I love the horror genre, though my preferences differ from what most associate with the name. For me, horror is about character and the human condition — how does one behave in an extreme situation and what does that tell us about ourselves. Sure, most of what’s marketed as horror is about bodycounts and grossing out the audience, but I find horror most compelling when its concerned with human frailty and morality.

Some of the novels I unconventionally consider "horror" (or horror hybrids) take horrific situations and emphasize the humanity of the characters. In my mind Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis and Parable books count as horror tales. In Xenogenesis, humanity is wiped out by nuclear war, save for a handful of individuals saved by an alien race that is constantly questing to add genetic diversity to its people. The struggle of survival and the bleakness of the nearly-dead planet combine with these few remaining humans seeing the end for their kind near, as their race will only exist as half-alien descendants. Meanwhile, The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents are set in a world where ecological disasters have brought about economic catastrophe. Both books are about people struggling to find their civility in a world where civilization has lost its supports.

I also find Garth Nix very effective in his ventures into horror. In the world of Sabriel, there are two types of magic — the legitimate charter magic and the way of the necromancer. The titular character’s father is the only good necromancer — he fights those who try to resist death. Having trained under her father, Sabriel is far more familiar with the ways of death and death magic than a young woman would be in a fair world and can feel it when a soul passes from the physical plane into death. The creatures of death hold no value to life that’s not their own and Sabriel feels it every time — the very ability that will help her fight their hideous schemes make her feel them even more strongly. It’s not such a rarity to find villains who hold little value to the lives of innocents, but Nix makes sure the reader fully feels the dark heart that can feel like that.

The concept of Nix’s Shade’s Children is like a horrific cross between The Matrix and Logan’s Run. In a world of orphans, children grow up knowing their fourteenth birthday will be their last… and on that day they are fated to be turned to material for the robotic gladiators that police this bleak world. Like in Sabriel, this is a story set in a world run by cruel masters with little value for life, though Shade’s Children focuses on those hoping to be saved while Sabriel focuses on the one who hopes to be their savior.

The first horror film I saw was Damien: Omen II, a film that still can chill me, despite how I now can see its flaws. A good part of what makes the first two Omen films so scary is the supernatural conspiracy, the freak deaths that come out of nowhere and cannot be resisted. That "death could come out of nowhere" dynamic is what made Final Destination work for me, though the sequel gave up much of that dynamic for greater body count and more elaborate deaths. The Omen series worked best the more ordinary the dangers were and, unfortunately, the sequel to Final Destination went in the opposite direction.

Only a few scary movies have truly creeped me out since then. The two recent standouts for me were 28 Days Later and The Ring. I’m normally not a fan of zombie films but 28 Days Later played on some new fears. Zombie films are often about isolation and civil entropy but the quick acting virus at the heart of the film played upon fears of contagion, one of the great underlying fears of the city dweller.

Meanwhile, I thought The Ring maintained a fear of dread, one largely borne out of a fear of the unexpected. The technological twists to this ghost story made its villain feel more unknowable and helped give the movie an elongated feeling of dread. I particularly liked how the movie make it look like it had wrapped up its conclusion in a neat bow, only for that to turn out to be a false sense of security built upon incorrect presumptions.

It’s too bad that the Ring franchise has so far failed to launch a successful follow-up tale, because Koji Suzuki’s sequel novel, Spiral, was one of the few horror follow-ups to work so well. In Spiral, Suzuki once again turns around what seemed settled at the end of Ring. The "everything you know is wrong" twist is usually a huge cliche, but Suzuki does very convincing work with it, probably because his protagonists are drawing conclusions without being able to know the "rules" their menace plays against them. In Spiral, Suzuki also manages to explain the Ring curse in a strangely convincing manner. Spiral is the rare case where the monster gets scarier the more you see of it.

I could go on about more of the high points of the horror genre to me, but I’ve already reached past the border of rambling. I like horror when it plays on complex emotions, when the characterization comes before the gore. Unfortunately, smart usage of the genre’s potential is fairly uncommon, much like with scifi.

Sigh. I ask again. How do these Web Design 101 mistakes get through? That kind of thing should be bloody obvious.

The Big Winners: CBS and UPN

With a schedule that’s all recent additions, CBS has seen their Friday night audiences increase. The Ghost Whisperer seems to be bringing in 30% more viewers than Joan of Arcadia, Threshold draws about 15% fewer households than JAG but brings in 25% more of the advertiser-desired demographics and NUMB3RS‘ first fall episodes (it was a midseason addition to the schedule last year) are bringing in an average of 25% more viewers than  dr. vegas.

