Cultural Cuisinart

X-Men First Class trailer surprisingly good

2011-02-11T08:26:00.003-05:00

I am forced to concede that the new trailer for X-men: First Class is pretty freaking great. While I'm often guilty of being a bit of a purist, in terms of wanting origin stories in movies to track as close as possible to the source material of the comic book, I must admit that a lot of the suggested plot threads in this trailer look awesome.

Two reasons I'm cautiously optimistic about this movie: one, it's directed by Matthew Vaughn, who did the movie adaptation of Kick-Ass, which was amazing. Vaughn has proven in interviews and in his work on Kick-Ass that he is someone who understands and respects comic books and their fans. So, that's a good sign. The second reason is that the script is based off of work by Bryan Singer, who did a masterful job with X-men 1 and 2, before Brett Ratner came along and screwed up the whole franchise.

In any case, here's the trailer. Marvel at how sexy Michael Fassbender looks.

Fringe recap: Ep 3.11 "Reciprocity"`

2011-01-31T08:21:00.005-05:00

Two administrative points: One, while I've been calling Earth-2's Olivia "Alt-livia", the show has decided to dub her Fauxlivia (as in "fake" Olivia, which actually to me isn't exactly correct -she's a real Olivia, just not the Earth-1 version, versus a shapeshifter who would in fact be "fake", but whatever....). In any case, from here on out, I'll roll with the show and call Earth-2's Olivia Fauxlivia. Point two, if you haven't watched this week's Fringe, definitely don't read this recap, since *SPOILER ALERT* you will want to be surprised for the big twist. *SPOILER ALERT*

Now that you've been sufficiently warned....

On this week's Fringe, the Fringe team has finally cracked the encryption on Fauxlivia's hard drive, and it's a treasure trove of intel, with lists of contacts, location data, observations on the Earth-1 Fringe team and a diary of her nights of passion and betrayal (probably with "Mrs. Peter Bishop" scrawled all over the margins). Most importantly, the hard drive contains a list of all the shapeshifter agents in play on Earth-1, which is what drives the plot of the evening - someone has gotten access to that list, and is murdering them one by one.

But before we get back to that subplot, the show opens up with a night time scene at an isolated airplane hanger, which invokes memories of some great episodes from Fringe's spiritual predecessor The X-Files. Remember the giant Peter-powered Universe Destroying Device (PUDD) that was designed to possibly rip apart our dimension and kill every living thing? Yeah, well, Nina Sharp and the Massive Dynamic gang of merry scientists have re-assembled it and are running a series of tests on it. That seems like a great idea and I cannot imagine that anything could possibly go wrong with this scenario.

The Massive Dynamic scientists are frustrated that their attempts to provoke the PUDD have thus far produced nothing. However, the minute Peter walks near the device, his nose starts to bleed and the machine grumbles into life, making a whirring sound that sounds something like, "You look delicious, Peter Bishop. Get in me now. Nom nom nom." Everyone looks surprised and a little worried about this.

Meanwhile, Broyles has other concerns on his mind. Fauxlivia's files are apparently quite saucy in certain places, and Broyles is worried that it will upset both Olivia and Peter if they read what's in there. So, having no one else to really task with this, he's forced to bring Astrid up to the big leagues, where she will actually get to lead a task for once, versus her normal "helper" role (which seems to entail mostly passing Walter tools off the operating tray and fetching strawberry milkshakes). I'm happy that Jasika Nicole finally has something to do other than look bemused at John Noble.

In what should be a giant red flag for viewers who are paying attention, we see Peter creeping back into the house he shares with Walter, carrying a duffel bag. While the front door doesn't seem to wake Walter, the sounds of Peter making a sandwich do. It's sort of like when my cats are nowhere to be found, but the minute I even touch the can of cat food, they materialize seemingly out of thin air. Peter totally lies to Walter about where he's been (red flag #2), but does offer to make him a sandwich. I'd point out the role reversal here, with the way Walter asks, "Can I have one too?" like a child, but really, isn't that how it has always seemed with these two? Peter has always played the role of provider and comforter to Walter. Now he must once again take on the parent role and remind Walter of a valuable life lesson: that you can't always protect the ones you love and sometimes you just need to let people deal with things on their own. This is a small scene, but it's superbly acted.

In any case, dead shapeshifters start popping up, and Broyles suspects that someone is cleaning up before the FBI can use Fauxlivia's files to hunt down the remaining agents. The team quickly realizes that this all started once they put Fauxlivia's files on the FBI mainframe. For some reason they seemed surprised that they might have a mole. Um... didn't you deal with a shapeshifter posing as Charlie Francis for weeks, and then Fauxlivia herself running amok for several months? Why is this a surprise, exactly? And you think they would have put measures in place earlier than now to deal with potential double agents. Shapeshifters can easily be detected with a blood test (since they have mercury blood), and those key figures who are known to having living dopplegangers on Earth-2 simply need to have a safety word installed with trusted people. Jeez, Fringe team....

Olivia offers to help process Fauxlivia's files, even though she knows it may be difficult to read all the juicy details of Fauxlivia's romance with Peter. Peter explains that his problem with that plan isn't just about him wanting to spare her feelings. Rather, as a former con man, he knows exactly how someone like that likely respects (or rather, doesn't respect at all) the marks they are fooling. He's embarrassed and also can't stand Olivia seeing him in that light. Again, this is another small scene, but it's just so well done - it's nice to see characters actually talking about their problems in an honest way, versus the standard TV trope of leaving these kinds of things unsaid.

The investigation turns up more dead shapeshifters - including the lead Massive Dynamic scientist working on the PUDD (whoops!) - and the Fringe team deduces that a human mole must be involved in the killings, thanks to some DNA left behind at one of the crime scenes. Olivia finally realizes that she needs to man up and just read Fauxlivia's files already, because she has unique insight into the woman's brain that no one else has, and it's time to stop letting her girly romantic feelings derail this investigation. This perseverance pays off, not only because Fauxlivia describes Peter in the same way that Olivia would have (thus reminding her why she fell for him in the first place, and inching her closer back to him), but also because she is able to crack the code detailing who the next shapeshifter is on the list of seemingly random names. She and Astrid race off to find the next victim before he can be murdered.

They're too late, however, and it might be the best thing for everyone, because they barely miss the man's murderer - Peter Bishop. Dun dun dun! Both we the audience and Walter learned earlier that Peter was behind it all, but it's still pretty shocking to see Peter execute the man right in front of Walter. Peter coldly explains that he isn't doing anything wrong, since the shapeshifters are 1) soldiers, and therefore ready to die for their mission and 2) technically not human. Walter is horrified and his voice breaks as he points out to Peter that people who truly believe they aren't doing anything wrong don't tend to lie to their friends and families about what they're up to. The Bishops flee the crime scene just in time before Olivia and the rest of the team show up.

Later, Olivia debriefs the Bishops on the details of the case, which of course they already know. Walter makes all these crazy guilty faces at Peter, but luckily Olivia is used to Walter acting squirrely and doesn't seem to notice anything is amiss. It seems for now Walter is going to keep Peter's secret for him. After Olivia leaves, Walter tells Peter that he may know why Peter is acting so strangely lately. Much as the machine is affected by Peter, so too is Peter affected by the machine. In other words, the PUDD is turning Peter into a weapon. And weapons are really only good for one thing (and it isn't dispensing hugs). And with that ominous note, yet another Fringe episode comes to an end.

Well, this makes two great episodes in a row now for Fringe since returning from the break. The show has managed to both move Olivia and Peter closer together, by showing Olivia gradually thawing to Peter's advances, while at the same time adding new compelling (and most importantly, logical) reasons for them to be pushed apart. This latest revelation about Peter is just another lie that will probably come between them, so it'll be exciting to see where the show goes with this plot line. The idea that you cannot affect something without being affected by it in return is something the show has unintentionally shown in many forms already - we see how Fauxlivia has changed Peter, Olivia and all the other people she came in contact with, and the contents of her diary suggest that those same people had unintended affects on her as well (it seems she grew fond of both Bishops despite herself). The same can be said for all the character pairings on the show.

Summary: when writing up your mission logs, do your best not to sound like a giggly, love-struck seventh grader, because you never know who's going to read them.

My Totally Random Oscar Picks

2011-01-24T21:47:00.002-05:00

Just for fun, here's my totally random guess at this year's Oscars.

** = will win

(j) = who I wish would win

Best Picture:

The Social Network **

Black Swan (j)

Inception

True Grit

The King's Speech

Toy Story 3

Winter's Bone

The Kids Are Alright

The Fighter

127 Hours

Best Actor:

Colin Firth **

Jeff Bridges

Jesse Eisenberg

James Franco

Paul Giamatti

Best Actress:

Natalie Portman ** (j)

Annette Bening

Jennifer Lawrence

Julianne Moore

Halle Berry

Best Supporting Actor:

Christian Bale **

Andrew Garfield

Geoffrey Rush

Jeremy Renner

Mark Ruffalo

Best Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams

Mila Kunis

Melissa Leo **

Helena Bonham Carter

Hallie Stansfield (j)

Best Director:

Lisa Cholodenko

Darren Aronofsky (j)

Christopher Nolan

Tom Hooper

David Fincher **

Fringe recap: Ep 3.10 "The Firefly"

2011-01-23T10:53:00.007-05:00

When it was announced the Fringe was moving to Friday night, many had fretted that this was the first step toward eventual cancellation. Coupled with the fact that the show would be off the air for weeks due to the holidays, there was a good chance that many people would simply forget to tune in. So it was absolutely imperative that Fringe come out of the gate strong, both in terms of ratings and quality.

Well I'm happy to report that if the rest of the season is as strong as "The Firefly", there's a good chance the show will continue to retain both fans and critical acclaim. This week's episode features the return of our favorite bald albino non-human, The Observer, as well as a great guest spot from Christopher "Doc Brown" Lloyd, who takes over the mantle of "wackiest dude in the room" from John Noble for this week.

The "previously on" sequence reminds us that even before the Earth-2 myth arc really started taking form, the show had a rich backstory built up around the mysterious Observers, a race of pale bald possibly-aliens who have a knack for showing up just as Pattern events or other major catastrophes are about to occur. More importantly, the main Observer (first name apparently "The") has a history with the Bishops boys, saving Peter and Walter's life when they fell through the ice after returning from Earth-2. By doing so, The Observer played a part in altering the future and was warned by his fellow Observers that he would have to help correct the balance he threw off when he saved Walter and Peter.

The show opens at an old folks' home, where one Roscoe Joyce, former rock and roll star, is wandering the halls at night. The on-duty nurse watches on the monitors, and spots Roscoe chatting with a young man who has appeared out of nowhere. When the nurse catches up to Roscoe, he tells her that he was chatting with his son Bobby. Only one problem: Bobby died in 1985 (probably in a tragic accident involving Libyan terrorists). We quickly learn that Bobby was dispatched to speak to his father by The Observer.

Meanwhile, Walter is busy brewing up some kind of crazy potion in an attempt to restore the parts of his brain that William Bell removed. He tells Peter that he needs to be at the same mental capacity as Walternate, in order to truly determine what his counterpart is up to. Peter reminds Walter that he willingly underwent the partial lobotomy, precisely because he was afraid that he'd be more like Walternate - mad with power, willing to use his intellect for evil. Walter is too busy dancing around to "Ma-nah-ma-nah" and getting the drug-induced munchies to listen though.

While Peter and Walter's relationship is now good, things between Olivia and Peter remain awkward, particularly since Olivia has just received a gift in the mail that Peter intended for Alt-livia. There's no time to dwell on this punch to the gut though, since Olivia and the team have to deal with the Roscoe Joyce situation.

Walter and Roscoe have an instant connection. Not only is Walter a Roscoe Joyce superfan, but both men know the pain of losing a son prematurely, as well as the joy at getting an unexpected second chance to see that son again. Their connection goes even deeper than that, but more on that later. Walter takes advantage of the situation to have some more one-on-one time with his musical idol by requesting that he be able to take Roscoe back to the lab to try to help jar his memory loose.

The scene changes and we see The Observer foiling a robbery in process, as he single-handedly wrecks the robbers. He then saves the poor saleswoman who is bound and gagged and suffering from an asthma attack. You know, for a guy who goes by the name "The Observer" he sure gets involved a lot. Maybe we should change his name to The Participant. Just sayin'....

Walter attempts to help Roscoe remember his conversation with Bobby through the tried and true method of deep hypnosis. While that's going on, Peter attempts to explain the gift (a book, "If You See The Buddha On The Side Of The Road" by Sheldon Kopp) to Olivia. While he was inspired to purchase it after Alt-livia asked him what his favorite book was, the sentiment behind the gift - wanting her to understand him better - was always directed at the true Olivia, the woman he had spent two years with. It's all very sweet, but Olivia's all, "Yeah, I get the intention there, but it doesn't change the fact that you slept with my doppleganger and this book just reminds me of that, so... yeah, not really feelin' this gift right now." This incredibly awkward moment is broken up by Astrid, delivering the news that Roscoe's therapy is yielding results.

Roscoe jams out on the piano, as Walter looks on in delight. He's just about to spill the beans on what Bobby told him, when Olivia's phone rings loudly, interrupting the vibe of the moment. Olivia looks mortified as Walter glares at her, and excuses herself and Peter to go deal with the subject of the phone call: The Observer's latest hijinks. Luckily, after the Drama Twins leave the scene, Roscoe starts back up with his ramblings and reveals that Bobby told him that Roscoe would someday meet Walter Bishop and that he would help him somehow. Everyone is unclear what that means exactly. Fortunately, The Observer pops in to help clarify.

Walter and The Observer take a stroll around Harvard Yard. The Observer again reminds Walter how they altered the future when he stole Peter and then The Observer chose to save their lives. He then gives Walter a mini-lecture about the Butterfly Effect type of consequences - those that you cannot possibly predict, because they're based on such small, seemingly random things. In this case, the Butterfly Effect scenario he lays out for Walter begins with a firefly (titular reference!) that Peter captured, thus denying another child the chance to capture that same firefly, which then leads to a convulted series of events that culminates with the girl's father losing control of his truck and killing a pedestrian in Harvard Yard. Viewers even half awake at this time can guess exactly where this one is going. In any case, The Observer leaves Walter with a final cryptic instruction to "Give him the keys and save the girl." Walter is hysterical at this point, as he suspects that following that instruction will somehow lead to him losing Peter.

Meanwhile, if you guessed that the pedestrian killed in the scenario just described was Bobby Joyce, son of Roscoe, then give yourself a gold star. Walter is devastated as he listens to Roscoe describe how the death of his son destroyed him and lead directly to the breakup of the band that Walter so loved. And so we see that the help Roscoe is intended to provide is not one of action, but rather illustration: a concrete example of the unforeseen consequences of Walter's actions in 1985.

The Observer sets the final part of his plan in motion, as he chats with a fellow Observer about whether Walter has changed. The entire series of events that occurs during this episode is all an elaborate test to see if Walter is still the same man who carelessly changed the fate of two universes. It's unclear who is betting on which outcome here.

It's a little complicated, so I'll cut to the chase here: The Observer intentionally crashes into the police car carrying the woman from the robbery in Act 1, leading all the major players to converge on the scene, where Walter is forced to decide whether he will obey The Observer and turn over his car keys to Peter so he can chase after The Observer while Walter works to save the girl's life. Walter is near tears as he realizes that somehow he's being forced to choose whether or not to fight fate with regards to Peter's life. He finally gives in, and hands over the keys.

Peter and Olivia chase The Observer down, and while it seems for a moment that The Observer may have shot Peter to death, it turns out that Peter is only bruised from the magical airgun blast. Walter is relieved, but confused, at what exactly the purpose of the whole encounter was. And he's right - the test isn't over quite yet. It turns out that the whole point of the exercise was to set up the scenario where Peter, feeling the pain from his injury, takes an aspirin and washes it down with the most handy liquid available to him - in this case, a bottle of milk laced with one of Walter's latest concoctions that he carelessly left in the lab fridge because he was distracted by dealing with Roscoe. Peter nearly dies, though Olivia is on hand to help save him.

Later, as Walter tends to Peter, he realizes that if he had drank the milk as planned he would have died. So, in a way, The Observer saved his life AND illustrated yet again the moral of the story: that you can't predict every single future consequence of your actions, no matter how hard you try. As the episode ends, we see The Observer and the other Observer from before, discussing how Walter HAS changed, because he was willing to take a chance at sacrificing Peter's life. It's all very ominous, for it seems that the endgame the Observers have in mind involves Peter's death somehow.

This was just a great episode that really expanded on themes laid out in other episodes this season. The idea that the universe has a balance echoes in the way that Walter selfishly saved his son, causing another to lose his son - one way or the other, the universe was taking a son away from a brilliant man. It was like Walter simply transferred his pain to another. This episode also echoes back to Episode 3.3 "The Plateau" which also touched on the way that unrelated events can come together in unexpected ways to change people's lives. There's also the notion of sacrifice - whether Walter would be willing to let Peter go in the interest of what we can only hope is the greater good.

It also bears note that The Observer was literally willing to kill Walter if he didn't follow through on his instructions, since he set up a situation where Walter would have ended up drinking the poisoned milk himself if he failed The Observer's test.

Finally, the Peter and Olivia exchange has another purpose, other than slowly moving them back into each other's romantic orbits. The book Peter loves stresses finding the answers within versus from other people, and it also stresses ideas such as accepting that sometimes the only way to have things is to let them go, that you can't control anything, that the universe is random and only has meaning based on what you bring to it. These are obviously major themes the show has explored, given poignant form in the stories of both the Joyce and Bishop families.

The moral imparted here is that you can't fight fate, that on some level you need to accept what the universe has in store for you, because you can't see all the things that come out of your current moment of unhappiness. If you were religious, you might say this has a lot in common with the oft-repeated notion that God has a plan for everyone, even if it isn't obvious. But even if you're not religious, there's a certain zen to the message the show puts forth here. Good meaty stuff to chew on, complimented perfectly by the writing and performance this week. Bravo and welcome back, show.

Summary: When bald time-traveling aliens come dispensing advice, it's best to listen.

Fringe recap: Ep 3.9 "Marionette"

2010-12-09T21:06:00.016-05:00

I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body... I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. - Victor Frankenstein

This episode of Fringe was literally a monster-of-the-week episode, as it explored a topic well covered in such classic works as Frankenstein and Re-Animator: a mad scientist attempting to bring a dead body back to life. However the episode also touched on a more interesting theme - the idea that sometimes things can never be the way they used to be, no matter how much we might wish it so. This applies not only to the dead ballerina that the main villain is attempting to revive, but also to Olivia's old life, which has been irrevocably tainted by Alt-livia's actions on Earth-1. Alt-livia's violation of Olivia was pretty complete - there's no place in Olivia's life that isn't tainted by her: Alt-livia's icky body sweat is all over her apartment, she's forever lost the chance to be a giddy new couple with Peter, and even work sucks because everyone knows her shame.

In any case, hearts are stolen, eyeballs are scooped, the dead rise and Walter makes me laugh about a dozen times - in other words, this was a vintage Fringe episode.

The show opens as we see our first unfortunate victim departing a train. A creepy looking guy in a suit follows him, and uses the old Soviet assassin method of applying a sedative or poison by using a hidden injector in the end of an umbrella. Shortly after the victim gets home the poison kicks in and knocks him out. The man wakes back up and discovers he's accidentally wandered onto the set of one of Dexter's kill rooms - he's strapped to a table with plastic wrap and Creepy Guy is hovering over him with a huge needle. I'm going to warn you now: the gore factor is pretty high in this episode, and it starts right here as Creepy Guy stabs the victim in the neck (aieeee!) and then goes about cutting his heart out and leaving him alive with a rib spreader still left propping open his now empty chest cavity (double aieeee!). At least Creepy Guy was courteous enough to call 9-1-1 before he left, so someone can come find the poor guy.

Walter and Peter prepare to drive to the crime scene, but the elder Bishop is distracted by his new favorite topic: namely, the accidental boning of the wrong Olivia by Peter. Walter urges Peter to tell Olivia the truth about his relationship with Alt-livia. There's a touching moment where Walter sadly reminds Peter that his son knows all too well how emotionally devastating some secrets can be. Peter agrees with his father and assures him that he'll tell Olivia as soon as possible. I must say, the Bishop men have a great easy chemistry here, and it really does seem like this new situation has helped bring them closer together.

Of course, when Peter promised to tell Olivia "soon", he really meant "in 3 to 4 weeks when she comes back from leave," so clearly he's a little uncomfortable when she rolls on up with Broyles to the crime scene. Awkward! Luckily, there's organ theft afoot to investigate, so Peter is able to delay that conversation for now.

I was going to make the tin man joke here as they discuss the victim's empty chest cavity, but Walter beats me to it. Walter is excited when he hears the report that the victim was alive for some time even after his heart had been removed.

Because the chest is nice and open and really lets the light in, the team is easily able to note that the man had recently been a heart transplant recipient, so it's off with Peter and Olivia to see the transplant doctor. While they're waiting for the doctor to see them, Peter and Olivia have The Talk. Here's how it goes:

Peter: "Yeah, so I kind of noticed that Alt-livia smiled more and was less uptight than you, but I just wrote it off as part of our new relationship. Also, she was totally more fun than you, so... yeah, didn't really want to dig too deep into those weird ticks I noticed about her."

Olivia: "By applying logic and facts, I can justify how no one realized I was gone, not even you. IN NO WAY DOES THIS BOTHER ME bwahahahahaha... *sob*"

I may be paraphrasing a bit, but you get the general idea. Olivia lies (badly) and tells Peter that she understands completely and it's no big deal. Peter continues his campaign of self-denial and seems to drop the issue for now.

The investigation presses on, so the awkward conversation will have to wait till the third act of the show. The team quickly realizes that several other victims have had their organs stolen in the same fashion and more importantly, all the stolen organs came from the same victim - a 17-year old ballerina named Amanda. After talking to Amanda's mother, they learn that Amanda was clinically depressed and despite trying everything from medication to various depression group meetings, she still ended up committing suicide.

Awkward advertisement of the night: Peter stepping out to take Astrid's call. Hello product placement! Did you know that you can do video chat with your fancy sprint phone? Because you totally can. Witness Astrid's giant head fill the screen, as an inset of Peter hides in her afro. Don't you wish you had a fancy Sprint

Totally awesome advertisement of the night: the decision to place an advertisement for the new Natalie Portman film Black Swan in the middle of this episode. Creepy ballerinas - they're the new black!

The team realizes that there's one more organ recipient still left out there but they get to him too late. In a scene I can never unsee (no pun intended), the guy turns and we see that his eyes were nailed open and then scooped out. Arrrgh. If there's one thing that gives me the willies, it's violence done to eyeballs.

If you thought that was unsettling, you'll love the next scene, where we see that Creepy Guy (nee Roland Barrett) has stitched Amanda's body back together and strapped her into this creepy and horrific contraption that allows him to make her limp body dance. Roland weeps as my skin crawls at the whole macabre sight.

Peter sorts through the files on the various groups Amanda attended, somewhat coldly remarking, "You'd think someone working that hard at being okay would get some pay off." Olivia looks upset at the comment, as she's spent an earlier scene weeping in her apartment as she hysterically stripped the sheets off her bed and attempted to wash Alt-livia's stank off of them, only to find Peter's clothes in her washing machine. Peter, of course, misses this reaction. Jesus, read the room, Peter!

Peter then fails to react to Olivia's passive aggressive observation that whoever is out there fighting to give Amanda back her life clearly loves her. This is really the crux of Olivia's grief here - the realization that while she was trapped on the other side, Peter wasn't fighting for her at all, he was just giving in to the easy manipulations of her doppleganger. Compare that to Roland Barrett, who the team discovers in the roster of one of the depression groups Amanda belonged to and who fits "I love you enough to re-animate you!" profile to a tee. The team takes off to go find Roland.

Roland revives Amanda, but she's not exactly brimming with gratitude for her savior. Mostly she just drools and rolls her eyes crazily around. Roland is upset that the meat puppet formerly known as Amanda isn't what he expected her to be, but he doesn't have a lot of time to do much about it, since the Fringe team picks that moment to break into his house.

After a tussle, Olivia captures Roland, who grieves because even though all the pieces are in place, it's not Amanda, just a shell that looks like her. His statement "I looked into her eyes and I knew it wasn't her" really hits home for Olivia.

This comment sets the stage for Olivia's final confrontation with Peter as they close out the crime scene. Olivia weeps and tells Peter that while logically she knows that Alt-livia was trained to replace her, she still can't forgive him for not realizing that it wasn't her. And really - Alt-livia was pretty much the world's worst liar, so there's so merit to Olivia's grievance here. Still, there's a world of difference between Roland realizing that a floppy, brain-damaged, franken-version of Amanda isn't the same person, and Peter's inability to realize the the sexy and fun identical twin of Olivia isn't actually her. In that sense, Olivia is being a bit unfair with the apples and oranges comparison, but it is what it is, and Olivia can't let it go. And so, before Peter and Olivia's relationship can even truly begin, it's over, because Olivia doesn't want him anymore. It's all very sad and emotional. Anna Torv just knocks this scene out of the park.

The episode ends on a high note, as we see that our favorite baldy The Observer is back. Yay! Looks like the Observers will be playing a larger part in the upcoming episodes, as he watches Walter Bishop from afar and reports on him. Unfortunately, it seems we'll have to wait to see where this new plot takes us, as there are no more new Fringe episodes until January 21st, when the juggernaut that is American Idol steals the Thursday time slot and pushes Fringe into the Friday night slot (a.k.a. "the slot that killed Firefly", a.k.a. the "oh god the show's gonna get cancelled slot!").

While I enjoyed the last eight weeks of alternate universe hijinks, this week's episode reminded me of what I had been missing from the earlier seasons. Alt-livia/Olivia were always the focal points by necessity in the first eight episodes, but that ended up drawing away attention from characters like Walter who had more of a background role than I would have liked. This week he was back in rare form and I felt like his scenes with Peter had a nice flow that was lacking up till now. It's nice to know we'll be back with our good old regular Earth-1 team for the foreseeable future. Overall, this week was really well done - very effectively creepy, well directed and plotted with just the right about of gore to make you jump.

Summary: if you're going to steal an organ from me while I'm still conscious, just please don't let it be my eyeballs.

I don't think you get the point here, Josh Duhamel

2010-12-06T12:32:00.004-05:00

If you hadn't heard, the actor Josh Duhamel was recently kicked off a flight after refusing at least 3 requests from flight attendants to turn off his Blackberry. Duhamel ignored them and continued texting, until they ended up turning the plane around and escorting him off.

In a bit of follow up, here's a headline from a Today show article, which reads: "Josh Duhamel says 'lesson learned' after being kicked off flight".

The article blurb goes on:

Josh Duhamel is humble about a Dec. 2 incident on a flight bound for Kentucky, which resulted in him being escorted off the plane after he refused to power down his BlackBerry. "I learned that it's best to always turn them off," Duhamel said from a benefit for The Trevor Project in Los Angeles.

See, that's funny. I thought the lesson learned would have been: "Don't be a giant dick and/or act like an entitled celebrity jerkwad."

Oh, Mr. Fergie... I used to love you on All My Children, but this whole thing is very disappointing.

Fringe Recap: Ep 3.8 "Entrada"

2010-12-02T21:12:00.018-05:00

Welcome to the purple episode of Fringe where blue and red universes finally collide.

There have been 50 episodes of Fringe aired so far, and this one easily ranks in the top 5 that the show has done. Olivia and Alt-livia finally make their ways back to their respective universes, but both women will find things a bit changed since they last left. Olivia may eventually notice that Peter seems to already know his way around her bra clasp, meanwhile Alt-livia may find it a bit strange that her boss has just stopped coming to work for some reason.

The show opens right where we left off last time, with Peter receiving the tip-off that Olivia is still trapped over on Earth-2. Before the credits have even rolled, Peter has already gotten busy snooping on Alt-livia's laptop, tricked her into revealing herself, and gotten himself paralyzed as Alt-livia drops all pretenses and pulls a gun on him. I guess after teasing us for eight weeks with "When will Peter figure it out?" the show didn't want to waste anymore time with that. The Greek phrase Peter uses to trip Alt-livia up was the same one that Olivia blurted out to him when she returned from her first trip over to Earth-2 at the beginning of season two, and alert fans will recall that for Peter and his mother the phrase was a code meaning roughly "Keep the people you love close." It's brilliantly appropriate in this situation.

We flip flop back over to Earth-2, where it sucks to be Olivia. Brandon the lab geek and Walternate discuss the fact that Alt-livia is ready to come home. Walternate suggests that they simply swap two things of equal mass - in this case, Olivia and Alt-livia. Remember in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones swapped out the golden idol for a bag of sand that weighed the same amount? Well, Brandon would like to do that, except in this case he'd like to put bags of sand where Olivia's brain and other vital organs are, and send her body back over. Creepy! This just goes to show you - if you let the nerds rise up they will just turn and murder us all so they can study our innards. That's why I try to wedgie a nerd at least once a week. In any case, the proverbial gun in Act 1 isn't the actual gun that Alt-livia pulls on Peter, but the factoid about swapping things of equal mass, so keep that in mind when we get to Act 3.

Over on Earth-1, the Fringe team races to catch Alt-livia before she crosses back over. Along the way they discover the typewriter repair shop that houses the Selectric 251 typewriter, as well as a charming little pastry shop in the Bronx. Peter is clearly mortified about the whole situation, and Walter doesn't help things by blabbering to everyone about how Alt-livia has tricked Peter with her wicked carnal manipulations and her "vagenda". There's one particularly funny part when Walter mournfully regards his fried dough treat and laments that Alt-livia tricked him as well by appealing to his stomach. Ah well, the Bishops shouldn't beat themselves up too much - Alt-livia's cookie, both literal and metaphorical, is too hard to resist.

Meanwhile on Earth-2, Broyles weighs his long-held belief that Earth-1 people are all evil monsters who want to destroy his universe with the fact that he totally owes Olivia for saving his family from the Candyman. Eventually, Olivia's pathetic pleas for help, along with a gentle push from his wife and a semi-heavy handed comment from a bartender about Earth-2 needing heroes, inspires Broyles to help. They escape just in the nick of time before Brandon can begin carving her up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

At this point, the episode really picks up steam, as the Fringe team closes in on Alt-livia at Penn Station in Newark, just as Broyles is driving Olivia to Walternate's old lab at Harvard. Luckily even though there's a huge block of amber just outside and the lab is clearly closed for business, Olivia can still refill the sensory deprivation tank, because apparently on Earth-2 people just leave big bags of rock salt lying around and the water turned on in abandoned buildings. Olivia manages to jump back over just before the Earth-2 authorities bust in and capture Broyles.

Cornered in the station by the cops and Fringe division, Alt-livia attempts to escape by taking a hostage, but Peter outsmarts her this round by correctly figuring out that the terrified woman in her arms is actually a shape shifter ally. Captured, Alt-livia tries once more to apply her feminine wiles to Peter by implying that while she initially may have slept with him as part of her normal business she eventually developed feelings for him. Peter doesn't buy it, though he later discovers that Alt-livia had packed a strip of photos of the two of them to take back to Earth-2 with her. Peter makes this sad face and I think we're supposed to interpret this as a sign that Alt-livia really did care for him on some level. I personally think it's just as likely that she was taking the photos as some sort of weird serial killer-esque memento of her time of mayhem, murder and sex on Earth-1, but who knows?

This victory is short-lived, however, since the shape shifter managed to inject Alt-livia with the harmonic implants needed to vibrate her horrible lying face back over to Earth-2. If you were wondering how Walternate was going to take Broyles's betrayal, you're about to get your answer, as Alt-livia's scrawny self vibrates away back to Earth-2 and is replaced by an object of equal mass. How many Alt-livias it takes to fill up one Philip Broyles? The answer is: 1.25, as we see that Broyles is not only dead but missing a leg and part of his arm. Aw, R.I.P. Earth-2's Philip Broyles. We will miss you and your form-fitting black t-shirts.

