Happy Halloween!

Right now, I'm more stressed than House when he's out of Vicodin. It might be a day or two before you see new commentary. Until then, a few questions:

1. Does "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" still preserve its charm?

2. What did you think of "The Return of Stinkmeaner" on "The Boondocks"?

3. Do you think the writers go out of their way on "House, M. D." to make Cuddy look like a brainless bimbo instead of a qualified administrator?

"Dreamster (Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil)", 10-29-2007

Summary: Creative, but wanting.

One of my friends told me that I needed to take a look at "Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil", one of the newer shows on Adult Swim. I never like to start watching a show after it's already started airing, but as it turned out:

a) they were only nine episodes deep,

b) each episode was only fifteen minutes long, and

c) most of these short episodes, sans commercials, were available on YouTube.

The premise alone is an amusing idea. Satan, Lord of Lies and Prince of Darkness has an adult daughter, Lucy, a college graduate who is sort of kicking around. (Lucy has red hair and two little horns.) Satan's plans for Lucy to become the Antichrist and rule the world were put on hold when Lucy started going out with DJ Jesus (pronounced hay-SOOS), who as it turns out is the second coming of Christ himself, now kicking it as a DJ. While Satan hopes that this Lucy/Jesus romance will break up -- and he's not adverse to attempting to kill the Messiah now and then -- he must resort to more pedestrian world-domination schemes, or pedestrian at least for the near-infinite King of Evil.

Satan's current idea is the mass production of a machine which plays soothing white noise to help you sleep. (Oh, and side effects might include being killed by your own dreams.) Whenever someone using the device falls asleep, Satan enters their dreams as a psychiatrist, asking his potential victims about their worst fears.

One of his potential victims is Special Father Guiseppe Cantalupi, a member of the Special Clergy squad to save the world from the Antichrist. It seems that Pope Benedict XVI sent him an e-mail with a video called "Cute Puppy" which turned out to be a video of larvae bursting from a man's skin. ("It was horrible. I sent it to all my friends." The name of the pope isn't actually mentioned, but I could imagine the ex-Cardinal Ratzinger sending someone a video like this.) Cantalupi falls under the spell of the noisemaker and begins to dream about larvae bursting out of his own skin.

Meanwhile, DJ Jesus has also ordered the device, figuring that he'll use it as a special effect from the DJ booth. This gives Satan a chance to get his hooks into the Messiah himself -- or that is, he could if Lucy didn't keep interrupting the Master of Murder with phone calls complaining about the "skanks" that DJ Jesus attracts as part of the mystique of being a DJ.

Will Satan destroy the Annointed One of God and rule over earth forever? Or will things fall apart, as usual?

"Lucy, Daughter of the Devil" might have made it on the air because it appears to be made very cheeply (which is worse than "cheaply"). I'm not talking about Clutch Cargo levels of cheap, but most of the characters look like the little pegs you are given to put in the car if you have ever played the boardgame LIFE: a round head and a perfectly cylindrical body. Jesus, Satan, and Lucy are given arms and other accessories, but they're not too far removed from the cylindrical bodytype. For other characters -- they don't even bother modifying the cylinder: little pegs move about that have hair and eyes, and that's about all.

There's no true "gag humor" in any of the shows. Most of the humor is entirely situational humor along the lines of say, "Dr. Katz". Satan tries to get things done and can't even get the moral support of his hell-spawned crew, Lucy interferes with Satan's schemes unwittingly, and DJ Jesus is clueless about all that is going on about him. Schemes don't so much explode as fizzle out.

The result is that the creators don't make complete use of the computer animation medium, the fault of so many shows. What's the point of having a million dollar machine to do animations if you're going to do five cent plots? Oh, of course there are murders and eviscerations galore, but with the peg characters you don't get the gross realism that you might get from an episode of "Metalocalypse". Furthermore, there isn't any emotional investment in any of the characters. The joke is that Lucy acts like any typical hot 22-year old unemployed chick, but all we see of Lucy's life is her complaints about her relationships. Even "The Simpsons" and "South Park" gave its characters hopes and dreams; "Lucy, Daughter of the Devil" doesn't do that and as a result, we aren't invested in their fates.

Furthermore, if you're disturbed by casual blasphemy, you might want to give "Lucy" a miss. The fact that there isn't a picket line going around the block at Cartoon Network leads me to believe that "Lucy" isn't ringing any bells, and sadly enough, Adult Swim might want to give someone else a chance. "Lucy, Daughter of the Devil" is undoubtedly better than a lot of crap like "Tim and Eric" or "Saul of the Molemen", but given the fact that those two latter shows are most likely bottom-of-the-barrel-approved-by-an-exec-at-a-doobie-session-abortions, the relative increase in quality and creativity of "Lucy" compared to Adult Swim's usual midnight crapfest isn't enough to keep me watching.

"Ban on the Fun (Robot Chicken)", 10-29-2007

Summary: Rests on its pop-culture laurels.

"Robot Chicken" is the kind of show that the protagonists of Clerks would have created -- and that entails both good and bad.

For those that have never heard of it, "Robot Chicken" is a show that runs on the Cartoon Network cable channel, in the block of post-10 pm programming for adults called "Adult Swim". The concept isn't much different from "Laugh-In" -- it's a 15-minute sketch show (usually coming in at less than 15 minutes) with short sketches, some lasting only a few seconds, strung together.

"Laugh-In"'s theme was the 1960s counterculture. "Robot Chicken"'s theme is 1980s and 1990s youth television programming -- shows like "Masters of the Universe", "He-Man", superheroes, etc. What distinguishes "Robot Chicken" from anything else on Adult Swim is that the animation is stop-action animation not unlike the old Ray Harryhausen movies of the 1950s and 1960s. Everything from Mego Dolls to GI Joes to hand-made dolls to claymation figures are used to illustrate these sketches.

When one reviews any particular episode of "Robot Chicken" the review might as well stand for a review of the entire show -- the episodes are pretty much interchangable. Creators Seth Green, Matthew Senreich and their writing staff riff on what might be called the "Junk Culture" of the 1980s and 1990s. I'll give you a brief rundown of some of the sketches:

* The Maytag Man faces a moment of personal darkness as he comes to grip with his lack of a purpose.

* The scientist who declared Pluto not to be a planet goes mad with his power to "declare" things.

* A young man's plan to propose at the top of a ferris wheel turns into an awkward moment when his girfriend turns him down.

* Crystar the Crystal Warrior finds that choosing methheads as "Crystal Warriors" is a bad idea.

* Thelma and Louise have a lot of second thoughts after they plunge over that cliff.
* "Laff-a-Munich", where the Really Rottens of the Laff-a-Lympics murder the Yogi Yahooeys and the Scooby Doobies must bring them to justice, Steven-Spielberg style.


This mere list of sketches illuminates why "Robot Chicken" is so hit-or-miss and why you'll probably never see "Robot Chicken" make prime time. The first problem is that unless you invested a lot of time -- and I mean a lot of time -- in 80s/90s/00s pop culture, some of these sketches aren't going to make much sense, and frankly the payoff for many of those sketches comes from being in on the lingo. If you don't know who Crystarr is, you're just going to be left scratching your head, and frankly, the sketch wouldn't be that funny at all except for the fact that it's Crystarr! You know the Crystal Warrior guys! And he chooses methheads as his "crystal warriors"? Get it? Get it?

The problem being that most people didn't even care who Crystarr was when he was on the air. Which means that it's a very limited joke meant for only those for whom recognizing Crystarr was the end result of the process of junk culture immersion -- a process which most people aren't that proud of. It's a sort of geek humor which revels not in trivia, but in obscuria. I suspect that some of those making these sketches are patting themselves on the backs -- "see? we're in the know!", the same way the geeks in the Math Club feltknowing there wasn't a regular solution to a fifth-degree polynomial put them in an exclusive club -- but I hope these writers can move on to other things, because it's going to be pretty sad being surrounded by unwrapped collectibles when you're pushing forty.

When the sketches aren't that long -- the Crystarr sketch couldn't have been longer than a minute -- it's merely an annoyance. When the sketch takes up the biggest part of the show -- such as the crossover between "Laff-a-lympics" and the movie "Munich" -- it might leaving people scratching their heads and changing the channel, or feeling that the night's show was a bust if they don't know the cartoon or haven't seen the movie. I hadn't seen the movie and my wife hadn't seen either of the two, leaving each of us sort of bored. When the long sketches are combined with cultural phenomena more widespread, they can be very funny indeed, but when they rely on obscuria, you get "Laff-a-Munich".

The other problem with "Robot Chicken" is that it passes up making full use of the power of stop-motion animation for the easy geek gag. You will see an awful lot of violence in "Robot Chicken", because with stop-motion animation, you can...uh...kill the protagonists in a lot of twisted ways. But it seems that the favorite way for the writers to end a sketch is to shoot one of the characters, or just general murderous mayhem. You can't get through a "Robot Chicken" show without seeing some puppet get shot. And not creative shooting, just the straightforward "rat-a-tat-TAT". "Ha-ha! They really shot that guy!"

Some people say that a good kick in the crotch never loses its humor. To those people, I say, "watch about thirty episodes of "Robot Chicken" and see if you have the same opinion afterwards -- you'll be astonished at how boring it becomes". I suspect the problem is too much lazy writing caused by too many doobies smoked.

(Most of the Adult Swim programming, I suspect, is strongly related to amounts of THC intake. See "Assy McGee" and other examples too numerous to mention. Pot does not make you funny, my friends, it just makes you think you're funny, which is why programming executives should find better vices. Never smoke pot if you have the power to greenlight a series; it saves you tons of embarrassment down the line.)

"Bonanza is Disgusting (Kid Nation)", 10-24-2007

This episode of Kid Nation begins with a new Town Council. In the last episode, "Viva La Revolucion!", the kids were given the chance to vote for some new leadership. Laurel from the "Green District" ran unopposed, and Anjay from the Blue District had no trouble defeating Olivia, but there were two new sheriffs in town.

