Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Category: TV

  • Reality TV?

    This is apparently the season where the limits break down on primetime TV.

    And I’m not just talking ’bout cable.

    For instance, tonight was the second week now that “NYPD Blue” has used “bullshit” out of the, er, blue. On ABC.

    Bullshit.

    I wasn’t as blindsided by it as I was last week, but still. Remember when “NYPD Blue” first came out, there was such an uproar over the use of “adult” language on TV? And partial nudity? Anyone?

    With that in mind, I’d’ve expected to have heard something about it, somewhere, beforehand. But no, not a peep.

    In general, too, this season on TV looks to be testing boundaries all around. From the… incident… on “ER” (I’d hate to spoil the surprise for those who might not have seen it yet), to the first episode of “Firefly” where the captain kicked the bad guy into the massive spaceship engine. I feel like I’ve been rubbing my eyes in disbelief.

    And I hope this trend continues.

    Random Web Link: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Go check out my favorite bit, titles.

  • More than Meets the Eye

    To my great delight, Amazon.com has the entire first season of the Transformers on DVD. This was the perfect television show that embodied the 1980s: a wildly popular cartoon whose sole purpose was to support an insanely popular line of toys, and yet there was such a seamless integration between the two that at times it seemed toys were introduced because they had characters in the cartoon (like the Dinobots and Constructicons).

    I was a total tool for the Transformers— the toys and the cartoon both. One thing that always bothered me about them, though, was the names of the various factions; in the beginning, there were two: the good guys were the Autobots, and the bad guys were the Decepticons. Simplistic, yet descriptive: the Autobots were robots based on cars, and the Decepticons were deceptive robots that were bad (like cons— as in convicts). If you didn’t look for any real meaning behind the names, fine. But why did they always have new factions or groups with names ending in “bot” (for the good guys) and “con” (for the bad guys)?

    That was just plain silly, even to my brainwashed mind. It was the laziness of marketing greed going too far, and destroying the illusory experience of deeper meaning. I mean, really. Right off the top of my head I can recall (aside from the Autobots and Decepticons) Dinobots, Constructicons, Insecticons, Aerialbots, Motorcons, and Predacons.

    So then, I have to ask: where do Emoticons fit in? You know, emoticons— those plain-character simulated facial expressions that are an inseparable part of Internet culture (like

    :)

    to indicate a smile,

    ;)

    to indicate a wink, and

    :P

    to indicate sticking your tongue out). Are they what they appear? Or are they really a new breed of Decepticon? Or, a clever synergy of ’80s toy culture and post-modern Internet culture?

    Perhaps only I know the true answer…

    Some Transformers links for the stalwart:

  • The Boob Tube

    I definitely watch way too much TV. Each year around the end of the TV season I reach some sort of critical mass where I just want to throw out the TV and not watch anything again, and use the time I spend in front of the zombie box in much better ways. Way, way too much time. And yet— and this is weak, really weak— I can’t not watch the damn TV shows through the respective season finales because of the inertia that’s built up from watching them all season…

    But the irony is, I’d be spending a lot more time in front of the computer, so that’s probably not really much better. Depending on what I’m doing at the computer, of course.

    One great reason to love the summer: reruns (sad but true); you don’t have to watch TV at all because you’re not caught in that vicious circle of keeping up with new episodes of this show or that show… and the reclaimed time is wonderful.