The Categories of Great Television

It is not often that you hear the words "great" and "television" used in the same sentence. But there have been some great series out there, and believe it or not, there are a few that are wonderful even today. Unfortunately, the majority of what's one television is avoidable, at best, and even more unforunate is that sometimes it's hard to figure that out until it's too late.

It's no secret that television stations are famous for destroying great television shows, either through cancellation or through inner destruction by ruining them on screen. A good example is the classic example of the original Star Trek. This was a show way ahead of its time, and it was taken off the air before its time. Then put back on the air, and then shut down for good. (well, until it was reinvented decades later as a brand new set of franchises that served to fall down again before reinventing itself in movies again). But that being said, television networks constantly destroy great shows, and we're the victims each time, and there's really nothing we can do about it.

But I thought I'd talk about some of the great shows, and to do so I'd like to point out some of the categories I've created for how I like to distinguish television shows.

1. Great Television Series
1b. Good TV Series, But Not Great
2. Good Series That Were Destroyed By the Networks
3. Great Shows That Wore Themselves Out
4. One Season Wonders That Destroyed Themselves
5. One Season Wonders That Networks Cut Off Life Support in Their Infancy
6. Fun Shows That Were Good At Times But Didn't Always Do It
6. Everything Else That Sucks

Great Television Series
There are some great shows that fit into this category, and unlike a lot of critics, I will argue that the actual listings that fit in here vary from person to person. But for me, I would have to say that there are some brilliant shows that have existed and were done so well that they will forever be the ones to be compared to. Here are some examples.


LOST: One of the few shows that has been strong from start to finish. It even had a mid series few seasons that people said they didn't like, but after rewatching those shows, you realize how important those particular seasons were. People didn't know enough to realize what was being done during those seasons, and now on its own, the whole series is probably the one to compare to forever. We're about 7 episodes from a series completion, and the show has never been as strong as it is now.

Battlestar Galactica (the remake): They took a hokey 70s show and turned it into something powerful, ground-breaking and so dramatic that normal television dramas don't even hold a candle to it. Sure, there were a few hit and miss episodes, but the writings was brilliant, and the acting was dead-on. Unlike LOST, it suffered from its closing up of the series, but that's because it seemed like they were making it up as they went along, not realizing how they were going to tie up all of the loose ends. LOST never seems to have had that problem as everything (or practically everything) tied itself into the final season.

Babylon 5: The series was designed from start to finish to play out exactly as it did. Sure, there were a few episodes that were hit and miss, but it went over a 5 year period. The last season was a bit weaker as it didn't have the overarching nemesis of the Shadows to act as the enemy, but it was still done very well. Their attempt to spin off a new series after it (Crusade) failed miserably, but fortunately that other series doesn't have to be looked at as a condemnation of the original material.

M*A*S*H: One of the few non-science fiction series to reach the top point of television presentation. A comedy, it was different from other shows because it also had some of the most powerful dramatic moments in television history (including the first usage of swear words in a TV series; Alan Alda called someone "a son of a bitch", which back then was HUGE). Later generations tend to see the show as more of an old show that isn't that funny but for its time, it was ground-breaking, and it served as a direct condemnation of the Vietnam War, even though it was really about the Korean War. It's somewhat ironic that the show ran longer than Korean War by several times.

Get Smart: Another great old comedy with Don Adams as the clueless Maxwell Smart (later played by Steve Carrell in the latest movie adaptation). Most people don't realize the show was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, two of the greatest comedic geniuses of the 20th century.

These are just a few of the great shows that existed. Here's a list of others I think belong here, although not always were they as spot-on as the previous few I mentioned.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel
Hillstreet Blues
Monk
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Deadwood
Stargate SG1

Again, as previously mentioned, there are many others that others might want to include with their lists. But this brings me to a secondary category, and that's where things start to fall apart for television. There are a lot of shows that were really good, but they didn't always produce great episodes. A lot of times they were hit and miss, even if their shows ended on a great note (and some haven't ended yet), like:

The Sopranos
Weeds
The Tudors
Dr. Who (the new one)
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Universe
V (the new one...the old one was atrociously bad)
Magnum, PI (great fun, very hit and miss)
Ghost Whisperer
Roswell
Smallville
Veronica Mars

Again, there are probably a dozen more, but it's hard to remember them all.

But that brings us to another category, and that's the shows that wore themselves out. We all know the "jumping the shark" reference that comes from Happy Days when Fonzie jumped a shark with his motorcycle. For bad journalists, what this serves is as a vehicle to say that a show has hit a moment where it is no longer the show it used to be. But that just shows that most of them lost touch with the metaphor, because what was happening to Happy Days at that time was that it was once a great show, but people stopped watching it. So this HUGE media event was created where it was advertised day and night that Fonzie was going to be jumping a shark on Happy Days. THAT was the "jumping the shark" moment. The network was so desperate to get its fan base back that it overhyped an event that was really stupid. THAT is jumping the shark. Anyway.

