My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

So over on America’s Best Dance Crew this season we’re getting a sort of Sanjaya Malakar situation developing: one of the crews is getting way more votes than their skill would reasonably deserve: Iconic Boyz, who aren’t terrible or anything, and in fact are really impressively good for a bunch of eleven-year-olds… but ultimately, they’re a bunch of eleven-year-olds who are up against dancers who in many cases have been dancing for longer than the average Iconic Boy has been alive, and the relatively basic nature of their routines makes it pretty obvious that they’re outmatched.

But the tweenage vote is keeping them alive. It’s obvious that the moment Iconic Boyz fall into elimination territory, the judges won’t save them – but the Boyz are, with only three crews remaining, one of two crews left that have never been in danger of elimination.

Certainly fans of good dance teevee are hoping that this week breaks their streak, since only one crew can avoid elimination this week, and as just noted, there’s one other crew that has never been in danger of elimination: that crew is I aM mE, which has not coincidentally been the most consistently entertaining and daring crew of the entire season (sadly, in a season with relatively few standouts). I aM mE is led by the redoubtable Philipchbeeb, who apparently traveled to different alternate Earths to find the Philipchbeebs of other worlds – a black Philipchbeeb, an Asian Philipchbeeb, a Latino Philichbeeb and two girl Philipchbeebs – to form a multidisciplinary crew of nerds with an emphasis on popping, which is arguably the hardest hip-hop form to do as a group since the timing has to be perfect.

Witness their first performance:

And they have only gotten better! Consider their most recent performance, wherein they were challenged (America’s Best Dance Crew likes to complicate matters by giving the crews challenges to include in their performances) to include child’s games and play in their routine:

And although our Earth’s Philipchbeeb is quite evidently the most talented dancer of all of his crew, he remains content to primarily stay in the background, as befits a true leader of men. He is the President and Grand High Poobah of Poppsylvania, and most deserving at that. Most likely I aM mE will become this season’s America’s Best Dance Crew winner, and it is primarily on his shoulders: you can see the little tweaks that his SYTYCD crosstraining has developed in him in the crew’s routines.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

There has come to be something of a debate over the last few days over the morality of the Doctor’s actions in the opening two-parter of Season Six. It’s something I really want to talk about, to the point that I’m posting a day early to weigh in on it (since I just posted a piece about The Incredibles in my own blog and I don’t want to push it down the page right away.) And since Season Six is so recent, I’m going to quarantine the whole thing behind the cut so that people who haven’t seen “The Impossible Astronaut” and “Day of the Moon” can remain unspoiled. Then I’m going to point out some things to those who feel that this is out-of-character cruelty from the Doctor.

continue reading "On Moral Culpability In ‘Doctor Who’"

Admittedly, this is one of the easiest shows to get into, in some ways; the series’ premise is explained neatly and succinctly in under two minutes by the opening credits. The show is little more than a vehicle to make fun of old movies much the way classic horror hosts like Vampira and Ghoulardi did, and the actual premise (mad scientists experiment on the effect of bad movies on the human brain, as measured by a guy and his robot companions forced to watch said bad movies) is just an excuse to make it happen. Every episode is more or less its own self-contained story, and if you can get behind the concept of mocking cheesy sci-fi films, there’s not much more you need to know.

In fact, this is one series you definitely don’t want to watch from the very beginning; first off, the “very beginning” is only available in the form of fan bootlegs, since the series started as a local show in the Twin Cities. (I remember turning it on and thinking, “Ooh! Sci-fi movie! Huh? Why are there guys in the lower right-hand corner of the screen? Ohhhh…this is the BEST IDEA EVER!” I was so disappointed when it went to cable and I couldn’t watch it anymore. (My parents didn’t believe in cable.)) Secondly, the first season is very much all about them getting comfortable with their series; nobody had ever done anything exactly like MST3K, and it took them a while to figure out how to pace their jokes. (Which is “frequently”, by the way…they estimated that in later seasons, they wrote about 700 jokes per episode.) And thirdly, not all the episodes are legally available; the producers got broadcast rights but not video rights to most of the movies they showed, and so the process of releasing the series on DVD is as much an adventure in “What can we get the rights to?” as “What are the classic episodes?” (Fortunately, the series’ creators actually included the phrase “Keep Circulating the Tapes” in the credits for the first seven seasons, and their pro-bootlegging stance has led to a wide network of informal episode trading. So long as you buy the episodes that are commercially available, they seem to be willing to turn a blind eye to bootlegging the ones that aren’t.)

