geekent’s stuff’n things

So if you bothered to heed my warning last week, you would have tuned into the W Network last Thursday only to see that, indeed, it was some real estate program and not the Graig-featured episode of Oh So Cosmo. I guess the W Network has cut the show loose as an anchor program for their fledgling CosmoTV network. Ah well…I still managed to catch most of the Daily Show, so all was not lost. Hell, the Canadian election got a mention, so it was almost like I was on TV again, what with living in Canada and all.

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The big Sarah Palin appearance on Saturday Night Live dominated the news for about 40 minutes on Sunday until Colin Powell dropped the O-Bomb(a) on an unsuspecting America. I agree it is huge news, sort of… I wonder whether the “Powell factor” will counterbalance the “SNL factor”… I’m sure there was some pundit somewhere on some channel dissecting exactly how much of a bump or hit the two (just two!?) candidates would gain/lose after the respective televisual events of the weekend.

Anyway, Palin on SNL was brilliant. I mean, she wasn’t brilliant, per se, but SNL’s use of her was actually pretty sharp. I found it interesting Palin’s almost total lack of anything to say (par for the course) - on script or off - and, quite frankly, the SNL crew managed to get just as many digs in on her the entire time she was there as they did with any of their previous Palin skits, if not more since they had both the pre-credits opener and the genius weekend update “Palin-rap” (I have a mini-crush on Amy Pohler after that one… girl’s got mad skillz [I didn't just write that did I?]… don’t tell Will Arnett). The thing about both those skits were the writers and performers managed to satirize Palin to her face and she smiled - like the beauty pageant prizewinner she is - and took it. Credit to her, but I really don’t think that’s what Palin and her handlers were going for when she went on there. If anything, I think the strength of SNL’s Palin parody has only increased as a result, as if to confirm that the public perception of Palin is actually Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin and not the real woman (I imagine there’s more views of the SNL skits on-line than of Palin herself on YouTube). Alec Baldwin, notorious leftie that he is, made it painfully clear that he was reading off the cards when he was “obliviously” tearing her down while she was standing right beside him, but he no doubt took a delicious glee in saying what was on script. I have to wonder, actually, if Baldwin could actually look at her, or if he was pretending to read off the cards so he wouldn’t have to.

As much as I enjoyed their to-her-face lampooning (still doesn’t usurp Stephen Colbert’s balls of brass speech to George W. Bush at the correspondents dinner a couple years ago, but comes a good second), it was really Mark Wahlberg’s appearance that was all the icing on a delicious SNL cake this weekend. After Andy Samberg’s bizarre send-up of Wahlberg two weeks ago, the press was making a big deal about it while Wahlberg was promoting his (apparently sub-terrible) new film, Max Payne, to the point that there was some serious belief that Wahlber was really gunning for Samberg. This culminated in Wahlberg’s appearance this past weekend where he confronts Samberg on camera, only to bust into a hilarious impersonation of Samberg’s impersonation of him. Great stuff. If anything, with all this happening on SNL this weekend, host Josh Brolin kind of got left behind, and the couple of skits he was involved in that dug into issues of the economy were of the “too soon/still painful” nature to be uproarious. Also, Kristen Wiig is tremendously good at being tremendously annoying. I respect her talent, but jesus…

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Elsewhere on TV, Life on Mars is dead as J’onn J’onzz (comic book reference). The Americanization of the engaging British drama about a police officer sent back in time to 1973 after a tragic accident (is he in a coma just imagining this or is he crazy… or dead… or something else?) had a troubled path in crossing the Atlantic. Originally David E. Kelley was set to produce, then abandoned ship, as well, after screening the pilot the network made some major changes such as moving the show to New York from LA and switching Colm Meaney to Harvey Keitel. Though the scripts of the first two episodes wind up paralleling the source pretty well, they lost it all in nearly every other respect.