The first was Guylan, a sweet long-haired little kid who beat the somewhat obnoxious and full of himself Mike by a 9-1 vote to become leader of the Red District. The other was Zach, who won a narrow 5-4 vote to oust catchphrase-spouting beauty queen Taylor from the yellow district.

The task of the new Town Council is a simple one -- clean up the mess. When you live in a room, you only have 10 feet x 10 feet of space in some cases to make tidy, but the part-time residents of Bonanza City seem to have let their trash fall where it may. The Council has the bright idea (or is the producer's stick poking them again?) to clean up the mess, to take the town trash far away from the town proper and bury it somewhere.

Frankly, the current in-town trash bin is a mess, complete with a rat crawling about. Once again, I'm suspecting the rat is some sort of "stunt rat" brought in, a 37-year old rat with an agent an a house in Malibu. If there was a rat problem in Bonanza City, don't you think we would have seen it by now?

Rat left aside, the new leaders nominate members from each of their teams to involunarily serve on trash detail. In some cases -- big kids like the 15-year old Greg -- the choice is made for practical reasons. In the case of the Yellow District, another aspect comes into consideration.

Zach nominates Taylor and Leila for trash detail. The yellow team girls have already formed a clique under Taylor and have picked up her habits of laziness, and have generally let whatever duties they're given fall to the wayside to do whatever ten year old girls do. In their case, they've been given this nastiest of missions strictly as punishment.

Taylor stomps her feet. Neither of them are doing any trash detail. Members of the Town Council cajole, plead, beg, and threaten, but Taylor refuses to budge. After all, it's not like these are her parents or anything. What are they going to make her do? What kind of clout do they have?

Undoubtedly, the Council members have learned a few tricks from their parents. The first trick is that an unknown is more threatening than a known. The two are told that their punishment will be decided later, and the council gets on with their work.

This implicit threat is enough to bring Leila around. Leila parts from Taylor -- who appears miffed -- and shows up at the trash detail. Taylor's punishment, meanwhile, remains undetermined.

There are other things going on in this episode -- Guylan finds that he has neither the size nor strength to do his part in the digging, and is acutely embarrassed -- but I'll focus on Taylor for this write-up as the producers want to draw our attention there, anyway.

Many of the kids in town take it upon themselves to clean the dishes and the messes in the kitchen that the Yellow District never bothered to clean when Taylor was in charge. However, there's a problem -- water has to be brought in from a pump, and the water has run out. More water will have to be pumped.

Taylor's punishment is finally determined -- she'll have to replenish the water supply single-handedly. She pumps a couple of buckets, complaining all the way about what a dictatorship it is and why is everybody mean to her and so forth. On the way back, her temper gets the best of her and she dumps out the water in the presence of the town's leading citizens -- she's not doing any more work.

After much more argument, Zach levies the only punishments of practical value that he can think of. Since Zach is in charge of dispursing the money for team members when they win a placement in a "class" after the weekly Survivor-like competitions, he cuts off Taylor's cash supply. Furthermore, Taylor is out of the running for the gold star that is awarded every three days to a worthy camp member. This gold star is worth $20,000.

I'll zoom to the end of the show. At the end of the town meeting, the kindly adult narrator (or maybe, he's just a very tall 12-year old) asks the kids en masse if any of them wants to go home. Suprisingly, one of the town's leading citizens, 14-year old DK, wants to pack it in. This causes no small amount of shock, and certainly shocks the Town Council, which had decided to award him the gold star before they were caught by surprise by his announcement.

Of course, the adult -- oh hell, let's give him a name. He's Jonathan Karsh, who has actually directed some highly acclaimed documentaries. Karsh asks DK why he wants to go.

DK has a simple, logical reason. He's sick of the drama that certain of the child residents bring with them. Since he misses his parents and siblings, he figures that he could probably experience the same amount of drama with his siblings at home, as opposed to experiencing it out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of brats.

Fortunately, Guylan manages to have some private time with DK. DK is convinced to hang in there, and is surprised when he gets his gold star award. At least, there's a moment of happiness in it all.

(* * *)

A show like "Supernanny" might be shown to kids in high school, to warn them about the dangers of bearing children young. Younger adults -- ones in college, perhaps -- might want to watch "Bonanza is Disgusting" as a cautionary tale. What do you do with a child that won't behave?

There's a school of thought that says that children who misbehave should be spanked. I was spanked as a child, and I'll leave it up to you to determine if my development was completely warped -- I don't blame my parents for it however. Spanking is pain, and you forget pain after about ten minutes.

The town leaders are in the position of parents who do not want to use physical force: how do you get a child to comply if physical force is off the table? Certainly, not naming Taylor's punishment worked as a tactic. The fears you create for yourself can be far worse than any explicit fear -- any good horror movie director knows that. Taylor undoubtedly knows what sort of punishments would be effective, at least in her own mind.

However, this is a situation also like the one of town punks or scofflaws, or bullies in school, or the general asshole you meet at work. You can't just beat people to within an inch of their lives whenever they create drama, and some people are so dense that beating has no effect on them anyway.

Sometimes, you can escape the drama. Like DK, you can simply say, "okay, I've had it" and walk off. You can change jobs, or not go to certain places, or move, or just get new friends. For most people, this isn't an option and adults can't just move across town and change their address whenever little Tiffany acts up.

How do you create a social control mechanism that isn't outright oppression, or backed with the threat of violence?

One effective way could be that of shunning. A lesser form of shunning is used by adults: when a child is sent to the "time out" corner or is sent to his room to think about what he has done. Taylor is already wildly unpopular among certain segments of the Bonanza City Community, a Town Council meeting stating that Taylor is to be "shunned" might have some effect on her.

Shunning has a long history that stretches all the way back to the ostracism of the ancient Greeks, when persons from the community could be exiled by community vote for ten years. It was used by the ancient Christians, and modern religious groups as well -- it might go by other names such as "disfellowshipping" or "banning". Kids are very influenced by what their peers think of them, and if Taylor got the message that her act wasn't pleasing anyone, she might make a turnaround. If the kids said, "we don't want to talk with you and don't want to play with you and don't want to be with you until you change," then change might happen.

Of course, this would require some unanimous and resolute action among the kids -- Taylor already had influence over the other girls of the Yellow District, who might decide to further enable her in some way. For shunning to work, the one shunned must lack any other support system. Furthermore, you can never tell if such an action would just turn Taylor into an outlaw for good, or scar her for life in some way.

Like it or not, Taylor is just a problem the kids in Bonanza City will have to deal with, the same way we have to deal with the Taylors in our own lives. My claim is that sometimes, it's just a good thing to break off contact with negative people. The sad thing is that it's not that simple, and reality television does its best to make it as difficult as possible.

"Thank You For Not Snitching (The Boondocks)", 10-22-2007

I've finally put my finger on why watching reruns of "The Boondocks" is so difficult.

It became crystal clear watching "Thank You For Not Snitching", an episode that is actually rather clever. (More on the general wit of the episodes later.) The episode opens with two minor characters Ed Wuncler III and Gin Rummy robbing a house in the Woodcrest neighborhood where Granddad, Huey and Riley live.

Wuncler and Rummy are "wiggas" -- whites who appropriate the costuming and idioms of ghetto culture despite the facts that their lives probably don't parallel that of an impoverished black inner-city resident in any way, shape or form. While robbing the house, both carry on a ludicrous conversation about Wuncler's blue-tooth cell phone -- one which mimics the type of conversation that Samuel L. Jackson (who voices Rummy) had with John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction". Despite their incompetence, they manage to pull off successful robberies.

As the police begin to question the local residents, the Woodcrest Neighborhood Watch takes note of the fact that Granddad refuses to cooperate with the police in any way, egged on by Riley. Huey gives an explanation to the viewers that snitching is becoming a cultural taboo in black communities. The police and black communities have a long history of animosity, where blacks are swayed into acting as informants -- Huey/MacGruder gives the number that one out of twelve young urban black men is a police informant, if I heard that right (you can check that number if you want to)-- and are not protected from the wrath of criminals after they cooperate. As a result, rappers have begun to preach the "stop snitching" message -- which is kind of puzzling, according to Huey, as rappers are addicted to bragging and prove to be their own worst self-snitches.

The Woodcrest Watchers -- filled with angry, ancient white suburbanites, milquetoast black attorney Tom Dubois and self-hating black Uncle Ruckus -- began to zero in on Grandpa and the kids as potential criminals. Mrs. Van Hausen, head of the neighborhood watch committee, decides that the Watchers should be armed and begins to rain shotgun fire on Wuncler and Rummy when she catches them mid-heist.

Fleeing, the two incompetents make their way into Granddad's garage, finding out about "Dorothy", Granddad's pimped-out car (which was pimped out by Xhibit in an earlier episode). While Riley watches, agast, as Wuncler and Rummy "borrow" the car, Riley's code of "stop snitching" is put to the ultimate test.

To say more would make this a mere recap. All in all, it was an okay episode where most of the humor is conveyed in attitude rather than the talent to produce memorable lines.

And that's the trouble with "The Boondocks". The cartoon is very much like the comic strip. If you look at the comic strip, you'll find that the characters are drawn in a minimalist style. They rarely change position, and merely make observations. None of the potential of the comic artform is exploited -- for the most part, a written paragraph would have served just as well. (And MacGruder still has trouble writing it.) Hey, even Ernie Busmiller made full use of the comic artform despite a minimalist style, but MacGruder's characters, whether drawn by himself or by his assistants, look rubber stamped.

The cartoon suffers the same ills. I have no doubt that MacGruder loves the cartoon and loves anime. The colors on "The Boondocks" are very subtle, and the use of the anime style follows its own rules of complex anime realism. However, "The Boondocks" only rarely takes advantage of the fact that it is a cartoon, and you can do anything you want in a cartoon. For the most part, episodes of "The Boondocks" could have been acted out by human actors -- there's nothing there that couldn't have been done on a sitcom. Only rarely does "The Boondocks" really shine, such as the nunchaku-staff battle in "...Or Die Trying" or some of the anime-influenced swordplay from earlier episodes.

