Orbits, suns and planets

Winter's Bone was on last night's agenda. It was the last of the Oscar movies we had a prayer of seeing, which would have left us with only Black Swan, The Fighter and 127 Hours unseen (as far as Best Picture nominees go) as we head into next weekend's Oscar show. We bailed and watched last Monday's House instead. Honestly, I think it was a better choice because I'm just not in the mood for depressing movies. Real life, it seems, is depressing enough as it is without actively seeking it out.

The other reason it was a good choice was because it fit into what seems to be an overriding theme of the week. As House gets a bit long in the tooth, the medical mystery of the week is less and less intriguing and I'm more frequently drawn in by the secondary storylines of the episodes. As Heidi pointed out, putting House and Cuddy together really should have ruined the show, but for some reason, it works better than ever. This week's episode was really all about loneliness. The patient, who could inexplicably remember every single memory since puberty had isolated herself due to her inability to forgive anyone for indiscretions. Wilson, still burning from his breakup with Sam, gets a cat rather than jump out into the dating fray again. Taub has failed a pathology certification exam and is sentenced to having Foreman as a tutor, only to realize that, when Foreman extends the offer for him to stay at his place, living by himself in a fleabag motel in the wake of his separation was not the most ideal thing in the world.

A song played at the end of the episode that I had to go and search for the minute the credits rolled. It took a little bit of Googling, but eventually I figured out it was Wilco's "How To Fight Loneliness." I liked it because it was of the indie ilk that seems to always make the unofficial House soundtracks but don't frequently make my own personal soundtracks. I also liked how it could be interpreted in more than one way - the most obvious being that fighting loneliness is all about faking it, putting on a veneer for the world to see while inside you feel exactly the opposite. However, I think the more accurate interpretation (at least for me) is that if you smile all the time, laugh at every joke and fill your heart with smoke, you may actually end up attracting the very things that counter it, bringing more people into your orbit and taking the edge off the lonely feelings that seem to affect many of us, whether we admit to them or not. I think things like Facebook and Twitter, while helping us to connect with each other have, oddly enough, left us feeling more lonely and more out of touch. I can say for myself that there are many times I've thought about taking a week off of both FB and Twitter, just to see how I felt. Maybe I'd focus more on other things? Or would I be pushing away the things that "How to Fight Loneliness" urges you to attract?

Whatever the answer, I'm not convinced that's entirely right either. Really, the best commentary on this sort of thing comes from Stevie Nicks...like that should surprise anyone. It's another song that has been in heavy rotation recently - "Planets of the Universe." It's one of my favorite Stevie Nicks songs, one that has been around forever but finally found a home on Trouble in Shangri-La. It is angry and biting and, naturally, mostly about Lindsey Buckingham. Not having been in a relationship with LB, it has broader meaning for me. When I am at my loneliest, when it feels like the world has shut off just when I'm wanting interaction and there's just no having it, I take an incredible amount of solace in this song. Because here's what Stevie says:

And the planets of the universe
Go their way
Not astounded by the sun or the moon
Or by the day
You and I will simply disappear
Out of sight
But I'm afraid soon there'll be
No light

What it says to me is that we are all just like those planets. Sometimes our orbits cross or approach each other, but in the end, we are all on our own path. The best that we can hope for is to share a sun and that we stay in each other's sight, because ultimately, we have to do it on our own. I think it's really easy to fall into the trap of believing that others will fill that gap that almost everyone feels. Maybe for some, it does. But I think for the vast majority of us, the other people are really like the other planets - in their own orbits. I think the best marriages are made of two people whose orbits intersect but remain their own, bouncing off an energy that encourages them to live their lives while still keeping the other in sight.

In last week's episode of House, House says to the patient who is looking at certain death without a kidney transplant, "it's ok, everyone dies alone anyway." Of course, he stole this from Cher who famously sang "sooner or later, we all sleep alone." I'm not sure if he's right or not, but I don't know if that's the point. I think the best we can do is make peace with it and welcome those that enter our orbits, no matter for how little time it might actually be. I don't think I'm there yet, but maybe someday I will be.