The biggest problem lies in the show’s lack of subtlety. Even if I didn’t watch the British production i would find the overtness of ABC’s Life on Mars not just annoying but insulting. Yes, we get it, it’s the seventies! You don’t need to pan in on seventies fashions or furniture or magazines or moustaches so often to hammer the point home. If anything the perpetual visuals-flashing of such 70’s things serves to only make it less convincing, trying way too hard to make us believe this is a reality. Meanwhile, the show’s lead, played by Irish-born Jason O’Mara, is a terrible choice to play someone struggling with maintaining a grip on their reality. Just like the show’s production values, there’s no nuance to his performance. Perpetually operating with a half-grin, O’Mara betrays his inner conflict at every turn. For a man hearing voices in his head, believing he’s from 35 years in the future, and dealing with a heavy dose of father-issues, he seems remarkably comfortable with his new surroundings, and when he’s not it’s as grandiose a display of ham-fisted act as I’ve seen unintentionally displayed outside of crappy teen dramas like Smallville and the Hills (not that I watch either of them).

I was hoping Harvey Keitel would be the show’s saving grace, alas, he too doesn’t seem to get Gene Hunt, or maybe he does, but doesn’t care to convey that in how he acts. His quips are poorly written and poorly delivered, in fact, most of the Americanized turns in the show are so tacked on, so flagrant that they kill any naturalness or flow within the show. The chemistry between Keitel and O’Mara is negligible, as is the supposed romantic chemistry between O’Mara and Gretchen Mol, all of it just brutally failing at every turn, painfully so. They even dropped the awesome 6-Million-Dollar-Man/Incredible Hulk-esque theme song, one of the best theme songs in the past decade. How do you do that?

The transformation from British to American television should have been a no brainer, but the current roster of Producers have managed to botch it in doing so in every sense. Fact of the matter is, after the first episode, if the show really wanted to establish itself, it should have taken off on its own path, dropping the British scripts and starting from scratch, like The Office did before it. As a result of not doing so, it’s a pale, unpalatable impersonation of the original series which was equal parts engrossing, entertaining and exciting.

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A follow-up on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, since I managed to catch the third episode, after missing the second. I have to say, I want to like this, but I don’t, but I’ll continue to try for a while before I just forget about it altogether. The animation roams between stellar with the ships and action, to butt-ugly… namely the characters, mostly the human characters. The awful CGI animation for Anakin and Obi-Wan’s lifeless faces, amongst others, sends uncanny-valley spasms up my spine. To top it off the chit-chat of the battle droids (prominently displayed in the Phantom Menace) are honest-to-god annoying, but still not quite as annoying as Anakin’s useless Padawan Ahsoka Tano (Aden’s comment was “I hope Anakin kills you first when he goes nuts”). Her sole purpose in the show, however, is not to be annoying, but to draw in young girls, a difficult market for sci-fi, so I don’t begrudge the producers making the attempt, but I can still barely tolerate her. This third episode also produced far too many sequences in aerial dogfighting that seemed pulled from both Death Star runs (in “A New Hope” and “Return of the Jedi”). If you’re going to try to deliver something new, don’t keep reminding us of the old stuff. It just doesn’t compare.


-fin-

If you’ve been asking yourselves lately, “whatever happened to that comic-book obsessed guy off that debt-management show a few months back and why haven’t I seen more of him on the TV”, well, now’s your chance.


Thu Oct 16 - 11:00 PM
Episode #030
Today on Oh So Cosmo…Fixated on your ex? Don’t want to let go? Josie takes a look what’s appropriate and what’s not. Then, Jacqui explores what his favorite superhero says about him and Wilder talks baseball cards and comic books in Boys and their Toys. Featuring comic book artist Alex Ross.


No, my name isn’t Alex Ross, but apparently the interview I did with Oh So Cosmo during Fan Expo back in August will be airing (again…).

Also, if you’re like me (then you are handsome), you’ll be interested - nay, gasping with excitement - to know that the Comedy Network is airing the Flight of the Conchords’ One Night Stand special this Saturday at 10pm with a second airing on Tuesday, October 21 at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT. Season 1 of the Flight Of The Conchords, for those of you who don’t already have an love to bits the DVDs, airs on Comedy Network starting Tuesday October 28 at 10:30 (following the Sarah Silverman Program).

The latest pillaging of fond childhood memories debuted this past Sunday at 7:00 on CTV in Canada. I managed to avoid the big screen debut of the new Clone Wars animated series, primarily because I’d taken a half-oath to not spend any more money on Star Wars again, but also because I couldn’t bring myself to watch it.

