In which I draw amusement from po-faced TV

[craigoxbrow]

I'm watching The Deep on BBC1. Not because it's good, or anything... I'm fascinated by its absolute determination to play every cliché and trope it invokes as straight as possible. It's inspiring by its very lack of inspiration.

For example, by playing a well-worn scene dead straight it made me think of this variation that I've never seen done:

One of our heroes has to go to certain death to save the others. Nobody is particularly qualified to do the certain-death thing, so they draw straws to do it.

And the first guy draws...

"Is this... this is the short straw, isn't it? ... Shit."

Comments

[hortorum.livejournal.com]

I almost wish I'd been watching this now but I have an absurdly low tolerance for bad submarine dramas. The trailer for 'The Deep' that I saw made me swear a blue streak about 'wasted space' and I thought I'd probably spend more time doing that than watching Nesbitt and Driver acting.

Mind you, I suppose I could have designed a drinking game around it.

I think 'Das Boot' and 'The Abyss' spoiled me somewhat. You should have heard me after I had 'Crimson Tide' inflicted on me...

[craigoxbrow.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should give advance warning that the next episode of Doctor Who Series A is set in an underwater colony...

Ah yes... but...

[hortorum.livejournal.com]

One - You're not a pillock :) Two - SF helps explain stuff away

E.g.
The place looks like an industrial unit in Swansea and not a cramped undersea installation where everything has space limitation and every hole in the hull a weakness.
SF - The hull is made of fankwankium, a light material that resists the crushing pressure and so there's loads of spare space.

Why doesn't everyone sound like Donald Duck due to being on Heliox?
SF - A Fankwankium hull means you can have 1atm inside the hull. OR some clever bugger has invented a larangyial modulator that STOPS everyone sounding like Donald Duck.

yada yada


Threatening to shoot M-16's inside an Ohio class boomer? One of the lesser sins in Crimson Tide :)
To quote a better film "Shom thingsh in here don't react well to bulletsh"

Re: Ah yes... but...

[craigoxbrow.livejournal.com]

See, knowing very little about submarines, I thought the highest-possible stakes mutiny was quite entertaining.

But the fight over Silver Surfer was soooo inaccurate...

Re: Ah yes... but...

[craigoxbrow.livejournal.com]

On a related note: the scientific advisor of The Deep talks on the SFX forum (http://www.sfx.co.uk/sfx-forum/showthread.php?p=826592#post8265922).

Re: Ah yes... but...

[hortorum.livejournal.com]

The US navy yanked their support for Crimson Tide for a variety of reasons, largely the idea of a mutiny. The drama idea was good but Oh god... so many many mistakes.

Nerd mode - They used the model of an Alpha SSN instead of a Typhoon SSBN.