(I double dare anyone to find a blog post that mentions Wilco, Stevie Nicks AND Cher.)

Solid gold camp

I was thinking about Dwayne's comment in the Dionne Warwick post and how her 80s career was helped immeasurably by her appearance as the host of Solid Gold. I watched Solid Gold quite a bit when I was a kid growing up in the 80s and I had completely forgotten that she had hosted. I, for one, remember Marilyn McCoo hosting and too bad it didn't resuscitate her career like it did Warwick's. Anyway, because my brain works this way, it got me to thinking about Wayland Flowers and his puppet Madame that also were on Solid Gold. A quick YouTube search of "solid gold madame" turns up a ton of videos from her time on the show. I was also reminded of her show "Madame's Place" which ran briefly in the early 80s. Who knew frickin' Corey Feldman was on that show?

As camp goes, you don't get much campier than Madame. Nowadays, there would be no secret of Flowers' sexuality but back then I'm sure it was not mentioned in polite circles but I highly doubt that Madame's humor was meant for the polite (or the easily offended or the faint of heart.) I was surprised to find out that Flowers actually cleaned up Madame's saucy, suggestive language for TV - what would a REAL Madame performance be like?

Flowers died from HIV-related cancer in 1988, but he lives on - like everyone will - on YouTube. I had read once that Madame was buried with him, but as it turns out, that's not true. In any event. here's Madame with Bea Arthur talking about Rock Hudson and how he would never EVER take advantage of a woman. It's quite possibly the campiest thing I've ever witnessed on the entire internet.

Tweets from Walton's mountain

Thanks to following Alison Anrgrim on Twitter, whose awesome book Confessions of a Prairie Bitch I blogged about a couple weeks back, I am now rather inexplicably following both Grandma and Grandpa Walton. Yes, THAT Grandma and Grandpa Walton. She had retweeted something that Grandma Walton had tweeted and for whatever reason, I was sold.

I never even liked The Waltons all that much when it was on TV. I remember my mom watching it though, and I remember the theme song quite well. I don't know why, but it just never appealed to me as a kid although I do remember watching a few episodes. As you might expect, my grandparents LOVED it. How many people our age have memories of watching this show at their grandparents' house, or at least of it being on while you were there?

I only vaguely recalled the characters of Grandma and Grandpa Walton, but let me tell you, their tweets are hilarious. Much like Heidi and me, if you're only following one of them, you're missing 50% of the show. So I tweeted the following tonight.

If you're not following @GrammaWalton, you're totally missing out.

Imagine my surprise when I got this in reply:


It cracked me up and I immediately retweeted it. My friend John saw it and said to me "I think you can retire from Twitter now." Indeed. Now that Grandma Walton has @ replied me (and compared me to John-Boy, no less), what is left to accomplish?

What I did find funny is that Grandma is Tweeting from Echofon. She has an iPhone? I wonder what the 3G reception is like on Walton's Mountain.

Much like Alison Arngrim's book made me want to go watch Little House, now I kinda want to go watch an episode of The Waltons. Almost.

Year of 25 Books: #19 - Confessions of a Prairie Bitch

This book had me at the title. I was powerless to resist it. It pulled me in like a tractor beam on an alien spaceship.

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim - better known as her alter ego Nellie Oleson of Little House on the Prairie fame - is one of those books that I lap up like a kitten at a milk bowl. I love a good dishy celebrity tell-all. It probably started with Joan Collins' Past Imperfect which I read in the 9th grade (this would be the point at which Heidi would say "and you turned out straight exactly HOW?") Since then, I have always loved those books that tear back the curtain on bits of the pop culture. There's always more going on than what we're allowed to see. And what could possibly be a more wholesome subject than Little House?

