Allegretto asks:

How about a list of recommended TV shows? Relatively new (or otherwise)? I know you do televisualist, but that’s usually commenting on whatever is on in any given week and it also seems to strive for as broad a scope as possible, it’s not really the same as a “TV you should totally see” list.

True, but the thing about “TV you should totally see” lists is that they end up being sort of redundant. I mean, am I really going to be the umpteenth person to write an article saying “you should really watch The Wire“? I wouldn’t even be the first comics blogger to write that. You need to come at it from an angle that’s at least vaguely fresh, because Entertainment Weekly does a “must watch” list every frigging year.

(Incidentally, you should really watch The Wire. All those people calling it the best show in television history? Are correct.)

So here’s my angle: call it the Baseball Team method. Nine categories, and I’ll name one show for each category.

Sitcom (three-camera)
Sitcom (single-camera)
Sitcom (British)
Drama
Drama (British)
Dramedy
Animated
“Genre”
Wildcard

There. There’s your model for recommending shows from now on. Comedy in three distinctly different styles, none of which is superior to one another – the traditional three-camera setup, the more modern single-camera comedy, and the Britcom, which by virtue of its seasonal length and cultural difference is distinct from either American model. Hourlong drama, hourlong dramedy, and Brit drama are likewise three wholly different beasts. Animated shows and genre shows genuinely differ in production and result from their less flamboyant relatives. And finally, a wildcard slot so if you can’t make up your mind between Buffy and Firefly, you can include both. (Although if that’s your big sticking point, maybe you should broaden your horizons.)

And you can’t pick The Wire, because that is cheating. Also: no Doctor Who, a show that I love but which has been enthusiastically recommended to everybody in the world now.

And my team?

Sitcom (three-camera): Newsradio. Currently available in a “complete series” boxset on DVD that is quite cheap at the price. Newsradio is a master-class in farcical comedy; its character interactions are rich and complex (one could write essays on the odd relationship of Dave and Mr. James), its cast thoroughly skilled and its writing near-perfect. Do not ignore the fifth season simply because of the tragic death of Phil Hartman; Jon Lovitz is an able replacement, the short run of Patrick Warburton as Johnny Johnson is one of the show’s best longer storylines, and some fifth-season episodes are simply brilliant even for one of the best sitcoms ever made.

Sitcom (single-camera): Arrested Development. Which, frankly, almost deserves to be sidelined for the same reason that The Wire and Doctor Who are sidelined, but it’s my game so hell with it. Arrested Development is one of those shows that writes its jokes in layers: the first time you watch it you catch the obvious jokes, then the second time you watch it you start to see the subtler ones, then the third time through you start seeing the cross-references and callbacks to jokes they’ve already written in previous episodes, and so on and so forth because this show was written more comprehensively than any comedy show I can think of.

Sitcom (British): The Inbetweeners. I decided to go with something recent here, although I was very tempted to pick The Young Ones instead – but The Inbetweeners has two things in common with that classic show. Firstly, they’re both very funny. Secondly, they’re both excellent examples of shows that simply could not get made in America. The Inbetweeners‘ central conceit of “these are the normal guys in the middle of their school’s social system, you know, the ones who aren’t total losers but also aren’t cool kids, the ones who just get by” is the sort of thing that American TV – prone to hyperbole as it is – would utterly screw up if given the chance. The Inbetweeners is funny, but it also feels like growing up in a way that many comedies about high school never do, simply because most of us were inbetweeners, when you get to it – desperately trying to get laid and failing, trying to become popular and failing, trying to rebel against the system of popularity and failing at that too.

Drama: Deadwood. David Milch’s three-season Western ran too short for almost everybody’s liking, but it really is magnificent: it’s the story of how civilization is created from scratch, how criminals are often the ones who demand social stability in order to ensure their safety, how law and politics are created and soon corrupted, how corporate capitalism comes to dominate any economic system given the chance. Plus there are cowboys and truly fantastic violence and lots of swearing (which only serves to season the fascinatingly great dialogue) and Ian McShane and Timothy Olyphant basically ensuring their careers forever.

Dramedy: The Unusuals. I know you would’ve expected me to go with The West Wing or maybe Gilmore Girls here, but I’m picking this single-season offering from two years ago which was cancelled far too soon: it’s a great cop show in that it actually shows cops doing everyday cop things. Not just homicides and drug deals and all that fancy stuff; the boring procedural work and routine calls that cops do all the time, except it made them entertaining. Great cast, too: Jeremy Renner right before he got big, Harold Perrineau, Adam Goldberg. A great little single-serving of TV.

Drama (British): Luther. Currently in its second season, Luther is the polar opposite of The Unusuals. Rather than ground itself in the mundane, Luther takes the elements of cop shows and raises them to nigh-mythic levels: Idris Elba’s title character is a bruised and battered angel, his nemesis is all but a Moriarty, his villains are deadly and just dank in a way that is exceptionally pleasing to watch. Luther is grim and serious and it never, ever tries to go for a cheap laugh to deflate itself, and in these days that’s something of a rarity – even when a character in Luther makes a clever quip, the viewer’s response is not to laugh but only to nod intently.

