Best show on television

As of last Friday, it's official. With Deadwood now defunct, and Lost digging itself into a labyrinthine trench so deep it seems nothing short of hitting the big red “it was all just a dream” button can save it, one show now rules the air.

Literally.
Frak me.

(Yes, Heroes is looking strong out of the gate, and I'm completely enamored of Studio 60. But I have lingering doubts about the ability of the former to maintain its current momentum, as I do about the latter's chances of gathering enough lift to offset its weighty production costs. They both have a lot of ground to cover if they're going to catch up to Battlestar Galactica.)

I am a big fan of the original Galactica, a lifelong loyalist who still has the entire run of comic books and dutifully bought the DVD set that came in a big plastic Cylon head. Even so, I never once, not even at age 8, suffered under the delusion that it was a show of of any real dramatic quality. It was just cool. Cool ships, cool robots, cool music, cool Dirk Benedict. But dramatically speaking, I knew it was no Dallas.

That anything even remotely as good as the new Galactica could issue from the union of Glen Larson's 1978 series and a (one-time) crap factory like the Sci-Fi Channel is nothing less than stunning. Epiphanous. Paradigm-shifting.

This weeklong euphoria after watching Adama pull off his plummeting atmospheric “jump-launch-jump” maneuver, and Pegasus taking out three (or was it four?) base stars in its death throes, has been tempered with feelings of real dread and worry over Gaeta. As with Chief and Sharon (and the late Billy), he's been one of my favorite characters all along. Of all the show's “one year later” twists, his character's mutation from highly efficient Tactical Officer to George W. Baltar's Chief of Staff was hardest to swallow.

Now the occupation is over and it's time to tar & feather all the Cylon collaborators (according to the previews of tonight's episode, and the Chief's foreshadowing). Which means it's not looking too good for Gaeta right now. I just hope he lives through tonight... and somehow finds his way back into a colonial uniform.

He's like the Colin Powell of the Baltar Administration — should've kept away from politics and stuck to what he knew, which is reading DRADIS and spinning up FTLs.

My brains are going into my feet...

It had to happen sooner or later.

All I really needed was an accomplice (read: enabler) and a single, unbroken stretch of 14 hours. Chris and I, thanks in no small part to the indulgence and understanding of our fair counterparts, watched the whole Star Wars saga, episodes I-VI, back to back. The unabridged life & times of Anakin Skywalker, from “Yippee!” to “Tell your sister you were riiiiiiiiiiight...”

These are not short movies, let me tell you. Their combined running time comes to about 13 1/2 hours (you can shave off nearly 40 minutes if you skip the end credits). We kicked off The Phantom Menace at 10 AM and finished up the Ewoks' “Nub Nub” song a few minutes shy of midnight (naturally, we watched only the pristine, unaltered theatrical versions). Along the way we debated such issues as which Geonosian arena creature was the nastiest, which Skywalker was the whiniest, etc. Two dyed-in-the-wool American dorks in their element.

Neither of us are strangers to this kind of marathon. Chris has sat through the entire Expanded Lord of the Rings Trilogy (11 1/2 hours); I've digested all 12 hours of Rich Man, Poor Man in one sitting, and every year I watch the entire rise and fall of the Planet of the Apes (5 movies, 8 hours). So we both wield the resolute fixation and hardened posteriors needed to survive such an ordeal.

(Let me just say here and now that I'm endlessly grateful to have a loving, devoted woman in my life. At times like this it seems like the apex of improbability.)

Anyway. The Star Wars continuum seemed to go on a hellllllllll of a lot longer than I expected. Maybe it's because it leads off with such compelling drama as a dispute over the taxation of trade routes. Or, maybe it's just the fact that Episode II is the longest entry in the series, thanks in no small part to the seemingly endless courtship of Anakin and Padme.

