Note.
Programming this year improved.
Lost finally seemed to get some of their shit together with the idea of moving forward in time in a blatant rip-off attempt at what DC Comics tried to do post-Infinite Crisis with the One Year Later event. Though OYL fails to get me to remember anything memorable other than the unforgettable and groundbreaking 52 series. However, using the OYL idea has completely revitalized Lost for me. Though we’re going back to the island we’ve finally landed on a situation that is intriguing, rather than the millions of flashbacks the producers spent three seasons as a way in to character development. Sorry, a flashback is a lazy story device, but when you start off a series the way Abrams, Lindelof, et al did -you really have no other choice than back into that corner. And it was interesting for a while, but after three seasons-no one is that interesting-especially when they are such carbon cut-out characters. Though switching it up in a One Year Later style mixes things up and makes it at least intriguing rather than frustrating. Though the “moving the island,” by way of wood crane is as frustrating as anything else Lindelof and company has ever done, if not more annoying, that entire conceit just wreaked of laziness without any rhyme or reason. I came to this belief by the way it was inferred from the start: “we’re just going to have to move the island,” Ben says with such non-chalance that I couldn’t help but throw up my hands and say: “Sure, why not? Why not do that? We can do it, just because we can. Ben has that technology. He doesn’t know where that technology came from but he’s going to do it anyway.” The whole thing came off as a middle finger pointed in the face of audience members, and confirmed for me what the difference is between a good show, and a bad one. A good show presents the audience with descriptors that clue the audience into why characters do what they do without ever telling them. A bad show tells them. In this case, the descriptor is: “this is a mysterious island where all kinds of arcane experiments went on. That’s all we’re giving you to back up why women can’t get pregnant, why there is a smoke monster, and why we can just move the island as a solution to all of our problems.”
Though this problem does make Lost teter on the edge of being a crap show, it manages to still grab my attention and make me want to see what comes next. It is the best show on television at getting you to come back every episode because of that mystery it so attaches itself to. There are certain key elements that make it a bad show, there are other things that evens it out and that’s what Lindelof and the rest of the writers count on, and that is why its masterful: it pulls it from the edge of crap to being a genuine enticing drama. So, in the end, it’s a decent program with many faults. And, ultimately, 100 % watchable, in a similar way that makes “reality” show programming continue, when it should not.
Battlestar Galactica remains the best show on television. Now that they’ve reached Earth, it sort of confirms what I always believed. That Earth was the original colony, and the outer planets (Caprica, etc.) were the colonies and not the originator. Commenting, in a way, on the thirteen colonies that founded America.
The new shows I got into this year were Californication, Eli Stone and The Venture Bros. I watched a couple of dangling episodes of The Venture Bros., but never had any real context to the program, until I rented it through my Blockbuster Queue. I simply could not stop watching it. There’s nothing to really say why I liked this show, because it is so damn perfect, with stellar theme music.
Eli Stone, is a nice show done by the current Green Lantern movie developers Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green. They’ve got a sharp one going here, unfortunately no one thinks so and it is going to be done soon. A shame, because this is a witty alternative to Ally McBeal with far better acting and nicer people to look at, and, as far as I can tell, better writing. Though I think I only watched a episode or two of Ally McBeal and that was just a cringe-worthy show.
Now Californication is not a particularly different or noteworthy show. It relies on you liking David Duchovny and/or his character; if you don’t like him or his character than the show would be utterly forgettable.
Why I like the character is he is moody (no pun intended considering the character’s name is Hank Moody), he’s a talented fuck-up with a sharp wit and a helluva vocabulary. One of my favorite scenes is Hank giving a reading at a LA book store when the director who bastardized his novel stops by to pick a fight with him over talking shit about the director in the press. The exchange is priceless.
MOODY: Ladies and Gentlemen Todd Carr, the caramel-coated, chrome-domed auteur who took my precious little novel, wiped his ass, and transformed it into the craptastic crowd pleaser also known as A CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE.
CROWD: [cat-calling sounds] OOOOO.
MOODY: My people.
CARR: You’re still bitching about whoring yourself out to Hollywood?
MOODY: Only when my Pimp isn’t around.
CARR: You’re no fucking Faulkner, y’know.
MOODY: Yeah, you’re no Brett fucking Ratner. Or in your case that could be a compliment, in that case, I didn’t mean to.
CARR [approaching Moody]: I’m sick of you talking shit about me in the press.
MOODY: Oh, so that’s why you’re here. I thought you were here because you found out I fucked your wife in every room of your house. No? Every room of your house. Oh, and I’m sorry about the rug, I didn’t realize the Old Lady was a squirter.
Fist fight breaks out.
The other aspect of this show is the character says things writers have been saying for years. Or at least he voices a pet peeve that I’ve ranted about for years before ever watching this show. For example, in the episode “Lol,” Hank spends the episode reprimanding his girlfriend for enabling the death of the English language by speaking in Lolspeak. Which is using the abbreviated terms for laughing out loud ["lol"] and being right back ["brb"], in everyday language, and not in the accepted platform of AIM. But using it in that latter context has been annoying the shit out of me since everyone started using it back when everyone was on America Online in 1998. Even then I would type in those instant message windows, “don’t use ‘lol’ if you think something is funny write ‘hahaha’,” but people don’t want to write that; they exist in an immediate quick way of communicating. Its like a short, sweet, ultra-refined short hand, designed to communicate easily but comes off ass butt-licking lazy. Its short hand for people who don’t want to take the time to think about what they are saying.
I went off there didn’t I? Better end this before it gets too ranty
