A thought on Game of Thrones

You all know that I've been a fan of professional wrestling ever since I was a little kid. And what most don't realize is that, beyond the violence and the spectacle, pro-wrestling is serialized storytelling broken down to its most basic elements. For a time, in the 80's, in the midst of Bruno Sammartino and Hulkamania, you had these long stretches of good guys, or, as they call them "babyfaces" or just "faces", holding the world championship and vanquishing bad guys (aka "heels").

But the usual trajectory of wrestling story lines have always been much more subversive. Historically, the heels have held the championships and constantly thwart the efforts of the faces to unseat them - partially through skill in the ring, but more often through cheating and the manipulation of the rules and incompetent refs.

See, the problem with most faces is that they think the most talented grapplers should be champion. But championships are won in multiple dimensions, where pure wrestling skill is only one, and possibly the least important.

Which is why Ric Flair is able to call himself a 16 time world champion. He mastered all aspects of the game. Not just in ring skill, but a mastery of ref manipulation, psychological warfare, timely alliances, and just straight up cheating.

Ric Flair & The Four Horsemen bragging, before getting called out

The storytelling genius of Ric Flair is that he was so arrogant and smug, audiences hated him so much because if it. They would pay over and over again on the hope that this time he might lose.

The very definition of the man you live to hate.

Which brings me to Game of Thrones, and, more specifically, the ruling family.

The Lannisters are The Four Horseman of Westeros.

They play the game better than anyone else. We admire and loathe them. And, as noble as the Starks are, they are overmatched. In this world, their very nobility is a liability. And the Lannisters are the real stars.

Tywin Lannister educates his son Jamie while slaughtering a deer.

The Starks played a great game of checkers. But Tywin Lannister is playing 3D chess.

That said, having not read the books, I think this next generation of Starks have learned the hard lessons that can make them competitive. But I think it shows the genius of George R. R. Martin that he's made the world so karmically unfair so far because our hearts keep hoping against hope for at least a just ending, if not a happy one.

But I would say don't count on it.

Review: Fox's The Following & NBC's Hannibal, or NSFW Videos of the Moment - 04-16-13

There's a very interesting conversation going on just beneath the surface of network TV about the blurred lines between imagination and reality.

It began in a very heavy-handed yet still entertaining way with Fox's new hit show, The Following.  In it, Kevin Bacon plays the stereotypical FBI burnout Ryan Hardy, who's called out of the mothballs to recapture his old nemesis, literary professor/author turned Edgar Allan Poe-obsessed serial killer Joe Carroll, played by the very underrated James Purefoy, and his growing thrill-kill cult.  While the serialized Rube Goldberg-style plot really stretches your ability to suspend disbelief in a way that only the craziest shows like "Lost" and "24" could in the past, the really interesting aspect is how Carroll sees himself as the actual author of the story playing out before us on the show.  For Carroll, each crime he and his minions commit are all chapters in a book he is literally writing in the show about Ryan Hardy, who he's chosen as the protagonist.  I'm reminded of something I think I read from John Byrne that, in the best stories, you take characters that you love and you torture them.

So, we have these fascinating moments where Carroll, without actually breaking the fourth wall, is forced to negotiate between his hatred and profound desire to just kill Hardy and his narcissistic need to keep Hardy alive so he can give him a good and satisfying ending in the story.  Yes, it's crazy, but it's occasionally funny and always entertaining.

Check out The Following, Season 1, Episode 12 - The Curse - on Hulu.
 
Let's just say, I'm waiting to see how packing a mansion with a bunch of homicidal maniacs on holiday eventually works itself out.

But, the far more interesting side of this conversation about imagination and reality is happening in NBC's new series, "Hannibal".  In this prequel to "The Silence of the Lambs", Hannibal Lecter (played masterfully and completely separately from Tony Hopkins Oscar-winning performance in the film version) is merely an extremely cultured psychiatrist called in to counsel Hugh Darcy's Will Graham, an FBI profiler who is credited with the talent for "pure empathy".  Graham is able to walk into a crime scene and instantly and accurately imagine how the murderer felt as he committed the crimes based on the evidence in front of him.  In these moments, Graham tells the story of what happened to the victims from the killer's perspective, much like how slasher movies back in the '80's forced the audience to literally see the teenage camp counselors through the murderer's eyes.

Check Out Hannibal: Pilot on Hulu.