As my wife will tell you (with a shake of her head), I’m a Prequel apologist (although the the latter half of Attack of the Clones is a crime against cinema) which puts me well above pedophiles and Nazi sympathizers, but below fans of boy bands and watchers of sitcoms starring Jim Belushi on the list of reasons to dislike people. So it’s not that I’m completely disillusioned by George Lucas’ monstrous cash cow, but I’m also just worn out. My fandom was stretched to its limit in 1999 and ultimately broke in 2002, and has never recovered.

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The new fall season kicked off this week and…I say thee yawn… think I’m sticking with TV on DVD for now.

I read The Onion AV Club’s Fall Preview (part 1 and part 2) and there seems to be a serious dearth of worthwhile product… at least, worthwhile for me.



Any longtime reader (all 2 of you, hi Mom) will know that I’ve been a strong proponent against scheduled TV for going on 9 years now. I could live happily without cable TV or satellite and probably be much more productive for it. So were fall seasons used to be exciting for me, now I just want to fast forward six months and see what’s still hanging around and what the general reaction to it is like. Some things build up steam as they progress, others peter out and die quickly, and the rest drag out their mediocrity for what seems like ages. Anything worth watching will be available on DVD next summer, that’s my philosophy.

Of marginal interest to me this year is the new JJ Abrams show, Fringe, which debuted on Fox last night with a 90 minute (or likely 1hr commercial-free) pilot. I read and attempted to review the first issue of the Fringe comic book tie-in but that was a futile effort (it made little sense before watching the show and barely improves afterward).

The show itself is, well, another X-Files, with scientists and FBI working together to explore “Fringe sciences” like invisibility, teleportation, that sort of stuff. There’s conspiracies in the works and there’s the potential for “monster-of-the-week” and season story arcs together. It’s trying hard to capture the flavour of Heroes as well, in that it’s a little cornball and the characters don’t really take one another seriously.

I missed the first 20 minutes of the premier (here’s a major fuck-up… every comic book for the past month has been advertising a full-page spread for Fringe, “starting Tuesday Sept. 9 at 9 EST”, when in fact it started at 8pm and its regular timeslot is Tuesdays at 9. Ooops.) so I missed what happened (something about a plane and some sort of toxin that turns people to jelly maybe?). When one of the people affected is an FBI agent, the partner/lover of one of the show’s main characters, all the stops are pulled out to try and find an answer. This includes going to Iraq to find one Mr. Joshua Jackson and bring him home so he can bail his fringe scientist genius dad out of the mental hospital and they can all go work together in his 1970’s lab in the basement of Harvard. Yadda yadda yadda, they save the FBI guy, blah blah blah, he’s a bad guy, yadda, tragedy, blah, drama, yadda blah, set-up for series.



There was one moment I liked, which was the reveal of the advanced prosthetic arm on the personal assistant to the dad’s ex-partner, who now is a billionare head of an R&D corporation taking advantage of all their science and wreaking havoc on the world. The dialogue in the scene itself was crap, overwrought and embarrassingly comic-booky, but it was like something out of Transhuman, a comic book I quite enjoy.

The show has limited potential for entertainment, however it feels way too familiar, and the leads are completely uninteresting (the show spent more time on story than character and the character moments were cheeseball). I’m not inclined to catch it weekly, but I may give it a view from time-to-time.

Previously on Fox, The Sarah Connor Chronicles returned, which was exciting for the wife and I. Although I’m not a huge terminator fan, I did like the show’s take on the characters and its use of action. This season kicked off with some “yeah right” moments , but were dominated more by the “right on!” moments (like girl terminator’s punch to the side of the SUV). I was stunned to see Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson on the show… seriously, a total, wtf moment, and she’s not a great actress but she’s doing all right. And the emergence of a T-1000 (spoiler) was a nice surprise. It’s all playing havoc with continuity, but they’ve finally started toughening John Connor up, changing him from whiny mamma’s boy to sullen, moody rebel. I enjoy Lena Hedley’s Sarah Connor for all her mothering tendencies, as frustrating as they are, they ring true. The show does a good job of twisting the human and the machine, really getting at how fearsome they are but how one-note they can be. Still enjoying it and glad it’s back.

