if Disney gave someone an unlimited budget to produce incredible visuals and instructed them to fill up two hours of film with whatever random sequence of vaguely piratical imagery came to mind. I didn’t think the third movie would be spectacular, but with Barbosa in it I thought for sure it would be better than the second. I was horribly mistaken.
Keith Richards as Captain Teague Sparrow, however, completely rocked the joint, and fucking plays guitar as a pirate. That alone is worth my owning the movie, and that is the ONLY reason I would ever suggest it to anyone. Keith’s cameo is like Bruce Campbell’s cameo in Spider-Man 3; it’s the only time in the movie that you ever get the feeling that anything special is going on. Unlike Bruce Campbell, Keith is not an actor, and the sense of reverence in the scene is all brought about by the other cast members, who treat Teague in a manner that suggests that he was, in his day, one of the most bad ass pirates around. He is the Keeper Of The Code, and he is presumably dangerous enough that all the other pirates “keep to the code” to avoid crossing him. Besides the guitar playing, there was another very nice nod to Keith himself in the movie; as Teague is showing Jack a passage from the Codex, the shot is framed in such a way as to make Keith’s famous skull ring visible. Stones fans like myself will find a lot of pleasure in seeing that on screen. Check it out:
According to Wikipedia: “Captain Teague is the father of Captain Jack Sparrow. Not much is known about him other than he may have been born in British Colonial India, the same as Jack, and may have even been employed by the East India Trading Company. Captain Teague was once the Pirate Lord of Madagascar but resigned to become the Keeper of the Code. He firmly believes the Pirate Code is law and will shoot any man who says otherwise. He appears to be very well feared, if not respected, amongst the Pirate Lords, as they all immediately fall silent when his name is called to bring forth the Code. He can silence all of them with a mere glare. As the Keeper of the Code, it may only be summoned when a Pirate Lord demands it. Teague warns Jack about the search for immortality and that living forever is a curse if one is lonely. This may suggest that Teague is both lonely and immortal. And despite his gruff demeanor, Teague often affectionately calls his son ‘Jackie’.”
Hi i don�t think so!
Chris’s note: FUCK YOU, Feindler. I’m gonna get you, you filthy son of a bitch. I’m gonna find you out somewhere when you least expect it, and I’m gonna pounce. Like a fucking panther! You are a dead man, Marco, you hear me? A DEAD MAN!
I found your blog via Google while searching for handcuffed during sex and your post regarding “It’s Groundhog Day!” looks very interesting to me. I have a few websites of my own and I must say that your site is really top notch. Keep up the great work on a really high class resource.
Chris’s note: Searching for “handcuffed during sex,” eh? Nico, you are my kind of spam bot…
Breaking news from the set of Terminator: Salvation – Christian Bale is a little bitch.
Audio evidence of Christian Bale’s PMS:
Oh, look, another Hollywood pussy boy has a tantrum. What a shock.
Fuck Christian Bale. If that fucking director had half a testicle he’d have stopped this before it got this far. The director, by the way, is a 40 year old white guy who calls himself “McG.” Seriously, that’s his professional name. So you know he’s going to be worthless. When Bale calls him out all he can muster is “I didn’t see it happen.” Pussy. At one point Bale moves in to physically attack the DP and is held back by other people. And he has the fucking audacity to question someone else’s professionalism. I wish they hadn’t stopped Bale and that DP would have whipped his ass. I fucking hate celebrities. Hate ‘em. This is what they mostly turn into. Even the seemingly cool ones like Howard Stern eventually transform into whiny self-centered little bitches just like this.
Somebody walked across the set? No fucking shit, asshole, movie sets are crowded places. You want to know why he was walking across the set? Because he’s the director of fucking photography. He needs to be there. DPs often walk around looking for better shots and angles. Its their god damned job. If delicate, prissy, little pansy boy actors like Christian Bale can’t handle that I suggest they do us all a favor and find a new fucking line of work.
I’ve been on the fence about Terminator: Salvation. I don’t know if its going to be worth the bother. They’re gonna have to really shine to match the level of story we see in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and quite frankly I don’t know if they can deliver. Now I want to see it less than ever. Fuck this guy and fuck his movies. I hope it tanks and he never works again. We don’t need people like him. Bale, please report to your house and put a gun in your mouth. Your services are no longer required.
Hurry up and listen to this clip before Warner Bros. and Bales’s lawyers have it removed. And they will remove it, have no doubt. Just knowing it’s out here would definitely irritate Christian Bale’s sensitive little vagina.