Though it looks like we may be taking a break from Earth-2 for awhile, that's okay, since there's plenty of fallout on Earth-1 to deal with for the time being. However, there are still plenty of interesting tidbits at the end of the episode that I suspect we'll see again. First, there's the stolen piece of the Doomsday Vacuum that Alt-livia had sent to a mysterious new man before she jumped universes. Who is he, and what does he plan to do with the component? Second, there's the fact that the Earth-2 Fringe team has not been filled in on the fact that Walternate sanctioned the execution and postmortem mutilation of Broyles. Not even Alt-livia, who benefited the most from this decision, seems to know what happened. How will the team react if and when they find out about this betrayal of one of their own? Finally, which daytime talk show will Peter take Olivia on for the big "I slept with your doppleganger" reveal?

Summary: I suspect we haven't seen the last of Alt-livia's vagenda.

I will make you love Terriers if it's the last thing I do

2010-11-19T13:28:00.003-05:00

Honestly people, what do I need to do to get you watching FX's excellent show Terriers? I've blogged about this show before, but I wanted to again remind you to tune in. The last few episodes of the show have been simply wonderful - Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James have an awesome chemistry and have proven adept at both comedy and drama. MRJ in particular simply killed his scene last week when he tearfully resolved the dramatic situation between Britt and Katie. Devastating and heartfelt.

Need more convincing? Check out Televisionary's excellent Open Letter to FX to Keep Terriers.

I'm also posting to pass along a recommendation: if you haven't caught up on the show and you can't hunt the episodes down online, you can read the Couch Baron's excellent recaps of the show. I've been a fan of his recapping work for some time, so I know he'll do a great job with this show.

For those of you who are already fans and want to know how you can help, compose an email to user@fxnetworks.com, make sure the Subject line says ‘Save Terriers’ in it, and let the network know how you feel about the show.

Fringe Recap: Ep 3.7 "The Abducted"

2010-11-18T21:03:00.029-05:00

This week's episode was a real thriller - not only was the prime case supremely creepy and well done, but the episode ends on quite a cliffhanger, as Olivia's attempt to get back home to Earth-1 proves less than successful.

The main plot involves a serial kidnapper dubbed the Candyman. On Earth-1, the Candyman is a large black man played by Tony Todd in the movies (films that incidentally emotionally scarred me for life as a child). Here on Earth-2, the Candyman is a scary bald white guy who likes stealing children from their bedrooms at night so he can harvest the sweet youthful nectar stored up in their pituitary glands.

The show opens as the Candyman collects his latest victim, Max, age 9. It's like my worst childhood nightmare given form in this scene, as Max's mother assures him there's no monster in the closet, exits the room, and then the door suddenly swings shut to reveal the Candyman standing there in the darkness, clad in a creepy silver mask. Max only has time to gasp as he's whisked away into the night. My inner 9 year old weeps in terror.

We cut to the next morning. I suspected that cab driver Henry Higgins (Andre Royo) would be back to take part in Olivia's escape from Earth-2, so I'm pleased to see him return this episode. Welcome back, Henry! Olivia pops into his cab, all like, "Hey, remember that time I kidnapped you, made you lose a day's worth of fares and then threatened to murder your family? Good times! So, wanna grab breakfast?" Henry is apparently a very forgiving sort, because he agrees to hear her out. Over waffles and coffee, she explains that she needs his help to pilot a ship out to Liberty Island, where she plans to break into the DoD lab there. Henry doesn't like the idea, but offers to borrow his cousin's boat to help her out. Maybe he's just trying to spare another poor Earth-2 soul from being a victim of Olivia's never ending crime spree, since her original plan involved just stealing some random boat.

Apparently on Earth-2, business is booming for the Beeper King, as we see Olivia receive a page on her beeper instead of her fancy ear phone notifying her to head to Max's house. If you were wondering how they knew that the kidnapping was Fringe Division worthy, well the answer is they didn't. However, thanks to the Peter Bishop Act of 1991, all kidnapped child cases are treated as a Fringe Division case. In this instance, that pays off, as the team quickly determines that they recognize the pattern left behind. It seems Fringe Division has encountered the Candyman before.

We head back to Fringe HQ for more exposition about the case. The good news: all the previous victims were released after 48 hours. The bad news: they all came back with massive internal injuries and strange physical aliments such as cancer. Now the clock is ticking on poor Max. Olivia notes that each victim had the same injury at the base of their skull along the spine.

Broyles and Walternate discuss the case. Walternate looks really upset (for good reason) about the idea of a serial kidnapper on the loose that they are unable to stop. It turns out that Colonel Broyles and Walternate have a lot in common. Both men know what it's like to have a child abducted from their home. It seems that the Candyman abducted Christopher Broyles several years ago - a trauma that neither Christopher nor his father seem to have recovered from. Walternate offers Broyles a chance to beg off on leading the investigation, given his past history with the Candyman, but Broyles declines. He frets about being stuck with Olivia, versus Alt-livia who he actually trusts.

Eventually, Broyles will come to appreciate that Earth-1's Olivia, though not as fun as Alt-livia, is still a pretty awesome agent. But at first he refuses to soften up to her, especially once she pushes to interview Christopher about his abduction, since he's one of the two victims who recalls two captors (one young, one old) being present. Broyles doesn't respond well to this request.

Eventually, Olivia mostly puzzles out that the Candyman is stealing youth by draining the children's pituitary glands. Broyles finally relents to let her interview Christopher (thanks to some gentle prodding and a well timed beer from Mrs. Broyles). We learn a few interesting tidbits here: one, that Christopher is an Olivia fanboy, two, that he has cataracts, and three, he remembers a religious phrase uttered by the kidnapper. This phrase ultimately leads the team to a small church in Queens, where the man in charge, Reverend Marcus, helpfully turns over a list of congregants to them. The team breaks up to start canvassing the names on the list.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a red headed female FBI agent enters the home of a squirrely looking white guy. She spots a clue that tips her off to his true identity, he gets all sweaty staring her down before retreating back into the hidden part of his lair. After a cat and mouse game through the dimly lit room, they fire upon each other at the same time. Her bullet hits home, while his misses and shatters a window in the background. A beam of light streams into the room. I swear, this scene was like an abbreviated version of the ending of the Silence of the Lambs. In any case, the Candyman (a.k.a. Wyatt Toomey) is dead, Max is recovered and Olivia is the conquering hero of the day. Hooray.

Lincoln invites Olivia to grab a celebratory beer after work but she's ready to go home. And by "home" she means "back to Earth-1". She heads off to meet Henry at the docks. Unfortunately, just as she's about to get in the boat, she comes to the sick realization that Toomey, an unskilled laborer, couldnt have been working alone. His mentor Reverend Marcus, a former doctor, was in cahoots with him - and oops, Broyles accidently mentioned to Marcus that his son could ID him. Now we're in a recreation of Red Dragon (a.k.a. Manhunter), where there's a blind person stalked, a child and wife of the lead investigator in danger, etc etc. I swear I'm not making this up, people. Olivia bails on her escape plan for the moment and calls Broyles, who rushes home just in time to save Christopher and shoot Reverend Marcus.

Olivia checks in with Colonel Broyles later at the hospital, where he expresses gratitude for what she did for him. Olivia then stops by to visit with Max (now I swear the show is just messing with me, since it looks like he has a stuffed version of Precious the poodle with him). Max tells Olivia that he remembers her shouting "FBI" when she came into the room to save him. Unfortunately the FBI doesn't exist on Earth-2 any more. Doubly unfortunate is that Broyles overhears all this. He calls Olivia out on the fact that she is conscious of the fact that she is not Alt-livia. However, given her actions in saving Christopher, he simply walks away and doesn't turn her in. Aw, it's nice to see that Broyles is cool no matter which Earth we're on.

The escape is back on, so Henry drops Olivia off at Liberty Island. It wouldn't be an episode of Fringe if Anna Torv weren't wet, so she dives off the boat and swims ashore. She breaks into the lab, preps the tank, injects herself and plunges in. She crosses over and for one glorious second thinks she's done it, before realizing to her horror that she's about to shift back. She manages to get a message to the rather surprised cleaning woman standing there, before she's pulled forcefully back across to Earth-2 and out of the tank by Walternate. Now we've come full circle to the first episode, with Olivia trapped once more, screaming and pleading with Walternate to let her go home. Dun dun!

While poor Olivia suffers yet again, horrible Alt-livia is warm and comfy back on Earth-1. She gets to snuggle in with Peter snuggle to watch Casablanca in bed. If Peter was suspicious before about Alt-livia (she incorrectly guesses that Casablanca stars Ronald Reagan and has a happy romantic ending), then he's 100% sure something is terribly wrong now, as he gets a call from the cleaning woman, who passes along Olivia's message that she's trapped over on Earth-2. His expression is one of horror as the full implication of that statement sinks in. Peter, you are literally Sleeping With the Enemy. Looks like Peter will be the next guest star on the "I banged my girlfriend's doppleganger by mistake" episode of Springer. Double dun dun!

Fringe continues it's strong season this week, as we take another huge step forward in the main storyline in both universes. Over in Earth-1, Peter now knows about the traitor in their midst - the question is, how will he deal with this news and will he take Alt-livia down before she puts a bullet in him? Meanwhile, things look dire for Olivia on Earth-2 - will she figure out how to tap her universe traversing powers on her own, or will she need her friends from Earth-1 to come across and save her? If Peter crosses back over to save Olivia, is he just playing into Walternate's hands? After all - you can't fire up your special universe-destroying vacuum without your giant human battery, right?

If you're like me, you're thrilled to find out what happens next. Tragically, here on Earth-1 we celebrate Thanksgiving next Thursday, so that means we have to wait two weeks to find out what happens next. Oh FOX - why won't you send me advanced screeners?!?!

Summary: On Earth-2, the lambs stopped screaming a long time ago. Do you see?

NFL Week 10 breakdown

2010-11-15T22:01:00.010-05:00

Okay, so I kind of dropped the ball on weeks 8 and 9, but here's my week 10 thoughts:

My totally random thoughts on hair. In the biblical tale of Samson and Delilah, the mighty Samson is stripped of his great strength after he allows Delilah to cut his hair. Now consider the once mighty Jared Allen: last year he tallied 14.5 sacks while sporting a magnificent mullet. In the offseason, he got married and as a concession to his bride, agreed to cut his mullet for their wedding. This season up to week 8 he had only 2 sacks. Coincidence?

Meanwhile, Tom Brady has steadfastly refused to cut his hair, despite the fact that everyone has ruthlessly mocked it. Even Justin Bieber has gotten in on the act. Again, the love of a woman comes into play, as Brady claims that his wife (the incredibly hot Giselle Bündchen) won't allow him to cut his flowing locks. Well, this season the Patriots are again on fire, despite having no-name receivers and no running game to speak of. Brady went berserk last night on both the sidelines AND the field, totaling up 350 yards and 3 TDs (while adding a fourth TD by rushing). Again, I ask you... coincidence, or a testament to the power of the hair?

Change is good. This week new Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett took the drastic measures of actually expecting players to hustle in practice and show up on time to meetings. *Gasp!* Well, the team actually seemed to respond, behaving like professional football players for an entire 60 minute game, shellacking the surprised NY Giants in the process. While Garrett deserves credit for motivating his team, I suspect that this was partially a matter of good timing/luck - the Giants always have one or two games like this where Eli plays poorly and the defense looks sloppy, and the Cowboys have one or two games that remind us that they are stacked with individual talent. In this case, both of those yearly occurences happened in the same game.

With the Cowboys having success replacing an ineffective head coach, you have to wonder what it's going to take to get Zygi Wilf to follow suit and fire head coach Brad Childress. There are countless reports that the players hate Childress, and they are now 3 games out of first place in the division, sitting at 3-6. Childress put all his proverbial eggs in the Brett Favre basket at the beginning of the year, sending 3 players down to Mississippi to literally beg him to come out of retirement (increasing his salary by a cool $3 mil as enticement). This decision is obviously not paying off - Favre has only thrown 10 TDs and has 16 INTs this season, and hasn't exactly been a model of a team player. While people got excited last week when Favre brought the team back for a thrilling win, they forgot to mention the most important fact about last week's game: their opponent, the Arizona Cardinals, really really really suck. That they needed a wild comeback against a lowly team like that sort of sums up their whole season.

It's fairly well known around the league that the Minnesota defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier is highly respected and will likely be a head coach very very soon somewhere in the league. It seems crazy that Wilf wouldn't insert him in at the head coach position. This is a change that makes sense. Another change that would make sense is benching Favre and letting Tarvaris Jackson show whether or not he's the answer at QB moving forward. This is a lost year for the Vikings anyway - better to start Jackson and find out if he's the guy or not than to wait till next season and then find out the hard way.

There are no dominant teams this year. But boy are there some exciting teams. This week the NY Jets won their second OT game in two weeks in thrilling fashion. The Cleveland Browns have been surprisingly fun to watch, especially with the poised Colt McCoy at the helm and Peyton Hillis running like a total beast this year. And you'll be hard pressed to find a more exciting play than the hail mary play by the Jacksonville Jaguars. Meanwhile, the Oakland Raiders are starting to look like a team to watch - if they can beat the Steelers next week they'll have to enter the discussion for top 10 ranking as well. Lastly, the San Diego Chargers are exciting in both good ways (a dynamic offense with Philip Rivers playing absolutely out of his mind even with scrubs filling in at WR) and in bad ways (with a special teams unit completely willing to spice up the game by failing to block, well.... anyone).

Brother, can you spare a QB? So, the details of Donovan McNabb's new contract came out today, and boy howdy is that some crazy money. $40 million guaranteed over 5 years for a QB who just turned 34? Sounds insane, especially given the drama of last week where McNabb was benched for Rex Grossman. However, consider the state of available QBs around the league right now, and suddenly the deal doesn't look quite as insane. There aren't that many QBs worth starting in the league. Consider the plight of the Miami Dolphins who went from having two Chads that could start (Pennington and Henne) to having no Chads and only Tyler Thigpen left to play. When they went to sign new QBs to serve as backups the only options were Patrick Ramsey (who they signed), Chris Simms, Tom Brandstater and JaMarcus Russell - not exactly a murderers' row of gunslingers there. Meanwhile, Tennessee also has a MASH unit where their QB unit should be - both Kerry Collins and Vince Young are struggling with injuries, which means they're not really able to take advantage of newly acquired Randy Moss.

Studs of the week. A lot of people forget, but Troy Smith was going to be the starter for the Baltimore Ravens in 2008. In the final week of the pre-season, he got very sick and was out of commission. In the interim Joe Flacco came in to start and the rest is history. However, I'm glad to see Smith getting a second chance in San Francisco, where this week's performance (17/28, 354 yds, 1 TD) should help solidify his bid to keep the starting job. Roddy White and Andre Johnson have several things in common: both are low drama hard working players, and both had stellar weeks (White, 12 rec, 138 yds, 2 TDs; Johnson 9 rec, 146 yds, 1 TD). This week Tom Brady finally broke the 300 yard passing mark in a game this season, but his studliness was more about the fire and motivation he showed, both in his own performance and the way he inspired his team than mere stats (30/43, 350 yds, 3TDs, 1 rushing TD). Finally, Michael Vick... there are no words to describe the way he personally dismantled the Redskins DEF this week.

Duds of the week. Knock the ball DOWN, not sideways, Glover Quin. It's bad enough that you're kind of a douche, Jeff Reed, but your kicking is pretty poor this season too. Nick Folk also has a case of the yips this week, missing 3 FGs and making his team have to win the hard way in OT.

Teams I like this week. Obviously, you have to like the way the Denver Broncos AND the Philadelphia Eagles dropped the hammer on their divisional rivals this week. You also have to like the Buffalo Bills (but just a little bit) for finally winning their first game of the season and avoiding the dreaded 0-16 record. I also like the New England Patriots, who remind us that no matter who they have on the roster, they can find a way to win against any team. The Patriots are a team that is intimidated by no one. Finally, I love the Atlanta Falcons, who have quietly gone about earning the best record in the NFC. This is important, as they are just ridiculous at home. Matt Ryan is 18-1 lifetime at home. That is just insane.

Teams I don't like this week. I don't like the Minnesota Vikings and I think you know why. I also don't like the Detroit Lions this week - after starting the year with fire in their bellies, they've looked too soft and too much like the Lions of old in these past few weeks. Jim Schwartz has made some very questionable calls as a head coach as well. Finally, a big old hate goes out to the Washington Redskins, for utterly failing to show up on defense. Yes, the offense struggled a bit early, but the defense looked scared and frozen in place trying to stop Michael Vick.

Fringe Recap: Ep 3.6 "6955 kHz"

2010-11-11T20:42:00.035-05:00

It's good to see Fringe return to form after last week's disappointing episode. Whereas last week suffered from its stand-alone "Monster of the Week" format, this week is chock full of continuity goodness as it ties together strands laid out over several previous episodes and gives the overall season arc a big kick forward.

We open back on Earth-1, where a group of ham radio enthusiasts - including a crusty lighthouse operator in Maine, a young Chinese man in New York City, and a blond folksy-looking mother in New Hampshire - eagerly IM about some kind of broadcast they've been waiting to come on. It's clear they're expecting the sequence of numbers that start rattling over the broadcast. It is equally clear that they weren't expecting the brain searing signal that accompanies it. There's much moaning and clutching of the head, before they snap out of it and find themselves suffering from what appears to be total memory loss.

Fun fact #1: the frequency they were tuned into - 6955 kHz - is one of the most popular frequencies for pirate radio broadcasts.

Anyway, we jump to the next morning, where Peter is busying serving Alt-livia breakfast in bed. It's unclear how much time has jumped since we first saw Alt-livia seduce Peter for the first time, but from their banter about the morning paper and their easy interactions, it's pretty clear they've done this sleepover business several times before. I wonder what kind of jelly a no-good murdering boyfriend-stealing doppleganger takes with her toast. Hmm. Peter continues his campaign for boyfriend of the year by presenting Alt-livia with tickets to see U2 in concert. As you'll recall from an earlier episode this season, Alt-livia may like Patsy Cline, but she has no idea who this Bono character is. Nevertheless, she feigns excitement.

The morning snuggle fest continues and I think I'm going to claw my eyes out at the indignity of it all, but luckily it's finally interrupted by two phone calls. The first involves Walter freaking out that Peter is working on Walternate's Peter-powered universe destroyer behind his back. Peter deflects Walter's concerns, but his morning is still ruined by the second call, as Broyles summons them to investigate the ham radio memory loss victims.

The team heads up to New Hampshire to investigate the blond woman. They get up to speed on the fact that the woman was part of a group that was working on decoding a signal from a "number station". They discover two important clues. The first is a recording she made of the signal. The second is a list of people in her group, one of whom is Edward Markham, who you may recall is the proprietor of the used book store where the first copy of the ZFT manifesto was introduced way back in season 1. Hooray, continuity!

Fun fact #2: Number stations are in fact a very real thing.

We jump to Nina Sharp's office at Massive Dynamic, where she provides more exposition about the number stations. Walter makes a lot of passive aggressive jabs at Peter about exploring technology without concern for consequences. In other news, the kettle would like you to know that the pot is black.

After Walter storms out and Peter chases after him, Alt-livia clumsily attempts to manipulate Nina into convincing Walter to relax about Peter working on the device. I can't say for sure that Nina Sharp knows something isn't right here, though she pretty much explicitly states, "Gee, this is highly out of character for you, Olivia, given that you and Walter are so close and all." Alt-livia makes crazy guilty faces at her in response.

Boy, this episode shifts locations like crazy. Before we can blink, we're with Broyles and Alt-livia as they head off to investigate the radio station that broadcasted the signal. Inside there's a surprise waiting for them: two dead bodies and one creepy ass floating silver box. They carefully disarm the box and discover a set of fingerprints on the outside. They ship the box off to Walter for more investigation.

Yet another jump, as we head back to the Harvard Lab, where Walter is using a wah-wah pedal to process the audio signal. He discovers that under the signal broadcasting the number, there's a pulse that is the cause of the amnesia. Peter wanders over and looks pleased, before realizing that Walter has taken advantage of the situation to dismantle Peter's work on Walternate's device. After some more fighting, Peter and Walter have a heart-to-heart of sorts. And by "heart-to-heart" I mean Peter talks while Walter just listens while he rolls a joint.

We finally meet the guilty party, one Joseph Feller (who you may recognize as Marshall from Alias). Joseph has creepy eyes (one blue, one black) and enjoys murder and electronics in his spare time. He's busy preparing another silver box for broadcast. We see him soldering a microchip onto a circuit board before he fires up the box.

Fun fact #3: the text on the chip is written in Polish and translates to "domain effect". Time domain effects have to do with copying a signal and then overlaying it with the original, but slightly out of phase.

If you have a fear of flying, you probably won't like what happens next, as a pilot accidentally hears the second broadcast and crashes the small plane he's piloting. Oops.

Back at the lab Walter is frustrated. Astrid gets more lines of dialogue than she has in the last 5 episodes combined, as she attempts to help him work through his mental block.

Meanwhile, Peter and Alt-livia visit Edward Markham at his bookstore. After finding out that his former ham radio friends were memory-wiped, he panics a little. He gives them a 19th century book about "The First People," an ancient race of people who allegedly pre-date the dinosaurs. He claims they are related to the source of the number station. Markham frets about being targeted for memory erasure himself.

As they drive home, Peter flips through the book and of course just as he's ready to declare it drivel, he spots an interesting diagram. Peter asks Alt-livia to recite the number sequence from the broadcast and Alt-livia breaks out in a cold sweat, since she isn't equipped with the photographic memory power of her counterpart. However, she manages to recall enough of them for Peter to match the pattern to one printed in the diagram.

Back at Harvard, Nina and Walter chillax on the quad, as they smoke pot and reminisce about their rebellious scientific days. Awesome. Nina tries to convince Walter to let Peter continue his research. Walter quite correctly infers that Walternate's plan involves getting Peter to fix the device himself. Nina urges him to have hope that even if that's what Walternate wants, it doesn't mean it will work out the way Walternate planned.

The team gets together back in the lab for some more mythology from the book of the First People. The book explains that the First People had some kind of technology that could create a super vacuum that held the power of both creation and destruction. So... a Dyson, then? As he tinkers with the silver box, Peter finds the soldered chip, realizes that it's military grade and therefore probably has a paper trail attached to it. He runs off to investigate. Alt-livia looks shifty and takes off abruptly as well.

Astrid stays behind and works on breaking the code with Walter. She identifies the key to breaking the code, and it involves some kind of matrix math. This is like my own personal mind-crushing signal, as I start having horrible flashbacks to the computer science class that almost destroyed me in college. No... more... matrices... ever!

It turns out that Alt-livia knows Joseph Feller, because while Olivia is stuck investigating random crimes in Earth-2, Alt-livia is of course wrapped up in every single nefarious plot going on over in Earth-1. Joseph foolishly trusts her, because he hasn't gotten the memo yet that Alt-livia's main hobbies involve sneaking around and betraying minions who work for her. Just as the Fringe team shows up with the cops, Alt-livia shoots him and throws him out the window. The pool of mercury around the body indicates that Feller was a shapeshifter, but Peter's attempts to salvage Feller's butt-brain module are for naught - it's trashed from the fall.

At the lab, left alone and forgotten by everyone as usual, Astrid toils away. Miraculously she has something to contribute this episode as she deciphers the code - the numbers stand for coordinates around the globe. The closest one is in New Jersey, so the team heads off to visit the land of Snookis and Situations.

As they wait for a crew to excavate whatever is buried at the site, Alt-livia prods Peter to admit that he would sacrifice Earth-2 in order to save his own universe. However, Peter refuses to play her reindeer games, insisting that there has to be a better solution than sacrificing billions of innocent lives, one that would save both universes. Alt-livia, looking like a gigantic selfish jerk for clearly preferring the "Screw 'em, save your own" solution, isn't happy about that answer.

Meanwhile, Astrid finishes breaking the code and realizes that the last location was Milton, MA, where the first part of Walternate's device was found. She calls Alt-livia to report that it seems that Walternate's Peter-powered universe destroyer and the First People's vacuum machine are one and the same. Alt-livia thanks her but doesn't exactly translate her exact message to the Bishops. Hmm... the fact that Astrid is finally dressing sharply, has oodles of dialogue and actually contributes to the plot scares me. Usually when a former background player gets suddenly featured on a show like this, it means they're being set up for something horrible to happen. It's like when poor Amber Benson finally got a spot in the show credits for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then they killed her off that very episode. I bet dollars to donuts that Alt-livia will attempt to eliminate Astrid at some point in the near future.

Prior to that, though Alt-livia needs to check in with Earth-2. She returns to the Selectric 251 typewriter and reports back to Walternate that the next piece of the machine has been uncovered. Walternate instructs her to initiate phase 2. Man, even when he's not in the scene, Walternate gives me the willies - I credit John Noble's performance for that.

The episode surprisingly jumps back to Earth-2 for the final scene, where Olivia is in the shower. Boy, this show just keeps coming up with ways to get Anna Torv wet, doesn't it? Show producer: "Say, Anna, this next episode Olivia is going to investigate a series of mysterious murders at the local YMCA swimming pool. What size bikini do you wear?"

Olivia gets a call from Brandon, who informs her in the creepiest fashion possible that she won't need to report in for her dunk tank session anymore. She looks worried, and Petergeist pops up to stroke that fear some more, as he tells her that there's only one reason they'd cancel her sessions indefinitely: they've extracted whatever dirty scientific secrets they can from her and now she's become expendable. Petergeist urges her to escape and go back home to Earth-1 as fast as she can.

This episode was great on a lot of levels. The main mystery was sufficiently creepy, and would have worked even as a stand alone episode. There's now a strong sense of momentum, and by showing both universes you get the impression that we're finally driving towards the point where Olivia is going to return to Earth-1, where the plots will finally converge. The mythology behind the Peter-powered universe device just got a lot more interesting as well - who are the First People? Are they related to the Observers? Are they aliens, or visitors from a future timeline? Do all the other sites marked by the signal contain pieces of the device as well? There are a lot of clues doled out here, and I suspect that this will be an episode fans will want to revisit again.

Summary: when your ham radio signal starts to make your brain hurt, maybe you should take off the damn headphones and walk away.

Fringe Recap: Ep 3.5 "Amber 31422"

2010-11-04T18:33:00.030-04:00

Welcome back to Fringe after that one week break. I'd say that I hope you enjoyed the World Series, but judging by the ratings, apparently most of you were watching something else. In that respect, Fringe has a lot in common with baseball. Anyway... for those of us who still loyally watch the show, we're back this week in Earth-2 with our Olivia.

The "previously on" reminds us that people trapped in the resin that Fringe Division uses to seal up cross-dimensional breaches (substance Amber 31422) have been declared legally dead by the courts in Earth-2. We quickly find out that isn't true, however, as the show opens at a quarantine zone in Brooklyn, where two men free one of the people trapped in amber and successfully revive him. Not so successful, however, is their escape plan, as one of the men (the one who isn't an identical twin to the trapped man) ends up getting trapped behind as the zone reseals with amber almost immediately. The twins (who you might recognize as real life twin brothers Aaron and Shawn Ashmore of X-men and Smallville fame) run off into the night.

Agent Lincoln Lee is back again and finally healed up from his burn. He, Charlie and Olivia are dispatched to investigate the breach at the quarantine zone. There's some exposition about various events that required quarantine (including video footage of an impressive black hole in the middle of the Central Park lake). The Fringe team quickly realizes that they're dealing with more than just someone trying to steal money or jewelry out of the amber and head off with the face imprint left behind in a chunk of amber.

Meanwhile, Walternate meets Broyles in a bar and discusses the situation. Walternate admits that he is well aware that the people in the amber are alive. Broyles is shocked but, ever the good soldier, accepts Walternate's assertion that freeing the people from quarantine would cause the amber to destabilize. Walternate gives this hilarious "I intend to restore balance to our world" speech that couldn't have been more Emperor Palapatine-ish if he had pulled the hood of his robe up and screamed "Unlimited powerrrrrrr!"

For a such a world-shattering secret, they seem awfully comfortable just chatting about it in public spaces. Later Broyles just strolls up to the team when they return to HQ and tells them about the amber victims still being alive, even though they're in the middle of a crowded room. I mean, I realize that people working in the building probably have clearances, but still... if your trusted agents weren't even supposed to know, then the random lab techs strolling around probably don't need to know that stuff either.

As the tale of two brothers proceeds, we learn that one of the twins, Joshua Rose, was a bank robber who used some kind of Fringe-esque technology that caused rifts to open each time he used it. The technology described is a rather clever call back to season 1, episode 10 ("Safe"), which featured a similar device used to rob banks as well. In any case, eventually Joshua got caught up in the quarantine zone at his final crime scene.

At least that's how it seemed, but in a surprising twist we learn that it was really Matthew, the good twin, who ended up trapped after showing up at the crime scene to try and stop his felonious brother. Joshua assumed his twin's identity while he worked on getting him out. The resolution of the story proceeds as expected - Fringe team gets closer to discovering the truth and eventually Joshua sacrifices himself by intentionally provoking another quarantine zone so that Matthew can remain free on the outside. It's a fairly pedestrian plot by itself, and the show has certainly given more interesting Monster of the Week stories in the past. It felt like a lot of effort just to be able to cast some rather obvious good twin/bad twin parallels between the brothers and Alt-livia/Olivia. I felt like this story should have had more emotional impact, especially with the reveal that the victims inside the amber are aware and experiencing their last thought on a never-ending loop. But this plot just fell flat for some reason.

What redeems the episode really is the B plot, where Walternate is busy putting phase 3 of his evil plan into place, as he sweet talks Olivia into participating in a series of tests that will help unlock her cross-universe traveling abilities. Olivia agrees, but the minute she's alone, we see that Peter is still haunting Olivia like some kind of wacky sarcastic ghost. Petergeist articulates the doubts Olivia is feeling about her own sense of identity and pushes her to accept that she's not really Earth-2's Alt-livia. She shuts him up by taking a heavy dose of medication.

Olivia is finally ready for the tests to begin. We see that the Tank is back, but a lot nicer looking than the old metal version. Not to keep calling back to Star Wars, but it looks a lot like the tank they put Luke in after he got frostbite on Hoth. In any case, instead of a practical outfit, such as a bathing suit or wetsuit, Olivia is dumped into the water wearing a sheer white dress for some reason. After 4 hours they haven't accomplished anything other than turning Olivia into a giant prune. Eventually Walternate gets impatient orders what sounds like a LOT of psychotropic drugs pushed. It does the trick, as Olivia jumps over to Earth-1, landing in a gift shop somewhere in NYC. She inadvertently gets a cute little boy in trouble after she jumps back, just in time for his mother to find him standing next to the snow globe Olivia shattered.

After Olivia visits Matthew to let him know that she knows his secret, and then assures him that the case is closed, Petergeist pops back up to whisper in her ear again that the reason she let Matthew go is that she sympathized with him. Petergeist rattles off a bunch of facts about Earth-1 that Alt-livia couldn't possibly know, prompting Olivia to rush back to the lab to demand to be put back into the Tank. This is a nice shoutout to Season 1 Olivia, who did the same thing when she was searching for answers about John Scott. This time, she's going in to try and save herself.

Brandon the lab nerd is there and notes that some kind of artificial chemical in her brain activates as she attempts to jump. This is very likely Cortexiphan. Olivia jumps back to the gift shop and confirms what Petergeist has been whispering in her ear - that the Twin Towers collapsed in Earth-1, that her niece Ella is still alive and is celebrating her 7th birthday. When she slips back to Earth-2, Olivia falsely reports to Walternate that she didn't successfully jump over. Because Olivia is just a terrible liar, though, we can also see that Walternate doesn't really buy that at all.

So, now the stage is set for the next few Earth-2 episodes: will Olivia find a way to activate her latent abilities on her own before Walternate gets impatient and decides to crack her head open to get at the sweet, sweet Cortexiphan juice inside? Will the sexy specter of Petergeist push Olivia closer to the truth or drive her deeper into what looks like a growing drug addiction?