Graham has such an amazing imagination that these horrific things cling to him long after and, of all people, it's Dr. Lecter's job to keep him sane throughout.

While they deal in very similar subject matters, Hannibal is a noticeably more sophisticated show than The Following in virtually every detail - performances, production, and, most important of all, writing.  But, in this instance, instead of a character trying to get control of the reality around him to suit his own ends, like Joe Carroll, Will Graham is desperate to get control of the increasingly deadly alternative realities inside of him, and, frankly, Hannibal Lecter is just adding fuel to the fire.

I just thought these were interesting dichotomies - using fictitious serial killers to explore how we interface with the worlds both within and without (and the price that comes with both).  They're both quite good, and neither is for the faint of heart.

Frankly, I'm still stunned by what's getting past the network sensors these days.

The Art of 9/11

Rather than talking about the event itself, I'd much rather reflect on all of the amazing artistic responses the September 11th terror attacks elicited.  Tragedy always requires an emotional outlet, and these films and TV shows, at least, in my opinion, captured them perfectly.  And, frankly, I don't think any of these shows would have existed in the form that we know them without that awful day.  These are just the top few off the top of my head on a Monday morning.  I'll add as more occur to me, but please, feel free to chime in yourselves.

24

Battlestar Galactica

The Dark Knight

Planet Terror

Some final thoughts about "Lost"

So, I know many of my readers out there are fans.  Here are some things that come to mind, now that the finale's been marinating in my mind for a week now.  Beware of spoilers.  Brain dump commencing:

• First of all, I thought the finale was beautiful, and recasts the entire run of the show in an entirely new light.  Done right, I think the way you end a story tells you what it's actually been about from the beginning.  Just like Battlestar Galactica: they told you in the very first episode what the whole series is about when Adama asks "why are we, mankind, worth saving".  In the same way, "Lost" told you very early on in the catchphrase "Live together, die alone."
• Then again, I'm a bit bothered by the shifting motivations for Jacob & The Man in Black.  I mean, is Jacob trying to convince the Man in Black that humanity is worth saving to convince him not to leave the island?  Good luck with that.
• I love the intermeshing (if that's really a word) of the mystical and the sci-fi.  Electromagnetism as a catch all for all the weird time & space distortions on the island.
• I really love the resolution of Ben's story.  After all the horrible things he's done, he ready does still have some work to do, doesn't he?  :-)
• So, Miles, Kate, Frank, Sawyer, Claire, & Richard all escape.  Somehow, I don't think this "Ajira Six" is going to get the same treatment as their predecessors.  Can you imagine Frank trying to explain what happened to the other 40+ passengers on his plan?  Can you say "jail time"?  And, really, where are these others going to go from here?  I suppose Kate becomes Claire's nursemaid, which means Sawyer probably won't stay to far away, which means Miles won't stay to far away either.  Richard's path would be the most interesting after this.
• Jack's story, while triumphant, is, ultimately, a very sad one.  I mean, yes, he sacrificed himself and saved the world & all that, but only because he realized that he had nothing else.  Whatever Jacob had set in motion for Jack at the very beginning had stripped his soul completely naked and left it laying in the street.  Of course he'd take that job!  Hurley still has a family that loves him.  Kate has a child.  Sawyer's too bitter.  I felt really sad about what he'd come to by the end, despite his resolution in the afterlife.
• And don't even get me started on John Locke!  I suppose his demise ultimately served the purpose of catalyzing Jack, but, man, talk about the suffering of Job!
• I LOVE the final confrontation with the Man in Black.  May trump Sayid vs. Keamy as the best fight in the series.  Just absolutely epic.

But, at the end of the day, the true triumph of the show is that they could accomplish something so vast & complex, but still make it ultimately in service of character, above all else.  In many ways, Lost is the opposite of "The Wire", where story trumps all, especially character.

In short, a masterpiece of TV story telling.  As far as genre shows go, very little can even touch it.

But, if you're a fan of Lost and you haven't watched the new "Battlestar Galactica", you are really doing yourself a disservice.  The plot is not as complex, but the seriousness of the storytelling and the authenticity of character & performance are on the same level as "Lost".  It's equally spiritual, and, like Lost, you don't realize just how much until the end.

Actually, now that I think about it, "BSG" is kind of the mutant love child of "Lost" and "24", because it's just as ruthless as Jack Bauer's home town, and just as political, but still is a good solid genre show firmly based in characters.

Lost rocked.  I'll miss it.

