"It's the end of the world as we know it..."

We here at Waiting for the Comet always enjoy a good apocalyptic/post apocalyptic story, television show or movie. While we've been too busy to start watching Heroes or Jericho, we do plan on watching these series at some point relatively soon in the future. Thus, I really have nothing to say about them at this point.

There have been some fine books written in this genre:

In no particular order (and certainly not an exhaustive list) we've enjoyed: Lucifer's Hammer; Alas, Babylon; On the Beach; The Stand; Blindness; The Great and Secret Show; The Postman; Childhood's End; The Alien Years; Mockingbird; The Harvest; and The Road to name just a few of them.

All enjoyable reads that I recommend.

As you probably know, some of the above were made into movies. So, once again in no particular order (and certainly not an exhaustive list) we here at Waiting for the Comet have enjoyed: The Planet of the Apes (1968); The Matrix; George Romeros' Living Dead series; The Terminator Series; 12 Monkeys; The Road Warrior; Mad Max; The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); Fantastic Planet; and When the Wind Blows.

Then there are some really fun ones such as: Death Race 2000; Red Dawn; Logan's Run; Heavy Metal; and Soylent Green.

However, we're not here today to just reminisce about the past. No, the reason for this posting is because there seems to be a new wave of movies in this genre. Check out the trailers to I am Legend; An untitled film by J.J. Abrams; The Invasion; and Sunshine.

Another upcoming film is called Doomsday, but there is no trailer as of today.

Now, with the exception of The Invasion, I am excited to see these new films. The Invasion is another "remake" of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (which has been remade how many times now?) so it's not high on my list.

Which brings me to the topic of my next post: remakes and sequels. I hope to rant on that soon. For now, please post any books, movies, and/or television shows that you enjoyed that fit this genre!

Then, enjoy the end of the world!

Minisodes: Watch an hour of TV in 6 minutes

That is, who among us hasn't felt the double-edged sword of our media age: So much video from TV, DVDs, the Internet and even cell phones ... but too little time to watch it all?

The Minisode Network has a solution.

...

"The shows you love -- only shorter," boasts Minisode Network, which only asks us in return to watch a very short commercial before each program.

Again, what does this say about the quality of theses television shows?

Anyway, check it out.

Quiz: Test your ‘Two and a Half Men’ memory

Why is this important?

I mean really.

Why?

I think "they're" just making sure you're staying in front of your television set and not venturing away to actually learn what the fuck is going on in the world.

Coming Online Soon: The Five-Minute ‘Charlie’s Angels’

The question probably never occurred to viewers in the 1970s and 1980s, but suddenly it is highly relevant: exactly how much worthwhile entertainment content was there in shows like “Charlie’s Angels,” “T. J. Hooker,” and “Starsky and Hutch”?

The Sony Corporation and its production studio, Sony Pictures Television, which controls the rights to those and many other relics of a distant era of television, have come up with an answer to that question: three and a half to five minutes.

You read that correctly -- 3.5 to 5 minutes.

That’s the length Sony has shrunk episodes down to in order to create what the company hopes is an appealing new business in retooling old shows for a new era of entertainment. Sony even has a name for these shrunken slices of television nostalgia: minisodes.

Doesn't that speak volumes to the quality of television shows?

Read about these new minisodes here.