Animated: Eek! the Cat. Probably one of the most absurd and insane kids’ shows to ever air, and indeed often incredibly cynical, but balanced by the protagonist: Eek himself is a genuinely admirable sort of cat, noble and well-intentioned and brave, and his never-flagging good nature makes all the horrible things the show does to him all the funnier for that, making this quite possibly the only animated show to ever truly explore the comic possibilities of martyrdom as opposed to simple violence. The first season is a classic; thereafter it drops off as the show added additional characters like the Terrible Thunderlizards, who weren’t anywhere near as fun as Eek was.

Genre: Farscape. It was a tossup here between this and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and while I think DS9 hits greater heights, i think Farscape is more consistent because it’s a show that finds its voice early on and sticks with what works for it, which is high-quality space opera in the Han Solo end of Star Wars‘ tone. This show made a number of nerd careers, not least Ben Browder and Claudia Black (both of whom went on to work in the Stargate franchise, effectively playing their Farscape characters but with different names), and worked imaginatively with a relatively low budget thanks to the brilliance of the Henson Company’s effects wizards. The ending is a bit rushed, as the show had to compress the planned fifth and final season into a four-hour miniseries, but it still works. Farscape was playing with genre conventions early on and never stopped for its entire run, and its odd quirks (including Harvey, the villain inside the hero’s head) made it all the more unique.

Wildcard: Titus. Christopher Titus’ eponymous comedy, a mix of single-camera and three-camera, was dark. It was very dark. His character’s mother was a violent, paranoid schizophrenic, and the show never lost sight of the seriousness of that fact even while getting maximum utility out of it for comedic purposes by letting Titus both love and fear her simultaneously; his father, played by Stacy Keach (in probably that actor’s best work ever) was a womanizing, emotionally abusive drunk but also a weirdly dedicated father. Titus is one of the most emotionally complex sitcoms ever made; it’s also brutally funny and sometimes uncomfortable to watch. And that is why it is great.

Your guest judges this week are Carmen Electra, who is useless and not even slightly adorable, and Travis Wall, who is so busy trying to be nice that he ends up coming across like a giant kiss-ass, to the point where contestants are actively making fun of his judging while he’s doing it, but at least he’s doing his best to give actual constructive criticism.

(Incidentally, So You Think You Can Dance Canada announced its top 22 this week (yes, a top 22, it’s a repeat gimmick), and for those wondering: five hip-hop, five ballroom, twelve contemporary/jazz (and the bulk of final cuts at the Walk of Doom stage were hip-hoppers). See, it is entirely possible to have a style-diverse cast for this show. You just have to admit that styles other than contemporary are worth performing well, and that training in hip-hop and ballroom is as important as training in jazz and ballet. I’m hoping downloads will eventually show up for the later episodes of the show, because the auditions this year were, as always, insane, and I’d like to do another compilation for the Americans.)

Top seven boys: contemporary. Chris was seriously behind in the unison section for a bit, but other than that this was a really good group routine.

Melanie and Marko: jazz. Technical routine #3 (out of four) so far for Melanie and Marko, and that will be a theme tonight. But this was interesting, because generally so far my opinion of M&M has been that they are excellent dancers dancing choreography that could be better, and tonight I thought the choreography was excellent (Ray Leeper can stick around; he is cool beans!) and Melanie and Marko were both subpar as compared to their previous work. Melanie seemed to be dancing as if she was wearing lead weights for parts of the routine, and Marko was visibly off-balance at several points in the routine. It wasn’t bad by any stretch, but after watching a very strong couple for three weeks I have to say that this was a bit of a stumble.

Sasha and Alexander: hip-hop. Nigel complained that this was basic, and the judges were critical of it, and god knows there’s nobody I trust more for hip-hop criticism than the people who thought Evan could dance hip-hop in season five. I agree that it was pretty straightforward, but it was also charming choreography by Shaun Evaristo (and I hope the whining doesn’t kill his chances for more work, because I thought this was a decent start) and hearing Nigel and Mary complain about a lack of “swag” after jizzing their pants over god knows how many routines that barely had a beat to them makes me just shake my head a lot. However, they were correct that Alexander barely has any style. Sasha was predictably good.

Jordan and Tadd: waltz. Wait, again? I mean, giving all-technical couples jazz and contemporary all the time, that’s just predictable, but giving Jordan and Tadd the waltz twice in the first four episodes? Yeeesh. And this was barely a waltz; Jordan didn’t waltz at all, honestly, she was just doing her contempo-stuff the whole way through, and there was, what, maybe four seconds total of closed hold? Tadd, meanwhile, has really lovely rise and fall and sway, and he is a B-boy. Mary explains that this is American smooth waltz, but even in American smooth waltz you hold your partner for more than four frigging seconds.