The book starts out with a bang as it describes Arngrim's hilarious encounter with a woman at the L.A. County Fair where she was signing autographs alongside other former child stars. I won't give it away, but her husband sums it up best by saying "we need to start bringing video cameras to these things." As it turns out, Nellie Oleson still elicits strongly negative reactions in people, even though Little House has been off the air for nearly 30 years. Everyone identified with Laura "Half-Pint" Ingalls and in so doing, everyone hated her nemesis, Nellie. I was not a religious watcher of Little House by any stretch of the imagination, but even I knew that Nellie was the spoiled brat foil to Laura's good-hearted eagerness.

Arngrim's life is fascinating and as expected, the bulk of the book encompasses the Little House years. The stories from the set are always interesting and are told in such a funny and readable way that even if you had no interest or exposure to the show, you still can't quit reading. She is a natural storyteller and relates incidents like Michael Landon's failure to wear underwear on the set and the enigma of Melissa Sue Anderson with great flair. She even explains why Carrie Ingalls falls into the grass in the opening credits of the show (you'll never guess) and talks at length about her life-long friendship with Melissa Gilbert.

But her life was not all great. Her youth also involves a heartbreaking story of sexual abuse at the hands of a family member. We also learn of her devastation at the death from AIDS of the man who played her Little House husband. His illness launched her into the next phase of her career - AIDS activism - which then led naturally to activism on behalf of abused children.

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch contains material that Arngrim uses in her stand-up act of the same name. What I loved is how at peace she seems to be with everything - with Nellie Oleson, her connection with the character and with her life in general. She has really lived her life and now she's happy. This was one of my favorite parts of the book.

"...I'm happy, I'm just that. There's no static on the line now. It's not 'I'm happy but...' or 'I'll be really happy when...' I am just ridiculously, stupidly happy. I am often cheerful to the point of being annoying as hell. I don't know if this is a sign of good mental health or recovery, or if it means I've finally snapped and just gone the rest of the way to completely batshit crazy."

Whatever it is, she's got it figured out. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Are they still there for us?

My sister and (soon to be) brother-in-law were cracking me up tonight. They were taking a page out of the Dan & Heidi playbook and were pseudo-conversing on Facebook. My sister was taking great pleasure in the fact that she "got Andrew to admit that Star Trek: The Next Generation was the best series of the 90s and that Friends totally doesn't hold up." And Andrew said something to the effect that "Ross had the most punchable face on television." I'm not sure how I feel about the first statement (um, X-Files anyone?), but I totally agree with the second point. Ross mostly just pisses me off and that was before he all the characters became caricatures of themselves and Ross' neuroses went off the chart.

I will admit that I only sort of watched Friends while it was actually on TV. Where I really learned to appreciate the show was in syndication starting in roughly 1999. We would watch it every night at 6:30 after the local news, but heaven forbid we actually remember to tune in and watch the new episodes. When Friends and Must-See-TV Thursday night on NBC were at their peak, it was very like me to hold that which was terribly popular with disdain. I still do that sometimes but to a much smaller degree than I used to and when I do it, I usually get called on it by Heidi. It was the constant onslaught of reruns that eventually wore me down. And for the most part, I think it's a pretty funny show that is by and large well written and well acted (save some of the latter seasons.)

But to address my sister's assertion - does Friends hold up almost six and a half years after it went off the air? To be honest, I actually think it does, and better than many of its contemporaries. Like so many sitcoms, it's important to remember that it is ultimately a product of its time. And for Friends to hold up, you HAVE to keep that in mind.

The greatest argument that Friends does hold up is that it really captures a part of the 90s zeitgeist. It is 90s nostalgia at its finest and only during the final few seasons, when the writing kind of fell apart and (as I mentioned) the characters become extreme versions of themselves does the connection to that zeitgeist feel a little bit forced. For what Friends really represents is a 90s nostalgia that never existed - it's kind of a modern day Leave It To Beaver. Maybe it rings a little truer in more urban areas, but let me tell you how I did not spend my 20s and early 30s hanging out in a coffee shop waiting for my friends to show up. No, TV is not reality, especially a show like Friends, but I think it plugged into the kind of community that a lot of people our age really wanted but were having a hard time getting. Who wouldn't want a group of close knit slightly neurotic (in a good way) friends to be with and to have basically as a "family of choice?"