True, there's the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire -- but really, an episode of "24" could give you the same results. MacGruder has a rich, detailed minimum and simply refuses to make use of it. His observations, while often amusing and on target, are never spectacular, never scintillating. He gets some credit alone just for using the cartoon medium -- I suppose a cartoon can make you predisposed to laugh -- but he never moves into outright laughter.

Everytime he's about to make you chuckle, he retreats into making a statement. Everytime he's about to make a statement, he spoils it by adding something funny. "The Boondocks" goes over like a lead pipe, and while you enjoy what you've seen, you're troubled by what you haven't seen, what you could have seen if someone had flexed their artistic muscles.

"The Boondocks" is like watching a conversational exercise at a school for method actors, where both actors mark the conversation by so much restraint that each actor mumbles his lines to the point where you have to strain just to pick up what's being said. MacGruder uses the pillow where he ought to use the hammer. Satire and commentary should come with a hammer. MacGruder, however, makes it mind-numblingly sedate.

"Local Ad (The Office)", 10-25-2007

"The Office" is one of those shows that have several members of the cast working as both writers and producers. Frankly, I don't know what the "producer" credit entitles a cast member to -- I assume it entitles them to a share of the profits, or something like that. At the very least, the writers can have a sense of investment in the final product (after all, they are "producers") as opposed to working-for-hire.

B. J. Novak, who plays former-temp-turned-boss Ryan, wrote this particular "The Office" episode called "Local Ad". Dunder-Mifflin, which is determined to put itself on the national map, is producing "local" commercials, and the corporate headquarters sends two of the men in charge of producing the commercial to explain the concept of personalizing a commercial to a dense Michael Scott.

Scott, who has always seen himself as a Renaissance Man -- he couldn't be farther from the truth -- concludes that the local Scranton branch office will have a chance to create a local commercial, and Michael appoints himself as director. He explains his ideas to the idea men, but the men explain that the actual commercial -- your typical goofy commercial produced by a faceless entity -- is to remain the same regardless of the city in which it airs and the creative part of the process consists of a five second tag with the actual employees passively waving at the camera.

Scott can't accept this, and Ryan, who wants to end the conversation, allows Michael to talk him in to giving the Scranton office a chance to produce its own commercial, which, if good enough, would air instead of the "personalized" commercial.

Meanwhile, Dwight continues to moan over the end of his relationship with Angela. As he mourns her loss by retreating into the world of Second Life, he gets no solace elsewhere at the office. Office suck-up Andy -- one of those striped-shirt wearing, everyone's pal employees who uses annoying catchphrases and whom you want to strangle -- decides to confide in Dwight regarding his progress on "Operation Fallen Angel", his attempt to seduce Angela to first base and possibly beyond.

As it turns out, both segments end rather well. Pam stays up until 2:45 am at the office, producing the final tag of computer animation for the commercial -- it's a chance, however insignificant, to use her artistic skills at work. Michael produces his magnum opus and sends it off to "Corporate" -- where it is rejected. The only creative input the Scranton branch will have is watching themselves waves at an overhead camera for five seconds. In the meantime, while Andy passes information to an annoyed Dwight, Andy tells Dwight something that Dwight might interpret as a sign that Angela is still interested in him.

My first comment is that the idea of a "personalized" commercial is spot on. In most corporations, the idea of employee input really means "employee input within narrowly defined channels". Corporations don't really want employee input, what they want is to provide the impression to employees that their input is valued without actually having to value of any it. Dunder-Mifflin -- particularly the new, revitalized Dunder-Mifflin -- fits that model perfectly. Just as Michael Scott doesn't really want the input of his employees, "Corporate" doesn't want any of his input, either.

This brings me to my second comment: Ryan as the harder-edged boss. At the beginning of Season 4, Ryan was very tenative in his relationship with Michael as a superior -- now, he seems to have done an abrupt 180 degree turn, to the "do this or you're fired" kind of boss. Undoubtedly, the events in "Launch Party" where Michael mocks Ryan's website might have facilitated the change, but it's just too abrupt a turn. Undoubtedly, B. J. Novak's concept of Ryan is one not shared by the other writers. Will Ryan swing back to his former wishy-washy self, or will Ryan maintain his new personality? I'd hate to see Ryan teeter back and fourth depending on whether or not B. J. Novak is writing the episode.

Finally, "The Office" is back to the pure thirty-second episode, and not the "hour long" episodes which are just two separate episodes united by a common theme. "The Office" works better as a thirty-minute show -- but you probably won't be able to convince "Corporate", i. e. NBC of that. NBC just wants your passive acceptance, and not your input....just like Dunder-Mifflin.

"Creative Writing (My Name is Earl)", 10-18-2007

One of the first signs of burnout for a series writer is to pitch an episode dedicated to the pains of writing a story. This allows the writer to write about the difficulties of writing, instead of writing anything that might contribute to characterization. Furthermore, the writer gets to fob off his own creative difficulties on the audience. Some shows have dedicated episodes to character/writers trying to come up with ideas --and most of those shows aren't very good -- but with "Creative Writing" the "My Name is Earl" writers actually add new touches to characters about whom we think we know everything worth knowing.

This Season 3 episode continues with Earl right where we found him at the beginning of Season 3 -- in prison. Earl takes a creative writing class offered to the prisoners because he believes it will offer him the opportunity to take a mental vacation from the awfulness of prison. However, when the instructor (wearing helmet and flack jacket, no less) asks the inmates to write something, Earl finds himself stumped. Earl has never been a writer, and he finds filling up the page virtually impossible.

Television traditionally recreates the "landscape" of a character's writings through a sort of a dream sequence, and Earl is stuck in an endless expanse of white space. He can't fill up his imaginary realm and until he can, he is stuck surrounded by nothing whenever he picks up a pencil.

In the meantime, the storytelling meme spreads. Randy finds writing a story very easy. His story is sort of a stream-of-consciousness action adventure story, where he teams up with H. R. Pufnstuf - you can't make this up - to fight crime. Randy, through his training, mastery of the arts of ninjitsu, etc. etc., manages to defeat the evil forces that have kidnapped Earl and Catalina. (Hint: one of the evil forces is a loud blonde with pigtails.) The story is very much in character with Randy's gentle, childlike nature.

Joy can't get her kids to do homework, so she tells them a story about what happened to two losers who didn't do their homework. This vignette is told in cartoon form, and the two losers happen to have the last name of Hickey. Joy's cartoon portrayal has her as glamorous as a porn star, and both losers meet bloody ends with a little assist from God. I don't have the exact lines, these are paraphrased from memory:

GOD: Looking good, Joy.
JOY: Just usin' what you gave me, God!

Crabman (Darnell) is busy suffering from some existential woe, worrying about the fate of the crabs who get cooked at the Crab Shack. He sings a song about his pain at the death of all those crabs, and Joy and Earl lend a hand with an assist from some appropriately-rapped stanzas.

Meanwhile, Catalina is being pestered by a suicidal stalker at Club Chubby, and has time to write a story on her own while evading his attentions. Titled, "Catalina: Woman of a Thousand Tears", the drama on Catalina's paper plays like a telenovela, where Catalina's attempts to marry a rich man and rescue her kidnapped brother are thwarted by an evil Joy.

However, Earl still lacks inspiration. He decides to write about the simple things that give him pleasure, in this case, an imaginary scene of a typical dinner at the Crab Shack, with Randy, Joy, Catalina and the Crabman nearby. When reading the scene to the prisoners, he gets applause: they enjoyed his straightforward detailed glimpse of freedom over the more fanciful renditions offered by other prisoners (one of Earl's cellmates relates a story of beating up a gymnast, and it takes a while for Earl to work the gymnast out of his mental "white space").

One of the high points of a good episode is that it tells you things you never knew before but keeps the focus on humor. With Crab Man's affection for Mr. Turtle, I never thought much about Crab Man cooking live crabs at the Crab Shack. It seems that Crab Man believes in protecting all living things, and for the first time we learn that the details of his job deal a little angst.

Furthermore, despite Joy's trailer-trash manners, we get a stronger glimpse of how much she cares for her kids -- her tale of the perils of not doing homework has them running for their books. We got one of our most significant tender glimpses of this affection at the Season Two final episode, "The Trial", and I'm glad to see that the writers have not forgotten.

Randy's tale is just pure wacky fun, but Catalina's falls a little bit short -- Catalina comes off as a cartoon, sometimes, and I suspect that the writers don't have the grasp on her essential character the way they've mastered the other main characters. But on the all, this was a good episode. I only hope that the use of the "character must write a story" trope has seen its last use, and that there are no "character must film a TV episode" episodes in the future.

By The Sea, By The Sea....

...is where I'll be, out on a boat cruise for the next week. There probably won't be another post until next Thursday. I'll have no TV or internet where I'm going, just sunshine and orange juice. Take care!

"Everybody Hates Driving (Everybody Hates Chris)", 10-15-2007

This particular "Everybody Hates Chris" concerns the love of any teenage boy's life -- the car. In this case, Julius's car, as Chris isn't old enough to drive a car on his own.

Chris, who is still in junior high school (although a fifteen-year old ninth grader) has been asking to be allowed behind the wheel of his father's car. His father has put him off for a long time, but gives in and lets Chris drive the car across the street to park it. Julius is so impressed that he decides to let Chris move the car to the other side of street for him when necessary -- occasionally, cars have to be moved for street cleaning, as this is Brooklyn.

Chris's new car relocation duties begin the next day -- Chris will move the car across the street, then head off to school. Julius will remain home all day, asleep and completely dead to the world, as he works many jobs and Chris's mother, Rochelle, is obsessed with Julius getting enough sleep. Rochelle, meanwhile, is off to traffic court to dispute a speeding ticket, and brings younger brother Drew and younger sister Tonya with her.

Chris enjoys the admiration he seems to be getting as a product of the authority that comes from behind the wheel. However, neighborhood hoodlum Jerome spots Chris and gets in the car, offering to show him how to "ride low" -- with his collars turned up and slinking all the way to the bottom of the car.