Other shows that started out great but died out were like Heroes, which had a great first season, and then it has been nothing but an attempt to appear relevant again. It's not. The show sucks now. It's never coming back.

Part of the problem with these types of shows is specifically in the vision and in the writing. The writers fall in love with themselves, and they think they're being really hip and cool, but they're being corny and cliched. They do stupid writing techniques (like the old writing cliche of writing a serial story where you always end with the hero falling into an endless pit and then start the next episode with him "leaping out of the pit"). The vision of the story suffers here as well, as the producers and directors want to make the show seem visually relevant and hip, but it ends up being worthless a trite. An example of this is with a show that was never hip to begin with, and that's Flashforward. They started with a great visual premise, but had nothing to add to it. So the show was on autopilot until they decided to "pull a LOST" and take the show off for half a season and then come back like they were planning the hiatus all along. People aren't going to watch a show when you do that, and you didn't hook them the first time.

One season wonders are caused by two problems. One problem is the show itself, as in it really has nowhere to go after its first season. Like Heroes. The other problem is when the studio has no confidence in the show and makes attempts to pull it off the air because of ratings. Quite often, the show doesn't last (or just disappears). A good example of a great show that could have continued but suffered from network ailment was Jericho. The show had great promise, but the studio pulled it, then allowed it to continue for a bit, then pulled it. So it ended, but it seemed really forced, turning a great first season into a hurried finish through half of a second season. They're doing that with a lot of other shows as well. People like conclusions, but it really needs to make sense. Otherwise, the show dies a stupid death.

The last category is unfortunately the norm for most television shows. There are so many bad shows on the air that actually do better than the good shows that people just don't watch them anymore. Grey's Anatomy is a good example. I wanted to like the show because I was a Katherine Heigl fan (from Roswell). I stopped being a fan after Grey's Anatomy. What a bad show. I tried watching it but it tried so hard to be Scrubs with relevance. An ER with a laugh track (or needing a laugh track). It was a horrible show. Please let it die.

Other shows are just as bad. Reality shows are even worse. I understand that people will do anything for their few minutes of fame and don't want to actually work for a real living but be famous for being famous. I don't care. I don't want to watch them. I won't watch them. I don't care that some girl got a boob job because she wants to be seen as relevant in the real world of her reality show existence that no one cares about except her and a few thousand of her wannabe Facebook friends. Reality shows have completely destroyed television. For every good American Idol (which I don't personally watch, but recognize its relevance and good attributes) there are so many crappy reality shows that are essentially attempts to popularize bad social science with spot assessments of little merit. I don't care how many times people think the world will turn into a Hobbesian dystopia once controls are removed, I don't buy it, and I still think the only reason people become such assholes is because there's a money pay off at the end of those shows. Man, those shows bug the crap out of me.

Anyway, that's my quick assessment on television that everyone has been waiting for. Okay, just my stuffed animals were waiting. Okay, even they didn't want it. But it's my blog, dammit!

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The race is on, but Chuck didn't even get out of the gate

I am a big fan of the television show Chuck. It seemed to do all things right, including some of the best writing I've seen on television in ages. Its first season was somewhat ho-hum, but oh my god, the second season was phenomenal. It's like they put the kids to bed and then brought out the real writers.

So, I've been anticipating the third season, even though the show was almost cancelled after Season 2 because of ratings. Well, sadly, the show is like we're watching Season 1 over again.

They took an innovative show about a real fish out of water, a computer tech nerd who works for the television version of Best Buy (the Buy More) as one of the Nerd Herd (Geek Squad in Best Buy), but who accidentally has a CIA database dumped into his brain so he now must be protected by secret agents and go on missions himself. They teamed him with one of the hottest actresses to ever play on a television show, and she became his unlikely girlfriend (which made the show even funnier because he had no chance whatsoever with her, yet slowly was winning her over).

Now, he's gone from being the nerd with tons of information in his head to an upgrade where he also has secret agent skills, like Kung Fu and all sorts of other abilities that flash when he needs them. Bad idea. It was cute when he was stuck in hopeless situations and trying to fend for himself (like anyone of us might do), but making him into James Bond was stupid.

And then the writing...I don't know what to say other than I've seen some of the worst plot turns I've seen in a television show yet. The infamous unwritten backstory where he chose the job for the girl (yeah, right) that slowly gets filled in so you have to somehow feel for him because he dumped her when she was giving up everything for him to help him out of this life he was trying to escape. Doesn't work. The "we're getting the band back together" plot line of the hero getting the CIA group back together so everything's just like it used to be (except he's now a superhero superspy) was the main plot behind the last few seasons for Stargate SG1. It worked for Stargate because, well, that was Stargate. But it doesn't work every time you try to pull it off. Especially when it was just done in an earlier series.