So I’d skip ahead to at least Season Two, perhaps even Season Three or Four to introduce you to Joel (the original host and “man in space” for the first five seasons.) He’s got a laid-back delivery style and a penchant for silly gimmick props (the Invention Exchange, which opens every episode for the first six seasons or so, was an exercise in prop comedy.) The most recent release from Shout Factory, “MST3K Volume XX”, features several later Joel episodes (“Master Ninja” I & II, “The Magic Voyage of Sinbad”), while the next release will feature five classics (the complete “Gamera” collection.) These episodes also feature the classic mad scientist duo of Doctor Clayton Forrester and his dim-witted sidekick, TV’s Frank. Doctor F is perpetually frustrated and grandiose in his schemes by Frank’s incompetence (and his own, which he chooses not to acknowledge.)

In Season Five, Joel left (due to creative conflicts over what would eventually become “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie”) in the episode “Mitchell”, which may still be available through Rhino. He was replaced with Mike Nelson, head writer for the series, who played a temp at the mad science labs who got shanghaied into doing his own bad movie riffing. Shout Factory’s first DVD set, the “20th Anniversary Edition”, features three excellent Mike episodes…including the departure of Doctor Forrester at the end of Season Seven. (Cast changes are a feature of the series.)

The last three seasons, which aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, featured Pearl Forrester, Clayton’s mother, who vowed to carry on his work after smothering him with a pillow. She acquired her own henchmen (Professor Bobo, an ape from the titular Planet Of, and Observer, a brain in a dish with a human to carry it around) and proceeded to do her own tormenting. This era featured some experimentation with actual storylines, which some liked and some didn’t. If you like the idea, try to watch “Revenge of the Creature” through “The Deadly Mantis”, “The Thing That Couldn’t Die” through “The She-Creature”, “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” through “Agent for H.A.R.M.”, and “Prince of Space” through “The Projected Man”. Watching those out of order will leave you occasionally wondering why Mike is in Ancient Rome, or what Pearl is doing on a planet where apes evolved from men!!! (Luckily, you can always ignore all that and just focus on the movie.)

Eventually, the series ended…but it’s definitely not gone. Joel is currently doing “Cinematic Titanic”, a live stage show where he and several MST alumni riff on bad movies (they also have some DVDs available), while “Rifftrax” features Mike Nelson and other MST alumni riffing on major studio releases through the magic of downloadable MP3s that you can manually synch up with films like “Iron Man”, “Twilight” and “The Happening”. (They also have some DVDs available.) All are recommended.

I’ve tried to cover the basics, but really, it’s a wide and sprawling show that I’ve barely scratched the surface of. (Just think, all this space and I haven’t even mentioned “Manos: The Hands of Fate”.) Feel free to share your favorites, and remember to “repeat to yourself, ‘it’s just a show, I should really just relax!'”

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Occasional poster Lee “Leeee” Wang sent me this and I thought it was worth a wider audience, so here you go.

Many of you Whovians have probably seen this Youtube (which is almost half a year old now) (and for you SYTYCD trainspotters, yes, that’s Paula van Oppen), but with the new season less than a week away, it’s as apt a time to revisit at least one of the themes that Craig Ferguson mentions, to wit:

On the surface, Craigy Fergy sounds like he’s spot on, because the Doctor saves the day in nearly every story by showing just how clever he is, the nerdy appeal of which should be obvious. Except, does the Doctor really represent the triumph of pure reason over brawn?