Consider: In Empire, Han and Leia trade a few playful barbs, fool around a little while the Falcon's in the space-slug's belly, and finally confess their love with five words spoken over a carbon pit. But little orphan Ani's whine-n-weep wooing of the apparently lobotomized ex-queen goes on for so long that we actually started wishing they'd get back to the taxation of trade routes. And this was only 3 hours into the haul — right about the time my numbing ass first started sending puzzled queries to my brain.

But then we hit Episode III, which has a lot going for it, not the least of which is the long-awaited chopped Anakin flambé. And then, finally, A New Hope and Empire, which are the reasons we put ourselves through this in the first place. So the going got easier, even though about halfway through Empire, the DVD player started to groan and stutter, much like the Falcon's hyperdrive.

By the time we hit Jedi, my brain was beginning to initialize its emergency shutdown sequence. And unfortunately, Jedi has that 25-minute stretch right in the middle (between the speeder bikes and Luke's arrival on the Death Star) when nothing happens except Ewok antics — so whatever momentum you've carried into the home stretch evaporates right there.

The finale, of course, is fairly satisfying (especially the death of the Emperor at the hands of his own apprentice, oh sweet irony!), but after 13+ hours, there's something a little disappointing in the fact that this long and impressive galactic saga ends with a bonfire and a musical number from The Muppet Show. Not the biggest payoff in history.

No matter. We done it. Nowhere to go from here but down.

And my head still feels like this:

It's in the Cards

Funny thing — despite my season-long sympathies with the Mets and their long-suffering fans, and the underdog-makes-good allure of a Mets-Tigers World Series (not to mention my inherited allegiance to the Cubbies*), I can't bring myself to root against these Cardinals.

It's their roster that gets me. How can you not pull for guys who really play the game the way these guys play? Total-effort players like Rolen and Edmonds and Eckstein... and even our old friend Spiezio, who just suffered two seemingly terminal seasons with the Ms, only to become the unlikely hero of the NLCS a year later.

And I tip my hat to La Russa, who so far has managed the postseason like a brilliant chess game. Spiezio in place of Rolen? Taguchi in for Duncan? Madness! But the results speak for themselves.

Nothing's sewn up yet, of course — 2004 taught us that lesson. Still, with Carpenter taking the mound tonight, the Mets need to summon the spirit of Schilling's bloody sock if they're going to pull this one out of the fire.

*Oh yes: Lou Piniella giving the Cubbies a swift kick in their hapless asses? That's a show I will not miss.

Kryptic news item

The headline is real. The subs are mine.

Unusual meteorite found in Kansas

• UFO sightings dismissed
• Astronomers monitor exploding star
• Local orphanage vandalized

Macht das Yanken kaput

The Yankees are finished, and justice wins out once more. Seeing the Yankees falter was #1 on my postseason wish list, so now I feel I can sit back and just enjoy the rest of the show. Why do I take such pleasure in the misery of others? Tim hits the nail on the head — and puts it much more eloquently than I would:

Yankee fans are spoiled brats. The Yankee front office is completely insatiable. Which is why, in every year of this new century, I have gleefully enjoyed seeing the Yankees lose in the postseason. Because it feeds the beast. It drives Yankee ownership and many fans to tension, anger, and bitterness — as if they were denied something that was promised them as a birthright — which makes each subsequent Yankee ouster that much sweeter to savor for us, the fans of any other franchise in baseball.

Spoiled brats. Exactly. See now, I would have posited that Yankees fans are assholes, and left it at that. But the thing is, Red Sox fans are pretty much assholes, too. The difference is, they're a jolly bunch of lunatic assholes, which makes them fun to be around. And when they lose, Sox fans gnash their teeth and rend their garments — Yankees fans whine and sulk.

Hee hee. It brings an evil little Damien grin to my face.

All in all, the division series have left us with the most just postseason in memory. The four remaining teams — Oakland, Detroit, St. Louis, and non-evil New York — happen to be the only four teams that led their divisions for nearly the entire season. The Yanks didn't pass the Sox until late July, the Twins came on at the very end (I guess I was wrong about their momentum though, huh?), and no team in the NL West really deserved to move past the division series (the whole season was a game of musical chairs for them — even the Rockies were in first place for five weeks).