No. 1 on the call sheet

This interview with J.J. Abrams about his process for the new "Star Trek", coupled with a Fast Company article about McG, where he likened directing a big budget movie to being hired as the CEO of a $200 million company that only gets to launch one product, put a new idea in my head.

So, I'm about a month away from starting serious casting for my feature film, and it occurred to me, for as many actors who want to be stars, how many of them are conscious of the responsibilities, from a filmmaking perspective, that stardom brings?

I'm reminded of a conversation Tom Cruise and Jada Pinkett Smith had with Tavis Smiley
just before the release of "Collateral", where Tom said, at the time, "I've never lost the studio money". It struck me at the time because, honestly, it hadn't occurred to me that he, as the star, felt personally responsible for making sure that the people who invested their money in his performance would see a return on their investment.

As a director, I'm reminding myself that it's not just important to cast someone who can give a performance, but someone who can also be a responsible filmmaker: supporting the performances for the other actors, treating onset crew with proper respect, being engaged in the evolution of their character with the director and the writer, using their fan base to promote the film, and, in many, many cases, helping to bring in the money to make sure there even IS a film to make in the first place.

It sounds like J.J. was very blessed by Chris Pine's onset presence. He was the star of the film, and he knew it, and acted appropriately.

I hope other actors are taking note - if you want to be a star, act like one. And that doesn't mean being a diva. It means being someone that a filmmaker and a producer and a studio and your castmates can put their trust and faith in. Being a star is about having broad shoulders.

Anyway, just something on my mind right now.

Diary of a bunch of Mad Black Writers

According to Nikki Finke, it looks like Tyler Perry finally got the message and is going to sign onto the WGA contract.

"Peace in our time", ladies and gentlemen.

And I'll refrain from referencing Chris Rock's old joke about people who want credit for things they're supposed to do. For now.

Crabs in a Barrel

So, first, let's get to the facts:

A few days ago, Tyler Perry fired a bunch of black writers from his cable sitcom "House of Payne". In response, the Writers Guild of America just filed suit against Perry with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging unfair labor practices. Perry says the writers were fired because of the quality of their work. The writers say they were fired because they were pushing to have the show covered under a WGA contract.

When I first heard this, I did a double-take. The highest rated sit-com on basic cable is a non-union show?

But, as I researched it more, it was even worse than I thought.

"House of Payne" is a DGA signatory. Of course it is: Tyler directs most of the episodes, and he's a member of the Directors' Guild, so it would have to be.

"House of Payne" is also a SAG signatory. Of course it is: if it wasn't, he couldn't have cast actors like Allen Payne, who, like most of his castmates, are members of the Screen Actors Guild.

But, "House of Payne" is NOT a WGA signatory.

I mean, the one group that he COULD screw, he DID screw.

Now, to be totally fair, a number of the fired writers are WGAw members, so, they really had no business working on a non-union show in the first place, unless, of course, part of their agreement when they were hired was that the show would become a guild signatory. The guild has provisions to allow for that. And, if I had to guess, that is probably the essence of the case they're bringing to the NLRB.

Tyler recently signed a deal with TBS to create 100 episodes of "House of Payne" for $200 million, or $2,000,000 per episode. The WGA considers a show a "high budget minimum" if its budget exceeds $100,000 per episode for non-network primetime, in which case, the guild minimum fee for writing one such episode is ~$12,000. It also requires that, if you're on staff, meaning you're under the regular employ of the producer instead of a hired gun who's brought in on a one-off basis to write an episode, your minimum weekly salary for a basic cable show of this length is roughly $3,000.

Plus health benefits, pension, etc.

Pretty good work if you can get it. But even if you assume they make an episode a week (and they clearly work much faster, given how many they've produced in the last two years), and let's assume that the pension & health insurance costs as much as the total salary & writing fees involved for these writers (and it's considerably less), and you round up to the nearest $10,000, you're still only talking about $50,000 per episode, or 2.5% of the total budget per episode.

And it's not like House of Payne is an expensive show. It's a three camera comedy, meaning they have a series of standing sets in front of a studio audience with two stationary cameras and a third on a track, so that the actors get to perform almost like it's theater. No expensive locations. No special effects. Allen Payne is probably the highest paid actor on the show after Tyler Perry himself, and I guarantee you that brother is not making a million dollars an episode.

But let's put all of that aside for a moment.

For a guy who's built his career around promoting a certain kind of Black Christian faith and community responsibility....