Clarice and Jess: contemporary. (Three of four technical dances, again.) Okay, I’m going to admit that Jess has basically completely changed my initial opinion of him, which is that he was a one-note Broadway dancer who couldn’t partner and also had a sort of douchebag aura. This is two weeks in a row where Jess has partnered Clarice excellently, and this was reminiscent of hip-hop, the movements were so sharp. (But only reminiscent. When I complain that a lot of the hip-hop contemporary dancers perform on this show isn’t aces – consider its similarity to this and you start to get the idea.) Clarice was great. Justin Giles’ choreography was excellent and I want to see more of his work on the show, between this and the opening boys’ number. This was just good on numerous levels.

Ashley and Chris: salsa. This was extremely vanilla with occasional flashes of style and flavour, which is more or less how I would describe everything Ashley and Chris ever do on this show: they are technically sound (apart from their hip-hop thus far), but neither of them seems terribly able to really perform (as opposed to executing steps correctly) outside of their comfort zone. (Ashley hasn’t even done an enthralling solo so far.) Travis tries to say “I love you guys” approximately seven thousand times to make up for saying that they were boring and bland, and the crowd goes apeshit with booing because the judges never say anything negative any more and they’re not used to hearing even mild criticism. They should have been eliminated already, but they probably will be this week because literally every other couple got a genre they’d already done well in, which makes me think that Nigel – who is really about as subtle as a lead weight – is trying to fix things as he sees fit.

Nancy Travis Junior and Ricky: jazz. Hey, it’s a new choreographer! His name is Chucky, which I could not make up if I wanted to do. It is a zombie routine. It is a mostly boring routine. The judges jizz over it being “original,” but it is a zombie routine, and I think at this point it must be like the 75th zombie routine in SYTYCD history, and it has all the same ripoffs from “Thriller” that just about every zombie routine has these days; ostensibly this is a fashion-zombie routine, which could have been amusing but absolutely nothing gets done with that concept so: fuck it, this routine sucked. Ricky was predictably decent, dancewise. Ryan was surprisingly mediocre (that last pirouette was just ugly as she came out of it), but as anybody who follows the show-gossip knows, she is a Judges’ Favourite, much like Lauren in s3 (and for the same reason, as she has worked as an assistant for SYTYCD choreographers previously), and that means she gets praised to the moon for wholly unremarkable work and, it seems, for managing to not smile crazily through the entire routine. Indeed, she gets praised for inhabiting her character, but, again, it is a zombie routine: hundreds of people inhabit the character at every zombie march because it isn’t a character, it’s just moving in a certain sort of way and groaning a little, so performing it is not some sort of amazing achievement. Nigel compares it to the classic Wade Robson zombie group routine from season two, which: no, not even a little bit. And come to think, at least Lauren danced numerous styles and showed competence in them: Ryan has had jazz twice, contemporary, and one lyrical hip-hop which was, shockingly, more lyrical than hip-hop. Ryan is not the new Lauren. She is the new Mollee. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Caitlyn and Mitchell: contemporary. The first two-thirds of this did absolutely nothing for me; it was very standard SYTYCD contemporary, your flowing clothes and your paired leaps and your ecstatic expressions, danced very well by both of them and absolutely nothing anybody will remember three weeks from now. The last thirty seconds were some genuinely impressive choreography, though, including a set of lifts that were spectacular and a really nice end position. The judges fall over themselves to proclaim it the Best Routine of the Night, which it wasn’t in any qualitative sense (Clarice and Jess had it all over this), but it was certainly, of all the routines, the most predictably So-You-Think-You-Can-Danciest, danced by a couple who are both technically trained and who between them have danced one routine (last week’s samba) outside of their comfort zone.

Top seven girls: jazz. This was good.

Probable bottom three: Ashley and Chris, Ricky and Ryan, Sasha and Alexander.
Should go home: Ashley and Chris.
Will go home: Ashley and Chris.

Some people, when stranded on a desert island, might use a pair of sticks rubbed together to create fire. Others might focus the sun through their spectacles. The resourceful might use flint and steel.

Needless to say, all of these methods are completely superfluous if you are Rex the motherfucking Wonder Dog.

Given that TF2 is now free to play, this seemed necessary.

Sorry about the lateness of this post; I just got done with a weekend at CONvergence, a Twin Cities sci-fi con that fits nicely into that category of “not so tiny that it’s just a dealers’ room and a movie room, but not so huge that you have to stand in line for two hours for everything.” I got to see a clever little indie movie called ‘My Sucky Teen Romance’ that people should keep their eyes out for, got to chat canon with Lars Pearson of Mad Norwegian Press, and generally had fun. But now, it’s back to work!

“Work”, in this case, elegantly describes the task of thinking about the ‘Matrix’ sequels. Because while I do recall bumping into a few defenders that hectic summer, I think that with the benefit of almost a decade of hindsight, nobody really wants to say that ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ and ‘The Matrix Revolutions’ were any good at all. But I’m not here to discuss the bad things about them. I think we were all aware pretty quickly of the mistakes they made…the fight scenes that were there simply because they thought they had to top the first movie’s fight scenes, the dull speechifying, the inexplicable downgrade in power that Neo got offscreen, the “what the fuck happened” final conclusion…today, though, I’m more interested in discussing the good ideas that were buried in under all the dreck, the stuff that could have been the bones of a good sequel before they began slapping the bloated, corpulent flesh onto it. So let’s talk about the good in the ‘Matrix’ sequels, shall we?

