Macgirl's Media Pick of the Week: Farscape Flashback

I'm going way back for this favorite TV show, to the turn of the century...the year 2000.  Just moved into a new apartment, this one with cable included!  Sc-fi junky that I was, the commercials for the new show Farscape had me hooked. I was thrilled to have the Sci-Fi Channel, and watching Farscape was a can't miss event each week.

Airing in the US on the Sci-Fi Channel (now sy-fy...sigh), this creative space-journey TV series was conceived by Rockne S. O'Bannon.   Produced by Jim Henson Productions and Hallmark, the show featured Henson Muppets as key characters.  The main plot point revolves around a US astronaut from our time (John Crichton) who gets sucked through a wormhole near Earth and is ejected into the middle of an epic space battle.  He clips a passing ship as he arrives, leading to a death and a brother's revenge plot.  After being rescued by a rouge group of escapees flying in a living space craft (Moya), each show is formed around a mini-arch for the episode, and follows the overall arch of Crichton being pursued by multiple baddies, and his trying to get back to the wormhole.  It may sound a bit hokey, but the set design, acting and writing are compelling and just plain entertaining.

All 4 seasons and the concluding mini-series are available on netflix, or through iTunes (links below).

Farscape, Season 1 - Farscape

Farscape, Season 2 - Farscape

Farscape, Season 3 - Farscape

Farscape, Season 4 - Farscape

Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars

Macgirl's Holiday Media Picks

It's here!  Christmas week is upon us.  Between the shopping and visiting and running errands and getting last-minute work projects done, try to take some time to enjoy the holiday classics. 

Links are to iTunes or independent sources if available.

Music:

John Lennon, Happy Xmas (War is Over)

Burl Ives, The Very Best of Burl Ives

Bing Crosby, White Christmas

Performance:

Great Performances:Dance in America: San Francisco Ballet's `Nutcracker' (linked to your local PBS station to check for air times)

White Christmas (playing at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia)

Movies:

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Elf

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Shows:

 Prep and Landing (on ABC Family, check local listings)

A Charlie Brown Christmas (on ABC, stream it on their site anytime) 

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I Might Forget Today: The Beatles Finally Come to iTunes

Apple's hype machine went into overdrive yesterday, with promises of an iTunes announcement that would make today an unforgettable day. The announcement? The Beatles catalog is now available on iTunes.

While the addition of The Beatles is impressive, and long overdue, the announcement will hardly resonate as that groundbreaking to most. After all, if you are a big Beatles fan, wouldn't you have ripped the tracks from CD into iTunes long ago? And if you are discovering the band for the first time, are you going to sink $149 into the box set?

A few years back when there were some seemingly viable iTunes competitors, this announcement would have taken on a bigger importance. Today, it feels more like the inevitable. merely came to pass.

A more cynical look at events could see Apple's heavy (and last minute) hyping of the event yesterday as an attempt to steal some of the thunder from Facebook's email announcement. But we won't get into that: we'll just.. Let It Be.

Macgirl Media Pick of the Week: Mumford & Sons

I am loving Mumford & Sons right now.  It's hard to believe this week's pick is a band that just formed in 2007.  They have a depth and quality of decades-old performers.  The band is comprised of members Marcus Mumford, Country Winston, Ben Lovett, and Ted Dwane.  Their sound is achy and twangy, like a mix of Wilco and My Morning Jacket.  This young group of friends have brought me the best song I've heard in ages...Little Lion Man.

Here's the Little Lion Man video for your enjoyment:

Macgirl Media Pick of the Week: Let's Get Lost

I remember watching Beck on a talk show some years ago. I'm afraid it might have been Ellen DeGeneres, filling in on a late-night show. Or maybe I'm blocking having watched her daytime show at some point. Anyhoo...Ellen brought up loving the song "Loser". She may have even sung a few bars. And Beck just sat in stoney silence, then creepily told her he does not discuss his past and basically, that time of such drivel is behind him. Ouch! Way to respond to a fan, on national TV, a-hole.

Nonetheless, I have continued to listen to his music and am most interested in the sound of this collaboration of Bat for Lashes and Beck. It feels, literally, "hauntingly familiar", and I can't quite place it, but I know this sound already and I like it. I didn't realize initially that this song was in the tween hit movie Eclipse, and finding out did not stop me from liking it. It's hypnotic and smooth. It's also a new experience, that my 10 year old niece was into a song before me. Way to go kiddo. Keep liking brooding vampires, I say. (think she's too young to introduce her to the Angel DVDs?)

You can listen to it here at Crawdaddy.