Thursday, November 18, 2004
Better Than Heroin … Not That I Would Know
At approximately 7:10 p.m. Central Time last night, I began to hop and caper around the residence like a Twinkie-fueled 5-year-old.
Actual words I said during aforementioned capering: “A cable! He found a cable!”
Then more capering.
For some, faith in a higher power is the ultimate restorative. For others, the love of friends and family keeps them going. For me, it is 42 minutes of high quality genre television.
I have a spring in my step these days, a spring that has been missing since that day in early May, 2003, when “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” went off the air. I tried to hang on, tried to invest in “Angel” and “Alias” and one especially dark week, “Joan of Arcadia.” But it didn’t work. Something was missing, some ingredient wasn’t there.
“Alias,” for instance, delivered the satisfaction of a girl battling bad guys, but the fight choreography always lacked the high octane ass-kickery of “Buffy.” Worse, the show is squeamish about hurting or killing main characters—a flaw nowhere to be found on “Buffy.” The writing staff on “BTVS” was the creative equivalent of an abusive boyfriend—they hurt me badly, killing off Giles’ beloved Ms. Calendar or leaving Buffy to lick her wounds after her boyfriend becomes a cruel monster. But they were always so sweet and apologetic afterwards that I always forgave them. “Alias” was (and I suspect, come January, will continue to be) the proverbial nice guy show, too dainty for the enormous mistakes and sacrifices that hooked me to “BTVS.”
Of course, as a “BTVS” spin-off, “Angel” had a lot of promise. But the heroes were entirely too franchised for my taste. They were up against an evil law firm. That’s practically the human condition at this point. The show’s metaphor lacked the central clarity of “growing up is an act of heroism.” And the various apocalypsi (apocalypses?) were too similar to keep apart in my head.
(As opposed to the Big Bads on Buffy, whom I remember so well, they are my unofficial show index. Season One, the Master; Two, seemingly Spike and Drusilla, but actually Angel; Three, the Mayor; Four, seemingly the Initiative, but actually Adam; Five, Glory, with an honorable mention for the brain tumor that kills Buffy’s mom; Six, seemingly the Nerd Trio, but actually Willow; Seven, the First Evil.)
Which brings us to “Joan of Arcadia.” A lovely show, but about as genre as “TJ Hooker.” It never fails to leave me feeling like I’ve just watched the most brilliantly written “Touched By an Angel” ever. Needless to say, no one every kicks a bad guy’s ass.
And so it is with the giggly delight of a new crush that I have fallen for “Lost.” Just nine episodes into the season, I have ceased to blame creator J.J. Abrams for frittering away hours of my life with “Alias.” All is forgiven. Yes, last night’s episode was set in an excessively art-directed version of Iraq and yes, I think it would be more accurate for Sayid to favor a large handlebar moustache over the genteel beard he wears on the show, but okay. (I can’t find a link backing me up on this, but I remember reading that the well-dressed Iraqi man favored a bushy moustache under Saddam’s regime.) Sayid found a cable and a crazy French woman (played by an actress from “Babylon 5”) and I could not be happier.
After my long search for a new drug, it turns out the missing ingredient was mystery. “Lost,” like “BTVS” and my previous addiction “The X-Files,” has mystery to spare. Yet the show doesn’t trade on a blinding array of possible answers, the way “The X-Files” and even “Angel” used to. The writers are clearly creating a world where Occam’s Razor will obtain: The simplest possible explanation is usually right. Where did that golden retriever come from? It belonged to one of the passengers on the flight.* Who attacked Sayid two weeks ago? The insane French woman.
*That is, if it’s the same dog the little boy lost. I’m not ruling out the possibility that the dog is actually a shape-shifting mutant of some kind.
It turns out that I have been craving a good bedtime story. I’ve needed a ripping yarn, convincingly spooky, with a conclusion too distant to be parsed from where I stand at the moment, yet which promises to wrap up satisfyingly in good time. (Is it any wonder I was filled with a child-like excitement when I realized I’d found a new source?) Oh, also, there’s a woman with a past so clouded and violent that she was being escorted by a Federal Marshall back to the States when the plane went down. Bad ass lady alert! Bad ass lady alert!
On a related side note: Much of “The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay” offered this satisfaction, but all along, I had my doubts that the ending would deliver. Maybe it was the numerous accolades on the cover—in my experience, conventional narrative structure doesn’t’ really wow Michiko Kakutani—maybe it was the way Chabon frequently seemed to promise a satisfying ending. But no. In the end, he did an artsy little pas de deux and tip-toed off the stage. As many a young comic book enthusiast might say: Barf.
The antithesis of Barf Fiction, if I may invent that term, is also on my nightstand right now. I am just about done with the breathlessly-designed Oprah-Book-Club edition of “Anna Karenina.” Tolstoy must have had nerves of steel. He hasn’t promised his readers dick. Vronsky rode a prize mare into the ground and yeah, I thought maybe it was foreshadowing, but that was 400 pages ago. At this point, all bets are off. Who introduces something and then lets it drop for more than half the story arc?
Oh, wait, I do know someone like that … I’m gonna go ahead and say it: If Leo Tolstoy were alive today, he’d have written for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
(Or possibly “Lost.” Talk to me this next time next year.)