While I enjoyed the story this week, I can't help but wish that the Earth-2 stories were more focused on the season long arc of Olivia returning home, and less about random one-off Fringe stories of the week. I would have enjoyed this more if they had spent the entire episode just on the B plot. We don't get enough time with Walternate, who could be a much more compelling character if we were allowed to see more of what makes him tick. John Noble is such a tremendous actor - he's able to imbue Walternate with this incredible sense of lurking malevolence - that I really wish he got more screen time to show off his stuff.

Similarly, I feel like we're spending a lot of our time spinning our wheels with characters that you know aren't going to be around much longer - can you really care much about what Charlie or Lincoln are thinking or feeling when you know that eventually the show will have to abandon Earth-2 and merge Olivia back into the Earth-1 plot?

One final observation: if Earth-2 technology is capable of opening rifts, then is it possible that several (if not all) of the events suffered around Earth-2 might not be random, but rather linked to someone using Fringe technology? It bears noting that Walternate states that the first time they used the amber, it was at Harvard Yard. And we all know that a certain mad scientist had a lab there in both realities. It's not much of a stretch to think that Walternate might have caused that particular rift himself while trying to open his own portal to Earth-1.

Summary: If you and your twin brother find yourself trapped in a Cain and Abel type scenario, it pays to know which twin you're supposed to be.

NFL Week 8 breakdown is coming

2010-11-02T09:44:00.002-04:00

For those of you who read this blog and actually enjoy my football musings, don't panic... I plan to recap this week's action. However, this week, the Walking Dead recap was the priority, so the Week 8 breakdown will be a day late. Lo0k for it later today.

Also, post here in the comments so I know you're actually reading these NFL breakdowns. I want to know if it's worth my time to do them.

The Walking Dead Recap: Ep 1.1 "Days Gone By"

2010-10-31T23:44:00.007-04:00

Zombie stories are almost never about the monsters themselves, when you get to the heart of it. Zombies have no personalities, no real reason or motivation for what they do (save for a love for tasty, tasty brains). What they provide is a framework to see how regular people respond to a specific set of parameters: a high-danger, post apocalyptic world, where your loved ones can turn on you at the drop of a hat. Zombies aren't the villains of these types of stories - WE are, because we're forced to do horrible things to each other in order to survive. You can rationalize all you want, but it's still a terrible thing for a character to be forced to shoot his wife between the eyes, while their son cowers and cries in another room.

The reason you see so many zombie stories out there is because they provide a framework to tell a multitude of stories. I'm not tired of zombies yet, because I think there's still a lot of new and interesting ways to examine those stories. That's why it's a bit disappointing to see the pilot episode of The Walking Dead repeat a lot of tropes we've already seen many times before.

Pilot episodes are burdened with having to set up the universe and establish the main characters. Still, I'm not convinced that The Walking Dead needed to take 90 whole minutes to set up what should be fairly familiar to audiences. Sheriff deputy Rick Grimes was already having a no-good, very bad day. His partner Shane is an idiot whose views on women begin and end at the sentiment, "Bitch, are you too stupid to turn off a light bulb?" He's having marital troubles with his wife Lori. Then to top it all off, he gets himself shot, because apparently in Georgia, engaging in idle chatter with your partner is a priority over clearing the crime scene. He then wakes up in a hospital some indeterminate amount of time later (a la 28 Days Later) and quickly finds out that a zombie apocalypse has occurred while he was sleeping. I say "quickly" but really, it's 30 minutes into the 90-min episode before Rick actually figures out that the shambling, rotting things in the street are zombies.

Look, just because certain shows on AMC are slow and methodical, doesn't mean ALL the shows have to follow that model. I think the show could have benefited from getting to the action a little faster. Did we really need a sequence where Rick's saviors - a man and his young son - dance around the issue with Rick for at least 5-10 minutes, with lots of nonsensical yelling and using ambiguous terms like "walkers"? In the original graphic novel, this bit of exposition is wrapped up in just 6 panels, with the actual explanation happening "off screen." Zombies are a well-covered topic in American pop culture, so I'm pretty sure that no one would have a problem with a character going, "Oh, didn't you know? There was totally a zombie outbreak and now the world has gone to hell. Don't forget to shoot them in the head, which you should probably already know, since this has been covered dozens of times over the past 20 some years of cinema."

However, despite these quibbles, there's plenty to like in this episode as well. There are some lovely sequences, such as when Rick returns to find the female zombie he first encountered after leaving the hospital. Andrew Lincoln does great work here showing the compassion and sorrow in Rick's face, as he commits an act of mercy by putting down the pathetic creature, who has been reduced to an emaciated torso and head only. Another gorgeous shot involves Rick literally riding into Atlanta on horseback, a duffel bag bursting with rifles and shotguns strapped to his back, his deputy's hat fixed firmly on his head.

In addition, the last third of the episode introduces some nuggets that are interesting enough to pique interest for where the story is going to go. The most immediate and terrifying plot point involves Rick trapped inside an abandoned tank in downtown Atlanta, with zombies literally swarming over the tank and feasting outside on the remains of his poor horse. We end the episode there, just as a mysterious voice comes over the CB radio, chiding him for stupidly getting stuck in the tank.

Of course, Rick is only in that situation because he's in Atlanta looking for his missing wife and son. Luckily for Rick, they survived the apocalypse and are safe outside the city in the care of his partner Shane. Unfortunately for Rick, Shane's definition of "caring" seems involve shoving his tongue down Rick's wife's throat. Even worse - Lori seems to welcome the attention. Uh oh.

Again, I wished they had covered a little more ground, instead of dwelling on establishing whatever atmosphere they were shooting for. There are only 6 episodes in the season, so a little more sense of urgency would be nice. For those of us watching because we trust AMC and we know the source material, waiting an episode or two isn't going to be hard, but I'm not sure that as a stand-alone episode this really did a good job grabbing a more neutral audience. Overall, though, the quality of the show was evident, and the leading man was compelling enough that I'm looking forward to seeing where Rick's story goes from here.

New TV For Your Consideration

2010-10-29T09:29:00.010-04:00

So, there's been much wailing and gnashing of teeth out in the blogosphere about the state of network television. Yes, I'm as horrified as the next person about the fact that mediocre shows like Outsourced, The Event and Chase have been given full orders, while awesome shows like Parks & Recreation remain in limbo.

However.... there are several shows out there that I'd like to submit for your approval.

The Walking Dead. DVR ALERT: This show premieres this Sunday at 10pm on AMC. You must record and watch it. Why? One, because zombies are awesome. Two, because the graphic novel it's based on is excellent, which means there's a high probability that the show will also be excellent. Three, because it's on AMC, which is 2-for-2 so far in terms of making interesting quality shows (Breaking Bad and Mad Men). Four, because I'm flirting with recapping it, and my recaps are much more fun if you actually watch the show.

Quick summary, for those of you who haven't heard about the show: zombie apocalypse goes down, rag-tag group of survivors must make their way through the world. If the show follows the plot of the book closely, expect a lot more examination of the relationships between the various characters than zombie action. The zombies are certainly a concern for the characters, but the first two volumes of the graphic novel were more about the group coming together, experiencing conflict with one another, and dealing with logistics such as lodging and food. I'm not sure how much violence the show will actually put out there, but rest assured - people will be chased and eaten by zombies too.

The Walking Dead airs on Sundays at pm on AMC.

Terriers. This is hands down the best new show of the season so far. It's one of those shows that suffers from both incredibly poor advertising decisions by the network (FX) and the fact that it's a very difficult show to "pitch" to friends. On a surface level, the show is about a pair of private investigators, Hank and Britt, played by the excellent Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James (Rene from True Blood) respectively. Both men have pasts that make them good at what they do - Hank is a former cop and Britt is a former thief. Each week they investigate different cases.

Move past your initial impression of the show, however, and you find that the show has a richly realized universe that it exists in. The recurring characters are excellent - particularly Hank's sister (played by Donal Logue's real life sister) and Britt's girlfriend. While sometimes the focus might be on a one-off plot, there are really interesting and complex subplots weaving across multiple episodes. There's a dark undercurrent of drama, balanced nicely by the lighter moments (Donal Logue is a funny dude when he wants to be). In many ways, it reminds me a lot of how FX's Justified evolved over time. Like Terriers, that show felt like it was going to be a mystery-of-the-week show before the larger world and story arcs emerged to make it worthy of a Season Pass in my DVR. In fact, this show makes a natural pairing with the sensibilities of Justified, and might have had a better audience if FX had waited till Justified returned, in order to pair the shows up as timeslot buddies.

In any case, I love this show, it's on the bubble, and I really urge you to check it out while you still have a chance.

Terriers airs on Wednesdays at 10pm on FX.

Raising Hope. My final suggestion is a show that I almost skipped because I saw a couple of poor reviews before it premiered. However, I went with my gut, and my gut says that anything starring Martha Plimpton and Garret Dillahunt can't be all bad, so I tuned in anyway. I loved the pilot episode, and subsequent episodes have made this one of those shows that I make a point to watch the same night it airs.

The show centers around Jimmy (Lucas Neff) and his family of low class, but lovable, misfits who unexpectedly find themselves raising Jimmy's infant daughter after her serial killer mother is executed. Yes, you read that right. It sounds like it should be a horrible concept, but the show manages to make the image of Jimmy holding Hope (nee Princess Beyonce, as her mother originally named her) on his lap while the mother gets zapped in the electric chair the most hilarious thing I've seen all year.

Now, to temper your expectations, let me say that I'm not selling this show as the greatest comedy of all time (or even of the year). But it's a solid source of laughs each week - on par with another favorite of mine that I've urged you to check out: The Middle. If you liked My Name is Earl (Greg Garcia created both that, and this show) and/or Malcolm in the Middle, I think you'll really enjoy this show. It's funny, and it can go to some dark sounding places, but it's never mean spirited. Martha Plimpton is excellent as Jimmy's mother (the math works out, since the show explains she had him when she was 16 years old). The baby they've cast is absolutely adorable. And much like My Name is Earl, the show seems to be building a larger world than just the home that the main characters reside in.

Raising Hope airs on Tuesdays at 9pm on FOX.

NFL Week 7 Breakdown

2010-10-24T16:05:00.015-04:00

And then there was one. There's nothing worse than going an entire season without a win. Just ask the Detroit Lions what that did to their psyche. The Carolina Panthers took advantage of Alex Smith's injury and pulled out the tough first win of the year for them. Credit to coach John Fox, who prematurely benched QB Matt Moore earlier in the year, for admitting his mistake and reinserting Moore this week.

So that leaves on the Buffalo Bills as the lone team who hasn't won yet this year. You can't really fault the offense, however. QB Ryan Fitzpatrick played magnificently (29/43, 374 yds, 4 TDs), as he did in a close loss against New England earlier in the season. However, as the saying goes, "Good teams find a way to win, bad teams find a way to lose," and that was true yet again. Great players like Ray Lewis know how to force the big turnover when the game is on the line. Bad players commit devastating penalties, such as the Bills player who took his helmet off after Lewis forced the fumble, drawing an unsportsmanlike penalty. The 15 yard penalty pretty much moved the ball from the 45 yard line, where the defense MIGHT have made a stand, to the 30 yard line, where it was well within field goal range.

Of old men and young whippersnappers. Kudos to Kerry Collins, who proved why he's one of the best backups in the league right now. The 37 year old QB is one of the few players who can come into a game cold and run an offense without a hitch. At the same time, he's very clear about the fact that he's just the backup and has no intention of challenging Vince Young for the starting position. That creates an ideal situation - you've got a veteran who can come in and have instant trust with the other guys in the huddle, but won't rock the boat in terms of creating a QB controversy.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the age spectrum, you have to love the youth movement the Kansas City Chiefs have going. This is a team that's going to be scary for a long time. I think they could make the playoffs this year, though I don't predict a postseason win for them yet. While I love the speed they show on offense and defense, they still could use a seasoned old man to help guide them - I remain unconvinced that Matt Cassel is the answer for this team at QB. I dislike his throwing motion, and am not sure that he has the leadership required to make this team a true contender.

Studs of the week. This week was the sort of game that showed what the Raiders were looking for when they drafted Darren McFadden (196 total yds, 4 TDs) in the first round. After the Redskins DEF got raked over the coals last week for not being able to catch a ball, DeAngelo Hall responded this week with a dominating performance (4 INTs, 1 returned for a TD). Kenny Britt had an amazing day for the Titans (7 catches, 225 yds, 3 TDs). Consider that those gaudy numbers came in a game where Britt was benched for an entire quarter for off-field problems. Roddy White doesn't get as much attention as other WRs, because he's pretty much the anti-diva. All he does is keep his mouth shut and perform week after week. This week he was devastating, posting 11 catches for 201 yds and 2 TDs. Finally, how great is Peyton Hillis? He touched the ball at least 10 times in a clock-crushing drive in the 4th quarter, not only ripping off touch runs, but even throwing a pass at one point.

Duds of the week. I love Drew Brees, but boy, did he kill his team today with 4 INTs (two of which were returned for TDs). I don't love Brett Favre, and he has hurt his team much more than he's helped them this year. You can look into his eyes and see this "Jesus, my ankle hurts and my head hurts and I am too old for this crap and man why didn't I stay down on the farm?" expression in his eyes.

Teams I like this week. I like the Atlanta Falcons, who are sitting on top of a pretty sweet 5-2 record at this point, for sole possession of first place in the NFC South. I also like the Cleveland Browns for playing tough on defense and showing some guts and ingenuity in their play calling. I also really like the Washington Redskins who keep finding ways to win, even they are UGLY wins. However, the knock on this team is that they find a way to play up to the level of better teams and play down to the level of worse teams, so with the Lions due up next week, we'll see if they can head into the bye week at 5-3. Finally, I like the Oakland Raiders for coming out huge on the road, putting up 31 points in the first quarter alone.

Teams I don't like this week. The St Louis Rams need to win games against teams like Tampa Bay. Next week's matchup at Carolina will tell us a lot about whether the Rams have what it takes to make a run for the playoffs in the second half of the season. I also don't like the Philadelphia Eagles, who let Old Man Collins tear them apart. Is it finally time to acknowledge that this is more than the usual "slow start" for the San Diego Chargers?

Photo credits:
*Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis strips the ball from Buffalo Bills tight end Shawn Nelson during overtime in an NFL football game in Baltimore, Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010. The Ravens won 37-34. (AP Photo/Gail Burton)

*Oakland Raiders running back Darren McFadden (20) runs with the football as Denver Broncos defensive tackle Ronald Fields (91) gives chase during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010, in Denver. (AP Photo/ Joe Mahoney)

NFL Week 6 Breakdown

2010-10-18T15:48:00.004-04:00

Welcome to 10 Easy Ways to Lose a Football Game - the week 6 edition.

1. Fail to make the easy interception. Yes, good for the Redskins defense for forcing 3 fumbles. But the defensive backs were simply terrible last night, dropping not 1, not 2, but 3 INTs. The first drop by Carlos Rodgers (who has the worst hands in football) would have given the Redskins the ball at midfield. Instead, Manning converted the first down on the next play, and then proceeded to lead the first of many time consuming, point producing drives that ended making the difference in this game.

2. Play undisciplined. The Cowboys could have beaten the Minnesota Vikings, but yet again were undone by penalties and stupid turnovers. Yes, I know the celebration penalty is stupid, but since the Cowboys' Marc Columbo got that called on him last week (a penalty which ended up largely costing them the game), you'd think that the Cowboys would have been smart enough to avoid any sort of activity post touchdown that might draw a yellow flag (spoiler: they weren't). The Cowboys had 11 penalties called on them yesterday. To me, that reeks of a team lacking in discipline.

3. Play poorly on special teams. The San Diego Chargers have one of the elite QBs in the league, and they're ranked #1 in both total offense and defense. Unfortunately, they also have given up 4 TDs on special teams, had 9 fumbles, several blocked punts (one of which resulted in a safety) and pretty much been eaten up by the opposition. Makes you wonder just what they were thinking when they let special teams ace Kassim Osgood go.

4. Suffer too many injuries. Last year, it was the Atlanta Falcons who were the highly touted team that seemed unable to overcome injuries to key players. This year, it's the Green Bay Packers, who seem to have lost half their key starters to some kind of injury this season.

5. Have a rookie QB start his first game against the Steelers defense. Honestly, Colt McCoy showed a lot of promise in the loss to Pittsburgh, so that's good news for the Cleveland Browns. But they still lost because QBs forced to start before they've had time to sit and learn usually don't have what it takes to beat a halfway decent team. Again, McCoy showed a lot of promise, but the original plan had been to "red shirt" him a year behind veteran QBs so he had time to fully absorb the game.

6. Allow your QB to get hit too much. Poor Jay Cutler was sacked 9 times against NY two weeks ago, before he was finally knocked out of the game with a concussion. You'd think that Mike Martz would have come up with a way to fix the protection scheme in the two weeks since. However, it was more of the same this week, as Cutler returned to start, only to suffer through another 6 sacks against the Seahawks. At this point, Chicago is going to lose a lot more games, especially since Cutler will only be MORE prone to panicked throws (leading to INTs) the more he gets hit over the course of the season.

7. Fail to pressure the QB. #6 points out that you will lose if your QB gets hit too much, but the inverse is also true - if you DON'T hit the opposing QB, he is able to just sit comfortably in the pocket and wait for one of his receivers to eventually get open. This applies both to the Redskins last night (yet again, Peyton Manning's pristine white jersey doesn't need to washed at all after the game) and the Atlanta Falcons, who only managed to get to Kevin Kolb once the entire game. Kolb played lights out against Atlanta, which handicapped what they were able to do offensively, as they were forced into passing most of the game due to the early points deficit.

8. Be a team from California. Really, that's the only explanation I have for the poor performances this year of the San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers. The only reason one of them won yesterday was because they were playing one of the others (in this case, San Fran triumphed in a dreadfully boring 17-9 game).

9. Fail to consistently run the ball. Matt Forte has had some amazing games this year, but he's also had several dreadful rushing games this year. Part of his gaudy stats in the wins were due to catching short passes out of the backfield, but when forced to be a traditional run attack, the Bears are woefully inconsistent. I've harped on the Broncos lack of a running game as well, and yet again it took inserting Tim Tebow to finally get a decent run and score from the run attack. The Broncos' backs are poor runners, and suffer from injury to boot. Expect to see more Tebow as the year progresses.

10. Play against better teams. Yes, it sounds simple, but it's true. Sometimes teams benefit from a weak early schedule and seem better than they actually are (see: the 2008 Buffalo Bills, who got out to a 5-1 start against terrible teams). This year, it seems like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were who were thought they were - a young team with some talent that still needs to grow more before they can run with the big boys in the league. They started strong, but against weak opponents like the Bengals, Panthers and Browns, but against the Saints and Steelers, it wasn't even close.

Studs of the week. Don't look now, but there's another QB controversy in Philly. Kevin Kolb was brilliant this week (23/29, 326 yds, 3 TDs). Matt Schaub (25/33, 305 yds, 2 TDs) brought his team back in the 4th quarter with a great comeback. They may not be well known among NFL fans yet, but if Chris Ivory (15 rushes, 158 yds) and Ryan Torain (20 rushes, 100 yds, 2 TDs) have a few more weeks like this one, they will be.

Duds of the week. This week the duds are the players who took what looked like really cheap shots at an opposing player. Brandon Merriweather may be getting hit with a suspension this week for a nasty hit where he clearly launches his head into Todd Heap's head. When Bill Bellicheck, your own coach, is upset enough about that hit to bench you, you know that it's not kosher. Similarly, James Harrison knocked out not one, but TWO opposing players from the Browns. Look at the tape - you'll see that Harrison is clearly leading with his head, his arms pinned down at his sides, because he has no intention of attempting to wrap up a tackle. He just wants to hurt someone. He's admitted as much in the press. He won't get suspended, but he sure deserves to be.

Teams I like this week. Kudos to the NY Jets, New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers for showing why they're the teams to fear this season. Can't say there's an NFC team playing nearly as steady as these three contenders. New England may be a little up-and-down sometimes, but they can beat any team in the league on the right day.

Teams I don't like this week. Pretty much anyone who got called out above qualifies this week, though special anti-kudos must go out to the Dallas Cowboys for yet again failing to wrap up a game they had well in hand.

Fringe Recap: Ep 3.4 "Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?"

2010-10-14T20:07:00.017-04:00

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." - Kurt Vonnegut.

Tonight's episode is entitled "Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?" and much like the Philip K. Dick story that inspired the title, the episode is concerned with the question of what it means to be human. The episode explores the notion that faking an emotion for long enough can have the effect of causing an actual real emotion to form, even in the most hardened of hearts (synthetic or otherwise). It brings up the question: who is more human here? The artificial Ray, who sincerely felt love for his family, or the organic Alt-livia, who can only fake affection for Peter and who uses the appearance of emotion to forward her own sinister goals?

In Dick's story, because the androids lacked empathy, their responses were noticeably slow and emotions could only be feigned at best. Ironically, in the Fringe universe, it's the flesh-and-blood Alt-livia who best fits this description, not the synthetic shapeshifters. While Thomas Newton is able to remain emotionally detached from the meatbags around him, other shapeshifters under deep cover on Earth-1 aren't so lucky. This epsiode introduces two shifters who, having been under deep cover in a single identity for years, have formed actual emotional attachments to the people in their lives.

This week's Fringe returns us back to the blue universe of Earth-1. Peter and Olivia are at dinner playing the game where you invent stories for what the other couples in the restaurant might be up to. At one point Peter mentions that another couple in the restaurant are clearly working up to their first intimate moment. There's some awkward glances between Peter and Alt-livia at this. Alt-livia knows where this is going and she doesn't look happy about it. She has a mini freak out in the ladies room, though it's unclear whether she's bothered by the thought of developing feelings for Peter or is just grossed out by the idea of having sex with him.

We cut to a scene with the good Dennis Van Horn: U.S. senator, loving husband to Patricia, good friend to one Philip Broyles, and newly revealed shapeshifter. We've seen Van Horn in previous episodes, so it's quite shocking to realize that this whole time he's been working for Walternate and Newton. I suppose it goes a long way towards explaining his involvement with Fringe division. In any case, this is the last we'll see of Senator Van Horn, as he is gravely injured in a car crash, and then Thomas Newton shows up to murder both Van Horn and about a dozen other people at the hospital where he's being treated.

Meanwhile across town, new CEO Walter Bishop is busy holding court with the scientists of Massive Dynamic. Walter horrifies the crowd with some inappropriate touching and spontaneous stripping. I guess these eggheads are more used to a boss who takes his morning coffee with a dash of Splenda, versus a massive dose of hallucinogens. Peter and Nina Sharp laugh at the whole thing, because that is, like, so Walter. Luckily for the HR department of Massive Dynamic, Walter and Peter are summoned away to deal with the Van Horn situation before it can get too sexually harrass-y in the room.

Fringe team gets debriefed by Broyles, who is pretty upset that he fell for Van Horn's doppleganger. Alt-livia is pretty upset too, but for a different reason: she's got this expression on her face that screams, "Curse these fool minions! Must I do everything myself?" While Walter and Peter work the body, Alt-livia goes off to grill Newton via cell phone about what Van Horn knew. Newton gives Alt-livia a lot of sassy attitude, as he questions her commitment to the cause and intimates that Peter Bishop probably suspects that she's not his Olivia, before admitting that Van Horn pretty much knew all about Alt-livia's mission and was in fact the one who compiled the "Idiot's Guide to Being Olivia Dunham" file that she was studying.

Walter is already starting to get a crazy, not good gleam in his eye when he talks about using the resources of Massive Dynamic to reanimate the shapeshifter. Alt-livia comes in just in time to see the shapeshifter start to twitch back to life. The naked panic on her face is crazy - I half expected her to whip out her gun and murder everyone right then and there. While that would have been amusing, I suppose it would not have boded well for future seasons of the show.

Astrid "Astro" Farnsworth shows up at Massive Dynamic with a box full of Walter's things. Key items include a strip of candy dots, an issue of "Hump" magazine and a framed photo of George W. Bush. Feel free to insert your own dirty masturbation-related joke in here. There's what appears to be a throw away line about how Walter finally gets Astrid's name right, but you could certainly make a case that there are subtle hints that Walter is already being changed by taking over Massive Dynamic. In the previous scene he was clearly thrilled at the power at his fingertips now that he owns Massive Dynamic. If he pretends to be like William Bell, does that mean he will actually end up like him - coherent enough to finally remember the help's names, but also prone to the same ethically gray scientific practices as well?

Alt-livia and Peter head off to investigate the Senator's office. Or rather Peter investigates while Alt-livia is frantically trying to hide any incriminating evidence. A little misdirection occurs when Peter pulls out a locked box that has Olivia's picture in it, and you think maybe the jig is up for Alt-livia. But then it's revealed that the entire Fringe team has dossiers in the box. Alt-livia looks relieved, but also a little disappointed that she didn't get an excuse to shoot Peter in the face.

Ray the shapeshifter gets activated by Newton. Newton orders him to get Van Horn's body back and then take a new identity. He makes an ominous statement that Ray should leave "no traces left behind", which probably doesn't bode well for his wife and young son.

Walter briefs the Fringe team on his theory that pretending to have feelings caused real ones to form for Van Horn. There's a fairly unsubtle cut to Alt-livia as that line is uttered. Alt-livia tries to derail this train of thought, but she is just the worst actress ever (Alt-livia that is, not Anna Torv, who is absolutely killing it this season) so she fails. The team decides to go ahead with the plan to bring in the senator's wife to jog his mercury powered memories.

Back from commercial, Ray the shifter clearly has doubts about his mission. There's some interplay with the son and a parable about monsters with hearts of gold and it's all very sad. Pity the poor shapeshifters, with their tiny ass-brains and giant throbbing mercury hearts.

Patricia Van Horn helps the team and agrees talk to her husband. He pops back to life, but only to rattle off a series of places he had planned to go with his wife on their anniversary. Again, Alt-livia is spared the need to commit mass murder, as Walter sadly declares that there's no way to recover Van Horn's memories.

Alt-livia gets a text from Ray notifying her to clear the building, because the killin' is about to start. She thoughtfully takes the Fringe team with her, distracting Walter with promises of cafeteria food. Unfortunately, after Walter is left alone with Astrid, banter about animals crackers leads into talk about dinosaurs talk which leads to Walter getting a brilliant idea about how to recover Van Horn's memory. Did you know that the stegosaurus had a brain above its butt? Well, you do now. In his rush to get back to the lab to test his ass-brain theory, he ends up on the same elevator as Ray.

Peter is totally being a chick here, as he calls out Alt-livia on being different lately. Unfortunately, Peter just thinks it's a result of whatever Alt-livia saw on the other side, versus him actually figuring out that in a universe with shapeshifters and doppelgangers, you might want to be a little more suspicious about that sort of behavior. God, Peter. At this point, I'm predicting that Olivia's 8 year old niece will assemble this puzzle before the allegedly brilliant Peter Bishop. In any case, this line of inquiry has to wait, because they realize with alarm that Walter has disappeared.

Ray tussles with Walter in the lab and absconds with the memory disk. While Peter tends to his father, Alt-livia halfheartedly pretends to give chase. She probably just stands outside the office stomping her feet so that it sounds like she's running off in the distance.

Ray heads home, where Newton tricks him into revealing that he had no intention of giving up his family. Again, it's sad and ironic - Ray's spent his whole existence as a shapeshifter feigning real emotion in order to pass, and yet in the end it's his inability to hide emotion that is his undoing. Newton shoots Ray in the head and shoves his body in the trunk. Peter and Alt-livia show up just in time to get into a car chase with him. Did you know that the Ford Taurus is an excellent vehicle for driving on wet surfaces, making quick evasive maneuvers and running down errant shapeshifters? Because it is.

Newton wrecks because he is not driving the excellent Ford Taurus, and Alt-livia scurries overs to search his unconscious body while Peter calls for backup. She retrieves the memory module at the last minute.

Later Alt-livia visits Newton in prison and slips him the shapeshifter version of a cyanide capsule. See ya, Newton - it was nice knowing you. Before he offs himself, Newton again mocks Alt-livia about her emotions and how they will prevent her from completing her mission. Alt-livia looks disturbed as she walks away from Newton.

The next thing we know, she texts Peter to come over and then promptly seduces him when he shows up at her apartment. No, Peter, don't do it! There's melancholy music on the soundtrack, as scenes of Alt-livia and Peter getting busy are intercut with scenes of Newton dying, his silver brains slowly leaking away, just like the last of Alt-livia's morals.

This was a very thought-provoking episode, with some major implications for Peter and Olivia's relationship moving forward. However, I'm a little tired of the constant ping-ponging between Earth-1 and Earth-2 every week. It's starting to disrupt the narrative - just when you start to get into the groove of what's happening with the team in one reality, you're forced to shift focus the next week to the parallel plots of other universe and you lose some of the momentum gained from the episode you just saw. This is about to be compounded by the fact that now it's time for baseball (go Yankees), which means new no Fringe until November. During the break I'm going to watch the Earth-1 and Earth-2 episodes together, to see if it flows better. I suspect it will.

Summary: Careful - that twinkle in your lover's eye might just be his mercury blood catching the light just so.

NFL Week 5 Breakdown

2010-10-10T18:00:00.006-04:00

This week's post is a little shorter (and probably more incoherent) than usual, because I am very tired this morning.

Say goodbye to perfection. Last year we were biting our nails late into the season, with both the Saints and the Colts looking like they might make a run at 16-0. Well, we won't have that problem this year, since the Colts defeated the only remaining undefeated team left this week. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - I must admit that last year and in 2007 when the Patriots did go 16-0 in the regular season, it was a bit annoying to have the topic brought up on every single pregame show each week. I imagine it might the sort of thing that actually distracts a team.

Buffalo... There are no words to describe how lousy you are. However, on the flip side it is also massively distracting for a team when the opposite happens and they continue to be winless as the season progresses. While it's annoying to field "Do you think you can go 16-0?" when being interviewed, it's likely 100 times worse to hear "Is it possible that you'll go 0-16?". Right now, I see one team playing as poorly as the legendary 2007 Detroit Lions squad: the Buffalo Bills. I am fairly sure that the other 0-5 teams, the San Francisco 49ers and Carolina Panthers, will figure out a way to win somehow. However, there's just SO many things wrong in Buffalo right now that I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel:

1) They cut their starting QB, even though he played well enough to win the job in training camp.

2) They don't seem to have any building block players in place. Other teams may be losing, but there are players secured on the roster for the future. For example, St Louis only won 1 game last year, but they had young defensive players from the 2008 and 2009 draft that were still learning their craft. Those players are now starting to blossom and the team has already doubled the number of wins from last year (hanging in there at 2-3). In addition, St Louis used this year's draft to select their QB of the future, and it seems like Sam Bradford (though he may have times he struggles this year), will be in St Louis for a long time. In other words, there's promise there on that roster. Contrast that with Buffalo. For every promising player, such as CJ Spiller, that they add, they lose 2-3 others: former 1st round draft pick Marshawn Lynch was the latest loss, they cut 2008's 2nd round pick WR James Hardy at the beginning of the year, not to mention that the WR corps was futher diminished because they wasted money and a roster slot on a guy (Terrell Owens) that they knew they weren't going to keep around for more than a year.

3) They have poor management in place. It's fine to give up on Lynch, because you've got two other good RBs. However, with several teams in the league desperate for a starting RB (Green Bay pops to mind immediately), you'd think the Bills would get good value. But instead they trade him for a 4th round pick in 2011 and a conditional pick (5th or 6th round) in 2012. That surprised me, because I assumed that some other team would have topped that. Well, per Jay Glazer, other teams DID want Lynch and would have traded a higher set of picks for him - but the Bills never bothered to call anyone to ask.

4) The team is in chaos. Safety Donte Whitner described his team as "the laughingstock of the NFL". I can't imagine that the locker room is a fun place to be right now. This is the sort of team that quality players run screaming away from (see: the Oakland Raiders of past years), and also the kind of team that quality players won't easily be persuaded to join and help turn around.

