Left Lost? Uh oh. So the producers of Lost have added an hour to each of the next two seasons, which will be the final seasons of the show. I'm glad about this. It suggests they know exactly the story they are telling. Lost can end as one of the greatest shows of all time if they stick the landing.
But in that same article, Damon Lindelof says, ""David Chase set a great example when he went off to Paris after 'The Sopranos' ending, which is great because all these people are going to be asking, 'What does it mean? What is it?' ... The fact that there's no one really around to answer that question, it forces people to come up with what they think it means. We can guarantee our show will not end with a cut to black, it will be more clear than that."
Better be. If Lost ends and I have to supply the answers, I may not watch a serialized drama ever again. Don't hold the Sopranos ending up as any kind of a positive model. Geez.
"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."
Don't you love how the White House pretends Bush is the victim here? Me too. Of course, the reason they weren't more specific and said mission accomplished for these sailors is that they didn't invent that excuse until months after the fact.
What a crummy article. The only fault I can see is that we all misinterpreted a perfectly clear banner and beat up a poor defenseless president. It also continues the myth that Bush flew the plane. I wonder what percentage of Americans believe that Bush was the pilot. I bet above 90.
If you'll forgive me for patting myself on the back, but that day five years ago I told anyone who would listen - not many - that Democrats were going to wind up using that image in political ads.
The most important thing I want to see right out the gate is Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery healthy. They both left the floor injured during UConn's sweet sixteen win over ODU. UConn has been saying they're fine, but that's probably what they'd say if they were banged up. They "practiced," but did they practice with other players or a stationary bike? Having already lost two starters during the season, UConn can't afford this.
The other storyline for UConn fans is the end of Brittany Hunter and Charde Houston's careers. Hunter, troubled by a chronic sore knee, turns in amazing stat lines - 9 pts/6 rbs/2 blk 11 min - and won't be able to play basketball after this. Houston has been alternately electrifying and horrible. She's been great for the last handful of games, even got the MVP of the Big East tournament. Hunter can leave everything out there and Houston can erase all those "what if" stories.
Rutgers isn't that deep either, and they play a shovey, grind it out, aggressive (trash-talky) sort of defense so officiating will also be key.
The biggest story seems to be "Just how good can Maya Moore be?" At this point, the only comparisons that make sense are Taurasi (best ever) or Lobo (taking a program to another level - and UConn already is at the top tier). Believe the hype. And since she's come through every time I've typed it, I'll type it again - if you haven't watched Moore play, here's your chance.
(Update: Did I mention Ketia Swanier? On a night when absolutely nothing went right, the Huskies come back from 14 down to win. Rutgers is not a team I'd like to spot 14. As an optimist, I'm going to regard this as a get-it-out-of-your-system game. Too bad for ESPN both this and Tennessee's game were fairly ugly. Tennessee should thank the NCAA. No way they'd be in the Final Four if they were facing Rutgers last night. I thought UConn was the top seed overall.)
Lost Time I've never become a part of the giant Lost community online. I don't want to know spoilers and couldn't care less who fan nation thinks is cuter. I've also been avoiding most theories since I hope the show itself will be the best prestige. Yet, I couldn't resist peeking at this theory and this similarly time-centric theory.
Yeah, probably something like that. But what about the four toes? (Links via PopCandy.)
The UConn women get a chance to avenge their only loss tonight against Rutgers - 7, ESPN2. Also, the Big East regular season title is on the line.
Of course, UConn is lucky to be in this position after being down 17 versus DePaul and winning on Maya Moore's steal with 7 seconds left and Ketia Swanier's bucket with 2. I wrote this game off as lost about six times. I happened to be at a party and had to turn so I couldn't see the TV. I only started watching when I noticed people intensity level picking up near the TVs. She's come through every time I've said it so once again - if you haven't seen Maya Moore yet, check out tonight's game.
Big Game Coming UConn Women play #6 LSU tonight at 7 on ESPN2. UConn's one loss came in their last big game, versus Rutgers, but I'm looking to the Patriots and saying it's better to have a regular season loss. (UConn regained the number one ranking after Tennessee had two losses - although one counts as a clock-assisted win.)
LSU's a great team, making four of the last Final Fours. They knocked UConn out last year - Tina Charles has been keeping a picture of LSU's Sylvia Fowles in her locker since then. If you haven't caught Maya Moore yet this season, check out tonight's game. She's poised to break Svetlana Abrosimova's record for freshman scoring, Diana Taurasi's record for consecutive games in double figures and Rebecca Lobo's record for "Freshman of the Week" honors. That's the company she's in already. Update: Well, that was quite a game. Not to overlook Moore's 29 pts. or Charles' 18, but McLaren's 11pts/12reb combined with solid defense was crucial and Swanier was clutch. If they can bring this game for Rutgers, and the tourneys, they'll be fine.
I agree with the central point of this article on what went wrong with Friday Night Lights this season.