1) The Oracle is a liar. That would actually have been really brilliant, if they’d only followed through on it properly. The whole first movie, we’re set up to believe that the Oracle is a wise, mysterious, shamanic figure who is guiding Neo to his ultimate destiny. The second movie, we find out that all that’s true…but his destiny is to cull the “free humans” down to a manageable number, and she’s actually a computer program whose job is to convince him to betray mankind. Hell of a second act twist, sets up a brilliant third act…shame that they found the least interesting way possible of executing it. (I had one friend who explained to me that he didn’t even realize that’s what the twist was, because “after about the Architect’s third sentence, it all just started to sound like the grown-ups from Peanuts talking.”)

2) The Merovingian. Not anything about his actual execution, mind you: He’s dull, smug, pretentious, snotty, and his endless blather kills every scene he’s in. Oh, and his plot function is terrible too. But the idea of the villain of the second movie being a powerful renegade computer program who prefers the Matrix to his “natural habitat”, who is the opposite of Smith in the first film because he adores the pleasures of experiencing life through sensory input, and who is running a secret “underground railroad” for programs who want to live in the Matrix…that’s quite clever. And it makes sense that such a person would be against the One, because he’s enjoying things the way they are and doesn’t want the boat rocked by the One, v6.0. It needed a lot more drafts, but it’s a solid idea.

3) Smith returning as a computer virus. The idea that Neo somehow accidentally made him is stupid, and the less said about it the better, but again, there’s the germ of a good idea under this. At the end of the first movie, Neo is all-powerful. If you want to get at him, you need to get at him outside of the Matrix. For the artificial intellegnces, recreating Smith as a living computer virus, one who can infect human brains and wear human beings like suits, would be the way to go. (Although it’d have to be for the third movie, once Neo has realized his destiny and rejected it.) But one of the key elements that they almost utterly neglected is that Smith hated even being in a simulation of flesh…being in an actual flesh body should have been a source of major character conflict for him. Perhaps he becomes a nihilist, hoping to bring down the Matrix and bring about the extinction of both humans and computers rather than continue as he is.

Which would lead, in the end, to a roughly similar finale. The AIs realize that Smith, their creation, is a bigger threat than Neo, and form a truce with Zion to stop him. Neo dies saving everyone, the AIs make the Matrix voluntary (one of the things they should have played up is that the average human being is driven insane by Neo’s attempts to “snap them out of it”.) And eventually, they all live sort of kind of happily ever after until everyone realizes that the whole “using human beings as a power source now that solar power is inaccessible to us” thing actually violates the laws of thermodynamics in a big way and they’d all have perished in a frozen grave ages ago.

Okay, so the original had its problems too.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

Your guest judges this week are Lil C and Kristin Chenoweth, which makes me think they have the judge-choosing equivalent of a roulette wheel somewhere and it broke, but both of them are insightful and eloquent and make Nigel’s terrible jokes a little more bearable, and the prospect of seeing strong dancers eliminated in favour of Yet More Contemporary Dancers Who Have No Shot At Winning No Matter How Pimped They Are a little less bothersome. But only a little. Yes, I am bitter about last week’s eliminations.

Group dance: Broadway. This was terrible awkward choreography, one of the worst Broadway pieces Tasty has ever put together, and he has put together some goddamned doozies.

Sasha and Alexander: contemporary. Sasha straight-up murdered this for the second week in a row. Alexander continues to be the less-comfortable Robert for me, and again: that’s saying something. He was better than last week because he was in his comfort zone this week, but I don’t quite feel comfortable saying he looked great. I really liked Dee Caspary’s choreography here: it was contemplative and original and fresh on a show that’s often gotten stale in recent years.

Caitlyn and Mitchell: samba. Caitlyn’s costume was just a disaster here: she had good carriage and worked her body superbly, I think, but all the floofy stuff wiggling around her made it almost impossible to see her dancing. Mitchell did quite well for somebody who didn’t have a lot to do – seriously, go back and watch it again and see how much, well, standing he was doing – but what he actually got to do was excellent. I didn’t really like the routine that much (Jean Marc is capable of much better, unless it turned out that Mitchell really needed to stand around a whole lot), but I thought they did a good job with what they were given.

Miranda and Robert: Broadway. So that’s Tasty 1-for-2 then tonight, I guess, since this was… okay! Not great – I think Tyce diverged a little too much from his music (especially for a Broadway routine) and it got distracting. And I think it was pretty basic, for the most part. But it was okay. Robert and Miranda were both game and threw themselves into it, and it was okay. I am using the word “okay” a lot, which is probably condemning with faint praise, but whatever. I didn’t hate this. It was there. For Tasty doing Broadway, that is practically a victory.