I don’t know how many vampire aficionados we have out there but I just found out today that Anne Rice…an atheist for many years…has converted to Christianity and now only writes books in the Christian genre. I don’t think this is recent but it’s recent (and disappointing) news to me. I became a fan of all things dark and macabre due to Anne’s influence. Her earlier vampire books were amazing…her later ones weren’t so great. However, she helped to define the dark paranormal culture in America.
Regardless of her newfound “faith” I think it’s sad that it’s creating this idea (whether that’s her intention or not) that she’s turning from darkness to the light. It’s irritating and unnecessary.
That’s my two cents…what do you all think?
Mark
I think that this is a pretty familiar phenomenon which happens to pseudo-intellectual pseudo-atheists as they age and start to feel the approach of their own impending death. This is nothing new.
If this is being reported by a Christian source, take it with a grain of salt. The same people tried to claim that Terry Pratchett renounced atheism when he found out he had that fast-acting version of Alzheimer’s, but it turned out that was complete bullshit. He said nothing of the kind, and ridiculed the idea. There’s an author who knows how to die in style.
If this is being reported by Anne Rice herself, all this means is that she was never really an atheist in the first place. Its not something you stop doing. You don’t just wake up one day and say, “Hey, you know all that mythology and irrational fear-based belief system shit that I thought was crazy yesterday? Like, it totally makes sense now! Yay, Jesus!” A lot of people claim to be atheists to create some sense of controversy or because they think it makes them seem edgy. I’ve known fuckers like this, and they make things hard for us real atheists, because those kinds of people are invariably intolerable goth asshole posers who should be beaten to death with their own severed legs. Fuck ‘em; we don’t need those people.
Just for the record, you’ll know a pseudo-exatheist by the fact that they always turn Christian. Never Buddhist, never Muslim, never Jewish. There are no atheists who one day wake up and believe in Zeus or Thor or Xenu, which, to an authentic atheist, all make just as much sense as believing in Jehovah. Nope, its always Jesus. Because they were never really atheists in the first place. They were just Christans who wanted attention.
Oh she’s definitely made the switch. Just look at her official website.
If Wikipedia can be trusted this happened awhile ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Rice
Quite frankly I think she was having a crisis of faith generated by tragic events in her life. She never became an atheist. She just said that because she was pissed at god.
She makes a pretty strong assertion that she will not be writing any more vampire books and is dedicated to Jesus. Yet she still has links to all kinds of clearly non-Christian garbage on her site. Not only does she still link all of her books, she has articles up such as “Remembrances Of Coven Parties Of The Past” and, my favorite, a link to a store called “Lestat’s Dark Gift Shop.”
Anne Rice is a Jesus whore. An old, dried up, weak principled Jesus whore. She’s willing to write for the Lord now, but apparently she’s not willing to give up the royalties and profits that came from years of books that glorified murder, homosexuality and occultism, all of which the Bible takes issue with. As a matter of fact, she’s using her website to generate even more profits by keeping these things in print and on the shelves.
Mark, in response to your earlier post, you said “I think it’s sad that it’s creating this idea (whether that’s her intention or not) that she’s turning from darkness to the light.” I think her website and the title of her latest Jesus book, Called Out of Darkness, make it pretty clear that is decidedly her intention. She could be pseudo-controversial by “becoming” an atheist, and now she can once again be psuedo-controversial by “returning” to Catholicism. That’s twice the amount of “controversy” that will draw attention to herself and help her sell books. So, yeah, its definitely deliberate. Because she’s a Jesus whore.
I have no use at all for people like this. Spiritually and ethically she is no different than a piece of shit who goes to prison, “finds Jesus,” then gets out and goes right back to raping and murdering. I do not respect her religion, but if she were to end the collection and generation of royalties from her previous works as a part of her “conversion,” I could at least respect her conviction. But – surprise, surprise – she wants to fellate the crucifix bearers while still dipping her hand into the money she made from the Devil.
Jesus whore. I hereby deem Anne Rice irrelevant.
Will this day ever end?
Jesus, I know what you fucking mean…
The Hobbit movies are going to be huge. I’m betting they do better in the box office than the LOTR movies (money per movie basis).
I don’t know why, but Godzilla movies make me happy. Not watching them; they’re usually kind of boring. But just knowing they exist, and that they keep making more of them. For the most part I couldn’t give half a shit about other giant monster movies, but I dig The Big G. I even enjoyed the 1998 American movie, despite it’s many, many flaws. There is just something so appealing about Godzilla as a concept. I like living in a universe where these movies exist. It makes me feel like everything in the world is just a little closer to being a-okay.
New article on the way. It’s a biggun’, so make like Sebastian and save half your sandwich. We’ve still got a long way to go.
Okay, sorry for the delay. I know these are 14 years late, but something came up. Here are the pics I promised.