When Heidi and I were rewatching Friends on DVD (which took about half the time that it took for the show to actually air), there were a lot of times that I found myself a bit wistful for what I knew really never was. I always wished that I knew someone like Phoebe. I always loved (and was frequently a bit jealous of) the relationship between Joey and Chandler which was probably one of the best examples of a bromance before bromance was a buzz word. Even self-absorbed Rachel and massively OCD Monica were very oddly comforting. By magnifying their quirks, the writers somehow managed to make mine feel a bit smaller.

And then there's Ross. *sigh*

Whenever I do one of those "which Friend are you?" quizzes, I always, without fail, get Ross. And that kind of ticks me off because I don't think that I am in any way as pathetic as Ross. Ross is so much a victim of his life's circumstances which is something I try to avoid. But when I'm honest with myself, I'm so not a Chandler (everyone always wants to be a Chandler) and hell no, I'm not a Joey. So that leaves Ross. There are so many episodes of Friends that have massively painful Ross moments, and they usually aren't the focus of the episode. It's always some dumb plot point that relies on Ross being clueless or socially inept and it's usually regarding his rather hapless efforts to find love. These moments multiply exponentially in the final seasons to the point that it really is just so much farce. I have blocked a lot of them out, but so much of the time, it was like watching a horror film through your fingers.

So yeah, Andrew is right. Ross is the most punchable face on television, but I don't think that just because I keep getting him on a stupid Facebook quiz means that I'm equally punchable. All in all, if I had to pick, I'd rather be Paul Rudd as Phoebe's husband Mike Hannigan (aka Crap Bag) than any of the the three main Friends. But who in the hell DOESN'T want to be Paul Rudd? The guy is crazy cool.

If it hadn't been for Wendy, this post would never have happened. Honestly, I don't usually think about Friends this much. But now I want to go rewatch the series. Or maybe just the one in which Chandler is trapped in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre.

I look forward to hearing what others think - does Friends hold up? Or is it just hopelessly dated and passe?

It's called the Disco Maureen

I have been listening to WAY too much Maureen McGovern this morning. For most, any Maureen McGovern would be too much. I have only 3 songs of hers in my iTunes library and all of them are from either a movie or a TV show. Was she the precursor to Kenny Loggins? The world may never know. Anyway, my favorite of the songs I have is "Different Worlds" which served as the theme song to the 70s TV show Angie. I remember virtually nothing about the show, but I always loved the theme song. Here's the opening credits, just for shits and giggles. I especially love the "Love Boat"-ish way that the stars of the show are introduced, something that was ditched by the beginning of the abbreviated second season.



This song was actually a hit for McGovern in 1979, in a discofied version. I remember it being on a K-Tel 8-track that my folks had and I was forever trying to get to the spot on another program such that I could bump back to program 1 and listen to it. I don't remember how I came to have the mp3 (probably Napster, sorry folks), but you can now legally purchase it on iTunes. At 2:18, it always seemed too short to me, but then I came across the extended version on YouTube this morning. I'm not sure if it's legit as it sounds a bit amateurish, but still, it doubled the song's play time.



I'm always bugging Casey Stratton to record the theme from Maude for me (he just has to keep the funky 70s organ in there), but now I think I've found another for the 70s TV theme song covers project. Between these two and the theme from Alice, I think we're on to something.

Chrissy

So can you tell I'm not on vacation any longer? Gone are the days of 2 posts a day and we're back to the once a week blogging that seems to be customary these days. Vacation was good - not stress free by any stretch of the imagination - but still good. In many ways, it was good to be back at work.

The biggest unintended excitement of last week was the demise of one of our water heaters. Mid week last week while I was washing the dishes, I noticed that while the faucet was only half way between hot and cold and the water was so hot that I couldn't put my hand under it. Now I don't know much about things like this, but I do know that wild fluctuations in water temperature are a sign that the water heater is about to go. It seemed to calm down over the course of the week, but by the weekend, there was no hot water on that side of the house. It came back eventually, but it was intermittent throughout the weekend. Also telling was the presence of a water around the base of the heater. It was leaking and yeah, it was dying.