So they relied on the "let's get the geek with a supermodel and it will by funny" schtick. Yeah, that was great for Season 1, but not Season 3. It was essentially a set up for a punch line they delivered at the end of the episode (it was Chuck's best friend hooking up with a superspy supermodel). It doesn't work when you're trying to make the show seem a bit more serious, which is the direction they took in Season 2. In Season 3, it just seems like bad writing.

There was a lot of bad writing done in this show, mainly because the creators don't know what they're doing with the show. All of the Buy More scenes are jokes, which is the way the show was designed. Then they kill off a main character by having him murdered in the parking lot of the Buy More. I can see the attempt to show the "it's now going to be serious" but then goes right back to zany comedy bits at the Buy More. Either do it, or don't do it. Killing off that character was like having an episode of SAW take place on Sesame Street. It can happen, but it doesn't belong. Sure, I'd love to see Elmo chasing people with a chainsaw, but let's be serious here.

I really hope this doesn't bode badly for the future of Chuck. I want this show to succeed so much, but this first outing of two episodes in a row is scary because it shows such a bad direction for such a great show to go. It continues tomorrow, followed by another episode of Heroes, which is another one of those shows that just can never seem to figure out what kind of show it wants to be.

But that's for another entry.

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LOST vs. President of the United States: LOST wins

Turns out that President Obama was going to give a state of the union on February 2, which in case you don't know, also happens to be the date that LOST is going to premiere its first episode of the final season. I think he finally realized that when it comes down to it, the people wanted LOST a lot more than it wanted a speech from the president. So, he decided not to go up against LOST.

There's a much bigger issue here that's not being addressed, and that's the fact that the President of the United States had to change the date of his speech because people actually believe the network premiere of LOST is more significant than his speech. Kind of tells you something, doesn't it? In the beginning, I was going to make this big criticism of the American people about this, but then it also got me thinking. Why would LOST be more important to them than the president giving a speech? Perhaps it has more to do with the realization that the affairs of state are becoming less relevant to the common person so that such a thing might actually happen. I mean, I think about myself, and honestly, I don't really care all that much about what's happening nationally these days, when I used to care a lot. And the reason I don't? Because it really doesn't have anything to do with me, and if you really think about it, it probably never will. Oh, we can make arguments that somehow it's significant, but it's about as significant as the wars of Louis XIV were important to the common person of France. Yeah, it's important, but it's not really.

And that's my thought for today. All I can say is that I'm glad that LOST isn't going to be postponed because of this speech. I'd rather watch the show. Sorry. That's just how it is.

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What cable companies don't want to face about their future

A recent article on CNN.money stated that cable companies are going to be raising their prices over the next few years, to where people are paying about $95 for cable per household. The article goes on to state that the reason cable companies have to do this is because a lot of their clients have switched over to Web programming and cable offerings that can be obtained through such sites as Hulu.com, so their only option is to raise the prices on the subscribers that they have left.

As one of the many people who have left paying cable behind, I can say without a doubt that cable companies have a much worse time ahead of them than they want to admit. Granted, I still get cable because it's lumped in with my current housing package, but to be honest, if it wasn't, I wouldn't be paying for it because there's not enough on television that I want to pay to watch. I used to love watching certain television shows on the Sci Fi channel (which for some mysterious reason has changed its name to SyFy, or something stupid like that). Most of those shows are gone, or on hiatus, or in mid-season disappearance mode, or whatever. Most shows on other channels have either ended their run (Monk) or got cancelled by the networks (Firefly, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Veronica Mars, etc.). Honestly, there aren't enough shows left worth watching. I'm not a fan of reality programming, or the latest version of American Dancing With the Idols, or whatever those shows are. So, I have really zero desire to subscribe to cable. I watch about the average of three or four shows now, if that (trying to think: Lost, Chuck, Stargate Universe....), so I'm not really missing much. I even missed those shows when they played because they have the strangest broadcast scheduling (kept getting put on hiatus in the middle of their seasons as if this would entice me to watch the other garbage they put in its place).

This is the problem cable companies have with the rest of the country. They don't offer enough quality programming that people are really excited about subscribing to. What they have is an audience of people who turn on the tube for companionship, or as a talking night light. With other diversions like World of Warcraft (for me), dvds (Netflix), the Internet (I can't even begin to point out the opportunities available here), and whatnot, cable companies really aren't the "necessity" that they want people to expect. There's an old marketing aside about how most of the things we have today weren't really considered necessities in the past. Someone had to convince us that we really needed them. That includes the telephone, the radio, the television, the microwave and then the computer. In the beginning of all of these technologies, ad men had to convince us we needed them. Now, we expect them, so we now think of them almost as if they're part of Maslow's Heirarchy. They're not. The radio is almost nonexistent these days, the telephone moved to the cell phone, and each thing reaches a point to where it is replaced with something else. Cable is that way, too, because television has slowly been replaced by so many other items that occupy our time and attention. Cable companies aren't going to want to face that anymore than record companies wanted to face that their business model was irrelevant ten years ago, and they were about to be surpassed by file sharing sites. Come to think of it, they still haven't gotten over that, nor have they come to realize it either.

