Cuz We Said So

New York, Times Square, Sunday, Midnight

Quite a lot like noon with the circus in town anywhere else.

Damn this Bush Economy VIII - Woo hoo!!

Wall Street Bulls Power Dow Industrials to Record High

"Ahmadinejad: We Won't Forgo Nuke Rights"

Well, that’s all well and good, except that:

a)  You can’t forego what you never had… but it is interesting to watch how Iran—and the AP—seeks to use the language of entitlement against us.

b)  How unfortunate that he’s under the impression he has a choice.  Not surprising, giving the performance of the League of Nations, but unfortunate.  The perception should be corrected.

Heroes

I'm a sucker for shows with high-concept premises and serialized storytelling and glitzy cinematography. I mean, yeah, I know everyone loves "Lost". But I was the guy for whom "Surface" was destination television. One of the things that intrigued me about "Surface" (and has, indeed, become a staple of television nowadays) is the concept of vaguely related plotlines that take forever to intersect.

"Heroes", NBC's new show about a bizarre collection of nascent superheroes, takes that show structure to a new, perhaps unmaintainable, level. I watched the premiere the other night. There were, essentially, six different plots to follow: the web-stripping single mom (spooky mirror image), the Texas cheerleader (regeneration), the nurse and his politician brother (flying), the junkie painter (precognition), the Japanese working stiff (teleportation and time travel) and, not-quite-tying them all together, the Indian researcher (who seems unmodified... so far!).

Some of the non-reveals felt particularly obtuse, and, unsurprisingly, the pace of the show is somewhat leisurely. But I found myself not annoyed by the dreamy-eyed nurse and his super-pragmatic brother. I rooted for the researcher in his quest to finish his father's work. And, as did every other reviewer, I loved the Japanese guy and his bouncy subtitles. The Japanese sequences felt really authentic, not like Americans spouting lines in a foreign language, but like actual Japanese people in a Japanese TV show. (The writers even had the stones to name him Hiro.)

The final act twists weren't all the big surprises they were supposed to be for me... but at least one (involving the cheerleader) did throw me for a loop.

As I understand from reading about the show, there are many more character to introduce. If the producers can keep this many balls in the air without sacrificing continuity of story or tone, this could be a great show. More likely it'll fizzle before a single season is complete, but I can hope it doesn't.

Fun with Ink Blogging

(Here's the link to the plugin.)

You're spending too much time on a Tablet PC when...

...you're reading a book and you catch yourself glancing at the bottom right corner of the page in an effort to tell what time it is.

Math Genius

Via immense world.  I can relate.

Wheaton on The Naked Now

Wil Wheaton has a synopsis of the Start Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Naked Now" up at TV Squad  It is amusing.

Studio 60

Saw the pilot last night. So, yeah, I did enjoy it, but I'd enjoy anything with Matthew Perry in it. He may be the funniest guy on the planet. I didn't really not like anyone in the show, but only Perry's Matt really stood out. I think Amanda Peet's Jordan has promise. And I'm a sucker for any cast member of "Wings", so I'm happy to see Steven Weber again. I was slightly annoyed at how Sarah Paulson's Harriet was handled. Why is it that any character that's Christian has to be All-Christian-All-The-Time? Hopefully they'll spoon out the references to her faith a little more judiciously over the course of the season.

So I like it, but it's not "The West Wing".

I figured something out a few years back about what I like on TV. I like my comedies to be free of big ideas, about people with small problems that I can laugh at. Friends. Frasier. The Office. My Name is Earl. (Scrubs doesn't fit this criteria... but it doesn't fit many criteria at all.)

OTOH, I like my dramas to be about people with terrible, stressful, insanely important jobs that make my life seem simple. 24. ER (back when I watched it). The West Wing. House. (Even Lost, assuming that not pressing the button causes as much trouble in the wide world as it seems to.)

While Studio 60 is well directed/written/produced/acted, I just don't know if it's gonna be destination TV for me. Is there something in this world less important or less relevant than the success of a late-night sketch comedy show? I know the pilot got kicked off in grand fashion by Judd Hirsh and a tirade against censorship, but, really, in the grand scheme of things I'm not too worried about the ability, in the age of the internet, of varying points of view to be expressed.

I guess if I feel like Studio 60 is a big, splashy, hour-long sitcom, I can fit it into my TV-world-view. But right now, it's merely good, not great.

Iran negotiator's absence raises doubts about talks

Such delightful understatement