My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Also, if you want to know why I have such bile for King of the Nerds – watch this.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

When I said that to my wife a bit ago, she looked at me and said, “I have no idea what you mean by that.” I’m kind of assuming you feel the same way, so I’ll explain.

A traditional ‘alternate universe’ story, which is something that just about every sci-fi/fantasy series gets to from time to time, is like pornography in that it’s really just the same thing each time with very little variation. Each AU storyline purports to focus on a single point of divergence that has sent history down a different path…but the differences are never so great as to preclude instant audience identification. (For example, in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise”, twenty years of war with the Klingon Empire hasn’t resulted in any advances in technology beyond the Galaxy class starship, the Enterprise hasn’t been destroyed and replaced by the E or F, and all of the bridge crew have not only survived but have wound up in the exact same command positions on the exact same ship. Likewise, Giles is still assigned to the Hellmouth and despite the subtext of many episodes involving the idea that what separates Buffy from other Slayers who’ve died young is her friendships and connections with the everyday world, the only sign that Buffy is any less skilled as a Slayer is the little scar on her lip.)

The “twists” to this reality are designed, like porn, to provide simple and visceral thrills. They are less intended as logical consequence of any particular point of divergence as they are to give the audience the specific excitement of breaking well-established narrative rules. The premature death of Charles Xavier, for example, doesn’t lead to the dystopia ruled by Apocalypse because Charles Xavier did anything in particular, it leads to the dystopia ruled by Apocalypse because it’s the only chance that Marvel has to show a world where the bad guys won and the heroes are a desperate resistance movement. In the much later “Here Comes Tomorrow” storyline, Beast isn’t a villain because it’s a logical extension of Scott’s retirement from the team; he’s a villain because showing a fan favorite hero as the villain is a staple of alternate universe stories. (Another common trope is best exemplified in the ‘Magik’  series, where the cute and winsome Shadowcat is shown, in the alternate dimension of Limbo, as being a hardened warrior. The series also shows charming and friendly Nightcrawler as a lecherous villain…basically, you can chalk up 95% of alternate universe stories to the combinations of “set in a dystopian reality”, “well-liked hero is a villain”, “infamous villain is a good guy”, and “comic relief/peril monkey character is a total bad-ass”.)

And, like pornography, alternative universe stories have their own version of the “money shot”. If you accept the idea that the breaking of series narrative conventions in an AU story is the sci-fi/fantasy series equivalent of the sex in porn (and roughly the same amount of time is devoted in AU stories to showing how different and unexpected the alternative timeline is as is devoted to the sex in a porn movie), then the natural “climax” is the ultimate breaking of narrative convention, the death of characters who normally are given a protected status by their role in the story. Buffy is always safe in the Buffyverse (and possibly the only person who is)…so therefore, she has to die at the end of ‘The Wish’. ‘Days of Future Past’ has to end with a bloodbath, because it’s the only time Chris Claremont can get away with incinerating Wolverine, Storm, Colossus and Magneto in a single issue.

Does this mean that alternate universe stories are without merit? No. Like porn, there are wide variations in quality. (‘Days of Future Past’ would be qualified as “erotica” in this analogy, for example.) But it is worth remembering that stories like these always start out with a huge advantage in fan’s affections because that’s really all they’re intended to do. They are stories made to give long-term followers of the series “fangasms”, no more and no less.

MOVIES:

• Looper. Rock-solid performances from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt, a fun turn from Jeff Daniels (including the year’s best movie one-liner), and a plot that, while not scientifically consistent, delivered on the emotional arcs of all concerned while providing a healthy supply of action. Easily my favorite movie of 2012.
• Chronicle. I was gonna write something about how Chronicle is the only “superheroish” movie to really confront superhero tropes and how bullshit they frequently are, but someone else already did so, well, go read that I guess.
• Safety Not Guaranteed. Which, I suppose, makes two movies on my end-of-year favorites list that are about time travel, although the time travel is more of a side thing to the human stories they use it for. Which I prefer, frankly, to a dedicated time travel movie like Primer which simply seemed designed to give you a migraine.
• The Five-Year Engagement. I liked this because it was drawn-out and, for a romantic comedy that you know by design will have to have a satisfying ending, it was messy and relatively realistic about how real life so frequently gets in the way of relationships. Also it has a killer cast: Jason Segel, Emily Blunt (again? Is she gonna be in everything I like now? I mean, she was in The Adjustment Bureau and I liked that awfully), Alison Brie, Chris Pratt, Rhys Ifans… David Paymer, Jackie Weaver, Mindy Kaling… one could go on.
• Lincoln. I get the criticism that it is another movie about slavery that principally features white people, but that is not really a very astute criticism because this is not about slavery per se; this is a movie about politics, and how people are driven to use it to their ends, for good or ill. Daniel Day-Lewis lines up yet another well-deserved Oscar (unless Hugh Jackman gets it for Les Miserables, but that would be a traditional Oscar robbery) and Tommy Lee Jones steals every scene as Thaddeus Stevens.

TV:

• Key and Peele. It has been so long that I have had a sketch comedy show that I considered a must-watch that I almost forgot what it felt like, and it feels so good. Whenever anybody tells you a show other than Key and Peele was the funniest show of the year, this means one of two things: either they have not seen Key and Peele or they are A SECRET RACIST. Thus, Key and Peele is also useful for rooting out secret racism. I bet the Smothers Brothers couldn’t do that.
• Happy Endings. Not to dismiss more story-driven shows like Parks and Recreation or Community (both of which were brilliant this year, of course), but Happy Endings made Elisha Cuthbert into the funniest part of a very funny show, which seemed impossible a season ago, and besides it just packs more gags into every episode than just about any other show on television. Well, except
• Archer. Which has the same gag-per-minute ratio as Happy Endings or even better, plus an engaging ongoing plot line and, because it is animated, can do much wackier and more hilarious things. Burt Reynolds in real life is boring; Animated Burt Reynolds does kung fu.
• Fringe. Still epic in its last season as it barrels home to the close we’re all waiting for.
• Survivor. Two good seasons this year; One World had a clever gimmick, the worst human being in Survivor history in Colton, and a very deserving winner in Kim, who played an absolutely perfect game. Granted, against a male tribe who were total idiots, but even so. And then came Philippines, which, other than having a dreadful jury episode (after hopes were raised that this group of excellent and level-headed game players wouldn’t resort to being The Usual Bitter Jury) was as good as Survivor gets.
• Bunheads. Because it’s basically Gilmore Girls Earth-2 and really, there are few things I want less than that in this world.
• Game of Thrones. Because duh.

VIDYA GAMES:

• Dishonored. It is a first-person stealth game where you can teleport and the teleportation power is just about perfectly executed in the game’s control scheme. I was zapping all over the place in this game and loving the hell out of it, because the game astutely recognizes that, in real life, people rarely look up unless they are being alert and careful. The game’s level design gives you lots of freedom to pick your own path to your objectives, whether that is sneaking around like a clever bastard or murdering legions of schmucks with your awesome magic powers. Best stealth game since the original Thief.
• Mark of the Ninja. No, wait, this is the best stealth game since the original Thief – this 2D platform/sidescroller is a near-perfect stealth game, with lots of cool ways to play each level, gorgeous character animations (I was shocked to discover that Genndy Tartakovsky was not involved with the project as it felt very him), and a good storyline. Wonderful little game. I actually bothered to replay it, which I almost never do any more.
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown. So fucking good. Purists who whine about how it is not exactly like the original need to be hit with a baseball bat.
• The Walking Dead. Critics will complain that this was mostly an interactive movie rather than a game, but so what? It was a supremely involving interactive whatever-it-was – the relationship between Lee and Clementine felt so real as to be downright visceral as you watched it. So, so good.
• Civilization V: Gods and Kings. Although I hope they have at least one more major expansion for Civ V in the works before they move on to Civ VI, this expansion put a lot more of the complexity of Civ IV that was missing from the game and stuffed it back in. Civ V still isn’t as complex as IV was – but it’s getting there. (The AI could still be better, but Civ is always Civ no matter what.)