Looking for now at the revived series, it gets a little complicated, I think. On a couple of occasions, we’ve seen suggestions of the Doctor’s immense physical powers, either extant (the baroque imprisonments of the Family of Blood) or burgeoning (the powers that River Song alluded to in “Forest of the Dead,” such as snapping to open the doors of the TARDIS). (Oh, and let’s remember that the Third Doctor had his Venusian Aikido.) Of course, “Forest of the Dead” is written by Moffat, the current showrunner, so it’s fair to suspect that we may be seeing more amazing powers to go with Matt Smith’s gigantic chin, like oh I don’t know head-butt mind-melds? The upshot is that behind every adventure in which the Doctor flexes his cleverness is the implicit threat that if his brain proves not up to the task, then he’ll just trap you in “every mirror in existence.”

Sure, maybe he has these powers because he’s Gallifreyan (in which case it’s worth noting that he’s all-but-abandoned his native powers, a point I’d like to return to in a bit), but they’re still there, which compromises the purity of the brains-over-brawn triumphalism. All the same, this reading of the Doctor’s character still speaks to nerd fantasies, though ones more nuanced than “intellect over brute strength.” Instead, the fantasies are more akin to the secret desire within the hearts of all nerds to possess immense but hidden strength that will show our tormentors that our outward meekness is actually for their benefit. Not to be too autobiographical or anything.

To return briefly to the Doctor abandoning his Gallifreyan birthrights, it’s interesting to think about how he tracks with British culture. The First Doctor — an elderly patriarch with an air of unilateral authority disdainful of those he viewed as inherently inferior to himself — premiered as Empire was in stark decline and withdrawing from its role as a global hegemon. He gave way to incarnations (clownish, affable, eccentric) that were far less authoritarian as Britain’s came more to exert international influence less through geopolitical might than through culture (an admittedly US-centric way of viewing things). (Since my familiarity with the classic series is nowhere as deep as John Seavey’s, and also since I’m pretty much an pig-ignorant Yankee, commenters should feel free to fill in the blanks.)

(MGK EDITS TO ADD: I think Lee’s theory about the Doctor tracking to British culture is pretty spot on. Consider the second, third and fourth Doctors as being a response and eventually acceptance of the 60s/70s counterculture, with the fifth through seventh being the response to Thatcherian authoritarianism, and the ninth through eleventh as embrace of the basic nerdity of the premise as well as of technological salvationism. But that’s just spitballing. Somebody else can write the thesis.)