Medic! Two weeks ago the Packers were done in by penalties. This week injuries played a major role in their loss to the Redskins. The most significant injury was to TE Jermichael Finley, because it completely changed the way the Packers had to approached the game. Finley is a major component of their passing attack Their second TE Donald Lee went out shortly afterwards, which really limited what Rodgers could do. Meanwhile, the defense could have taken advantage of the fact that the Redskins offensive line is terrible, but they were without sack master Clay Matthews for most of the game after he pulled a hamstring (not to mention the fact that they were already without starting LB Nick Barnett, who is out for the season with a wrist injury). Finally, one more key injury may impact the team moving forward - QB Aaron Rodgers suffered a concussion late in the game, as given how that's affected other starting QBs around the league, it's possible that the Packers may be without their star QB for at least a game. This team had a ton of promise at the beginning of the season, but at this point, I don't think this battered and mistake-prone squad has a Super Bowl in their future this season.

Studs of the week. Hakeem Nicks (12 catches, 130 yds, 2 TDs) had a stellar game in the Giants victory. Ray Rice finally broke through this week with 159 total yards from scrimmage and 2 TDs. QB Josh Freeman might not be putting up huge numbers, but he is the real deal - when the game has been on the line, when a first down HAS to be made, Freeman has been clutch the whole way. Matt Forte continues to baffle, as this week he puts up great numbers (166 yds, 2 TDs) and will probably suck again next week.

Duds of the week. Drew Brees absolutely killed his team with his interceptions. Alex Smith continues to be maddeningly inconsistent, and worse, appears too mentally weak to fire himself up to be a real leader. Dwayne Bowe, long criticized for his inability to catch the ball, dropped what might have been a game changing TD.

Teams I like this week. The Baltimore Ravens look better every week I see them, and very soon they'll get back superstar Ed Reed. While everyone was busy praising the Rams for their improvement and rookie QB Sam Bradford was getting featured on Fox's NFL pregame show, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were quietly working their way towards a 3-1 start. Congrats to the plucky Oakland Raiders this week for their upset win over San Diego (and congrats to Jason Campbell, who really deserves a break one of these days, God).

Teams I don't like this week. Undisciplined. Lacking in leadership. A collection of individuals versus a coherent single team. These are all things that describe the Dallas Cowboys this year. Joining them on the "Way too packed with talent to be this bad" list are the San Francisco 49ers, who find new and terrible ways to lose games they should probably win. I also don't like the San Diego Chargers, who make too many mental mistakes.

Teams I can't figure out this week. The following teams are so wildly inconsistent with how they win and lose so far this season that I've officially decided that I have no idea how to predict their play from week to week: N.Y. Giants, Tennessee Titans, Arizona Cardinals.

Fringe Recap: Ep 3.3 "The Plateau"

2010-10-07T21:11:00.014-04:00

The red hued credits of Fringe welcome us to back to Earth-2, where ballpoint pens are rare collectible items, the Aruba war is still fresh in people's minds, and avocados are worth their weight in gold.

This week's episode features a Monster of the Week style storyline involving a Fringe suspect named Milo, whose medically-induced prognostication powers allow him to make seemingly insignificant occurrences cause murderous chains of events. The opening scene demonstrates this ability, as Milo drops a pen, which attracts the attention of a man nearby who goes to pick up the pen, putting him into the path of a bike messenger who swerves and crashes. The spectacle then distracts a passing bus driver long enough that he accidentally runs a red light, plowing over a female pedestrian (Milo's intended victim all along) in a horrifically realistic manner. Milo smiles creepily and heads off as the credits roll.

This week Olivia is still under the impression that she's Alt-livia, which is to say that she is acting like a fun and pleasant co-worker while going about her day at Fringe Division. Broyles and Walternate know the truth, however, and as they watch Olivia through the glass of Walternate's office, Broyles grouses about having a fake version of his agent hanging around. Walternate patiently explains that Olivia can travel between dimensions without damaging herself, and that if they can convince her that she's Alt-livia then she'll be more likely to submit to the series of nefarious experiments Walternate has planned for her. Broyles admits that that would be a handy power to figure out. He also talks earnestly about having the ability to defend themselves against Earth-1 - another nice touch that explains that while Earth-2 Fringe agents might be super intense and willing to cross some ethical lines, they really do seem to believe that they are the "good guys" in this scenario.

There's some more chatter and... I'm sorry, but honestly Lance Reddick is rocking this tight black t-shirt and the man has zero bodyfat and an upper torso that is triangle-shaped, and it's all just very distracting. Go rent The Wire and enjoy the uncensored HBO version of what Lance Reddick brings to the table, folks. Meanwhile, I applaud Earth-2 Fringe Division's commitment to tight fitting t-shirts and sensible cargo pants.

Anyway, Agent Lincoln Lee is back again, and looking slightly less scaly this week. While he and Charlie help work the bus accident scene, Olivia is momentarily distracted by visions of Peter in his adorable pea coat. The Fringe team discovers the pen used by Milo, and realize that it's a significant clue. They head back to the lab to check in with the Earth-2's Asperger's Syndrome version of Astrid.

Earth-2's version of Charlie is much more saavy than Earth-1's Charlie (which is probably why he's alive while original Charlie is not) and he correctly hypothesizes to Lincoln that perhaps the woman before them is really the Earth-1 Olivia, and not their own Alt-livia. Lincoln dismisses that idea, and he and Charlie spar over who knows and loves Alt-livia better. These shenanigans are interrupted by word of another bus accident.

After narrowly missing Milo at the crime scene (he escapes thanks to his ability), the team eventually tracks down his origin story. Milo was mentally handicapped, and had been undergoing experimental drug trials to increase his cognitive ability. Even though one dose of the drug made him able to memorize Pi to a thousand digits, the doctors decided it would be a good idea to give him four more doses before attempting to revert him to his original mental ability at around an IQ of 54. Milo thought better of that, and began using his abilities to kill the people in charge of the drug trials so that they couldn't take his abilities away. It's very reminiscent of Flowers for Algernon, right up to the tragic conclusion of Milo/Charly's story.

Olivia and Charlie get back on Milo's trail, but he's hunting them at the same time. The team attempts to outsmart Milo, drawing on Astrid's help to decide whether or not to follow a clue that might have been left behind to lure them into a trap. Astrid gets into a logic loop that invokes Wallace Shawn's famous rant in The Princess Bride about which cup has the lidocaine powder. They decide to take the bait and follow Milo.

Milo has predicted this of course and knows that a series of events will occur that culminates in Olivia crushed to death under a pile of cinder blocks. What he fails to predict, however, is that the Olivia that is chasing him is slightly out of sync with the world, and because Olivia fails to pull a key memory from Alt-livia's knowledge bank (specifically that one should stop to get a respirator when entering particular toxic zones), she breaks the pattern and manages to apprehend him.

The episode ends with Milo locked away in a facility. While he gets his wish to hold onto his new found mental abilities, it's a hollow victory, as his brain power increases to a point where he can no longer process the base physical world around him, and he is unable to relate to (or even perceive) his beloved younger sister beside him. Meanwhile, Olivia is dealing with some mental tweaks of her own, as she's once again visited by a vision of Peter, who kisses her and reminds her to hold on to who she really is. That sound you just heard? That was all the fun getting sucked out of the room, as Olivia's smile fades away and that old familiar sourpuss expression emerges. Which can only mean one thing: Olivia is back, baby!

I really enjoyed this week's episode. While Milo was a one-shot villain this week (albeit a very creepy and effective one), his storyline does tie into the larger themes that the show has been exploring for some time. The show began in the very first episode with the idea that seemingly random strange events tied into a larger Pattern (with a capital "P"). Similarly, the Fringe agents use patterns in their day to day work as detectives to spot anomalies in crime scenes and to predict how suspects might behave. This is exactly what Milo can do, but he takes it to the extreme due to the medication that enhances his ability. The fact that he has this ability only because Earth-2 scientists crossed a line with their medical experimentation also echoes back to last week's episode, where we saw that Earth-1's Walter struggled with the temptation to use science to cross boundaries that perhaps shouldn't be crossed. Milo's fate is a reminder that the other characters should be careful what they wish for.

Speaking of recurring motifs and uncomfortable applications of science, one of the final scenes between Walternate and Brandon the scientist reveals that we the viewers are about to see a familiar pattern: the infamous immersion tank that featured so heavily in the first part of season one. Hooray!

Summary: Never fall victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against Olivia Dunham when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...*thud*

NFL Week 4 Breakdown

2010-10-03T16:09:00.015-04:00

Welcome to week 4, where old dogs still have a few tricks left in them and quality QBs are in dangerously short supply.

Lovable Losing Lions. I know this sounds crazy, but the Detroit Lions might be better than 40-50% of the league, despite having a 0-4 record. They might be losing, but aside from a blow out against Minnesota, they've played extremely tough against some pretty good opponents. They have some great young talent - Matthew Stafford has a huge arm and has shown good leadership, Jahvid Best has game breaking talent, and Ndamukong Suh has been exactly as advertised (he already has 3 sacks this year). The next few weeks against the young St Louis Rams and the struggling N.Y. Giants might be their chance to turn their losing ways around. They're probably still looking at a losing season overall (I think 6-10 would be optimistic at this point, given their schedule). But I think that the Lions have a good foundation for the future, and meanwhile they're at least making it exciting to watch them for the first quarter of this season.

*Crunch*. Analysts had noted going into today's game that Michael Vick had already been hit 27 times this season. Part of that was due to a poor offensive line, but part of that was due to the fact that Vick still tends to run the ball more than the average QB. Vick is not one to slide with the ball if he thinks he can make a play. Now, Vick is undoubtedly a great athlete, but if you look at his body type, you see that he isn't built to take major hits. This point was driven home in sickening fashion (especially if you were a Philly fan) early in the first quarter of the Redskins/Eagles game, as Vick attempted to dive into the end zone after a long run, and was sandwiched between two defenders in midair. If you watch the replay you can literally see his rib cage compress in from both sides. With Vick out of the game, the Eagles struggled all game under Kevin Kolb, who certainly didn't do enough to start a QB controversy in his favor.

Last night, the Bears poor offensive line finally caught up to them as well, as they managed to get both their starting AND backup QB knocked out of the game. Here's how bad it was: in their first 22 plays, the Bears had 5 yards of total offense and 8 sacks. Horrific. Yes, some of those were due to Jay Cutler holding the ball too long, but honestly, after the Bears let one of the Giant defenders charge right up the middle, even though there were TWO linemen assigned to block him, you can't really blame Cutler for getting antsy in the pocket. After 9 sacks, Cutler was taken out with a concussion, and then late in the game backup Todd Collins was absolutely destroyed by a blitzing safety as he threw. See this excellent Yahoo! Sports article for more on how Martz's system might lead to a lot more nights like this for Cutler in the future.

All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again... There are several teams going through a sense of deja vu this year already. Take for example the San Diego Chargers, who yet again start slowly, but start to pick it up once October hits. Also the Washington Redskins, who were supposed to be much improved under the new regime and new QB, and yet still find themselves in the same position as last year - playing to level of their opponents, losing games they should easily win and barely eeking out victories against seemingly better teams. They started strong against Philadelphia, but just when it looked like it might be a blow out, they politely allowed Philly to stay in it till the very end. The Redskins are incapable of throwing the killer punch. Out in Arizona they find themselves right back where they were three years ago right before they brought in Kurt Warner - a team in search of a starting QB. Finally, the Bills still suck. Deja vu indeed.

Studs of the week. Congrats to Donovan McNabb, who had a mediocre day stat-wise, but finally got the Philly monkey off his back by guiding his team to a win on the road. Today LaDanian Tomlinson reminded us that while he might not be a first round pick in your fantasy league anymore, he's still got plenty of gas left in his tank. LT had his best day in years (19 carries, 133 yds, 2 TD), and crossed another career milestone, supplanting Tony Dorsett on the all-time rushing yardage list. Congrats to a tremendous player and seemingly excellent human being. Terrell Owens had a beastly day (10 rec, 222 yds, 1 TD) in a losing effort for the Bengals. Kyle Orton got a one year extension on his contract before the season started, but the way he's been playing lately (this week going 35/50, 341 yds, 2 TDs against a quality DEF) he's making a case for a much longer, much richer contract. The Raiders gave the Texans all they could handle today and Zach Miller (11 rec, 122 yds, 1 TD) was a big part of that effort. However, Arian Foster helped his team overcome the loss of Andre Johnson by putting up great numbers (131 yds, 1 TD rushing, 56 yds, 1 TD receiving) even though he was benched the first quarter. Antonio Gates looked great today (7 rec, 144 yds, 2 TD) as his team throttled the Cards. Lastly, congrats to Josh Scobee, who booted a 59 yd FG to win the game for the Jags.

Duds of the week. My biggest pet peeve is when a defender recovers a turnover and then runs like an idiot, thinking only of his own personal glory when going for a TD. Here's the thing though - defensive players don't get to handle the ball a lot, which means that they are susceptible to fumbling. Nate Clements of the 49ers intercepted the ball with his team leading 14-13 and only 91 seconds left in the game. If he had any situational awareness, he would have fallen to the ground immediately, ensuing his team could run almost all the time off the clock. Instead he went for glory, and was stripped from behind by the Falcons. The Falcons promptly took advantage and drove down for the winning FG.

Teams I like this week. I love the way Mark Sanchez has been playing for the N.Y. Jets lately. Not only are they running great, but Sanchez seems to be hitting a groove in the passing game, as they dismantled the Bills in all facets of the game (going 3-0 in the division in the process). Santonio Holmes finally returns from suspension next week, and just in time because the Vikings are a major test for this team. I talked up the Lions above, but the St. Louis Rams are also stacked with young talent. The difference is that the Rams' talent is blossoming NOW, with Sam Bradford showing incredible poise and the defense starting to take on the character of their tough coach Steve Spagnoulo. They are now tied for first in the NFC West, a division that is up for grabs this year

Teams I don't like this week. The Cincinnati Bengals' ugly play finally caught up to them this week, as they dropped a game to their divisional rival the Cleveland Browns. With the Ravens and Steelers around, the Bengals need to win games like this. Looks like another mediocre season might be in the making. The Arizona Cardinals got absolutely blown out of the water by the Chargers. I know they really liked their young rookie QB Max Hall, but you have to look at the Derek Anderson/Matt Leinart thing as a terrible mishandling of their QB personnel in general. Remember - this is a team that could have made a play for Donovan McNabb in the offseason. I also don't like the Chicago Bears - they have serious offensive line issues, and they can't really run the ball to take any pressure off the passing game. Finally, I don't like the Tennessee Titans to do much this year. Warren Sapp noted a few weeks ago that no defense in the league is scared by Vince Young, and really... he's totally right. When your starting QB throws for only 154, 66, 118 and 173 yards in his first four games, you just aren't going to win consistently.

*photos from the NFL.com official website

Fringe Recap: Ep 3.2 "The Box"

2010-09-30T21:06:00.027-04:00

Hello, and welcome to another Fringe recap. This post contains spoilers for this week's episode, so consider yourself forewarned.

"What's in the box? What's in the boooooxxxxx!?" - Det. David Mills, Se7en

This week on Fringe, boxes feature heavily into the plot. There's the box tied to the main plot - an ugly thing that looks like a rejected prop from the Stargate series, which causes some pretty gruesome nose bleeds and brain explosions when opened. Then there's the safety deposit box that William Bell left Walter Bishop in his will. Both boxes have world altering properties - the former is one of the missing components to Walternate's Peter-powered universe destroyer, and the latter contains every single share of Massive Dynamics stock. In other words, Walter is now the sole owner of the company. I can't wait to see the look on Nina Sharp's face when she finds out.

Alt-livia has gotten together with Thomas Newton, who you may recall was the frozen head the mercury-powered hybrids were seeking out back in season 2. Newton removes Alt-livia's ugly neck tattoo with this really nifty laser gun (and boy if they had those over here, you can bet there'd be approximately 40% fewer tramp stamps out in the world). Alt-livia thanks him by getting all bossy and asserting her place as top dog on the Earth 1 mission. Newton doesn't look thrilled by the young whippersnapper usurping his authority, but for now he just equips her with a bunch of personnel files on the Earth 1 Fringe Team and a tome of pop culture. Fun Earth 2 fact: they have Patsy Cline but no Bono. This... does not upset me much.

They discuss the brain-exploding box seen being dug up by the gang of thugs in the cold open, and it's revealed that Newton was the one who hired them in the first place. Alt-livia is not pleased, as the box has gone missing. She berates Newton for a bit, before flouncing off to go mess with the Fringe team's heads some more.

Broyles and the team discuss the Peter-powered universe destroyer machine. Broyles wants to learn more about the machine, but Walter, clearly bothered by the destruction he witnessed in Earth 2, wants to just let sleeping dogs lie. Peter may not be back on very friendly terms with Walter yet, but he does voice his support for Walter's position, before heading off to a bar with Alt-livia in tow.

Alt-livia clearly didn't get the memo that Earth 1's Olivia Dunham is a no-fun wet blanket, because she smiles just a little too much and flirts just a little too aggressively with Peter. Peter seems to realize something is off, but hey... you can't really blame the guy for figuring that when your girlfriend suddenly likes normal things like listening to Patsy Cline songs and slow dancing, you shouldn't look that gift horse in the mouth (I do not approve of Alt-livia's methods, but I will agree with her that "Crazy" is a great song). Alt-livia uses her feminine wiles to plant a seed in Peter's subconscious that maybe he DOES just want to study the universe destroyer design diagrams some more. You know... for science and whatnot. This gross moment is thankfully interrupted as they are contacted by Broyles to go deal with the brain explosion situation at the house where the box was first seen.

The next day after investigating the crime scene, the team has split up. Peter and Walter are off to Massive Dynamics for the reading of William Bell's will, Alt-livia is off snooping around for clues at one of the thug's apartments, and Astrid is back in whatever box they store her in when she's not delivering lines of exposition. After a hilarious scene involving Walter bear hugging Nina Sharp, Peter finds out from Broyles that Alt-livia is in the field investigating without him and heads off to find out what's up. Meanwhile, the third thug from the cold open has spotted Alt-livia and apparently plans to follow her.

We jump back to the lab. While fondling the victims' brains with Astrid in the lab, Walter is suddenly struck by inspiration and realizes how the MacGuffin works. He goes on to demonstrates how harmonic music like Mozart's Marriage of Figaro calms brain waves, while other kinds of music make the brain waves go crazy. So, in short: the Miami Vice theme will make your head explode. This comes as no surprise to me. What does surprise me is that the writers stoop to using the phrase "Silent, but deadly," just so they can set up Walter for the easy fart joke. Boo, show. I know you're better than that.

Alt-livia is back in her apartment, studying up on Olivia's mannerisms and reviewing her personnel file. Apparently Alt-livia doesn't have a photographic memory like Olivia - I thought that that would be a genetic thing, but it's possible that Olivia's ability is tied into the Cortexiphan trials somehow. In any case, the third thug shows up toting the box, and Alt-livia promptly murders the poor deaf bastard.

She might be great at marksmanship, but Alt-livia is just the worst criminal mind ever. Why would you shoot someone in the head in your kitchen, when you've got a perfectly good tub in the other room where you could do your execution? Stupid and messy. Maybe I'm just spoiled by Dexter Morgan with his nice clean plastic sheets.

Minutes after getting blood everywhere in her kitchen (enjoying picking those brain particles out of your cereal bowl, you psycho), Alt-livia is interrupted by Peter's arrival. Again, instead of pretending she's not home, or making up some excuse to get rid of him, she just lets him into her apartment, even though she's just stashed the thug's body in her bathroom. Worse, she answers the door in a tank top and she's all wet, which... that is no way to get rid of a man quickly, hon. Alt-livia's next brilliant move is to sex up Peter on the couch - because that's a good way to make sure he doesn't want to leave at ALL that night. What exactly is Alt-livia's plan here? Just thrust her boobs in his face every time he starts to turn towards the bathroom, where blood is now seeping out from under the door?

Luckily for Alt-livia, Newton has been busy unleashing the box on some poor unsuspecting souls in a subway station downtown, so before it gets too far or Peter has to use the bathroom or whatever, their cell phones go off. She and Peter hustle off to go help. There's a bit of fake tension involving Peter defusing the sonic bomb in the box and a runaway train, but honestly... the show isn't about to kill off Joshua Jackson, so we're all pretty sure Alt-livia will save him at the last possible moment. She does and we find out at the end of the episode that this was all one long con set up by Walternate and Alt-livia to pique Peter's curiousity enough so that he ends up working on the universe destroyer machine after all. With Peter actively engaged, Walternate sends Alt-livia her next objective: some kind of similar mind game with the new owner of Massive Dynamics, Walter Bishop. Dun dun!

This week's episode was chock full of good stuff. We get some more fun nuggets about how Earth 2 differs from Earth 1. Astrid actually had a few quality moments - she's best on the show when she's serving as Walter's confidant, and this week she pushes him to explain his version of the Peter-napping story to his not-son. Perhaps Peter may yet forgive Walter for his actions in the past. Most interestingly, we now have Walter with the full force of Massive Dynamics technology and money at his disposal. Will Walter be tempted to cross the metaphorical line that William Bell wanted him to? Will Nina Sharp's relationship and support to the team change now that Walter is in charge? Will the Fringe team upgrade their lab? Most importantly, will Walter have the Massive Dynamics scientists busy genetically engineering cows that produce chocolate milk? These are all things that make me excited to see the next episode.

Summary: Your Bose headphones cannot protect you from the awesome sonic power of The Box.

Grade: A-

NFL Week 3 Breakdown

2010-09-26T15:42:00.015-04:00

Week 3! Let's get to it.

NFL schedule makers FTW. For a third week in a row, we were treated to some really exciting matchups. More importantly, they were significant matchups. Some of that is of course dumb luck - who would have guessed this preseason that in one particular week 3 game the Chiefs would be the one looking to take a huge lead in their division and stay undefeated while the San Francisco 49ers would be the ones desperate for their first win? Nevertheless, props to the schedule makers for games like Atlanta/New Orleans and Miami/New York, both of which were nail biters (with one going into OT) and both of which could have major divisional implications further down the line. Tonight's Green Bay/Chicago matchup will hopefully be a thriller as well.

Nice win, but.... So the Cincinnati Bengals and New England Patriots may be 2-1 to start the season, but boy have they looked ugly doing it. New England's defense looks atrocious (who gives up 30 points to the Buffalo Bills?!). Cincinnati's struggles on offense are very troubling - something is clearly not right with Carson Palmer this season. Both teams look like they're doing just enough to beat teams they're supposed to walk over, and neither has shown any indication that they have what it takes to pull out the tough wins against more worthy opponents. Similarly, you can give the Vikings props for succeeding in a "must win" game for them, but honestly... it's still the Detroit Lions we're talking about, and the passing game continues to look incredibly suspect for the third week in a row. When you talk about a Vikings team that needs great defense and an awesome day from Peterson to overcome deficiencies in the passing game, it's like we're back in 2008 all over again (except now they're paying their QB 13.5 million a year to be merely adequate).

Personnel decisions. Let's talk about the Denver Broncos for a minute. After drafting college phenom Tim Tebow in the first round (despite indications that he would be a work in progress at best for several years), many people said that it would be the make-or-break decision that defined Josh McDaniels's tenure in Denver. However, I think that there are several other personnel decisions that warrant closer examination.

First let's look at their RB situation this week: starting RB Knowshon Moreno was out with a hamstring injury, and replacements Correll Buckhalter and the newly-acquired Lawrence Maroney combined for 16 rushing attempts, gaining only 32 paltry yards. Maroney failed to convert a 4th-and-goal from the one yard line. Meanwhile this week, Peyton Hillis, who they had unceremoniously shipped off to Cleveland despite the fact that he showed flashes of real ability in previous years, happily racked up 144 yards on 22 attempts, with 1 TD, against the fearsome Baltimore Ravens defense no less.

The one personnel decision I won't question was the decision to bring in Kyle Orton in the trade that shipped Jay Cutler off to Chicago. Orton is playing out of his mind right now, posting a career best 474 yards passing this week. However, the Broncos failed to score on five trips inside the 20 yard line. Perhaps having a few more talented weapons for Orton to use might have made the difference - say, perhaps... star WR Brandon Marshall, TE Tony Scheffler or, again, human bowling ball Peyton Hillis (again, watch the video of him literally running over Ravens defenders, and then tell me that 4th-and-goal from the one doesn't end differently for Denver with Hillis in the back field). Unfortunately, Denver got rid of all those guys. Meanwhile, Tim Tebow has been bumped to the 3rd string QB position, which speaks volumes about where his development is at this point. For every good personnel decision Denver makes (Orton, drafting Demaryius Thomas), they seem to make 2-3 questionable ones, such as trading away their first round pick in 2010 to move up in the 20o9 draft to select CB Alphonso Smith (who they got rid of just one year later).

On the flip side, let's examine the personnel choices of Denver's AFC West companions, the surprisingly 3-0 Kansas City Chiefs. While I'm not sold yet on the Matt Cassel experiment, he did have a nice rebound week (250 yds, 3 TDs, 1 INT). More importantly, part of the Chiefs' success can be directly linked to the excellent decisions they've made in constructing a team via the draft. 2010 draft picks S Eric Berry, versatile RB Dexter McCluster, CB Javier Arenas and TE Tony Moeaki have been major contributors in the first 3 weeks. There are other players from recent drafts also powering the Chiefs along: WR Dwayne Bowe, RB Jamaal Charles and CB Brandon Flowers. While the Chiefs could still fall back to earth as the season progresses, you have to like the young talent that Chiefs GM Scott Pioli has installed in Kansas City.

Studs of the week. Each game the Saints draw lots to see who is going to be the team stud that week. This week, little spark plug Lance Moore drew the winning chit, with 149 receiving yards, a 72 yard punt return, and 2 TDs. Another week, another 125 yds and 2 TDs for Chris Johnson. Michael Vick rewarded Andy Reid's confidence in him with a dominating performance against the Jags (17/31, 291 yds and 3 TDs passing, plus a rushing TD). Numbers aside, Vick showed good patience in the pocket and even more impressive, he hasn't had a single turnover this year. Pierre Garcon and Anthony Gonzales might have been injured this week, but the Colts offensive machine marched on, with Austin Collie stepping up big time (12 catches, 172 yds, 2 TDs). Brett Favre might have been subpar for a third week in a row, but Adrian Peterson looked like his old self, ripping off a huge 80 yd run, on his way to a 160 yd, 2 TD day. Anquan Boldin finally had his break out week against the Browns, posting 142 yds and 3 TDs.

Duds of the week. Welcome to Duds of the Week, the all-kicker edition. This week Sebastian Janikowski single-handedly overcame his team's excellent effort by missing 3 of 6 FGs, including what would have been the game winner. Instead, the Raiders are now 1-2. Meanwhile, Garrett Hartley botched an easy 29 yard FG in overtime and helped bring about the Saints first loss of the season (against a division rival, no less). Hartley also has misses from 46 and 32 yards this year, which is simply unacceptable. Per Peter King and other media types on Twitter, the Saints are already making arrangements to bring in a new kicker.

Teams I like this week. Okay, okay, I'm sold... the Kansas City Chiefs are legit. The Pittsburgh Steelers can apparently put anyone behind center and win. Their defense is simply amazing this year. Imagine how terrifying they're going to be when Big Ben comes back. Along those same lines, the New York Jets look like they might be clicking on offense finally, and I believe they will definitely be a better team when Santonio Holmes returns from suspension in week 5. Most importantly, Mark Sanchez is showing that he can be more than a game manager, that they can count on the passing game for a few wins this year, versus last season which was about running the ball and defense. Lastly, I must give credit to the Dallas Cowboys this week for stepping it up and winning in decisive fashion in their "must win" game this week.

Teams I don't like this week. The New York Giants are a team in turmoil. 5 personal foul penalties and 3 turnovers suggests that this is a team that has no discpline. Eli Manning looks like he's regressed as a QB, and several players look like they've already given up just 3 games into the season. I also don't like the Jacksonville Jaguars, who commit the double sin of being terrible and being boring to watch. This is why no one goes to their home games. David Gerrard looks awful this year. Meanwhile, looks like the Mike Singletary honeymoon is over in San Francisco, because the 49ers look like a team without direction or motivation. Finally, as I predicted last week, the Houston Texans were exposed on defense. Every team is going to have weeks where their offense is going to struggle, and the sign of quality teams are those who can make something happen in the other areas of the game to pull out the win.

Fringe Recap: "Olivia"

2010-09-23T21:08:00.019-04:00

Previously on Fringe: EVERYTHING. The show opens with an attempt to summarize the entire myth arc of the show in 45 seconds. I assume this is an attempt to help new viewers follow on with the new season, but honestly... if you haven't been watching the show, you're probably not going to start now. Fringe happens to be scheduled in The Timeslot of Doom up against the hip and funny Community, the surprisingly good Nikita, and the ratings juggernaut Grey's Anatomy, not to mention Thursday Night Football later in the season. I'm not sure how many new viewers you're going to convince to jump on at this point, especially since what makes the show great - intricate sci-fi stories that span across multiple episodes - is exactly what makes it hard for new viewers to get on board.

Nevertheless, for those of us who have been eagerly awaiting the show's return, tonight's episode was a lot of fun. Part of what makes stories set in alternate universes fun is not only focusing on what's there (e.g. the World Trade Center towers) but what isn't there. It's noteworthy that William Bell, Nina Sharp and Massive Dynamics itself don't seem to have equivalents on Earth 2. Meanwhile, you have to think that it's only a matter of time before we run into Earth 1's version of Lincoln Lee (a.k.a. Burn Victim Guy).

We pick up season 3 right where we left off last season, with Olivia imprisoned on Earth 2. A psychiatrist is treating Olivia, trying to convince her that rambling about evil twins and alternate universes sounds a touch crazy. During these scenes we get a mix of exposition (again, for those who have never watched the show), plus some interesting tidbits about the other Olivia (a.k.a. Alt-livia), including the fact that she's an Olympic gold medal winner in marksmanship and that her mother is still alive in this universe.

Meanwhile, Walternate is busy colluding with the nerd scientist from Massive Dynamics (who in this universe seems to a lot less Sheldon Cooper and a lot more Dr. Mengele), trying to inject Olivia with Alt-livia's memories. Despite the fact that it could kill her, Walternate is hellbent on pushing his agenda, and he orders another dose of the whatever-it-is-MacGuffin serum given to Olivia.

Olivia is dragged into a brightly lit room and strapped to a table. However, before they can complete the procedure, she tricks her captors with the oldest trick in the book (the good old "Ah, my heart/stomach/whatever hurts!") and quickly turns the tables on them. As she flees the complex, necks are stabbed and throats are punched and it is awesome. She makes it outside and flings herself off the side of Liberty Island into the water. Despite the fact that there are literally twenty armed men chasing her on a well equipped island, I guess no one thinks to, you know, go get a boat or anything, so Olivia is able to easily doggie paddle her way to freedom.

Cut scene. Hey, it's Bubbs from The Wire! Hooray! Andre Royo looks pretty good when he's not all done up like a heroin addict. He's minding his own business, chilling in his cab (cleverly sporting an advertising tent on top for the hit musical Dogs) when Olivia throws her bedraggled self into the backseat and promptly hijacks him at gunpoint. Poor Bubbs - even in this universe, he can't catch a break.

Olivia spends the rest of the episode alternating between threatening to murder Bubbs and his whole family and cruising around town trying to figure out a way to get back to Earth 1. At the same time, Alternate Fringe Division is busy zeroing in on her position. It's interesting to note that Charlie and Lincoln seem to buy the story that Olivia is really their Alt-livia and is merely suffering from some kind of head trauma. It's also interesting that even in this world, poor Astrid is given nothing of value to do aside from delivering lines of exposition.

The stress clearly gets to Olivia, because she breaks down sobbing in a gas station restroom, before she ends up blowing it up. It's all very sad and hilarious at the same time. Olivia Dunham, domestic terrorist and public menace!

