Rhymes With Steve

Tonight I’m faced with the toughest decision of the week… what to watch? Two political debates, and one new episode of Smallville. My, oh, my. (UPDATE: Smallville airs one hour earlier!)

First off, the people who scheduled tonight’s separates debates are mean. If you haven’t noticed, Canada and America have been going out for quite some time. Everything they do affects us, everything we do affects them in some way too (albeit: usually/probably not as much). We’re different countries, no question, but we’re still family.

I haven’t blogged about Sarah Palin yet, I don’t think. So I guess that makes me behind the times. Secretly, I just adore her. Yes, she’s a walking contradiction on many respects and just the wrong person for the job overall, but she’s cute as a button. And I don’t mean that physically or ’cause she’s a woman.

(In fact, I would have rather seen Hilary Clinton secure the Democratic presidential nomination.)

Coincidentally enough, she reminds me of Lois Lane from Smallville. She’s so sassy and quick. She makes me laugh. In fact, she’s someone I’d love to be friends with. Just to interact, talk about movies and stuff.

There is, however, the seriousness of it all. She has a one in two chance of becoming the vice-president of the United States. And if she succeeds, she’ll be second-in-command. So while she’s fun to watch, there’s a definite amount of worry that follows.

In my People, Power and Politics course, we have recurring discussions on how much more interesting American politicians are. Case in point: Sarah Palin. And that’s why I’m kind of at a fork in my political road. If I watch the Canadian debate, I’ll gain more information that will impact who I vote for. If I watch the American debate, I’ll: be up to speed on my pop-culture, understand what CNN’s talking about for the next few days, and further appreciate the inevitable Tina Fey SNL parody.

On the other hand, and I know I might be alone on this, Canada’s election is interesting. There was the infamous puffin pooping Stéphane Dion thing on that Conservative-authorized website, Elizabeth May getting to participate in the leaders’ debate, etc.

Oh yes, back to Smallville. I could actually watch it another day, I guess. From what I’ve read, it’s a Green Arrow origin story. I like the character but would it kill me to watch it another day? I only have, like, one friend who goes to Ryerson that watches it and we never see each other anymore. And it’s not like I’m going to be receiving any spoilers in Information and Visual Resources tomorrow… oh, decisions, decisions.

This is in response to my initial reactions to the start of this year’s TV season. Don’t read whichever TV shows’ respective paragraph if you want to avoid spoilers.

Prison Break — Surprisingly, the writer’s salvaged a lot of the third season. It started off terrible, what with that whole Sara and her severed head issue. Even the mobster who (I think) cut off a few of Michael’s toes in the first season got a better goodbye than that! It did, though, help the narrative. It gave Michael his resolve to escape — not for freedom, but to hunt Susan. He went from liberation to retribution. And when he finally had Susan in his sights along with a loaded gun he — he choked. So much for that. Still, I’m willing to give this new darker, grittier Michael a shot and see where it goes. (Skip this next sentence if you want to avoid highly-publicised yet still spoilerly season four spoilers.) There’s also the messed up fact that Sara is supposed to be coming back, which will definitely be interesting to watch for the story but also to see how the writers will fix this missing noggin conundrum.

Heroes – This season was dreadful to watch. I think what really did me in was that whole Claire’s blood = Deus Ex Machina plot device. Now anyone can live and all the suspense has diminished. Oh, and if Hiro goes back to Feudal Japan one more time, I’ll go back there and get him myself!

Bionic Woman — Ahahaha. Okay, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t laugh. I think I saw the first three episodes and gave up. And evidently, so did America. There’s still Knight Rider (2008), I guess.

Pushing Daisies – Great show. ‘Nuff said.

Smallville – How could the creators do that to the audience? Seriously, season Six was hands down the show’s best ever. And they follow it up with a subpar mess like this? I really had high hopes for this season. Even though one of the loves of my life, Martha, left, and the Green Arrow wasn’t given a main character slot, it looked good. I thought it was an excellent and natural evolution for the show to introduce Kara. Ever since season 5, the show has actually been going somewhere, and with season 8 being reportedly the last season, they meshed a good base of DC Comics mythology and traces of the last few years before Clark is to don the cape (which I’m hoping happens in the series finale). But season 7 had no direction. Kara was useless even though I think the fellow Canuck could have handled a bigger role. And Lana was back to her sometimes smart, most times ‘meh’ character arc. Still, the Descent of Lex was a joy to watch. I personally think he is the best Lex Luther ever portrayed. And so was Lionel. But now both of them are seemingly gone and I’m yet again lost — and not in the good kind I’ll get to in a sec.

