1. Oh, Dish Network. I love you on a big screen TV, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I have to watch you on a laptop system right now. And your mobile/tablet app? Your app sucks. Accept that and please fix it. You’ll get your five stars from me if you fix it before I binge-watch ‘Penny Dreadful’ over the Fourth-of-July weekend.
Your app is buggy and badly engineered, merrily dividing its time between freezing up, dumping recordings halfway through, randomly deciding where to begin a program (Five seconds early? Twenty seconds late? Anyone’s guess!), and sporting an unwieldy lag time between touchscreen command and response (yes, the tablet is just fine.) And those are the flaws I encountered tonight while trying to watch ‘Killjoys’ on the SyFy Channel.
2. SyFy Channel, I didn’t let myself fall back in love with you for a long time since your (silly) name change. After all, you were basically run by some people who adored wrestling and didn’t seem to care beans about science-fiction and fantasy programming. When something GOOD came along, I braced for impact knowing its days were probably numbered. You had some well-done epics, some spectacular and stupid-fun programs (Sharknado), and a string of okay shows overly hyped and written into ignominy (Go on, tell me ‘Eureka’ and ‘Warehouse 13’ didn’t die wallowing deaths?)
You are pulling me back into the maelstrom with ‘Killjoys’, which I only saw part of before my service provider went thud. I’m recording a later playing. What I saw was a brilliant gritty space opera hearkening back to ‘Firefly’ and ‘Dune’. You have a female leader – and she’s competent! You have some male eye candy that can actually act. You have drama, gorgeous effects, and some strong worldbuilding.
Try not to can this one the first season, and you may have another ‘Defiance’ on your hands.
3. George R. R. Martin: thanks to you and your dragons, some of my old fiber art may be getting a new-and-topical lease on life. This will be the second time I’ve obliquely ridden on your coat-tails. I owe you a beer, sir.