Over at sister network UPN, WWE Smackdown has kept 90%% of the audience that tuned in when the show aired on Thursday nights. The long-lived program is also bringing in about 60% more households than Enterprise and reruns of America’s Next Top Model that ran in the time slot last year.

A Mixed Bag: Fox

Bernie Mac and Malcolm in the Middle are both struggling in their new time slots facing a shrinking audience for both series. The comedy hour delivers only a slight drop from last year’s programming, though it was mostly throwaway programming airing in the same time slots last year.  Killer Instinct is bringing in more viewers than what aired in its time slot last year, though Fox is still behind its competitors.

Losing: ABC, NBC, The WB

ABC’s Friday lineup is surviving, but seeing small losses in the first two hours with Supernanny, Hope & Faith and Hot Properties pulling 4-8% less viewers than in the same time slot last year. However, 20/20 looks to have lost 15% of their viewers from a year ago, though I suspect some of that loss can be credited to interest in current events being higher last year.

NBC is taking a steeper loss on Friday nights. Dateline NBC is drawing about 15% fewer viewers than last year (same as 20/20, reinforcing my theory about interest in current events being higher during last year’s election), Three Wishes draws about 15% fewer viewers than Third Watch did and reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent are pulling 10% less viewers than Medical Investigation did last year (though that’s better than Inconceivable’s performance.)

The WB’s comedy line-up is also fading away this year. Friday night veterans Reba and What I Like about You are both down about 17% from last year and new entries Twins and Living with Fran are drawing 10% fewer viewers than the shows that aired in their time slot last year (Grounded for Life and Blue Collar TV, respectively). Worse, the attempt to draw more viewers to Twins by giving it Reba’s stronger lead-in didn’t work — Twins drew the same number of viewers as it did the previous week — 15% fewer viewers Living with Fran drew when it followed Reba the week earlier.

Like in too many cases, I suspect my problems with City of Villains can be attributed to overhype. I would probably like the game much more if my expectations haven’t bene set too high by pre-release interviews and previews.

City of Villians isn’t quite a new, stand-alone game or a game expansion. City of Heroes isn’t required to play, but the City of Villains has so much in common with its sister game that it feels more like an expansion than a game of its own. Overall, City of Villains takes the innovation of City of Heroes and builds upon that foundation nicely, it offers an experience you won’t get in City of Heroes but doesn’t overshadow its sibling.

The villain archetypes (or character classes) are an intruiging twist to what’s familiar for City of Heroes veterans. Most of the new Archetypes resemble City of Heroes Archetypes with the primary and secondary powersets reversed. It’s a small change that ends up meaning a lot. The Brute falls somewhere between a Scrapper and a Tanker, with high damage and high defense that doesn’t match the peak for either hero archetype. Dominators mix control powers with ranged damage, their role seems to be an odd mix of back-of-battle management with confrontational damage dealing. Corrupters mixed ranged damage with defense powers, essentially playing like a blaster that gives up some damage for defense.

Masterminds are the most anticipated archetype in City of Villains, bringing a pet class to the franchise. Masterminds summon and manage minions (so far ninja, mercenary, zombie and robot minions are available). It’s an appealing prospect, though I haven’t gotten enough experience with the Archetype to describe the experience.

Then come the Stalkers, the assasins of City of Villains. Stalkers have a core stealth power that gives the ability to place a high-damage surprise attack, but are fairly weak in direct combat. They’re a challenging archetype that can be very powerful for the player that figures out their odd dynamic — much like Controllers in City of Heroes before Issue 5. I have a bad feeling Stalkers will follow the path of Controllers, until getting a radical revamp that dumbs down the play and loses track of the Archetype’s flavor.

All in all, the gameplay has the same compelling dynamics found in City of Heroes with enough twists to bring a feeling of freshness to the game. It’s familiar enough to be comforting but different enough to still be an exciting new experience.

I would be quite happy with the game if no for the pre-release hype. One of the commontalking points about City of Villains concerned how villains are proactive whie heroes are reactive, how villains scheme while heroes wait for those schemes to appear. That struck me as a pretty insightful view to bring to the design of City of Vilains. I was geater to see how the developers realized it.