Finally Olivia is out of options and demands that Bubbs drive her to a safe house nearby. At this point, there are a lot of clues that the MacGuffin serum is starting to take effect - she starts to forget about her love for Peter, she is suddenly a world class shot (a nice callback to that seemingly throw away fact about Alt-livia's marksmanship), and she magically knows the way to Alt-liva's mother's house. When Olivia sees her mother (played by the awesome Amy Madigan) alive, she breaks down and it seems like she's completely taken over by Alt-livia's memories and personality. Oh noes! Honestly, after the trauma of the last 3 episodes, you can't really blame poor Olivia for giving in - in this world, her mother is still alive, her partner Charlie is still alive, plus they have dirigibles and vacations on the moon! Earth 2 rocks. I want to live there.

Olivia ends up driving back to Alternate Fringe Division with Charlie, already displaying the tics and mannerisms of Alt-livia. Bubbs is still outside as he watches them drive off and for a minute you think that maybe he'll follow them, but instead he just drives off in the other direction, probably to go call his good friend, the sober and serious James McNulty, to tell him about his crazy day.

The episode ends as we transition back to Earth 1, where Alt-livia is busy making creepy eyes at Walter and macking on poor, sweet, clueless Peter. It's a testament to Anna Torv's acting that the season 2 finale kiss gave me a thrill, and now seeing her kiss Peter just makes me scream, "Noooooo! Get away from him, you whore!" at the screen. The Bishops walk off, completely unaware of the traitor in their midst.

All in all, this was a great start to the season. It'll be interesting to see how long Alt-livia can fool the team. I suspect that Walternate has no intention of bringing Alt-livia back to Earth 2, which is why he has Olivia all primed and ready to replace her. I also enjoyed seeing Andre Royo again, so I'm hoping he will pop up again in the inevitable episode where Olivia recovers her memories and tries to get back to Earth 1.

Summary: Always have a safety word installed with your loved ones, in the event that an evil doppleganger from another universe tries to take your place. For the record, mine is "banana."

Grade: A-

Detroit 1-8-7 Recap: Episode 1

2010-09-21T22:14:00.005-04:00

ABC, in their infinite wisdom, realized that there was a dangerous shortage of cop dramas on television. Fearing that viewers might be overwhelmed by the trauma of original programming such as Pushing Daisies or other such shows, they quickly commissioned Detroit 1-8-7 so that Americans could get their weekly recommended dose of hot cop-on-criminal action.

The show opens with our first four stars: Jon Michael Hill (playing Det. Washington), Michael Imperioli (Det. Fitch), and Michael Imperioli's eyebrows (lefty and righty). A helpful graphic tells us the name of each character and how many years they've worked in homicide. Of course, the fact that Washington barfs at the crime scene, answers a personal cell phone call in the middle of a family death notification, and basically wanders around wide eyed and bushy tailed the whole episode mostly makes the "Det. Washington, 1 day, homicide" graphic redundant.

Pretty much all the graphics in this show are redundant - it's like they think the entire audience is composed of morons who have no idea how traditional narrative works. There are only two homicide cases in the episode, each of them worked by the same detectives throughout, and yet they feel compelled to caption not only which case is currently being shown, but also where they are in the investigation process. Yes, show, I know that the "Bullet Train" investigation is in the autopsy phase, because the two detectives from the train murder scene are present and they are in the fucking morgue.

The minute we meet Sgt Langford (James McDaniels), we know he's too old for this shit. This fact is confirmed by his grizzled veteran demeanor, the overly helpful graphic that tells us he's been in homicide for 30 years, and the fact that he's introduced by Marvin Gaye on the soundtrack. Because Langford is clearly too old for this shit and is buying an Italian villa in anticipation of his retirement, it instantly puts him on the top of my death pool, along with the bushy-tailed rookie, because this is a pilot episode and in a cop drama pilot someone on the main cast has to be expendable.

Also in the cast are Tough Lady Boss (played by "Hey It's That Guy" actress Aisha Hinds), Tough Hot Latina Cop (played by Natalie Martinez) and Cocky Stud (played by D. J. Cotrona). Rounding out the cast is Langford's partner Det. Mahajan (Shaun Majumder), who has no clear stereotypical role yet.

My favorite part comes at the beginning of the episode where a random beat cop makes a remark about being glad that the crack heads stay in their crappy neighborhoods to kill each other over drugs versus coming out to the suburbs where he lives. Tough Hot Latina Cop gets up in the guy's grill, all, "I grew up near here! Everytime I come to one of these murder scenes I pray it's not someone I know!" It's supposed to be like she put Suburban Cop in his place, but he kind of has this look on his face like, "Uh, this is sort ofmy point, lady."

Two rather dull homicide investigations end up converging into one case. Long story, short, a guy gets paroled and decides that murder/suicide is the best way to reunite with his wife and kids. He gets the wife, his parole officer and some other random guy, but gets talked down off the proverbial ledge before he can kill his kids and himself at the end.

The show hits pretty much all the expected dramatic points: the interrogation scene where Fitch applies an unconventional approach to break the suspect, the dramatic car chase (complete with flaming car of peril!), and a hostage standoff (again, helpfully captioned "Hostage Standoff" for the viewers) in which Fitch single handedly disarms the situation by empathizing with the suspect and walking slowly at him with his hands up, until the suspect turns his weapon over. This is of course total fantasy, because who wouldn't look at Michael Imperioli's smug face and NOT instantly shoot him?

Detroit apparently has the worst procedures ever when it comes to handling known violent offenders, because the suspect breaks free at the precinct at the end of the episode and grabs a gun from a passing cop (don't they have holster straps and safeties?). In the confusion, Rookie McBarf gets his fool self shot, just as he receives a call from his wife telling him their first child is probably born. It's not clear if he's dead or not at the end of the episode, and really, it doesn't matter. The episode doesn't really focus on one character, so losing a cast member isn't that impactful for the viewer. If anything, it's just one more emotional trauma for Det. Fitch to drag around, because Fitch is the designated character who "doesn't play by the rules" and who has a mysterious and tragedy filled past that informs who he is.

Look, I know it's a pilot episode, and usually those are concerned more with getting all the relevant characters on the board and properly introduced to the audience so we know who they expect us to spend 22 weeks with than with telling a great story. It's possible that the show will get much better next week. However, I didn't see much in this episode that makes me want to tune in again.

Summary: I still can't believe they canceled The Unusuals. They HAD a great cop drama already, and it was way better than Detroit 1-8-7.

Grade: C-

NFL Week2 Breakdown

2010-09-20T08:13:00.008-04:00

Well, after a rusty first week out of the gate, it was good to see many NFL teams start clicking better in Week 2. There were some really exciting matchups this week, so let's get right to it.

"Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." Clearly Peyton Manning was still upset about the loss the previous week to the Houston Texans, and he decided to take all his rage out on the poor visiting Giants. I say "rage", but despite my pithy section headline, it was more HAL 9000 than Incredible Hulk, as Manning methodically and relentlessly made the Giants defense suffer. Short of running across the field at halftime, pinning younger brother Eli to the ground and mercilessly wet willying him until he screamed, there wasn't much more Peyton could have done to make poor Eli suffer that night. The Giants need not panic about the loss - Peyton has made better teams look more foolish in his career - but the one thing that happened during the game that SHOULD concern the team is the way Brandon Jacobs behaved. He had already been quoted in the press complaining about losing the starting job to Ahmad Bradshaw. Last night, in a fit of childish anger, he tossed his helmet into the stands, almost striking a fan and then engaging in a shouting match with the startled and angry fan.

Reports of your demise were greatly exaggerated. So after the media panic of last week, you would have thought that Mark Sanchez was just one more poor game away from being cut from the Jets for being unable to live up to their expectations as a QB. Sure, Sanchez looked hurried at times and he certainly had poor numbers, but people forget how often over the past few years the Baltimore Ravens defense has made otherwise capable QBs look like frightened bunnies in the pocket. This week against the much more vulnerable Patriots defense, Sanchez looked clutch, making some great throws and coming away with 277 yards and 3 TDs.

Speaking of premature demises, Sanchez's teammate LaDanian Tomlinson has looked excellent over the past few weeks. Though he's sharing the load with RB Shonn Greene, LT has shown flashes of his old speed and he's converted some big first downs for the Jets. I think that if the Jets get LT more involved in the passing game and get Santonio Holmes back in a few weeks, they're going to be a much better offense than people think. They're still a work in progress, and they certainly aren't doing Sanchez any favors by having a very conservative offensive game plan, but this team may still live up to the hype. The real test will be how they perform next week versus the tough-looking 2-0 Dolphins.

Reports of YOUR demise, however, were completely accurate. Once upon a time, Trent Edwards looked like a very promising young QB for the Buffalo Bills. Unfortunately, ever since the massive hit a few years ago that hit him with his first NFL concussion, Edwards has never looked that good again. After just two weeks, "Captain Checkdown" (as he's not so kindly referred to in media circles) has been benched, probably for good, barring some massive meltdown by Ryan Fitzpatrick. At this point, it already looks like a lost season for the hapless Bills, who are probably just counting the weeks until they finish at the bottom of the NFL and have the chance to draft a Jake Locker type to be their savoir.

Meanwhile, down in Carolina, Jimmy Clausen (the rookie QB the Bills certainly could have drafted if they wanted to) has been given the starting reins. Poor Matt Moore may have finished strong last year, but starting 0-2 in a division that has the Saints, Falcons and the surprising Tampa Bay Bucs is pretty devastating. We all knew it was only a matter of time before Clausen would get the start in Carolina, but Moore squandered his chance to have a great year that would have set him up to go start for another team in 2011. The door may still be open to Moore if Clausen struggles greatly, but we'll see.

Studs of the week. Pity the poor Detroit Lions for their two heartbreaking losses (both games they could have won) and their vicious upcoming schedule. But don't pity them for drafting Jahvid Best, who is responsible for the team's first 5 TDs of the year so far. This week he put up some heady numbers (78 yds rushing, 154 yds receiving, 3 TDs). The way he runs certainly invokes memories of another Lions RB great from the past.... Meanwhile, though I can never forgive Michael Vick for the dogfighting incident that sent him to jail, I must acknowledge how much he has improved since 2006. Though his stats weren't as flashy as other QBs this week (284 yds, 2TDs), he finally (FINALLY!) looks like he's learned how to be a pocket QB, versus a great RB who happened to throw on occasion. His passes have touch on them and he has shown a willingness to look downfield even after forced to scramble out of the pocket (the old Vick would have looked at his primary receiver, seen him covered and immediately scrambled with the ball). That was a lesson that Donovan McNabb had to learn once upon a time.

Speaking of McNabb, he looked great against the Texans, putting up 426 yards and 1 TD (and indeed, he would have been over 500 yards if Joey Galloway makes that catch in the end zone). Unfortunately for McNabb and the Redskins, Houston QB Matt Schaub out-dueled him, putting up 497 yds for 3 TDs.

Tim Tebow who? In two weeks, Kyle Orton has over 600 yards passing and certainly looks like the QB of the future.

Lastly, the entire Pittsburgh Defense (though particularly the high flying Troy Polamalu) simply dominated the Tennessee Titans, forcing 3 INTs, 4 fumbles, and 1 starting QB benching.

Duds of the week. Houston's offense looks great and they're at 2-0, so you can't argue with those results. However, their defense deserves a dud of the week, for again leaking like a sieve against opposing QBs. In the first two weeks they've given up almost 900 yards in the air. Meanwhile, Matt Cassel seems to be the only thing not working out for the Kansas City Chiefs (10 of 22, 68 yds, 1TD in week one and 16-28 for 176 yds, 0 TD and 2 INT for week two). When you pay a guy that much guaranteed money at the most critical position in the game, you expect him to perform as good if not better than the guys around him. Unfortunately that's not the case, and I think it's going to hurt the Chiefs long term.

Teams I like this week. Chicago is 2-0, and it's looking like the Martz-Cutler marriage is already paying dividends. Matt Forte certainly has benefitted from the new offensive scheme. Imagine how scary this team might be if their offensive line were any good. We'll see how much I still like them after they face their first real test when they play the Green Bay Packers this weekend. I also like the Miami Dolphins, who look really tough on defense. If Henne and Marshall start really clicking, we might just have an exciting 3 way race in the AFC East. Josh Freeman is quietly becoming a star down in Tampa Bay, and the Bucs are looking good these first two weeks. Last, I like the Saints, who I think will benefit in the long run from having to actually break a sweat to win a game this year.

Teams I don't like this week. The Dallas Cowboys look really shaky after their 0-2 start. This just doesn't seem like a team with the mental toughness to win when the going gets tough. Countless media analysts have commented on the lack of leadership in the locker room, and that's definitely a bad sign. Meanwhile, the Vikings continue to pay the price for their decision to abandon a team-first concept by embarrassing themselves courting Favre this off season, allowing him to skip camps and so forth. I think the Vikings are too talented not to bounce back and make a run at it all this year, but they've got a lot of work to do. Last and certainly least, the Cleveland Browns are in big trouble. If you can't beat the Chiefs or the Bucs, then how can you expect to win any of the next 5 games against the Ravens, Bengals, Falcons, Steelers or Saints?

NFL Week 1 Breakdown

2010-09-12T19:53:00.011-04:00

It's that time of year again, where the pigskins fly with abandon and burly men attempt to wrangle one another for our amusement. Which means, of course, that it's time for my usual NFL weekly breakdown posts to return.

Keep in mind that it was Week 1, and a lot of teams sure played like it, so while I had to pick teams I liked this week and teams I didn't, don't think that these are season-long predictions. There will be teams that struggled in week 1 that will probably get a lot better in the coming weeks (maybe Indy, Dallas, Minnesota), and teams that played well but could always fall apart later on (Seattle, Houston, Miami).

Uh, about that crown we handed you... So, there were several people ready to coronate the San Francisco 49ers as the NFC West champs going into the season. At the same time they seemingly wrote off the Seattle Seahawks, who once upon a time dominated the division for several years in a row during the mid-2000s. Of course, it's only week 1, but Mike Singletary cannot be happy with his team's performance. Some in the sports media had predicted that this would be the year that Alex Smith justified his first round draft pick status, but after a decent start, he looked confused and panicked in the pocket.

Meanwhile in the AFC West, many were also praising the Oakland Raiders and picking them to make a playoff run. Again, it's only one week and there's certainly no shame in losing to the Tennessee Titans. However, it was the WAY the Raiders lost that should cause alarm. The game wasn't close at all, Jason Campbell was under heavy pressure the whole time, and the defense was helpless to stop Chris Johnson.

Welcome to Heartbreak City 2010. I understand the actual NFL rule about possession while making a catch, and by the letter of the law, yes, the Calvin Johnson catch in the end zone was technically incomplete. But boy... when a guy makes a clean catch with two hands, plants both feet and then falls, still holding the ball, with his knee hitting cleanly before he rolls over, it's hard to stomach the fact that that isn't a game-winning catch just because he seems to lose the ball as he pushes himself up. While they lost, they could have at least taken solace in the fact that they actually showed some sparks of life, playing occasionally solid defense and actually putting points on the board. Unfortunately, Detroit can't seem to get a break. They also must deal with the pain of knowing that their young QB Matthew Stafford may now be out for up to 6 weeks. When you look at the schedule of the next 6 games, it's a fairly horrifying list of teams: Philadelphia, Minnesota, Green Bay and the New York Giants, with only the St Louis Rams looking like they might at least allow Detroit to stay in the game. It could be another long frustrating season for the Lions, since a 0-6 start is looking likely. When you have a schedule like this, you have GOT to win games like the one against Chicago.

There is no B-R-E-T-T in "Team". Can we please stop acting like there are no consequences to skipping training camp now? Because there were several plays in the Minnesota/New Orleans game where a QB who was in training camp shape and had weeks of work with his receivers might have pulled out a victory over the defending Super Bowl champs. Brett Favre took a couple critical sacks because he was simply unable to avoid a lone defender rushing him. He was also clearly out of sync with his receivers, which isn't really surprising given that he's barely played with them since last January. Of course, the blame doesn't fall solely on Favre. You also have to question Brad Childress, who allowed the "One man really is more important than the other 52 guys" atmosphere to take hold of his team. The reasoning behind allowing one person to skip the hard work that the other 52 guys are expected to put in is that a guy like Favre will win you 2-3 more games a year simply by his presence in the lineup. However, you can't really look at the game from Thursday without wondering if perhaps Tavaris Jackson, who put the time in in training camp working with the first team offense, might have made those one or two extra plays that might have made a difference in the extremely close game.

Studs of the week. If you heard a scream coming from somewhere in Alexandria, VA this Sunday, it was probably me, watching Arian Foster destroy my fantasy football team in two different leagues. Foster posted obscene numbers (231 rushing yds, 3 TDs) while powering his team to victory over the Colts. However, Peyton Manning did his best to overcome his defense's failings, throwing 433 yds for 3 TDs. Meanwhile, while Green Bay's vaunting offense stuttered at key moments in the end, Clay Matthews (7 tackles, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble) played like a beast on defense, making several key plays to help his team squeak out the win. Matt Forte was just the worst last year, fantasy-wise, but he came out roaring this season with 201 yds from scrimmage and 2 TDs. Finally, the last stud of the week award goes to the doctor that operated on Wes Welker's knee, since the speedy receiver seems to have made a miraculously recovery from his devastating knee injury suffered at the end of last season.

Also candidate for stud of the week: the Titans' cheerleader-devouring mascot.

Duds of the week. If he wanted to validate the Eagles' decision to trade Donovan McNabb or keep Michael Vick in the #2 slot, Kevin Kolb (5/10, 24 yds passing) sure failed. The Eagles starting QB made some very poor throws and didn't look comfortable at all in the pocket, before leaving the game with a concussion. To make matters worse, the team instantly perked up when Vick took the reins. Rookie RB CJ Spiller was supposed to be the one bright spot on the Bills lineup, but he finished the day with just 6 yds on 7 carries.

Teams I like this week. The New Orleans Saints look just as good as last year, and played some tough defense against the Vikings. Also, I still worship at the altar of the Breesus. I also like the Seattle Seahawks, who stomped on the 49ers. If you look at their schedule, Seattle could conceivably post a 8-8 to 10-6 record this season. Finally, I like the Houston Texans, who not only showed they could get over the mental hurdle of defeating their hated rivals (improving now to 2-15 against the Colts), but also that they have a rushing game to go with their normally awesome passing game.

Teams I don't like this week. I had hoped for better things for the Oakland Raiders, not only because their fans have suffered so long, but because I have always had a soft spot for QB Jason Campbell, who I think has never gotten a fair chance in his career. Alas, they look like the same team that hasn't won over 4 games in last past few seasons. Meanwhile, for the love of God, will someone PLEASE take over clock management from Andy Reid, because he costs this Philadelphia Eagles 1 to 2 victories a year with his bizarre mismanagement of the team time outs. Lastly, I see that the Dallas Cowboys are the same undisciplined team that squandered their talent last year. Foolish penalties, mental mistakes, lack of focus - these all speak to a team that needs a firmer hand than perhaps Wade Phillips can provide.

photo credits (ohgoddontsueme)
- Cheerleaders (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
- Megatron's non-catch (AP Photo/Jim Prisching)
- Arian Foster (AP Photo/Dave Einsel)
- Jason Campbell gets sacked. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)

New Show Alert! Terriers on FX

2010-09-08T09:57:00.003-04:00

I'm popping out of my self-imposed blog hibernation to let you fine folks know that there's a new series out there that you might enjoy. The advance word on FX's new series Terriers has been pretty positive (Televisionary, a site that rarely goes wrong, calls it one of the strongest new series of the season).

The show in a nutshell: an ex-cop partners with his buddy to run an unlicensed private investigation business. Hilarity (and edgy "stuff") ensues.

Reasons why you should watch this show:

1) It's got Donal Logue, who I've loved all the way back to his "The Tao of Steve" days. He's the kind of charming actor who can carry a show as a lead, and he will likely bring a unique spin to the character.

2) His partner in crime (and charming-ness) is played by Michael Raymond-James, who you probably remember better as Rene from season 1 of True Blood.

3) The show runner is Shawn Ryan, and this show seems to have some of the same excellent aesthetic that his previous series, The Shield, had. I'm not sure how great he'll be at bringing the funny, but obviously he knows how to produce gritty dramatic moments.

4) It's hosted on the FX network, so when they promise an "edgy" show, you actually believe it based on the network's other offerings.

5) I've got a really good vibe about this show, and really... have I steered you wrong yet?

Check it out. It airs tonight at 10pm EST on FX. You can grab the trailer here:
http://vod.fxnetworks.com/watch/terriers

*image from TV.com

Warehouse 13 and The Closer return!

2010-07-06T14:07:00.004-04:00

Great news, everybody - season 2 of Syfy's unexpectedly fun and awesome show "Warehouse 13" starts tonight (July 6th) at 9pm EST. For anyone who missed this great little series when it aired last season, this is your chance to jump on board. Don't be afraid about being unable to follow the storyline - most of the episodes are monster-of-the-week format and you'll figure out the longer story arcs pretty quickly.

Here's all you need to know to start watching right away: remember that warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark where they stored the Ark of the Covenant? Warehouse 13 imagines a universe where that warehouse really exists and contains all sorts of magical items within its walls. Two agents, Myka and Pete, are assigned to hunt down mysterious artifacts around the country, figure out how to safely contain them and then return the items to the warehouse. Artie, an expert on all things supernatural, is their liaison back at the warehouse, dispensing advice remotely via fun steampunk video comm units. Claudia is the resident hacker/troublemaker who assists Artie at his job.

If you're looking for something to replace Lost in your life, well... this probably isn't the right show for you. But if you are looking for a breezy fun summer show, you can't go wrong with Warehouse 13. Myka and Pete have great chemistry - and for once, it's a fun brother/sister dynamic most of the time, versus the standard "sexual tension" kind, which is refreshing. C.C.H. Pounder - one of my favorite character actors working today - is also pretty great in her guest starring role as one of the mysterious people in charge of the warehouse. This show goes great paired in your DVR with a viewing of Burn Notice or my next suggestion.....

I'm thrilled that The Closer is returning this Monday, July 12th. Hopefully most of you are watching this series already and merely are benefiting from me reminding you to set your DVRs for Monday night.

The Closer isn't the most original show on TV, as it runs like a standard police procedural most of the time, but there's something special about this show that makes each episode go down smoothly. Brenda Leigh is a tough character to play - her behavior is often so self-absorbed that in the hands of a lesser actress she might come across as completely unlikeable. However, Kyra Sedgwick plays the role just right, and we (like her co-workers and belabored husband Fritz) find ourselves forgiving Brenda not matter what.

Like all great police procedurals, each episode is fairly self-contained, so this is another show you can jump right into even if you haven't seen past seasons. Enjoy!

Jesus Takes the Mound

2010-06-09T08:39:00.003-04:00

So, the savior of DC baseball - one Mr. Stephen Strasburg - finally made his major league debut last night. Jokingly (though maybe not so much) referred to as "Jesus" by both the media and his own teammates, Strasburg rampaged through the minor leagues before quickly being pulled up into action. This was the first Nationals game I ever bothered to tune into; I was forced to watch on TV since DC fans awoken from their apathetic slumber regarding local baseball and actually sold out the park in advance for once.

How did he do? By all accounts, he exceeded the already lofty expectations that had been piled on him. Already in his first game he broken a Nationals pitching record (sort of, see this link for the long version) by recording 14 strikeouts - granted that might be an indictment of the Nationals pitching over the years more than anything, but still, that's pretty impressive. Even more impressive is that he threw exactly zero walks, which I've personally never seen in all my years watching baseball.

Here's a stat for comparison (again, courtesy of the link above):

"Only five other pitchers since 1900 have had a 14-strikeout, zero-walk game in ANY game, at any point in their careers, in which they went seven innings or less. Those five: Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Javier Vazquez, Mike Mussina and Brad Penny. We're guessing you've heard of them."

What struck me most about his style was the speed with which he pitched. By that I do not mean the velocity of his fastball (impressive as it was), but rather the minimal time he took in between pitches. He didn't fidget on the mound at all - just start his wind up almost immediately after receiving the ball back from Pudge. Of course, allowing only 4 batters to reach base the whole time certainly helped - no need to check the batter at first really, just focus on the next pitch.

I also liked the aggressiveness he showed. Again - zero walks and 70% of his pitches were in the strike zone. He was pretty much DARING the Pirates to hit the ball. There wasn't a ton of trickery - the balls were there in the strike zone for the taking, though the Pirates looked stymied by the combination of blazing fastballs and vicious curves and breaking balls. After giving up two hits in a row (one of which was a HR), he was calm and collected enough to finish out the inning, and then went on to strike out out the last 7 batters IN A ROW.

By all rights, it was an almost perfect debut (sullied only by a 2 run homer). Granted, he's got a long way to go before he can truly live up to the expectations foisted upon him (after all, one does not justify the "Greatest Pitching Prospect EVER" label in just one night). He's going to have bad days, he's going to pitch against teams that are not fucking terrible (after all, I think even I could blow some strikes past the lowly Pittsburgh lineup), he's going to have nights when the umps are feeling stingy or he's just not feeling it. But overall, it looks like the hype is for real.\

With the Nationals drafting yet another wunderkind, Bryce Harper (a.k.a. "Baseball's LeBron" or "LeBryce" as people calling him), things may finally be looking up for this lowly franchise. In retrospect, having back-to-back 100+ loss seasons may have been the best thing to happen to the club in a long time.

*picture from Nationals website

formspring.me

2010-06-02T14:03:00.001-04:00

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/madtypist

Get Yourself Some Book Recommendations

2010-05-04T14:15:00.008-04:00

I was reading io9.com today, and apparently there's a fun internet meme going around right now where published authors are posting books they consider worthy of a 10-star review. The original post is up at Elena Johnson's blog, which has a nice collection of all the authors' blogs that are participating. It's definitely worth a perusal: I have already found at least one great suggestion that I'm very excited to read, thanks to Jenn Johansson's blog post "Spreading the Awesome". While the focus of the blog roll seems to be on Young Adult (YA) fiction, it's still worth a perusal.

I'll toss a few of my own suggestions in the ring, as long as I'm here:

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. This fantastic steampunk novel starts a bit slow, but eventually cascades into a brilliant, tragic and passionate story. Mieville just became the first person to win the Arthur C. Clarke award three times - I suspect that the rest of his catalog will be equally as good as this book. Be forewarned - the writing is dense (it's been called Dickens-esque) and you'll find yourself having to stop to picture exactly what bizarre scene Mieville is painting. For example, it took me a moment to adjust to the fact that the female character I had been introduced to had the body of human woman, but a head like a scarab beetle. Even the city itself, New Crobuzon, is a bizarre amalgam of futuristic tech blended with old European style buildings.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr. (nee Alice Sheldon). I've written about this before but it bears repeating, for those of you who have been ignoring me. This collection of short sci-fi tales is simply marvelous. Standouts include the tale "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" which observes both our fascination with celebrity and somewhat predicts our internet obsession, and the bizarre "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death" which is told entirely from the perspective of a giant alien spider creature.

In Which I Plunge Into Bieber Madness

2010-04-29T17:14:00.012-04:00

There are two things I find strangely irresistible: extreme French horror films and male teen pop sensations. The latter obsession harkens back to my youth, when my sister and I were deep into a New Kids on the Block (or NKOTB as we called them) obsession. In college, I went through a Backstreet Boys/*NSYNC phase where their infectious pop hits dominated a good 80% of my workout mix. I may or may not have debated at length with my friend about which Justin Timberlake hairstyle I liked the best.

Now, I'm not one to swoon or scream over these sorts of bands myself - I'm more of a "only discuss it around like-minded friends and always with a sense of weird guilt" kind of fan. But these bands do inspire that screaming obsessive behavior in many of their fans; I remember hearing a rumor that if you attended a NKOTB concert without ear plugs, you risked permanent hearing damage from all the high-pitched screaming. That's part of what draws me to these sorts of acts, because I'm constantly fascinated with dissecting exactly what it is about these groups that appeals to their fans (more specifically, their younger fans).

Needless to say, when I started hearing internet rumblings about one Justin Bieber a few months back, I was intrigued. I had seen the Twitter trends, and had heard a few internet memes going around, but for a long time I had no idea who he was. It was like he was living in some parallel world where everyone seemed to know who he was. I resisted for awhile, but finally had to see what all the fuss was about. I downloaded My World 2.0 and fired it up on my drive to work.

Here's how the album breaks down:

Track 1 - "Baby"
This is an exact transcription of what went through my head as I listened to this song: "Hmm... Is that a girl? No, that must be Bieber. Ok. Damn, they auto-tuned the shit out of this song. It's still pretty catchy though. 'Baby, baby, baby, baby, ohhhhhhh...' Ha ha, oh my god - is that Ludacris I hear? I think it is. WTF? Ludacris is rapping about playground love. That is weirdly awesome." I have to admit - overall this is a great track and I'm not surprised that it's hit single. By the second time I listened to it, I was singing along. It's a tasty pop confectionery treat for the ears.

Here's the video of the song, which confirms Ludacris's presence. My favorite part of the song is when Justin dances up all close on the object of his affection like maybe he's going to get all sexy on her. Honestly though, the way it plays out, it seems like the only physical contact she's in danger of is enthusiastic hugging.

Justin Bieber - New Music - More Music Videos

Track 2 - "Somebody to Love"
Another danceable hit. I could actually picture this playing in a club somewhere. I could also picture myself dancing to it.

Track 3 - "Stuck in the Moment"
This is the first semi-ballad of the album. The song starts by name-checking the greatest angsty teen love story of them all: "Now Romeo and Juliet, bet they never felt the way we felt." I cackled a little the first time I heard it, but I bet the tweens go crazy for that lyric. More name-checking of famous couples, including Bonnie and Clyde, Adam and Eve, and Sonny and Cher for some reason, continues. The chorus is another hooky set of lyrics that ensure that you'll be powerless to resist singing along to the next time you hear it.

Track 4 - "U Smile"
I was already predisposed to dislike this song, because I loathe any usage of IM/texting shortcuts in place of proper spelling. The fact that the song is incredibly bland - both in lyrics and melody - just makes it worse.

Track 5 - "Runaway Love"
It's at this point in the album where I start to suspect that the best tracks have already passed by. This is the sort of song that a Justin Bieber hater might point to as proof that his music is terrible.

Track 6 - "Never Let You Go", Track 7 - "Overboard"
This is vintage teenage boy pop. It sounds a lot like something 98 Degrees or O Town might have sung back in the 90s. I do not mean that as a compliment. The Backstreet Boys wouldn't have recorded these even as crappy b-sides.

Track 8 - "Up"
This is a little better - I like the R&B-influenced slow jam styling of this song. It's also the first song to even remotely feel sexy in an adult way.

Track 9 - "That Should Be Me"
In this final track, Bieber unintentionally brings the funny. There have been countless cracks about how no human has ever more closely achieved the ideal of Lisa Simpson's "Non-threatening Boys Monthly" cover model than Bieber. Bieber validates this notion by singing about how he wishes he were in the place of the girl's boyfriend, with a chorus that goes, "That should be me, Holdin' your hand, That should be me, Makin' you laugh, That should be meeeeee..." Holdin' your hand? Really? Could a sentiment more delightfully innocent? Granted, later in the chorus he sings "that should be me, feeling your kiss" but I suspect that's only in there because it rhymes with the lyric that follows, "That should be me, buyin' you gifts."

Here's what I find most amazing about Justin Bieber: he's essentially a one-man boy band. Whereas groups like *NSYNC have the advantage of being able to disperse and share the white-hot intensity of fangirl love among their many members, poor Justin Bieber must face that raging force alone. Compounding this problem is the fact that Bieber is literally an insanely beautiful boy - his hair flops perfectly around his angelic face, creating what can only be called "Catnip for Pre-teen Girls". The question is not, "Why are all these girls literally going insane for this kid?" it's "How could any girl under the age of 16 NOT lose her mind over him?" Even some older ladies are taken with him (a phenomenon captured hilariously in the SNL skit featuring Tina Fey fantasizing over Bieber's good looks). For God's sake, LOOK at this kid:

Really. I get why 12-13 year old are going absolutely berserk for this guy. I mean, we can make fun of them all we want for threatening Kim Kardashian, after Kim joked over Twitter that she had a thing for Bieber. But honestly, I remember defacing a picture of the singer Tiffany in my sister's 16 magazine, because Tiffany was dating Jon, my favorite New Kid on the Block.

