In Which Neil LaBute Uses All His Friends

Undead Girl

by DICK CHENEY

Van Helsing
creator Neil Labute
Syfy

Sometimes I think of all the things I have said about the Syfy network - you know, how every property they touch turns to shit, how their production standards are reprehensibly low, how they never hire good actors or take chances on writers with actual talent or IPs that might cost actual money to acquire - and I feel bad.

Fortunately, you don't have to pay anyone to use Dracula. When I think of the best vampire stories ever told I think of Lucius Shepard's Beautiful Blood, George R.R. Martin's Fevre Dream and that's about it. Nothing great has ever been done in the genre, although the general concept of The Strain did have its moments. When I found out that for some reason playwright Neil LaBute, the original satirist/proponent of white misogyny's cultural impact, would be showrunning Van Helsing for Syfy I nearly spit out my Skinnygirl protein shake.

I was recently privileged to watch the debut of this series, and I take back everything I said about Neil Labute's recent output. Sure, some of his recent movies were kind of a shit factory, but directing was honestly never his strong suit. He burst on the cinematic stage with his classic comedy about two men trying to humiliate the same deaf woman, In the Company of Men. For this review, I rewatched the movie in its entirety and while it is definitely still amusing, making fun of people's cruelty is a lot less unexpected now and the whole project takes on a completely different tone.

Far better was LaBute's unacknowledged masterpiece, 1998's Your Friends & Neighbors. Showing off LaBute's unique talent for dialogue and using actresses like Nastassja Kinski and Catherine Keener in roles that would define or redefine their careers, Your Friends & Neighbors is the rare satire of white people that still holds up decades after it was originally written.

Since then LaBute has tried his hand at other genres with varying results. Television seems to suit him on a number of levels, even if we did not necessarily expect a series set in the apocalyptic future where vampires roam the earth from him. As per usual with most Syfy production, you will recognize precisely none of the cast. Vanessa Helsing (Kelly Overton) is the show's true relevation. She spends most of the show's pilot in some kind of coma, protected at a military installation by Axel (Jonathan Scarfe). Both actors are so much better performers than are featured on any other show this crumbling network has to offer.

Overton's experience on the stage suits LaBute. Van Helsing is extremely dialogue heavy, and it immediately feels so different than other serials in that every single scene depicts some kind of conflict or furthering of an agenda. In modern American life, this can seem somewhat farcical, since people are not always trying to get one over on each other, but applying LaBute's moral philosophy to this fantasy environment gives it a noir feel that is sorely missing from other depictions of the undead concept.

A group of survivors led by John (the brilliant David Cubitt) looks for refuge at the installation, where John seems to have previously served. Sabotage of the base's exterior defenses allows a group of vampires to reduce the group's numbers, and Helsing is attacked as she lays prone on the table. This act wakes her to consciousness, and she figures out that she is the reason the group has come – to offer her to Dracula dead or alive.

Because of my current resemblance to Dracula, I have been waiting for him to be portrayed in the fashion to which I have become accustomed: hagiography. LaBute was constantly being misunderstand in his plays as he tried to push the bounds of satire. Slaying the kind of bourgeois inanity required a more extreme approach — the entire point of the stage is push our boundaries of what is possible. If LaBute can bring this perspective to series television and a popular myth, he will have a show better than any Syfy has featured in its history. Heck, he already does.

The best part of vampire lore is the castle. It is the most nuanced form of satire the genre has to offer, where man must directly choose whether or not he is a slave to something greater or an independent creature. Lucius Shepard's great invention in his cult novel Beautiful Blood was to explain what exactly human beings receive from vampires, so that we can understand the story as less than a master/slave allegory. In the book's most powerful scene, the vampire protagonist agonizes over all the different types of love he has experienced as a human and undead, forcing himself to choose the most appealing kind.

While parts of Van Helsing are still kind of cheesy-Walking Dead esque survival motifs, there is a hint of something darker once Vanessa Helsing reveals she can turn vampires back into human beings through the manifestation of her own blood. This leads to several complications, the sort of disturbed emotionality that we are used to seeing LaBute unpack so expertly. Sometimes you try to tell a new type of story and you get Mel Gibson's Christ disaster, but other conflations of genre are absolutely innervating.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to this Recording.

In Which The Devil Remained Somewhat In The Details

The Last, Charles Dance

by DICK CHENEY

Childhood's End
creator Matthew Graham

The Expanse
creators Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby

Arthur C. Clarke was not much of a writer. His first novel, Childhood's End, was not among his best, either. It's about some aliens who come to Earth in disguise, and then reveal that they actually look like demons. Everyone is fine with this; no one even considers it much of a coincidence that the aliens look exactly like something from Christian myth. There is no evidence of Christianity at all in Childhood's End, I think a person may have been in a church once but it was very subtle.