Melanie and Marko: hip-hop. Marko and Melanie are exceptional actors in a way that most dancers on this show just aren’t, first off – they embodied their characters wholly. That having been said, although I thought this was excellent, I didn’t think it was excellent hip-hop. Excellent jazz-with-beats, definitely, but whatever, at this point when I see an honest-to-god hip-hop routine on SYTYCD it’s A) a novelty and B) most likely going to be bad since they fill seasons with winsome modern dancers who can barely hit a beat. But Melanie and Marko can clearly both hit beats (although it’s worth noting they don’t sync up perfectly; Marko hits his beats very crisply and Melanie is more fluid, so despite the fact that neither is dancing offbeat they appear a little bit askew). So basically I can’t wait until they actually get to dance a hip-hop routine!

Ashley and Chris: jazz. Sonya went outside her usual bag of tricks here, and that’s good to see. But this was so bland and lifeless. Ashley and Chris again dance out of sync and again just don’t have any snap to their movements (and Sonya’s routines need that sharp quality more often than not). Neither of them are going to win: hopefully they go this week.

Clarice and Jess: foxtrot. Jess is dead-on once again when they dance apart; when they’re together… not so much. He was a lot better this week than last, since he didn’t blow the lift and as the routine progressed he really seemed to get comfortable with it, but man, that first closed hold he was so stiff! Clarice is good as always in her sort-of-generic way.

Ryan and Ricky: contemporary. Ryan’s smile keeps sneaking onto her face and it’s so goddamned distracting, which is a shame because her movement was so excellent otherwise. Ricky was excellent. This was good, in the sort of personality-free way that all the routines this season seem to have – my god, the dancers this season are so bland, I have trouble imagining a top four that would get me excited to watch the season develop. Melanie, Marko, Tadd and Sasha, maybe? Maybe? Euuuurgh. It makes me think that Jess is popular only because people can remember that he has a schtick and he isn’t fucking up too much.

Jordan and Tadd: hip-hop. My god, this was appallingly bad choreo. Just… yeesh. Tadd was excellent throughout, and demonstrated what could be done with actual hip-hop dancing on this show before Tabbynaps decided it would be more fun to have him put on and take off shirts and bounce on a bed. Jordan: see aforementioned comment about dancers this season being so frigging bland.

Group dance: contemporary. This was fine, and that’s all I’ll bother saying about it, because, really – this show’s genericness is just depressing. The formula is clear: one Latin ballroom per week, one standard ballroom per week, and the rest is contemporary or jazz (hip-hop is virtually dead on the show at this point). Bland bland bland bland bland.

Probable bottom three: Ashley and Chris, Miranda and Robert, Ryan and Ricky.
Should go home: Ryan and Chris.
Will go home: Ashley and Chris.

Recently I said that Marvel and DC have two different storytelling paradigms: DC’s is fantastic and Marvel’s pseudorealistic. Marvel heroes work best when the essential ludicrousness of their situation isn’t ignored, and the humdrum problems of everyday human life intrude: Spider-Man has to hustle to keep a job or a girlfriend, Iron Man has to be paranoid about staying on the wagon, the Fantastic Four squabble with one another as families do, Hank Pym has to remind himself “don’t beat up any women today,” and so forth. Even someone like Captain America, who’s pretty close to morally perfect, grapples with temptation from time to time, even if in Cap’s case that temptation is usually “be too proactive in doing good.” And generally speaking, Marvel’s pseudorealistic tone works across the line.

Except for Dr. Strange, and this is why, I think, so few writers these days are capable of cranking out a truly great Dr. Strange story. Dr. Strange isn’t conflicted. Dr. Strange isn’t on the hero’s journey. Dr. Strange left Joseph Campbell behind a long while ago: he’s a character who entered the superheroic stage fully formed. He’s already finished his hero’s journey. He has overcome his flaws. Dr. Strange doesn’t attend AA meetings for his drinking problem because he no longer craves booze; he doesn’t need rage therapy for his anger issues because he’s already solved them. He doesn’t fear his own death, not even a little bit. His only flaws, such as they are, are essentially virtues writ large: a stubborn refusal to give up in the face of overwhelming odds is not exactly a detriment to one’s character.

This should not be surprising. Dr. Strange only begins his run as a superhero after he has trained for years with the Ancient One. Quite possibly longer than years, in fact – years to us, maybe, but time can be subjectively manipulated in the right hands or right places. His studies probably lasted for decades or even centuries. On top of that Dr. Strange has been to war alongside the Vishanti, a war that lasted for over a thousand years. He doesn’t look old, because he chooses not to – but he is old, and with age comes perspective and acceptance.