The ride takes a long time, and Chris ends up "about fifty blocks" from where he started. Jerome suggests that since he's already disobeyed his father by moving the car away from the street, he might as well go whole hog and drive the car to school, else Chris would be late anyway. Chris agrees with the "in for a penny, in for a pound" principle and drives his father's car to school.

At school, he wins everyone's admiration -- the admiration of his friend, Greg, as well as that of school bully Caruso. More importantly, he wins the attention of several attractive young girls at the school.

Meanwhile, in traffic court, Rochelle has to sit and wait her turn. She immediately beings complaining about the slow speed of the court, and can be overheard by the judge in charge of traffic court. She is reprimanded and told to sit down. Her kids begin complaining of hunger, and Rochelle offers them potato chips -- and the crunching of chips gets the attention of the judge again. Rochelle concludes this will be a loooooong day in court.

(* * *)

After school, Chris allows several of the young ladies to "ride" in his car (it's actually just them sitting in park, and listening to the radio). However, when it comes time to leave, the car won't budge. Panic sets in. Greg remembers that the school's janitor has been known to do favors for students -- for five dollars a pop.

The janitor knows Chris -- "I know you! You're the black kid!" -- and five dollars later, the janitor has got the car running again. Unfortunately for Chris, the total fee is $10 -- $5 for car repair, and another $5 to keep his mouth shut.

(* * *)

Back at traffic court, the kids are off to look for vending machines (Drew) or go to the bathroom (Tonya). After Drew gets paid $10 for his (presumably drug-free) urine and Tonya is rescued from a polite drug-runner in the women's bathroom, Rochelle's case finally comes up.

Rochelle, having watched all of the pleadings before hers, repeats variations of a theme to an unimpressed judge. However, Rochelle remembers that the testifying officer has always testified that each case was seven miles per hour over the speed limit. Rochelle rightly questions this dubious claim and the judge asks if the officer has the calibration proof for his radar gun. He does not.

Case dismissed! Rochelle does an in-your-face end-zone type celebration. Rochelle, through pure brainpower, has evaded a $50 fine for a parking ticket -- and earned an $80 fine for contempt of court. Well, "it takes money to make money", one supposes.

(* * *)

The family returns home. Rochelle bemoans her fate at traffic court. And yes, the car has now been moved over to the other side of the street, just like Julius asked. Chris is tempted to confess all to his father -- then, rationality and self-preservation kick in. Remember: if you're a teen, if you do something wrong, and if you get away with it, you don't give away the game!! (It's called the 11th Commandment: "Don't get caught.")

And for once in his life, things have gone Chris's way. He managed to take the car to school, earn the admiration of all, not get in an accident, not get caught by the police, and no one is the wiser. There's just one detail that Chris forgot about....

(* * *)

I definitely have to give some credit to the writers for avoiding the kind of tropes one sees on a comedy like "Saved by the Bell".

For example:

-if a kid smokes marijuana, the salesman will try to introduce him to harder drugs
-if a kid drives drunk, there will be a car crash
-if a kid wears slutty clothes, someone one will aggressively come on to her

...and so forth. Most of those tropes are just veiled reinforcements of messages that the society as a whole is interested in conveying. They're not offensive, except to people of intelligence -- there have been many cases of people doing all of the above and getting away with it. The idea that one would never get away with it makes for lazy writing, which is why "Saved by the Bell" is so reviled.

And Chris actually gets away with it. (Almost.) He drives the car, but doesn't have an accident. He makes it to school, but no one reports it to his parents. The Brooklyn cop he drives past doesn't pull him over. The fact is, kids get away with this stuff all the time, they don't learn any lessons (in the 23rd minute of a 24-minute sitcom, a time called the "moment of shit" by some writers), or if they do, those lessons depend on the moment. Chris was just happy to get back unscathed.

There are a few complaints though. Assuming that Chris doesn't have much experience in driving, I'm surprised he didn't have an accident. I've driven in New York city. Manhattan is terrifying, and Brooklyn and Queens, though not as peril-inducing, are certainly not much easier with their narrow streets and with Chris behind the wheel of one of the war-wagons of the 1970s. I find it hard to believe he didn't have an accident, because I would have at fifteen.

Secondly: Where did Chris get $10? I got an allowance in the early 80s, and it was nowhere near $10. Maybe the cost of living in New York is that expensive. Can anyone who was alive in New York at the time and getting an allowance help me out here?

Finally, it seems that Rochelle's character tends to rock back and forth between extremes -- towards simmering, barely-checked resentment to wild-black-woman-on-the-loose. It seems to switch into wild-woman a bit during her traffic scenes, but it could just be the presence of the kids driving her crazy. I just would like the writers to pick a consistent characterization, and have her stick with it. They're doing well everywhere else, is a little attention to Rochelle too much to ask?

"The Price is Right (Year 36, Show 1)", 10-15-2007

When I heard the news that Drew Carey would be taking over for Bob Barker on "The Price is Right" for the 2007-08 season, my first thought was relief. For whatever reason, I knew that Drew Carey would respect the source material. Drew Carey is a down-home, conservative kind of guy and I knew that the idea of "The Price is Right" would be safe in his hands. Furthermore, I figured he'd be pliable enough to allow at least some cosmetic changes to the Queen Mary of daytime television, the last of the great daytime game shows.

For example, imagine what the show would have been like if Rosie O'Donnell had been made host. Don't get me wrong -- I not only like, but respect Rosie O'Donnell. However, knowing what I know she would have wanted to ride whiphand, make a lot of cosmetic changes and try to give away a car to every contestant.

I had some concerns. Bob has been a practiced game show host, both with "Truth and Consequences" and "The Price is Right" for decades. He knows how to run a show, how to pace it, he has that perfect game-show-host enunciation, and he has the power to direct the wandering minds of the contestants back to the action.

Carey, on the other hand, has an annoying habit -- which I also have -- of starting a sentence and then rushingallthewordstogetherattheendtoendit. He's a comedian at heart, which doesn't require letter-perfect speech, and he tends to mumble his words a little bit.

As the show kicked off, the big question was "could he hold his own"? And the answer was, yes, he could. He definitely had some rough patches -- when the contestants came down to contestant's row came down to play their pricing games, instead of immediately asking for a bid, Drew would ask them "how are you"?

This seemed to throw some of them, as they were following the old Bob Barker script, which was all business. You could almost see the panic in their eyes -- he's asking me how I am! what do I say? -- and I suspect Drew noticed that, and adjusted.

He furthermore had some trouble corraling the contestants. In the first game, when the prize -- a jeep -- was announced -- a contestant walked right past Drew to walk over to inspect his prospective new prize. Drew would also let the contestants milk their moments on stage, sometimes to the point of discomfort.

However, he brought his essential skills to the game, which is probably why he was chosen. Drew was perfectly all right with physical contact from the contestants -- Barker would break off a hug after a few seconds, but contestants could cling to Drew as long as they wanted. It was a very sweet moment, a rarity for a game show, as game shows tend to deal in glibness instead of honest, human contact.

Drew seemed definitely interested in the contestants: "you come from Rancho Cucamanga? did you drive here?" And Drew, as a practiced comedian, could improvise and create his own moments. Taking a cue from one of the contestants, he referred to the mountain-climber figure from Cliffhangers as "Yodel Man". (Now he has a name!)

During "One Away", instead of having the contestant inquire "Ladies (in the sound effects booth), do I have X numbers right?", he instructed the young woman to ask, "Oh mighty sound effects person, do I have X number right?" And during the Barker's Bargain Bar segment, he ad-libbed that the game was named after Ezekiel Barker.

As for the show itself, the general seventies look and special "Price is Right" fonts have all been retained, but it looks like more modern colors are being used. The set has been really lightened up, and it could use it -- I suspect that some of those old sets are falling apart after about thirty years of use.

Do I think he can pull this off without losing interest? I think he can. He has the number one property that a game show host or a talk show host or an interviewer has -- a genuine (or at least, faked) interest in people. You can't look uncomfortable with the contestants. Drew has an advantage with his schlubby appearance -- he's not threatening enough sexually for either women or men to be fearful of him, and he's a generally likeable guy. The rules of the games, the running the show -- he can learn that as he goes along. All of the ingredients for success that you need to run a show, Drew's got.

"I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (The Simpsons)", 10-14-2007

I have a confession to make about "The Simpsons". I'd say a good seventy percent of the reason I still watch "The Simpsons" comes from being a Simpsons completist. I was there at the beginning, and I expect to be there when the show finally (if ever) produces its last episode.

I realized this only last year. The local Atlanta network began running a hour of "The Simpsons", two episodes back to back. One would be an early episode, the other would be an episode originally aired about eight or nine years later. Much of the time, when my wife wanted us to get to get together to watch "The Simpsons", she'd warn "the last one's not a good one". With increasing frequency -- the "two-episode policy" of the local network had been in force for years -- we began to bail out on that final bookend.

One of the episodes last year -- in the 18th Glorious Season -- was so bad that I asked myself "why I am still watching this?" It was then that I realized the scope of my addiction.

"I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is going to be one of those episodes that I suspect that people are going to skip when they're rerun somewhere in Cuba. (I also wonder who is going to buy those "The Complete Nineteenth Season" compilations. Probaby nerds like me with money.) This episode is a good example of why the later Simpsons is held in such disdain:

a) A recycled trope. I can name at least two "Marge/Prison" episodes before this one. There was the episode where Marge actually served time in prison for shoplifting. And there's the episode where Marge befriended parolee Michael Keaton -- well, that wasn't the name of the character, but he was a guest star. Now, in this episode Marge finds herself in a hostage situation, and ends up by promising to visit the bank robber while he is in prison -- but fails to.

For some bizarre reason, the writers seem to think that Marge + Prison = funny. And by God, they're determined to keep working on that equation until they get it right!

