Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan, in the United States during the mid-to-late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno in reference to a specific genre of music was in 1988. Many styles of techno now exist, but Detroit techno is seen as the foundation upon which a number of subgenres have been built.
In Detroit techno resulted from the melding of African American music including Chicago house, funk, electro, and electric jazz with electronic music by artists such as Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Added to this is the influence of futuristic and fictional themes relevant to life in American late capitalist society, with Alvin Toffler's book The Third Wave being a notable point of reference. Pioneering producer Juan Atkins cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" as inspiring him to use the word techno to describe the musical style he helped to create. This unique blend of influences aligns techno with the aesthetic referred to as afrofuturism. To producers such as Derrick May, the transference of spirit from the body to the machine is often a central preoccupation; essentially an expression of technological spirituality. In this manner: "techno dance music defeats what Adorno saw as the alienating effect of mechanisation on the modern consciousness".
"Pilot" is the pilot and first episode of the American television comedy series About a Boy, which premiered on February 22, 2014 on NBC in the United States. The series is based on the 1998 novel of the same name by British writer Nick Hornby and the 2002 film starring Hugh Grant. The episode is written by series developer Jason Katims and is directed by Jon Favreau. In the episode, a young boy named Marcus (Benjamin Stockham) and his single mother Fiona (Minnie Driver) move in next door to Will (David Walton), an unemployed bachelor living in San Francisco. Will woos a woman by pretending Marcus is his son.
Will is on a San Francisco trolley with his friend Andy (Al Madrigal) and Andy's two kids. Will gets off to flirt with a woman named Dakota (Leslie Bibb) who is going to a single parents' support group meeting. He lies to her, saying he is a single parent of a son named Jonah who has leukemia. She becomes attracted to him and asks to set up a play date between her daughters and his son.
The first season of 8 Simple Rules aired on ABC between September 17, 2002 and May 20, 2003, it consists of 28 episodes. On August 7, 2007 Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the complete first season on DVD for the first time ever, on a 3-disc set.
Guest stars throughout season one include: Cybill Shepherd, Jason Priestley, Terry Bradshaw, Nick Carter, Shelley Long, Patrick Warburton, Thad Luckinbill, Billy Aaron Brown and Larry Miller.
Alcatraz is an American television series created by Elizabeth Sarnoff, Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, and produced by J. J. Abrams and Bad Robot Productions. The series premiered on Fox on January 16, 2012, as a mid-season replacement. Switching between eras, the series focuses on the Alcatraz prison, which was shut down in 1963 due to unsafe conditions for its prisoners and guards. The show's premise is that both the prisoners and the guards disappeared in 1963 and have abruptly reappeared in modern-day San Francisco, where they are being tracked down by a government agency. The series starred Sarah Jones, Jorge Garcia, Sam Neill, and Parminder Nagra.
The show was canceled by Fox on May 9, 2012.