We all love being told stories. But who’s got time for reading, right? In the day of the Internet and TV we prefer watching movies and TV series to actually reading and re-telling stories to each other. I don’t find anything wrong with that. You don’t need to imagine how a character looks, sounds or act when you see it on the screen. It’s already imagined for you. TV series allow us to follow a saga for months to come. Every week you have something to wait for; something to expect. And writers don’t make it easy for us. Not only season finales have cliff-hanger endings – they try to make you wait vigorously for a new episode every single week. And people sometimes get crazy over their favorite shows when they go on a Christmas or a summer break. TV series are a special type of a “pill” that relieves us of our daily stress and lets us live a parallel life along with our idols.
Early Edition
Early Edition
Here’s a very enthralling family-friendly show that aired on CBS from 1996 to 2000. The story is about a single man – Gary Hobson (Kyle Chandler) living in Chicago who all of a sudden starts finding tomorrow’s edition of the Chicago Sun newspaper at his doorstep every morning. It’s accompanied by a cat with ginger fur. Gary has no idea where the paper comes from and is also puzzled why is he “the chosen one”. He starts using the information in the paper to prevent accidents and other horrible occurrences. At the same time he wants to unfold the mystery of the paper and its origin. Gary’s best friend Chuck Fishman (Fisher Stevens) constantly wants to be allowed to see the sports page and take advantage of results of games that are yet to be played. The creators of the series have taken the stereotype a little too far probably. Chuck has Jewish roots, he’s short and wants to make easy money. Also talks a lot. Even though he’s a good friend of Gary’s, he’s somehow his antipode and initially is against the idea of spending time to help strangers. Later Fisher and Gary’s other best friend – a blind lady Marissa Clark (Shanésia Davis-Williams) start helping with the noble deed. They are actually the only ones that know about Gary’s odd gift.
The TV show really stands out with its optimism and efforts to restore faith in humanity. It preaches humility and that good deeds need to be done unconditionally and for free without any personal benefit. It also shows us that by doing that you will achieve not only spiritual superiority but material too. As Gary saves and helps people daily it just so happens that the ownership of a bar falls into his lap. All of a sudden he finds himself owning a business that doesn’t require his full attention and this way is able to make a living while still roaming around Chicago turning bad news into good ones. Whenever he engages in behavior that contradicts the good will of the paper it plays a number on him. For example during an especially tough episode where Chuck played a key role in solving a problem, Gary gave him the results of two games. The next morning both the cat and the newspaper were nowhere to be found. Soon it came back but not before Gary had learned his lesson.
As the show progressed, Gary found out that there are others from different cities who also receive “an early edition” of their local newspaper. There was even a guy from London, UK. The only big issue with the series was that it never ended properly. The viewer never finds out how and why the paper came because the show was cancelled by CBS after 4 seasons. Even though there was quite the outrage by fans Mr. Hobson’s adventures were discontinued.
The TV show really stands out with its optimism and efforts to restore faith in humanity. It preaches humility and that good deeds need to be done unconditionally and for free without any personal benefit. It also shows us that by doing that you will achieve not only spiritual superiority but material too. As Gary saves and helps people daily it just so happens that the ownership of a bar falls into his lap. All of a sudden he finds himself owning a business that doesn’t require his full attention and this way is able to make a living while still roaming around Chicago turning bad news into good ones. Whenever he engages in behavior that contradicts the good will of the paper it plays a number on him. For example during an especially tough episode where Chuck played a key role in solving a problem, Gary gave him the results of two games. The next morning both the cat and the newspaper were nowhere to be found. Soon it came back but not before Gary had learned his lesson.
As the show progressed, Gary found out that there are others from different cities who also receive “an early edition” of their local newspaper. There was even a guy from London, UK. The only big issue with the series was that it never ended properly. The viewer never finds out how and why the paper came because the show was cancelled by CBS after 4 seasons. Even though there was quite the outrage by fans Mr. Hobson’s adventures were discontinued.
Orphan Black.
We are moving away from the humane show mentioned above and are stopping at a series that is also very about humans but falls in the category “science fiction thriller”. It tells a very complicated story about clones.
A young woman called Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany) finds out she’s a clone. What’s worse is that she realizes there’s this big corporation that is trying to kill her and all the remaining clones scattered around the world. There several parties involved in this turmoil. Everyone is looking for answers but very rarely any are given. The show is a dynamic one but with many intense fight scenes and even bloodshed. There’s rarely any gore shown but it’s still not suitable for children.
The action takes us on different continents and even the UK. A good chunk of the storyline takes place there. Many discoveries are made in the streets and in the spirit of the show there’s a whole lot of deep cleaning in London. And no, we aren’t talking about the service provided by a cleaning company when you are moving out of your house or office. It’s more of a “special” metaphorical type of cleaning where unwanted people (or clones) are gotten rid of.
Despite of the fairy tale motives, a decent part of the script is actually inspired by real science. Cloning isn’t achieved the way most people would think – big tanks in which a person is put and two identical people come out. It’s actually achieved by cloning only cells and then using those cells for in vitro fertilization.
We are moving away from the humane show mentioned above and are stopping at a series that is also very about humans but falls in the category “science fiction thriller”. It tells a very complicated story about clones.
A young woman called Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany) finds out she’s a clone. What’s worse is that she realizes there’s this big corporation that is trying to kill her and all the remaining clones scattered around the world. There several parties involved in this turmoil. Everyone is looking for answers but very rarely any are given. The show is a dynamic one but with many intense fight scenes and even bloodshed. There’s rarely any gore shown but it’s still not suitable for children.
The action takes us on different continents and even the UK. A good chunk of the storyline takes place there. Many discoveries are made in the streets and in the spirit of the show there’s a whole lot of deep cleaning in London. And no, we aren’t talking about the service provided by a cleaning company when you are moving out of your house or office. It’s more of a “special” metaphorical type of cleaning where unwanted people (or clones) are gotten rid of.
Despite of the fairy tale motives, a decent part of the script is actually inspired by real science. Cloning isn’t achieved the way most people would think – big tanks in which a person is put and two identical people come out. It’s actually achieved by cloning only cells and then using those cells for in vitro fertilization.
Tatiana Maslany has received broad critical acclaim for her performance. She has won several awards for the portrayal of 5 different female characters. Here they are.
- Sarah – the main character. Stole the identity of another woman so she can’t be traced
- Alison – a housewife, president of the school union
- Helena – a Ukrainian orphan, also a well-trained assassin
- Cosima – a scientist, pacifist
- Rachel – raised by the scientist who created the clones. Now the CEO of the big company that hunts the clones down.