The Syfy network has been run by people who know nothing about science fiction for quite awhile now. Their original programming has largely been focused on space operas and the eye for adaptations on display is mediocre at best. They took to series The Expanse, based on the novel by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, Leviathan Wakes. The resulting show is completely unwatchable, which should be no surprise given how tragically bad the source material was.

If something is a bad, implausible story, but it is a realistic tale, no one is interested in it. Bad science fiction can appropriate elements of good science fiction quite easily. Childhood's End is a pastiche of several literary cliches mishmashed into nothing. To be fair to Arthur C. Clarke, the concept that the aliens looked like Christian demons is quite entertaining, and it's fun to see Twyin Lannister dressed up like this: 

Unfortunately, that's all the aliens do in Childhood's End, stand still and clomp around slightly on their hooves. Matthew Graham actually does a decent job adapting the story. In short, the aliens arrive and create a utopia for mankind. No one is really bothered by this until a bunch of children display telekenetic powers and become an extension of the master the aliens serve, which is a kind of god called the Overmind.

The only person the aliens talk to at first is Ricky (Mike Vogel) who is an American farmer. The aliens also only speak English, even when they broadcast their voices to the entire world, which seems like a fairly bizarre faux pas. They eventually reveal they are the midwives to the Overmind, and that Earth is not long for this universe.

The scientific community gives up since they all just want to frolic and be stress-free. No new discoveries appear. The one holdout is Milo Rodericks (Osy Ikhile). I'm fairly sure no one has ever been named Milo Rodericks. Ikhile does his best with the material he is given, and he is the only positive thing to come out of Childhood's End. The other main performer, Mike Vogel (Under the Dome), is one of the worst on television, and was clearly only selected because of his Filene's Basement version of Ryan Gosling looks.

A lot of very poignant music plays as the Overmind destroys Earth and all the people on it. I guess it is supposed to be sad, although there is a lot of whining along the way. You keep expecting someone to fight back, but they are mostly accepting of their fate. Even though we have several viable ways to evacuate Earth (see Neal Stephenson's Seveneves), no one bothers to even attempt it. Childhood's End makes for a very boring three-part miniseries, although I did like Charles Dance's costume and makeup.

I mean, Childhood's End was utterly boring to watch for the most part, and quite depressing as well. I liked the idea of going for a downer ending, but since humanity was never even given the slightest bit of hope, it did not really seem justified. There is no story of any consequence in Childhood's End, it is more of just a concept written on a napkin and stretched out for hours and hours.

I have to give credit to Matthew Graham though. The writing was not terrible and the production values were well-above the tragic shit that usually passes for sets and costumes on the complete mess of a channel that is the Syfy network.

You know, I actually love science fiction, but not like this. I mean, maybe look into some actual books by people who can write: Greg Egan, Vernor Vinge, Stephenson, Linda Nagata, M. John Harrison, Jack McDevitt, Robert Charles Wilson. This brings me to The Expanse, which is probably the ugliest show ever to appear on television. This has to be the worst lighting ever done in any cinematic medium — half the scenes you cannot actually see who is who.

The casting is all over the place. The novel The Expanse is based on made Jim Holden's first love interest an African woman, so the genuises behind this show decided to recast her as a hot blonde, which is completely disgusting. Steven Strait (Magic City) plays Holden, which is weird because he comes off as a sleazy douchebag and Holden is actually supposed to be quite ethical.

Continuing the parade of some of the worst actors on television is the hammy, outsized performance of Shohreh Aghdashloo, whose overwrought accent and grandstanding completely overpowers the grumbling of Detective Joe Miller (Thomas Jane).

Let's get to the plot, where The Expanse really does not shine. In brief, the novel is about a virus called a protomolecule that infects a ship and eventually becomes a threat to Earth. You will be shocked to learn that this protomolecule turns people into zombies. Thomas Jane has this look throughout like, why am I on this fucking show? The dialogue is wretched, the performances are actually worse.

You know, I'm sorry to be negative, but Syfy needs a new direction, and adapting mediocre novels is not it. There are some great things on television. Eva Longoria's new show wasn't that bad, although I find it a bit sexist. Fargo was fantastic. I'm trying to think of something else, but I'm drawing a blank. Jessica Jones became kind of boring after awhile. The Last Man On Earth had a great finale. That new show with Jennifer Lopez looks decent.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

"Ocean of Tears" - Monica (mp3)