All things considered, you have to acknowledge that the kid is a talented performer. The fact that he's signed with Usher (himself a teen pop star) means he has a mentor who can help him navigate the tricky transition between teen and adult pop stardom. I just wonder what he's going to sound like after his voice changes.

So. There you go. I plunged myself into the vast mystery that is Justin Bieber and have dutifully reported back to you all on what I found. Now go download "Baby" (you know you want to).

Oooo Mama - an iPad alternative

2010-04-06T08:14:00.005-04:00

Per Engadget, take a look at the foxy new tablet from ICD called Gemini.

Some of the remarkable things this sexy beast features are the ability to make phone calls via the built-in 3G, do videoconferencing (thanks to a 2MP camera that faces you), take pictures (thanks to a fancy 5MP camera that faces out), and read from SD cards. It also has a USB connection (yay!) and the user can swap out the battery. It sports a 1366x768 resolution and is capable of playing HD video

Now, I don't want to sell this as an "iPad killer". I don't WANT the iPad killed. What makes me excited about this sort of product hitting the market is that it seems (from its specs anyway) to be a viable alternative to the iPad. The iPad is a great piece of technology, but it worries me because the hype is so great for it that it may choke out all other entries into the tablet market. I want choice in which tablet I want to buy, and I want a competitor to the iPad that forces developers to hopefully push for open standards, so that their software can be used on multiple platforms.

Given the wide range of features, I'm doubtful that the Gemini will have the amazing battery life that the iPad currently boasts (a whopping 11 hours of video, which blows my mind). I'm also not sure how it'll handle, in terms of weight (the Gemini is larger than the iPad) and general touch screen usability. But for a geek like me, who felt that there were several features missing that prevented the iPad from being a viable platform for me, the Gemini is a really exciting piece of hardware.

There's no release date or price for the Gemini yet, but I'm hoping it comes sooner rather than later before Apple completely consumes the tablet market.

Check out the Engadget page for an excellent rundown of the full specs of the device, plus a side-by-side comparison to its direct competitors. http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/06/icds-tegra-2-powered-gemini-is-the-most-feature-complete-tablet/

Other coverage can be found at:
ZDNet
Electronista

photo taken from the Engadget.com site linked above

First Cynical Impressions of new Apple tablet

2010-01-27T14:17:00.006-05:00

Quickly written, poorly edited first response to the newly unveiled Apple tablet device.

1. The Name
The "iPad"? What's up with that name? Sounds like something that Always or Tampax would market. I'm not sure why they didn't go with the infinitely more awesome "iSlate" or "iTablet".

2. Battery Life
Awesome! 10 hours of usage, up to 1 month of standby time. That's amazing. However, the cynic in me thinks, "Hmm, just like the iPod and iPhone, I suspect that the battery won't be removable, and will probably suck after about a year of ownership. Which means I can look forward to paying $99 so an Apple tech can put a new battery in."

3. Storage Space
I'm not dazzled with this feature. The base (read: most affordable) model will have only 16GB of storage. That's not great, especially if you want video. The storage space tops out at 64 GB, which isn't great for people who want to carry a lot of multimedia. I also question the storage space given that developers will likely start to develop games and apps that are larger for this platform.

4. No Flash support
Great. You've got a web browser built in, but you can't visit Flash-based sites. That means Hulu.com won't work, thus eliminating a competitor in the video-on-demand market. This means that a lot of interactive sites you might visit won't function correctly either. This is lame.

5. 3G
Available through AT&T, though it will cost you $29.95 per month for unlimited data. I like that the device can be used on other carriers, if you want.

6. Looks sexy
Of course it does. It's an Apple product. It's nothing, if not beautiful. The tablet is super light weight too - I can't wait to see how it feels in my hands.

7. New iBooks storefront
Looks pretty spiffy. Slightly higher price point than Amazon, but unsure how much extra cash that might mean for publishers. Major kudos for offering ePub format, which is an open standard.
8. Sounds a little pricey
Per Engadget.com, the price points are as follows:
"It starts at $499 for 16GB, 32GB for $599, and $699 64GB. Adding 3G costs a $130 per model, so the most expensive model (64GB / 3G) is $829."

That's.... a bit rich for my taste, especially since you need to toss an extra $29.95 per month on top of that if you want to actually leverage the 3G capability.

9. But I love to feel actual keys when I type!

Comes with built-in Bluetooth or you can get a keyboard dock. Either way, those of you who hate typing on the screen itself have options. Nice feature.

10. Doesn't seem to come with a camera

Frankly, that's sort of disappointing. I think this could have been a product that really made videoconferencing more mainstream. I sort of envisioned a camera on both sides of the device, utilizing technology such as Skype to handle the videochat functions.

11. Does it multitask?

If it's using the iPhone OS, it probably doesn't multitask. That's surprising/disappointing. With the larger screen, it's be nice to have a few apps open at a time.

update #1: Engadget has an interesting price breakdown of 3G service on the iPad versus the iPhone.

update #2: No stylus/handwriting support? I'm surprised - you'd think that would be a natural addition, and would have gone a long way towards making this a Kindle-killer. I would have loved to see a demo of annotating an ePub document with a stylus.

update #3: Git yer purdy iPad pictures here at the official Apple site.

note: this post may change, as more details come out, but this is what I'm thinking right now. Pic above is from the AP.

Damages returns, plus a crime show for the commitment phobic

2010-01-20T14:01:00.006-05:00

One of the best shows on television that you may or may not be watching is FX's Damages. On one hand, it's a shame more people don't tune in, because the writing is excellent and the production values are great. Glenn Close puts on an acting clinic as Patty Hewes, a relentless and morally corrupt lawyer. The central mystery is compelling and often leaves you breathlessly awaiting the next episode. On the other hand, the story is extremely intricate and absolutely demands that you pay attention to every scene, every line uttered. It's a show that punishes you for missing even one episode. So I do understand why people are reluctant to tune in. You simply cannot watch the show unless you're willing to watch every episode of the season, and you have to start with Season 1 to fully understand the plots of season 2, and presumably, season 3. I know that that's simply too much of a commitment to entice some people, even in the age of the DVR and TV on DVD.

Nonetheless, I can't recommend the show highly enough. While the show does punish you for missing an episode, on the flip side, it's also a very rewarding show for those willing to sit through all 11 episodes of a season. I firmly believe that if nothing else, you should treat yourself to Season 1 of the show, which ranks among my more perfect TV experiences ever. The tightly plotted season begins with Ellen Parsons (star Rose Bryne) bursting out of her apartment covered in blood, clearly having just witnessed something horrible. The show then jumps back 6 months prior, as we see the same woman just starting to work for Patty Hewes. By the end of the first episode, a brutal murder is revealed in the present, and the show then spends the next 10 episodes walking us through just what exactly happened in the span of those 6 months.

For those of you who are all caught up, don't forget that Season 3 starts this upcoming Monday, January 25th. Head over to the Televisionary blog, where Jace has a nice sneak preview review of the new season. I'm super excited for the new guest stars this season: Lily Tomlin, Martin Short and Campbell Scott join the cast this year. I'd also like to note that the show has one of my favorite title sequences ever.

For those of you who may be more commitment-phobic when it comes to your television shows, I'd like to recommend a show I finally got around to checking out: ABC's crime drama Castle. I had avoided the show at first because, although I love star Nathan Fillion (of Firefly and Dr. Horrible fame), I thought it was yet another cop procedural. However, I was greatly mistaken. Castle is best described as "Murder She Wrote, but with a dude in the Angela Lansbury role." Now, I mean that in the best possible way: Nathan Fillion is incredibly charming in the lead role as Richard Castle, best selling mystery novelist and all around smarmy rich guy. He has good chemistry with Stana Katic, who plays a NYPD detective Castle is shadowing as "research" for his new series of crime novels.

Basically, it's a fun, mystery-of-the-week show, with a dose of "will they, won't they" sexual tension thrown in between the two leads. It's the kind of show that you can probably just pick up and watch at any point, and in any order, since the episodes seem largely self-contained. You can watch episodes free online at the show's official site to see how you like it.

Of course, ideally, you'd see the merits of having both shows in your life and make the decision to watch both of them.

One final programming note: tonight on ABC, you can catch the pilot episode of Modern Family at 8pm, with a new episode of the show following at 9pm. If you have somehow avoided watching this brilliant new sitcom, this is your chance to jump on board. Modern Family's pilot is as close as show will ever getting to a perfect launch.

Architecture As Art

2010-01-19T13:04:00.002-05:00

I've often heard people scoff at the notion of blogging, as if it's still the advent of the internet and blogs are there merely as people's personal diaries made public. However, blogs have clearly evolved and everyone sort of brings their own motives to the table when it comes to putting down their thoughts on the internet for all to see.

I personally blog for two reasons. One, sometimes I just have a thought about something that I want to share, usually related to pop culture or football. Two, sometimes I find something out in the wilds of the internet that I want to share and bring to the attention of my readers, since they might otherwise miss out on something that might amuse them. This particular post is of the latter variety.

I wanted to share with you an amazing video that a friend directed me to. It's a gorgeous short film that meditates on architecture as art. The workmanship is quite remarkable - the subtle way that CGI effects are added in as the film progresses, the sharp eye applied to the editing of the film, and the score composed to complement the action. In addition, I really liked the way the filmmaker starts the film as an invisible presence, and then slowly becomes more prominent as the film goes along.

I highly recommend you watch the film in fullscreen mode with your sound turned up. Enjoy.
Here's the link to the Vimeo site where you can see it in HD mode (recommended).
The Third & The Seventh by Alex Roman.

However, if you can't be bothered to click over, I've embedded the non-HD video here as well:

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Thursday TV Alert

2010-01-14T14:39:00.005-05:00

I haven't blogged much lately, but I wanted to pop in and remind you all to set your DVR for a couple of shows airing tonight (or very soon).

First of all, if you are still resisting my attempts to get you to watch NBC's Parks and Recreation, perhaps I can tempt you with news that Will Arnett (a.k.a. GOB from Arrested Developement, a.k.a. Mr. Amy Poehler) will be guest starring on tonight's episode. Herc from Ain't It Cool News claims it may be the funniest episode of the series to date. And if you tune in for Parks and Recreation, you might as well stick around for the whole NBC Thursday night comedy block, one of the few things the network hasn't bungled lately. Jack Black is on tonight's Community, and we get 2 new episodes of one of my favorite comedies, 30 Rock.

Speaking of Arrested Development, three more former stars of that show - Jeffery Tambor, Jessica Walter and Judy Greer - will be popping up doing voice work for FX's new animated series Archer. It's a very bizarre show, but if you're a fan of the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup, you may want to check this one out. I thinks fans of the shows The Venture Brothers and Sealab 2021 in particular will love this really demented show.

Here's what some excellent people have to say about the show:

While the comparison between FX's new animated comedy Archer and James Bond is an obvious one, the comparing this series, from creator Adam Reed (Sealab 2021), to Better Off Ted would be more apt.

While Archer follows the high-flying exploits of a suave James Bond-esque secret agent man, at its heart the series is a deliciously loopy and perversely raunchy workplace comedy.
- Jace from Televisionary

There is a specific rhythm to "Archer" and a unique vibe that wormed its way deeper into my consciousness with every episode I watched. It took a few episodes for "Archer" to establish a consistent tone, but once it did, it became a lot of fun. If you share its weird sensibilities, you may find that at its best, "Archer" not only echoes the whipsmart, creatively deranged "Arrested Development" but that it also feels like the naughtier cousin of TV's better single-camera comedies.

[....]

There are about a dozen other shows I could reference in trying to describe "Archer" -- you could also say it's the Bizarro World version of the USA spy show "Burn Notice" or a raunchier "Chuck" -- but none of them would quite capture this show's blend of deadpan wit and surreal goofiness. Suffice to say that "Archer" will probably appeal to viewers who like their comedy literate, demented and subversive.

The lead character, Sterling Archer, is not exactly a textbook spy (though at least he looks good; he dresses and combs his hair like a cartoon version of Don Draper). Your first clue that something is off is that his code name is Duchess; he's also likely to get sloshed on missions and shoot a gun in the office when he's having a bad day.

- Mo Ryan from her column, The Watcher

I happened to catch what I assume was a one-shot episode of the show before and really enjoyed it. You can catch the first two episodes tonight on FX at 10pm EST.

Video previews can be found at both sites linked to in the quotes.

Lastly, it's never too early to set your DVR for Starz's upcoming series Spartacus: Sand and Blood. Looks like the 3o0 crossed with Rome, with a healthy dose of nearly naked Lucy Lawless thrown in for good measure. I'm so there. The show premieres on January 22nd.

Conan O'Brien Is Moving On

2010-01-12T18:09:00.003-05:00

In today's "Good for you, Big Red!" news, apparently, Conan O'Brien has rejected NBC's offer to give up his time slot so that they can continue to assault us with the "comedic" stylings of Jay Leno. I'll copy-pasta Conan's statement below, but here's my thought: maybe this isn't the worst thing that could happen.

Yes, I know Conan's life was disrupted for over a year while NBC strung him along with promises of the coveted Tonight Show job, and yeah, I know it sucks to uproot your whole crew and family to move to horrible Los Angeles. On the other hand, I always thought Conan was sort of a bizarre choice for the Tonight Show gig. The Tonight Show always felt too mainstream to me to contain Conan's particular style of soaring eccentric genius.

I'm not a fan of Jay Leno myself, but apparently lots of people are. And the kind of people who liked Leno's easy-going schtick are probably not the kind of people who are going to receptive to skits involving characters like Triumph the Comic Dog and The Masturbating Bear.

I think that Conan would be a much better fit on a more edgy mainstream network like Fox, that will give him room to be as strange as he likes. I'd also love to see what an uncensored late night show from Conan would look like on a network like Comedy Central, FX or even HBO.

The full text of Conan's statement here (also, read Alan Sepinwall's excellent article about this):

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I've been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I've been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I've been absurdly lucky. That said, I've been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over 'The Tonight Show' in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my 'Tonight Show' in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in primetime by making a change in their long-established late-night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move 'The Tonight Show' to 12:05 to accommodate 'The Jay Leno Show' at 11:35. For 60 years 'The Tonight Show' has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying 'The Tonight Show' into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. 'The Tonight Show' at 12:05 simply isn't 'The Tonight Show.' Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the 'Late Night' show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of 'The Tonight Show.' But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn't matter. But with 'The Tonight Show,' I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it's always been that way.

Yours,

Conan
source

Shows You May Enjoy (plus bonus musings)

2009-12-09T07:32:00.007-05:00

Contrary to what you might think, I am not dead, nor have I abandoned this blog. I've just had a busy couple of months, which hasn't left me much time for blogging. In any case, here's some random stuff that's been on my mind.

First, with the holidays rapidly approaching, many of your favorite shows will be going on hiatus, so this is a perfect opportunity for you to try out a few other shows that might have slipped below your radar. Thank god for the miracle of On-Demand, iTunes and Hulu, because you'll be able to catch these episodes online, or you can grab DVDs via Netflix.

Comedy gems for you. Did you know that the awesome Better Off Ted (which I've been pushing on you folks for some time now) was back on the air? Chances are, you might have missed last night's excellent episode, since ABC seems hellbent on killing this awesome show. At least ABC seems to be doing right by its new hit sitcom Modern Family, which is easily the show I look forward to most each week now. It's doing well both critically and ratings-wise, so it doesn't need much cheerleading from me right now.

However, while waiting for Modern Family to air (since it's one of the few we like to watch live while it airs), I always happened to catch the last 5 minutes or so of the show that precedes it in the ABC lineup. And every time I saw those 5 minutes of The Middle I found myself laughing and sort of wishing I had watched the whole episode to get the joke in more context. Finally, we DVR'd a couple episodes, and I found to my great delight that it's actually a really delightful sitcom.

The Middle stars Patricia Heaton as the frazzled mom of a family living in the midwest. Her husband is played by Neil Flynn (better known as The Janitor on Scrubs). Both are well-matched, but the real stars of the show are the three kids, particularly Brick the youngest, played by Atticus Shaffer. The show feels like Malcolm in the Middle meets a G-rated Family Guy. I highly recommend you check it out - I think it's a pleasant little gem that's flying below a lot of people's radars right now.

I must also remind you that Parks and Recreation deserves your love as well. It had a so-so first season, which I know turned a lot of people off, but now... I can honestly say it is the best comedy airing on Thursday nights right now. If you've been on the fence, do yourself a favor, go over to Hulu.com and watch the episodes "Practice Date" and "Ron and Tammy".

Sci-fi goodness. Have you been putting off checking out FOX's sci-fi thriller from last season, Fringe? If so, you're missing out. Fringe is top-notch, and the show is finally hitting its stride. The first season started a little weak (I almost gave up on it after the first 6 episodes). But the latter half of the season was lots of fun, and the finale was simply mindblowing. I'm pleased to see the show exploring the Walter/Peter relationship more deeply, as at first I feared Joshua Jackson was there merely to serve as a love interest for Olivia. This is one I highly recommend you nab on Netflix - you won't be sorry.

Also worth your time - Syfy's delightful series Warehouse 13. The show finished its initial run, and I must say, it's a great little show. It may never be on anyone's Top 10 list, but if you like sci-fi and humor, I think you'll really like this show. Eddie McClintock's character Pete is a real standout - it's refreshing to see sci-fi where the characters are actually ENJOYING themselves, instead of brooding over their powers or whatever. Pete is one of those characters you look forward to spending time with each week. The other characters have started to come into their own as well, and the last few episodes have started establishing some worthy recurring villains to spice things up as well (the finale was a nifty cliffhanger that has me excited for new season).

Assorted other thoughts:

Upgrading the old icebox. I like the talk that the government might roll out a "Cash for Caulkers" program, where you'd get pretty significant rebates if you upgrade things like your washer/dryer, refrigerator, or A/C unit. Here's hoping it comes true, because my old fridge in my basement is a real clunker, and I've been craving a fancy new fridge for some time now.

Regarding the Facebook privacy drama: yes, it sucks that Facebook will sell your info to advertisers, etc. You need to read this post (and the related links in it) so you understand how the new Facebook privacy settings will affect you. On the other hand, they can't sell what you don't give them. If you don't want particular information about yourself out there, don't post it. Simply email your friends or call them when you want to share pictures and personal stories.

Facebook is a social networking site. Its very purpose in life is to share information publicly on various levels. While I do wish they'd be more close-hold with your data, on the other hand, it's not their problem to keep your secrets. Facebook is for sharing, not withholding. I personally don't share my address or phone number on there, and I only share one of my personal email addresses (my most "public" facing one). It's your personal responsibility to decide what personal info you want to share with the world. Don't assume that it will EVER be limited to just your friends. If you put it on the internet, you must assume that anyone can see it. I also reject a lot of friend requests on there - don't feel bad rejecting strangers, or even people who you are casually associated with.

That being said, the main thing I'd like to see, if I could have any particular privacy setting put in place, is actually the ability to block people from "tagging" me in photos, as I can't control what my friends post on their photo albums.

Spoiler Etiquette for Bloggers

2009-11-11T07:54:00.007-05:00

*** note: this post contains spoilers for the following works: Mad Men, Lost, Harry Potter, Star Wars

I'm a big fan of the blog Televisionary, and usually go out of my way to read it several times a day. Yesterday the blogger there, Jace, posted an interesting article about spoilers that got me thinking. He mentioned that he was irritated that a commenter had gotten upset that Jace had not properly warned about "spoilers" in one of his recent posts. Here's Jace's opinion on spoilers:

Here's where my views depart from the devout spoiler-phobe. I firmly believe that, once an episode has aired across the country, all bets are off. It's a free-for-all, as far as I am concerned. Writers, critics, bloggers, whoever, should be free to discuss the episode's intricacies and plot developments with abandon. There's no need to label a post, an interview, or anything as a "spoiler" because it's not spoiling anything.

The details about the latest episode's plots, reality series eliminations, character deaths, etc. are out there in the public consciousness. Consider them public domain, if you will. And the onus to avoid them isn't on the part of the writer but on the reader.

If by some bizarre occurrence (say, I was trapped on a Martian base being chased by a water-based homicidal creature), I was to miss an episode of Doctor Who or Lost, I would firmly expect to have plot points revealed in every single piece written about Doctor Who or Lost the following day.

Now, note that he is anti-spoiler, prior to the episode actually airing.

I'm not sure that I agree with him. I think his opinion ignores the reality of modern pop culture consumption - that more and more people use DVRs, and therefore the idea of a show being "must watch TV" is a dying concept. A large chunk of a show's audience may be time delaying their enjoyment of the show, so to suggest that they just avoid the internet at large until they can catch up seems a bit unrealistic.

Consider Thursday nights, where a hip pop culture fan must deal with the fact that the following shows all air within a 2 hour block: Grey's Anatomy, CSI (original recipe), Fringe, 30 Rock, The Office, Community, Flash Forward and Parks and Recreation. That's 6 hours of programming that interests me. Even if I watched some of them live, I'd have to stay up past midnight just to watch them all before the next day recaps/reviews start going up on the internet.

On the other hand, readers must give a little here too. The commenter who complained to Jace was a full 7 episodes behind on the show, and intentionally read an interview with the show creator. In that case, yeah... no kidding you're going to get spoiled. I also get Linda Holmes' point that knowing what constitutes as spoiler isn't so easy. She gives the following excellent example:

Suppose there is a news story proclaiming that Courteney Cox has been cast on The Office to play Pam's sister. (This is not true.) Is that a spoiler? Because I will tell you right now: some people think it is. Some people believe that is absolutely a spoiler. Some people believe that all casting news is a spoiler, and that spoilers cannot be in headlines, which means that a blog post about that would pretty much have to be titled, as near as I can tell, "Former Sitcom Star Cast In Supporting Role On Current Sitcom." And you would have no idea whether this would spoil anything you care about until you go to read the item, at which point I could tell you that it contains casting information about The Office, and then you can decide whether to read on.

And at some point, we have just entirely lost the quality of the discussion, because I am leading you through a series of security doors that 95 percent of people won't care about and will find cumbersome and frustrating, just so that you can avoid knowing that Pam has a sister who will be on an upcoming episode.

I am sympathetic to the fact that there's always going to be someone on the internet who's going to be upset about what they perceive as spoilers. You can't please everyone. On the other hand, you can follow some simple rules, both as a reader and a writer, that should satisfy 90% of the reasonable public.

Guidelines for bloggers/writers to address spoilers:

1) First and foremost - do NOT put spoilers in your headlines. That makes your blog/site a hostile place for readers to visit, because they have to worry about being spoiled just by doing you the favor of frequenting your site. The same goes for posting spoiler-y pictures on the main page. There's no reason to put up a post the day after the Mad Men finale aired in Season 2 with the headline, "Mad Men finale: Peggy tells Pete about the baby!" That just ruins a great moment for your readers who haven't yet seen the episode. If anything, that's a sure way to ensure readers AVOID your site, because they'll know you're that kind of person.

2) There's no harm in tossing a line at the top of your post saying, "This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of Show Y". Then it's fair to expect readers to proceed at their own discretion. It should be assumed that all previous episodes that aired prior to the one you're focusing on are also potentially spoiled in your post.

3) Before revealing a plot point that you know is significant to a work NOT directly related to what you're discussing as the main topic, ask yourself whether or not that spoiler is really worth tying in. This is where you have to apply what I call the "Under the Rock Rule": in other words, unless your reader has been living under a rock for the last 10 years, there's a 99% chance they should know this already. Classic example: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. EVERYONE knows that. You can't dance around the issue because you don't want to spoil it for that weird .0009% of the population who doesn't know about that. On the other hand, a particularly beloved work that you know many people haven't had the luxury of finding for themselves yet - maybe you want to keep that to yourself. This is more of a judgment call, but really....

4) WHEN IN DOUBT, SPOILER TAG IT. Really, it costs you nothing and maybe you'll win a reader's loyalty because they know you're being considerate of them. You can either spoiler tag at the top (like I have done for this post), and/or do an inline spoiler tag, like this: My favorite scene in *SPOILER ALERT FOR HARRY POTTER!**** Harry Potter is when Dumbledore dies **** END SPOILERS***.

Guidelines for readers to handle spoilers:
Now, it's not all on the authors out there to protect you, the reader, from spoilers. You need to apply a little common sense as well.

1) The general statue of limitations should be about a week. If you are more than a week behind on a show and you really want to avoid spoilers, the onus is on you to avoid pop culture sites on the internet where you know they talk about those things. If you are one of those people who wait to watch the season when it comes out on DVD.... you're going to have to accept that you either need to do a media blackout for yourself, or occasionally catch a spoiler reveal here and there.

2) Some sites recap episodes. Obviously, the nature of the recap means that they'll be discussing details of what happened. Don't go places like TWOP if you don't want to be spoiled (they often spoil in their headlines, which I don't appreciate, but hey... now you know). If your favorite blogger recaps, be aware of that, and be aware of whether or not they follow rule #1 above.

3) Casting news is not a spoiler almost 99% of the time. Don't give people grief about it.

4) The day after an episode airs, there's going to be a lot of content out discussing the previous night's episode. Reader beware. Again, it sucks when they can't control themselves and post headlines that reveal major plot points. But if you willingly "read below the fold" and drill into an article, you should assume you'll be spoiled on what happened.

Basically, you'll never please everyone, but I think that these rules are a good guideline overall. Remember, we blog because we WANT people to read out stuff, and by having a consistent policy regarding spoilers, we make it possible for readers to keep coming back to our sites knowing what to expect.

Paranormal Activity: Go See This Movie!

2009-10-25T21:57:00.004-04:00

Two Saturdays ago I went and saw the new horror movie Paranormal Activity with my boyfriend and a couple of friends. I can safely say this is one of the best horror films I've seen in the past decade.

A lot of people are going to compare it to The Blair Witch Project. And on one hand, yes, there are some similarities between the two films, most notably the cinéma vérité mockumentary style that the film is shot in. On the other hand, I think it's a real disservice to Paranormal Activity to compare it to Blair Witch, because I think a lot of people are going to assume that the same problems that plagued Blair Witch are present in Paranormal Activity.

First of all, the characters are approximately 110% less hateful than the shrieking, terrible people who populated The Blair Witch Project. The structure of the film demands that the characters push the envelope a little bit in terms of unreasonable behavior, so you will need to be able to live with the idea that someone would actually take the time to film a loved one having a terrified breakdown instead of immediately comforting them. However, though the male lead tries your patience a touch, ultimately by the time things get really hairy, he's fairly sympathetic.

Second of all, Blair Witch had moments where it felt like the action was just sort of meandering all over the place. In contrast, Paranormal Activity is very tightly plotted and executed, and because of that, the film has an incredible tension that continuously ratchets up over the course of 86 minutes. By the time the final few night time scenes rolled around, my stomach was literally aching from the stress of it all (I mean that in a good way).

I don't want to spoil any of the plot points, so I'm going to stay very vague here. I dislike films where the scares are strictly about people popping out of doorways unexpectedly, or loud noises/soundtrack spikes that catch you off guard. That's sort of cheating. My favorite kind of horror is the when a film delivers an idea or an image that truly sticks with you. That's what Paranormal Activity does so well - there are parts of this movie where just seeing certain images is going to make your skin crawl. It's an almost entirely blood-free movie, yet still manages to be terrifying, which is a nice break from the standard gore fests such as the Saw franchise that seem to be the only other horror films available right now.

Sufficed to say, if you like horror at all, go see this movie right away. It MUST be seen in a theater for several reasons. First, it's the kind of thrill that's tons of fun when surrounded by hundreds of people feeling the same horror you are (in fact, this will be the only time you'll ever see me suggest you actively seek out the busier times on Friday and Saturday nights, since in this case, crowded = good). Second, the sound design is really top-notch, and you'll want the full effect of the theater, since this is just not going to look or sound as great on your home setup.

I can't recommend this film strongly enough. It's a must-see for any true horror fan (we discuss this film and other scary things on my podcast this week, for those of you who want to hear all this in audio form. http://nerdaverse.com).

one word of caution: if you get motion sickness easily, this may not be the movie for you, because there's a lot of shaky handheld camera work in this film.

Meet the Nook, the new e-book hotness of the week

2009-10-20T15:16:00.006-04:00

Courtesy of Engadget, here's a picture of the newest e-book reader, dubbed "the Nook", from Barnes & Noble:

According to the article posted at Engadget, the new e-book reader will feature several intriguing Kindle-killer features:

Built-in WiFi and free 3G connectivity, to better enable impulse buying
An SD slot, so you can expand the memory as needed
FULL COLOR!!!!
Pretty excellent battery life (up to 10 days, if you disable WiFi)
Touchscreen
Most importantly - the "LendMe" feature, which will apparently allow you to transfer the book to other readers for certain period of time. The #1 thing that had been keeping me from committing to an e-book reader has been the inability to lend/give books away once I'm done with them.

It looks great, and is priced competitively to the Kindle. Like the Kindle, there is a version of the software available for the iPhone as well, which is good for people like me who already own one of those little lovely devices.

I'm very interested in this new product, so we'll see what other details trickle out as the release date gets closer. I'm very excited at the thought of being able to buy extra batteries for it, as well as the ability to "easily download" PDFs. I'd like to learn more about how that would work (I just hope and pray that we'll be able to do the smart and easy thing, using the USB connector to transfer directly from your computer to the device, versus Kindle's bizarro "email it to yourself").

Thoughts? Anyone out there as psyched about the new device as I am?

edited to add: Make sure you read the Engadget article for a full video demonstration and all the sexy ass details you can shake a stick at.

Welcome to the Dollhouse (season 2)

2009-10-08T21:11:00.014-04:00

Good news. Dollhouse is back!

Bad news. It might not be back for long!

The ratings for the new season of Dollhouse have been abysmal. Ratings for the premiere were pretty bad, but dropped even more the next week. This is a sad thing, because I really liked some of the stuff I saw in the last few episodes of the season. And then I finally got around to seeing the infamous never-aired 13th episode, "Epitaph One" and that desire to see more Dollhouse was further strengthened within me.

First things first: if you haven't seen Epitaph One, you need to stop right now and go download it on iTunes or via Amazon's Unbox site. Ironically, the best episode of Dollhouse ever (and seriously, it's good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as some of the finer episodes of other sci-fi series such as BSG, Lost and Babylon 5) is the one episode that will probably never air on regular television. Anyway, obviously this post will contain spoilers for that episode, so do yourself a favor and see it first - you deserve to experience its mind-blowing revelations without being spoiled.

Here's some thoughts, based on what I saw in Epitaph One, as well as the first two episodes of Season 2:

Eliza Dushku is not a bad actress. Contrary to what a lot of people think, she's had some moments where she's shown what she's capable of bringing to the table. Consider the scene in epsiode 1 of season 2 ("Vows") where her new husband (played by scrumptious BSG vet Jamie Bamber) attacked her. Her face ran an incredible gamut of emotions, and you really felt the persona's wit and intelligence, as she was convincing enough to delay her fate for at least a little while.

The problem with Dushku is that I think she's better in a supporting role. Her natural charisma is best utilized in the role of a foil for other characters. In the lead role on Dollhouse she's being asked to be, in many ways, the straight man among characters. This isn't her strong point as an actress, and it's compounded by the fact that her character is still too broad - we have a great sense who Victor, Sierra and even Mellie/November are, but I feel like Caroline is still too poorly fleshed out to be worth cheering for as a protagonist.

However... watch Epitaph One, and you finally (FINALLY!) get a sense of what Dushku might be able to do with the character, if Echo is allowed to finally evolve into a persistent character. She's shown hints of it in the first two episodes, as we're made aware that Echo DOES retain some level of consciousness about events, even as she's being driven by her various personas. Epitaph One shows us what Echo will eventually become - a master personality who can simultaneously have consciousness at the same time as her current persona.

