Review: Tarzan on the WB

Just finished watching the pilot to the new Tarzan series on WB (I had taped it; it actually premiered a couple weeks ago). I had high hopes for it; the trailers looked promising. But it turns out it's fairly typical WB fare.

I should probably add a disclaimer here to the effect that there have only been two shows on WB that I've ever watched to any degree: Birds of Prey which had its own weaknesses, and Charmed which is just downright funny enough to keep me interested. (I also notice that both shows are cast almost exclusively with actresses... hm).

Anyway, having said that, here's my take on Tarzan; your mileage may vary:

Good: Mitch Peleggi (Skinner, from X-Files) co-stars (interestingly, Pileggi was born in nearby Portland, Oregon, and lived for a time in Austin, Texas, home of Steve Jackson Games).

Other good stuff: Great fight scenes - the actor and/or stunt man doing the scenes moves like a simian. Decent plot with no hugely discernible holes (other than "man raised by apes survives for 20 years," but that comes with any Tarzan story). Greystoke Industries' black-clad commandos and stealth helicopter. Nice use of atmosphere like rain, darkness, and lighting. Jane as a cop.

Bad: Poorly written dialog and plot devices. For example, at one point, Jane's boyfriend gets a phone call on his cell phone while they're dancing in a quiet, subdued dinner club. "I can't hear you," he says to the phone, "please hold." (Please hold? Who talks like that in real life?) So he goes outside (leaving Jane alone so that Tarzan can show up and talk to her) and takes the call on the streets of New York, replete with crowd noises, horns honking, cars passing, sirens blaring... gimme a break.

Also bad: Tarzan's ape-like strength and senses. He's seen leaping 20 feet in the air across building rooftops. Okay, so he was raised by apes and walks like one, moves like one, fights like one. But living with apes makes you superpowerfully strong? And how is it he can smell/hear Jane in the streets of New York from blocks (miles?) away, and pick her scream and gunshot out of the thousands of others, so he can go save her in the nick of time?

More bad: The show can't seem to decide if it's a mediocre action-adventure or a sappy love story. Contemporary music plays over top Tarzan smelling Jane's hair while she feigns resistance, all the while swooning at his animal magnetism. And equally sappy music continues during the subsequent scene where he's arrested and manhandled into a cop car.

Worst: Travis Fimmel (a/k/a Tarzan himself). This guy is a model, not an actor (he did print ads for L'Oreal and Gap before moving to Calvin Kline for an extended stint) and he looks it. He's way too pretty to have been raised by apes in the Congo for twenty years. And what's with the hair? You'd think with it in his face all the time, he'd get blindsided in one of his many (admittedly well-choreographed) fights. No doubt the teenage girl demographic will watch the show just for him, but if there's any one thing in this series that will keep me from watching it, it's Travis Fimmel. Warner Brothers really should have put an actor into the key role; not a boy-toy eye-candy wanna-be model, no matter how good he looks with his shirt off. I might have forgiven all of this is he had a single ounce of acting talent, but he makes soap opera stars look like Oscar winners in comparison. Very bad call, WB.

I'll watch another episode or two, and see if I can get over the CK model running around barefoot without his shirt long enough to actually enjoy the rest of the show. At this point, I don't think it's likely. I'd say it's got about a 20% chance of keeping my interest past episode two or three.

Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess) will be appearing in the series soon; I'll hang on long enough to see if that's a good or bad thing, and let y'all know.

Update on the New Brian Underhill Band

Now that I've had a little time to get caught up on non-writing stuff, I actually added a short entry to the band news page and finally got a bio written for our bass player Tom Cramer. Nothing really enlightening, but it's a start. Hopefully I'll have some time to some pictures up, a band history written, and post some samples of songs old and new. Most of the new ones were written in the last year or so by our singer-songwriter and guitarist, Krista Richardson (way to go, Pip!) so I suspect there will be a fair sampling of her online long before you get much of the rest of us.

Anyway, I can't promise much any time soon, but it's on my to-do list and creeping slowly toward the top. Assuming it doesn't get buried under work-related issues...

