What I'm Watching

I'm in the midst of a personal television renaissance of sorts right now. With a little more downtime than I've had, thanks in large part to my stupid back and neck which keep waylaying me, and a little less motivation to hang out with friends, in large part due to the craptacular weather which has kept the roads snowy for about a week now, I've been catching up on some good old-fashioned TV.

The big discovery, in the Christopher Columbus sense of 'discovering something that millions of people knew about already' (yes, yes, I stole the line from Lisa Simpson. It's a good line, so sue me.), is the general greatness of 'The Wire'. Yet another one of those HBO shows which is, well, redefining the whole concept of what is possible with a television show.

Yes, I'm only halfway through the first season, and I know that means that aficionados are going to tell me that I don't have any idea just how good the show actually is. Which is why I don't spend a lot of time talking to aficionados, frankly. I have no use for someone who only wants to tell me how I don't understand something.

Anyhow, the point is, it's a damn fine show. The characters are interesting, and well-developed. The show is totally willing to spend 6 or 8 minutes developing a fine point of one of its characters, and does almost no explication at all. Which makes it quite unique for TV - even Lost, my personal favorite show, gets sucked down the 'must explain it all to you using teeny tiny words' every once in a while.

As an example, check out this famous scene (caution: not appropriate for work.) The two detectives, McNulty and Bunk, are trying to investigate a months-old crime using nothing but the photos taken by the previous investigators and variations on the word 'fuck'. But somehow, it all makes sense. It gives you an idea of what's going through the protagonists' minds, without them saying 'let me tell you what's going on in my mind.' It's amazing television.

Let's see, what else. Well, something I saw, which I truly regret, was Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End. I saw the second one, 'Dead Man's Chest', on an airplane once. I hated it, but was giving it the benefit of the doubt because it was on a plane, with bad sound, a tiny, faraway TV screen, etc. and maybe that detracted from the watching experience.

But, no. The last two movies of this franchise just sucked. Which is a damn shame, because the first one was such good fun. Not a great movie, but equal parts silly and funny and entertaining. I can't say exactly how the last two went off the rails, mostly because I don't want to waste any more time thinking about them than I already wasted in watching them.

I have been catching up on my Must-See TV watching, as well. I am still mystified by 'The Office'. I guess, in theory, I understand why people think that this show is funny. And no, I've never seen the Ricky Gervais version. But, much like I understand the concept of post-modern art, but cannot actually appreciate it, I don't really laugh very much when I watch 'The Office', either.

On the other hand, '30 Rock' is just about the funniest damn thing on TV right now. Tina Fey is so funny in it, and the writing is generally so spot-on hilarious, that it's almost enough to make me regret missing the last 8 years of Saturday Night Live. Not quite enough, but almost.

The show is worth watching for Alec Baldwin's character alone, and there are plenty of other memorable performances as well. But Baldwin is just sublime. He hits the perfect tone of sarcasm, arrogance, and self-unawareness that the character requires. '30 Rock' is what I will miss the most as a fallout from the writer's strike in Hollywood.

Also, I just finished reading 'The Golden Compass'. Not a half-bad book, actually. Although, I don't understand how anyone can really deny the anti-religiosity of the book. He may not smack you over the head with it, at least not in the later portions of the first book, but Pullman expressly states that 'The Magisterium' originates from The Catholic Church! He talks about the Pope and everything...

I'm tempted to see the movie, mostly as a 'fuck you' to the Christianists, to use Andrew Sullivan's wonderful term, who argue that children need to be protected from the movie, even though it's had nearly all the religion surgically removed from it, because the movie might prompt kids to read the book, and that might put ideas in their heads! Oh, the horrors! Suffice to say, I am thoroughly unimpressed with a God who is so weak that a mere movie (or a book, or, even, a trilogy!) would suffice to turn members of His flock away from Him. But I will probably pass on the movie, at least until DVD time, because I really try to save my $9.50 for things I am legitimately excited about.

Finally, I was very glad to see Volume 2 of Heroes stumble to a close. Talk about an uninspiring show. Really, the big bad guy is so scary because he's invulnerable to physical harm and he's really mad at the world? Color me, well, whatever color 'not frightened' is. The storyline where Hiro became Takero Kensei was vaguely interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the amount of time spent on it would indicate it ought to have been. And really, for being the most powerful imaginable hero, since he absorbs everyone else's power just by being near them, Peter is really ridiculously easy to take advantage of.

Don't even get me started on the fact that The Company would put its most dangerous prisoner, Adam, in the adjoining cell with its most powerful, allow them to talk to one another, and never, you know, pay attention to their conversations, or something, so that they might know when Peter stopped taking his pills. The whole season was full of completely absurd plot holes like that.

Anyhow, Heroes is something I will not be particularly missing as a result of the writer's strike. Maybe, after the strike ends, they'll be able to find actual good writers to take over for a show which is rapidly fallowing in the shallow sandbars of its own incredibly low expectations.