At approximately 7:10 p.m. Central Time last night, I began to hop and caper around the residence like a Twinkie-fueled 5-year-old.
Actual words I said during aforementioned capering: “A cable! He found a cable!”
Then more capering.
For some, faith in a higher power is the ultimate restorative. For others, the love of friends and family keeps them going. For me, it is 42 minutes of high quality genre television.
I have a spring in my step these days, a spring that has been missing since that day in early May, 2003, when “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” went off the air. I tried to hang on, tried to invest in “Angel” and “Alias” and one especially dark week, “Joan of Arcadia.” But it didn’t work. Something was missing, some ingredient wasn’t there.
“Alias,” for instance, delivered the satisfaction of a girl battling bad guys, but the fight choreography always lacked the high octane ass-kickery of “Buffy.” Worse, the show is squeamish about hurting or killing main characters—a flaw nowhere to be found on “Buffy.” The writing staff on “BTVS” was the creative equivalent of an abusive boyfriend—they hurt me badly, killing off Giles’ beloved Ms. Calendar or leaving Buffy to lick her wounds after her boyfriend becomes a cruel monster. But they were always so sweet and apologetic afterwards that I always forgave them. “Alias” was (and I suspect, come January, will continue to be) the proverbial nice guy show, too dainty for the enormous mistakes and sacrifices that hooked me to “BTVS.”
Of course, as a “BTVS” spin-off, “Angel” had a lot of promise. But the heroes were entirely too franchised for my taste. They were up against an evil law firm. That’s practically the human condition at this point. The show’s metaphor lacked the central clarity of “growing up is an act of heroism.” And the various apocalypsi (apocalypses?) were too similar to keep apart in my head.
(As opposed to the Big Bads on Buffy, whom I remember so well, they are my unofficial show index. Season One, the Master; Two, seemingly Spike and Drusilla, but actually Angel; Three, the Mayor; Four, seemingly the Initiative, but actually Adam; Five, Glory, with an honorable mention for the brain tumor that kills Buffy’s mom; Six, seemingly the Nerd Trio, but actually Willow; Seven, the First Evil.)
Which brings us to “Joan of Arcadia.” A lovely show, but about as genre as “TJ Hooker.” It never fails to leave me feeling like I’ve just watched the most brilliantly written “Touched By an Angel” ever. Needless to say, no one every kicks a bad guy’s ass.
And so it is with the giggly delight of a new crush that I have fallen for “Lost.” Just nine episodes into the season, I have ceased to blame creator J.J. Abrams for frittering away hours of my life with “Alias.” All is forgiven. Yes, last night’s episode was set in an excessively art-directed version of Iraq and yes, I think it would be more accurate for Sayid to favor a large handlebar moustache over the genteel beard he wears on the show, but okay. (I can’t find a link backing me up on this, but I remember reading that the well-dressed Iraqi man favored a bushy moustache under Saddam’s regime.) Sayid found a cable and a crazy French woman (played by an actress from “Babylon 5”) and I could not be happier.
After my long search for a new drug, it turns out the missing ingredient was mystery. “Lost,” like “BTVS” and my previous addiction “The X-Files,” has mystery to spare. Yet the show doesn’t trade on a blinding array of possible answers, the way “The X-Files” and even “Angel” used to. The writers are clearly creating a world where Occam’s Razor will obtain: The simplest possible explanation is usually right. Where did that golden retriever come from? It belonged to one of the passengers on the flight.* Who attacked Sayid two weeks ago? The insane French woman.
*That is, if it’s the same dog the little boy lost. I’m not ruling out the possibility that the dog is actually a shape-shifting mutant of some kind.
It turns out that I have been craving a good bedtime story. I’ve needed a ripping yarn, convincingly spooky, with a conclusion too distant to be parsed from where I stand at the moment, yet which promises to wrap up satisfyingly in good time. (Is it any wonder I was filled with a child-like excitement when I realized I’d found a new source?) Oh, also, there’s a woman with a past so clouded and violent that she was being escorted by a Federal Marshall back to the States when the plane went down. Bad ass lady alert! Bad ass lady alert!
On a related side note: Much of “The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay” offered this satisfaction, but all along, I had my doubts that the ending would deliver. Maybe it was the numerous accolades on the cover—in my experience, conventional narrative structure doesn’t’ really wow Michiko Kakutani—maybe it was the way Chabon frequently seemed to promise a satisfying ending. But no. In the end, he did an artsy little pas de deux and tip-toed off the stage. As many a young comic book enthusiast might say: Barf.
The antithesis of Barf Fiction, if I may invent that term, is also on my nightstand right now. I am just about done with the breathlessly-designed Oprah-Book-Club edition of “Anna Karenina.” Tolstoy must have had nerves of steel. He hasn’t promised his readers dick. Vronsky rode a prize mare into the ground and yeah, I thought maybe it was foreshadowing, but that was 400 pages ago. At this point, all bets are off. Who introduces something and then lets it drop for more than half the story arc?
Oh, wait, I do know someone like that … I’m gonna go ahead and say it: If Leo Tolstoy were alive today, he’d have written for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
(Or possibly “Lost.” Talk to me this next time next year.)