"But the big failing of this season was simple: the first season’s tight-knit ensemble, adults and teenagers tied somehow to the Dillon Panthers football team, was blown into its constituent parts, and never really reassembled."
The murder subplot got all the negative attention, but just as bad were the decisions to remove nearly all football and ramp up the O.C.-esque music montages. What happened to all the great Landry-Saracen talks? Both of them wound up with hot girlfriends and never got around to telling the other? Last season the show was so tightly knit it was about a community. This season it's about characters and sometimes it's still great, but not nearly as good.
Bleech I have to say, as Patriots fan, I was worried right from the start. Brady seemed off with his passes and unable to slide away from the rush like he often does. And the rush was relentless. Standing for so long, 7-3 seemed to tempt an upset. Stupidly, I wasn't worried during the Eli scramble and bomb/helmet catch by Tyree. I saw the ball touch the ground and thought, "It's under two minutes. You can't demonstrate control of the ball with your helmet. That's getting overturned." Also stupidly, I wasn't worried earlier during the same drive when Eli fumbled and somehow recovered it with his legs and we didn't get the call. "That's okay," I thought. "They're not moving it downfield and we'll get the next call." No and no.
I was worried when I should have been happy and happy when I should have been worried. Also sober when I should have been drunk.
Making matters worse, many people are thrilled with the Patriots' defeat because of how jerky Red Sox fans have been. Makes it hard for us Yankees/Patriots fans.
Can't complain too much considered up until last night I've been following two perfect seasons. Go Huskies.
New England, Where We're Slow to Accept New England The Land of Steady Habits took a long time to embrace the Patriots over the New York Giants. I like that the article also points out that Connecticut's location breeds combo fans that seem strange to outsiders. Many Giants fans who are also Red Sox fans. And those like me, who root for the Yankees and the Patriots. I was nine or so when I picked the Patriots as my favorite team. There were so few Patriots fans around (none) I had no idea they were also the "local" team. I hadn't quite figured out that I lived in the same New England. They happened to win the game I was watching when it was time to pick a favorite team and - more importantly - they wore red. It all worked out.
Someone figured out that exactly halfway between Foxborough and the Meadowlands lies my town of Durham, CT. (Go Google Earth.) HBO came to town yesterday to film a Patriots/Giants rally on the town green. When they air this, you can expect to hear the phrase "sleepy little town" at the beginning, middle and somewhere towards the end. I do take issue with the woman in the video who says this is the biggest thing to happen in Durham in a decade. I mean, that crowd wouldn't even make a decent morning line at the Durham Fair giant donut stand.
I remember way back in the day, I just about never saw another Patriots fan. Just as well, considering how ugly the old logo was. The fan base grew in the 90s. Toss in the bandwagon of the last few years with the sagging fortune of the Giants over the last few years and it is pretty much an even split around here.
Another Hurt Husky Mel Thomas' torn ACL means the end of her UConn career. Sad and bad. Knicknamed "Baby Shea" early in her career for her tendency to hit the floor after loose balls, Mel was fun to watch and a great contributor. She finishes fourth in UConn history for three pointers and over 1,000 points for her career. The floor leadership, assists and hustle will also be missed.
A month ago it was like a sportswriting mandate that the phrase "national championship" had to appear in any article about UConn. They were blowing out quality teams by 40. Now, without Kalana Greene and Thomas and with Hunter's knee acting up more than usual, they get to be a #1 ranked underdog. First big test will be the annual Martin Luther King Day game. This year it's North Carolina. Catch it if you can. Thomas will be getting a ball for going over 1,000 points. Expect about a five minute (and well-deserved) standing O.
The Sarah Conner Chronicles has been good enough to keep me watching for a few more shows, certainly helped by the fact that there's nothing else on right about now. I still think the whole thing went downhill when someone decided they should have good terminators to fight the bad terminators. And Summer Glau may be miscast. Her out of place waif who kicks ass reminds me of her Firefly character. (I know, someone who doesn't like Firefly or T2. Unleash the fanboys!)
My favorite part was a bit of unintentional comedy in the first hour when Sarah shields herself from the terminator's hail of bullets with a reclining chair! It gave off the little squib explosions and everything. They recognized how goofy this was because in the next scene there's a throwaway line - obviously added later - about Kevlar in the chair. See? It all makes sense. You think if the chair were absorbing the force of the bullets it might have, you know, rocked or something. Still I won't write it off just yet.