An entire episode of "South Park" was dedicated to the fact that "The Simpsons" had figuratively done every plot there was to do in wacky animated comedy. I suppose even the writing staff at "The Simpsons" is recognizing that now. Either that, or Dana Gould didn't catch any of those episodes.

b) Writers who don't pass the laugh test. See Gould, Dana, who wrote five post-2000 episodes, none of them particularly funny. From now on, I might want to know who the writer is before I invest 30 minutes of time. At least, I can be prepared for the worst.

c) Voice performers who don't pass the laugh test. I can tell you one thing about Steve Buscemi -- he ain't no Albert Brooks. "But CINCGREEN!" you might cry, "Buscemi played comedic roles in all of those Adam Sandler movies -- "Billy Madison!" "The Wedding Singer"! "Mr. Deeds!"" To which I answer, "I rest my case."

Then again, it's hard to be funny as a voice performer. Some people get it and some don't. I don't think Buscemi got it. But then again, I can't imagine anything but disaster from Steve Buscemi trying to read Dana Gould's line in an obstensible animated comedy. There must be a room in Hell for that, next to Sartre's.

d) Shameless fan service. Bits of Simpsons trivia left for those still obsessively collecting it (like me). When I'm in my decaying nursing home, I'll probably be sitting in a wheelchair muttering to myself that the list of people Marge has permitted Homer to marry if she dies consists of Lindsey Naegle (a minor Simpsons character), Boobaraella (another one), and Blythe Danner (possibly a Simpsons character). Marge gets points for Naegle, but Cookie Kwan should also be on the list!

There are also voiceovers from Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ted Nugent. Nugent's is wasted, playing himself on an in-episode radio commercial. Since Nugent is also a cartoon character in real life, he should be given a future chance to shine.

At least we have "Treehouse of Horror XVIII" on next week. Just a warning -- that middle act is the weakest of the three stories. "The Simpsons" warned you about that six years ago. I know.

"The Frank Factor (My Name is Earl)", 10-11-2007

An epic comedy? The "Lord of the Rings" of television? Who would have thought it?

"My Name is Earl" is not only a comedy, it's a tale of spirtual redemption. For those who have don't watch television, the narrative device is simple, but ingenius. Local petty-thief and ne'er'dowell Earl J. Hickey (played by the earnest Jason Lee) is hit by a car after winning $100,000 from a lottery ticket (he loses the ticket). While recovering at the hospital, his wife leaves him and he learns about "karma" from watching television.

He decides that the loss of his money (and his wife) is the result of karma -- all the awful things he's done are coming back to haunt him. Earl decides that what he needs to do is re-right his karmic balance, and makes a list of every bad thing he's done that he can remember (the list is at least 200 items). He makes it his goal to mark all of those items off his list and set karma straight. While completing his first item, he recovers his missing ticket and sees it as a sign that he should keep working. (The lottery ticket cash provides the means for Earl to work full time.)

Like Frodo Baggins, Earl and his dimwit brother Randy set off on a journey. They don't know where the journey will take them, but they expect to have several adventures along the way.

Season Three begins, however, with Earl paying the ultimate karmic price -- not wanting to see his obnoxious, trailer-trash wife Joy separated from her kids after Joy is moments from being convicted for stealing a truck, Earl takes responsibility for the crime. Earl is therefore sent to prison for the crime Joy committed.

Amazingly, the first four episodes of Season Three take place in the prison setting. In this episode, Earl meets another acquaintance in prison, a man named Frank whom Earl had met seven years earlier, but lost track of. Frank tells Earl his story, and the mystery of what happened to Frank is solved.

For the rest of the episode, the tale goes backwards, knitting together the way that all of the main character's lives have joined at this place and time in the world: Earl, Randy, Joy, Darnell (Joy's husband), hotel maid Catalina -- all are a part of Earl (and Frank's) tale, a revelation of how all of them came together. Even Howie Mandel and Tim Stack show up!

(* * *)

"My Name is Earl" works on two levels: the redemptive tale of Earl Hickey, and on the typical humor you find in situation comedies. One might not think that a morality tale like "My Name is Earl" would make it big in the 21st century, but Earl's triumphs -- and occasional tragedies -- add to the show's compelling charm. Some writers have suggested that the show is a veiled allusion to the healing power of religion (whether or not that religion is Catholism, Scientology or something else). With shows like "Heroes" and "My Name is Earl", we might have the seeds of a new era where television has something positive to say about the human condition.

Of course, it's a great comedy, too. The hits from this particular episode:

* Joy's solution to finding pornographic material for Earl while in prison.
* Randy and Earl's first apartment.
* Why Catalina came to the United States, and what happened to her mother.
* Randy's fascination with the wonderful productions of Sid and Marty Krofft.
* Who worked at the Crab Shack before the "Crab Man".
* How Joy and Earl got the trailer.

Moral redemption and inspired humor? If "My Name is Earl" is a veiled advertisement for Dianetics, I don't care. Keep it coming, NBC. Keep it coming.

"More Crap (South Park)", 10-10-2007

It's hard to believe that "South Park" has been on the air for ten years. The style of the humor hasn't changed because the original writers, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, are still writing stories and are still fairly funny.

The reason I don't follow "South Park" that closely is that "South Park" episodes are strictly hit and miss. Either Parker and Stone manage to come up with something almost divinely inspired (for example "Le Petit Tourette", when Cartman decides to fake Tourette's Syndrome, believing it will give him an excuse to curse nonstop), or they go for raunch and fall flat on their faces.

This time, they fell on their face. "More Crap" is an episode that doesn't require much comment. The father of Kyle, Randy March, hasn't gone to the bathroom for three weeks. When he finally manages to pass a bowel movement, he is impressed with its size and decides to show it to the guys at the local bar.

He believes that he might be the world record holder for biggest crap, but to his chagrin (and everyone's relief), the Guinness organization does not keep track of that record. Instead, Mr. March is referred to the European Fecal Standards and Measurements Board in Switzerland, which sadly informs Mr. March that the holder of this dubious record is none other than legendary singer/philanthropist Bono.

March is depressed, and drowns his sorrows at the local bar. His barrmates cheer him up by telling him that he came close to breaking the record, without really even trying. He might be able to beat the record if he....trained for it.

And so it goes. I won't spoil the episode for you if you haven't seen it, but be warned...there is a lot of fecal matter here, and not just in the writing. "South Park", which has never flinched from the gross-out, provides its readers with some very large animated fecal matter, the type that does not dance and save Christmas, so be forewarned.

One fault of "More Crap" is that, not unlike "The Simpsons" and the most recent "Family Guy, the show flags the minute the attention turns away from the major characters. I have to protest that I never really found Randy Marsh all that compelling, world record crap or not. Kenny is much more interesting than Randy Marsh, and he doesn't even speak!

Of course, there are the drive-by shots at pop culture. Along with Bono being roundly mocked, we learn that the measurement of fecal mass is a "Couric" (after Katie Couric) and that Randy gets his "talent" by consistently eating at P. F. Chang's, a franchise Chinese restaurant. Rather than say anything really thought-provoking, I suppose Parker and Stone wanted the world to know how much they disliked Bono, Couric, and P. F. Chang's. "We get it already. Stop trying", as Kyle might say.

The other major fault is the "let's beat the joke to death" philosophy. It's a tired trope of modern comedy, where a bad joke is repeated with multiple variations in the hopes that one will either laugh from a) fatigue, or b) in admiration of the performers' persistence. In a recent episode of "Family Guy" -- "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)", Chris Griffin and another character have a long conversation about films -- a looooooooonnnnnnnng conversation -- that brings the comedy to a screeching halt and makes me want to horsewhip Seth Green to within an inch of his life.

Thus, more jokes about Bono are repeated in an effort to force the viewer into giving up a chuckle. This Bono-bash builds up to a gross out moment that evokes disgust more than it does humor. (Matt and Trey seem absolutely convinced that all guys do is talk about what large bowel movements they've had. I don't think I've ever had that kind of conversation with a dude, and if I did, I wouldn't brag about it.)

There is a running gag where a window pops up at the bottom of the screen reminding the viewers that South Park is an Emmy-winning comedy, which is used at the end to underline the incongruity between what one believes to be an Emmy-winning comedy and the huge load one is seeing on the screen. I suppose that Matt and Trey wanted to remind us that Emmy-winning comedies can occasionally produce a clunker, in this case, a gold-plated clunker weighing several Courics. Hopefully, with this episode out of their...uh...system, they'll do better next time.

Editing the Headers

Using a crappy image manipulation tool called The GIMP. For the most part, I've managed to fool the Blogger template, but I can't get the left margin of my header image to be completely transparent: thus the "ghost border".

Still, it's better than it looked before.

"Launch Party (The Office)", 10-11-2007

"The Office" might be one of the better comedies ever made, a commentary on office politics that anyone could love. It will probably be the type of comedy that they talk about 30 years from now, one that will be dissected in a way that a comedy like say, "Friends" never will.

However, the idea for "The Office" could never come from the United States. It could only come from Ricky Gervais and the English, where the very first version of "The Office" aired. And the UK version of "The Office" is a much tougher and nastier version of "The Office" than the American version. For those of you who've watched a version of "The Office" and winced at some of the actions of Michael Scott (portrayed by Steve Caroll), you deserve special caution when viewing the purer version of the clueless boss played by Ricky Gervais.

"The Office" is sort of a turnaround from the final episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" where she came to see her office co-workers as family.

Not so with "The Office". In "The Office", you would never want any of your co-workers to be your family. "The Office" is one of the few shows that make the bold claim that most work is frankly horrible, and soul-destroying. A truly awful job isn't one populated by the sterotypical J. Jonah Jameson type screaming boss. It's the kind of job at "The Office", where your dignity is just battered away while having to do meaningless stuff for a paycheck.

Karl Marx wrote about this. He stated that in the old days, you could take pride in your work because you were a creator, you created a final, tangible product that you could look at. Today, however, people work strictly for cash, doing small parts of a big job, small parts that seem completely and utterly meaningless. He called this "commodity fetishism".