Now, I understand that for some people this is a minus. These are the same people who think Superman is boring because he has no flaws, and that’s a perfectly valid opinion. Wrong, mind you, but perfectly valid. Flaws do not define a character or make him boring: bad writing does that. Flaws don’t make interesting stories: conflict does. Flaws just provide one type of internal conflict; choices present another, and the best stories involving Superman and Dr. Strange are about the choices they have to make. (Or about external conflict, which is heaps of fun.) Superman has the “can’t save them all” story, which gets reused regularly (and is vitally important for understanding the character); Dr. Strange has the “must condemn someone to save the world” story (same).

Really, the good Doctor is the Marvel Universe’s equivalent of Superman in so many ways: he’s the 800-pound gorilla of superheroing in his continuity, the guy who, if he shows up in practically any other title, outclasses everybody else when he’s being written right. (Which is rare.) He’s a source of near-infinite compassion, which is his true superpower when you consider that he is more or less a god walking among men. And all of this, incidentally, just demonstrates how pointless the Sentry really was: the Marvel Universe never needed a Superman analogue, because it already had one.

My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.

I normally don’t post things that overtly disagree with MGK, because he’s gracious enough to let me use his site and the much larger audience it provides, but after reading his post on DC and Wildstorm I felt that a different perspective might be warranted. Because while he thinks it’s yet another mistake in a DC relaunch that at this point couldn’t be much worse if they made Batman into a wisecracking dog, I actually feel like it’s the one sensible thing they’ve done in the entire mess and I wanted to offer my thoughts as to why.

The reasons are rooted in the basic concepts behind a shared universe: People want to see their favorite superheroes team up, and they will pay money for the privilege. Sure, it’s crass and mercenary and treats these characters as though they were nothing more than a commodity to be exploited…but it’s also true. When Character A teams up with Character B, it attracts the fans of both characters. As such, there is a strong incentive to make it as easy as possible for characters to bump into each other and have team-ups, fights, and generally interact.

MGK feels that there are limits to that concept; the DC Universe has a certain tone, he argues, that gets disrupted if you try to bring in heroes who are too disparate from the “core” DC characters. You can’t have a grim and gritty vigilante like Wild Dog or Vigilante, or a roguish hitman like Hitman… (a hitman named Hitman and a vigilante named Vigilante. Never let it be said that the heroes of DC don’t have a flair for evocative names…) because it’s difficult to believe that they could be part of the same universe as Batman and Superman.

The problem with this should be obvious: They are part of the same universe as Batman and Superman. So are the Secret Six, the Suicide Squad, Checkmate, the Doom Patrol…hell, it could be convincingly argued that the post-Year One Batman is so disparate in tone from the rest of the Justice League that it’s honestly harder to believe that Superman would team up with Batman than with Gen13. DC’s tone of light-hearted fantasy superheroic adventures has always had cracks in it that led to a seamy underbelly that somehow escaped Superman”s notice, even if you somehow forget that until 1993, John Constantine and Morpheus were considered part of the DC Universe.

This is because a superhero universe was never created as a single seamless entity by a single creative vision. It’s the slow, steady accretion of concepts at the hands of hundreds of different people, many of whom were under the impression that they weren’t even working in a shared universe when they wrote their series. Expecting consistency is like expecting your dreams to make logical sense, and trying to figure out why Superman never arrests Wild Dog is akin to that moment in the dream just before you wake up when you try to figure out why your Aunt Susan is married to a dog. It’s never going to make sense, and all it really does is throw you out of the dream.

In that light, the idea of folding Wildstorm into the DC Universe is, in principle, an excellent one. Alternate universes are a fun idea, but having to explain how Robin wound up flipping into Earth-50 every time you want him to team up with Fairchild and Static Shock is a right royal pain up the fucking arse and should be avoided. It’s better to just have a single “main” universe and branch off from there. It even works from a conceptual point of view; you can think of the Wildstorm characters as being part of the covert, espionage-oriented underworld that also produces Checkmate and the Suicide Squad. Organizations like International Operations stay under Superman’s radar, and guys like Grifter work at their level to stop them.

Of course, everyone seems to be ignoring how concepts like WildCATs, Gen13, the original Stormwatch and Welcome to Tranquility could actually work in the DC Universe in favor of complaining about how the Authority wouldn’t. Which illuminates a fairly basic point: The Authority didn’t really work that well in the Wildstorm Universe either. They’re not a good shared-universe team, because they tend to change the shape of the fictional universe they’re in. A universe with the Authority in it rapidly becomes filled with people who either agree with the Authority and do the same things they do, or disagree and try to stop them. No matter how you do things, you should spin the Authority off into another continuity entirely that they don’t have to share.

So yes, in principle it’s an excellent idea to merge the Wildstorm and DC Universes. In practice…these were the books they picked? No Gen13, no WildCATs, but they think a Voodoo solo book is going to be a big seller? Ohhh…kay. And the relaunched Stormwatch seems like it’s going to feel more like a watered-down Authority, although I reserve the right to change my mind about that based on the talent of Paul Cornell (who I’ve been a fan of since he was writing fucking awesome Doctor Who novels in the 1990s.) Looking at the lineup they’ve given us, rather than the options they had available, it’s pretty easy to see how “Christ no” could have been the response.

