Just forget the words and sing along

Friday, May 28, 2004

The excess time on my hands is starting to show. Yesterday, I decided to walk to Old Entwistle and back. I went out there following the back roads. I came back following the railroad. Total time of round trip: 1.5 hours. It'd been so long since I walked so much.... Legs still hurting.

Anyway, this is really cool DVD news I've gotta report. Coming out on August 24th is another "must have" boxed set for my collection....

Harsh Realm: The Complete Series

This three-disc set contains all nine episodes of the incredibly short-lived sci-fi series. For bonus features you get three featurettes about the creation of the show, various TV spots for the show, and running commentary on the pilot by series creator Chris Carter.

For those who don't remember, let me refresh your memory. Harsh Realm was based on a comic book of the same name, and adapted for the small screen by X-Files creator Chris Carter. It was infamously canceled by the Fox Network after just three episodes. Various cable channels then picked it up and showed all the episodes that were produced - all nine of them.

Harsh Realm followed the adventures of a highly decorated soldier who is given a top secret assignment by a shadowy military organization. See, the military has this virtual reality training program called "Harsh Realm," and a rouge general has made himself absolute dictator of Harsh Realm. Our soldier's mission is to go into Harsh Realm, apprehend said rouge general, and terminate the program. But, once our soldier gets plugged into Harsh Realm, he finds out the truth: he is trapped inside, the only way out to complete his mission. Plus, he's just the latest in a long line of highly decorated soldiers given this task. Some have given up, most were killed, but our hero is determined. Teaming up with the soldier who came the closest before him, our hero sets out on an odyssey through Harsh Realm, and thus, the war begins.

If it sounds a little like The Matrix, I thought so too when I first watched the pilot. But after episodes 2 and 3, it started making enough of its own twists to make it significantly different. Seek out this DVD!

And while I have you, let me tell you how bored I was this afternoon. I watched a rerun of Care Bears. Does anyone remember the first bit of Care Bears animation that started the whole thing off? Who remembers...the TV specials? I remember, in the beginning, there were two Care Bears TV specials. They didn't fight NoHeart. Instead, they fought this guy whose whole gimmick was cold and freezing. He was blue and had icicles hanging from his nose. He'd have you drink this special brew and it would freeze all your emotions, thus making you dead inside. And the Care Bears had to fight him. The one thing I remember the most from these TV specials was how powerful the Care Bear Stare was. They'd only do it as a last resort, and when they were done, the Care Bears collapsed from sheer exhaustion, thus making them vulnerable to our villain (assuming he survived).

So, yeah. Anyone remember these? There was one, featuring the original 10 bears. Then there was a second, which introduces Grams and Hugs & Tugs. Then the movies came along, and the regular TV show began after movie #2.

Yeah, who remembers that NoHeart was the villain in the second movie? But, in the movie, he was called "Dark Heart" and, rather than the blue and purple that made up No Heart's outfit, Dark Heart's colour scheme was black and red.

Next Issue...Care Bears Matrix

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