Early in the game, however, the missions don’t feel proactive or like schemes conceived by my character. (I haven’t gotten far in the game’s beta test, so perhaps this improves at later levels.) Missions are frequently found by browsing the newspaper and picking a task suggested by the paper (either an article suggests possibile targets or will include a coded message). That’s an interesting new take on mission assignments, but it doesn’t make City of Villains feel as different from City of Heroes as the difference between heroism and villainy. When you get to the missions, they don’t feel very different from the missions of City of Heroes, either. Missions to kidnap a target don’t feel any different from City of Heroes’ rescue missions, except for the changes in NPC dialog; theft missions don’t feel very different from typical glowie missions. Many missions send your character to fight a rival, villainous group, missions against do-gooders are the minority — another aspect of the game design that makes City of Villains feel less like a game of its own than a new coat of paint on City of Heroes.

Perhaps part of the probem is that the challenge to make an RPG that feels "villainous" is too big. With a hero, one can expect each character’s motivation to be a desire to make the world a better place. That goal gets intepreted differently, but it’s a common thread among heroes and anti-heroes. Meanwhile, villains can have greater variance in their motivations. Some are misguided souls who think they’re making the world a better place, some have warped perspectives at odds with the heroes, some are driven by a single-minded obsession for vengance and some are sociopathic sadists with control issues. City of Villains doesn’t have room for that, unfortunately, and you can’t be a villain like Magneto, Poison Ivy, the Silver Age Lex Luthor or the Emerald Empress. You’re pretty much Sabertooth in this game, a henchman with the potential to become a high-level henchman, but one who mostly stays under the vision a greater villain.

It’s not a major problem. The game is still fun as long as you enter with properly managed expectations. Unfortunately, I had spent time contemplating supervillains before the game beta started and was disappointed to realize that the characters I had conceived for the game — like the conspiracy-minded villain who saw the Freedom Phalanx as a freedom-supressing force and tool propaganda that needed to be brough down from power — wouldn’t fit into the game’s story.

Next Thursday marks the beginning of the November "sweeps" period. I’ve wanted to take a moment to try to analyse this season’s ratings with the full schedule in mind and sweeps sounds like a pretty good deadline to follow. Instead of trying to judge the new shows, I’m going to look at each day and try to guess at the big picture and get an idea of each’s network’s position. To start, Thursday the night when ads sell for more and competition is always tight.

The Big Winners: UPN and The WB.

Everybody Hates Chris is pulling in slightly more households and 30-40% more younger viewers than WWE Smackdown delivered in the same time period — a net gain since it doesn’t look like Smakcdown has lost many viewers. UPN’s follow-up programs don’t hold Chris‘ audience, but for the first time UPN has a strong program it can try to leverage into a larger presence on the advertiser-friendly night.

The WB has looks very sucessful with Smallville’s new time slot. Viewership for Smallville has actually gone up a little since moving to the more-competitive night. Following Smallville, Everwood has lost a large chunk of its audience since changing time slots (about 20%) but is pulling in more than double the audience that tuned in to the same time slot last year — a win for the netlet, though a worrysome one.

Still Champion: CBS

Survivor, CSI and Without a Trace all add up for a win for CBS. Without a Trace is up slightly over last year, widening its lead over ER, while Survivor is down 5-10% from last year. CSI holds steady.

The Big Loser: NBC

It’s all downhill for the former ruler of Thursday nights. The most recent Thursday line-up (I’m trying to minimize the effect of sampling by not comparing current numbers to Joey’s big debut) saw Joey down 30% in households and 40% in adults 18-49. Additionally, Will & Grace was down 20% and The Apprentice has lost 25% of its audience. ER is the healthiest-looking spot on NBC’s thursday lineup with a relatively-modest 10% drop.

Still Losing: ABC

I wish I could look up how big Alias‘ audience was getting when it aired after Lost, but it seems a safe bet that the numbers are way down from last season. Both Alias and Night Stalker have improved from what last year’s Thursday night lineup (about 10-15%) but that’s partly because the numbers from a year ago were so low to begin with. At the ten o’clock hour, Primetime seems to be holding steady overall.

Hard to say: Fox

I still don’t have a good grip on Fox’s performance. This time last year, Fox was airing filler programs, putting off the debut of The O.C. until after the World Series finished.

Okay, ugh. This article bugs me, specifically this part:

Olympics broadcaster NBC television, owned by General
Electric Co., had to fend off criticism last year when the
Athens Olympics opening ceremony featured ancient Greek gods in
various stages of undress and simulated sex.