So, cable companies are going to slowly realize they've become somewhat irrelevant. Or that they should be irrelevant. The only thing they have in their favor is the complacent viewer who will continue to buy their content. But that can only last so long. The dvd was out for quite some time before the last vinyl record buyer finally switched to cds and dvds; some never did. But a huge company can't survive on the nostalgia factor.

At least, that's what they're going to discover.

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The Concept of Mathematics, Television and How It Defeats Its Purpose to Attract Young Potential Mathematicians

One thing has been bugging me for a long time, and it took me a long time to figure out exactly what it was. You see, I'm a huge fan of the television show NUMB3RS, which is about a young professor who is massively gifted, was born a prodigy of math, and solves FBI crimes using mathematics. As a mathematics-based researcher (I love math), I always thought the show was good because it showed the positive nature of using mathematics to solve problems. And then I realized that wasn't the premise.

No, it does what Hollywood tends to do a lot. It created a character who is not normal, who is a prodigy, who had to be born to do what he does. Then it shows how great mathematics is, but leaves you with the impression that in order to do mathematics of that order you have to be as gifted as that young man. And because the rest of us usually aren't prodigies who were recruited by Stanford, or whatever, when we were 10 years old, we can only see such circumstances as fiction.

But whenever I've watched the show, I've enjoyed remarking that I understood a lot of the concepts the main character brings up because I loved mathematics and studied it extensively when I was first going to college. But then I get that bad taste in my mouth because I realize that the show is telling me that even though I love math, I'm never going to be a Charlie (the guy who is the math genius on the show). So, I find myself somewhat disliking the show.

This bothers me because they created what could have been a great vehicle to attract young people to math. We certainly don't do it in our school systems, where we spend a great deal of energy equating mathematicians with nerds, losers and geeks. Most of our popular entertainment points out that the jock is the hero, and the geek is really the anti-hero, or made the hero is comedies because people can laugh at him as he tries to be what no one expects him to be.

Anyway, that's my thought on the television show NUMB3RS. I'm sure there are those wo disagree with me, but they're all geeks and losers, so who listens to them anyway?

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The Relevancy of Television Media in the 21st Century

First off, when I use the word "media" in the title, I don't mean news. I mean the communication term of media, which is a form of communication that influences people widely. Yes, the "media" might do that, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about something much more subtle, but much more significant than television and radio news. I'm talking about television programming.

Last week saw the end of a television show that received rave reviews from those watching it, but at the same time it was a genre that appeals to a niche population, meaning that even though it had a huge impact on the people who experienced it, it made very few inroads to the mass population at large. The show I'm talking about is a science fiction show called Battlestar Galactica.

For those who don't know much about this show, it was a remake of an old cheesy television show from the 1970s, that involved the attempted genocide of the human species and the survivors' quest for a mythical planet called Earth. Meanwhile, they are hunted by a relentless, myopic enemy called the Cylons, a robotic race that seeks to destroy humanity for unknown reasons. The old series was cheesy by today's standards, but during its heyday, the 1970s, it was actually a very serious television show dealing with some pretty heavy issues. Today, we look back at the really bad special effects (they had the same space battle used for so many different fights that you knew exactly what was going to happen when the good guys started to do a maneuver because they only had about three big space battle special effects) and we laugh. So, when the idea came about that they were going to redo the show by today's standards, people who were big fans became very excited.

Then they made changes. And the fans went nuts. One of the biggest changes was that one of the main heroes, a Hans Solo-like character named Starbuck, was going to be a woman rather than a man. Man, the fans went crazy over this. They were so upset. There were Internet newsgroups created just from the people who said this would forever destroy the show. And then Dirk Benedict (the guy who played the old Starbuck) actually said he liked the casting of the woman for his character, so the fans started to shut up, even though they still mumbled under their breath when no one was looking.

The new show had some big shoes to fill, and right off the bat they did it. Characters that were known and loved by old fans were different, and not just because of one gender switch. Characters that people knew started doing things those characters would not have done in the 1970s, and then revelations appeared, and some well known characters were then discovered to be evil Cylons, throwing the whole, old Battlestar Galactica into flux. And then things kept changing so that people had no idea what to expect.

This continued during the four years that the new show was on the air. There was nothing that was sacred, other than the search for Earth. And even that fell apart in the telling of the story, which threw everyone for a loop. Without going into details, let's just say that expectations were one thing, and the revelations were another.

During this time, the show examined some sociological boundaries that no other show has ever taken head on like this. Genocide, the gray area between good and evil, the destruction of one's ideals, power grabs, strained friendships, trust, forbidden love, merits of assassination, religion, torture, and all sorts of other huge issues were tackled without throwing it in our faces. We saw real people dealing with horrible issues as their world was crumbling around them, and in the end there was always a shining light glowing through it that no matter how low they brought themselves, that humanity's greatest asset was that they would survive this and build again one day.

