Jake 2.0.2
Feb. 19th, 2004 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kingandyJust watched Jake 2.2 (ha ha, I am clever, that is the second episode of Jake 2.0). Still vaguely enjoyable, though there appear to be one or two incongruities between this and last week's episodes.
Note that's incongruities, rather than inconsistencies. Everything's reasonably coherent and believable in character, there's just a few things that they seemed to be setting up in the pilot that they didn't follow through on for the series proper. Jake's roommate got neatly written out between episodes, for example, which feels like they didn't think he added anything to the series (secret identity has been done, already) and couldn't be bothered paying him to turn up. His long-time crush was featured only briefly in a rather forced scene; rather than being an ongoing plot thread about her investigations into the NSA's illicit funding, they defused that in about thirty seconds. The promise of a "special operations team with you at its core" became an opportunity to train and try out for agent status (which, admittedly, is more believable than simply becoming a full operative, but the former sounds like a hook for a weekly action-drama series while the latter sounds as though they didn't get the budget they were hoping for). Some of his powers were rewritten (oh, so the nanites don't actually improve his muscles, they just fire adrenal glands on demand) and the science guys spent the first five minutes of the show inventing weaknesses for Jake to have - with the result that, the first time an EMP bomb was featured in the episode, five minutes later and halfway around the world, you knew that it was going to be making its way to DC and threatening Jake himself in an up-close and personal fashion.
Things I didn't like: The holodeck. What, and indeed, the fuck. Somebody once said that an audience will let you get away with one Big Lie; the trick is to make that lie so big that everything else is caught up in it. Star Trek gets away with a holodeck because the Big Lie is "We Live In Space In The Future". Jake 2.0's Big Lie is "We Have Invented Nanomachines." I've already accepted the addendum of "And They Can Control Other Machines By Thinking," despite its inherently flawed nature, so "Oh, And Also Holographic Projectors" seems a bit of a stretch and slightly stupid. Also pointless - it could just as easily have been achieved with a training ground and blank-firing guns.
Oh, and the NSA keeps its primary mainframe housing room, top-security vault and sidearm lockers in the same corridor. Seems likely, doesn't it?
Suspension of disbelief aside, it still engaged and entertained, because the show still has that "Look at me! I'm just like you! Only with superpowers!" appeal. Target audience. Also, there was an extended shirt-off scene, which was not wholly unappealing.
And now I away, for Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Classic 80's action horror goodness. I will enjoy it.
Note that's incongruities, rather than inconsistencies. Everything's reasonably coherent and believable in character, there's just a few things that they seemed to be setting up in the pilot that they didn't follow through on for the series proper. Jake's roommate got neatly written out between episodes, for example, which feels like they didn't think he added anything to the series (secret identity has been done, already) and couldn't be bothered paying him to turn up. His long-time crush was featured only briefly in a rather forced scene; rather than being an ongoing plot thread about her investigations into the NSA's illicit funding, they defused that in about thirty seconds. The promise of a "special operations team with you at its core" became an opportunity to train and try out for agent status (which, admittedly, is more believable than simply becoming a full operative, but the former sounds like a hook for a weekly action-drama series while the latter sounds as though they didn't get the budget they were hoping for). Some of his powers were rewritten (oh, so the nanites don't actually improve his muscles, they just fire adrenal glands on demand) and the science guys spent the first five minutes of the show inventing weaknesses for Jake to have - with the result that, the first time an EMP bomb was featured in the episode, five minutes later and halfway around the world, you knew that it was going to be making its way to DC and threatening Jake himself in an up-close and personal fashion.
Things I didn't like: The holodeck. What, and indeed, the fuck. Somebody once said that an audience will let you get away with one Big Lie; the trick is to make that lie so big that everything else is caught up in it. Star Trek gets away with a holodeck because the Big Lie is "We Live In Space In The Future". Jake 2.0's Big Lie is "We Have Invented Nanomachines." I've already accepted the addendum of "And They Can Control Other Machines By Thinking," despite its inherently flawed nature, so "Oh, And Also Holographic Projectors" seems a bit of a stretch and slightly stupid. Also pointless - it could just as easily have been achieved with a training ground and blank-firing guns.
Oh, and the NSA keeps its primary mainframe housing room, top-security vault and sidearm lockers in the same corridor. Seems likely, doesn't it?
Suspension of disbelief aside, it still engaged and entertained, because the show still has that "Look at me! I'm just like you! Only with superpowers!" appeal. Target audience. Also, there was an extended shirt-off scene, which was not wholly unappealing.
And now I away, for Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Classic 80's action horror goodness. I will enjoy it.