So we put a call in to the plumber to have them come take a look at it. It didn't take long for us to get the diagnosis - new water heater needed. Before too long , we had a new water heater to replace the old dying one and all was back to normal. I really didn't know how old the other one was - I just knew that it was OLD - so I asked the plumber to look up and see how old it was. Turns out it was installed in 1972! That's right, the year I was born, making it 38 years old. The fact that a water heater lasted 38 years just tells me that they don't make 'em like they used to.

Of course, I have only one association with 38 years. For those in the dark, that's how long Dorothy and Stan Zbornak's marriage lasted before ending in a bitter divorce. Dorothy references the length of her marriage in many a Golden Girls episode, so it's only natural that it's the first thing I would think of. When Heidi e-mailed me to inform me of the new water heater, I e-mailed back with "38 years of memories and laughter and fighting!" Man, that show still holds up after all these years.

So in honor of that, I've named the new water heater "Chrissy" because that was the name of the woman for whom Stan left Dorothy after 38 years. Let's hope that our relationship with this Chrissy lasts longer than Stan & Chrissy's relationship on the show did.

Tomorrow's news

So the first day of my time off hasn't been as productive as I would have liked. Granted, it's only 1:00 and I can turn that around pretty quickly. But mostly, I've been content to sit around in front of the TV, which is odd for me because I so rarely do it. The show I've been spending my time with today is the unlikeliest of candidates - the late 90s Saturday night drama Early Edition.

Early Edition has a very simple premise - regular guy Gary Hobson (Kyle Chandler) gets a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times delivered to his door every morning. The catch is that it's tomorrow's paper. He spends most of each episode going around trying to change the bad headlines before the day is out. I always kind of liked this show, although I have to say that I rarely ever watched it. Mostly, I just watched it sporadically if it happened to be on, never deliberately tuning into it. Even by 1997-98, being devoted to a TV show was quickly becoming a thing of the past. I'm not sure how or why that happened, but somewhere along the way, I decided I just couldn't be bothered with remembering when a show was on TV and that pretty much continues to this day. The big exception to this is Glee, and that's because there's three of us remembering when that show is on. So more often than not, I missed it even though, as I said, I did really like it when I watched it.

Thanks to the brilliance that is TV on DVD, I finally have the chance to rewatch all these old shows that I just didn't watch back then. And after watching three episodes of Early Edition this morning, I realized that I had actually underestimated my fondness for this show and also marveled (much like I do when I watch The X-Files on DVD) why I didn't watch it when it was on TV. What sets this show apart from something that hasn't aged as well (i.e. Quantum Leap) is the writing and characterization. Even three episodes in, you can tell the writers are paying attention to character. If someone is going to get a copy of the paper a day ahead of time, it couldn't happen to a more likable guy than Gary. He's just such an "aw shucks" guy that you can't help but root for him. He does good without being a do-gooder. What I especially like is how Gary is just an ordinary guy who has had something extraordinary happen to him. Yes, he stumbles with it, he screws up, but don't we all? As an everyman hero, he works. He's the kind of guy I'd want to be friends with.

That said, his choice in friends is a bit uneven. I take no issue with Marissa, the receptionist at his office (a job he promptly quits after the pilot episode.) She is the angel on his shoulder, providing the moral compass. It's his "best friend" Chuck Fishman that I have serious problems with. I don't remember him from the few times I watched the series and apparently he leaves after two seasons, but his presence, even after three episodes, is beyond grating. His function is clearly to be the foil to Gary, and in so doing, is everything Gary is not. I'm trying to think of adjectives that describe him, but I keep coming back to selfish. He's like a weasel - one that is completely and utterly harmless - but a weasel nonetheless. When it comes to the paper, he thinks of nothing but the potential ways to make money off of it, usually in the form of knowing the sports scores so that he can safely bet on them, the outcome completely secured. But what bothers me most about him is that he's basically a beta-male pretending to be an alpha, whereas Gary has a healthy mix of both. Nothing bothers me more than someone walking around pretending to be something they aren't and the overcompensation that Chuck does in the guy-ness department just makes me shake my head in complete exasperation.

