mighty forces

Best show on TV

…is VH-1′s “Tool Academy.” Seriously.

Well, maybe I should say “most entertaining.” But come on – let’s be honest. We watch reality TV to feel better about ourselves; to look at those poor souls on the screen and think, “at least I’m not them.” And nothing has provided the heroin-like hit of that emotion with more of a punch than “Tool Academy.”

It starts with the idea that the “tools,” the muscley, gelled-up, inked-over manwhores who star in the show, thought they were taking part in a program called “Mr. Awesome.” Little did they know that they would be joined by their skanky girlfriends on a show actually called “Tool Academy,” where they would have to work on their relationships through group therapy and reality-TV-style challenges. But they stayed, because hey, 1) they’re still on TV, and 2) they could win $100,000.

So begins the parade of male chauvinism, shirtless posing, endless cries of “bro” and “man,” and acres of tattoos, gelled hair and fake nails.

“I knew I was in serious trouble,” said Shawn, the bulked-up blonde with the fauxhawk and giant sideburns who had just been exposed in therapy as two-timing the girl he started the show with, “because this challenge is about infidelity. And I’m the biggest infidel here.”

Tonight’s contest was dancing the tango – won by Jenna and Ryan, an apparent refugee from Japanese anime who calls himself “Matsuflex” and compulsively refers to his underwear as “man panties.” (I am not making this up.) The couple, who has not yet had sex (although he is a constant “infidel” and she has had three previous boyfriends, all black men), won as their prize in the tango competition: a conjugal visit.

Is there any wonder why I love this show?

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist

Looking for something to distract you in these last 48 hours before the election? I would recommend DVDs of “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist,” an animated series from the late 90s with a fantastically dry, droll sense of humor. Tons of comics appear as the patients, including Joy Behar, Stephen Wright, Ray Romano and Dave Atell. It’s an antidote to the hyper, non-sequitur, pop-culture-saturated animation of things like “Family Guy” and “South Park.” I’ve watched the first season, and I feel better already.

The experience issue

The Simpsons are watching the midseason replacement series “Admiral Baby.”

Officer #1: We’re taking the entire sixth fleet to Candy Island?
Officer #2: Those are the Admiral’s orders!

[The Admiral is revealed to be a diapered baby in a crib wearing the appropriate hat and jacket. He loses balance and falls over to a laugh track and funny noises, while the Simpsons look on uninterestedly.]

Marge: It’s hard to believe someone that young could have risen to the rank of Admiral.

Identity politics

Homer changes his name to “Max Power.”

Marge: But this will be so confusing! The mailman won’t know what to do. Did you think of the mailman at all before you did this?
Homer: Yes, briefly.
Marge: And what about the tattoo on my you-know-what?
Homer: Oh, Honey, they have acids that can burn that off!

Gobsmacked

With the writers’ strike and the resultant glut of reality TV (“Groomer Has It”? Really? Really?), there hasn’t been much to praise about idiot box programming of late. But I found myself gobsmacked by two very different shows this week.

Many people already love “Mad Men,” the AMC drama about Madison Avenue advertising execs in the early 60s. This time I think the bandwagon is worth jumping on – I don’t remember seeing another show on the small screen that evokes a sense of place and time like “Mad Men.” Sometimes your jaw is on the floor from the intricate production design; sometimes it’s from the writing, which is multilayered and subtle and fascinating in its unflinching examination of power and control and the roles we play with ourselves and others. And then there’s the casting – John Hamm and January Jones (what a name!) playing the ultimate 60s Ken and Barbie couple, and especially Christina Hendricks (who I loved in “Firefly”) as the iron-fist-in-velvet-glove office manager, Joan.

It’s a show that makes you *want* to pay attention to every moment. It makes you sit forward in your seat. When’s the last time that happened to you watching TV?

The first season of “Mad Men” is out on DVD. Watch it and let me know so we can discuss it. It’s that good.