Bob asks:

The DC relaunch is folding the Wildstorm Universe into the DCU proper. Is this a good idea?

Christ no.

Many many other people have already criticized the way the reboot seems to be taking all of the worst ideas from the 90s and creating something that’s instantly dated, but what the inclusion of the Wildstorm universe into the DC proper makes pretty clear is that DC’s current editorial direction is one that’s wildly in conflict with its traditional tone, the one that produces its best stories. Tonewise, you can’t run DC like Marvel, or Image, or anything else. A company’s properties do, to some extent, dictate the stories you can tell within that company.

For an excellent example of this in the context of a different company, consider the Sentry at Marvel, who was just terrible and awkward no matter what Marvel tried to do with him because once you got past the premise of a forgotten Superman analogue, you suddenly had to deal with the fact that a Superman analogue just doesn’t work in the Marvel universe, and not just because of power level (because, honestly, Dr. Strange or the Silver Surfer could, in any properly written story, kick his ass). A Superman analogue doesn’t work because Marvel’s core tone is one of pseudorealistic storytelling in a superhero universe – even the truly ludicrous story elements are treated as completely realistic and plausible, and part of realism and plausibility is that even Captain America and Spider-Man, on occasion, will lose their shit and get depressed or enraged or what have you. You can’t really do that with Superman: his real superpower, as so many have said, is his bottomless well of compassion, and in a Marvel context you need to go really high up the food chain to get to beings with that sort of power over themselves.1

If Marvel’s core tone has always been pseudorealism, then DC’s has always been fantastic. Marvel doesn’t just lack Superman analogues; it lacks Batman analogues too, because Batman is just as implausible a person as Superman is and in the “real world’ Batman would be kind of crazy or a douchebag. Like Nighthawk, for example, who has been both. It was DC that first went to the alternate-universe crack pipe and who still has crazed explanations for everything even today (as opposed to Marvel, which decided that its multiverse would be casually policed by a number of organizations, be they multiple Captain Britains or multiple Reed Richards2 because in Marvel a multiverse means another stab at plausibility in an otherwise insane setting); it was DC that constantly comes up with variations on its core characters reverberating through all space and time so it can have an explanation for why Pirate Batman is on Earth-71 or whatever it is this week; it was DC that let Grant Morrison write Final Crisis.

I mean: people love the idea of Wild Dog being the DCU’s Punisher equivalent, but Wild Dog can only exist as a series for so long before people ask “when is Superman going to notice the insane vigilante?” See also: Vigilante, any non-cowboy incarnation. See also: Hitman, which ended on a grace note in JLA/Hitman when Garth Ennis rightly pointed out that Superman might not morally judge Tommy for being an assassin, but wouldn’t be able to let it slide, either. The Punisher works in the Marvel Universe precisely because there are no Batmans or Supermans there to stop him: there are only your Daredevils and Spider-Mans who are not godlike beings and can’t necessarily stop him, and your Nick Furies who instead try to exploit him. “[DCU hero] fights [murderous supposedly-heroic vigilante]” is one of DC’s storytelling staples, and that’s because it’s a core part of their tone: the noble knight rather who defeats Sandor Clegane every time.3 Which is fantastic. And that’s fine. That’s the story the DCU is good at telling.

DC’s incorporated other superhero universes into their core universe before, of course, with diminishing results. The Charlton and Quality characters slipped in smoothly enough; the Fawcett ones, less so, because Captain Marvel’s tone is cartoonier and lighter than DC’s, even when DC is at its lightest, and the result has been a horrible “champion of magic” role for Captain Marvel that has never really fit. The integration of Milestone worked even less well because most of Milestone’s heroes have their genesis in a giant industrial accident/government conspiracy and many of them are out-and-out killers, because the Milestone tone was even grittier and more cynical than Marvel’s was. (Blood Syndicate was a fantastic comic book, but it’s also about a freaking superpowered gang and never pretended to be anything else.)

So: Wildstorm. Which just seems like a clusterfuck from the beginning, because look what they’re incorporating directly: Grifter as the superhero equivalent of Roddy Piper in They Live, Voodoo reimagined in a solo “misunderstood hero” role, and Apollo and Midnighter and Jack Hawksmoor (at least) in a new Stormwatch along with the Martian Manhunter. The Grifter idea sounds like an attempt to do an end-run around DC’s core tone without having to deal with the “when DOES Superman arrest Wild Dog?” problem, the Voodoo thing could be perfectly normal or suck (because the DCU shouldn’t have misunderstood heroes, because Superman is always willing to sit down with a rookie hero for five minutes over a hot pretzel with mustard and have a chat), and the Stormwatch book is such a massive clash in tone – teaming up Authority members, and remember these are characters from a book whose core tone was “this is what the Justice League would be like if they weren’t stupid,” with the Martian Manhunter, a character who embodies the DCU’s core ideals better than almost anybody.

And that’s just what we know about. For all we know there’s a WildC.A.T.S team somewhere waiting to debut with Geo-Force on it for some reason. Which would be a bad, bad idea, but not as bad as putting the Authority in the DC Universe proper.

