Eureka Dysfunction

I went to the AMC 15 to watch the nationwide simulcast to theaters of the anime movie EUREKA SEVEN: GOOD NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT, YOUNG LOVERS. Alas, the video glitched about 10 minutes in; and after waiting a half-hour for them to fix it, I walked out and got a refund. Doesn't speak well for the future of simulcast video in movie theaters. Especially since it was a one-night-only event. Guess I'll have to wait for the DVD.

Eureka! We're Idiots!

While I have to tender kudos to Adult Swim/Cartoon Network for airing the exceptional anime SF series Eureka Seven with, on the whole, few edits, the channel had to forfeit a bunch of those kudos based on its inept handling of the final episode of that series' 50-ep run early Sunday morning. The creators of the series designed the ending episode with a touching epilogue that provided an emotional payoff for an often intense series.

Adult Swim cut the coda.

Clumsily, too. They sliced it off right after a card that read (in Japanese, granted) "One Year Later . . . ."

They also cut a monologue at the beginning.

All of this was after the standard warning card the network ran at the beginning of the series, warning about the "extreme violence" in the episode, and bragging about how they were running the episode "uncut" because "we are American cowboys."

Their definition of "uncut" appears to differ from mine.

So I did what, likely, numerous viewers did: I went to YouTube and watched an illegal, fan-subtitled copy of the episode. Coda and all.

Adult Swim made me do it.

****Update on 5/1/07*******

Adult Swim says it will re-run the episode on Saturday, May 5, with the cut bits restored. A representative called the cut "not intentional." How you inadvertently cut several minutes out of a TV show is unclear to me.

The Spoilers of War

Older folks like me will recall that TV Guide, back when it was a force in the publishing world (and before there were 10,000 stations) would have a capsule description of the plot of each TV show; and often a cast list for prime-time shows, set forth in its own indented paragraph. There is obviously an art to writing those summaries in such a way that they intrigue the potential viewer, without giving away the plot points of that show.

When I record shows on my DVR, the shows are organized by their TV Guide online capsule summaries, so that in order to start the show I have to see the summary. One would think that the summary writers would therefore practice circumspection in writing their blurbs. One would think.

This morning, I watched a DVR recording of the episode of EUREKA SEVEN, a science fiction anime series that is being broadcasted on Cartoon Network at one a.m. Sunday mornings (and anyone who did not watch that episode from this morning should stop reading now. I'll even put in a few extra carriage returns to facilitate it.)







The episode features a surprise plot development in which one of the protagonists, Eureka, who had strange luminous growths on her arm, suddenly sprouts wings! That is, it would have been a surprise had not the TV Guide summary read something like: "Eureka, nursing Renton's wounds, sprouts wings . . . ." The summary went on to list every other plot development in that episode.

The quality of writing program summaries is not strain'd.