Gervais might have been familiar with the idea of commodity fetishism, at least by osmosis from a culture a bit more familiar with the works of Marx and Engels. In America, however, work is almost worshiped at the level that it is worshiped in Japan. The idea is to make money, and the goal is not to do anything significant; the goal is to make money. The concept that a workplace can be completely degrading without actual whips being used still seems foreign to American culture.

The protagonist of "The Office" is Jim Halpert, a paper salesman at Dunder-Mifflin, a small paper-manufacturing and distributing company that has a branch office in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He never imagined himself being a paper salesman, and finds the job completely boring, but manages to hang in there because he loves the office receptionist, Pam Beesly. Together, they play pranks on office bootlick Dwight Schrute and manage to tolerate the self-proclaimed "World's Best Boss", Michael Scott, a man who has no clue as to how offensive and insulting he can really be.

"The Office" used to be thirty minutes long, but every episode this year has been expanded into one hour. One can almost view each half as a separate episode, with both episodes joined by a common theme.

In Act I, the Scranton branch is coming to grips with the new Dunder-Mifflin website. After not upgrading their website since 2002, Dunder-Mifflin has finally got on the internet train and allows customers to order on-line instead of by telephone.

However, this change in the old way of doing business has had some fallout. Ryan, the office temp in Season One, has now actually been promoted to Michael's boss. Ryan is the typical asshole young executive who talks in terms of paradigm shifts. The website was his idea (and it was a good one), but of course, Ryan wants to celebrate his accomplishment by holding a "party" of satellite hook-ups to all of the Scranton branches. Michael prepares for the main party in New York, while office judgmental prig Angela in accounting will arrange the "lesser" Scranton branch party.

Salesman Dwight however cannot adjust to a computer out performing in. He vows that he will personally sell more paper in one day than the website can sell from all the branches on its opening day. Office kiss-ass Andy joins him as Dwight competes, blowing an annoying airhorn whenever Dwight makes a significant sale.

Of course, Jim and Pam have their fun by tricking Dwight, sending text messages to Dwight from "DunderMifflin/sys" which purport to be from the now self-intelligent website computer -- which has made a vow to crush Dwight. Despite his status as the policeman for every annoying rule Michael Scott can come up with, Dwight falls for any of Jim's tricks and now believes he is locked in a death-duel with a self-intelligent machine.

Michael needs someone to go to New York with, so Jim ends up traveling with Michael to New York -- only to discover that the club that Michael thought was called "Chatroom" was just that...a computer chatroom. ("You need a password to get in!")

Disappointed and humiliated, Michael returns to Scranton. He decides that he will make the satellite party "the greatest ever" so that everyone can see it nationwide on the satellite hookup. This is Act II.

Unfortunately, Michael not only orders the pizza from the worst pizza joint in Scranton, but believes that his half-off coupon for pizza entitles him to half-off on the total order, and not on just two pizzas. As the sullen delivery boy demands his money, Michael decides to keep the delivery boy at the office -- by force -- until he learns how to treat people.

As the office staff do internet searches on what the legal penalties are for kidnapping, and Jim and Pam escape to the office roof to make sure that they are not taken in the inevitable police roundup, when the live webcam hookup links to Scranton, Michael points out that one salesman (Dwight) outsold the entire website's output. (The pizza boy, when unnoticed, makes a comment to the hookup that he is being held against his will.)

Michael pays for the pizzas and the pizza boy is released. Ryan is humiliated by Michael's outburst. In the end, Michael decides he wants the New York sushi he never got at the theoretical New York part, and he and Dwight drive to New York, visit a restaurant that happens to be the site of Ryan's central command, get their sushi, and get to listen to some of Ryan's coworkers, all happy to see Ryan taken down a peg by Michael's angry comments.

(* * *)

One of the great things about "The Office" is that the actors are so great all across the board (with the exception of one or two bit players) that the minute anyone opens their mouths, you know something funny is going to be said.

Furthermore, the stock in trade of "The Office" is embarassment humor. Looking for someone to tell an inappropriate ethnic joke, or an oblivious hurtful comment? That would be Michael Scott, who will not only say such things but believe he's being hilarious and/or comforting at the same time.

For the most part, none of the characters are stock characters, with the except of Dwight Schrute, played by Rainn Wilson. You might believe that the dedicated idiocy of Dwight Schrute is unique, but we've seen such a character before: Frank Burns of "M*A*S*H". You can expect Dwight Schrute/Frank Burns to abuse his authority, puff himself up, and in the end to be left exposed to the entire world through his own conceits.

My wife called "The Office" a "Peyton Place" in that time is spent on developing and fleshing out even minor characters. We know that Phyllis is married to Bob Vance. We know that Stanley has a teenage daughter of whom he is very protective. We know that Dwight Schrute lives on a beet farm. We know that Kelly Kapoor pretends to be Bridget Jones while answering the phone to break the tedium.

These little touches are used as springboards for jokes, but they are not abandoned. Rather, each fact has the potential to be reused in creating a continuum, an entire universe of generally unique and interesting characters.

The only complaint I have about "The Office" is that the expanded running time does not work. When trying to slam two thirty-minute episodes together and call them an hour, it turns out that one of the "episodes" is stronger than the other one, and it usually tends to be the starting premise -- leading to a dragging second half. As most of the producers of the show are actually cast members, maybe they can take some salary and put it into increasing the size of the writing staff, instead of making them do twice as much work.

"Seascape (Kitchen Nightmares)", 10-10-2007

Either you like Gordon Ramsey, or you don't. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't like him. He believes in making chefs the same way he was made -- through a heaping helping of personal abuse. Epithets like "Donkey!" abound, comparisons are made to a chef's palate and a cow's backside, and four letter words are liberally used (but conservatively bleeped for American television).

We get to see a game-show like version of this process on "Hell's Kitchen", where Ramsey takes ten or twelve (supposedly) trained chefs, puts them through their paces in producing quality meals, eliminates a chef every week, and the sole survivor gets a prize at the end. You've seen it before.

What you probably haven't seen (if you don't have BBC TV) is "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares", Ramsey's series in the UK and the one that he starred in before the demons at Fox put him in charge of Hell's Kitchen. Usually, four to six times a season -- British TV has shorter seasons -- Ramsey would come to some English restaurant that was on its last legs. Through some good advice, some hands-on planning, some tough love and the occasional boot up the backside, Ramsey would do his best to give the owners and chefs the tools they needed to create a successful business.

Fox, happy with Ramsey's ratings success, imported the concept to the United States and called it "Kitchen Nightmares". It's still an hour and still focuses on failing restaurants, this time American restaurants. Can Ramsey help the turn around?

What viewers of the original "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares" know is that that culprit behind any business which crashes is the loose nut behind the wheel. Either,

a) the owner is incompetent, or
b) the chefs are incompetent.

This time, with Seascape, a restaurant in Islip, New York, Ramsey's got his hands full.

The situation: Seascape was an extremely successful restaurant which could serve 300 customers with lines out the door -- in the late 60s-early 70s. The owner-operator is deceased, and the restaurant is now run by the wife of the late owner and his son.

Ramsey meets everyone. The widow is a nice Greek lady, who is chagrined that her son will not step up and crack the whip. The son is a real nebbish, who really wants to avoid conflict at any cost.

As for the chef and the sous-chef...the less said the better. The chef boasts of his thirty-eight years of experience and is highly put out that Ramsey has been invited to Seascape. He thinks it's an insult. Furthermore, the chef simply doesn't listen to the owner. The attitude of the chef, frankly, is "if you don't like the way I do things, then fire me".

The sous-chef is a joke, who doesn't seem to be able to do the basic work of a kitchen and is there for a paycheck. The customer base is down to a trickle of oldsters who probably come for nostalgia reasons.

The show moves, as always, to Ramsey ordering a signature dish. The food is cold, and he suspects that it was never fresh, but frozen. Everything tastes wrong.

In the meantime, Ramsey looks at the decor. The structure of the restaurant is beginning to decay and crumble. Furthermore, there is a smell that the waitress frankly tells Ramsey is sewage. At least, Ramsey gives her points for her honesty.

Ramsey then comes to see how the kitchen is run...or not run. One of the eternally-suffering patrons complains that the food is cold. The waitress, an oldster herself, takes it back. The chef waves it off. The food is warm. Ramsey, always a hands-on chef, feels the plate. "The plate is cold!" he shouts. The chef ignores him. Ramsey rolls his eyes.

Before the chefs return the next day to do their..."work"...Ramsey arrives for an inspection of the kitchen. It's not merely bad, it's worse than Ramsey could imagine. He finds the frozen food he was served the night before. One of his pesto side dishes seems to be about to get up and walk on its own. The grease traps are full and there is some undefinable substance affixed to the walls. Ramsey says he wonders how Tweedledum and Tweedledumber managed to avoid killing one of the patrons over the years. (He is not speaking figuratively.)

He also locates some unidentified pork slab that's the Salmonella Ballroom. Ramsey confronts the owners with the health hazard (which miraculously, scored 95 on a health inspection) that is impending. The owner claims he cleaned the kitchen -- indeed, the owner does all the cleaning as the staff simply won't do it. When the chef is confronted with the pork slab, he claims that it's his lunch! Ramsey can't believe what he's hearing. He orders that the restaurant be "shut down", which means that he wants it closed until the most obvious faults can be rectified. The senior customers there are sent home. One asks where he'll be eating, then, and the waitress tells the poor feller that wherever he eats today, it won't be at Seascape.

The next step is for Ramsey to demonstrate some simple yet tasty dishes that might help get the palate of the restaurant on track. The chef, however, is like an old tomcat, still angry that a leaner breed is in his territory. He flat out refuses to taste Ramsey's dish, claiming that he knows what the dish tastes like. And when they try to cook the dish, they burn it to within an inch of his life. Their attitude: "whatever".

It's time for tough love. Ramsey tells the owners that if any progress is to be made, Jim Carrey and Owen Wilson have to be fired. It's time for the owner to grow a pair of jooblies. The nebbishy owner inhales, then tells the chefs to leave. Honestly, they actually seem stunned that they were fired.

