Locusts: A Running Diary

9:00-I can't see this being any good, so I figure I might as well blog about it.

9:02-Locusts are attacking the college chick who's trying to feed them.

9:04-False Alarm. They were on her, but not attacking.

9:05-Lucy Lawless! Our first non-Xena Lucy Lawless sighting is of her in her underwear. It seems she's the Undersecretary of Agriculture.

9:06-Maritial issues for Xena. $5 says by the end of this movie one of the two of them is dead, and the other regrets being so unkind or he has a near death experience making him realize how wonderful she is.

9:07-The locust researcher is the same guy who plays the drunk father of ballistics expert Calleigh on CSI: Miami. CBS is connecting all of their crappy shows.

9:09-"This is DDT, the pesticide" Dialogue for the remarkably stupid. Exposition is fun isn't it?

9:12-The mad scientist has just explained that he made a super locust that is resistant to all pesticides, reproduces faster and lives longer. Xena isn't happy and forces him to watch as someone takes a flamethrower to his precious bugs. Then she fires him.

9:13-Uh Oh! The flamethrower guy is smuggling out a sample...and he dropped it. Two of the locusts escaped down the drain and out through the storm drain.

9:15-Xena's whiny husband just dumped her for putting her job first.

9:16-I'm pretty sure the music playing as she drives along after being dumped and as the mad scientist looks over his lab is the same music as when Tom Cruise thinks about his dead father in Top Gun.

9:18-The government agents just dropped the sample of the locusts. That makes 6 of them free.

9:18-Xena's knocked up, and trying to tell her estranged husband over the phone. It does not go well.

9:21-Ominous music. Something bad is about to happen. Look a black couple. They never fare well in horror movies. They're becoming amorous, also a bad sign in horror films. They luck out and just get covered in bugs, not killed by the vegetarian insects.

9:24-During this commercial break, I'd like to point out a problem I'm having. Locusts. Maybe it's one too many math classes, maybe it's too much molecular biology, but I keep wanting to call the loci. Yes, I know that's the plural for locus not locust, but that's

9:29-Sappy interlude with Mad Scientist and his daughter. Now he's pulled over to the side of the road because he heard the locusts devouring a field.

9:31-The world's ugliest child just delivered his first and only line.

9:32-The bugs are swarming a school bus, even smashing the windshield. Mad Scientist's daughter hits her head while flailing about screaming (the universal bug defense).

9:34-Mad Scientist shows up to save his child. He picks a bug up and seems to recognize it. I guess it's always easier to recognize one's progeny.

9:39-Xena is collecting specimens in a stripped vineyard. It appears to be cold.

9:41-I think CBS is recylcing documentary footage of insects.

9:43-Xena (I should really figure out her character's name) is talking with Mad Scientist about the bugs, when she realizes that they will probably be heading for a citrus festival.

9:45-"Sir, I am a Federal Agent, and I am dead serious" Did they really pay someone to write this?

9:47-Random Guy just fell fell off a ladder, while performing the universal bug defense.

9:49-Mad Scientist is driving to Pittsburgh, because that's where he thinks the swarm is headed. What exactly does the one guy think he's going to do? Run them all over with his station wagon?

9:51-The locusts are ruining the office birthday party of a girl named Stacey, who according to IMDB is being played by "Azure Dawn". I can't make this stuff up.

9:54-They just clogged up the engine of a plane. Fortunately, the writers of the movie chickened out and had it be a cargo plane so no passengers were killed. Mad Scientist winces in a way that looks half like horror and half like amusement. Yes, they spared no expense on the actors for this movie.

9:59-Just saw an ad for a new Elvis TV movie where Elvis is played by the same guy that played Joe, the soccer coach from Bend It Like Beckham. Odd.

10:01-Mad Scientist just explained to his wife that the unleashing of the plague was his fault. Apparently, their daughter is in a coma.

10:02-In a secret meeting, government officials are wondering if the locusts are the act of terrorists.

10:04-In a series of rapidly switching scenes, Mad Scientist and Xena are briefing the government on the situation.

10:07-I love the conference scenes in disaster movies, because they always have wonderful multimedia presentations showing the worst case scenario.

10:09-The military is now going to "take care of them." Hopefully, just like in all other disaster movies the answer will be nuclear weapons. That's always the final solution. When all else fails, nuke it.

10:09-The locusts are now eating meat. They really are super locusts.

10:11-Xena finally got to tell her husband that she's pregnant. Now he's happy and everything is ok. Looks like I'm losing that $5 bet from earlier.

10:16-I'm a horrible person for laughing at the commercial for this Rosie O'Donnell movie, "Riding The Bus With My Sister."

10:17-Darn, the option to kill the bugs isn't nuclear weapons, but VX gas. Nerve gas, that's quite the potent pesticide.

10:19-Oh no! The marital problems aren't over yet.

10:22-The VX killed a locust in the lab, so it's time to test it out over Ohio.

10:23-Xena doesn't agree with the chemical warfare plan and just put in a call to "GNN" news.

10:26-Xena actually just used the line, "I am pregnant and I am hormonal." as a threat to stop the gas test.

10:26-Xena is worried about her dad, BJ Hunnicut, because the swarm is heading for his farm in Indiana. The estranged husband has just volunteered to go check. Could this be the event that brings them back together?

10:35-BJ Hunnicut is risking his life and his daughter's to rescue two calves.

10:36-Hmm...hiding in the same place as the grain seems like a bad idea.

10:37-Oh dear, they're going to electricity the silo they are hiding in to kill the locust.

10:38-Mad Scientist just went out on what will unsurprisingly be a self-sacrificing mission. He got fuel for the generator, but has been assaulted by too many bugs. Shockingly, the person responsible for causing the disaster has redeemed himself by giving his life. It's nothing I would ever have expected in a movie like this.

10:39-The locusts are falling off the building and, I assume, dying.

10:40-Yes, there it is: a giant pile of fried insects on the ground.

10:46-We have to evacuate the middle of the country to allow for the nerve gas drop.

10:49-Now the plan is to make everyone--EVERYONE!--in the country stop using electricity so that they can increase the power along two sections so that when they fly through the area, the locusts will die.

10:52-To ensure the bugs are attracted to the area, they are now putting up weather balloons. Xena is running around barking orders about the balloons.

10:55-This is disturbingly bad.

10:56-It's raining bugs. Hallelujah, it's raining bugs.

10:56-The locusts were eradicated, and "as a result of their bioengineering, the remaining locusts are sterile." So, if the bioengineered locusts were sterile, how did 6 of them create two "mega-swarms"?

Mercifully, it is over. This brings up an interesting point. Many, many movies that get made and released in theaters are simply horrible. So how does one end up writing, directing or starring in a TV movie? Is it a requirement to have a complete lack of talent? Does anyone actually aspire to be involved with made-for-television movies?

Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe Locusts just made me more cynical than usual. Or maybe 99% of made-for-TV movies suck and should be replaced with better programming like CSI: Des Moines or another reality show. Maybe not.

Until later...