A Cardinals-Tigers World Series would be classic. But I'm hoping (and expecting) it'll wind up Mets-Tigers. Because, think about it: Mets. Tigers. Both teams finished fourth the last two seasons, and dead last the two season before that.

It's a Revenge of the Nerds season, with the Yankees scurrying back to their locker room with liquid heat in their jockstraps.

Oh the horror...

Oh how I love October. The leaves, yes; the autumn light, yes; the breaking out of fleece and flannel layering, of course. What I really love, though, is the movie season. Every year, October ushers in a four-week barrage of the most gratuitous and gratifying movies in the world. And little considerations like taste, talent, logic, and restraint enjoy a month-long vacation.

Here we are, only four days in, and already I have subjected myself (and my indulgent wife) to a splattering of some of the worst and weirdest entries in the genre. And at this very moment, the tireless Tivo is fastidiously gathering up even more gore-fodder for the weeks ahead. But for openers:

Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
Just to set the right tone, and to make sure it's absolutely clear just how low I can and will go this month, let's lead off with this atrocity. This truly is just about as bad as it can get — any worse, and the camp-cheese continuum starts to curve back on itself and you end up with the delightfully bad — Devil's Rain, The Green Slime, Robot Monster, and the like. Shark Attack 3 stays just bad enough to remain only bad, as in not-so-bad-it's-good-but-so-bad-it's-actually-just-bad. You get the idea.

This is a pretty standard grade-Z shark movie (screaming bathers intercut with mismatched stock footage) until about the last half hour, when the prehistoric title creature makes its entrance by popping up to swallow a motorboat and its driver whole. No chomping... just gulp. Hey now, that's new.

Also fallling victim to the surfacing stock-footage head of this fish-of-questionable-dimensions are a bigass life raft holding about nine people (slurp), and a bad guy on a jet-ski (thinking he's made his getaway, the villain chuckles villainously just moments before he, yes, jet-skis directly into the waiting gullet of superimposed slo-mo aquatic justice). Nothing but net.

The dialogue (or so I have read) is some of the worst in recorded history, though I wouldn't know for certain, as I caught this gem on the Sci-Fi Channel, and nearly every line was recut and dubbed to the point that the film transcended itelf and became a whole new creature. I'm fairly sure that lines like “Abso-jumpin'-lutely!” aren't canon, but another line (one which those familiar with the unedited version will remember as the movie's money line) reaches levels of intrigue the original writers could not have imagined: the hero leers slyly at the hot blonde paleontologist and says, “What do you say I take you home and... watch some Lucy?”

Time After Time
There aren't many original ideas left in the sci-fi/horror genres, but here's one: H.G. Wells uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper from 1890s London to 1970s San Francisco. It's better than it sounds, largely because the film takes itself seriously, and perfectly casts Malcolm McDowell as Wells and the matchless David Warner as Jack (in an intellectual and Moriarty-like “adversarial colleague” take on the role).

The time-travel effects predict Xanadu, and Mary Steenburgen's endless promulgation of women's lib gets tired pretty fast, but otherwise this is a suprisingly original story. One nice touch is that the two time travelers are played as highly intelligent men who adapt very quickly to the 20th century — the fish-out-of-water cliches are kept to a minimum.

Their respective adaptability even serves to contrast the two adversaries: Wells remains socially and culturally awkward throughout, never changing out of his Holmesian tweeds, while Jack jumps right into the disco scene, boots and all, and thrives. With great relish, he informs Wells, “I belong here completely and utterly. I'm home.” Yet Wells is the one who appreciates and studies the instruments and machinery of their new world, and late in the game much hinges on the fact that while Jack was mastering the swingers' arts, Wells was learning how to drive a car.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
Now here's a movie with a title that speaks volumes. Not only do you get the whole story in five words, but you also get a nutshell summary of the film's overall quality. Because there are really two movies going on here — “Earth” is one thing, and “The Flying Saucers” is something quite different. And, somewhat counterintuitively, it's the latter half that comes out stronger.

