My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

And it probably isn’t the reason you think.

I’m currently temping at a Business Which Shall Not Be Named (Mostly Because It Isn’t Relevant) and they’re nice enough to have a couple of big-screen TVs scattered throughout the building, mainly because the work doesn’t actually engage the brain beyond the simple motor reflexes, and my particular duty stations me right next to one. This means I wind up watching CNN for the better part of eight hours each day while I work. (This may explain why the posts on my own blog have become somewhat more political lately. Sorry, but hearing Governor Walker explain why he raided the pension fund for Wisconsin’s teachers and gave it to his rich buddies, and why this means that he has to take away their right to negotiate contracts…it kinda gets to ya after a while.)

But that’s not what actually depresses me. (Actually, the Egypt stuff was pretty uplifting; it’s sort of how you imagine revolutions happening in the movies, with almost nobody getting hurt and the noble resistance triumphing simply through being Right and having Stick-To-It-Ive-Ness. At any moment, you expected Mubarak to suddenly remember, “Hey, I’ve got guns and tanks and shit!” And he never did.) Certainly, I’m not fond of CNN’s style of reporting, but it’s not so much that I feel like they’ve got a bias as it is that they seem so desperate to prove they don’t have a bias that they never challenge anyone on anything, ever. A CNN interview with Charles Manson would go something like this:

CNN Reporter: “Mr. Manson, your followers murdered seven people, including a woman who was almost nine months pregnant, and planned to murder others. Do you think that maybe this is something you should apologize for?”

Manson: “No.”

CNN Reporter: “I see. Now, regarding your relationship with Brian Wilson…”

But none of that is what depresses me. No, what depresses me are the ads. I’m not sure whether CNN just has unbelievably low standards, or whether the various advertisers have targeted CNN’s demographics with razor-sharp precision and realized that 99% of the people watching CNN at 1 in the afternoon are either gullible elderly folks or people out on workman’s comp, but watching the ads on CNN all day is like a non-stop bath in human misery. Easily half the ads feel like borderline scams (overpriced insurance, dubious financial advice, lawyers explaining to you how you can sue/outwit the IRS/get a free scooter, the occasional right-wing screed) and the rest drop the “borderline” part. One in particular, which apparently warns of the “END OF AMERICA” that this financial genius predicted, feels like it’s the work of someone about two steps ahead of the law.

And what’s most depressing is that all this is showing on a news network. In theory, at least, these people are devoted to the ideals of honesty. They have cultivated a reputation for trustworthiness, and these ads cloak themselves in that reputation in order to seem like they, too, can be trusted. But they so patently and obviously can’t that you find yourself pitying the poor soul who really does believe that they need term life insurance, or that they can make money by investing in gold, or that the Health Care Reform Bill is unconstitutional and Mike Huckabee really needs their help in repealing it before it’s Too Late. Because you know there are people like that out there, people who believe these ads because they’re on CNN and CNN wouldn’t lie to them. And that, my friends, is why I get depressed watching CNN.

Well, that and trying to imagine how inadequate Wolf Blitzer must feel that he needs to name his news show, “THE SITUATION ROOM”.

So the Amazing Race (also known as “The Only Reality Show I Like”) premiered again last night for its eighteenth season, also known as “Unfinished Business” due to its complement of returning racers. This time, we kicked off with a fairly serious bang; clearly, the producers’ attitude this time is, “You all know the rules, you all know how to play well enough to get fairly far along in the game the last time around, so we’re not going to mollycoddle you.” I’m trying to avoid spoilers, since it did air less than twenty-four hours ago, but suffice to say they had not one, not two, but three of the “shock twist” events that they usually space out over a whole season in the first episode.