I just don't understand.

Just like BET. Actually, worse than BET. At least BET is more up front about the fact that they're making money by getting over on Black people.

I was never particularly a fan of Tyler Perry's work. The minute I'm shown yet another Black man in drag for laughs, I immediately turn off. I think this trend, going all the way back to Flip Wilson, and continued through Will Smith & Martin Lawrence, has always been a double-edged diss against Black people. It perpetuates a de-feminized stereotype of Black women & mothers while simultaneously emasculating some of our more prominent Black male performers. And yet, I always had respect for him as an artist and a businessman who'd found a way to successfully navigate the entertainment industry while still owning his original content. I was really happy to see him succeed in film, especially as his films seem to reach for more authentic representations of Black relationships.

But come ON, man!!!! Pay the fucking writers! It's not like you don't have it.

Jeez.

Robotech inches closer to big screen reality

OK, so, it's not quite a nerd-gasm yet. (Does that, then, make it nerd-play?)

Lawrence Kasdan to pen 'Robotech'

But it's still pretty tasty - because the minute somebody is paying an A-list writer for a script, you can at least know that somebody, somewhere, is serious enough about actually making the film to put some real skin in the game.

My only concern is that Robotech is a MASSIVE story. I mean, originally, they were three separate and totally unrelated anime cartoons that the producers redubbed and smooshed together to make one big, epic story spanning three generations of heroes fighting successive waves of mecha-enabled alien invaders (namely, the Zentraedi, The Robotech Masters, and, my personal favorites, The Invid). To do it even sort of right, you really ought to do three separate trilogies, one for each generation.



And, perhaps that's the point. If I was a studio head, I would be salivating at the chance to launch a property with a massive built-in audience and 8 potential sequels. Especially since you only need three-film commitments from any one actor (so the costs are fairly fixed, as opposed to other franchises that become increasingly expensive from actors' salaries).

And, unlike most 80's cartoons, Robotech already had fairly sophisticated dramatic elements - real death and cross-racial romance and the cost of war. It doesn't need to be upgraded to adulthood like, say, Transformers. In fact, my other concern is that the studio might try to soften some of the hardcore storytelling at the end of each saga in hopes of "sending people home happy".

Just tell a good story, man. That'll make people happy enough.

Then again, Kasdan did write "Empire Strikes Back". Maybe I shouldn't be concerned.

And I do think Tobey Maguire would make a pretty good Rick Hunter. And Katee Sackhoff is the obvious choice for Dana Sterling. Dare I suggest Grace Park is Lin Minmei?

Actually, the more I think of it, the more I realize Ron Moore is totally jacking Robotech tropes for Battlestar Galactica. Edward James Olmos is a total shout-out to Captain Gloval. The tone and lessons about war are also very similar, as well as the effect humanity has on alien cultures.

In short, I'm still anticipating the nerd-gasm. But, done right, this could be the "Lord of The Rings" for giant robot sci-fi summer action movies. I have renewed hope.

Lists

Because it's the beginning of a new year, I suppose it's only appropriate to talk about the things I loved in the 365 days past. So, without further ado, and in no particular order:

Favorite films released theatrically in 2007

• Talk To Me
• No Country For Old Men
• Sunshine
• Hot Fuzz
• Grindhouse
• Lust, Caution
• Superbad
• 3:10 To Yuma
• The Bourne Ultimatum
  

Favorite films I saw in my living room in 2007

• Equilibrium
• Deja Vu
• The Dreamers
• Silent Hill
• Idiocracy
• Dirty Pretty Things

Favorite comic series published in 2007

• Green Lantern
• 52
• New Avengers
• Thor
• Eternals
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier
• World War Hulk
• New Avengers: The Illuminati

Favorite musical discoveries of 2007

• "Frequency" by Naked Rhythm
  
• "Singles" by Vikter Duplaix
• "Belle Et Fou" by Jazzanova
• "International Affairs" by Vikter Duplaix
• "Bebel Gilberto Remixed"
• "A Night At The Playboy Mansion" by Dimtri From Paris
• "After The Playboy Mansion" by Dimitri From Paris
• "The Street Experience" by Raheem Devaughn
• "Danger Doom" by Danger Mouse & MF Doom
  

Favorite TV shows airing new episodes in 2007

• The Wire
• The Shield
• Battlestar Galactica
• Lost
• Heroes
• Chuck
• The 4400
• John From Cincinnati
• Entourage