Unfortunately, the show ended last week with its finale. What this has done is create a vacuum in television space because for too long we've been given crap for television. I was talking about this show with a coworker one day, and she said she didn't like science fiction, like that, but liked "real" dramas, like Gossip Girl. That's part of the problem with the science fiction genre. It is often treated as if it is less than it really is because they see a space explosion and immediately think of it as some glorified video game. No other show on television has ever tackled the myriad of issues that this show did. Unfortunately, people like to throw names like "geek" around when they realize people are talking about a show like this. Instead, it's considered "right" to focus on much weaker shows like Monk or Gossip Girl, and then use that as the standard to which other shows should compare.

That's probably going to be hard to justify in the future, because a show like Battlestar Galactica has raised the bar for other shows in the future. Even shows like LOST are finding that they have to raise the level to be seen as relevant when something like BSG is in their area. The writing on LOST has gotten excellent lately, which I attribute to being a part of the BSG effect. You can't just get away with doing something stupid like we've seen on shows like Heroes, which continues to try to prove itself to be relevant but in reality is just pushing forward, trying to pretend to be innovative, but is becoming time consuming, boring and ridiculous, even when they put forth a somewhat good show. Unfortunately, and maybe this is for another argument and another day, but most of the good shows that break new ground all tend to be science fiction based, like X-Files, LOST, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Babylon 5.

For me, this means that television shows are starting to realize the importance of writers, because there's no way this sort of thing could have been put forward without great writing. This was the same thing when Babylon 5 was on the air. No other show did the things that television show did over the five years that it aired. Unfortunately, when it finished its run, nothing ever stepped up to take its place.

My fear is that now that BSG has showed the world what important programming can do, will others pick up the slack, or are we going to end up with tons and tons of stupid programming, which equates to a new Law & Order in some new location and multiple variations on stuff that's been done to death? I hope not. But because people tend to avoid some of the greatest programming out there, I'm assuming we're going to devolve again, at least until something as big as BSG or Babylon 5 comes along again.

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Important lessons I've learned from watching television

They say television is not informative. Well, I have learned important things from watching it. Such as:

1. Terrorists obviously need lots of sleep because as they approach the 24th hour of being awake, they start to make really stupid mistakes. (--24)

2. Every police department has about 6 people of all races, sexes, and creeds who do 99% of all the crime-stopping in their jurisdiction. (all police shows)

3. The FBI never solved a crime involving mathematics more difficult than addition before allowing the brother of an FBI agent to start working for them as a part time gig. (--Numb3rs)

4. Asian can't tell the differences between separate Asian races, and all of them can pass for Japanese. ("Samurai Girl")

5. Most criminal trials are won by a lawyer who spent the previous night searching law books for a ruling or strategy no one remembers or ever heard of before (--Law & Order, Eli Stone)

6. The most dangerous criminals are ALWAYS moved by a truck in the middle of the night on very deserted roads, especially if there is a risk that someone might threaten to break them out of police custody. (--too many police shows to count)

7. I will never be haunted because ghosts only haunt very beautiful women who are so beautiful they would never, ever date me, and thus, I'd never see these ghosts. ("Ghost Whisperer")

8. Enemy military personnel are never taught to "cook" a grenade, so there is never any risk that an enemy soldier might pull the pin on a grenade, count 3 seconds and then throw it so that it explodes upon impact, always giving me the opportunity to pick up their grenade and throw it back at them so it explodes on them instead. (--almost standard for every war show)

9. Computers are so easy to hack, and the government employs super tech geeks who spend all day doing nothing but hacking computers by pressing random buttons on their computer keyboards, rarely even using the mouse. (--24, Torchwood, Chuck, and so many others that I've lost count)

10. Every cop has that "one" case that got away, but fortunately, something will happen that will allow that cop to finally close that case for good. (--police show fodder...happens all the time)

11. Only really beautiful people work for the government and police departments. If someone ugly works for them, that person is even more popular than the beautiful people.

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90210

Turns out the CW is rehashing an old, popular television series, Beverly HIlls, 90210, and calling it 90210. Unfortunately, they did this without completely thinking this one through, as they're only now starting to realize that what might have been a really popular show in the past does not translate to a really popular show in the present. First off, the cadre of people who loved the show has grown up. The people they are trying to attract for the show are young people who have never, or rarely, ever seen the show, and certainly never watched it while it was airing. So, you don't have a new generation of people just dying to know whta happened to Dylan and others (I think that was one of the characters...to be honest, I never watched it, so I'm just going on memory of a show that aired during my time but never attracted me).

So, CW is now just realizing it needs to attract young people to its show. Then, once they realized this was not going to be an easy task because unlike the old 90210, this show is competing directly against some pretty popular shows that do exactly what their show is going to try to do. First off, you have shows like Gossip Girl that seem to attract that demographic they are seeking, and unlike the past when Beverly Hills, 90210 aired, you have a ton of reality shows that ironically have the exact plot lines that you'd get in a 90210 show (that's kind of what made those reality shows where people live in the same building for a year so attractive).

