More than a few movies both on and off the big screen have tried to tackle the Bermuda Triangle. The results so far have been predictably bad, until Bryan Singer of the X-Men fame and Dean Devlin of the Star Gate and Independence fame decided to do their version of it.

Last night I watched The Triangle marathon on cable. Originally produced for the Sci-Fi Network, it lasts over 225 minutes and was shown in 3 parts. It features several well known faces from TV and some from the Movies.

The premise of the series is that a eccentric billionaire (we were told he was eccentric OK?), played by Sam Neil, who has lost several ships in the Triangle puts together a team of misfits OK, not so misfits to investigate why and how his ships were lost. The incentive was an-offer-you-cant-refuse five million dollars each.

We are thus introduced to the Eric Stolz character, formerly of New York Times, but now is writing for The Observer (kinda like the Enquiere) to feed his family. Then we are introduced to Catherine Bell of JAG fame, yummm, who got fired from her job, don’t ask. Her specialty; deep seas something or the other. After, we are introduced to the Bruce Davidson character who played Senator Kelly from the X-Men movies, who plays a Psychic of dubious background and lastly to Michael Rodgers of, I dont know where this guy comes from, he speaks in an Australian accent and plays a adventurous weather scientist.

And not to forget the Lou Diamond Phillips character, who plays a Greenpeace activitist who survives the Triangle and now begins to have strange episodes.

The mini series is well researched and tries to touch all the lore surrounding it from Christopher Columbus reports to the missing flight of Avengers to the USS Cyclops.

It starts off promisingly with a series of mysteries, obligatory introduction to the five characters, their background, their issues etc.. While not the greatest of introductions it gets the job done, makes the characters more multi dimensional. But that is where they pretty much stayed until the end.

Personally I don’t think there is enough material in it to be a 225 minute presentation, it could have easily been done in 90 to 120 minutes, and it would have been a tighter and more entertaining experience. Sadly as genre fare goes, this is not a bad mini-series, in fact it is quite good - kinda like the Hallmark mini-series; but the problem I have is why do genre fans have to put up with such half-hearted attempts at mini-series. Compare this to - Battlestar Galactica from the same network and you see a big difference.

It tries to wrap up the whole Bermuda Triangle Mystery of the how and the why; while it manages to do that - quite neatly I might add, it leaves one wondering what it was all about at the end of 225 minutes with the strangely anti-climatic ending. Maybe that is one of the mysteries of The Triangle. I am fan of most of the people who are involved here - from the writers to the actors, but better to have re-watched the Battlestar Galactica or gone to see Snakes On A Plane.

Verdict : If you are a fan of genre sci-fi and have a few odd hours, do see it. But whatever you do, don’t buy the DVD.

In the last couple of months, the upcoming launch of Wii and Zune have received a lot of attention from tech fans like me. I neither have a PS2 or an iPOD but as a matter of interest am keen to see what happens to these two new consumer electronic brands. I am also interested to see how each will turn out – considering the fact that both are from well known companies in their own field. I have written about the Wii and Zune previously, separately, but now is a good time to review it together. 

ZUNE

Microsoft recently released news on the detailed specs of the Zune and the consumer offering. Despite the rumors that it will retail around 250 US$ (most likely less), Microsoft hasn’t confirmed or denied it. Additionally it will most likely be released for the upcoming holiday season. Whether it is in 06 or07 remains to be seen.

So the big question on every ones mind is that, will Zune be the iPod killer?

I for one think that the term – iPOD killer is overused and almost a cliché. No one can be the iPOD killer, but based on what Microsoft did with XBOX, we can be sure that it will literally dump a lot of R&D and A&P (advertising and promotion) budget behind it.

But can advertising hype alone sustain the Zune? I doubt it. The feature sets included in the release version of the Zune needs to appeal to a certain amount of consumers. This will buy Microsoft the necessary market share into the Media Player category. In the long run Microsoft stands to profit from this investment.

How long is long enough? That remains to be seen, but it would be foolish of Microsoft to ignore the fast growing consumer segment – especially in the Media Player segment. Invest well Microsoft and try not to piss off the relatively minor but highly vocal tech fans – especially the ones with Blogs, and you will have a XBOX in your hand sin a couple of years.

Nintendo Wii

Despite the relatively low tech specifications of the Nintendo Wii, the fan-boys are excited about this. In any other circumstance, launching a less technically spec’ed product would be suicide. In the case of Nintendo Wii, it is an asset… well almost.

The price is almost about 250 US$ and it will launch two days after PS3. Is that a good thing or not. I don’t know. But one thing I am sure about is that it’s underdog status is what will sell the product to the fan-boys who felt betrayed by PS3. That and the innovative Wiimote and the games that it is expected to release. Note my emphasis on the word expected.

It is clear that Nintendo Wii is trying to appeal to a bigger audience of non-hardcore gamers – which is most likely a wise strategy, considering the fact that XBOX 360 and PS3 are more or less fighting for the same, but limited audience.

Ultimately the hardcore fan-boys could be disappointed by the Wii – as their expectations are probably too high, and they will probably go back to their default gaming console. But either way Wii will carve out a more than decent market share from the non-hardcore, causal gaming audience. If I was Microsoft or Sony, Wii can pose a big threat and I would watch it – closely.

So what does this all mean to the average pro-sumer out there? Well, exciting things are afoot and I for one am excited to see how this will all turn out. Heck, maybe I will even buy myself one of them things.