Biggest Disappointments of 2007

• Bionic Woman
• Flash Gordon
• John From Cincinnati (and no, this is not a mistake)
• American Gangster
• Spider-Man 3
• Countdown to Final Crisis
• Justice League of America (the comic)
• Baltimore Ravens
• Democratic Congressional Majority
  

Best weekly parties in L.A. in 2007

• Sweeterlife
• Room Service
• Mingle and Plei
• The Do-Over
• Reflection
• Pause
• whatever the Hell Garth Trinidad was calling that party he used to through in the Purple Room in the Standard Sunset Hotel

Best Books I read in 2007

• Dune Messiah
• Children of Dune
• The Law of Attraction
• Exceptional Selling

The Final Frontier

The Final Frontier
I don't own a Starfleet uniform, which, in my mind, is an important distinction that allows me to plausibly deny that I'm a Trekkie.

But the mere fact that, one time, I actually considered convincing my girlfriend to dress as Lt. Uhura to match my imagined Capt. Kirk costume for Hollywood probably speaks volumes.

Oh, yeah, and I cried at the end of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan".

I was nine. Shut up.

The point is, I do love Star Trek. Which is why I'm saddened that next year may mark the first time since 1987 that there will be no new episodes of the venerable old space opera. It's unfortunate, because "Star Trek: Enterprise" was actually beginning to find it's groove this season. But, I have to admit, even after great actors like Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks, and the advances in special effects, nothing can still compare to the value of Gene Roddenberry's original series. Before we all fell down the rathole of scientific technobabble, Roddenberry's show, much like it's dark cult precursor, The Twilight Zone, was a show about ideas.

Big fat ideas like the price of leadership, like the danger of promulgating pragmatism over passion, like man's eternal struggle with his increasing dependence on machines.


Now, people can cast aspersions on William Shatner's acting all they want. I'll simply say the man is a Shakespearean trained stage actor who won big critical acclaim for holding his own along side Spencer Tracey in "Judgment At Nuremberg" and is shockingly good as a white supremacist in the nearly forgotten Roger Corman film "The Intruder". He already has an Emmy nomination for "Third Rock From The Sun", and I think he's going to surprise a lot of people after the last six episodes this season on "The Practice".

Having said all that, I recently found myself singing the praises of my favorite old Star Trek episodes in a long email, so I figured I'd capture them for the viewing pleasure of the Macroscope audience. So, in no particular order:


"Arena"
This is Star Trek's version of "Hell In The Pacific", where Kirk is marooned on a desolate planet by one of the many races of non-corporeal beings the encounter during the course of the show to go mano-a-mano with an alien lizard captain called a Gorn, whom he suspects has just led an attack on a Federation outpost. This episode is probably most famous for Kirk building a cannon that shoots diamonds out of raw deposits of sulfur, coal, and big piece of bamboo. Sort of the precursor to MacGyver.

But I just love the Gorn's dialogue:

"Earthlingggg! Thisssssss is your opponent! I grow weary of the chasssssssse. Wait for me. I promisssssse. I will be merciful, and quick. Captain, you've LOST! ADMIT IT TO YOURSELF!!!"


"The Corbomite Manuever"
Kirk tricks the biggest spaceship in the universe that the Enterprise is boobytrapped and that, if they attack them, both ships will be mutually destroyed. And the aliens actually buy it. Turns out this enormous ship is run by one guy who looks like a six year old. Bluff vs. Bluff. Highlight comes when, as the alien ship is moments away from destroying the Enterprise, Dr. McCoy whispers a threat in Kirk's ear on the bridge that he intends to give the captain a reprimand in his medical log for pushing a junior officer into a nervous breakdown. Kirk, in response, shouts down McCoy - "Any time you can bluff ME, Doctor!...."


"The Man Trap"
McCoy's old college girlfriend is actually a shape-shifting, salt-sucking vampire who beats Spock's ass with one hand before Bones is forced to kill her. Coolest, yet creepiest moment is when the vampire takes the form of an anonymous African crewman and tries to seduce Uhura in Swahili. "'Crewman, do I know you?' 'No ma'am. But you were thinking of someone just like me.'". That's some pimp game, folks.