Speaking of the returning racers, I figure I should go ahead and discuss them; for the most part, I like this group. I haven’t been watching the series since the beginning, so a few of them are “before my time”, but it’s for the most part a selection of sympathetic racers, and there’s very few people I’m rooting against. In greater detail…

Gary and Mallory: He seems nice but quiet, which does make you wonder how he raised such a vocal, chirpy, borderline insane daughter. Which isn’t to say she’s obnoxious (cue all the people telling me that no, no, she actually is very obnoxious) but she’s definitely a person who pummels you with the force of her personality. She’s hard to ignore, (I think) hard to dislike, and I’d like to see them go far. But I don’t think it’s going to happen; parent-child teams have a hard time, and they got flustered easily last time. (Incidentally, do you think that if a parent-child team wins this time, we’ll hear about how the teams were “stacked” with them and the Race just wanted one to win? Or does that only happen when both racers have XX chromosomes?)

Amanda and Kris: They weren’t memorable the first time, and they’re not memorable now. I honestly could not care less about them; I don’t like them, I don’t dislike them, they’re just sort of empty “Hi, we’re a couple!” filler. That said, I see them as middle-of-the-pack material, not an early exit. (And not Final Three material, either.)

Kisha and Jen: Oh, goodie. They’re back. I can’t quite say why they got on my nerves…they just seemed a little bit too prone to carp at the other teams (witness the “you’re a liar” moment in this season’s premiere, a totally uncalled for bit of rudeness), a little bit too whiny, a little bit too irritating. (It probably didn’t help that I was rooting for Margie and Luke, although I thought the production team made too much out of a minor scuffle and a minor verbal tantrum.) In any event, though, I think they’ll probably be on the Race much longer than I want them to be, and may even be Final Three material.

Zev and Justin: It’s very unfair of me, I know, to give in to the reaction to feel uncomfortable around people who are autistic simply because they’re not capable of giving the proper social cues and it’s hard not to be bothered by that because it’s hardwired into our hindbrains. But I’ll admit, I am. I wasn’t bothered when they were knocked off last time, I won’t be bothered if they get knocked off this time, and I suspect that’ll happen pretty quick because I don’t think that last time’s elimination was a fluke. But we shall see.

Flight Time and Big Easy: The exact opposite of Kisha and Jen for me; despite the fact that they played some pretty dirty pool last time out, I can’t get past how funny and charming they are. I’ll root for them until they go out, and I think that won’t be for a while. They’re smarter than they act, and they’re also fast and strong.

Jaime and Cara: Slightly less obnoxious than Kisha and Jen, but still not a team that I care much about. I think they’re a middle-of-the-pack finisher that will vaguely annoy me until they get eliminated, but not infuriate me. That said, that hair is amazing.

Margie and Luke: I like them, I’m rooting for them, I hope they’ll be the first parent-child team to win. Margie is a hell of a strong, determined woman, and Luke is smart and capable (and occasionally ruthless, but there’s nothing wrong with that when racing for a million bucks.) I definitely think they’ll be Final Three, and I hope they’ll win it all this time.

Ron and Christina: These two were “before my time”, and I have to say, they’re not making much of an impression now. They’re not doing anything particularly interesting, they’re not racing particularly well (or badly, it must be said) and I don’t think they’ll be around for long. But I have been surprised by “stealth racers” before; heck, I thought Nick and Vicki were going to be out in the second leg.

Mel and Mike: Awesome. These two are pure awesome, and I would love to have them as next-door neighbors and talk screenwriting with them for hours and let my wife bake them cookies…but he’s seventy. This is not a contest that caters to seventy year-olds. I don’t think they’ll last long, and I will be sad when they get Philiminated.

Kent and Vyxsin: Also before my time, but my wife has a huge, adorable, lascivious crush on Vyxsin (she likes Kent, too, but she lusts for Vyxsin) so I am duty-bound to root for them so that one day, they can appear at a con and we can kidnap her. (I really shouldn’t admit that, should I?) And actually, I think they can go pretty far; they made it to 5th last time, and I think they can do better on a retry.