Of other returning or new shows, I’m not really excited for much. Worst Week (based off a British show “the Worst Week of My Life”) sounds interesting but I don’t remember the last time I followed a half hour comedy weekly. Life On Mars could be entertaining but I still have the original British series on DVD to watch. 11th Hour is also based off a British show (which starred Patrick Stewart, and here stars Dark City’s Rufus Sewell), and features more paranormal… sorry, scientific anomaly investigations, but I think I’d prefer to watch the original. I think I’m kind of a Brit TV snob.

I see that Pushing Daisies is back, and if ever there was a show that needed to have a limited run (like British TV series do), that one’s it. A great concept which can grow tired and tedious very quickly. I loved the pilot and caught only two subsequent episodes which remained stylish and cute but not nearly as compelling.

So, in the end, it really comes down to this: I’m waiting for Lost to start up and anything else can wait for DVD, if it survives. Thanks for reading the internets.

Semi-finals round 2 of Last Comic Standing aired last night, and the “reality show” is a freight train of bullshit. Unlike last week where I was incredibly annoyed by who they didn’t pick, this week I’m incredibly annoyed by who they did.

Esther Ku is a cutesy, young, 20-something Korean American girl who plays up her cheekiness to the Nth degree and seems to have someone convinced that she has some sort of talent (maybe for giving BJs to the producers?) Her act is overly-dependent on making painful “observations” about her Korean heritage, which essentially serve as mockery and perpetuation of stereotypes. Talking about her police officer brother she questioned what was so intimidating about someone saying “Ricense and legislation preese”? “Celebrity Guest Panel” Richard Belzer and guy from Sopranos both praised her, even though it was obvious they weren’t amused. I’m guessing some sort of producer edict said “we’re putting her through, so don’t say anything mean”. Earlier in the show, Belzer chided a comic (Heath Hyche) whose act had him playing a 1940’s Japanese pilot and speaking in Engrish, but said of Esther Ku’s same Engrish that it was okay for people to poke fun at their own ethnicity. Sure it is, if there’s something more than just perpetuating the same racist cliches for the sake of an easy laugh. There was nothing Esther Ku did that was funny or edgy in discussing her ethnicity, it was, instead, mockery and insulting. (The Japanese pilot bit would have been fine if the “joke” wasn’t so plain… “he fry rike Tom Cruise?” bleh).

It’s a problem I have with a lot of LCS contestants and comedians in general, people who use their ethnicity as a crutch. We’re not talking Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock or Margaret Cho here, people who are able to discuss their race intelligently and insightfully without resorting to denigrating their people. Those are people who can use cliches against the audience to provoke humour, as opposed to Esther Ku who says, in essence, “I’m not white, isn’t that funny?”

Oh and Esther Ku also makes fun of fat people (with lame jokes like, “Guys always wanna buy me dinner. Do I look hungry? I have a friend who’s heavy, and nobody wants to buy her dinner. She looks like she’s already full.”) How does that work Belzer, can you make fun of fat people if you’re not fat?

Then there’s Papa CJ, a comic from India who doesn’t denigrate his country or his people, but he spurts out joke after joke that reference the most basic elements of Indian culture, or at least what Americans know of it (large population, belief in reincarnation, call centers). Indian-Canadian comics like Russell Peters and Shaun Majumder have something to say about themselves, about their upbringing, about their heritage… Papa CJ is trying to tell jokes that have nothing to do with himself, they’re just jokes, and poor ones at that. Now, Papa CJ doesn’t come from a culture where there are a lot (any) of stand-up comedians, so respect to him for giving it a go, but he’s hardly pioneering anything. Watch some Richard Pryor or George Carlin (RIP both) and take notes.