"What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
Tthey find Nurse Chapel's finance on a subterranean planet with ancient machinery to make android copies of humans. The guy is, of course, completely mad by now and wants to inflitrate the rest of humanity with these androids. Kirk figures out that the real fiance is long dead and that this is actually an android copy trying to be him. Kirk, playing on their confused emotions and ruthless adherence to logic, manages to talk all the androids, including a pre-Adams Family Lurch, into killing each other. This theme appears over and over again in Star Trek, in episodes such as "I, Mudd", "The Changeling", "The Ultimate Computer", and so on. While Kirk is constantly characterized is simply an intergalatic gigolo, the character is actually quite devious and clever. Which I suppose are not mutually exclusive things.


"Balance of Terror"
Kirk fights the Vulcans' distant cousins, the Romulans, for the first time. The Romulans have a cloaking device, so the Enterprise can't see them on their view screen, but the Romulans don't have a view screen, so their forced to use their sensors to try to track the Enterprise. Kirk spends much of the episode matching the Romulan ship move for more so that they think it's just a sensor echo. A real submarine battle in space of sorts.


"The Conscience of the King"
It turns out Kirk is one of a handful of survivors of a massacre on an Earth colony who can actually identify the administrator that ordered mass executions to help ration their dwindling food supply. The administrator may or may not be Anton Karidian, the lead actor in a spacefaring Shakespearean company whose tour coincides with the murders of the other witnesses. Kirk books them on the Enterprise. Once the murders start again, Kirk discovers that Karidian really is "Kodos The Executioner", but he comes to have a grudging understanding of the price that man paid when given the responsibility to solve an impossible situation. In the end, Karidian's daughter, whom Kirk had been seducing (of course), turns out to be the real killer, hoping to silence anyone who could finger her father. Karidian screams "Haven't I already enough blood on my hands" before taking the proverbial bullet meant for Kirk and dying at the hands of his mad child. Uncommon as a purely dramatic episode. And quite yummy.


"The Return of the Archons"
Investigating the crash of the Federation ship Archon from 100 years ago, they find an abnormally peaceful, rural planet where everybody is incredibly nice & sweet except for "The Red Hour" - the beginning of an annual festival when they all go simultaneously mad for exactly 24 hours, according to the teachings of their cult leader. But, of course, the cult leader died centuries ago and has left the stewartship of the planet in the hands of, you guessed it, a supercomputer than thinks it's the cult leader. Kirk talks it into self-destructing. I'm not quite sure what the point of that episode was, but the "festival" is a sight to behold. Raping, robbing, killing. A dude literally jumps through a plate glass window, just for shits and giggles. And another just runs around, screaming at the top of his lungs "FESTIVAL! FESTIVAL! FESTIVAL!". And then, when the clock strikes noon the next day, they all just stop on a dime and go about their business. Creepy as hell.


"A Taste of Armageddon"
The Enterprise gets logged as a casualty in an interplanetary war that's fought entirely through simulations on a pair supercomputers networked between the two hostile planets. Rather than destroying their cities and eradicating their cultures with real bombs, they just estimate the damages of a theoretical attack, assign people as casualties, and then ask them to willingly walk into a disintegration chamber so their real deaths can be officially recorded. But since they've made war relatively painless, they've had no reason to stop it, so it's gone on in this sociopathic manner for 500 years. Kirk, who, at this point, almost looks like he has a pathological hatred of computers, destroys the computers to protect the Enterprise crew and forces the two factions to actually sit down at the peace table rather than building real weapons. On the one hand, I'm sure there's a really interesting statement about the Vietnam war there, which can very easily be applied to the video game quality of the '91 Gulf War as well. But I also remember this episode because there's a point where Kirk orders Scotty to implement General Order 24 - a Starfleet code for bombarding the surface of a planet with enough phaser blasts to erase all live and make it uninhabitable for years to come. Roddenberry's original vision of the power of a starship was much grander, and scarier, than it was in later years.


"The Doomsday Machine"
One of the worst special effects makes for one of the most intense episodes. Responding to a distress call, the Enterprise finds the burnt out husk of one of their sister ships, the Constellation, amid the debris field of a planet that's been completly obliterated. The only man left alive is the ships commander, Matt Decker, who's gone off the deep end after he encountered a giant robot ship from outside the galaxy that's preprogrammed to blow up planets and consume the remains as fuel before proceeding to the next planet. Decker had ordered his crew to evacuate to the nearest planet, only to watch the planet-killer devour it. They speculate that it's a leftover from a war long since over, and no one was around to shut it off before it started roaming the cosmos, looking for sustinence. The combined fire power of two starships aren't enough, but Decker, overwhelmed by the guilt of losing his crew, goes on a suicide mission to ram a shuttle craft right into the mouth of the beast. Although Decker dies, it gives Kirk the idea to boobytrap the Constellation to blow up once it's inside the jaws of the planet killer.