EDIT TO ADD: Apparently DC editorial feels really, really strongly that Superman should not rescue kittens from trees, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

1. See: Dr. Strange. More on this next week. [↩]
2. Or, okay, multiple Dr. Stranges, mea culpa. [↩]
3. Game of Thrones references! Woo. [↩]

Your guest judge this week is Debbie Reynolds, who is dance royalty and also completely blah as a judge. BRING BACK THE CHOREOGRAPHER JUDGES ALREADY PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

Nancy Travis Ryan and Ricky: jazz. Mandy Moore Does The Eighties Volume 844; nothing particularly interesting about the SOOPASEXY choreography, but then again I watch the Canadian show where this sort of thing is just weak tea. Ryan continues to smile through her entire performance and it’s just crazily distracting at this point; she no longer seems exuberant and instead is giving off serial-killer-in-denial vibes, and her dancing isn’t special enough that I care to look past that. Ricky continues to impress me much more than I thought he would.

Caitlyn and Mitchell: contemporary. Stacey Tookey’s choreography can just sometimes be so smart, like here where she clearly designed it with camera angles in mind – that first sequence with both chairs in focus was just so goddamned visually striking. Mitchell and Caitlyn were both just completely solid in this and I was thoroughly happy with it.

Missy and Wadi: cha-cha. This was… not that good. There is a certain swagger to cha-cha, a flick of the hips (beyond the wiggling Jean-Marc was showing off in the practice – and incidentally, notice that Vincent from SYTYCD Canada s2 was one of their trainers) and snap of the toes that Wadi just did not have, making the striding portions of this look like very basic walking, and his general carriage was not there either, which had the effect of making the entire dance feel like it was moving at half speed. Missy was better, but strictly okay, and not nearly so amazing as the judges claimed; she was in “would have made an acceptable partner for a blazing ballroom expert” territory and not much more, and she had the same lethargy that Wadi did for large stretches.

Iveta and Nick: Bollywood. All I can say about Bollywood most of the time is “I don’t know how to critique this style.” In this case, I can add that Nick and Iveta were off-sync at least twice during the routine, although they resynced quickly enough. Nigel does whatever is the opposite of soft-selling by pointing out that Joshua and Katee did it better “but they were in the top ten,” which A) cunningly implies that Nick and Iveta aren’t top ten material and B) is wrong, since at that time Joshua and Katee were in the top twelve. Thanks, Nigel!

Miranda and Robert: hip-hop. This routine didn’t gel for me, and I place that mostly on the choreo since it just felt kind of aimless and unfocused and didn’t go anywhere; no sense of build to this routine. It just meandered. Robert and Miranda were both good at it, though (Miranda’s somersault flub aside). Nigel exclaims that Miranda gave one of the best hip-hop performances a contemporary dancer has ever given on this show, which… no. Not even in the top ten. She was respectable, though.

Clarice and Jess: contemporary. Jess is terrible at close partnering. Terrible. He is awkward in close holds and his lifting was terrible (at one point he very nearly stumbled). When he dances alone he’s really very good: his timing is near perfect, his centre is, as previously mentioned, absolutely insane (he is up there with Danny from season 3 for flawless pirouettes) and his moves are crisp and just snap into place so well. But he’s not good at partnering, and if you can’t do lifts on this show why even bother? However they are probably safe considering the screaming from the tween brigade.

Jordan and Tad: Viennese waltz. This was quite nice. Was it as good as the judgegasm? No, not quite. But it was good, and both dancers acquitted themselves well. That is all.

Melanie and Marko: jazz. The first two-thirds of this routine were staggeringly good – just amazing dancing from both Melanie and Marko (who are a really excellent partnership), but additionally Mandy Moore’s choreo was actually very clever and original and fun. The last third of it (pretty much the point where the music shifted into full-on house)… kinda went nowhere, choreographywise, but Melanie and Marko were still quite good in it even though Marko briefly lost his prop-hat. This was a strong piece of work all around, though, and excellent dancing.

Sasha and Alexander: hip-hop. Much, much better choreo for this Tabbynaps piece than their first this evening. Sasha absolutely destroyed this: just incredible technique and performance. Alexander’s effort was unfortunately visible and his technique not on par with Sasha’s by any measure – he didn’t blow any moves but the technique was lacking, and he tried to make up the difference with facial acting. Still, this was fine, albeit mostly because of Sasha.

Ashley and Chris: Broadway. Spencer Liff is so much more welcome to see than Tasty. Seriously, one hears “Broadway” and you just start wincing, and then… hey, not Tasty! This was fun choreo, well outside of the standard SYTYCD box in a lot of ways – I especially liked the various interactions with the bars, which were more varied than I expected. Ashley and Chris, for what it is worth, danced it quite well. Perfectly decent on all levels.

Probable bottom three: Miranda and Robert, Missy and Wadi, Clarice and Jess.
Should stay: Clarice and Wadi.
Will stay: Missy and Wadi.