The Missus and I have just finished box-watching La Brea.
Its a US drama about sink holes.
We fell into it the other night!
The strong attractor for me were the tar pits. I'm a sucker for a bubbling slick.
With pleasant thoughts of Tommy Lee Jones' Volcano flowing through my brain we sat down to watch.
La Brea isn't really about tar pits or sink holes for that matter. Its about human relationships. Ten episodes of human relationships.
I had thought about pulling out half-way through but the Missus said we'd invested five hours already so we might as well sink further into the cheese.
The prehistoric animals are good when they appear. Like the cover of that How and Why book coming alive!
Its true what they say, never smile at a smilodon.
If you're just embarking on building the Aurora tar pit scene then maybe have La Brea on in the background. Even if you mentally switch off whilst gluing, it's OK, they'll still be talking about the same things when you tune back in!
Let me know if you're a fellow sinker and watched it. Have you visited the real La Brea tar pits?
typical us drama. its all about relationships, dressed up with a facade of sci fi, or something else. Americans love their schmaltz. La Brea sounds like the pits to me!
ReplyDeleteThere's plenty of British schmaltz too. I recently saw Murders in Provence. That was a real cheese board .. oh and some wine. Lots of wine.
ReplyDeleteI had the Aurora Tar Pit kit.
ReplyDeleteReally good model, demonstrating the unpleasantness of the Wooley Rhinos predicament.
Hey fab Mish. Yes, a sticky end for that Wooly Rhino. WI bet it was a joy to build. Did it end up getting chucked away?
DeleteYes,I got suckered in with the first 3 episodes of Sabre Tooths,giant sloths, and such then afterwards it's all drama,drama,drama.I dropped it too
ReplyDeleteYep, Brian, if Monster Base can't cope then how can the rest of us! ha ha
DeleteMy brother had the Aurora Tar Pit kit. I remember really enjoying their dinosaur models. I remember really liking their Protoceratops model. Oh, and the battle damaged Pteranodon with the torn wing!
ReplyDeleteGreat memories Scott. Have you ever got yourself one of these kits later on?
DeleteI think the kit was thrown away Woodsy, as were all my childhood kits, when I left home.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I made a short animated Super 8 film, which featured the Aurora Allosaurus, Triceratops, the Prehistoric Cave and an Eohippus.
In not sure I've still got it, but I did get to show it to a couple of hundred Dr Who fans, for a laugh, at a convention in the mid 90s.
That video sounds wonderful Mish. Those Dr. Who fans were lucky. If you do find it then let us know!
DeleteAgree with a few commenters above, 9 out of 10 "new" US series are just the most god-awful generic fluff about "real people" and their "relationships," and the "hook" of the show (Tar Pits in this case) is just there to sucker in the naive and the easily entertained. I try and try to like new shows, cuz the wife, but they are soooo boring. Who wants to see the tired whiny antics of real people?
ReplyDeleteha ha, it seems that La Brea is indeed a tar pit Zigg, once in you struggle to get out! Our world is made up of all sorts of people so I suppose when genres like Sci-Fi and Reality TV merge this is what you get. Reality SciFi! Ouch! Can't believe I watched the entire series but I was trapped in sticky stuff!
DeleteI agree with Ziggurat about the 'tired whiny antics of real people'. It's particularly annoying when they're in sci-fi like Star Trek Discovery or Resident Alien. You can't help thinking 'don't you have a galaxy to save rather than worrying about your boyfriend problem?"...!
ReplyDeleteI suppose talk is cheaper than action Kittenpurse. Filming a dialogue about boyfriend problems must cost an awful lot less than an actual CGI Kaiju eating the Mother in Law!
DeleteVery happy to see the series has returned even if it is for its last season. I loved all the previous episodes. I just don't get how come all of a sudden Josh shows up with a brand new haircut that had nothing to do in all the previous seasons if thus is just continuing right after the last episode events?
ReplyDeleteHi Edgar, thanks for the tip. Hadn't seen that Season 3 had appeared. It'll take awhile to make it here in the UK. Just looking up the locations of the series, I was amazed to see its filmed in Australia. I had thought it was filmed in the Los Angeles area where the tar pits are. Hope you enjoy Season 3 and come to like Josh's new haircut!
Delete