"The Enemy Within"
A transporter malfunction splits Kirk into two versions of himself: one rational, caring, yet indecisive; the other, violent, craven, and unafraid to take what he wants. My favorite Star Trek scene of all time: the evil Kirk is in his quarters trying to hide the scratches on his face after he tried to rape Yeoman Rand, when the good Kirk gets on the PA and announces that there's an imposter on board. The evil Kirk flips out and ransacks his own room in a hissy fit, screaming at the top of his lungs "I'm Captain Kirk! I'M Captain Kirk! I - AM - CAPTAIN - KIRRRRRRKKKK!!!!!!".

If you love Shatner's over-the-top acting, this episode is priceless. In my second favorite scene from this episode, the good Kirk faces the evil Kirk in engineering. Good Kirk tries to make nice by telling his twin that he needs him, to which, the evil Kirk just sneers "I - DON'T - NEED - YOU!!!


Of course, there are tons of other gems, like "Charlie X", where an adolescent boy with no social skills but the power to alter reality at his whim, simply marches onto the bridge and brags "I can make you ALL go away! Any time I want to." Or the surreal "Spectre of the Gun", where Kirk & Co. are trapped in a dream world where they must play the losing side in a deadly serious reenactment of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral and Spock must use his telepathy to give the others the mental discipline to deny the reality of the Earp Bros. bullets.

Spock's dialogue ("They are falsehoods. Lies. Shadows, without form or substance. They will not pass through your body, for they - do not - exist.") are strikingly remeniscent of "There Is No Spoon" from "The Matrix".

Of course, even if this is the demise of Scott Bakula's Enterprise, I'm sure it won't be too long before Paramount finds a way to resurrect the property. In the meantime, I suppose I'll have to do my part to bring a show about big ideas back to television.

OK. I'm through indulging now.

Biblical Interpretation Quote of the Day
"I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it OK to call the police? Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?"


- fictional President of the United States Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) of "The West Wing", trying to explain to a group of reactionary religious conservatives exactly why we do not and should not live in a theocracy defined by a strict interpretation of the Bible.

Aaron Sorkin's last month on the show reminded me why I used to love it. I mean, who can beat John Goodman as Newt Gingrich?

Sadly Ironic Quote of the Day

"The missiles are flying, gentleman. Hallelujah. Hallelujah."


-Nero-like future President of the United States Greg Stillson (played by uber-peacenik Martin Sheen) as he launches a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union in "The Dead Zone", based on the book by Stephen King, now a weekly TV series on the USA Network.

Hollywood Shuffle Quote of the Day

"Hey, Shaun, get those eyes bugging. That's the money shot."

- John Bowman, executive producer of "Cedric the Entertainer Presents", said to one of the show's performers.

Yes, this bothers me alot. But, on the other hand, that "The White Man's Holding Me Down" skit is hi-la-ri-ous.

President of '24'
The NAACP has complained for years that there isn't a diverse enough representation of Black actors on television, that we've been ghettoized to corny sit-coms. Which is why it's amazing to me that they aren't dancing in the streets over the casting of Dennis Haysbert as a Black President of the United States on Fox's 24. Not only is it the best show on television, not only does Haysbert get 2nd billing behind Kiefer Sutherland, but, by having a Black President, they're forced to cast all these other Black actors as his family, especially Penny Jerald Johnson as his Lady MacBeth-like ex-wife, Sherri Palmer. If you're not watching this show.... I dunno.

What if Bruce Wayne was P. Diddy?
Here's a blurb about a new show featuring yet another obscure Black Marvel superhero, the Night Thrasher. Personally, I've been waiting for a character like this to show up on the radar any day now, so I'm pleasantly pleased. And, as usual, I'm amused at how horrified the fanboys are about this.

Haley's widow sells "Roots" for a song
Given the impact that "Roots" has had on the lives of so many people of color, I'm deeply disturbed that his wife was not able to reap enough royalty fees to avoid bankruptcy. I'm even more disturbed that she apparently had no one to go to for help before she was reduced to this. Revs. Jackson & Sharpton are so lathered up about a movie: where were they when a survivor of one of our icons needed help?