Syence Fyction Channel: Metal Hurlant Chronicles

A while back, I wrote about watching a movie so bad that it was just bad. It wasn't bad merely because the story, acting and makeup were bad, it was bad because it had this silly self-awareness that made it annoying. It was someone trying to laugh at themselves while simultaneously nudge the viewer and assuring them it wasn't actually as bad as it seemed. All that does is come off as disingenuous. That's why I'm glad the SyFy channel still exists, despite it's ridiculous name.

The SyFy channel is the type of place that probably would run Mystery Science Theater 3000 and then, without a trace of irony, show the movie that got made fun of the next day. This is a channel where 90% of the shows have "strong female characters" so that anybody who criticizes the show can immediately be rebuffed for discouraging gender equality and any nerd who is into the show can cross the fingers for a Maxim spread popping up with that particular character. It's giving us-well, here is where I should separate myself because I'm going to make a lot of generalizations- it gives me things I want to see occasionally, while providing a steady stream of things it thinks I want to see. I imagine there are several giant wheels, each with random words like "disaster", "robots", "aliens", "vampires", etc. and someone justs spins them and comes up with the next SyFy original movie/series/video game tie in. It's a problem because for each 5 horrible Dinosaur vs. Giant Squid movies they make, they make one accidentally funny Sharknado movie. Even rarer is the actually good SyFy production. Usually, the stuff they make that is good is just them buying the rights to something someone else made. So, it was with a mix of genuine interest and concern that I waited for the Metal Hurlant Chronicles.

Metal Hurlant Chronicles turns out to be a couple of years old; it is a science fiction anthology show based on old stories from Heavy Metal magazine. Anthology shows in general are usually good just because each one is self contained so if you don't like it, there's always next week. Heavy Metal is probably a little harder to justify liking since it's seen as mostly pinup scifi porn but I genuinely liked a lot of stories from the magazine. It was always so much grittier and darker than the mainstream comics and even though I only read it regularly when I was in my early 20s, it always gave off a dangerous vibe, like I shouldn't be reading it. I guess it could be nostalgia for the comics and for a show like Outer Limits that made me think that this was going to be something worth watching.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that it's not very good. If it was produced a few years ago, it would have been picked up in some sort of syndication by now. Maybe that's not fair to say but this show is nonsensical garbage. Between the thick accents of nearly every actor and the lack of actual acting skill, not to mention the horrible dialogue, each episode feels like watching some weird, alien experiment. Every aspect, from direction to sound to editing is just seemingly random in it's quality and application. Every episode has a twist ending but if they're ever not completely obvious, they're out of nowhere and make no sense. Yet, the reviews for the series are actually generally positive. I can not wrap my head around this fact.

The best part is, I really think a lot of people involved in this series were really into it. There's no tongue in cheek nonsense, everything is delivered pretty straight forward, including the line "Good night, little Adolph." Like I said, the best part of anthology series' are that if you don't like one episode, you might like the next. Well, I can't remember actually genuinely liking any episodes but I can remember some being funnier than others. Some episodes were an absolute slog to sit through and I couldn't tell you a single thing about them. One of them, probably the most memorable for me, had most of the audio from the last scene obscured by a hideous and obnoxiously loud sucking sound because VAMPIRES. I would have watched it again to try to make out what the guys is saying(in signature broken English) but the sucking sound that I pray no human ever actually made was too much for me. I think I will rewatch the series and give a couple short updates with highlights and spoilers just for the heck of it. So I guess look forward to that? I'm not really sure if that's a statement I'm comfortable making.

I guess SyFy wins again.