'Conan' is a pass

In the strangely peaceful barbarian village of Cimmaron, set on a misty riverside, Ron Perlman is a blacksmith who has raised the war-born son of his late wife as a single dad. His son, Conan, is a young hothead who, in a rite of passage for warriors of the village – which he takes part in far too young for his father’s liking – fights off an attack of rival barbarians and brings their heads back to the village – all the other warriors-in-training had run away – and winning the challenge to boot.

When Conan is still a warrior in training, forging his own blade, the village is visited by a dark lord who has already vanquished several rival barbarian tribes in an attempt to reassemble an mask infused with the power of ancient necromancers. The mask had been destroyed and scattered among the barbarian tribes so this wouldn’t be possible, except he knew how to do it, in part because of his witchy daughter, Marique, played for most of the show by Rose McGowan in Freddy Krueger’s hand blades.

The Dark Lord Khalar Zym – I think – this movie I had trouble remembering anyone’s name. Honestly, at least in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan” you weren’t likely to forget Khan’s name, what with Kirk screaming “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” like that.

Whoever it was, the bad guy, the guy who wanted the pure line blood descendent from the necromancers – and oh, that took some doing: Went right to their temple and there she was. Oh, yeah, she was hidden in and among a bunch of other girls, but with Marique able to taste everyone, who’s pure and who’s not -- and that wasn’t creepy at all -- I’d have thought a good plan for such a powerful person would be to hide her where she’d actually be hidden.

But then Conan’s dad had hidden his village's shard of the mask in a box under the floorboards instead of, say, underneath the bellows, because naturally with the all-powerful mask shard you’re hiding from the Dark Lord of Evil you’re going to want to be able to get at that at a moment’s notice.

The ridiculousness of the quest wasn’t even the bad part of the movie. Never mind the City of Thieves where I guess Neal Caffrey’s the mayor – honestly, that would be a terrible city. Think of all the thieving! I’d feel bad for their Convention and Visitors Bureau trying to market a vacation in the City of Thieves. It’s a hard sell, basically everyone wandering around picking each other’s pockets, I suppose, stripping your caravan while you’re stuck in traffic. The various worlds that were created had their own awesomeness, but you got the sense that everything was put together like a thousand years ago and no one’s really been involved much in maintenance. The coastal city of whatever it was, and then you had the necromancers’ temple, built on a fault line to the center of the planet, where they carted Rachel Nichols for some light bondage and blood-letting …

Yes, that’s the other part of this film, the fetish aspect of the costuming. There are communities in this wide and fascinating interweb of ours, people into roleplay, leather and pain, scenes you could lift directly from “Conan the Barbarian” into the porn version without changing a pixel.

Marique brought to life a team of sand golems that had that whole anonymity thing going. There was Conan’s fight club throwdown with the rival barbarians. I already mentioned Tammy in leather and lace-ups, and there’s a torture scene where this guy’s got the leather armor and the shiny thumbscrews (maybe he just bought them) and the little leather patch covering his nose, where Conan had cut it off while a teenager. Conan turns the torture on him and then has the villagers cut him open to free themselves.

Never mind that the actual sex scene was such an afterthought, Tamara following Conan into the forest and basically offering herself on the first craggy rock they could find.

I went to “Cowboys and Aliens” and I went to the “Conan” remake. And I was far more enthusiastic about “Cowboys and Aliens” than the critics were, but I’ve got to stand with consensus on this one. I was so excited about “Conan” when I saw Rose McGowan and her magical getup, but I think even if it had mostly been her being magic for practically the entire show, very little could be done to save this rambunctious pile of plop. Unless you’re a fan of someone, take the pass.

‘The Nine Lives of Chloe King,’ ‘Dr. Who’

I got a chance to see the summer finale of “The Nine Lives of Chloe King” and I’ll just put it out there: I’m upset. I’m upset by the star-crossed Romeo and Juliet writing, I’m upset that a season later I have no idea what the Mai are, much of anything at all about their backstory, and why kissing one is so instantaneously deadly. I mean, there’s lots of things that will poison with a kiss – River Song, for instance, and I’ll get to her in a moment – but even when you’ve been targeted for assassination you occasionally have half-an-hour to dress in top hat and tails and all right, dammit, it’s been all summer I can’t not talk about this.

“Dr. Who” returned Saturday and I’ll have more to say about this down the road but for right now, it felt like in the Season Six opener that showrunner Stephen Moffat had written himself into something of a corner, what with killing off the Doctor and arranging him on a funeral pyre. Especially since we know from “Trial of a Time Lord” the Doctor has at least one regeneration cycle left.