A Solution to the Nazi Problem

Thanks in very large part to my pal and fellow writer Gene Moyers, I think I've resolved the whole "can't put a Swastika on the cover of a d20 supplement" problem. Gene suggested that instead of a German warship in the adventure, that I use one of the merchant raiders that the Germans were so fond of.

This not only takes care of the flag problem (the merchant raiders didn't fly a German flag), but it solves several plot issues as well. First, even I could enumerate almost every single German warship (cruisers and up), and it would have taken some serious tweaking of history to make one turn up missing. With the plethora of merchant raiders out there, that issue is easily resolved. Also, I love the idea of the PCs exploring what they think is an old 1930s Dutch merchant ship, only to find the hidden deck guns, unexploded mines, and other trappings.

All in all, it should make for a much better adventure and I'm quite excited about tackling this one. It will even be easier to write than What Went Down, simply because I can create a bit more extreme history instead of trying to detail out a Russian Oscar II class submarine.

Going to do lunch with Gene tomorrow, trade some books - he apparently has one or more on the German raiders - and then probably tackle Ghost Ship next week. Would like to get it out of the way so I can move on to NaNoWriMo next month.

Can I at least say "Nazi?"

I know I said I was going to take two weeks off - specifically the last two weeks of October - but after an entire week of not writing I'm ready to hit the keyboard again. It's not so much a case of deadlines looming over me this time around, it's a case of going crazy if I don't. I was going to tackle a novel for November (NaNoWriMo, remember?) but looks like Hogshead's Ghost Ship is going to be due on November 16, so I'll probably try to knock that out - or a large chunk of it - before the end of the month.

We're discussing artwork for Ghost Ship at the moment, and my plan to make it something a bit different from your run-of-the-mill "ghost ships" (namely, a German WWII warship, replete with Nazi sailors trapped between dimensions) seems to have stirred up some unforseen problems.

Apparently three issues are prohibiting a "ghostly Nazi" cover (with tattered Swastika, etc., in the background). First, WotC (owners of the d20 license) have specifically stated that they may pull the license agreement for anything "in bad taste" and some of the folks at Hogshead are worried that Nazis and Swastikas on the cover may be in bad taste. Second, Hogshead has informed me that this game is "for children as well," so they're a little concerned about turning off parents who see the cover. And finally, it seems that Nazis and their paraphenalia stir up no end of controversy in Europe (where Hogshead is based).

So... I'm not sure if I'm going to be allowed to use a German warship in the game or not, or if they're just pulling the cover suggestion. If it's the latter, then the book will probably get a more generic warship and no German/Nazi trappings. A shame, I think, but who am I to dictate company policy?

Worst case, I'll end up reworking the entire project to sanitize it and make it more salable to kids, parents, Europeans, and WotC employees. Hrmph. Who would have thought I could come up with a roleplaying game based on historical fact that could stir up controversy?

All the King's Men Release Date Bumped

Looks like GURPS WWII: All the King's Men will be released in January instead of December, based on the latest news from the SJ Games web site.

Still no official confirmation on the release for What Went Down, but looks like it might be a November or December release for that. GURPS SWAT is still slated for December, and GURPS All-Star Jam 2004 for January, so it's going to be four books in three months, one way or another.

Nifty. Maybe I'll be able to afford to eat again soon!

GURPS [Fnord] - Unveiled!

After way too much secret conspiracy nonsense, it looks like I can finally talk about the previously undisclosed GURPS [Fnord] secret project. Not that I have permission to do so, but there's a web page up so I'm guessing that's at least tacit approval to spill the beans.

The actual project is called GURPS All-Star Jam 2004 and it's due out this January. The premise was that each of the ten authors would write about 10k words on any subject they wanted, without worrying about an outline, editorial approval, a playtest, a final draft, etc. My bit covers "The Golden Age of Airships." A lot of fairly vocal complaints were raised during the playtest for GURPS Cliffhangers, so this should satisfy the folks that thought there needed to be more on zeppelins and the like.

