I just watched the season finale of Dr. Who. My colleague, Professor Schaff calls it the best show on TV. I am inclined to agree, though with a few qualifiers. Just right now Dr. Who has the best writing of any show that I have watched, and one of the best actors: David Tennant, who played the deatheater, Bartie Crouch, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It is a sign of the show's strength that it is so good despite having villains cut right out of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, along with a visual texture and special effects that are appalling British. It is one of the Doctor's most appealing traits that he never kills even the baddest monster, or allows anyone to be killed if he can help it. But of course he is a Time Lord, and has the benefit of writers who make sure that everything comes out alright in the end.
I am watching the Dr. Who spin-off, Torchwood. It started out pretty uneven, but it's getting better. And now that we know that Captain Jack is The Face of Bo, well ...
I have finished watching season one of Heroes, and it was marvelous. It is clearly inspired by the X-Men movies, though it is not, strictly speaking, a superhero story. Applying Dr. Blanchard's Theory of Genres, a superhero has to have an alternate (and usually but not always secret) identity. The characters in this show, despite their super powers (invisibility, flight, telekinesis) have names like Peter and Clare the Cheerleader. Like a lot of recent fantasy television, individual episodes of Heroes are subordinate to a strong story arc and it's a good story. The next wave of evolution (not exactly Darwinian evolution, but something more akin to magic) is producing supermen and superwomen. But they have divided (surprise!) into good and bad superpersons, and are at war. As in Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, some mysterious power is always backing the play of the good guys and gals. But don't count on it! For a political scientist, it's a barrel of monkeys. The flying man is a candidate for Congress, and the super endowed crime boss Linderman (played by Malcolm McDowell) uses a superkid to rig the voting machines. I told you they were bad news! The visual texture of Heroes is excellent, making Dr. Who look like an animated Disney film. The acting is consistently good.
Television today is very good, much better than when I was a kid. It is better on the whole than cinema, which is a big shift from previous decades. But there are so many good shows that a lot of them get lost. One of my favorite shows, The Dresden Files, about a wizard for hire, didn't make it to a second season.
Recent Comments