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

FLAPJACKS: So how about that Game of Thrones preview?
ME: I saw it already.
FLAPJACKS: Yes, so how about it?
ME: It was fine.
FLAPJACKS: “It was fine.”
ME: Yep.
FLAPJACKS: Here we are, about to embark on the great nerd adventure of our generation –
ME: I think technically this isn’t our generation anymore.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe for you. I am filled with the power of youth.
ME: Ew.
FLAPJACKS: I am all about that Justin Bieber. His pop songs amuse and delight.
ME: Okay, now you’re just kind of sad.
FLAPJACKS: Anyway, here we are about to embark on this great nerd adventure and you’re playing it all cool? Come on, you aren’t fooling anybody. The arrows that they’re shooting have been individually fletched! That is attention to detail!
ME: True.
FLAPJACKS: Are you one of those people who can’t bring themselves to be enthusiastic because you think the books will never be finished?
ME: No, I think Martin will finish the books. He has additional incentive now.
FLAPJACKS: He didn’t before? It’s a crazy successful fantasy series.
ME: There is fantasy nerd money, and then there is HBO TV series money. Martin is now getting the second sort of money. It is a better sort of money that is never spent on anime-girl-boobs-mousepads. This sort of money does not know that steampunk is a thing. It thinks Wild Wild West is steampunk. It is well-bred money, and therefore infinitely superior. Once you have some of that money, you will do anything to keep getting it.
FLAPJACKS: So what you’re saying is that now he’s going to get a lot more money and really finish the books.
ME: Basically, yes. And if he dies early –
FLAPJACKS: Because he’s a fatty?
ME: I was going to skip over probable causes, myself.
FLAPJACKS: It’s not my fault the greatest fantasy writer of our time looks like a decrepit hobo.
ME: Be nice.
FLAPJACKS: Well, he does. I bet his train name is “Sidecar King George The Third.”
ME: Anyway, if he dies early, Hollywood will pay somebody a lot of money to finish the books from his notes. Probably Brandon Sanderson or Kevin Anderson or someone whose name rhymes with either of them. If you’re a fantasy writer looking to make it in the big leagues finishing other peoples’ work, you could do worse than to change your name to “Ganderson.”
FLAPJACKS: Yes, but what if he doesn’t finish the books in time for the series to get made on time?
ME: I’m not worried about that.
FLAPJACKS: But it took him six years and counting to write the fifth book. He’s got at best five years before the TV series catches up. Can he write two books in that time? How can you not be worried about that?
ME: Two reasons. Firstly, the TV series has smartly aged-up some of the kiddie characters, which was a good idea anyway because nobody really wants to see TV where people we would reasonably consider little kids are brutally assaulted or forced into arranged marriages.
FLAPJACKS: I’m sure there are fantasy nerds who would disagree and say that’s exactly what they want to see.
ME: Yes, but they are bad people. And second, I don’t think the TV series will last long enough to make it through to the end of the books, even if Martin gets them all finished on time.
FLAPJACKS: You don’t think it’s good? I watched the preview! The Others look like demon-zombies that you barely see! Sean Bean says “winter is coming” and it is absolutely perfect! Peter Dinklage is Tyrion and fulfills an entire internet’s worth of fantasy casting just by his very existence!
ME: No, I think it’s excellent. And I’ve seen the whole pilot already.
FLAPJACKS: How –
ME: TV critic.
FLAPJACKS: And you didn’t invite me over to watch them?
ME: Confidentiality agreement.
FLAPJACKS: You never care about those.
ME: I do with the HBO ones. HBO sends you a lot of awesome stuff if you’re a TV critic. I got to see the entirety of The Pacific six weeks before it aired. That was pretty sweet. I’m not messing up that deal.
FLAPJACKS: But if it’s so good why don’t you think it’ll last? Is this you being a cynic and believing nothing is good in human nature again?
ME: Not at all.
FLAPJACKS: So you believe now that people have generally good taste?
ME: Don’t be stupid. No, I think Game of Thrones will be popular. But I don’t think it’ll be popular enough. It has to justify its crazy high costs. Those individually fletched arrows don’t grow on trees, you know. They had to go out in the woods to find a crazy old man to fletch them some arrows, and then the crazy old man charged them six barrels of moonshine per arrow because he knew city folks when he saw them. And everything else costs money too: the CGI backdrops, the costuming, the armor, the stuntwork, all of it. We haven’t even seen a battle scene yet. Imagine how much money that’s going to cost!
FLAPJACKS: Maybe they could do everything with CGI sets like Star Wars.
ME: Listen to yourself.
FLAPJACKS: I retract my previous statement.
ME: Good. But here’s the truth: HBO will give this a lot of traction because it’s a prestige product that will draw eyeballs and get critics to jizz themselves. But that only goes so far: networks still gotta make dollars, and this show will need to be the next Sopranos or twice as better to break even.
FLAPJACKS: That’s depressing. Hey, can I borrow some peanut oil? I want to try a new stirfry recipe with my wok.
ME: …you mean my wok.
FLAPJACKS: I’m almost sure you’re wrong about that.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Also, read the article about SlutWalk, if only for the inevitable “look I’m not defending rapists, but you ladies really shouldn’t encourage those rapists” comments.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.