All I Want for Christmas ... Here's a great gift idea that can't be beat, but can't be given because it doesn't exist. I want a remote control more special than the one I have. Mine has approximately a hundred and fifty buttons. I use maybe nine. But if there were a button that you could point at the screen and get a pop-up window telling you who an actor is, what he's been in, and where you know you know him from, I'd use it all the time. The mental energy saved by this button would be enormous, and you could return your concentration to the show instead of going, "Was he that patient on E.R. that time?" Also, I have a button that skips a recording or paused TV ahead thirty seconds at a time. I use it a lot to skip commercials. I also use it during football to skip ahead from one play to the next. If I hit the button just as the tackle is being made I usually land right on the snap of the ball. (Thirty second play clock.) However, I often miss and land two or three seconds into the next play. How cool would it be if you had a twenty second skip? Or if you could adjust the time of your skip button? There are probably other set intervals for other sports that viewers are dying to skip. Forget Marv Albert and Phil Simms, I want a button.
(I should add the idea for the "That Guy" button was Mrs. BoneDaddy's, the play clock button was mine.)
Dropkick Murphys - "The Meanest of Times": I can't imagine any Battle of the Bands format the Murphys wouldn't win ... and I'm not only imagining formats where the band members have to do shots of whiskey chased with Guinness between songs, where success is measured by the vivacity of the mosh pit, where the bands play in front of a soused crowd of laborers in the sweaty basement of a union hall, etc...
Tim Armstrong - "A Poet's Life" : I don't know if Armstrong is more than thirty years old but, even if not, he might want to take Mencken's quip to heart. As much as I like this album, the title makes me cringe. Once you get past his "I'm a poet and a sex-drugs-and-rock-n-rolling party man" posing, there's no denying the wickedly danceable ska-inflected groovealiciousness.
Books (Read for the First Time Regardless of Year Published)
A more macho list of manly-men movies would be hard to imagine. I'm really not trying to exclude female filmmakers (nor authors, nor musicians) ... but, wow, take the Y chromosone out and you're not left with much here. Although, I actually thought China Mieville was a woman until I saw his picture in the back of "Perdido Street Station".
Speaking of kids' TV, we watch the Backyardigans now. My babies love to dance, so it's a whirly, twirly, circly 20 minutes when they're dancing around. Mrs. C-Dog seems to think we watch it because I like it, but just because I often find myself humming the decidedly Morphine-ish "Riding the Range" song doesn't mean it's my show. It's for the kids.
Fanboy Gushing Just finished watching Doctor Who's finest hour. I thought the same thing last week, and the week before, and the week before that. But this week, oh man. Spoilers are everywhere and nearly unavoidable, but skip the next paragraph if you don't already know what made this week special.
Derek Jacobi was brilliant, absolutely perfect ... what a genius way to bring the Master back. (And the new guy looks like he'll do just fine.) The drums, the voices from the past, they really did this right. Wow. And we get the dope on Capt. Jack, and the hand in the jar (of course!), and it all ties back to the end of Season 1 and Torchwood (sort of)and the classic series, while managing to stand alone as a great episode. More wow.
HD, if you haven't seen this yet, when the Series 3 DVD comes out, I'd actually consider asking the missus if I could fly up to NYC, or fly you down to NC (yeah, I'll be down there Oct 1st) for, if nothing else, a mini-marathon of the last 4 episodes and next week's conclusion to this one.
While I'm surprised they'd go all the way back to the Fifth Doctor when McGann (8), and probably McCoy (7), wouldn't be so obviously older than when they played the Doctor, and in their cases because McGann was a one-0ff and Sly got to walk off the role, their older appearance could be explained, where with Davison we saw his Doctor from beginning to end and there's no getting around the fact that he's aged. That said, I hope the rumor is true.
In case you don't watch Sportscenter ... So Walpole, Massachusetts (representing New England) takes over the lead in the top of the 6th during a Little League World Series game over Ohio. Ohio's coming back in the bottom of the 6th (the last inning). They've brought the score to 3-2, knocked out the starting pitcher and have a guy on 3rd. The winning run is at the plate with two outs, setting up this. Watch the video that goes with the article. (Unfortunately the title gives away what happened. A better video or clip hasn't shown up on YouTube.) I happened to be watching this last inning live. It was one of those sports moments that made me - even with zero connection to either team or the league - jump out of my seat.
I Feel Like I Ought to be Appalled ... But I really like the amped up version of Squeeze's "Goodbye Girl" in the Under Armour commercial. According to the website, Squeeze actually rerecorded the song. I'd like to hear the full version, not just the 30 second snippet.
I've finally gotten around to reading H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, partially because I loved the show and partially because I was kind of sick of reading on the back of every book that follows something for a year "It's the Friday Night Lights of chess/scrabble/day trading/porn." Just like they always say about the show, it's so much more than football. The portrait of the boom and bust town of Odessa, Texas which has no constant except a love of Mojo Panther football is mesmerizing. It's also very much about race. Bissinger does not flinch or cover up for this town that finally integrated its schools in 1982. And when they had to, they grabbed as many blacks as they could (sending the Hispanics elsewhere) because, you know, who do you want as a running back, a black or a Hispanic? The chapter on the use of the word "nigger" in Odessa is pretty much essential reading on race in America. (It's like household cleaner, you can use it anywhere.)
