TV Notes From The Couch

The question, a whole 26 minutes into it, is Why?

It's cliched, it's silly, and the running commentary Darin and I have going on it is much better than the show. It's kind of a Romeo-and-Juliet meet Braveheart kind of thing. Oops, spoke too soon (spoiler alert): it's a Romeo meets Braveheart kind of thing. The camerawork sucks -- one character just stepped in front of another character to take a sword blow, and it wasn't particularly clear unless you were paying close attention what happened.

And with the huge dose of Divine Right they're throwing at us, I may just have to toss a few cookies. This is an idea that both Darin and I abhor: you're worthy of something by virtue of being born? Idon'tthinkso. Maybe it's a peculiarly American notion on our parts, maybe it's an Irish-Jewish thing, who knows, but the idea that you're the one who should do something because of who one of your parents (usually the father) was is bullshit. Let me not hold back: Divine Right is wrong and it's crap.

Much better than this silliness is the new HBO series Oz. It's grim, unrelentlessly grim: an 8-part series from the creators of Homicide. All 8 parts were written by Tom Fontana, who is probably not someone I want to meet in a dark alley, although I would love to meet him in a job interview type situation.

Oz is about life in prison. Every single scene takes place in the prison (except for infrequent flashbacks as to the crimes the various characters did to get in to prison). Since it's HBO, and therefore cable, the language and action is a lot rawer than on network TV -- one review I read of this said that this show can never be edited-for-network TV because it would be edited into incomprehensibility. It deals with gang factions (violent), race divides (wide), male rape, prison politics, and what it takes to get by daily...both for prisoners and guards.

It's arty and vicious. At the end of the first episode I told Darin I wasn't sure I could watch any more because I felt as though I'd just been kicked in the stomach. I knew I would watch episodes 2 through 8 though, because it's compelling stuff.

I like the narrator device -- the series creators' know we won't be able to tell any of these characters apart at first, although the casting department did a wonderful job of finding actors who differ wildly from every other actor of the same color, so you can immediately tell the leader of the Aryan Nation from the lawyer -- but I could do without the artistic shots of the narrator rotating 360 degrees in space in his wheelchair. What up with dat?

You wanna go to jail? Watch this show. And just say no.

Today I spent most of the day trying to buy some airline tickets. I used to use Easy Sabre all the time on America Online, but Easy Sabre on the Web is annoying, slow, and as text-based as ever. So I tried Travelocity, and after fighting with it a wee bit too long, I finally gave in and called American Airlines. Ah, the lure of low-tech.

When not playing the Fearless Travel Agent, I wrote a teensy bit -- I'm having trouble channeling the voices of the detectives on Homicide. Perhaps I should work on my Buffy spec instead. No, no, I'm sticking with the Baltimore detective squad until done...then I'll move on to vampires wrecking the high school dance.

Roar, finally, is finis.

            DARIN
        Another epic Shaun Cassidy
        production.

I was hoping that Darin wasn't going to remind me of American Gothic, but no such luck.

Someone's at the do-ah.