Damn You Again, Heather 9.23.04

I’d like to thank Law and Order for improving one crappy week of television. It’s season premiere week and what I have seen so far are schmaltzy retellings of last season’s stories, limp pilots with too many unbelievable pretty people (and I didn’t even watch Mountain), and the ABC show Rodney (kind of funny).

By far the worst was One Tree Hill—a questionably bad show in its own right, surviving off of the beauty of a young soon-to-be-forgotten teen heartthrob (Chad Michael Murray), a Bush cousin from the model side of the family (Sophia Bush), an “awkward” girl who is hot, extraneous pulchritude, and the aging talents of Moira Kelly, Craig Sheffer, and Paul Johansson, all with named like Haley and Lucas and Scott. The season opener was a set of flashbacks to catch us up… and leave us right where we knew we started—in the middle of some dumb “this town is SOOOOOO small” melodrama. I love watching some WB porn as much as anybody—pretty people, scantily clad, in cities that never get cold—but damn, that tested my patience.

I hope next week’s episode is better.

Even Smallville left a bit to be desired—except for Clark/ Kal-El’s first flight, which was a hella cool effect. And the gratuitous WB softcore skin scene—Lana taking an extended shower, Lana in amber tones, hair matted down, sweating, Lana looking at the surprise new tattoo at the small of her back.

And at least I didn’t get caught watching Mountain (television without pity recap here).

But, then there is Law and Order, with Dennis Farina in the old-detective role. Interesting, shady, and I wonder why he gets top billing. But LO whipped out Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Sarita Chowdhury. I wonder if Fred Dalton Thompson and Elizabeth Röhm get into fistfights, Thompson being a conservative, and Röhm being all actressy and very believable delivering her liberal lawyer lines about the US’ role in the Middle East, in terms of antagonizing and actually doing things that violate people’s rights

The show pointed out what seems to be a gaining public middle ground. These are the facts our nation will generally accept—that there are laws and to violate them one way brings violence and retribution on participating (or almost participating) states; that we freed the world from a mini-Stalin; that the economic and militaristic actions we take on the rest of the world are righteous, are the will of everyone, and are lawful. That people are jealous of our way of life but they need to accept it and get with the program. That people need to divest themselves, perhaps, of community thought and accept the secular and individual western way of thinking.

And there will be no peacenik solutions that involve America admitting that, as a nation, we do not look at Muslim nations as sovereign, as making their own destiny, with different theories of how to function; as nations to negotiate with. There will be no admitting that sometimes coming in like a stern father figure often breeds resentment even if we promise them scantily clad white women to populate their television.

Unless that’s too pessimistic.

On the lighter side, Britney Spears' cover of Bobby Brown's My Perogative is actually... very bad. Surprisingly poor. But Gully listens to it every day when he wakes up! Just kidding.

Okay, read today’s Boondocks. That’s a better ending.