I've never seen the movie and I have to believe it - like the show - kind of whitewashes some of Bissinger's book. I root for the Panthers on the show. The kids and the town in this book is frequently so ugly, conservative, racist and vain I often felt that losing would be good for them. Then you realize that the other team is often just as ugly and maybe nobody should win or maybe nobody should pour too much into this game.
The chapter on the Midland-Odessa rivalry becomes fascinating in light of the failed W administration. W grew up in Midland and wrecked his first businesses there. Friday Night Lights was published in 1990 and doesn't mention W at all - Bush the Greater gets a few pages - but the descriptions of Midland business culture are appalling when you consider this was W's environment.
"Greed, delusional visions of grandeur, the mercenary mercilessness that made every relationship expendable - Midland perfected all these long before they became the standard of the eighties around the rest of the country."
"Over at the country club, or in enormous corner offices with picture windows that seemed to deserve something more than wide-angle views of scrub brush and mesquite, [Midland oil executives] confused luck with business acumen. Instead of understanding that they were the beneficiaries of history, they began to believe they were the creators of it."
This is so much more than football. It's the Friday Night Lights of football.
I missed Heroes over the long break. When the promos started up again a few weeks ago, I had some genuine anticipation. They could still kill off about half the characters and I wouldn't really mind. And you do have to overlook somethings here and there. For example, if you're Mohinder the scientist guy and you've just knocked out the superpowerful, crazy evil guy who killed your father do you (a) kill him or (b) pick up Peter's corpse and take it to an address you found in his wallet, leaving the crazy evil guy to wake up. Also, if you're Peter, why do you carry your mother's address in your wallet? Don't you have it memorized?
But mostly, it is a well-plotted show and it has some seriously enjoyable characters. How many people watch the telepathic cop trying to figure out if he's more like a Gutenberg or more like that doofus from Road Rules? I like the villian and in Hiro they have someone who perfectly embodies the silly/serious, dorky/cool vibe of the show. I like the show enough that I avoided all those spoiler-ific rumors about ripping off The Watchmen. After last night's episode, I can see that as a valid complaint. A massive disaster in NYC makes Americans put their faith in an unworthy leader. Seems to me like they're riffing on 9/11 as well.
Is everyone watching planet earth on the Discovery channel? I've been consistently stunned by these things. Even when it's a subject like "Great Plains" and I think I won't be interested I see something amazing. Not only are they showing things that I've never seen before - and I'm a veteran nature documentary watcher - they're filming them exquisitely. The action shots are spot on. Other shots are so mesmerizing I'm convinced this show is a massive hit among stoners. They've turned nature into a special effect, and I don't mean that to sound cheap because, let's face it, special effects are cool.
Let me put it this way. A couple of weeks ago I saw a completely serviceable documentary on PBS' Nature series about scientists searching for a giant (20+ feet) crocidile. They didn't find any and the show was mostly about the people and the not finding. People don't appear in planet earth and they seem to find everything weird and beautiful that you want to see. For an hour, nature is powerful and dominant and lush and in focus.
If you can, try to catch the one with the Gelada monkeys that play and tackle each other while on near-vertical cliffs.
If you happen to be a TV poker viewer, you'll have to figure out where the Game Show Network is on your TV since that's where the World Poker Tour will be. I never really figured out why it was on the Travel Channel anyway. They never particularly toured the casinos, which are hermetically sealed from their communities anyway.
Big Game ComingUConn Women face LSU tonight in an Elite Eight matchup. If you haven't been watching the Huskies, at this point it's only a matter of where in the pantheon of UConn greats Tina Charles ends up. The N.C. State game was marred mainly by the announcers, who turned Kay Yow's inspirational story into something to something to link to each bounce of the ball. At one point they even compared UConn to the cancer Yow is fighting. Basketball announcers must be spread pretty thin now. During last night's Georgia-Purdue game, I heard one talk about the "exiler" of life, which probably won't help you as much as an elixer elixir will. Anyway, tonight's game should be good. Can't make any promises about the announcers though. (Update: Bleech. And it wasn't even a good game. And the announcers were terrible. The next time I hear "big, soft paws" no matter when I hear it will be too soon.)
Scorpion and the Frog Has anybody documented the number of times the Scorpion and the Frog parable has been used in movies and TV since The Crying Game? I can't remember hearing it prior to that, but I'm starting to think it gets into every TV series at some point. The Dresden Files made reference to it in the last episode and I heard Chakotay tell it in a Voyager rerun last week, which is what got me thinking about how many times I've thought "not the Scorpion and the Frog again" since Forest Whitaker told it to Stephen Rea.
And, by the way, KSR's Sixty Days and Counting came out today. Finally. It's been a long wait, especially since I've been bogged down in The Historian for weeks now ... I doubt you were tempted, but I can tell you if you were, don't bother. It's crap. Kostova's bloodless prose is uniquely unsuited for telling vampire stories. Bulgarian travel guides, maybe, but not vampires.