But no one's perfect. Gary does follow in the late 90s tradition of wearing approximately one pound of product in his hair.

An annoying character and excess hair product aside, I'm going to keep on going with this show. The stories are tightly written and almost always satisfying. And there's always a happy ending, which I am a sucker for, regardless of how cool or uncool that might be. One other bonus is the abundance of Chicago scenery. It just makes me want to go live in Chicago! New York City might be fun to visit, but Chicago is probably the only big urban area that I would actually consider living in.

But that's enough TV for now. I'm going to go read till it's time to go pick Anna up from school. Heidi's disappeared into her office and is back in writing mode.

Early Edition is available from Netflix. Sadly, only two of the four seasons are available.

I hold the lock and you hold the Glee

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Cursed objects and big hair

So I've been slowly (and I mean SLOWLY) watching Friday The 13th: The Series via Netflix. It's still one of those TV shows that I can't believe is on DVD in that it is one of the more obscure late 80s television shows. I remember it being at least better than average, and, as I so frequently say, so much better than a show called Friday the 13th: The Series has any business being.

That having been said, I am only on the second disc of the first season, and man, they don't hold up nearly as well as I thought they would. The acting is bad, the special effects cheesy and the writing only so-so. Under normal circumstances, I would have stopped watching after episode 2 or 3. But something keeps me coming back for more - I'm not really sure what it is. Part of it is that it is great fun to watch on my iPod. I have taken to converting the DVD to iPod format and watching it that way. Watching it in small 20 minute bursts on break or lunch at work or before bed is so much easier than sitting in the living room watching it on the TV. Must be something about that 2 inch screen.

The other thing that kills me about this show are the characters. Granted, we are only in the early part of the first season, and the first season of just about any show is usually not indicative of the rest of the series. Every show has to find its legs, try things out that might or might not work, fail miserably and/or succeed wildly. But these characters are fricking hilarious. The best is Micki - played by one-named wonder Robey - who really can't seem to act her way out of a wet paper bag. Along with her cousin-by-marriage, Ryan (with whom there is this odd and uncomfortable bit of sexual tension), they are kind of the Scully and Mulder prototypes, only I don't think either of them is the skeptic.

The other thing that's hilarious about Micki/Robey is her damn big hair. It was the 80s, after all.



(and apparently Ryan's counterpart to Micki's big hair is the skinny tie)

So against my better judgment and at risk of further sullying great teenage memories, I will continue on with this show. I swear it was better than this, and really, it's still better than HBO's Tales From The Crypt which was so bad on the rewatch I just couldn't do it. (kudos to Matt for being able to though!)

And starring...as Alexis

Watch this all the way through to the end. It is so worth it, I promise.



OK, it's probably funny only to those that watched "Dynasty" and can separate the less obvious fakes from the people that were actually on the show. I have gone on record as saying that "Dynasty" has aged rather poorly and that it's hard to watch now. But back in its hey-day, nothing could keep me from it. Every Wednesday at 8pm when I was in junior high and early high school, there I was, watching "Dynasty." I also read Joan Collins' autobiography Past Imperfect in the 9th grade. Sad, but true.

I think the reason those types of shows play so poorly for me now is that I have a much lower tolerance for melodrama than I used to. I truly discovered this when I lost my taste for daytime soaps. I religiously watched "The Young & The Restless" from 1988 through about 1994 until such time that I realized the ridiculousness of it and gave up. It was like suddenly that Carly Simon lyric "now melodrama never makes me weep anymore" made perfect sense. That did not stop me from watching equally soapy shows like "Melrose Place" but even that tried my patience frequently.