Then there’s “The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” which couldn’t be more different from “Mad Men.” It’s a show that has no right to be so good: it’s an alternate-timeline TV spinoff of the “Terminator” movies. How awful does that sound? But the show has a beautiful movie-like look, and the pacing is fast and furious. The action feels visceral, and the constant twists and turns seem interesting rather than cheap, like the endless chain-yanking of “Lost.” Plus, the show actually honors the “Terminator” canon rather than crapping all over it like you might expect. Of course, there’s also another “Firefly” alum, Summer “River Tam” Glau, as the new Terminator protector. So I was bound to love that. Her scene this week where she tried to talk a teenage John Connor out of deactivating her left me yelling “Oh my god! I can’t believe that!” at the television.

That never happens.

So give these shows a try, if you haven’t already. It appears there’s some hope for the idiot box yet.

Cutting corners

One of the weird things I think about: what do the people on Battlestar Galactica do with all the triangles of paper they cut from the corners of their pages? Use them for insulation? Decoupage? Thousands of paper footballs?

Waiting it out

Just finished watching an episode of Morgan Spurlock’s F/X series “30 Days,” where a woman staunchly against gay adoption went to live with a gay couple who had adopted four boys from foster care.

Predictably, the woman, while grudgingly admitting that the men were good parents, didn’t budge an inch from her conviction that children should have a “mom and dad home” and nothing else. If anything she left feeling more strongly against gay adoption, because her beliefs were challenged by the gay couple and their friends, and that just made her defensive and angry.

I’m sure there are still some people in America who, faced with the reality of gay people and their lives, could change their anti-gay stances. But not that many, at this point. Those ships have sailed. For people who believe unconditionally in a holy book and how they were taught to interpret it, the issue begins and ends there. And how can anything compete with that? Spurlock’s show also emphasizes that in most cases, when people’s deeply-held beliefs are challenged, they just become more rigid and dogmatic. Because if you are willing to give up your deeply-held beliefs, what do you have left? It’s a human reaction, if still a sad one.

The truth is that people like the woman in Spurlock’s show won’t ever change – in fact, as they see the world change around them and leave them behind, they’ll probably get more strident. It’s harsh, but all we can do is wait for those people to die out. History is on our side; too bad history takes so damn long.

So many questions

After watching the mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica, I have so many questions that remain unresolved, I hardly know where to begin. Watchers of BSG, should there be any who come by here – what’s your take?

1. What happened to Starbuck when she was “dead”?
2. Are there any 1s, 4s and 5s left, or are they all dead?
3. What happened to Boomer?
4. What’s the deal with Starbuck’s Viper?
5. If Deanna wanted to make peace with the humans, why was she so quick to threaten genocide?
6. Does Deanna even know who the final Cylon is?
7. Why would any Cylons want to get to earth for any other reason than to destroy it?
8. What does the Opera House vision mean?
9. Who made “the final five,” and why?
10. How come so many Cylons, including at least four of “the five,” ended up on Galactica?
11. Were “the five” always Cylons, or were they replaced at some point?
12. Who is “the dying leader”? The vision said the dying leader doesn’t make it to Earth.

Other mundane questions are bound to be answered: What happened to Earth? Who/what is the final Cylon? But to me these have become almost uninteresting, compared to the many mysteries that remain from what we’ve already seen. I appreciate ambiguity, and not wrapping everything up with a big red bow like Hollywood tends to do. But leaving so many threads out there is irritating, especially because overall the show is so brilliant.

My choice for the Final Cylon? Admiral Helena Cain.

Respect mah authoritah!

I think Andrew Sullivan may be on to something.

Andromeda Strain

Watched the four-hour “Andromeda Strain” remake on A&E last night. It was somewhat difficult to believe Eric McCormack as a hard-bitten by-his-own-rules reporter, but I think that had less to do with “Will & Grace” as it did with the stupidity of the character stereotype overall. Other than that, it was a workmanlike, at times mildly entertaining shaggy dog story, as pretty much all “the world is ending and only X can save it” movies are. Because let’s face it, if Demi Moore is the last best hope for humanity, we might as well pack it in right now.

Even at four hours, the script doesn’t do anything with the interesting bits scattered throughout, like making Rick “Ricky” Schroeder into a closeted gay Army Major, or casting the movie President as a young, telegenic guy with an equally young, telegenic wife and daughter. So you’re left with the cast of people we don’t know who die horribly, and the cast of middling stars impersonating the “last best hope” scientists.

My recommendation? Rent “The Core.” Seriously.