Now I wouldn't run around saying conservatives have no sense of humor. That's just not right. Political humor, though? Well, I'm sure there are a few examples around but you have to dig and scrape for them. They do fear and anger real well. Not so much with the laughs. Anyway, Fox "News" plans to start airing a comedy show in response to their faltering ratings and The Daily Show, which they misperceive as liberal. You can watch a couple of clips, here and here. (Be warned, the second one contains Rush Limbaugh pretending to be president, making jokes about Cindy Sheehan. Maybe don't watch while eating.) They are astonishingly bad. Could the show actually be this bad? I'd say it couldn't be, but this is the stuff they want us to see. Imagine the stuff they're hiding. The funniest part is the laugh-track, needed because actual people wouldn't laugh at that stuff.
More, whiny, sissified complaining about all the torture in 24. Oh, wait, this time it's the U.S. Military that has asked the producers to tone it down, which is a little like asking Seinfeld to do their show without all that dating or Monday Night Football to get rid of all that tackling. "The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do." Jack Bauer might as well be Spider-Man and the villians might as well twirl their handlebar moustaches for all the realism on this show. It's chilling to think that anyone in the military might us it as some sort of instruction manual.
Spoilers: And for those who caught last night's episode, the torture continued. Having been lead to believe that he killed his brother through excessive torture - that's right, Jack went outside the amount of torture-drug allowed by their Protocol of Legal and Ethical Torture - Jack fears he can't do the job anymore. Meanwhile, Morris is tortured until he agrees to make a nuclear trigger. Both men are wrecks because they failed at what - on 24 - makes you a good soldier: withstanding or inflicting torture. My essay on 24 from two years ago has stood the test of time. "On 24, the good guys embrace torture without losing their morality. In fact, sometimes it is their willingness to embrace torture that makes 24's good guys good. How much do you want to bet that Attorney General Gonzales Tivos this show?"
Jack's Slack After the first two hours of 24 I have to say I wasn't particularly impressed. Possibly the hype killed it a little for me, maybe for the writers and producers as well. It's almost like they felt the need to net new viewers. It looked like they were filming first takes of uncomfortable exposition. Everyone in the Oval Office looked like they were learning lines as they spoke them. Maybe with one of them ear pieces Bush uses.
The bad guy switch from Assad to Fayed was okay, but not particularly surprising. The scenes with the toussle-haired all-American boy and his Arab neighbor were unintentionally hilarious. Ahmed's revelation as a bad guy was no surprise. Somebody had to be bad in the family, otherwise they wouldn't be on screen. So when he points the gun at the Norman Rockwell kid and says, "You're not my friend. You can't even pronounce my name," I waited for him to add, "Plus, just look at us. I'm like ten years older than you! Stop hanging around me! It's getting creepy." (The actor who plays high schooler Ahmed is 29.)
24 has always been funny. I'm not sure why anyone would take it too seriously. It's like watching a Bond movie and seriously thinking we should have one cool guy with a lot of gadgets solve our problems. And as I've mentioned in the past, 24 likes to use torture to define its characters. Jack Bauer is off his game because he couldn't torture as well as Assad. Jack Bauer not get information from someone using torture! Now I know how Packers fans feel watching Favre unable to complete a pass.
The first two hours did give us one great surprising and funny 24 moment. Jack, realizing he's about to die for no reason, escapes his chains by pulling his captor over and biting through his jugular. That led to the best line of the night, delivered not on screen but by Mrs BoneDaddy. "Hey, it's just like Lost Boys." (Update: Okay, hours three and four seem more in the groove. I don't think it was all that shocking, at least not to veteran 24 watchers. We've seen all this before - presidential pardons flying like frisbees, bad guys choosing suicide over capture, we've even had a nuke go off before. And do I have to remind everyone how often Jack attacks his co-workers? George Mason, Ryan Chappelle, Tony, Chase, Nina (both pre- and post- evil)? If you work with the guy, sooner or later he will at minimum taser you. It's the way they put these things together that matter and I like the way it went together in hours three and four.
New Tenant in the Tardis? There are an awful lot of articles saying rumors that Tennant is leaving Doctor Who after Season 3/29 aren't true but until today I hadn't seen any mention of new casting. Rumors are what they are so I take it cum grano salis that Jason Statham (imdb) is next up as the Doctor.
Probably not worth commenting on a rumor so unlikely, Statham's film career may not have been boosted by Crank but I find it hard to believe he's looking for series tv work, yet I can't help but wonder what he'd do with the role. He was brilliant in Lock, Stock , Snatch, and proved he is a legit action star in The Transporter. But, while the Doctor is supposed to be a master of Venusian karate, action is hardly the show's calling card. I'd imagine he'd have to play the role more Turkish than Frank Martin, which wouldn't be a bad thing.