Unfortunately, Fox wants to make "Kitchen Nightmares" a cross with that CBS show where people who are crippled with 47 kids get new houses. So a decorating crew comes in and fixes up Seascape, while the owner apologizes to Ramsey. Yes, he knew the kitchen was a mess, but he's afraid of conflict so he simply does what needs to be done, to the best that he can do it.

In what was undoubtedly a move by Fox, Ramsey takes him boxing, the idea that if the owner can harness his inner Balboa, he can get the guts to actually run a restaurant. Critics say that the BBC Nightmares is better than the American one, because overseas the focus is on the food and not the personalities. With this little excursion to Apollo Creed's gym, those critics have a point.

However, the owner admits that his father, the former owner of the restauarant, was a man who always put him down and never complimented him. He's lost his self confidence, and you actually feel sorry for him.

Ramsey finds a new head chef. Service is iffy -- the staff haven't had a full restaurant in years, and when there is a conflict between the new (more competent) chef and the ancient waitresses, the owner steps in to take charge again after more prodding from Ramsey...and a hug.

It seems that Ramsey managed a miracle. However, the footnote at the end -- when Ramsey usually comes back weeks later to see if the changes have stuck -- states that five weeks later, the owner got an offer "he couldn't refuse" and sold the restaurant. If he's sleeping with the fishes, he's probably getting some peace and quiet at least.

A couple of comments. There's nothing worse than incompetent people who brag about their years of experience. All it meant was that he managed to escape the chopping block for 38 years, not that he was competent. There's a saying in the teaching business -- "have you been a teacher for twenty years, or have you been a teacher for one year, twenty times"? I suspect Doug the Chef was a chef for one week -- 1,972 times.

As for the owner, I'm glad he sold the restaurant. Frankly, management is a discipline where one is required to mediate conflict, and if you can't get people to follow your orders, you don't belong in management. As my wife said, that guy didn't belong as the owner of a restaurant.

Who knows what has become of Seascape? Is it now a Jiffy-Lube in Islip, New York? If so, I can guarantee you they have enough grease.

"Bless Us and Keep Us (Kid Nation)", 10-10-2007

There are two reasons why I like "Kid Nation".

1. Kids are naturally funny. They're smaller versions of ourselves, with an impaired logic unit, but not the surging hormones that make them dangerous to themselves and others. Sort of like cute little Forrest Gumps.

2. A kid reality show subverts the entire nature of reality TV. The modern Schroedinger's Law of TV states that once the cameras start rolling, people give up acting normal. In the Internet, given anonymity, the default interface is "annoying jerk". However, in reality TV, the default interface is "annoying jerk" without any of the anonymity.

For example, take "Survivor". There was a commercial for "Survivor" during "Kid Nation" that featured some woman acting like a jackass. Excuse me, madam? Don't you know that millions of people are watching you? People who have access to an internet connection and can learn you name? Don't you know that your mother is watching?

Most of the kids on "Kid Nation" don't know the rules of reality TV. I guess to them, TV is a big thing and they actually want to put their best foot forward on it. (The older a kid is on "Kid Nation", the more likely he or she is to act out.) That, and they undoubtedly know their parents and classmates are watching.

It must be hard to cast "Kid Nation". For other reality shows, it's easy. Simply get one of every ethnic group based on race, color, religion, sex, age, and national origin. Then add one person who belongs in a psyche ward, or more appropriately, in prison.

Therefore, on "Kid Nation", you can occasionally see the kids prodded by some stick wielded by producers. The concept of "Kid Nation" -- kids form their own town, without supervision -- is a lie. The "ghost town" in the Old West the kids live in has been brought up to building code standards -- can't have the saloon's roof crashing in on little Jennifer.

So this episode begins with the kids holding a spontaneous conversation about religious belief. Morgan and Sophia have this discussion on the way to the ol' waterpump on whether or not we were put on this earth for a reason. The littler kids are also having this discussion, and break up into "my religion is better than yours", or properly, "my God can beat up your God!"

You don't see the stick, but guess what? The four members of the town council are looking at the book left by the former settlers of Bonanza City, which happens to be written in perfect laser-set font. (This explains why the town went bust -- they bought internet stock.) The book tells the town council (of four kids, who lead color-designated teams) that they should start a religious service.

The town counci leaders decide to have a Unitarian, one-size-fits-all service. This doesn't go over well, as some kids feel they might get cooties. One kid says that religious differences start wars, and the kids have a general sense that this is a hot topic, and it is better that individual groups of kids get together in their own way rather than be forced into one mold.

The town council decides no dice -- there's going to be one religious service.

They ring the bell for the camp meeting.

No one shows up to the mandatory assembly. Which is a first in Kid Nation, where the citizens usually obey the tribal elders.

Mallory, meanwhile, quietly goes door to door and invites kids who want to participate to a religious service. Mallory is a Christian, but she invites other faiths to take part and each representative tries to do his best to be a good representative of his/her faith. One fourteen-year old boy breaks down in tears, because he is so incredibly moved by the coming together. It was probably the best moment on the show so far.

There is some fol-de-rol about a competition: each of the four color-coded groups represents a "class":

1. The upper class, which isn't required to do anything and is paid the most.
2. The merchant class, which runs the saloon/candy story and is paid slightly less.
3. The cooks, who prepare meals, and
4. The laborers, which do the hardest work and are paid least.

There is class turnover, represented by one of these awful contrived "Survivor-Type" tasks ("each team member must crawl through a ditch of fire, then Solve a Rubik's Cube, then compete in a caber-toss...."). The team finishing first gets upper-class privileges, but if all teams complete the task in the alloted time, everyone gets the choice of two gifts. One fun, the other "practical".

Everyone finishes this joke task. The "fun" gift is that the producers will build a putt-putt course in the middle of the town. ("Why don't the kids build it?") The other "practical" gift is a set of religious texts: the Bible, the Torah, Dianetics, etc.

The kids loudly debate, everyone speaking at once. The four councillors decide that unlike last week -- when the chose an Old-West microwave (!!) over a pizza party -- decide to let the hoi polloi vote.

I was astonished to learn that the kids chose the holy books. Then again, it shouldn't be so surprising -- the kids have always chosen the practical gift over the fun gift, meaning that they might be more serious-minded than they would be given credit for.

My question: if these kids are so religious (and they are, with only three kids self-selecting as "atheist" by the eight-year old who surveyed them), then why didn't they bring their own Bibles? Hey, I had my own Bible when I was eight. Do I detect the presence of the producers' stick, or is it just my God-hating paranoia?

Of course, there is discontent. The yellow team, finishing third yet again, is assigned the cooking duty. Except that they don't treat it seriously. They are led by 10-year old Taylor, an avid participant in kids beauty pageants and apparently averse to both work and criticism. She already has a catchphrase -- "Deal with it!" -- and self-aware Taylor is already making full use of it. (Once again, looking for that stick.)

Zach, another member of the yellow team, is disgusted. He decides to organize whatever help he can to get the duties of the yellow team finished while Taylor lolls about.

And of course, as "Survivor" has its Tribal Council and "The Amazing Race" has its Philimination, "Kid Nation" has its gold star. Each week, the council votes on a gold star winner. Except this gold star is actually made of gold. And is worth $20,000 cash.

There is some debate. Zach is a nominee, but Taylor won't be shown up by a member of her own team -- as nominations must be unanimous, this kills him. Greg, the hard-working 15 year old and the oldest kid there, is nominated, but Mike vetoes the nomination. Greg wants the gold star, ergo, he doesn't deserve it. More than likely, the real reason is that Greg doesn't like Mike and the feeling is mutual.

By default, the gold star winner is Mallory. The adult leader -- they need some adult to run these contests of course -- asks any of the campers if they want to go home.

Oddly enough, Cowboy Cody takes the ticket out of town. He is only the second kid to leave in four episodes. He misses his family....

...and, his girlfriend. Cody is nine and already has a girlfriend who sends him pictures and everything! I didn't have a girlfriend until I was 17! It's this damn internet, I tells ya! Get off my lawn!

Next episode: "Viva La Revolucion!" But will the adults supply the rope?

"97 Seconds (House)", 10-09-2007

I'll admit I fell off the "House, M. D." bandwagon sometime during the second season, during one of the dumbest plots ever -- House's persecution by a drug-cop-with-a-vengeance named Tritter.

I had been slightly unhappy with House for some time. It appeared that every episode fell into the same pattern: the mystery patient would be introduced. We'd get more than enough samples of House's obnoxious, over-the-top behavior. There would be some sort of "B" plot involving Cuddy or Wilson. House's crew would make a tenative stab at a diagnosis, think they had figured it out, but the patient would get progressively worse to the point of undertakers drawing out their measuring tape. Then, when all hope was lost, House would pull a cure out of his talented ass.

In all, "House, M. D." is a medical mystery, and as such, it shares the same faults of any other mystery: there is a murder. Who done it? That's the plot of every murder mystery, and for medical dramas, just substitute "there is an illness: what done it?" Like it or not, a lot of time is spent jumping through the requisite hoops, and after a while, all of the episodes blend together. The lack of character development -- House was designed to be the obnoxious character who doesn't have the Scrooge-like change of heart - made every episode seem like even more of the same.

However, at the end of Season Two, they decided to shake things up a bit. House's team of Foreman, Chase and Cameron fell apart, due to quittings, firings and the like. House tried to function as a one-man team at the beginning of Season Three, but that wasn't working. Therefore, House has been compelled to create a new diagnosis team, with several young doctors vying for a chance to work with the genius.

After the mystery patient is introduced -- a wheelchair-bound man suffering from paralysis faints in his wheelchair while crossing a street -- House is playing mind games with the ten doctors who, for reasons known only to House, have remained. He decides to split them up into two diagnostic teams, one all-male and one all-female. One of the female doctors -- known as "the Bitch" -- wants to be on the all-male team. It isn't that she believes that the females are the weaker team. Rather, she claims, she believes the males are the weaker team, and when the female loses, the major competition will be thinned out.