Truthfully though, I can still watch "Dynasty" but its best watched with Jeff because his running commentary through the episodes has me doubled over in laughter 90% of the time. Perhaps we aren't meant to weep at the melodrama, but rather to laugh at it. Is your show a success or a failure when something that was supposed to be dramatic ends up funny? I suppose it depends on your perspective. I was listening to a podcast tonight about favorite comedies, and I think that I would have a hard time coming up with a list like of conventional comedies, because a lot of the things I find funny are unintentionally so and steeped in bathos or are such an integral part of my history that I find them funnier than they probably actually are.

Which is probably why I found the above alternate credits freaking hilarious.

Nothing gold can stay

I woke up this morning to find a comment from Paul on my Madonna concert post. The part of the comment that caught my eye the most was the non-Madonna related part of the comment.

David Tennant is leaving Dr Who!!!!!

I didn't believe it at first. This rumor has been floating around for over a year now, but alas, it is true.

Say it ain't so!

Tennant as the Tenth Doctor will always be "my Doctor." While Heidi's will probably always be Christopher Eccleston (#9), it was Tennant's mad energy that made the show for me. Yes, his Doctor was quirky and not for everyone, but he always seemed to be right in line with the show for me. I cannot blame Tennant for wanting to do other things either. He's an actor and not around just for the sole purpose of playing the Doctor. Still, it does make me feel a bit sad.

Our friends across the pond are used to the constant changing of the Doctor and his companion. I was sad (but not distraught) when the popular Rose left and was replaced by Martha as the Doctor's companion. However, I think the loss of Tennant as the Doctor is tremendous. There is little doubt that I will still continue to watch the show, but I don't think it will ever be the same.

At least we get 4 or 5 more episodes this year before Tennant is gone for good and he's regenerated into someone else entirely. And those will be some very large tennis shoes to fill.

Expectations

Netflix delivered the first disc of Friday the 13th: The Series today. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I read about a month ago that the first season of this late 80s syndicated show was going to be released on DVD. I literally have not seen this show since it was on TV and I figured it would never see the light of day, despite the crap that does get put on DVD. It was one of those shows that I didn't start watching immediately upon its debut (although that did happen with Freddy's Nightmares) but once I started watching I was hooked. Not quite an anthology show but rather more of a supernatural drama in the vein of The X-Files, it has no connection with teenager killing machine Jason Voorhees (and that series of 58,000 movies) beyond the title.

Before I start watching the first episode, I am already steeling myself for my expectations to be shattered. It will almost certainly not be as good as I remember it being. It will, however, probably be better than any show titled Friday the 13th: The Series has any business being.

Watch this space. There is a high likelihood that I will be back to report on my reactions.

1001 uses for glitter

Jeff was here the other night and somehow or another, we ended up laughing uproariously at this YouTube video. It is (according to the description) the last catfight between Krystle and Alexis on Dynasty.


(a little bit long, but totally worth it!)

I loved me some Dynasty back in the day, but unfortunately it doesn't hold up very well. It has, frankly, aged horribly and it is so melodramatic that it is almost Mommie Dearest level of bathos. That certainly does not stop Jeff and me from making jokes about burning down La Mirage and the Carringtons' paneled workout room, but I can see why they didn't release more than two seasons of it on DVD (although it looks like Season 3 might be on the way.)

I think, however, my favorite moment in the above video comes at about 2:50. During the heat of the battle, they start throwing glitter at each other. Seriously. And nothing screams 80s like those shoulder pads, even though it was 1991 when they filmed this.

They don't make 'em like they used to. And thank goodness for that.

EDIT: Paul thinks I might have been a little hard on the Dynasty last night. Perhaps I was. There were several brilliantly soapy and melodramatic seasons until they totally jumped the shark with the Moldavian wedding massacre. I just couldn't get over how no one died in that except for Steven's boyfriend and Ali MacGraw! But to balance that out is its iconic opening credits. How can one forget it?