Now, what I’ve seen of those opening ceremonies were based on classic Greek sculptures. The overall theme struck me as one where the host country tried to pay tribute to their lasting contribution to the world.

I’m throwing around a lot of qualifiers because I never see that mentioned in articles Ithat mention the "controversy" over the 2004 Opening Ceremonies. Am I the only one who can recognize it when dancers are costumed to resemble the statue of Koros?

To paraphrase a local PSA campaign, I’m starting to wonder if most reporters think that Martha Graham is a type of snack cracker.

If I could, I’d make my day-to-day conversations sound like some gimmicky radio host and carry around a little squack box filled with samples from the TV shows I quote. Instead of attempting to sound something like Lisa Simpson, I’d just hit the button and have Yeardly Smith yelling "It’s apt, I tell you! Apt!"

Yes, sad but true. I know.

When I went to check out the new location of Cody’s Books this past weekend (and it is as wonderous as SFist notes) I muttered to myself, "This would be the cue for the ‘Homer Simpson in the Land of Chocolate’ music." There’s something about well stocked bookstores and grocery stores that are such bliss for me.

My only complaint about Cody’s would be the puny manga selection.

I picked up a copy of the latest entry in Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom trilogy, a supplemental collection of short stories. I noticed rebranded versions of the Old Kingdom books on the shelf, with covers clearly aimed at a more adult audience than the one to which the series was originally marketed.

My first encounter with Sabriel was due to the scifi reading group I met with in Honolulu. Our group co-ordinator had the bad luck of picking books just as they were going out of print and becoming hard to acquire and Sabriel was one of these titles. Originally positioned as a Young Adult title with little marketing support, the title had some strong word-of-mouth that got the attention of our group co-ordinator.

I was happy to see the series return to print when the sequel, Lirael was released since it was a title that deserved more notice. Sabriel is one of the strongest female characters that I’ve encountered in fantasy fiction, mostly because it doesn’t feel like Nix conceived her as a female character, just as a character in her own right. Nix is a writer who deserves a bigger following than the YA niche where he is typically found, so I’m glad to see the publisher attempting to dress these for another audience.

Hm, it’s Ocober, isn’t it? I should mention that I find Sabriel to be a sucessful merger of fantasy and horror.

(Yeah, a lazy and unfocused post while too many other posts are still marked as drafts.)

Hundreds of Lost fans tempted fate by using the series’ cursed numbers in playing the lotto:

Hundreds of lotto players in the multi-state drawing selected the Emmy-winning show’s cursed digits–4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42–in the $340 million drawing Wednesday.

Eva Robelia, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Lottery, says more than 840 people across five states played the TV-inspired numbers, including 266 hopeful Hurleys in New Hampshire.

The infamous digits first appeared on the ABC hit last season, when
Jorge Garcia’s Hugo "Hurley" Reyes used them to win the lottery. That is when his luck ran out.

The mysterious figures caused him nothing but grief–his grandfather died, his mother broke her ankle, their new house burnt down and he ultimately wound up on a certain doomed airliner. The digits subsequently turned up in other places, including the infamous hatch.

Evidently, it was a fate gamblers were willing to deal with. But the crush of Lost fans would have proven incredibly unlucky if the numbers came up. Because so many had the same digits, the multimillion dollar jackpot would have been whittled down to just a few thousand bucks apiece.

Yes, it is Monday and I’m still feeling too lazy to finish a post…

Haven’t you heard? The second season of The Office is really, really good.

(I’ve been trying to put together a post of my own on the topic, but I found it funny that I’m finding people talking about the series within a small time period. It feels like an organic moment of people talking about the same thing at once.)

In case you needed to be reminded of why Gail Simone is so cool that ice cubes envy her, check out this tale from a fan. (Yes, it’s a bit old, but I forgot about this one and it’s still linkworthy.)

Oh, goodie, a new Quicken Forbidden! I can’t wait until APE! (What do you mean I can buy one now if I were to put some work into it?)

Alyson Hannigan lists her favorite Buffy episodes.

I always appreciate a good trashing of 1984, which I felt didn’t deserve its spot on Time’s list of great novels. I read it after Brave New World and found it to be overly sensationalistic. There are some interesting points in the novel, but most of it is undone by the sensationalism. I think Brave New World has turned out to be more prophetic, even with our current Orwellian state.

Heh, heh. Check out this video for Weird Al’s polka cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody"… using the cast of Lost in Terry Gillaim-style animation. That gave me a few chuckles. (found via Popwatch)