Still, I hope Tennant sticks around a few more seasons. The Doctor doesn't have enough regenerations for the role to be revolving door.
Big Game Coming The annual UConn Tennessee game starts today at 4. I've been impressed with UConn so far this year. A lot of solid role-players, a lot of chemistry for a young team and players, like Green, Hunter and Thomas, doing much better than expected. I've got them in the Final Four already. It might be a little early for them to face Pat Summit and crew, especially hobbled by some injuries. Of course, if it were easy it wouldn't be as much fun to watch.
The Pluckiest Companion Sarah Jane Smith to get her own Who spin-off. Too much of a good thing, what with Torchwood and the K-9 shows also coming soon? Nah. I guess it's to Sladen's benefit the Rose spin-off didn't come together.
Recently Watching: Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor and FitTv's Deadly Arts. The meerkats are fascinating to watch, like dogcatmonkeyroos, they scamper around and whatnot. I'd love to see a show like this (or The Monkey Prince) about the chimps in Gombe. Animal reality tv so much more interesting than human reality tv.
Deadly Arts follows Josette, a 40 something French (or French Canadian?) with a bad knee around the world as she studies a variety of martial arts with masters in their discipline. From karate to capoeira to kalaripayattu, no method of punching or kicking another person is left unexplored. Good stuff. But, for crying out loud, if she's just going to complain every week about how much her knee hurts, can't we get someone able to actually train to do the show? Where the meerkats are at home on Animal Planet, I think someone at ESPN's original entertainment wing should be taking note and trying to get a Donnie Yen or Mark Dacascos signed on to redo this one.
Caliendo on Letterman A couple impressions -- I could do without the Lazy Comedian's Template #3 "Anything Jack Nicholson Says is Funny" bit (in this case it's "Al Pacino Says Something Childish") -- but the Madden and W takes are chuckleworthy. [via Digg]
Memo to TV Writers ... "Electrocution" doesn't mean what you think it does. If someone is electrocuted they're dead. Characters who receive an electric shock shouldn't say, "I got electrocuted," unless you are trying to make the point they don't know what "electrocuted" means. It's especially irritating when you have doctors say "the electrocution put a strain on his heart, but he'll be OK in a few days."
Where'd You Go? How is it I'm just now finding out that Dicky Barrett is the announcer for the Jimmie Kimmel Show? Next somebody's going to tell me King Django is a guest host on The View or something.
I'd skipped over the blurb about Matt Damon being eyed for the young James T. Kirk role in Abrams's upcoming Star Trek movie -- based on his Bourne movie roles and ability to chew scenery, I think he could handle the action convincingly and Shatner it up a bit -- but I have wondered who might be in line for the Spock and McCoy roles.
For Spock, the first few faces that popped to mind, in no particular order, were Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Dacascos, John Cho (Harold in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle), and Josh Hartnett.
For young McCoy I think Vince Vaughn would've been great ... 10 years ago (and McCoy probably shouldn't tower over Kirk) ... and for some reason Neil Patrick Harris comes to mind. That could just be on account of his recent run of mentions on this blog. If Kevin Spacey were younger, he'd be great too. Who's the next Kevin Spacey? That's who I'd see as Bones.
Speaking of 24, check out this "Damn it!" montage, from the people who have more time on their hands than I do, but not as much as the bauercount people.
Too bad the finale was probably the worst show of the year. The president went from having duplicitious sex with the first lady to kidnapped and questioned under the threat of death to giving a speech to arrested in about 45 minutes! And that's inefficient compared to those Chinese! They learn Jack's alive and kidnap him right out from under a few hundred agents and have him tortured on a slow boat to China in time for the closing credits. Good thing you can taser the Secret Service, kidnap the President and threaten him with a gun and they'll let you go in about five minutes. I know, complaining about this is like complaining about sand at the beach, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Last night, it didn't.
I've always thought Terry O'Quinn as Locke does the best and most charismatic acting job on Lost, but now that I've seen Evangeline Lilly's singles/phone sex commercial, I'm divided. I mean, she can play Kate and a sexy single who is "going to do something for me." Do you think Locke could sell the fun and impulsiveness of phone sex?
"Troubadors are personae non gratae around here." As Bonedaddy alerted us a month or so back, Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, and Chloe from 24 were singing it up on the streets in tonight's Gilmore Girls. Thurston Moore looks goofier than ever.
Billie Piper apparently would like the role and may have a good shot at it. I think she'd do well. And there is a precedent for a Time Lord regenerating in the form of someone else -- back when Romana regenerated during the 4th Doctor era.
No hurry to boot Tennant though, I hope. He's settling in as well as Eccleston did ... and those weren't easy footsteps to follow in.
It's been a bear getting a complete episode off usenet and YouTube has been a spotty resource as well. Keeping an eye out now to Sci-Fi will pick up the second season. They're doing a woeful job promoting the show and the ratings don't look that hot, despite the fact it's the best thing they've got going.