I'm pretty happy with the manuscript I turned in, and Kimara Bernard seemed on top of things doing an edit, so it should be a nice book. I'm also looking forward to reading the other bits written by my fellow contributors. Speaking of, I'd just like to say it's quite an honor to be included in what SJ Games considers their "top writers" and amongst the "fan-favorites." Not to mention how great it is to be put into a group with so many distinguished names.

Now if I can just figure out which cartoon on the cover is supposed to be me.

The End of an Era; or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Process"

It's official: The final draft of GURPS WWII: All the King's Men - the albatross around my neck; the project from hell; the Book Man Was Not Meant To Write; the abomination - was sent to Steve Jackson Games at 3:40pm PST, Wednesday, October 15, 2003.

I'm sure it'll end up to be a good book - after two years of work, it had better be! - but it's just drug on for so long that I can't say I'm sorry to see it go.

The event also caps off six weeks of intense writing and deadlines that I thought was never going to end. I slogged through two playtests (run largely concurrently), finished the final draft of GURPS SWAT, wrote What Went Down, a 20,000-word d20 supplement for Hogshead, wrote a 10,000-word piece for SJ Games that I still can't talk about, threw together three short assignments for Alderac, and - of course - finished up the 90,000-word monster King's Men final draft - all with 6 hours and 20 minutes to spare.

I promised I'd sleep when this was done, and I plan on making the most of tomorrow - my first official day of unemployment! - but my good friend Gene Moyers sent me a "congrats, you survived" gift which he timed perfectly: a copy of Jurgen Wolff and Kerry Cox's book, Successful Scriptwriting. I may have to spend tomorrow reading, and get back to work on Friday.

Plans for the coming weeks? Sleep, co-write GURPS WWII: Banzai, write another d20 supplement for Hogshead (tentatively, Ghost Ship), sleep, work on yet another "can't talk about it" GURPS project, tackle NaNoWriMo in November, sleep, get details worked out with the folks at Guardians of Order to perhaps do some stuff for Silver Age Sentinels, follow up on some projects that seem to be on hold at the moment (Godlike: Operation Torch, and anything with AEG), and get some sleep. Probably eat a fish taco or two as well, but let's not get too carried away.

Thanks to everyone that put up with any bad moods I might have inflicted, or for understanding when I snubbed you in an Instant Message, or for just listening to my rants here in the pages of the Adventurer's Journal.

I'm all better now. :)

King's Men Almost Complete

For those of you keeping track, the final draft of All the King's Men is almost done. I've sent Gene Seabolt (my editor) the entire finished manuscript, except for a single chapter which is awaiting some GURPS vehicle checks from fellow author (and gun/vehicle expert) Hans-Christian Vortisch. When I hear from him - hopefully within 24 hours - the book is done and out the door.

Look for a final announcement very soon.

The World Needs More 4:00 a.m. Fish Tacos

As many of you know, I have a hard time sleeping fairly often. Five or six hours a night is typical, but I hate it. I'm one of those nine-hour kinda guys; I just can't ever seem to manage it.

Anyway, I often end up laying awake, thinking (about work, usually) or up late writing, but last night I got a craving for fish tacos from Muchas Gracias, a local Tex/Mex place that's open 24 hours (don't knock 'em until you've tried 'em!) So I stuck in my contacts, pulled on a ballcap, and headed out about 3:45 a.m. for a quick drive.

Now, years ago I had a band and was often still up - and out driving - at 4:00 a.m. But lately, all my middle-of-the-nights have been spent at home. I'd forgotten how peaceful the city is at 4:00 in the morning - the streets are nearly empty, the drunks are home or in jail, almost no one is going to work yet. It was a beautiful, quiet drive free of traffic and red lights. (Okay, I hit one red light on the entire round trip, but I didn't even mind it because I was so stressless from the rest of the drive).

Oddly enough, it was like a little mini-vacation for me. A quiet drive through the city, lights reflecting on the rain-slicked roads, all of which were tranquil and empty, followed by two fish tacos - deepfried white fish, sour cream, lettuce, pico de gallo and some lime juice. I was so relaxed and sated by the time I crawled back in bed, I fell straight to sleep.