The real star of the show, though, is Whiskey . I enjoyed Amy Acker's work on Angel (especially once her Illyria personality emerged), but I never would have guessed at how great she'd be in this very limited role on the show. Part of it is definitely her skill as an actress, since she's proven she can be more versatile than Dushku. But part of it is also that Whiskey's just simply a more interesting and compelling character than Echo. Echo is just trying to get back to who she was - Caroline - and that's not that interesting for me (partially because I found original Caroline to be sort of annoying). Whiskey, in contrast, will probably NEVER go back to being who she once was. Her struggle with her sense of self - what it means to have a soul, what it means to question every impulse you have - is so much more profound because of that fact.

It was interesting to see Whiskey struggle to understand who she was with the Dr. Saunders personality embedded in her. Her pain at knowing that her phobias were something that someone else intentionally embedded into her was really visceral. I also found it really fascinating that the scars that once used to cause her pain now became a safety net of sorts for her, as she reasoned that remaining "broken" in that way was an insurance policy against Adelle Dewitt re-enlisting her to serve as an Active.

We can see in Epitaph One that many of Dr. Saunders strongest personality traits live on in Whiskey even after she reverts to Doll form. The poignant ending of that episode shows Whiskey once more serving as the caretaker to the lost souls roaming the Dollhouse (or what's left of it). We also see that perhaps a part of her never conquered her fears of leaving, despite the semi-hopeful ending of Vows.

I still have trouble seeing how this show is going to get from the present to the results of Epitaph One. I love so many of the ideas of Dollhouse, but my ongoing struggle as a viewer (and as a fan trying to get other viewers interested) with the show is that often the execution isn't living up to the ideas being pitched each week. For example, it's nice to see Alexis Denisof (a.k.a. Mr. Alyson Hannigan) pop up as a senator investigating the Dollhouse, but those scenes are a classic example of how the show often violates a central rule of writing: Show, don't tell. We see the senator yelling about how BAD and EVIL the Dollhouse/Rossum is, but we don't really get a good sense of why that is, exactly. In the present tense, the Dollhouse seems by and large like a particularly high tech brothel. 90% of the viewing audience doesn't really understand the endgame present here, because the show is mostly concerned with having characters TELL us things could get bad, instead of showing us just what that means.

The problem is that, for all it's excellence, Epitaph One isn't technically a "real" episode. While it's available online, it's never aired, and therefore a good chunk of the viewing audience has never seen the actual scenes that demonstrate (instead of just telling) what the Dollhouse tech can really lead to. For example, there's a great scene in Epitaph One where the Higher Powers send down a messenger personality that gets imprinted onto Victor. It's then that we see exactly what the larger plan behind the Dollhouse really is - permanently selling the bodies of the Dolls to rich and powerful clients who wish to live forever. Epitaph One also establishes that in the future the technology has evolved far enough so that ANYONE can be imprinted remotely, even without being specially fitted as the Dolls in the present are. Topher posits that you could robo-call a whole city and instantly have an army of mind-wiped slaves. These are two totally chilling scenes and really help the viewer understand what's at stake in this particular universe. But again... they're stuck in an episode that hasn't aired, and so it's hard to consider them part of continuity.

One of my complaints about Dollhouse is that it sometimes moves too slowly. I think the second episode, "Instinct", is a perfect example of that. After the drama of the finale, plus the season opener, the show had a good head of steam going. So, it was disappointing to see the show take a step backwards and produce a monster-of-the-week format episode immediately after that. The problem is that what was great about Epitaph One - the passion of the various characters, the urgency you felt as a viewer, the dark and driving tone of the show - are often not present each week. It's very frustrating.

Random thoughts:

The most important thing ever: Victor's face is back to normal. Yay! It's also interesting that Adelle obviously hasn't totally given up on her affection for him.
Victor still loves Sierra.
Boyd loves Whiskey. I thought Whiskey was being a little unfair with Boyd, since it seemed pretty clear to me last season that he was attracted to her, even before he knew she was a Doll. Epitaph One shows that this relationship does progress, even if they sadly don't end up together. Amy Acker just totally killed me when she tearily confessed that she wished that they would have had more time together before the world went to hell.
Whiskey's psychological warfare with Topher was amazing to watch unfold. Not only did Acker bring her A game, but Fran Kranz was also incredible as we saw Topher really struggle with the idea that this game he's been playing at might be more harmful and dangerous than he ever realized. Many people have criticized the character for being too flip about his work - I've even seen people accuse him of being a sociopath. But I think that between Vows and Epitaph One you can see that Topher is anything BUT an uncaring sociopath. Indeed, we see in Vows that his happy-go-lucky persona has begun to crack, as he's confronted by the result of his handiwork in the form of a vengeful and psychologically damaged Whiskey. You can see the pain he feels at the realization that Whiskey chose on her own to hate him. In Epitaph One we see the final end for Topher, as it appears his role in orchestrating the literal end of humanity has driven him insane, reduced to a weeping child.
I'm disappointed that you had Apollo and Helo back together in the first episode, and neither of them had their shirt off. Boooooooo. Dimly shot wedding night scenes are no replacement of a full on daytime shot of Jamie Bamber topless.
You know what, show? It's not immortality if your consciousness doesn't survive. That's Whiskey's whole point about giving up the Dr. Saunders personality. That consciousness would cease to exist if they put a new personality into her. What the Dollhouse tech does is NOT the same as transferring your consciousness to a new body. It's making a copy, and that's a totally different thing. It's cloning your mind, not transferring it. If you were to clone me, and I was then standing in a room with my clone, I wouldn't go, "Oh, well, I can totally die right now, because hey I'm still going to live on." No, you'd go, "Hmm... better kill my clone before it gets any funny ideas about stealing my place."
Apparently in the future Alpha is an ally, so I guess we don't have to worry about him getting killed off any time soon.

Anyway, we'll see what happens the rest of this season. FOX hasn't canceled the show yet, but on the other hand, keeping it exiled on Friday night and paired inexplicably with their new sitcom Brothers (not exactly compatible demographics) isn't doing it any favors either.

In the meantime, let's enjoy what we've got. Summer Glau is guest starring on a future episode (as is Michael Hogan and Keith Carradine), and hopefully we'll start getting much closer to the events hinted at in Epitaph One. Hopefully you enjoyed this belated review - did I do my best?

100 Worst Movies of the 2000s

2009-10-01T13:38:00.009-04:00

Now, I got a lot of crap from friends about my non-review review of G.I. Joe, with many of them stating that I wasn't allowed to diss a movie I hadn't seen. I mostly thought, "Well, if it looks like shit, stars actors that I know are shitty, and/or are directed by shitty directors... it probably is safe to avoid because it probably shit and I don't need to throw 10 bucks away to prove something I already know." In other words, while you shouldn't judge ALL books by their covers, I think it's still fair to judge SOME books by their covers. I mean.... how good could this be:
Anyway... Courtesy of the Onion AV Club, I stumbled upon Rotten Tomatoes' "100 Worst Reviewed Films of the last decade." The fact that I've managed to avoid seeing almost ANY of these proves to me that my policy regarding judging certain films from their trailers and advance reviews is certainly a good way to keep from wasting your hard earned dollars. From that list, here are the Worst Films I've actually seen, along with my excuse (feel free to peruse the list and share in the comments section which ones you've seen and why):

#94 - The New Guy
Okay, I saw this movie mostly because D.J. Qualls was pretty funny in Road Trip, and because it has Eliza Dushku in it. And at one point in the movie, Eliza rides a mechanical bull in a very seductive fashion. That fact, plus the fact that there are at least 5-6 legitimately funny parts of this movie, make it a decent enough experience that I don't regret seeing this in the theaters for the cost of a matinee ticket.

92 - Babylon A.D.
I didn't pay to see this movie, but caught it when it came around on HBO. I was curious to see how it was, because the trailer was amazing, so I thought at a bare minimum it'd probably have good special effects. Plus, it starred Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh, who are both great action stars and freakishly charismatic even when saddled with poor material. I was well aware that the movie was a potential disaster, because the fights between the director, star and studio are pretty well documented. And yeah... it was pretty much a hot mess. Since I saw it for free and was really really bored at the time, I can't feel too bad about watching this. There were several moments where the film hinted at the decent story it COULD have been, given better circumstances.

70 - New Best Friend
Another one that I caught on cable. I'm not sure why I watched this, other than the glee I probably felt watching Mia Kirshner's obnoxious character get killed on screen. Trashy and terrible stuff.

47 - Soul Survivors
I watched this because it had Eliza Dushku in it. And clearly, I can't be trusted to make good decisions when she's involved (see: my comments for #94 on this list, plus my endless prattling about Dollhouse). This one is ALMOST in the category of "So bad, it's good".

42 - House of the Dead
You know what? This is one of my favorite bad movies of all time. It's biggest "stars" are Clint Howard and Jürgen Prochnow. It has a cast of 30+ year old actors attempting to pass themselves off as teenagers in the wood for a "rave" (one of the worst raves ever committed to screen, by the way). For no reason, it features a female character who spends the entire movie running around in a jumpsuit emblazoned with red and white stripes, with one breast featuring a blue background with white stars. And her name is Liberty (get it? get it?). And to top it off, it's directed by the master of schlock, Uwe Boll. I watch this shit at least once a year. It's a special, special film that can only be appreciated with a fifth of vodka and a close group of friends who will help you heckle this one. LOVE IT.

27 - Battlefield Earth
Another film you shouldn't apologize for seeing. This is one of my favorite "comedy that doesn't know it's a comedy" kind of movies. Gloriously cheesey. Vain and self indulgent. Worthy of the finest MST3K treatment. I celebrate this film in all its terribleness.

26 - Kickin' It Old Skool
It's a terrible film that I was nonetheless happy to watch. There are a few good chuckles in here. I don't know... maybe the Jamie Kennedy Experiment finally wore me down to the point where I submitted to his comedic charms (seriously, did you see the episode with Bob Saget?). I was also optimistic, because Kennedy's last film Malibu's Most Wanted was actually much better than people gave it credit for. The same, sadly, cannot be said of this film.

23 - The In Crowd
I love when movies about romantic rivals (in this case, two blandly hot chicks) is really more about the homoerotic subtext between the two characters. Yes, the maintext was about the two girls fighting over the stud in the cardigan. But the delicious lesbian subtext was pretty epic. Plus, there was murder(!) involved. Good enough for me, though I wouldn't exactly recommend this to anyone other than a true connoisseur of so-bad-it's-good cinema.

1 - Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
Not only did I see this in a theater for full price, I actually convinced an entire group of friends to go see it with me. I.... have no excuse. There aren't enough adjectives in the English language to describe what a total failure this film is.

NFL Week 3 breakdown

2009-09-27T20:28:00.031-04:00

Let's start this post off with a quote from one of my favorite movies:

Every newspaper in the country has picked us to finish last. The local press seems to think we'd save everyone a lot of time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves. Me, I'm for wasting sports writers' time. So, I'd like to hang around and see if we can give 'em all a nice big sh**burger to eat.

With that in mind, let's talk about which teams' local media should get their ketchup ready.

Oh my god, they actually won. No team exemplifies this quote more than the lowly Detroit Lions. Losers of 19 straight games, they hadn't won since December 2007. Well, luckily the Washington Redskins were accommodating enough to help the Lions break their losing streak. It was a pretty exciting game that had me on the edge of my seat. The Lions defense, normally porous, particularly in the secondary, managed to buckle down for once when the going got tough. The rookie QB Matthew Stafford had his first interception-free performance, and looked like he was actually having fun for once. RB Kevin Smith turned in his first 100+ yard rushing performance of the season as well, despite leaving the game with an injury in the second half.

In the locker room after the game, head coach Jim Schwartz remarked that people seemed awfully excited about winning a game that they expected to win. And while it's understandable that the Lions are relieved to have this 900 pound monkey off their backs, on the other hand, he's totally right - this was a game that many expected the Lions to win.

The difference between bad, mediocre, and good teams is this: bad teams lose games they should win, mediocre teams win the games they're supposed to and lose the ones they're supposed to (see also: Bills, Buffalo), and good teams win games that they aren't supposed to. Up till now, the Lions have been a bad team, imploding when the chips were down, losing to teams they had in their sights (rare as that was, there were a few last season). Now, the Lions can count themselves as a mediocre team. Surprisingly, that's okay. A 3-12 season would be something to build on (and looking at their schedule, they should only be expected to be 2 of the teams listed there).

With those definitions in mind, it's a bit early to be certain, but it sure looks like the Cincinnati Bengals (long mocked as "The Bungles" by the press) are in danger of being classified as a good team. They've now won two games in a row that no one expected them to (and really, their loss to the Broncos was a total fluke, so I'm giving them a pass on that). True, the wins weren't pretty, but on the other hand I attribute part of that to Carson Palmer being rusty coming off his recent injuries. If he gets into a groove, I predict Cincinnati might get even better on offense. I'm also shocked that Cedric Benson, a dud for so long, actually looks like the real deal this year. Looking at their schedule, I count 5 games they should win (CLE twice, DET, OAK, KC), which leaves them about 3 games against opponents that are challenging, but not impossible (SD, CHI, HOU). That would put them at 10 wins, which would position them well for a wild card spot.

In any case, even if they suck the rest of the year, that was still an exciting victory over their hated divisional rivals. Palmer started the game shaky, but showed real poise and leadership in the fourth quarter. Their final drive was a real nail-biter that included not one, but TWO 4th down conversions to keep the drive alive. I'd also like to note that on the final Hail Mary heave by Rothelisberger, the Cincinnati DBs went out of their way to make sure they batted the ball DOWN this time. That gave me a good chuckle.

If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style. Meanwhile, there are several teams lined up to take over where the Lions left off as Kings of Loserville. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers used to be a power house on defense, but so far this season they've looked like a sure thing for offenses who need to get a boost in their stats. Not that the Tampa Bay offense is much better - this week they post 86 yards of total offense (54 of which came late in the 4th when the Giants had the game well under control), converting 0 of 9 third downs and scoring no points. You've got to think that the floundering Washington Redskins can't wait to play Tampa Bay next week.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland QBs seem to be in a competition to see who can play worse. Brady Quinn had his big chance to shine this year as the starting QB, but instead played poorly enough that he was yanked for Derek Anderson - who promptly threw 3 INTs yesterday. Cleveland.com's website cleverly labeled the game "Carnage on the Chesapeake". Consider that it could have been even worse if the Ravens hadn't pulled their starters in the fourth quarter out of mercy.

The Miami Dolphins aren't a bad team, but they're not that good of a team either, and they have a pretty tough schedule this year. While I think they'll win some games this year, they really need to start considering looking at Chad Henne to see if he can really be their QB for the future. I love Chad Pennington, but having no big passing game is really killing the Dolphins right now. Imagine how good Ronnie Brown might be if there was an actual passing threat teams had to guard against.

Vick who? For all the hullabaloo about Michael Vick and where he might fit in the Eagles organization after this year, the real story has been the performance of young QB Kevin Kolb these past few games. Kolb was drafted to be the quarterback of the future after aging starter Donovan McNabb leaves, and he's definitely given the Philly faithful a reason to be optimistic moving forward. Of course, we'll still have to see how he performs one day in a game that is actually close - he threw INTs against the Saints, but that's going to happen when you play from so far behind, and you don't exactly get a prize for beating up on the Chiefs. Last year's meltdown was against the Ravens, and frankly you can't blame him for that one - the Ravens made a lot of otherwise good QBs look terrible last year.

Vick was pretty much a non-entity in the game: he only got 10 plays or so, and he wasn't even the best Wildcat QB out there - rookie RB LeSean McCoy did a better job running plays out of that formation. At this point, you have to wonder if Vick might only be the 4th best QB on that roster right now. Also, with the way Kolb has played and the way JaMarcus Russell has played, do you think maybe Jeff Garcia might be regretting asking to leave Oakland so early?

Random quick thoughts. I get a lot of complaints from people in the comments section that I don't give their favorite team enough love each week, so here are some quicky bites on some other teams that played this week:

- I think the Falcons needed to put a lot more pressure on Tom Brady this week. That's why they lost: he had too much time in the pocket to think about how he wanted to destroy them. The Falcons also need to find a way to get the Michael Turner bus rolling again.

- The Chargers look pretty good, but I'm a little unsure about their run game right now. Luckily Philip Rivers is willing to throw the hell out of the ball while they work that out.

- I thought Houston spent the past few years drafting high profile defenders to improve. This year they seem hell-bent on awarding fantasy football glory to every opponent they face.

- Arizona has serious offensive line issues. That's why they can't run and that's why Kurt Warner was rushed most of the game yesterday.

- I think there might be something seriously wrong with the Seattle Seahawks conditioning program, as the program is riddled with injuries for the second season in a row early in the year. Also, WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THESE JERSEYS?

Seriously. Maybe players were faking injuries this week so they wouldn't have the embarrassment of playing in these jerseys. Between this and the horrific jerseys the University of Oregon sports, it's clear that the West Coast has some kind of weird fashion dementia.

Studs of the week. Call me crazy, but the HBO series Hard Knocks has converted me into a closet Bengals fan. And the series also helped inspire my love for some of the role players on the team, like Brian Leonard. This week he awarded my love with an amazing effort on 4th down to keep the final drive alive, plus he caught the 2-point conversion that ensured that a Steelers FG could only tie the game.

Peyton Manning is a beast (24/35, 379 yards, 4 TDs). I also love the way Joe Flacco has become a big game QB this year, posting his best effort yet for yardage (25/35, 342 yards, 1 TD), and continuing to lead a shockingly potent Baltimore offense. Imagine what he could do with a true #1 WR that could run down passes thrown by that huge arm of his. However, it's not like the ageless Derrick Mason isn't pulling his share of the offensive load (118 yards, 1 TD).

Good for you, Maurice Jones-Drew for having a huge game (118 yards, 3 TDs). But could you please try to do it next time on a week when I'm NOT playing your owner in fantasy football?

Lastly, Brett Favre still has a little magic left in his seemingly bottomless bag of pixie dust. Did you see that throw on the final play of the game? Just awesome. I'm not even going to quote his stats for the day, because that's not why Minnesota was so eager to sign him - single plays like the toss to Greg Lewis are why they signed him. If there were hints of a schism in the locker room, I'd say it's safe to assume all the boys in purple are squarely behind him for now.

Duds of the week. My god, just when you think JaMarcus Russell can't get any worse, he turns in an even worse performance the next week. How long can the Raiders continue to justify starting a QB that goes 12/21 for only 61 yards, 2 INTs, and takes 3 sacks? He has thrown for a TOTAL of 378 yards in the past 3 weeks - which you'll note is 1 yard fewer than Peyton Manning threw for in a single game.

Teams I like this week. The NY Jets look mighty fine. So do the New Orleans Saints. So I guess it's lucky for us football fans that they meet up next week to decide if the Jets have what it takes to contain the Saints offense. Despite their heartbreaking loss to the Vikings, the 49ers are still the real deal and I still like what I'm seeing out of that program. Lastly, if the defense tightens up a bit, the best team in the AFC (or perhaps the whole NFL) might be the Baltimore Ravens.

Teams I don't like this week. The Oakland Raiders' conduct both on the field and off the field (read this bizarre story about them attempting to ban Rich Gannon from their facility) continues to be an embarrassment. The way the Washington Redskins are playing, I think Jim Zorn might be fired in their bye week, barring some kind of miraculous turn around before then. Their division is just too competitive for them to lose to teams like Detroit (and nearly to the lowly Rams the week before).

**photo credits (all images borrowed from AP/ESPN, ohgoddon'tsueme)
Matthew Stafford image by AP Photo/Paul Sancya
Cleveland Browns image by AP Photo/Gail Burton
Seattle's horrible uniforms image by AP Photo/John Froschauer
Kevin Kolb image by AP Photo/Michael Perez
JaMarcus Russell image by AP Photo/Ben Margot

Fall TV: Finding The Diamonds in the Coal Pile

2009-09-24T08:01:00.005-04:00

In case you're wondering what's entertaining me these days, here are the shows I'll be following along with this fall (and perhaps blogging about, if I have time):

Must-Watch Shows

1) I must say - the pilot episode for the new sitcom Modern Family was absolutely stellar. I haven't seen a pilot this strong in a long time (perhaps back to Arrested Development). If you missed it, you can watch it online here. Highly recommended. It's sort of like The Office crossed with Married... With Children (and I mean that in a good way).

2) Dollhouse is back! And all reports are that it's much improved. The fact that they poached some more great Battlestar Galactica actors (Jamie Bamber appears in tonight's season opener, and Michael Hogan pops in at some point as well) probably helps. Joss Whedon also took advantage of the cancellation of The Sarah Connor Chronicles to pull the excellent Summer Glau back into his fold. And really... could anyone LOOK more plastic and doll-like than her?

3) Parks and Recreation started sort of wonky, but picked up good steam towards the end of the season. Last night's premiere was really great - highlights include Chris Pratt really committing to flinging himself into an open pit head-first - and gives me hope that the show has found its comedic footing.

4) On the sci-fi front, I'm also still excited about the reboot of V, which is coming in November. Advance word is that the pilot is awesome. Finally, Stargate gets another spin-off show, when Stargate: Universe launches later this fall. The cast (Ming Na, David Blue, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Robert Carylyle to name a few) is stellar, and it looks like this show's going to be a lot darker than previous ones.

5) I don't need to tell you why I'm watching 30 Rock, The Office, Mad Men, How I Met Your Mother and Fringe. They rock and you all know it.

6) Don't forget, Dexter returns this Sunday on Showtime. And John Lithgow is the season long guest star! Wooooo! Anyone who saw Lithgow in "Raising Cain" knows he can be one scary mo-fo when he wants to be.

Shows With Potential

1) I liked the first two episodes of NBC's sitcom Community, so I'm tentatively in for now. Joel McHale is perfectly cast, as is Chevy Chase. I'm not sure how the rest of the cast is going to work for me, but it's early so we'll see.

2) I like the singing on Glee, plus Jane Lynch is delivering comic gold week after week, which allows me for now to endure the more annoying aspects of the show. It's got tons of potential, but needs to figure out what kind of show it wants to be. Tonally, it's all over the place. Does this show want to be a dark comedy that exposes life in high school (a la Election), or does it want to be an optimistic, everybody sings and dances sort of show (a la High School Musical).

3) You might want to check out ABC's new show Flash Forward (I DVR'd it and will comment more once I watch this weekend). I love serial drama/sci-fi shows when they're done right, so we'll see how this one turns out. It's got a good cast, and it's a promising sign that the showrunners plan to answer the main mystery by the end of the season.

NFL Week 2 breakdown

2009-09-20T20:56:00.017-04:00

Wow, what an exciting week of football. Let's get down to it.

The panicfest has been postponed till next week. There's a hilarious tendency for fans to freak out after Week 1 of the NFL regular season. I have several friends who were ready to give up on their team for the season based on one performance.

Let's start with the Bears fandom, who last week saw Jay Cutler throw 4 INTs and their star linebacker Brian Urlacher leave the game with a season-ending wrist injury. My Facebook feed was overwhelmed by friends posting things like, "Oh god, there goes the season" and "If we wanted 4 INTs, we would have kept Grossman."Well, those fans have to feel a lot better after watching Cutler perform fairly well (27 for 38, and no INTs this time) against the Steelers defense (still a tough group, even with the loss of superstar Troy Polamalu). Though I'm still not 100% sure that the Bears will do much this season - since this win was partially about Jeff Reed's failure to convert critical FGs versus any spectacular defensive play - it's got to feel good to pull off the victory, especially at home. Good teams know how to win when the chips are down, when they're playing a team that might be better than them. The Bears will need to win a lot of tough games this year if they want to make the playoffs. However, I am very concerned about the Bears seemingly abandoning Matt Forte, their best offensive weapon, in their rush to take advantage of Cutler's abilities.

Also bouncing back from horrific implosions last week were the Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals and the Oakland Raiders. Of those teams, I think Cincy has the most to be proud of. They played a pretty good game, and of the 3 teams, I think they're the most solid. Cedric Benson has run strong now for 2 straight games, and the passing game is slowly getting back in sync (you can tell Palmer is still struggling to find his rhythm after missing most of the pre-season with an ankle injury).

The Raiders lost a game they should have won last week against the Chargers, so I guess they felt compelled to win a game they should have lost this week. The Chiefs had 409 total yards of offense compared to the Raiders' 166 yards, but made more mistakes - 2 INTs and twice the number of penalties as the Raiders - that ended up costing them the win at home. I have a feeling this might be a long and unhappy season for KC again.

The Bills won a game that they should have. That's all I can really say about that - good for Trent Edwards for taking more shots down the field, I guess. I'm still not optimistic about their chances, because I don't believe they can win games that are close or where they're expected to lose.

Good for the Arizona Cardinals, who bounced back from a bad loss last week and got their offense back on track. More on Kurt Warner's record breaking performance later in this post. I'm also quite pleased, for selfish reasons related to fantasy football, that Larry Fitzgerald has now gone two weeks in a row avoiding the dreaded Madden curse.

Lastly, the Eagles fan who moaned and groaned about McNabb getting hurt again have to feel good about the way Kevin Kolb performed yesterday. Yes, the Eagles lost, but I have a feeling that Drew Brees is going to make a lot of otherwise solid defenses look foolish when he rolls into town. The last time Kolb played, he looked like a frightened bunny rabbit. This time, Kolb looked a lot more in control. Yes, he had turn overs, but that's going to happen when you throw over 50 times and are trying to keep up with the most potent offense in the NFL.

On second thought, go ahead and panic. The following teams actually should be panicking a little, since I see some bad tendencies that could blossom into big problems if they continue this season.

The Redskins could barely muster enough enthusiasm to beat the lowly St Louis Rams. I look at this offense, and I see a group of 11 guys playing uninspired football. The WRs aren't performing up to snuff, and there's legitimate concern over Jason Campbell's ability to truly put the team on his back. Also, Clinton Portis can't cheat age and wear on his body forever. You can't afford lackluster output like this when you play in the toughest division in football.

Attention Kansas City: when you can't even beat the Raiders AT HOME (where the Chiefs used to boast a huge advantage), you need to start panicking a little. I'm not sure head coach Todd Haley has the right temperament to deal with this team. If he thinks he's going to scream them into playing better, he's not going to have any voice left at the end of the season. They have to play the Eagles next week, which could be very ugly.

Lastly, the Jaguars are 0-2 and they can't get fans into the seats. This is a franchise that's in serious trouble. The fans (what few they have, based on attendance and general buzz) should be freaking out, because at this rate, can Jacksonville really hang onto their franchise much longer? Is it possible the Jags might move in the near future?

Studs of the week. I have a feeling that I'm going to get tired of writing "Drew Brees" here week after week. He's a robot (25/34, 311 yards, 3 TDs). He must make opposing defenses crazy - you KNOW he's going to pass, and yet you can't do anything about it. He has more TDs than quarters played this season (9 TD in 8 quarters).

Speaking of phenomenal QB performances, special props to one of my favorites Kurt Warner, for his record setting performance. I'll just quote SI.com's Peter King here: "His 24-of-26 passing day, 92.3 percent, is the best in the 90-year history of the league. He's getting older, but he might also be getting better." Also, I don't like Philip Rivers as a person, but I must give him mad props for his performance (25/45, 436 yards) in that heart-breaking loss. It's just a shame that the team didn't trust the ball to his capable hands on the last play of the drive.

And speaking of that play... oh my god. Did you see the tackle by Ray Lewis on 4th down with the game on the line? Simply one of the best defensive plays I've ever seen. Words can't do justice to the awesomeness displayed here (though Michael Silver comes close in this outstanding article you HAVE to read) - check out the video (the play in question starts around 4:55 or so). That is what we call "outstanding individual effort." Lewis also had 12 tackles and forced a fumble. Another player who elevated his team with his individual play on defense is the NY Jets' Darrelle Revis - learn that name, because he's a rising star.

Last, the Houston/Tennessee game was an orgy of amazing offensive performances. Chris Johnson ran wild (197 rushing yards, 2 TDs, 87 receiving yards, 1 receiving TD), but Matt Schaub went wilder (25/39, 357 yards, 4 TD), squeaking out the win after a poor performance the week before. What's amazing is that someone managed to top Chris Johnson's yardage, as Frank Gore had two HUGE runs of 79 and 80 yards, on his way to a 206 yard, 2 TD day.

Duds of the week. One of the main criticisms leveled at the Cowboys last year was that Tony Romo couldn't win when it counted. Judging from his performance (13/29, 127 yards, 1 TD, 3 INT) last night, he hasn't really fixed those issues in the off-season, even with Terrell Owens run out of town. His 3 INTs were simply terrible (2 returned for TDs). He looked awkward and nervous in the pocket all night, and he cost the Cowboys a critical divisional win. Meanwhile, the Brady Quinn era in Cleveland is off to an ugly start. And Willie Parker, where are you? What happened to the vaunted Pittsburgh run game? Did you know that instead of JaMarcus Russell, who is now 19/54 (35.2% completion rate) with 1 TD and 2 INT for the year, the Oakland Raiders could have drafted Adrian Peterson, which would have then allowed them to select a QB the following year when guys like Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco were floating around?

Teams I like this week. Don't look now, but the San Francisco 49ers are 2-0, with two division wins under their belt. I think the New Orleans Saints are the most terrifying team out there right now, especially if their defense steps up their game at all. The NY Jets might just be the real deal, especially with that defense. The Atlanta Falcons and the Baltimore Ravens are both 2-0 and helmed by QBs that are thus far avoiding a sophomore slump.

Teams I don't like this week. The Cleveland Browns really need to learn to tackle. I'm also thinking that maybe the New England Patriots' long streak of having an old defense and little-to-no consistency in the run game is finally starting to fail them. Tom Brady needs help once in awhile, guys, especially since the O line is looking particularly suspect this year. Though both the Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders inexplicably won this week, I don't like what either team is bringing to the table.

**photo credits (all images borrowed from AP/ESPN, ohgoddon'tsueme)
Bears image by AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
Redskins fumble image by AP Photo/Nick Wass
Chris Johnson image by AP Photo/Wade Payne
Giants interception image by AP Photo/LM Otero

Monday Night Football Madness

2009-09-15T12:49:00.008-04:00

Normally, I probably won't blog about the weekly Monday Night Football matchups*, but since ESPN decided air back-to-back games and screw all East Coast residents that need to actually, you know, WORK and shit early in the morning, I guess I'll go ahead and discuss last night's results.

It was the best of times.... Watching the pre-game show, Chris Berman mentioned that the Bills had announced their plan to play in the no-huddle offense for the entire game. He then pitched it to his fellow commentators to discuss. Tom Jackson made a valiant attempt to be fair-minded, but eventually settled on (paraphrasing here), "I.... I.... I just.... it just seems like a bad idea to give the Patriots offense MORE time to beat on you." Other hosts Cris Carter, Mike Ditka and Keyshawn Johnson couldn't even manage that, breaking down into giggles almost immediately at the thought. Naturally, I went into the game thinking that I was about to see a disaster unfold.

Surprisingly enough, though, Alex Van Pelt (the new offensive coordinator) put together a very solid game plan. Trent Edwards looked really in control of the offense, which was a promising sign. Though much will be made of the fact that T.O. only caught 2 balls, he did exactly what he was supposed to do - pull double coverage on deep routes. This allowed the Bills to take advantage of the defense by running screens, draws and crossing routes. Fred Jackson was on his way to earning a game ball for the way he gutted out several huge runs that kept drives alive. The Bills defense dug its heels in and stopped the Patriots on 4th down twice. Things were looking like they were headed for an upset with just over 5 minutes to go.

The second game of the night - featuring another predicted division winner against a team that no one thinks will be any good this year - unfolded much in the same way. The Raiders, expected to suck as they usually do, matched the Chargers blow for blow, with newly acquired Richard Seymour anchoring the defense (6 tackles, 2 sacks). Then suddenly, miraculously, JaMarcus Russell had a moment where he lived up to his billing, as he tossed a gorgeous 57 yard TD pass on 4th down that put the Raiders up with just over 2 minutes to go. The Black Hole was rocking.

... it was the worst of times. There is a competition among fans of certain franchises to see which team truly is the more woeful. Cincinnati had already made their case for Most Woeful with their bizarre last minute loss to the Broncos. However, clearly the Bills and Raiders weren't to be counted out so easily, as both teams imploded in the worst way. The difference between good teams and bad teams is that good teams know how to finish, and bad teams do not.