Therefore, CW is trying to attract its old cadre of fans by bringing back some of the heroes of the old show. They say the show will be about both the kids and the adults, unlike last time when it was just about the kids. Well, I got news for them, but that's a really bad idea. The show takes place around a high school and involves very, very wealthy kids who seem to have the world handed to them on a silver plate. That means that in order to really place an old character into this environment, they have to do what they're planning to do: Make them a teacher. Now, I don't know about you, but if I was a fan of the old show where it was all about one-upping the others and showing how wealthy you are, coming back to a show where you're now a high school teacher seems like a pretty low blow for your character. In other words, you didn't make it big, you weren't the great success you were planning to be, but you're in one of the most disrespected occupations in US history. You're a high school teacher. Even if actors came back as city leaders, it woiuld still be akin to watching someone play one of the joke leaders in Weeds, where Kevin Nealon probably has mastered that role of someone in city government who really shouldn't be there.

So, what's to see in 90210 that's going to attract anyoine? Literally, they're selling the idea on the actors/actresses coming back without realizing that people aren't there to see the actors, but to see the characters, and if those characters are placed in the positions that they're already claiming, they're going to have a hard time selling this show.

I'm not saying they can't succeed, but they have a lot of work ahead of them. What they really need to do is focus on the question: Why would someone in high school TODAY feel a desire to watch this show? And what makes this show any better than the numerous alternatives that are already available?

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Turns out TV stars don't actually watch TV themselves

The CNN story can be found here.

I remember when I was sending out short stories, and every now and then some magazine I sent a short story to would send me a nasty letter, stating that they have no incentive to publish me if I don't actually subscribe to their particular publication. Some years later, I came to the conclusion that actually subscribing to their publications didn't EVER win me a publishing success, so I decided they could fend for themselves like every other magazine out there. I'm a writer, not a subscriber. And pretty much the ENTIRE writing population tends to feel the same way.

That's kind of what came to mind when I read this article that indicates that TV stars don't actually watch television. I don't mean just their own shows, but ANY television. Supposedly, they're above television, and they don't want to be caught in any circles that might hint they're part of the low brow Americans who would be stupid enough to admit they watch television. This would be more like me stating that not only don't I read a particular magazine, but I don't read at all, because I wouldn't want anyone to think I was stupid enough to be caught reading ANYTHING.

And supposedly, TV stars don't care. They want us to watch their shows, but they don't "have the time" to watch television themselves. There's some kind of communication paradigm here that needs exploitation, but as I'm an unemployed writer these days, I'll have to leave that to the currently being educated folk.

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Star Wars and the Wrong Direction of Storytelling

Star Wars used to be a great franchise that told a great story that caused its fans to really examine and explore the ideas of good and evil. The first three movies (the original three) really took that exploration and exploded in a great way for all of the fans. Sure, good triumphed over evil, but evil was REALLY evil, and you knew it.

Then these three prequels came along that told the story of Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader), and to be honest, other than the moment where he becomes Vader, the three movies are really lame and pretty much destroy the very foundation of the mysticism behind Star Wars. The Force, an ever-present, omnipotent fabric of dimensional existence quickly gave way to a genetic defect (at least that's how they explained the Force with the young Anakin Skywalker..."he's got lots of mytowhoziwhats in his blood, which makes him the greatest potential jedi of all time"). And Anakin was just Luke Skywalker, Jr., except you knew there would be no redemption for this character; he would only have to get worse and more evil as the storyline continued. I had a really hard time "cheering" on the worst hero of science fiction history. I found his brooding, passive-aggressive disposition to want me to learn how to be a jedi just so I could kick his complaining ass.

Now, a new movie is being released as a cartoon, which is supposed to "fill in the gap" called the Clone Wars. I'm sorry, but I don't really feel there's much of a gap here. I don't really care about the Clone Wars. And I really don't care about a series where Anakin Skywalker is to be seen as the "hope" of the Republic. I'm sorry, but Anakin is the death of the Republic; no amount of cartooning is going to make him into the good guy again, no matter what time line they interject this story.

Star Wars actually has a rich, mystical history that needs to be explored, but they keep coming back to this overdone storyline. I don't care anymore about Darth Vader. There is a whole Knights of the Old Republic era that is hinted at in the series, and has been seriously developed in lots of the Star Wars media (not the movies). The birth of the Sith sounds like so much more interesting than brooding action heroes who complain about their girlfriends. Honestly.

When I was doing the old computer game work, there was a project that was started at Lucas Arts that never really saw the dawn of light, but it should have. It was about a rebellious colonel during the Star Wars era (think "Empire Strikes Back" time) that was fighting a mysterious revolution against the empire during this time. There was so much rich information coming from this particular thread, and then it just died away so that we could focus on brooding, complaining young jedi.