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With Lost on it’s 8-month hiatus (and the NHL two months away from another season), I have no regularly scheduled TV to watch, except that I’m kind of watching Last Comic Standing. I’ve watched this show irregularly since its inception about six years ago, because, well, I love stand-up comedy (correction, I love good stand-up comedy). However, LCS isn’t so much stand-up comedy as it is a reality TV show, since it’s more interested, at least in the onset with showing drama and American Idol-style scenarios of hopefulness and heartbreak rather than the goods of the plentiful comedians who bother to show up to these things. And no doubt about it, most stand up comics who don’t already have an HBO or MTV show or some recurring role on a Fox or CBS sitcom will be standing in line to audition, because stand up comedians earn shit for a living. Only the most successful of stand-ups (RIP George Carlin) will actually see the fame that they seek, and most not by way of their stand-up… there will be more than a few who succumb to their dark place first (Richard Jeni, Mitch Hedburg, Sam Kinison, Bill Hicks). So it’s no surprise that stand-ups will reduce themselves, like regular attention-seeking gutterfolk (like me), to the sordid world of “reality” TV.

I don’t blame a single comedian for jumping at the chance to achieve (compared to their current status) the massive exposure that LCS provides. Moreover, the truly good comics deserve a shot at more prominent notoriety, and not for being the sidekick on a “chubby guy-hot wife” sitcom. Although the reward from winning Last Comic Standing has diminished since the first season (where the winner got a first-look, pricey television deal as well a stand-up comedy special) so too has the hoops the show makes the cast degradingly jump through (the first season wound up big-brother style with the comics having to perform stupid tasks and embarrass themselves on TV stirring up drama with one another). This season and last, it’s more focussed on material and performing, although I’m not sure if they’ve eliminated the inane tasks altogether.


They’ve begun casting the show internationally, last year actually going to different cities in the world, this year cheaply hosting an international try-out in Miami, but also heading to Canada to check out the talent there. Last year they turned up in Montreal, where I noticed a lot of the Toronto scene had descended. Familiar with a lot of the comedians I knew who would work and who wouldn’t work for the American show almost immediately, and was generally pleased with their picks last year (Deborah DiGiovanni was absolutely my top pick and cudos to her for making it deep into the final rounds). They did however, through editing, make more than a few really talented comics look foolish (crickets anyone), which is the tragic part of the show.

I missed this years showcase in Toronto, but I see that Sean Cullen - a personal favourite since his classic Corky and the Juice Pigs days back in the early ’90’s - has made it through to the semis. Sean is a storm of funny, and probably the biggest talent that show has ever had on it. Sean has appeared on Mad TV, the Americanized version of Fawlty Towers (with John Larroquette), has had his own CBC radio show for many years now, has had his own six-episode CBC TV series, and more than a few gut-bursting Comedy specials on CTV/Comedy Network (not to mention a starring role in the Toronto casting of The Producers, and other stage work locally). He is a force to be reckoned with, he can improvise like no one else and his sense of surreal and bizarre are often unparalleled. Will he win Last Comic Standing. I don’t see how he can’t. But then again, he’s not a fat black man or a redneck, so I don’t know if the common American audience will connect with him. Doesn’t matter though, if he keeps his cerebral A-game up, he’s going to land himself some crazy production deal on Showtime or something.


The thing that annoys me about the selection process on LCS is the obvious intervention of the producers. I think that all the semi-finalists should be decided by the crowd in the clubs where they perform. Unfortunately, the producers select the finalists (not the two celebrity judges that are trophied in the room) and they do so based on “demographic appeal” or “quirkiness” rather than talent. The inexperienced cute Asian girl from New York… well, she got picked because she’s a cute Asian girl. That tattooed comic book geek version of Rich Little… he got picked because he does really good impressions, even though he’s absolutely not funny. That weird British guy they chose in Miami… totally not funny, just very weird, and British, and not in a good way. About 1/2 the picks for finalists the producers were obviously looking for “interesting” and not “talented”. As an aware viewer it’s maddening.


I’m looking forward to actually seeing some full sets from the finalists, even though the bulk of them are mass-audience pap-comedy producers whose angles and punchlines you can see a mile off…. but I do like the surprises. Plus I want to see Sean KILL. Fingers crossed for that (he certainly has most of them at a disadvantage)… oh and cudos also for choosing God’s Pottery. I don’t think enough people will get the joke, but they’re great. Also… very disappointed to see Bill Bellamy back. With all the talented comedians in need of work out there (even former contestants), why him?

