Sony won its option bid for the rights to develop Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy

Anyone who has read Asimov knows that most of his works are all intertwined in some fashion. Asimov didn’t dream of robots one night and then of empire the next. He mapped out what he felt would be a possible evolutionary path for humanity which settlements on other planets, political divides between classes, the interventions and changes robots would invoke on man, and how millions of planets of humans would operate. Asimov’s principle character in this is Psychohistory as created by his character, Hari Seldon. Asimov’s books are as much a treatise on what lies in humanities future as Hari Seldon’s mathematically derived predictions did for his fictional peoples.

Let me sum things up a little better than Variety did. Hari Seldon creates a way of predicting very large movements of millions of people using mathematical models which he calls Psychohistory. He and his team determine that the Empire will fall into chaos and sets up two “Foundation”, one at each end of the galaxy. He plans to reduce the chaos from hundreds of thousands of years to a mere 1,000 by being the repository of human knowledge, at least that’s what he tells everyone else. In reality, he sets the Foundations to the task of manipulating the kingdoms around them with technology, religion, and politics in a carefully choreographed plan to drive order out of madness. Let’s just pray Roland can pull it off.

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That may, however, work in his favor in CB as Spike is a cool, flat character who has as many layers as an onion, though its not easy to get to the deeper ones. CB is a deeply textured series and each episode tells a story. There is an overriding arc, but its hard to pin down. I fear that they will have difficulty generating a script, even though they are working with Sunrise (the original Anime production team). Its still in the hands of unknown sciber, Peter Craig. The IMDB entry gives 2011 for the film’s release and Craig has no prior writing credits. This should be interesting, to say the least.

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I was, however, heartened to hear of an Aussie version, where being an Aussie might have granted me better insight into their humor and the why’s behind the Down Under version of Top Gear (TGA). I get the original Top Gear’s humor and presence like I get Monty Python’s Flying Circus. TGA seems more like a combination of red light drag races, bar-b-que and beer chats, front lawn donuts, and bathroom humor contests. The hosts, Charlie Cox, a former race car driver with BTCC experience from the 90′s, Steve Pizzati, a race driver with an unclear past in motorsports and whom teaches blokes to squirt in Porsches at some school somewhere, and Warren Brown, a cartoonist who does a TV series on Australia’s storied past.

In the “First Official Interview” with Steve, here’s something he had to say, which I think sums up the entire show:

What car do you hate most in all the world?
Hmmm… Where to start? Anything American. Anything slow (see answer one). Anything that doesn’t handle (see answer one). Anything with crap brakes (see answer one). Anything with an exhaust pipe that can house a family of five. Anything with more decals than paint. Lorries. Anything with a crochet blanket on the back seat. Anything that has the turn indicator permanently jammed on.

My first exposure to TGA was a clip on You Tube. The gag is, admittedly, a hoot where the guys use cars as balls in a game of hatchback lawn bowls. I decided to take a closer look at the show, so I’ve watched the first three episodes. I can confidently report that the show is all gag and no grit. Warren managed to give a reasonably unpleasant review to BMW’s new ridiculous X6 Sport Activity Coupé since it was pokey on streets and poor off track. Steve didn’t like the Mercedes SLK 63 Black Series too well since he didn’t think it delivered a sense of focused purpose.

Charlie hasn’t been around the track in a car yet. Odd, that. Oh yeah! He did run the new Ford GT right-hand drive car about, then spun it out on a corner without explaining about how the suspension is squirrely or it understeers badly under power. Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice it. He’s also rather bad at the Stig intros and can’t interview people in the “Celebrity in a Bog Standard Car”, whatever that means. Again, I’m no Aussie.

The moment the first episode fired up, I thought I was watching TGUK. At least the graphic arts department had managed to swap out the silhouettes with the new guys. Now, I’m going to chalk it up to being new at all this, but these guys can’t talk to each other. There’s no repoire like TGUK. They don’t make fun of each other while still managing to pull on each others strengths. They just talk and perform the gags that the producers have invariably lined up for them.

There’s also no soul to car reviews, and there have been precious few of them. Most of the gags are silly pranks with all three of them squabbing about in some range of cars to do something ridiculous. There must be something more interesting to do in Oz than toss a few tons of rocks in your truck and haul it up a hill. According to them, there is. Its going to get some crap cars out of a junk yard, get them running, drag them for time, then have a little private smash-up darby where one of the cars doesn’t work.

whee.

Its not that I don’t believe its possible to get a great show out of TGA. I just think they’re going about it the wrong way. Its not about duplicating the original. Its about taking the overall concept and making it true to Australia and Australians. Aussie’s love their Fords or their monster V8 Holdens. The entire country has V8 fever, and has for a very long time (Mad Max, anyone!). That can’t ever be a bad thing. They also need to rig themselves a proper track. They’re going to get one hotrodder celeb in there and he’s going to best The Stig’s time in some supercar and they’re all going to look stupid.

They might also want to rethink their presenter choices.

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Majel was Trek and faithfully carried the mantle of Number One Trekker following the death of her husband and Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry. She was well loved, well respected, and will be missed dearly. I for one cannot think of anyone else who might be able to take over the role now left empty by Majel’s passing. Rick Berman and Brannon Braga couldn’t handle it after massacreing their own Trek Reboot effort with the TV pig Enterprise and they personally knew and worked with the Roddenberrys! Maybe J.J. Abrams can pick up the baton.

Majel herself pushed hard to keep Gene’s dreams alive, having herself acting as Executive Producer on both Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda, both popular series which each ran for five seasons though neither were considered outrageously successful (and the 5th season of E:FC was generally considered a train wreck). She constantly attended Star Trek conventions, even as late as August this year. Let’s just hope and pray that she and Gene are at peace.

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