Boot to the head

Or rather, a shoe at the TV. Heidi and I just got done watching the first season of Ugly Betty and I seriously had to suppress the urge to throw my shoe at the television. There were so many things wrong with the season finale that I don't even know where to start. But, as Julie Andrews says, "let's start at the very beginning." So that's what we'll do. (TAKE NOTE: Here be spoilers, although I think it's hard to "spoil" something that was on TV a year ago. But if you're thinking of watching Ugly Betty and you haven't, you'd probably be wise to skip the rest of this post.)

Heidi and I have been enjoying Ugly Betty immensely as it is a great fusion of the hour long drama with some great laughs. It is exceptionally well written (for the most part) and also is just campy enough to keep us coming back without us rolling our eyes at its ludicrousness. The show details the comings and goings of Betty Suarez, normal girl from Queens, as she works for the fashion magazine MODE, home to decidedly non-normal people. Betty is the assistant to the editor-in-chief, a himbo that sleeps with anything in a skirt but who also happens to be the son of the CEO of the company that owns the magazine. There's some great secondary characters, especially the Scottish seamstress/designer Christina (she's very Stevie Nicks-ish in many ways), Joan Collins wanna-be Wilhelmina Slater (played fantastically by Vanessa Williams - who knew she had it in her?) and her flamingly gay assistant Marc ("I'll put out a Gay.P.B. with the assistants" is still probably the single best line of the whole season.)

I said that it kind of straddles the fence between being a comedy and a drama, but really, its best moments are when it is being funny. However, there are several poignant moments that can get you *right here* if you're not careful. Most of them involve Betty's nephew Justin who may or may not be of a certain sexual orientation, but his mother loves him dearly no matter what, and even his streetwise, mostly absent father came around to defending him by the end of the season. There is also the whole drama of Betty's father being an illegal immigrant and the budding romance between Betty and Henry, the geeky guy from the accounting department.

Most of the time, the writing is just great. Every now and again, we found ourselves watching it and kind of scratching our heads because it just wasn't the best. We referred to those episodes as "the drunk writer" episodes. Well, they must have really tied one on for the season finale and then done some coke off the big old glass table in the living room because they wrote shit in that came out of nowhere. In the space of an hour, we had:

1) Henry and Betty finally getting together, only to have his ex-girlfriend show up pregnant. He leaves to go back to Tuscon with his ex.
2) Hilda (Betty's sister) and Santos (her son's father) happy at last and planning to get married, only to have him gunned down in a convenience store robbery. Oh, and he missed his son performing in "West Side Story" to boot.
3) Daniel (Betty's boss) and Alexis (his brother who is now a post-op male-to-female transexual) involved in a car accident after the brakes to the car had been cut. They were driving their father's car and Alexis had paid off a hitman to take out their father. Oops! Now they're in the car.
4) Betty's father is stuck in Mexico because he can't get his visa and confronting some ambiguous "revenge" threat.
5) And in the only non-tragic but still out of left field plot development, Amanda is Fey Sommers' daughter. WTF?

That is not to say that it all sucked. There was a GREAT (as in hilariously great) bit where Marc had been traded away to another employer so that Wilhemina could get the wedding date that she wanted. Cut to Wilhemina reminiscing about all the times she had had with Marc as Vanessa Williams sings "The Way We Were" over it. That, my friends, is camp at its finest.

But mostly, it was the biggest WTF there ever was. Why the need to be so fucking melodramatic? I know that it's traditional to have cliffhangers at the end of the season, but at least build toward it! Don't just pull shit out of thin air in the name of being dramatic or tragic and expect me to go along for the ride. It has made me exceptionally wary of Season 2 (which is not out on DVD until September) although you know I'll at least start it because I want to see how this resolves. Even though it pissed me off.

I am not opposed to seeing tragedy, but at least don't have it blindside me. That just makes me angry and want to throw my size 11s at an expensive piece of electronics.

It's like they took a page out of the Joss Whedon handbook (a man who has lost A LOT of credibility with me in recent years.) I didn't even watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, but judging from the kind of reaction my wife had to the end of that, I don't ever need to see it.

I know there will be people that disagree with me, but that's what I think and I'm sticking to it.