Anyway… in Canada, more specifically Toronto, if you need some quick cash you audition for Video On Trial, a show on much music which scams the VH1 Best Week Ever formula of having comedians riff on news stories, and has comedians poke fun at music videos. It sounds cheap and easy, and it is, but it’s sometimes deliriously entertaining. This past weekend they took on teen sensations, including a classic Menudo video, and I cried. I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time. Of course I was a bit tipsy and over-tired but nevertheless, hysterical stuff. Always worth watching when there’s nothing worth watching.

Sorry for the lack of posting… was out camping last weekend for four days (PHOTOS on Flickr, videos coming soon) and just haven’t had much time to catch up here.

Fridays are supposed to be Comics day, but let’s face it, I haven’t at all adhered to the whole Monday - TV, Tuesday - Music, Thursday - Movies, Friday - Comics thing at all since I announced it (not for lack of trying however). Hopefully for the coming 7 months I’ll get it all straightened out.

And now, I gush about Lost’s 2-hour Season Finale that aired yesterday

(*AHEM*)

I. Loved. It.

I loved having two hours of Lost to sit down to. I loved how it brought the bulk of the flash forwards together. I loved that we finally got to know who was in the box. I loved that I rooted for Ben one moment and hated him again the next and sometimes did both at the same time. I loved Sayid’s brawl with Keamy. I loved the ship exploding (bye Jin). I loved the island disappearing. I loved Sawyer washing up on shore with his Bond-ian sexyman walk towards to Juliette who barely responds to him (yet still does). I loved Charlotte’s revelation (was she Ben’s little friend?). I love that I figured out that the reason why there’s the time lag between the boat and the island is because the island had been moved before therefore it’s out of step with real time. I love that Locke gets to be in charge of the island (and like Locke replaces Ben, is Charlotte supposed to replace him when he f*cks it all up?). I love the explanation for why Ben was wearing a winter coat when he teleported to the desert. I loved Hurley’s chess game with Mr. Echo. I loved the way the first flash forward from end season 3 continued on. I loved Kate’s dream about Claire. I loved Walt visiting Hurley in the mental institute. I love the curious moment between Sun and Mr. Widmore (obviously [?nothing's obvious in Lost] Sun finds out that Ben let the boat explode). And I loved, most of all, Desmond’s reunion with Penny. I got teary. I’m such a softy.

I really, truly, think it was an awesome, awesome wrap to the season. It felt like it closed off this season, answered a whole bunch of questions, but left so much more open to explore without being the gut-achingly annoying cliffhanger that ended previous seasons. If it got cancelled tomorrow, I’d feel angry, sure, but at least a little satisfied by where it left off. Thankfully, we’ve got 32 episodes left to go… (ending May 2010…oy).

Curious, I watched some of the previous episode “Pop-up trivia version” and it was slightly extended, in that during the press conference Jack lists off three names of other people who survived the wreck but died on “the island”… Boone, Libby and Charlie. I’m extremely curious as to why those three were picked and not the plethora of other people who are confirmed dead, like Shannon, Nikki and Paulo, Mr. Echo (or any of the tailies for that matter)..

Altogether… 2 hours of total awesome. I’m left happy until next January.

(airdated - April 4, 2008)
Spoilers aplenty

I think my time as a fan of Battlestar Galactica is up. What once was a taut, intelligent, captivating series has turned into something self-indulgent, repetitive and tedious. The show has been a flexible one from the beginning, dealing heavily in politics, religion, war, and matters both philosophical and psychological. A central theme surrounds what it means to be human, what it is to have free will, and that theme started to overwhelm all others midway through the previous season, culminating in the big reveal of four of the five remaining humanoid Cylon models. The first episode of this season, in part, finds those characters, now aware of their hideous true nature, struggling to come to terms with it… just like Boomer had to do three seasons ago. We’ve been there, we’ve done that, why are we rehashing it again?