From Doctor #9 to Prisoner #6 Christopher Eccleston will play the McGoohan role in the new Prisoner series. He was brilliant as the Doctor. HD, if you weren't already looking forward to this, I think the Eccleston casting means it's safe to start now.
As far as the Doctor goes, Tennant has not dropped the ball. I've seen the first two episodes and a large chunk of "School Reunion" (which featured the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 [about to get his own animated series, btw] as well as Anthony Stewart Head in a decidedly un-Gilesish role) and I think the series is actually getting better!
1) The President. Give him an Emmy. Whiny, petulant, pushy, spineless boy-president gets more laughs than Chloe. 2) Layers of torture. I'm truly impressed that the writers have managed to finagle more torture storylines. Jack is willing to torture, to be tortured and to inflect torture and death on third parties to torture suspects who are, themselves, immune to torture. Where do we go from here? According to the teaser for next week, "Will Jack torture his own girlfriend?" I say yes. 3) The President's mod, early Bond meets Frank Lloyd Wright L.A. headquarters.
However, with the death of Tony (following the deaths of Palmer, Michelle, Edgar and Lynn) I'm concerned that the show may be killing characters faster than they can introduce them. Season 6 may address the question "What does Jack do when he's alone in a room?" I don't know, but I bet it involves pliers.
Doctor Who Premieres Tonight On Sci-Fi 9pm Eastern. Huskies will be comfortably ahead by then and CBS will no doubt be going to other games ... no excuse not to watch. No excuses!
Is Fox's 24 an advertisement for torture? This time, the question comes from Popmatters. I'd say it's more endorsement than advertisement, since you can't run out and buy torture. (Jack just uses things like a lamp, desk drawer or common knife.) It's a decent piece, but he does get some things way wrong.
The show never provides the kind of expected action-film climax where the chisel-faced hero, having looked into the void of evil and partaken of its dark tools, finally offs the villain to applause from the balcony.
Actually, that's exactly what happened this season when Jack executes David Palmer's assassin.
For every liberal-baiting scene ... there's several in which CTU and the forces of law and order get it wrong. At least three times last season, either the wrong person was tortured or was tortured and didn't provide any information. And in the early episodes of the new season, a persnickety CTU official (played by Sean Astin) who looked at first like the kind of spineless desk jockey so often lampooned in testosterone fiction turns out to be better at his job than just about any of the show regulars due to his by-the-book bureaucratic ways.
Except, as I point out in my 24/torture piece, when CTU wrongly tortures - and if you have to ask "Isn't all torture wrong?" you haven't been watching the show - it's either just to show how bad the bad guys are or how good us good guys are. They're so evil they will trick us into torturing each other or so evil they can withstand torture, and so it doesn't matter if it's wrong. Or torture seperates the strong good guys from the weak good guys. The weak good guys get all pissy about being tortured.
Finally, fans of the show know what an asset Sean Astin's Lynn turned out to be, what with getting two-thirds of CTU killed and all. If you're on 24 and you're a woman or have a woman's name, you're probably a pain in the ass. Minimum.
Bunch O' TV I watched a lot of TV this weekend, starting with some crazy NFL games. Normally reliable Adam Vinatieri, Tom Brady and Troy Brown messed up big time. Then Mike Vanderjagt - called the "most accurate kicker in the NFL" because Vinatieri has the title of "most clutch" - missed a game-tying field goal for Indy. (During the Indy game, I was leaving somebody's house with a group of people after Manning was sacked with 1:20 left. I happened to spot the Steeler fumble as I was putting my jacket on. "The Colts are gonna score!" Jackets off. Sit back down. Crazy game.)
Last night, the always reliable 24 came back strong with its big-time silly world, where torture always works, terrorists are incredibly powerful and nobody would blink at eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant. Keep in mind, last season, the terrorists kidnapped the Secratary of Defense in order to execute him on the Internet, so that the resulting flood of Internet traffic would cover their hack of the nuclear power grid, which would then cause the President to stay airbourne in Air Force One, where he could be shot down by a turncoat stealth fighter pilot, but shot in such a way that the nuclear football falls to Earth where it's recovered by a waiting squad of terrorists who then launch a nuke at ... Cleveland, I think, which may have been their final goal. So the silliness bar has been raised pretty high.
I'll be taping tonight's 24 because of the UConn game against #3 LSU. LSU has the supposed best player in women's hoops with Seimone Augustus. It's on ESPN2 for those interested. UConn is due a big win, and I'm calling it here. Jon Stewart is also hosting the Golden Globes tonight! What's come over TV? To (roughly) quote Homer, "It's one quality program after another. If only they'd slip up once and let me be!" (Update/Correction: Sterwart isn't hosting the Golden Globes. Oops. Glad to have been right about UConn. This was their last chance to knock off somebody big before the conference games start. If they can stop the Augustus/Fowles tandem, who can't they stop?)