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

MGK’S BROTHER JEFF: Hey, did you watch Saturday Night Live last night?
MGK: No, I was out.
JEFF: I meant “did you watch it later, like Sunday afternoon or something.”
MGK: Oh. No.
JEFF: I wouldn’t want to suggest you aren’t a social dervish.
MGK: Of course not.
JEFF: Out at the clubs. Working the lines. Making connections.
MGK: You can stop now.
JEFF: Hitting the dance floor. Getting digits. Exploding the pass.
MGK: I’m pretty sure that last expression is just something you made up.
JEFF: I’m ten years younger than you. I know all the hip new things you don’t. I bet you don’t even know about flanging.
MGK: Now I’m sure you’re making stuff up.
JEFF: Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it will be something you wonder about, late at night. You know, when you think about death.
MGK: What does all of this have to do with Saturday Night Live, anyway?
JEFF: Oh. Jeremy Renner hosted.
MGK: And?
JEFF: He sucked.
MGK: That’s too bad.
JEFF: No, I mean he really sucked. Like, Lindsay Lohan levels of sucked.
MGK: That’s surprising. I mean, I like him in action movies well enough. He does a good sort of quip.
JEFF: I think nerds just like him because he looks like a young Nathan Fillion before Nathan Fillion got all fat.
MGK: Well, he does fight people really nicely too.
JEFF: But getting back to my point. He sucked.
MGK: Well, not everybody is Anne Hathaway.
JEFF: …no, but I don’t see your point.
MGK: Anne Hathway is like a switch-hitter –
JEFF: – maybe in your fantasies.
MGK: Nice, but let me finish. She is like an acting switch-hitter – do you want that one?
JEFF: Nah. Not in the mood to expand on a theme.
MGK: Okay. So she is like an acting switch-hitter in that she can go all “actual acting” and be good at it, or alternately switch into wacky sketch comedienne mode and not miss a beat. Not everybody can do this. Hugh Jackman can do it. James Franco, not so much.
JEFF: I get your point. But this was not just a failure to be Anne Hathaway. Jeremy Renner was bad. Like, during his monologue, it was like he actively did not want to be there. I felt bad for him. But also I felt scorn, because he was being paid a lot of money to be there.
MGK: Well, maybe he was totally hyped to do it and then got there and started work and was all “wait, I am not meant to be doing this at all.” That happens. And then he can’t just bail out.
JEFF: Sure he could. They’d call up Alec Baldwin or John Goodman and be all “save us” and they would do it because they are SNL gods.
MGK: True dat.
JEFF: Anyway. For the first time in my life, I appreciated Matt Damon. Because the more I see Jeremy Renner, the less I like him. I mean, I saw one Bourne movie with Renner in it and it made Avengers, like, retroactively worse. Matt Damon never did that.
MGK: Wait, you don’t appreciate Matt Damon?
JEFF: Come on. He’s just sort of there.
MGK: But he’s always good. At everything. I mean, at worst, your argument against Matt Damon is that he’s not flashy in how he’s good at everything.
JEFF: Name three movies that Matt Damon made that are not Bourne movies, which he didn’t really make anyway because he was just sort of there.
MGK: Rounders.
JEFF: Just sort of there. Just because he’s the lead doesn’t make him not just sort of there, you know.
MGK: Good Will Hunting.
JEFF: It sucking was totally his fault. It was his fault. It was his fault.
MGK: Saving Private Ryan.
JEFF: Tom Hanks’ movie. Adam Goldberg and Barry Pepper and Jeremy Davies were all more memorable than Damon. And don’t even bother saying Ocean’s Eleven.
MGK: The Adjustment Bureau. The Informant! The Departed. Contagion.
JEFF: See, I didn’t see any of those, so your argument is irrelevant.
MGK: That’s not terribly fair.
JEFF: Matt Damon has a net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I think he can handle it.
MGK: Fair enough.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV review is up at Torontoist.

Also, Torontoist asked me to do a legal review of the decision which got Rob Ford kicked out of office, so you can read that too.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.