The religious element of the show, the faith and spirituality of President Roslin which has been guiding the wagon train, much to the suspicious eye of Commander Adama, was bolstered in the third season by prophecies and visions. It was fine that Roslin was a solitary member on cast on the good book crusade, but once Baltar and the Cylons started getting in on the game it became a larger part of the show and genuinely less interesting. As soon as Starbuck started having visions it seemed just an overwhelming and unpalatable addition to her character. The focus on faith has let the writers have any number of deus ex machinas for getting the characters out of jams or to move them forward to more convenient story positions, and maybe it’s my agnostic mind as a viewer but it’s not a welcome replacement for the social/political/ethical dialogue that the show had proved so capable of exploring.

The third season ended with the tedious Trial of Dr. Baltar, proving that not every sub-genre of dramatic storytelling can translate well into the show, and now that Baltar is, effectively, Jesus to the few who have become loyal to his devious teachings, his character is in a dramatic, and unfavourable transition. This season’s first episode presents Baltar as conflicted between his usual ways (derision of others, superiority complex, self-preservation) and a sense of spirituality, which by the end he truly seems to embrace, and not as a self-serving poseur. For his steadfastness as the show’s irredeemable character, this is by far the most illogical of all of the shows progressions (and to my vague memories, in least fitting with the conclusion of the third series).

It seems that now even the show is running out of time that it is not in a race to get to the end. They seem to be meandering through their storylines (the preview for the second episode looks chock full of utter predictability), and the shows writers have lost the capability of handling their characters, in large part because they’ve already done so much to them that doing anything more seems completely over the top — when Tigh shoots Adama early in the episode, it’s a complete snore, knowing that Adama’s already been shot by a Cylon masquerading as a crew member. There’s really nothing left that you can do to this shrinking band of characters that has much believability to it (as believable as you can get for a science-fiction show anyways). Surviving blown up shuttles, or crash landings on planets, or cancer, or getting shot, or imprisonment, or stripped of rank and on and on really means nothing since it’s all happened already. Adding more characters to the show would be a really cheap way of keeping it fresh, so the show just needs to step ahead in its chronology and get to a point where we can believe that whatever is happening affects almost everyone and not just the few.

I’m giving the show another two episodes to try and hook me before I call it quits and just wait for the DVDs, so I can fast forward through all the triteness and get to the meat that the producers seem to be avoiding.

With Buy Nothing Year in full swing and my enthusiasm for re-reviewing as of late (obviously) waning, I thought I’d take a look at the goodly bits of television programming that I’ve been imbibing to keep me stocked in freshtertainment:

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (concluded) - I reviewed this earlier and stated that I quite liked it, and I continued to like it even though by episode four the show began to stagnate in the action department (having likely blown most of their budget early on to try and hook viewers) and a number of incongruities between the movies’ “rules” (of time travel or how the Terminators operate) and the show’s surfaced. Surprisingly the addition of 90210 Brian Austin Green as John Connor’s uncle actually didn’t turn out that bad, and Firefly’s Summer Glau turned out to be the second best Terminator next to Robert Patrick’s T-1000. The acting and production values were all above average, even if the show did sag in the middle from time to time, weighed down with its unfortunate need to establish its own supporting cast of characters. The show underperformed in the ratings (even with a writer’s strike leaving not much else new to watch) and thus isn’t likely to come back for another season, and who knows whether it will at all be tied into the upcoming movie(s) in production. The series’ final 2 episodes were unfortunately aired without much fanfare and many people, myself included, missed the first of the 2-part finale. The cliffhanger ending was pretty awesome and the varying story threads finally collided in an interesting fashion (something that really should have happened earlier). An entertaining series which, were it to continue running, I would definitely keep watching… alas…

Lost Season 4 (Thursdays at 9, ABC) - The wait for the latest season became rather unbearable over the 8 or 9 months since the end of the third, and I utterly devoured this season’s ready-made order (they had to stop mid-way through their 16-episode production this year due to the writer’s strike, meaning one more new episode this Thursday and a 3-4 week break before the final 7 episodes air). I would even watch the repeated episodes from the week prior with “pop-up trivia”, that’s how devoted I am. This season has been pretty cool, with the writer’s playing with the whole “flashback” thing almost every episode (sometimes it’s a flash-forward, or multiple flashbacks, or a time-displacement thing, or even a combo of flashback-flashforward). The last two episodes (the Sun spotlight and the return of …well, you know) have been the weakest so far, but still really intriguing leaving so many frustrating unanswered questions. As usual the writers can dump as many answers on us as we like and there’s still so many new questions raised joining those left over. If there’s anything to be said about Lost’s popularity, it’s that it’s forcing people to pay attention and juggle a lot of information, with more constantly being added every episode. The end of season six is still a long way off (32 episodes away), but the show is actually starting to feel like it’s working towards that finish without feeling like it’s just wrapping things up. Obsession inducing and gloriously maddening.