Meanwhile, at Mercy Hospital, Foreman is in charge of a House-like diagnostic team. Eventually, he concludes that his patient needs a risky treatment. However, the administrator at Mercy Hospital forbids the treatment. It's a House-like situation, so what is Foreman to do?

I can't give away too much of the plot, because if you give away too much of a mystery, it destroys the bloom of watching. However, there were a few points that I particularly liked:

* the set of ten remaining doctors attempting to figure out House -- I hate to tell them, but if House is the genius the show claims he is, then his mind is probably a level above theirs and they won't be able to figure him out
* the "macguffin" involved a mistake that nurses are taught never to make -- I used to be a nurse, and it wasn't the kind of mistake I would make. I wonder if medical school interns are taught the same thing
* House's interaction with Chase. Chase was the former House "gosling" who was fired. Now, Chase can tell House exactly what he thinks, with little fear of retribution.

But probably the best part of the episode was Foreman's dilemma, which cuts right to the heart of what I find so hard to believe about House and the way he works. Foreman decides to use the risky treatment on his patient, against the wishes of the administrator. The patient actually recovers with the risky treatment. (Oddly enough, he used a similar treatment in an earlier episode, and the patient died, leading Foreman to quit.)

Does the administrator thank Foreman for his obvious brilliance? No. The procedures are in place for a reason. Despite his success, Foreman is handed a pink slip. He just smarted himself out of a job.

In the initial episodes of "House", we learned that Cuddy hired House despite the fact that House was virtually unemployable. However, we get no wind of this "unemployability" of House. House abuses his privileges, abuses his staff, even abuses the administrator, and because of his diagnostic brilliance, gets away with it.

House is a saint. I don't use that word lightly. A real saint is a religious mystic, a person who follows a higher path wherever it leads, even if that path upsets the social order. And it is guaranteed that the path will upset the social order. Saints don't ask for permission, and they don't follow orders. Which is why most saints end up beheaded or crucified -- soon or later, they piss off the guardians of the social order who see saints as disruptive influences. Sooner or later, there is a showdown.

House has already had a few "showdowns" on his own show. A new board member named Vogler who wants to run the hospital like a business. Tritter, the John Wayne cop who can do things that no cop should be able to do (except in China). House versus a hospital review board. Through wit and/or circumstances, the saint has managed to stay on top.

However, we've never seen the path that House walked to get where he is. It was undoubtedly a very lonely path, and House doesn't even try to make himself likeable. The likeable, polished Foreman takes the first steps down House's Path of Sainthood -- and gets beheaded at Mercy Hospital. The question then becomes, "will Foreman confirm, or will he persist?"

The "B" plot is also interesting: House, while performing clinic duty, is faced with a clinic visitor who shoves a knife in an electrical socket -- while House is in the same room with him. The patient is revived, and tells House that when he had been hit by a car, his heart stopped for the 97 seconds of the title. He had some sort of wonderful experience while dead. What happens next is quite in character. After all, House is Sherlock Holmes, and Holmes never shied away from a mystery.

"...Or Die Trying (The Boondocks)", 10-08-2007

"The Boondocks" is one of those shows that I don't mind watching, but that I never watch twice. Perhaps I'd watch "Return of the King" again, but whenever Adult Swim offered one of its multiple chances to see "The Boondocks" in reruns, I just said, "oh hell, no", and switched the channel.

Most of the humor of "The Boondocks" is situational, and not the set-up/punch-line style of humor. Since most of the humor is found in the nature of the situations, once you're actually seen the action take place, the surprise is ruined for reruns. It's like watching an M. Night Shyamalan flick over again. However, the shows are great to watch -- on the first view.

The show's premise is that Robert Freeman (known as "Granddad"), an elderly African-American man, has moved to a lily-white suburb. He is the legal guardian of his two grandchildren, Huey and Riley. Huey is deep into advancing black causes and self-respect, and serves as the voice of reason. Riley, on the other hand, is swayed by gangsta rap and blindly follows whatever trend is popular in black culture.

Granddad and Riley happen to catch a commercial for "Soul Plane 2: The Blackjacking" while watching TV. This "movie", which features the talents of Mo'Nique (who provided a voiceover), Snoop Dogg (ditto) and Fifty Cent (nope) is playing at the local cineplex. Granddad and Riley immediately decide that this movie is Priority Alpha, and make plans to see it immediately.

Huey attends with a sense of trepidation -- his Granddad is the model of stingy when it comes to attending a movie. When mixed race little girl Jazmine (Huey often treats her cheerfulness with disdain) gets invited, Huey warns her that "this will be the worst day of your life". Sure enough, the quartet manage to not only sneak their way into the movie without paying, but bring their own food as well. This is all due to their Granddad having a grudge against the movie industry and his committed refusal to ever have to pay for a movie.

While Jazmine (who was forbidden to see "Soul Plane 2", her parents obviously fearing for her mental hygiene) is terrorized by several movie commercials comparing movie theft to felony murder, Riley brings a camcorder. However, it appears that the Freemans won't be able to watch the movie, as they are spotted by Uncle Ruckus, who is working as an usher. Ruckus is an absurd parody of the self-hating black, who loves anything white, and gets most of the funny dialogue in any "The Boondocks" cartoon. Ruckus is determined that these "Africans" are going to be caught and brought to justice.

But all the humor is found in the situations: Granddad forced to buy movie popcorn when Riley sneaks in a bag of microwavable popcorn. Huey's attempt to unionize the Cineplex workers. Jazmine's terror. Huey's disgust with the whole thing and his attempts to destroy the movie. And of course, the staff-nunchakus battle between Huey and Uncle Ruckus (you heard me).

It's the kind of show I would recommend to other people -- but one which I wouldn't go out the way to see again. Actually...come to think of it...this was a pretty good episode. Maybe that eighteen month hiatus is finally paying off.

"No Man is an Island (Aliens in America)", 10-08-2007

This is the second episode of the new show "Aliens in America", which follows "Everybody Hates Chris" on the CW.

Sidebar -- The CW stands for "CBS/Warner Brothers", which I found out on Wikipedia.

That sidebar might be the most interesting thing you read in this review. The premise of the show, according to the website at the CW, is that young Justin Tolchuk is a 16-year old kid trying to make it through school despite not being cool. When he learns that his family will be hosting an exchange student, he imagines some Swedish bikini model will show up and move Justin up on notch on the level of coolness. However, Justin finds that the exchange student is Raja Musharaff, a Pakistani Muslim who is an even greater outsider and who threatens to move Justin further down the totem pole due to the fact that Raja doesn't understand the unwritten rules of teen society.

In the most recent episode, Justin's English teacher is trying to lead a discussion on "Robinson Crusoe", a book which was on the class's summer reading list. (The teacher seems genuinely surprised that no one has read it. What was this poor idiot thinking? I never read any of that crap they tried to foist on me.) Chagrined, he gamely tries to lead the class into a discussion on Dafoe's work by asking what they would take with them if they were trapped on a desert island.

After two foolish answers, Raja gamely enters the discussion. He states that if he could only take one thing to a desert island, he'd take...Justin, since he couldn't imagine a world without their friendship. Unfortunately, the way he phrases it, he might has well have sashayed out in a cocktail dress and given Justin a big ol' smooch. Justin's popularity continues to plummet.

Furthermore, Raja is forming a friendship with "Small Paul", an 11-year old genius who goes to the high school and is treated as a general figure of scorn. Raja wants to invite Paul to hang out with Justin and himself. Therefore, Justin figures that he's not going to have any popularity at all by the time the year is over and gets advice from Claire, his popular older sister. Claire makes the obvious suggestion -- stop hanging out with Raja. Justin cuts off Raja to Raja's dismay, but when Justin falls asleep during a class, he wakes up to find the building closed -- no one even bothered to wake him up. He discovers he needs Raja's friendship, because, after all...well, better to have one friend than no friends at all.

The "B" plot is rather lame. Claire is a Quinn-Morgendorffer-in-training (if you've ever watched "Daria"), and Claire's mother, Franny, appears to be Quinn Sr. Claire has just broken up with a popular athlete by text message, and despondent, the athlete just sits on the family lawn. That's about it for humor. The father involves himself, but the interaction between the characters left so little of an impact that I literally forgot how the whole thing turned out.

There's one thing I know that American audiences might not know -- apparently in some world cultures (Pakistan, the Middle East), it is common for male friends to hold hands, hug each other, even kiss each other. Raja's flowery sentiments might have gone unnoticed in his home country, but in the homophobic United States Raja and Justin would definitely be pariahs.

What's odd is that with the "we hate Muslims" sentiment voiced loudly in some quarters of the United States, I'm surprised that Raja's religion combined with his "gayness" wouldn't subject him to a beating by one of the less-enlightened. Then again, this is Sitcom Reality we're talking about, not "real reality". Justin and Raja wouldn't have lasted two minutes at my Kentucky high school in the 1980s, and I doubt it's much different anywhere else today.

The problem with these "Wonder Years" comedies which rely on dramatic sweetness and "lessons learned" is that they can't decide what they want to be: a comedy or a drama. It reminds me of the final scenes from the movie "North Dallas Forty", where one of the enraged player pummels a coach. Everytime the player believes football is a game, the coach yells that it's more than a game. Every time the player acts like football is like life itself, the coach reminds him it's just a game. That coach rightly deserved to be beaten, and frankly, so do the writers of "Aliens in America".

However, Raja is an interesting character. When the school goons pick on Small Paul by taking his briefcase from him, Raja tells them that they're only making themselves look all the more pathetic. Raja is much more comfortable with himself than Justin.

Indeed, I find it hard to empathise with characters like Justin, or even with Chris from "Everybody Hates Chris". I don't want to identify with such schlubs. If I wanted to identify with an average joe, I would just longingly look at myself in the mirror...more than I usually do. I want to be entertained by the extraordinary, and not shows which celebrate boredom and failure as some sort of write of passage. I've not bailed on on the show, yet, as Raja promises the hint of some sort of extraordinary. But will that promise be realized?