My point? Everybody's always rushing here and there, stressed, in a hurry, under deadlines and time constraints. I'm no different. I just think we all need to stop sometimes and see the world at 4:00 a.m. and eat something we like, just because we can.

I think the world needs more 4:00-in-the-mornings. And more fish tacos.

ATKM Chapter 2: Gone!

Chapter 2 of All the King's Men is out the door, as of 11:02 pm today. Three down, eight to go.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

Two Down, Nine to Go

Sent Gene Seabolt the final draft of the Introduction and Chapter One of GURPS WWII: All the King's Men. That leaves the glossary, timeline, bibliography, and six chapters to go. All due by October 15. I'll make it.

Have I mentioned how much I hate this book after working on it for two years?

GURPS [Secret] is Out the Door!

My 10,000 word contribution to GURPS [Can't Talk About it Yet] was sent off to SJ games at 5:13 p.m., PST, on Tuesday, October 7, 2003. I'll probably be able to reveal what this whole thing was about in a week or two, but in the meantime my NDA says I'd best keep my lips zipped.

That makes five projects down, one to go. I'm on to the final draft of GURPS WWII: All the King's Men which is due October 15, then I can take a breather.

Tonight, I'm taking a few hours off.

Catching Up

First, a quick apology to any regular readers out there; I've been a bit neglectful of posting regularly this past week or two. I think I'm running a little low on writing creativity these days, what with finishing up project number 5 out of 6 in the last five weeks. Apologies around, but hang in there - we're in the home stretch.

As for actually catching up, I'll toss out whatever random thoughts hit me, in no particular order:

Been sick most of the week, finally slept 14 (!) hours night before last - well, night and half the day - and I'm feeling better. Hope that's the worst of it, since it's amazingly hard to write when you're sick. It can be done, mind you, it's just not something I'd like to make a career out of.

I finished up 10,000 words for the unmentionable GURPS project that's due tomorrow. Unfortunately, I'm not finished with the material - that is, I have more to add. So I'm going to have to spend today cutting and writing until it all fits and actually contains the material I think is most relevant. I don't mind cutting to tighten, but I sure hate the idea that I have to cut out several hours of work I've already put it. Geh.

Haven't heard back from AEG or Hogshead on either of the bits I've done for them. Well, the Hogshead is more than a bit - it's a 20,000 word book. But still. I know they're busy, and one of the things I've learned being a freelancer is how to wait. It used to be I'd worry my email box by checking it every ten minutes, waiting for a reply. Nowadays when I finish a project, I strike it off my dry-erase calendar and move on.

Going to sign up for National Novel Writing Month soon - also known as "NaNoWriMo." You'll be seeing a lot of that abbreviation in November, so remember it. Repeat after me: "NaNoWriMo." Good.

Anyway, the point of NaNoWriMo is to get everyone that signs up to write an entire novel of at least 50,000 words (bah! paltry!) from November 1 to November 30. Since I don't have a lot of heavy deadilnes that fall then, I think it'll be a nice break from game design and a chance to unleash some pent-up creativity. The rules say you can outline and plan in advance, but you can't start on the book until November 1. Also, it has to be a new novel, not an existing one you're already working on. Works for me. More on this as it gets closer.

Lastly, if I haven't mentioned, I'll be at Orycon next month (November 13-ish?) in Portland, Oregon, so if anyone is planning on attending, be sure and look me up and introduce yourself.

That's it for now, kiddies. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Irony

I got an email recently - one of the dozens of spam emails I receive daily - that both annoyed and amused me.

The subject header said: "Brian, sick of deleting spam email !? Spam Remedy kills all spam automatically! sjgqxgeyyu." It then went on - in poorly written, idiotic sales doublespeak - to promise to keep my email box free and uncluttered of spam and automatically block "unwanted, dangerous, or offensive" email.

Do you suppose the person that sent it even knows the definition of irony?