I regret that all we have to look forward to is a cartoon movie and a potential television series (cartoons) of the Clone Wars. What a horrible choice to develop. I would love to see something way prior to the whole Star Wars saga (like tens of thousands of years before), or hundreds of years AFTER Return of the Jedi. But instead, we'll get nothing but product placement shows and movies that will try to sell us a cute robot toy or stuffed ewok, or whatever stupid "in" toy that comes from the next kiddie series that sadly fills the gap that doesn't need filled.

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Californication and the life of a writer

There's this show on Showtime called Californication, which stars David Duchovny (of X-Files fame). It is kind of interesting, in that the main character is a New York writer who is living in Los Angeles, and he can't stand California. He's suffering from writer's block for reasons never really explicit, although the show hints that his rationality involves the fact that they turned his introspective third novel into a Tom and Katie love story, and he's upset. He's generally upset all the time. And he womanizes women all of the time.

I watched the first five episodes of the show before it finally dawned on me why the story seemed so familiar. No, it's not my story. Yes, I'm a writer, and yes, I had an interesting past involving a number of "interesting" women over the years, but that's about it when it comes to the comparisons. So, I often found myself watching the show and really not identifying with the main character, even though we both have problems with our writing and the state of California itself. And yet, I often find myself wondering why I'm drawn to the character.

And then it dawned on me. The main character doesn't remind me of me. It reminds me of Charles Bukowski. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized they practically ripped off the style of Bukowski and claimed it as their own. If you've ever read a book or a series of poems by Bukowski, you know instantly that this is the exact same story that would have been written about his life. This is the guy who attended a reading of his own work at a girls' college, and because he was still drunk from the night before, he walked out and onto the lawn. Then he found a nearby tree and vomited on it. A young woman remarked to him: "Man, you're fucked up" to which he responded: "Finally, a woman who understands me."

I guess that's why I find myself interested in this show. Even though the idea and inspiration is not original. But then, in Hollywood, what is original anymore?

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Living without cable

After I moved from my previous apartment to this new studio apartment, I didn't bother to bring Comcast cable over with me. Instead, I signed up for AT&T's Internet service. I've since discovered that where Comcast goes out of its way to force you into cable television service, AT&T goes out of its way to force you into overpriced telephone services to get Internet. An example: I signed up for a $5.00 measured line. That $5.00 measured line, after taxes and bizarre charges, costs about $35-40.

I had bought into AT&T thinking I might add satellite service later through them as well. I've completely changed my mind on this. I switched completely to Clearwire (a wireless service), and we'll see how that works.

But this post was about cable TV. I guess I chose the right time to do this because with the writers' strike going on in Hollywood right now, television really sucks. There's nothing original coming out other than what was canned originally and then brought back out because they have nothing else filmed. Who needs that crap? Certainly not me.

So I've been managing on a rabbit ear antenna and Netflix since then. And it's really not that much different.

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TV shows with bizarre hidden agendas

I'm sure we've all given thought to how certain shows have specific agendas, some political, some social. Like the show Weeds, which I happen to really like, obviously has a pretty strong agenda that tends to be pro marijuana. Not necessarily pro drug, but pro marijuana and anti rules against marijuana usage. One could quibble about that, but for the most part, I think it tends to go in that direction.

But this isn't my essay today. No, I was watching another show recently from the 1980s, Battlestar Galactica 1980, which is the follow up series to the original, in which the space traveling migrants find Earth and begin to work their way towards settling and revealing their presence in the galaxy. Well, they often come against the US Air Force that is constantly investigating them. But what I found really, really interesting is that at the end of EVERY episode, there is a text statement that the US Air Force discontinued its search for extraterrestrials back in the 1960s. There's no reason why they would put that as the show takes place in the 1980s, and for some reason that's just really bizarre to include that. I first started wondering if they're trying to state a snide comment of "they're still doing it, but it's just not official anymore." Or are they stating that "they still need to do it because who knows what they're going to find" as I ran across an episode where the evil Cylons landed on Earth and forced Wolfman Jack to help them transmit their signal to Cylon Headquarters. It's kind of funny because Wolfman Jack was HUGE in the 1980s. I doubt most people have a clue who he is, or was, today.

So, is there some kind of point to be made by making this last little notification at the end of the episode? Are they addressing something that people suspect, or are they priming Americans for something that they believe we should be ready for in future governmental-alien behavior? I was thinking about using this little notification as an artifact and analyze it using different rhetorical criticism strategies. The priming effect seems most evident to me, although I could also see a couple of other alternatives. Any thoughts?

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Why Hollywood pisses me off

I'm a big fan of the show NUMB3RS, but every now and then they do something that completely destroys my ability to give my suspension of disbelief. The pilot show started off with one such example. The FBI was trying to figure out a series of murders, so out of nowhere the investigator's brother suggests using mathematics to determine if there are a series of connections between murders. Why this bothered me back then was because the FBI already does this. So does every police department that isn't run by Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason in the greatest role of his life).