In some ways, the Raiders loss seems a little less painful, in that they did go blow-for-blow with the Chargers the whole night. The Chargers simply had the final blow that sealed the game in their favor, as Darren Sproles ran in the go-ahead score. The Bills, by contrast, were more spectacular in their utter failure. They gave up a TD before the 2 minute warning, but were still up by 4 points. All they had to do was run the clock out, or at least take a good chunk of time off the clock (and drain the Pats remaining time outs), putting the game in the defense's favor. However, Leodis McKelvin fumbled the kickoff and Tom Brady capitalized on it by quickly driving for the game winning TD. That the TD came to the same exact receiver on the same exact route as the previous score was just extra salt for the Bills' wounds.

Random thoughts. First, the Richard Seymour trade isn't looking so insane anymore. He clearly made the Raiders defense better immediately. And seeing the Bills tear apart the Patriots defense for a good part of the night made me think perhaps the Patriots were premature in letting Seymour go.

Second, the "B" crew for ESPN was simply horrific. Mike Greenberg, Mike Golic and Steve Young were terrible commentators. Listening to the game, I thought that ESPN had strolled down to the local sports bar and just randomly picked 3 guys off bar stools to work the game. At one point, Golic went off for several minutes about how he would like to change the rules about illegal contact. He was stunningly uninformed about the nuances of why the rule was in place, and what the ramifications of his proposed change would be. It was embarrassing. Greenberg was slightly better, and I do enjoy him on his radio show, but wow... his voice is not suited for color commentary work at all. Nasally and too high-pitched.

Third, I don't believe in moral victories, but the Bills did a lot of things right that they should be proud of.

Lastly, I think the Chargers will be fine this season, and they'll probably still win the AFC West. The Patriots I'm not quite as sure about. They looked really rusty on offense (which will probably improve), but they looked very vulnerable on defense (which might not improve, especially if Jerod Mayo is out for awhile). I'm curious to see how Rex Ryan reacts after this game, as the Patriots O line looked like it could barely stand a 4 man rush. I expect to see a lot of crazy blitzes from the Jets next week.

Studs of the night. Tom Brady and Philip Rivers both started rusty, there's no doubt about that. Sometimes players are studs because they put up gaudy numbers. However, these two are studs this week because they showed real poise and leadership when it really mattered, putting their teams on their backs and willing them to victory. Though the Bills lost, you have to admire the way that Fred Jackson ran all night long, and the impact that Aaron Schobel had. And when the game was on the line, it wasn't LT that got the call - it was Darren Sproles (who also had a killer return earlier in the game). You never want a TE as your leading receiver, but Zach Miller was simply excellent.

Duds of the night. LaDainian Tomlinson didn't look sharp at all. He lacked the quick step we've seen in previous years. All the speed in the world can't help Darrius Heyward-Bey if he can't catch the damn ball once in awhile. And I'm getting sick of hearing that JaMarcus Russell is a work in progress. A third year starting QB simply cannot go 12 for 30. That's horrible. Even if you spot him Heyward-Bey's two drops, he's still below 50% completion. Leodis McKelvin should be punched in the throat. That is all I have to say about that.

*you can always message me or discuss the games in the comments section of my weekly wrap up posts.
**photo credits (all images borrowed from AP/ESPN, ohgoddon'tsueme)
Bills are excited image by AP Photo/Stephan Savoia
McKelvin fumbles image by AP Photo/Steven Senne
Raiders/Chargers image by AP Photo/Marcio Sanchez

NFL Week 1 breakdown (2009 Edition!)

2009-09-14T07:46:00.011-04:00

Well, a lot of folks told me they liked my NFL-related posts last year (and by "lot", I mean, "one or two, including my mother"). Anyway, they're back, so hopefully you'll enjoy them.

It's a Hard Knocks Life for the Bengals. During training camp and the pre-season, the Bengals agreed to be the team featured on HBO's reality show "Hard Knocks", which showed life behind the scenes at camp and let you get to know the players and coaches in a more intimate way. Watching the show, I realized the following: 1) I kinda sorta liked Chad Ochocinco more than I ever expected; 2) Carson Palmer is a total weirdo; 3) Marvin Lewis is totally fucking scared for his job this season. Hard Knocks was interesting because I found myself getting attached to this lovable band of losers and secretly cheering for them during their game against the Broncos. However, I forgot that this team isn't nicknamed "The Bungles" for no reason, as they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by allowing a miracle TD pass to Brandon Stokely with 27 seconds remaining in the game. Frankly, this was a must-win game for the Bengals: with the next two games upcoming against the Packers and Steelers, it's looking like the Bengals will start the season 0-3 (barring their own miracle). Marvin Lewis is right to fear for his job - nothing less than a playoff appearance and win will save his job, and it's going to be almost impossible to recover from an 0-3 start, especially since they have to play the Steelers once more during the season, and the Ravens twice.

While the Broncos certainly weren't impressive, needing the miracle catch to save the game for them, you can't underestimate what this victory means for the team. First, it gives Josh McDaniels his all-important first official win as a head coach. Second, there's nothing more dangerous than a team that believes it can win, even in the face of seemingly impossible odds. The Broncos play two cream-puff teams next (Browns and Raiders) - they could conceivably go 3-0 to start the season, which will go a long way towards silencing the critics and nay-sayers who were down on the team after the Cutler/Marshall fiascoes.

Speaking of scenarios that can be labeled "The Cutler Fiasco".... How horrific was Jay Cutler's performance last night against the Packers? 4 INTs on 36 pass attempts (for a 1:9 INT-to-attempt ratio). To be fair, however, not all the blame can be laid at Cutler's feet. Chris Collinsworth (who I am LOVING so far as a replacement for Madden) pointed out that at least 2 of the INTs were due to receivers quitting on their routes, or failing to run the proper route. The last INT looked like it was the fault of the rookie WR, who let the safety muscle past him for the pick.

Despite Cutler's poor performance, the Bears were still in the game up to the very end. However, the Bears made some bizarre decisions (including a fake punt on 4th and 11, from their own 30 yard line) that cost them the game as much as Cutler's turnovers. I thought the play calling on offense was bizarre. You have a RB in Matt Forte who had over 1,000 yds rushing last year and over 60 catches. And what do you have him do? Stay in the back field to help block, as Cutler throws pass after pass to guys like Devin "I can only run in a straight line" Hester and Earl Bennett. I have no idea why the Bears thought it was a good idea to take their best offensive weapon out of the picture on play after play, especially since he showed poorly ability as a blocker (I watched him miss several blocks, including ones where he had help).

I Like Mike. The commentator doing the Cardinals/49ers game made an interesting observation that the marketing campaign in the Bay Area for the San Francisco 49ers doesn't feature players, but rather an inspirational series of images and sayings of head coach Mike Singletary. Much has been made about Singletary's attitude - from the bizarre pants-dropping episode of last season, to bawling out Vernon Davis, to running a reportedly brutal training camp this year - but it seems that his hard-nosed approach to life and football is popular with fans. More importantly, after watching the 49ers stay physical with the Cardinals and pull out the close win, there's evidence that perhaps that approach is paying dividends on the field as well. Singletary has been vocal about not wanting to be the face of the franchise, as the article above states:

Singletary has adamantly stated that he doesn't want to be the most famous person wearing 49ers colors. He would rather have the distinction go to a player, or several of them, dropping him deep into the fame depth chart.

Still, until players like Frank Gore and Vernon Davis establish themselves, there are worse things than having a strong head coach that brings a toughness that the franchise has lacked for some time now.

Studs of the Week. This is sort of a no-brainer. Obviously, Drew Brees had a ridiculous day, throwing for 6TDs and 358 yards. It's funny that this is the same guy San Diego couldn't wait to get rid of, who was told all his life he was too small to play the QB position, who people thought would never fully recover from his shoulder injury in 2005. Yeah. Suck it, doubters.

In other news, Adrian Peterson is still awesome (180 yards rushing, 3 TDs). However, fantasy players shouldn't expect this every week - these two won't have the benefit of facing the Lions and Browns every week. Tony Gonzales rewarded fantasy players who spent early draft picks on him with a #1 WR-esque performance, catching 5 balls for 73 yards and 1 TD. With that performance, he becomes only the 21st player in NFL history to break 11,000 yards receiving. Tony Romo had one of the best performances of his career, putting up 355 yards passing and 3 TDs (insert obligatory "T.O. Who?" quip here). Finally, Joe Flacco registered the first 300+ yard passing game of his career, torching the Chiefs for 325 yards and 3 TDs.

Duds of the week. Semi-stolen from Peter King's "Goat of the Week", but I had to add this section, just so we can talk about how terrible Jake Delhomme was. In the past 2 games (last year's playoff game, and yesterday's game), he's thrown 9 INTs. No, that is not a typo. In an effort to perhaps show faith in Delhomme, the Panthers failed to go out and get a quality backup for him. Methinks they're regretting that decision right now. I've got the Panthers high on my list of "People who need to be calling Jeff Garcia right now". Also failing to impress anyone is Larry Johnson, which pleases me, because from all reports he's sort of a bastard. And I do enjoy watching bastards fail.

Teams I like this week. This week, I like the 49ers, who played solid football and contained Arizona's high powered offense. I also like the Jets, who got a nice performance out of rookie QB Mark Sanchez, and delivered on the promise of a Baltimore style of smash-your-face-in defensive play. I thought the Packers also looked good (though I would have liked to see more of a ground game), and the 3-4 defense seemed effective, especially at containing the run.

Teams I don't like this week. Just because they won doesn't mean the Broncos were particularly impressive. And starting week 4 they'll have to deal with Dallas, New England, San Diego, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, so it could get real ugly real fast for this team if they don't improve. I'm also disappointed the Detroit, Kansas City and Cleveland looked their old selves again this year. Lastly, the Houston Texans looked terrible.

**photo credits (all images borrowed from AP/ESPN, ohgoddon'tsueme)
Broncos image by AP Photo/Al Behrman
Bears image by AP Photo/Jim Prisching
Drew Brees image by AP Photo/Bill Feig
49ers image by AP Photo/Paul Connors

Life As A Game Designer (preview)

2009-09-11T13:34:00.002-04:00

Last night my co-host Mark and I sat down and recorded Episode 14 of our podcast "Across the Nerdaverse". We were both very excited to welcome David Leung of Twisted Pixel Games to the show. Here's a little preview of what you can expect in the upcoming episode:

Dave joined us to give us some insight into his creative process as Art Director behind games such as The MAW, ‘Splosion Man. He also gave us a little tease of Twisted Pixel’s newest project Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley. Check out some of the videos below to get a sample of the fine work being turned out by Dave and the crew at Twisted Pixel! Episode 14’s release will be announced via our Facebook Group as soon as it is ready! Click here to join the Facebook Group and receive updates on new episodes as they are made available!

While you're waiting for the episode to drop, be sure to go on Xbox Live Arcade and play these two titles. I can personally recommend 'Spolsion Man - it's a highly addictive platformer that's just tons of fun.

The Maw

‘Splosion Man

Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley

DragonCon Day 1 Adventures

2009-09-05T00:58:00.011-04:00

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but I had a few notes and pictures to share from DragonCon 2009 here in Atlanta.

My cousin recently expressed surprise that I'd be "one of those kind of people" - you know, a D&D nerd, the kind of person who'd dress up and go to a convention where other equally nerdy people were sporting their own bizarre and elaborate costumes. But the truth is: that's just who I am, and I'm actually pretty okay with that.

Here's what I love about nerd and geek culture: it's a break from the normal Vogue and Hollywood notions of beauty and coolness. According to mainstream culture, you aren't allowed to be larger than a size 4 and you can't express interest in things like dragons and sci-fi and fairies in mixed company. But at places like DragonCon you can dress up in a hoop skirt, strap on a leather tool belt and parade around in your finest steampunk outfit, and by god... you are hot. You are beautiful. You can make jokes that draw blank stares at home, and you'll have people shouting back the proper response and/or cracking up at the pop culture reference you just dropped.

I got to the convention this morning at 9am, stood in line for registration for almost 2 hours (unacceptable, and a blight on an other wise excellent day) and finally got to start hitting the panels and show floors. This particular convention is huge - it fills up 4 hotels in the downtown Atlanta area, and almost every ballroom is packing to capacity all day long. I spent a good part of the day running from panel to panel (sample sessions attended included a writing seminar, a panel on the upcoming Hobbit film and a Q&A with the excellent Terry Gilliam), hunting for autographs on the Walk of Fame and people watching. As you can see from the photos posted here, the costumes are simply amazing - a lot of love and creativity went into these outfits, and I can't wait to see the parade tomorrow morning.

I ended the day with a midnight screening of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The organizers arranged a Rocky Horror Picture Show style reenactment, where performers acted out the action on the screen, as the whole audience sang along and shouted at the screen. There's something simply amazing about being in a room full of fans, singing at the top of your lungs, buzzing on the collective energy and excitement of those around you. As an added bonus, one of the stars of the movie (the always lovely Felicia Day, who I've gushed about on this blog before) popped in to say hello and to introduce the film. Anyway, it was a total blast - if you ever get a chance to do something like that, I highly recommend it.

New Cowboys Stadium the Picture of FAIL

2009-08-24T21:53:00.003-04:00

What do you get for $1.2 billion? A grotesque new stadium where the scoreboard is so low that punt kicks hit it, apparently. Right now the NFL competition committee is looking into the issue, and thus far Jones has refused to fix the issue on his own. Here's an interesting quote from Bill Polian (courtesy of Peter King at sportsillustrated.com):

"The irony is that our stadium architect [at new Lucas Oil Stadium] wanted to hang the videoboards the same way in our stadium,'' Polian said. "So we put a metal beam about 90 feet above the ground and had our punter at the time, Hunter Smith, punt the ball up there trying to hit it. He hit it the majority of the time. That's why we put our replay boards on the wall.

Please note that while it may be difficult, the screen CAN in fact be raised. According to the NYTimes, U2 will be playing a concert there in October, and the screen will be raised to accomodate the stage.

Also, check out this amazing video from GeekBrief.tv, where we see the fabulous seats available in this brand new stadium:

Please note that apparently the cheapest seats in the stadium are $59. I can only hope that the seats shown in the video above are at least the cheap variety (in truth, I can truly only hope that the Cowboys wall off those seats and NEVER sell them).

Of course, if you happen to score seats in the luxury suites (available for between $100,000 and 500,000), you have the opportunity to pay $60 for a plain cheese and pepperoni pizza.

Nerd Pin-up Girl Returns With Hilarious Music Video

2009-08-18T11:18:00.006-04:00

Check out this new video from the excellent and hilarious crew from the web series "The Guild", entitled "Do You Want To Date My Avatar"?

Now, riddle me this: why aren't networks falling over themselves to sign Felicia Day to a long term contract for a TV show?

For those of you who aren't Felicia Day superfans and have no idea who she is, allow me to recommend a few works she's been in.

1) If you can roll with the idea of a show about people who playing World of Warcraft excessively, you absolutely need to check out The Guild. You can get it free on Xbox Live or Zune, or you can download episodes via Amazon.com and so forth. Even if you're not super familiar with WOW, you should be able to mostly keep up (though a few choice WOW jokes will probably go over your head)

2) Apparently some of you are STILL resisting seeing the greatest musical ever, because I have had several friends tell me that they haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Do yourself a favor and go pick this up immediately. Not only does it star the lovely Ms. Day, it also features the fabulous Neil Patrick Harris as the title character Dr. Horrible, and cult favorite Nathan Fillion as his nemesis Captain Hammer.

3) Lastly, if you were following my Dollhouse posts, you may be interested to know that you can watch the fabled 13th episode of Dollhouse, "Epitath One", that never aired via Amazon on demand. I'll be reviewing the episode eventually. Anyway, Felicia plays a prominent role in this one-shot episode that hints at the dark future that awaits the Dollhouse and its members.

Why You Should See District 9

2009-08-13T09:09:00.005-04:00

Since my last attempt to thwart the trend of mediocre movies earning box office receipts out of proportion to their actual level of quality fell short, I'm going to try a different tactic this week. This week I'm not asking you to avoid a movie that I suspect will be bad. Instead, I'm asking you to take a chance on a movie I strongly suspect will be one of the best films of the summer.

Before I launch into my tirade, let me get this out up front:
I have not seen District 9, and therefore it's possible I'll be wrong and the movie will be awful.

Let me tell you why that doesn't matter:
You bitches owe me for G.I. Joe.

Anyway, this movie's been on my radar for some time now. It'd had been getting great buzz among the geek and nerd community for awhile. While there are a few red flags with this film (no-name cast, a director with almost no resume to speak of), overall, all signs point to a good experience.

Reasons why you should see this movie:

1. The critics are going crazy over this. Right now, it's at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes (though that number will fluctuate as more reviews pour in). Now, let me put this in perspective. I had a commenter in my G.I. Joe post accuse me of "needing critics to tell me what to think about a movie." Well, no. I'm capable of making up my own mind. However, critics serve as an important litmus test, especially when looking at their scores in a batch, like Rotten Tomatoes does. If everyone universally loves a movie (or hates it) - that's a pretty strong indicator of what to expect. When a movie in a genre that traditionally doesn't appeal to the high brow set of critics (Ebert, the Village Voice) garners praise, you really need to look at that and say, "Wow, if [critic X] can be persuaded to love a sci-fi film, it may just be as good as he says." I don't take much notice of Roger Ebert when he bitches about a film having giant robots fighting, because frankly, that kind of movie isn't for him. But when I see an Ebert type raving about a film in a genre he normally isn't into, that makes me take notice.

2. It's a movie you probably know almost nothing about. And that's a good thing. Before you run out and read all the glowing reviews mentioned in #1, consider this: when was the last time you really got to see a movie without knowing all the details in advance? I went and saw The Hangover, and it was pretty good - but I didn't love it as much as my friends, and part of me thinks it's because the damn trailers gave all the jokes away. When you know too much about a film in advance, it colors the way you follow the action, because there's always this part of you going, "Well, I know so-and-so doesn't die, because he was in a scene in the trailer that didn't happen yet. I'm also pretty sure that the big twist will turn out to be [whatever]." What I'm chasing as a movie goer is that amazing feeling I had seeing The Matrix for the first time - the "holy shit, that blew my mind, I never saw that twist coming!" sensation that to this day makes me happy to even think about.

3. Peter Jackson is involved. Now, he's not the director, but he's been a big part of producing and promoting this film. And when you see Peter Jackson, you know that his WETA special effects shop is probably involved as well. That's a Very Good Thing. WETA's work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy was the first time I really felt like a CGI effect really looked real - you don't detect any hint of a green screen, and the actual physical work the shop does in terms of costumes and makeup is simple top-notch.

4. There are aliens (and what appears to be a giant robot).

5. It's set in South Africa. Face it - aren't you kind of sick of seeing the same locations (Paris, Washington DC , New York City, L.A.) blown up in movie after movie? Well, here's a change of scenery for you to enjoy. Also, aren't South African accents awesome?

6. I know almost nothing about the plot, but the tiny hint that I have picked up hints that story will be just as important as special effects in this one. Here's all you need to know on that front: aliens have landed in South Africa, they're shoved into a special ghetto (the "District 9" of the title), and they may be oppressed in some fashion. Hmmm... sound familiar to a social problem from that country about 2 decades ago? This is a movie that will hopefully provide more than "shit blows up, heroes posture, bad guys lose, the end" plot for once.

7. Despite the promise of plenty of plot and character moments, don't despair action fans. I'm pretty sure lots of things are still going to blow up. And again... with WETA involved, those things that blow up are probably going to be freaking awesome.

8. Show Hollywood that a movie can be a success even without an obnoxious marketing campaign and a trailer awash in douchey rock music. Check out the excellent viral site for the movie.

9. You already saw G.I. Joe and Inglourious Basterds doesn't come out till next week, so nothing else is out.

10. Maybe they'll show an Avatar teaser before this one. Who knows?

I'm not saying you need to buy into the hype, and I'm not 100% sure this will be the greatest action movie ever made or anything. But when I see a small budget film like this come along that I fear will slip under a lot of people's radar, I like to promote it and give it a chance.

If you really need to be persuaded by a trailer, watch it here in HD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PDlMggROA

If you do see the movie, please post your spoiler-free thoughts here (or wait till I review it early next week, where you can spoil all you want).

Your Scarlet Letter Now Applies to Facebook

2009-08-12T15:22:00.002-04:00

The governor of Illinois just signed a bill into law that makes it illegal for registered sex offenders to use social networking sites. In other words, no perverts allowed on Facebook.

On a emotionally charged level, it sounds good, because yeah... no one wants little Sally or Jimmy getting pop up chat messages from Danny the Child Molester. But consider the latest Economist cover article, which argues that the definition of "sex offender" is so broad in the United States that a lot of innocent people are going to get caught up in this.

Many people assume that anyone listed on a sex-offender registry must be a rapist or a child molester. But most states spread the net much more widely. A report by Sarah Tofte of Human Rights Watch, a pressure group, found that at least five states required men to register if they were caught visiting prostitutes. At least 13 required it for urinating in public (in two of which, only if a child was present). No fewer than 29 states required registration for teenagers who had consensual sex with another teenager. And 32 states registered flashers and streakers.

Imagine getting drunk one night when you're a stupid 21 year old. Imagine that in your drunken stupor you drop trou and pee on the side of a building in an alley. Along comes a cop, and boom! now you're a registered sex offender. And now you can't use Facebook anymore.

The Economist article is really quite well done - I highly recommend that you all read it. In the meantime, anyone concerned with free speech had better hope that the courts have some sense and strike this new law down as unconstitutional.

One of the more interesting points brought up in the article points out that the lack of granularity in the enforcement of sex offender laws ends up wasting a lot of time and money for local government.

If there are thousands of offenders on a registry, it is harder to keep track of the most dangerous ones. Budgets are tight. Georgia’s sheriffs complain that they have been given no extra money or manpower to help them keep the huge and swelling sex-offenders’ registry up to date or to police its confusing mass of rules. Terry Norris of the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association cites a man who was convicted of statutory rape two decades ago for having consensual sex with his high-school sweetheart, to whom he is now married. “It doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make him a threat to anybody,” says Mr Norris. “We spend the same amount of time on that guy as on someone who’s done something heinous.”

Now factor in the fact that in Illinois, SOMEONE has to actually enforce this law regarding social networking. Will the state waste money hiring people to troll Facebook all day, attempting to match profiles there against known sex offenders? How can you be sure that someone's account is actually matched to a real life sex offender?

Smart criminals will easily circumvent this - it's ridiculously easy to set up a Facebook account under an alias. Anyone can go to an Internet cafe to hide their digital footprints, should authorities go so far as to monitor the network activity of each and every sex offender at home. Meanwhile, perfectly innocent people who made the mistake of having teenage sex once upon a time run the risk of being punished for logging on to Facebook to share pictures with their adult friends.

It's easy to revile sexual predators because we all assume they're all monsters, just waiting to pounce again. And certainly some of them are. But the current classifications are simply unacceptable, and hopefully people will start realizing that some of our laws are borderline cruel when it comes to how we treat sex offenders. A paroled murder might have a body count of a half dozen or more on his record, and he's allowed to move in next door to me, with nary a peep. But a guy who hired a hooker - well, he has to do the walk of shame up and down his neighborhood, announcing his crime to every single person. His name is in a database that anyone can search, including his employers, his friends and any person looking to enact a little vigilante justice on a "scumbag."

Look - this is like being scared of rabid dogs, and then deciding that you should kill any and all small mammals you see, just in case (including cats and bunnies and so forth). It's insane.

Why You Shouldn't See the G.I.Joe Movie

2009-08-04T12:15:00.008-04:00

Don't be this guy. This guy is someone who, in the future, went and saw the G.I. Joe movie on opening weekend. He obviously regrets his decision. You've probably been this guy before, contributing to the opening weekend box office receipts of terrible films like Transformers 2 and X-men Origins: Wolverine.

I had a good friend email me and say, "Admit it. You're just a little excited to see the new G.I. Joe movie, aren't you?" The answer is, "No. No I am not. In fact, the only excitement I feel can best be categorized as 'frothing-at-the-mouth rage'."

Before I launch into my tirade, let me get this out up front:
I have not seen the G.I. Joe movie, and therefore it's possible I'll be wrong and the movie will be great.

Let me tell you why that doesn't matter:
If I'm wrong, you lose nothing but the chance to see it opening weekend. It will still be in theaters next week. If I'm right, however, you'll save some hard earned cash and the two hours you would have wasted on what I suspect will be awful.

Anyway, I've been dreading this release for some time now. Let the record show I warned you people over a year ago about my concerns. But, now that more details have come out, I've been able to refine my argument a bit. Here you go:

Reasons why this movie is going to suck:

1. It has a Wayans brother in it. Now, in hands of a capable director such as Darren Aronofsky, Marlon Wayans is capable of turning in a nuanced and lovely performance like he did in Requiem for a Dream. In the hands of a bad director, Marlon Wayans is capable of turning in such stunning work as White Chicks, Little Man, and my personal favorite Dungeons and Dragons. It takes a lot of skill to be the worst actor in a movie like D&D, but Mr. Wayans pulled it off.

2. Speaking of directors, the guy who helmed this also directed Van Helsing and the first two entries in The Mummy series. All three of those movies were some level of terrible, and all three suffered from really awful special effects. Since "awesome special effects" and "popcorn movie" keep getting thrown around when talking about this movie, you should be very worried about Stephen Sommers's track record.

3. Don't be fooled by the 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Those numbers are skewed, as almost none of the top critics will get a chance to weigh in before the film opens. When a studio refuses to screen a movie in advance, that is a VERY BAD SIGN. Film.com has a good article on the types of films traditionally not screened for critics.

4. Another bad sign: the movie is being released in August. Traditionally, releasing an big action film in August is a sign that the studio doesn't have faith that the movie is very good. Everything I read from the studio execs smacks of bull.

"`G.I. Joe' is a big, fun, summer event movie — one that we've seen audiences enjoy everywhere from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to Phoenix, Ariz.," said Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures.

Yeah. That quote (from this article) = "So screw you, East and West Coast. The heartland loves this crap."

5. Why is Sienna Miller famous? Can anyone explain that to me? She's pretty, yeah, but in a very generic kind of way. She's not a great actress. Her claim to fame seems to be more about who she's fucking and stealing away from their wife at the moment.

6. Remember that great theme song "A Real American Hero"? Well, forget that, because for some reason G.I. Joe is now an international squad. In fact, even though they've stolen the name from the comic and animated series, this movie seems to bear little resemblance to the original works.

7. Duke used to be an awesome second-in-command. For some reason Duke is no longer a seasoned First Sergeant, but a punk ass young guy played by Channing Tatum (a.k.a. the douche from Step Up and Step Up 2: The Streets). Yes, because what Duke needed was a more "hip" edge. Barf.

8. If reports are true that The Baroness is no longer Eastern European but now Canadian, then... WTF? What is she the Baroness of, exactly? Was the change made because Sienna Miller couldn't do the accent the right way?

9. Accelerator suits? Why?!

10. I have to believe that, on some level, even Hasbro knows this isn't the right way to tell a G.I. Joe story. I mean, yeah, they're going to take the money from toy sales, etc. But... there's a reason they went out and hired Warren Ellis to write an animated G.I. Joe movie. Because it was fucking awesome and it was everything that a G.I. Joe story should be - exciting, fast-paced, respectful to the original comic/series while still making a story that would resonate with contemporary audiences. And there was no reason that the story Ellis wrote couldn't have been made into a live action film if they really wanted.

In any case, like I said, if the movie releases and the critics rave over it, I'll gladly go see it. I'll be the first to say "my bad" if it turns out to be awesome, and then I'll post a full and glowing review. But the smart bet this weekend is to skip this (sample dialogue from this movie clip: “Emotions are not based in science, and if you can’t quantify or prove something exists…well, in my mind it doesn’t.”).

Here's a quick list of things you can do instead:

If you want to see a movie involving the military, see the amazing Hurt Locker instead.
If you want a fun popcorn movie, go see Star Trek again, catch Drag Me To Hell, or go rent Taken at the video store.
If you only have money for one movie this month, save your cash and see what I suspect will be the true action sleeper of the summer, District 9.
If you want a movie your kid will enjoy, rent Coraline or The Incredible Hulk instead.

Remember kids, knowing is half the battle.

OMG Lingerie Football! Now Excuse Me While I Die A Little Inside

2009-08-03T08:11:00.005-04:00

wtf?

Courtesy of Yahoo! Sports Shutdown Corner and Philly.com, allow me to share this video, where the QB of the Philadelphia Passion explains how they're going to pass and run and all that good shit this season in the Lingerie Football League.

"We're going to defense each other". Yes. Peyton Manning could not have expressed the essence of football more passionately and clearly. The "With Leather" blog has a hilarious comment on this new league that you should check out (far be it for me to reprint and ruin someone else's funny joke).

I assume that most of my readers out there don't need me to go on a rant about all the ways this offends me. I am going to trust that you people recognize on your own all the levels of total wrongness going on here. I will say that as a former rugby player, I cringed at the one girl tackling the other girl up around the shoulder pads. Also, as a former rugger, I wish I had a better body so I could play in this league, because I would totally lay those Buffys out.

I'm instead going to talk about women's pro sports. Sadly, the Lingerie Football League is probably the only way you're going to see women be paid for playing football. I know there are some pro women's leagues out there (in fact, I'm flirting with trying out for my own local team, the D.C. Divas). Still, here's my issue with the idea of calling that sort of league "professional":

1) You have no feeder league for the "pro" league. You can't be a professional player if you've never played the game before. The game of football just calls for too many specific skills and too much position-based knowledge to acquire in a year or even in 5 years. In addition, having no feeder leagues means your talent pool is diminished, because you don't have millions of young girls being introduced to the sport as players. You only get people like me, who are crazy enough to want to start playing football later in life.

2) The title of "professional" would indicate to me that the players make enough in salary to make a significant impact on their personal finances. I'm not sure they make ANY salary, to be honest, and not near enough to sustain a living without having another job. It sort of seems like "well-sponsored amateurs" would be a more accurate description of where the sport of women's football is at this point. Also, according to the Divas website, you have to PAY to tryout for the squad which... feels a touch sketchy to me, if I'm being honest.

3) As a fan, there's a certain level of skill you expect if someone's going to sell a game to you as "pro" level. And again... with no feeder leagues, you aren't getting anything close to men's professional football. You're not even getting close to high school football levels of play.

Looking at other professional women's leagues, I think they've come a long way. Again, the main leagues - the WNBA and WPS - do have great feeder leagues. More and more young girls are getting involved in soccer and basketball. Women's college hoops were already exciting at an almost pro-level, so there wasn't a big leap to make to go pro. Plus, there were already star athletes from the U.S. going overseas to play their sport professionally, so there was a good pool of experienced pros to choose from when the WNBA started.

However, obviously both leagues are struggling financially. It's well known that several WNBA players still need to play overseas in the off-season or carry some extra job to make ends meet. Several WNBA franchises were shuttered this season as well (no collapse was more devastating to me than the Houston Comets closing up). The WUSA league folded in 2003 after losing a significant amount of money. The new WPS league seems better poised to survive long term (though whether pro soccer - men's OR women's - will ever truly catch on to the levels of the big 4 in the US remains to be seen).

Part of me wonders if this is a chicken-or-egg scenario. Because you only get truly awesome levels of players when there's a strong incentive for those players coming up through the feeder leagues to work their butts off, to sacrifice and strain and push themselves to the limits of their sport. Men's pro leagues now benefit from players who have single-mindedly pursued the heights of their sports almost their entire life. That's because they can look at something like Matthew Stafford's rookie contract ($41.6 million guaranteed) and know that there's a substantial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

On the other hand, you can't get those kind of financial rewards unless interest in your sport supports that kind of revenue. And you can't get that kind of buzz and hype unless you have players who are remarkable athletes, who play at the highest level. Passion for the game is very important, don't get me wrong. On the other hand, passion alone never put food on the table (nor did it buy a yacht and a lot of bling).