This weekend’s season resume made some reference to this, focusing like a laser on the development of River Song. Which honestly we’d needed to for quite awhile now and it is a significant part of the sixth season arc storytelling. But instead of following through on the episode title – “Let’s Kill Hitler” – that merely formed a great location to introduce TA-DAH! Melody Pond all growed up, the daughter and best mate of companion Amelia Pond, her transformation into River Song nearly complete – physically, at any rate.

First, get rid of the psychopath, and that’s another reason the title really works. Melody Pond was a weapon forged by an army of darkness to end the Doctor, whereas her longer-term character River Song is madly in love with the Doctor. But can she save him? Spoilers …

As I said, much more on this later but for right now, man is it good to have some jaw-dropping scifi back on BBC America. Go Doctor!

I was talking about “Chloe King,” well, it hardly seems necessary at this point. The love of her life Brian kissed her while she was recovering from dying a second time. Oh come on, it’s right there in the title, she is meant to have at least seven lives left. Anyway, while all of these characters are experiencing complicated backstories – Brian just tracked down new information about his mother, and Chloe is trying to find a way to tell her mother that her father has gotten back in touch – this problem that no one really seemed to think about much before installing it – that the Mai can’t kiss humans without killing or paralyzing them, and Chloe’s in love with Brian and oh the humanity – is the usual problem you get with these ABC Family dramas.

The problem is not the reality you set up. The problem is the secrets and lies. Chloe could just tell Brian, because honestly, what’s he going to do about it? She could just tell her mom what’s going on. It’s not like she couldn’t just show her claws to prove it. Really, this whole “it has to stay a secret” thing nearly got Joyce killed more than once on Buffy and if Chloe had just told Brian he’d still be alive.

The show has improved from how it started, but it still needs to improve if it’s going to be worthy of our attention. Right now … kind of a holding pattern.

Quick bites

I loved Summer Glau’s appearance on “Alphas” this past week, which wasn’t odd, in and of itself. What stood out for me was the fact that her character was so complete unto itself. “Alphas” didn’t rely on me as a viewer to have already loved her work in “Angel,” “Firefly,’ “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Dollhouse.” And sure, I loved her in all of those. But when she makes these kinds of appearances there’s usually some kind of wink – like her entire appearance as herself in that episode of “The Big Bang Theory.” Except for some self-conscious set design that did, if we’re being honest with ourselves, look eerily similar to Bennett’s lab in “Dollhouse,” her Skylar in “Alphas” had a great character, a fantastic ability and a backstory she could really sink her teeth into. Nicely done.

In other appearances, fifth Doctor Peter Davison is apparently making an appearance on “Law & Order: UK” alongside 10th Doctor David Tennant’s companion Freema Agyeman. I don’t imagine they’ll throw in a time-traveling storyline to honor the occasion.

In other shoutouts, I have to mention that I was deeply impressed by this past week’s installment on “Combat Hospital.” Sure Arnold Pinnock is still overacting like mad, but the depth of his character was explored this week – at the expense perhaps of Chen’s Trang, who broke up with his booty call and tortured a fat guy with maybe the exact opposite levels of emotional intensity he should’ve been investing in the two storylines.

The focus on the chaplain was not something I was looking forward to – television’s treatment of the clergy is often cloying or obnoxious – but in this case her development was very well presented, emotionally intense and I’ve got to say moving. Well done, all.

“Royal Pains” is coming up on its third season finale Wednesday night, and “Rescue Me” is slouching toward its own. I wish they weren’t doing a wedding episode for Colleen and Black Shaun, because the Tommy letter reveal last week was already handled I thought kind of badly – Ken’s screwup at Janet’s should’ve kept him from making the same mistake eight more times. That and my instincts tell me it’s a throwaway episode. Either the event will go perfectly and it will be a waste of time, or it will go very badly and oh, Gavin family fight. Yawn.

This is the only way I see this as useful, and that’s if, heading into the series finale, the family can use this opportunity to vent the millions of recriminations they feel they simply must share at this exact moment in time. I don’t know what they’ve got in mind for the series finale itself, but generally I do like how they’ve been building to it. This just seems like it could be anything else at all, and it’s not. It’s this. That said, I am going to miss this show. These characters are awesome, the writing has tended to be very good and I think they’re all telling the human story of a national tragedy in a generally good way. Well done all.