But what bothered me was a plot point that has been growing this season. Charlie, the mathematician, submitted his old work (when he was young...um, how old is this guy anyway, as he still seems like he's about 25) on relationship dynamics involving game theory. Fine. I can live with that. Then the story decides that out of nowhere he gets a publisher (on the first try). Then it gets published, and he's already becoming a rock star of the literary world with his ground breaking mathematics that involves...(wait for it)...taking a cost benefit analysis using game theory to decide if your future mate is worthy of continuing your attention. Or something trite like that.

But what bugs me is that he's already got rock star groupies showing up to his book signings, and the very first book he ever wrote has JUST hit the shelves. While this is fiction, it drives some people completely nuts, specifically people like me who have been struggling to be a successful author for MANY years, where selling a few books is a challenge, and I have yet to run into a groupie at a book signing, nor any book signings where people actually showed up.

When they do these sorts of stories, they give the impression that success is really that easy, which immediately causes those around me to ask me why I'm still taking so long to be successful. We're held to standards that aren't real, and it drives me nuts. Especially when it happens on shows that I really like.

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Smallville

Smallville has been one of my favorite shows for a long time. I believe this is the beginning of the 7th season, and it's still going strong. I was discussing this series with someone who didn't like it because she doesn't "like science fiction or that kid stuff", meaning she figured that because it was based off of a comic book, Superman, that it was obviously not as "important" a show as something else that might take up her television time.

I hear that kind of argumentative analysis all of the time, and I usually just brush it off, but it's been one of those things that's always bugged me because there's an elitist attitude to it that in so many cases is unwarranted. And yes, I've been guilty of it myself in the past.

But I'm talking about Smallville, and here are some thoughts that I felt were necessary for me to say. First off, the writing is extremely well constructed. As a writer, I often find myself taken aback when I come across writing of this level. There are several metaphorical allusive processes that take place with Smallville. First off, the writers have to deal with the actual plot itself, which is based on a rich literature of events that have been speculated about within both the Superman and Superboy universes. And there is also the mythology of the Superman legend that has to be dealt with but unfortunately you can't just keep telling the same story every other TV show and movie has done in the past. And then there is another completely unique level, and that's the realization that the audience has knowledge of what this young man is going to become, so all of the allusive references to his future became that much more significant.

As a writer, I can only imagine the wonder of working within such a rich universe of ideas. There are times when a story arc will run its course, and you'll see a reference to something that will be so damn important concerning Superman, but is dealt with as a proto-Superman would have to deal with in his childhood, like when the conversation comes to the future importance of this young farmer from Smallville. In only the last episode, there was a discussion at the end between his sister Kara (the future Supergirl who has appeared for the first time in this season) about how she tells him he can't hide in the farm his whole life, that he's going to have to leave and stop trying to hide those powers from the rest of the world. And someone who is watching this can only take a step back and realize the impact of those words, as this person to whom she is speaking is destined to one day be the savior of the entire world so many times that it's probably not possible to count. And then you can see the complexity in the actor's face as he takes in her words, almost as if he sees events that may happen in the future, but just isn't ready to face such responsibility that you know he will one day have to face.

And the whole dichotomy between Lex Luthor and Clark Kent is just wonderfully designed. There is a reference in the Superman comics that Luthor and Superman used to be friends, and that's pretty much all you really get out of that (other than some speculative renditions of this legend), so the show takes that friendship and shows how twisted it is and how that friendship is somewhat responsible for leading one of them to greatness and the other to complete vindictive evil.

Whenever someone tells me they dislike these kinds of shows because they're based on comic books, I just shake my head and realize what great dramatic elements they will forever miss.

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The fine line between the actor/actress and how authentic is the character

I recently started watching Sci Fi channel's Flash Gordon. It's a cheesy type of show, and to be honest, I'm not really convinced it's all that good enough of a science fiction serial, which is what it's based on. It seems more a rehash of "can we tell the neighbors about our secret", the "we like this police officer, but we have to keep him/her in the dark about what's really happening", the "I really like my female co-star, but she's got a boyfriend" and "Oh yeah, there's this other world where we do some science fiction stuff". Personally, I think the show hasn't decided if it wants to be authentic science fiction, which Friday night stuff on Sci Fi generally is (like Battlestar Galactica and the two Stargate shows), or it wants to be camp. It hasn't defined itself yet.

But what actually got me thinking was this bounty hunter character they have who comes from the evil other planet who is always on the run from the people in power. She's one of those "I do things my way" and she knows all about living out in the rough part of society, constantly on the run from those who are out to kill her. Well, at one point, she was changing clothes in Flash's place, and as she raised her hands over her head, I noticed she shaves her armpits. And this really got me thinking. Would a woman like this from an alien society (although she's human) who is constantly on the run living out in the wilderness, really shave under her arms? And then I started to realize that this is because the actress is a TV star who most likely does so because TV society demands it of her. And I'm sure viewers don't even notice, although they would notice if she was actually authentic, and then they'd probably not like it.

Anyway, it was an interesting thought at the time.

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