Extras Season 1 (Tuesdays at 10, Comedy) - Ricky Gervais’ big follow-up to The Office is somewhat reserved, being exceptionally character-focussed rather than gag-centric or formulaic (although the first two or three episodes seemed to follow a pattern that it did break out of). Gervais’ 40-something, trying-to-make-it Andy is differently charming, getting himself into uncomfortably funny situations either by his own honesty, the interventions of Maggie (Ashley Jensen) or his tremendously inept agent Stephen Merchant. Later episodes find Andy gaining a modicum of success, but definitely not on his own terms and its a wonderful portrayal of the struggle between spiritual and monetary rewards, as well as the effects of celebrity on the unsuspecting. Creating and starring in a TV show that spins into something resembling lowest-common-denominator television, Andy hates what he’s become and yet needs the reassurance of a fanbase or recognition from strangers to satisfy that what he’s doing isn’t a complete waste. The show is stocked with celebrities that usually get knee deep in discomfort, mostly British actors (Patrick Stewart, Orlando Bloom) but some American stars (Ben Stiller, Sam Jackson) as well. From race, to sexuality to gender to stature to class, Extras never avoids taboo, but rather thrives on smartly addressing it.


Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (Tuesdays at 10:35ish, Comedy) - The Adult Swim anti-cartoon is sketch comedy at its most oblique, just completely irreverent and often nonsensical. It’s easy to tell that the titular Tim and Eric create a show based on what makes them laugh and not any sense of what any audience might have expectations for. Enrolling a host of friends to assist (David Cross, Weird Al, John C. Reilly) the show is, bluntly put, a trippy, often disturbing festival of laughs and tears. Utilizing production effects that were last seen in the 1980’s, the show has an extremely low-budget feel which entirely works for it. There is no way to effectively describe the show, and either you’re going to be receptive to it or it’ll put you right off. It’s not that it’s (very) crass, like South Park (for instance) but it’s just so bizarre that it will likely hurt your brain. Every week after Extras, I ask my wife “Are you ready?” (she says no and lays her head down on my lap, curled in a semi-fetal position in preparation) as I force her to stay and watch it, which I think might be some kind of spousal abuse frankly.

The Jon Dore Show (Thursdays at 10:30 and various, Comedy) - Jon Dore, for many, is best known as that funny guy from Canadian Idol. Being any sort of actor or comedian in Canada is tough work, so you can’t blame the guy for taking the gig, no matter how soul sucking it may have been for him. I’ve seen Dore on stage at the Rivoli a number of times and he is an ingenious comedian with a great sense of timing and word play, and capable of executing conceptual jokes like few others can. His self-aware, juvenile, self-deprecating and wry sense of humour translates completely into The Jon Dore Show, quickly becoming one of the best Canadian comedy shows ever, certainly the smartest on TV today. Each episode follows Jon examining a particular neuroses, such as his fear of bats or his suspicion he might have an STD. Though he does a lot of bawdy and bodily humour, it’s rarely crass, more presented with a Zucker Brothers-style whimsy which blunts any edges it may have. Dore interviews real psychologists, doctors, weightlifters and other non-actors, often frustrating or shocking them, an aspects of the show that borrows from what the Daily Show has been doing for years, but Dore puts them together with produced bridges in such a fashion as to make a hilarious and unifying half hour. Not for the young or uptight.


“Reality TV” (various times, various channels) - Mythbusters, Survivorman, At The End Of Our Leash, ‘Til Debt Do Us Part, Maxed Out, Supernanny, America’s Next Top Model, Dirty Jobs, What Not To Wear and others cross our television screen from time to time, but none are religiously watched at any specific date or time on a weekly basis. Rarely intentionally anyway.