Jet and Cord: I actually rooted for these two the first time out, but that was before I heard about some of the things they said about the sexual orientation of eventual winners Dan and Jordan. I realize they are from a very rural, very Southern area and are not usually exposed to cultural views other than their own, but this is the 21st century and that shit Does Not Fly. Unless I hear them saying something along the lines of, “Wow, we were homophobic assholes when we first started on this. We feel really bad about that,” I refuse to root for them. But we’ll see whether this is a problem for long…

But for now my weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

The CRTC did something bad, but not quite as bad as the other bad things they’ve done recently, so a lot of people didn’t hear about it. I have attempted to correct that at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Elsewhere: classic rock, the alignment chart.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist, and I just want to say that Brett Lamb’s cartoon this week is one of my favorites of all he’s ever done. The happy werewolf cracks me up every time.

Fellow MGK contributor Matthew Johnson posted a couple of weeks ago about his undeniably unfilmable (but interesting) idea for a Doctor Who story, and the comments section turned towards everyone else’s idea for a Doctor Who story they probably couldn’t do. Which, in my case, has perhaps less to do with the story idea and more to do with the fact that I can’t really see the producers of Doctor Who accepting an unsolicited pitch from a novice screenwriter based on his blog post about the idea, but I’ve accepted a long time ago that I have no idea how to break into television. (Television studios, I can do. But that’s another story.)

My idea comes from noticing the pattern that the series has established over its first five seasons in its “Doctor Who meets a famous creative person” episodes (‘The Unquiet Dead’, ‘The Shakespeare Code’, ‘The Unicorn and the Wasp’, ‘Vincent and the Doctor’.) The creative person runs afoul of a menace that is peculiarly fitted to their creative endeavors, with a Doctor Who twist (Dickens meets alien “ghosts”, Shakespeare fights evil witches from another dimension, Agatha Christie wanders into a murder mystery that involves space wasps, and Vincent van Gogh discovers aliens that, due to his unique perception, only he can see.) The menace brings the creative person to a personal low, even as the Doctor finds himself unable to thwart it; he succeeds by using praise to bring out the creative person’s unique gifts, allowing them to defeat the menace in a way the Doctor can’t. Finally, the Doctor reveals a hidden truth to the creative person: Their gifts are unique and their works will endure throughout eternity.

Naturally, I had to subvert the formula. 🙂

In this story, the Doctor and Amy wind up in England, in 1844. The politician and author Edward Bulwer-Lytton is at a personal low, having been forced out of Parliament, separated from his wife, and dealt with the death of his mother…and he’s not handling it well. In fact, he’s having a nervous breakdown, hearing voices that tell him to excavate a massive hole on his estate.

The Doctor finds this highly suspicious. Not because he thinks Edward is insane, but because the TARDIS is picking up high-end telepathic broadcasts that suggest he very much isn’t. He insinuates himself into Edward’s company in order to find out just what’s at the bottom of the hole, and isn’t surprised to find that it’s an alien race. The Vrilya, as they are called, came through from another dimension that was losing its cohesion, and when they escaped, well…beggars can’t be choosers. A portal to a maze of subterranean caverns, with no way up to the surface, still beat a world where the laws of physics were breaking down.

The Vrilya are angelic, intensely powerful, and bring with them a miracle substance that is the pinnacle of their technology, called “vril”. They plan to offer Edward, and by extension Britain, the substance in exchange for a path for the rest of their species to come through. With the prospect of all his shames and failures erased, Edward is sorely tempted.

But the Doctor realizes that vril is more dangerous than it appears. Its energies are actually the cause of the destabilization of the Vrilya’s home universe, and if they begin using vril in large quantities on Earth the way they did back home, well…”unmitigated disaster” barely begins to describe it. The Vrilya don’t take well to what they see as a death sentence for their people (they see life without the miracle of vril as a fate worse than death) and use their powers to banish the Doctor to their universe.

But the Doctor makes contact with Edward through the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits (the ones that let him instantly understand any language.) He convinces Edward that his mind is receptive to the Vrilya, but that link works both ways–he needs to open himself up completely to the Vrilya, let them see the fullness of the human condition as expressed through the mind of one of its most celebrated authors. Startled back to normality by the Doctor’s praise, Edward does so…and unexpectedly, the Vrilya flee back to their home dimension. The Doctor pops out as they pop back in, relieved to be back. “Where did they go?” asks Amy, who really hasn’t had much to do in this episode. “Oh, probably off to try again somewhere else. Anywhere the portals can open. Anywhere that’s not here.”