The saucer effects are really quite good, obviously the work of Ray Harryhausen (he's one of those technicians you don't even have to look up; credited or uncredited, you can spot a Harryhausen stop-motion effect on sight — just like titles by Saul Bass). Whenever the saucers are on screen, you're watching a B+ 1950s sci-fi film.

As soon as we cut away from the invaders, though, we're in a different film. The actors put in a noble effort (especially Joan Taylor's legs), and the writing isn't too shabby, but the earthbound effects go kerplunk. It almost feels like someone found a few reels of surplus Harryhausen effects and decided to build a no-budget film around them, Ed Wood-style. Imagine cutting from a big shot of a damaged UFO crashing dramatically into the Capitol Dome to a little one of a couple actors jogging in place in front of fuzzy rear-projection footage of a forest fire. Huh? Hey! Bring back the other movie!

We do get some splendid little moments out of this though. For instance, when one of the aliens — stiff-limbed foam-rubber robots lacking both faces and hands — is shot and falls to the ground, the sound effects guys layer on a lot of enthusiastic clanking and bonking, even though the dreaded nerfbot clearly lands with what should be just a soft and gentle squish.

Maybe what happened is they blew their whole budget on the explosive finale, so when it came time to fill in the first hour or so, all they could afford to do was give it more cowbell and hope for the best.

Baron Blood
Finally, some actual horror. After all... shark attacks, time travel, and flying saucers aren't real Halloween fare, are they? But Mario Bava? Oh yes indeed. With Bava you get it all:

• dark castles haunted by ghosts of insane mass murderers
• dungeons brimming with instruments of torture and general discomfort
• superstitious bug-eyed villagers murmuring bizarre warnings at jauntily skeptical outsiders
• spiritualists channeling the restless echo-voiced souls of understandably resentful burned witches
• ancient curses scrawled on crinkly, flammable parchment
• mystical talismans of unknown origin and uncertain utility
• hangings, throat-slittings, and impalings galore... including a detailed before, during, and after study of an iron maiden's effects on the complexion

Oh yeah, and there's some blood, too. Not that free-flowing, wine-colored blood you see pouring out of the elevators of the Overlook Hotel, but the thick, oozing, bright-red paint that issues exclusively from the arteries of slashed Italians. Giallo pudding.

Yum. What else could one ask for? How about twenty-seven more days of these movies?!

So that's that

Six months to Opening Day. I know: there's still another month of baseball to go, but (on paper, at least) it's not looking like a terribly exciting postseason.

I could be wrong about that, of course, but I keep jumbling the possible matchups in my head, and nothing really screams drama to me. I'd enjoy a Tigers-Dodgers series the most, I guess, although the smart money has to be on the Twins right now (the only team with a formidable and healthy pitching staff). I'm sure there are several million people somewhere who'd appreciate another Yankees-Mets rumble under the freeway. But if I had one wish for the postseason, it'd be to see the Yankees knocked out early — like by the end of the week, please.

The Ms cobbled together 78 wins — a step in the right direction, after two seasons below the 70 mark, but still nowhere near where they should be with their payroll. That horrifying August road trip is the big(gest) black mark on their season — 11 consecutive losses, all against their own division. If they had managed to win just 5 of those games, they would have finished over .500 and cleanly in third place. And a 4-game sweep of the Angels in August would've landed them in second place.

Sadly, it's not looking too good for next year, unless they can turn up a busload of pitching and a bona fide #3 slugger (Sexson sure ain't it) to hit behind Ichiro and ahead of Raul and Kenji. And they should stick Beltre in a cryogenic freezer right now — don't thaw him out until late March. And then tell him it's still September.

While they're at it, stick Hargrove in a freezer, too. And leave him there, for all the difference it would make.