Subj : Re: Calabi-Yau Shapes & Threshold Review
To   : alt.tv.star-trek.enterprise
From : whodunit
Date : Tue Oct 04 2005 22:42:32

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.enterprise

jlwn777@att.net wrote:
> Review of Threshold ( from my Blog:
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/jlwn111 )
> 
> Review: I'm giving THRESHOLD a 93 (a [nearly] Solid "A")!
> Current Mood:  satisfied
> Current Music: Octane (SIRIUS Ch. 20 - DISH Network Ch. 6020)
> 
> Kudos to you, Brannon Braga! You've at least partially made up for
> the disastrous ST:ENT Series Finale. Here's some of what I loved
> about the premier of THRESHOLD last night (which has become, in my
> book, an Instant Classic) ---
> 
> - Brent Spiner's "former hippy radical" scientist character.
> Perfect!
> 
> - All of the characters, in fact, seemed very real. Very believable.
> And the way the ensemble cast just seemed to click almost immediately -
> a real pleasure.
> 
> - To be sure, the storyline is a familiar one but I'm giving high
> marks for the new approach and the dramatic and very dark way it's
> playing out.
> 
> - No cutesy Show Beginning. It's not needed and I'm glad someone
> said "you know what, we don't NEED a cutesy beginning - let's
> just roll with the story." The beginning is just the word THRESHOLD
> against as dark background. Done.
> 
> - Cheers to the mostly correct use of actual, real-life mathematical
> terminology (except the next person who misuses the term "Fourier
> Analysis" is gonna get clobbered!)
> 
> - Cheers to reminding people about FRACTALS. The "symbol" (watch
> the show to see what I mean) is, apparently, a fractal. It appears to
> be a fractal spiral. We're led to believe, from the first episode,
> that it represents our double-helix DNA morphed into a triple-helix
> DNA. I know an awful lot about fractals, and this requires a pretty big
> leap, but I'll reserve judgment. For now.
> 
> - Cheers to quickly breaking away from that cutesy "You're Gonna
> Make It"-ish cutesy-wootsey song right into a deep dark nightmare
> about the Trees Made of Glass.
> 
> - This show is taking us into the Dream World. Which may not actually
> be a dream after-all. It may be a much closer relative to our
> "regular" world than we think.
> 
> - High marks for realism with pointed questions being put to the Feds
> by Red Team members concerned about their constitutional rights being
> violated. They were, in essence, forced (kidnapped?) onto the team
> against their will.
> 
> - There were many references to the so-called "higher order"
> dimensions.
> 
> - There was a humorous reference to KLINGONS.
> 
> - The whole thing is broadcast in HD and we watched it on my 42-inch
> Dell Flat Screen TV. I swear, it actually looked 3-D.
> 
> - Any show that has a reference to 221, 22, and 22:10 in the first 15
> minutes has got my attention.
> 
> What I didn't like:
> 
> - That it was only two hours long
> 
> - That I actually had to sit through commercials! I usually digitally
> record nearly everything, but last night I wanted to see this thing as
> it went out. Live. With The Normal People who are used to watching
> commercials all the time. I hardly EVER watch commercials. So it was a
> bit of a shocker.
> 
> - Points were deducted for the cheesy "zoom-out on all the cars and
> people and lights and see the fractal pattern thing again from above"
> ending. He didn't need to do that. Unless (and this is a big unless)
> it was to show how in-control THEY already are. If that's what was
> meant, then please remove this from the "what I didn't like"
> category.
> 
> All in all, great work! Perhaps it will get up into the mid-90s next
> week. One would hope for 100%, but of course that never happens. Not on
> regular old network TV, at least.
> 
> 1by1as1,
> I AM Jala*AN.
> Lawrence, KS, USA
> 
> p.s. --- My brother, who's even more of a techno-wizard than I am,
> called right when it started and left a message saying he was actually
> going to watch it. "The last show I watched on a regular basis was
> Seinfeld, so I think we'll give this a try," he said. I'll find
> out what he thought during our weekly call on Sunday night.
> 
> Added a week later: I got a chance to share THRESHOLD with my Dad (a
> big-time sci-fi fan). I brought back the DVD I burned of the first
> episode (which was in the Top 20 in the ratings, BTW) and he watched
> it. Then we watched the new episode last night. This is the guy who,
> you know, took me to see PLANET OF THE APES MOVIES when I was a little
> kid! So he was thinking he recognized the shape that came out of the
> water and it was bugging him that he couldn't remember where he had
> seen it before. So this morning he says, "I found it!" and tells me to
> come downstairs. He's got his copy of Brian Greene's THE FABRIC OF THE
> COSMOS out and he's on page 369. "See, there it is!" And he's right.
> The thing that came out of the water and "infected" everyone on that
> ship looks just like something called a "Calabi-Yau" shape. This is a
> six-dimensional object. Which makes sense - they actually said that it
> was probably a higher dimensional object, somehow, becoming visible in
> our 3-D world. So anyway, here are some pictures of Calabi-Yau shapes:
> 
> http://images.google.com/images?q=calabi-yau&hl=en
> 
> You'll see what he means, I'm sure.
> 
Kewl! :-)

For awhile, I thought *I* was the only one enjoying the show!
I really like Brent Spiner's character (he's the 'normal' guy)
and the guy playing Ramsey as 'Everyman' is really good too.
Kind cute as well. :-)

Carolyne in TX

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