“And my works, Doctor?” Edward asks. “Will they endure? Will I be remembered, in ages hence?” The Doctor smiles thinly, and assures Edward that the name Bulwer-Lytton will be famous for centuries to come. But unlike Vincent, he decides not to give him a ride in the TARDIS to show him exactly how…

My weekly tv column is up at Torontoist.

The Social Network. All the for-reals movie critics have already said how brilliant this is and they are basically completely right about everything. People complaining that the movie isn’t completely accurate – other than missing the point of movies generally – are mistaken because the accuracy here is about capturing the entire ethos of ruthless vision that led to the 2000s dotcom re-boom. Jesse Eisenberg gives what’s far and away the most brilliant performance of the year by any actor because he’s simultaneously so compelling and sympathetic while being so unlikeable and cold, and Aaron Sorkin’s script tones down his usual crutches to the point where it’s better than anything else he’s previously written.

Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game. Out of all the new boardgames I played in 2010, this was my favorite: a three-hour brainburner that genuinely captures the feel of playing a marathon game of Civ on your computer, except there’s no computer and you get the fun of playing against three other opponents face-to-face. Multiple victory conditions, variant civilization rules, tech advancement for strategic purpose – everything you would expect out of a game of Civ is here, and produced with screamingly awesome quality.

The first and third episodes of Sherlock. I can’t in good conscience give the whole series a total endorsement because the second episode, “The Blind Banker,” is just not in the league of the other two; cheap Orientalism plus a less-than-compelling mystery make for teevee that is only passably entertaining at most. But the first and third episodes are fantastic stuff – the best visual description of texting yet put to screen, genuinely inventive and fun mysteries, brilliant renditions of the Holmes thought process and of course Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s superb Holmes and Watson turn what could have been a goofy lark into some of the best long-form telly of the year.

ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae. Any year Janelle Monae drops a new album it will make this list.

Beasts of Burden by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson. As I get older, and to an extent more productive, the “I wish I had written that” feeling occurs less and less often – that sheer burst of envy you feel when somebody writes something that is so fucking good that is, in retrospect, such an obvious idea that it should have occurred to you years ago, but it didn’t. Beasts of Burden is the only comic all year that made me feel that way: gorgeous, intelligent, crucially not overwritten or overexplained (which would have just ruined it) and mostly just vital. A cat clawing a demon in the eyes felt more urgent than any superhero comic all year long, which says something about superhero comics.

Community. The second half of season one and the first half of season two combine for one of the most virtuosic meta-seasons of any show ever. Community is brilliant not because of the thematic parodies it does (in episodes like “Contemporary American Poultry,” “Epidemiology,” “Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design,” and above all “Modern Warfare”), although those are brilliant. No, Community is brilliant because of its exacting attention to detail in crafting its stories: no show is as efficient at using every single inch of screen real estate and every second of running time to cram in as much story as possible. Think Abed’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it subplot in “The Psychology of Letting Go,” or the fact that the show actually gives away the ending of “Cooperative Calligraphy” in the first two minutes in a way that nobody watching will notice the first time through, or the numerous references to the fact that Jeff and Britta keep hooking up on the sly without ever actually bothering to address it in a main plotline (until they do, of course) – but then bear in mind that all of this detail and craft is simultaneously used to further develop and strengthen all of the show’s cast and drop as many gags as humanly possible.

Animal Kingdom. The best crime movie in years. Animal Kingdom features a teenaged protagonist actually acting like a real teenager (sullen and moody), some of the most vivid and genuinely evil characters to come along in a very long time (when one character matter-of-factly explains what is to be done about another – you’ll know it when you see it – it’s just a tour-de-force of the filmmakers daring you to believe that this isn’t happening when it is), and a plot that surprises out of old-school Hitchcockian tension rather than boring old shock value. Staggeringly good movie.

Matt Smith as the Doctor. Because he’s really, really good at it.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.