Doctor Who News Alert: Sci-Fi Steps Up! Starting in March, Fridays at 9pm, we'll finally have the new Doctor Who here in the States! According to the report, Sci-Fi also the option for second season. I've been watching the Christmas Invasion on the little iPod screen, so I'm looking forward to full-size telly glory. Follow up: The official BBC page welcoming American viewers.
Saturday at 2 the UConn-Tennessee women's basketball rivalry starts up again. Tennessee, as the #1 and playing at home, is certainly a tough assignment for the Huskies and I don't predict a win. That said, I'm going on record: I think this UConn team will end this season with a Big East championship (regular season or tourney, maybe both) and a Final Four. Ann Strother, Barbara Turner and Mel Thomas are turning in consistent games, Strother especially. That alone makes them a contender, but there are at least four wild cards on this team. Wolff, Crockett, Montgomery and (especially) Houston. If at least two of them bring their A game, UConn can beat anybody. The chemistry looks better this year, they're no longer defending champs and nobody has picked them to win it all. Of course, Saturday may be a little soon to see all this.
The Prime of Darren McGavin ABC's Night Stalker has apparently been axed. I tried watching it, but there was really wasn't much to recommend it. Off work today and, as it would happen, Sci-Fi is running a Kolchak: The Night Stalker marathon. It's very 70s, that's for sure. The first episode I caught featured the least convincing werewolf I've seen this side of Rolf the Dog after a rough night banging out tunes at a roadhouse. Still, they're mildly entertaining, enough so that I've sat through the wererolf, a zombie, a smarmy satanic Senator, an Indian Spirit jewel thief played by none other than Richard "Jaws" Kiel, a vampire cornier than Count Chocula, and now super strong Jack the Ripper. Not sure if my continued viewing is more a comment on how watchable the show is or a condemnation of the rest of daytime TV.
ESPN finally started broadcasting the main event from the World Series of Poker and, while I'm not going to start a hand-by-hand commentary, I think they did start things off with an interesting clash. In an early hand, Jennifer Harman's full house lost to a straight flush. The winner had a straight from the flop so he wasn't backing down. He turned it into a staight flush on fifth street. Jennifer was clearly steamed - in one of those moments reality TV loves (and poker is as close to reality TV as it is to sport) - because the guy joked that he might lose before calling her final bet. An experienced player, like Harman, would have realized the hand was unbeatable immediately. She thought he was setting her up with a "brutal" tease. Watching on TV, I suspect the guy didn't mean to taunt. I think he actually didn't realize he had the nuts. When she returned to the table he had a choice. He could feign jerkiness or admit poker stupidity.
K-9 Attack! Attack! Even knowing Sladen would be back, it totally slipped my mind that casting obviously opened the door for the return of K-9. Nice to see as well that John Leeson will again provide the voice acting.
Wonder if they'll fix him up like they did the Daleks so he can navigate stairs?
I Watch Too Much TV I know this because I just found myself wishing Levis'd used the Madness tune from the stone tossing commercial on the broken-in jeans commercial instead, so they'd have one good commercial to play twice as often.
I just got hooked on Veronica Mars. Missed Olerud's Grand Slam because I got sucked into the back-to-back episodes on CBS last night.
Who Finale I caught the finale last night. I wasn't sure what to make of the 'Heart of the Tardis' when we first caught a glimpse of it and I'm less sure now. Holy Deus Ex Machina, Batman! This episode is in some ways the most disappointing of the new series, while in others it continues to exceed my wildest expectations for how good it could be. Spoilers follow.
I'm sure the the Doctor's first on screen kiss will get folks all fired up but it's his second kiss, of Rose, that confused me the most. Captain Jack had been flirting with Doctor (and Rose, and just about everyone else) and the Doctor had been pretty at ease with it, so given that Jack was basically saying his goodbyes figuring he was about to be exterminated by the Daleks (and had already kissed Rose), the kiss shouldn't have been a surprise. What was more of a surprise was that the Doctor kissed Rose during the whole transference of the orange glowey gas vortex thing.
The best of it was the Doctor's decision when faced with having to answer the Emperor Dalek's challenge. Activating the Delta Wave will kill all the Daleks, but it will also kill everyone on the station (himself and Jack included) and the entire population of Earth circa the year 200,000. There are colonies of humans elsewhere, so his choice boils down to: (1) either destroy all the Daleks and most of humanity, or (2) let the Daleks harvest every human on Earth to increase the size of their army. The Emperor Dalek asks him, "Are you a killer or a coward?"
I'm glad they let us see the Doctor's choice ("Coward.") before doing the all-too-easy wrap-up. Here's the resolution in a nutshell: Rose looks inside the Tardis console, gets the power to know and manipulate all of time and space (grrrrr), turns the Daleks to dust, restores Jack's life, scatters the Bad Wolf clues (hokey), and then is saved by the Doctor's kiss before the Vortex o