CSI – Better than average, I’d say. It was sad to see Sara go. She was a person saturated in a field that she inherently couldn’t handle. And her departure was fantastically handled. I think killing characters off isn’t the best writing technique since it’s kind of a slap in the face to the audience. Woah, they died — guess their part is done. It just usually doesn’t justify the means or push forward the storyline. Warrick’s, on the other hand, I accepted. It didn’t seem wrong at all. His character spiraled immensely this season, and while he did redeem himself moments before the bang AND cystalize the fact that he was always apart of the good guys, the story demanded it. Now it’s time to see where and how the writers are going to build from it.

Lost — I think I only counted one pointless episode this season. Season three had “Stranger in Strange Land” where we learned the intricate, jaw-dropping details of Jack’s tattoos, and this season’s was “Something Nice Back Home” — and it actually wasn’t all that bad. I mean, the show juggles romance, comedy, action, mystery and etc. We’re dedicated to these two star-crossed lovers, so we have to follow them and see how they evolve. This season had way more flashforwards than I thought it would. I thought we’d only get a few but it’s clearly become à la mode at this point in the mythology. And after four seasons, the show is still wonderfully intact. The way the flashforwards jump completely differently in time sticks with the disorienting formula. And considering Locke is going to die sooner or later (which assumingly means the island wanted him to die considering it can control life/death off the island as we saw in Michael’s flashback), something’s up with the island. And what happens when they do indeed get back? I’m salivating as I type.

(I’m going against my ‘one paragraph per show’ rule but Lost undoubtedly had the best season of the bunch.) I suspect the next season is going to deal with the hostiles (or other others) because:

• Season 1: Survivors Vs. Unknown
• Season 2: Survivors Vs. Machine (the button)
• Season 3: Survivors Vs. Others (Dharma Initiative others/a few hostiles)
• Season 4: Survivors Vs. Freighters
• Season 5: (?)

The show tends to always have some kind of main obstacle the survivors face. And, actually, now that I think about it, I suspect next season to revolve around the outside world. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the show could survive off story lines dealing with the characters readapting to home life, alone. While I always wanted there to be a kind of epilogue season dealing with just that, it wouldn’t feel right, which is why I’m thinking next season will handle issues back at home — bringing the fourth season’s flashforwards into the present — and will culminate the fifth season with the fourth season’s last few moments (like they did with the third season’s flashback and the fourth season’s opening). The sixth and final season will then head back to the island, in theory, and resolve all loose ends and thus be: Survivors Vs. Island/Hostiles; the original and ultimate challenge. That would be fantastic. And don’t even get me started on the mysterious four-toed statue.

It has been months since I purchased my My So-Called Life DVD set. I watched it routinely throughout the first few months, sometimes one episode per night consecutively for days. But then I got passed episode 10 and realized I had a limited supply left. So I spaced the viewings farther and farther apart.

And then I watched “The Weekend”, the penultimate episode of the series. I think I watched it in February and while I knew that episode was highly serialized — as in: you should probably watch the next episode right away since they, the episodes, make up a story as opposed to individual episodes that start and conclude everything in one episode (usually known as ‘filler’ in other shows) — I couldn’t watch it.

I’ve seen all the episodes on Family Channel before. Family Chanel, by-the-way, is uberly awesome. They played shows like this and Popular, both of which I absolutely love and see them as high caliber programming, later in the night for x-number of months. If it weren’t for that channel, I would have never gotten into such fantastic programming. Nevermind, all they play now is Hannah Montana.

So the day before yesterday, I watched the last episode. It’s rare but not unheard of for me to get emotional over TV or a movie, though movies are even rarer. (Isn’t ‘rarer’ such an odd word to say? Sorry, I just wanted to make note of that.) TV requires, usually, years of commitment. You literally grow old with the characters. Six Feet Under’s finale made me cry buckets. I don’t cry anymore when I YouTube the ending, however, it marked such a different point in my life. I kind of lived vicariously through the Fishers, all those five years it aired.

I also nearly teared up over Smallville’s recent episode “Descent”. They killed off a really strong character. Seriously, he was just bloody brilliant! And often seen as a villain, might I add. Luckily his death served a greater purpose in the mythology. Bittersweet.

I didn’t tear up over My So-Called Life’s finale. An episode titled “So-Called Angels”, a Christmassy episode earlier in the season, was this figgin’ close to making me cry. Come to think of it, that episode should have really made me cry. Maybe it was the fact that Christmas had already past. Regardless, if anyone is ever looking for a good cry, and it’s a perfectly healthy thing to do, watch that episode.

I watched the finale. And it’s over. I’m not entirely sure why I chose to elongate the time it took me to rewatch the whole series. It’s probably some Freudian condition in which I do that to make myself believe it’s longer than what it really is. That, or a foolhardy hope that it could somehow be picked up for a second season over a decade since inception before I refinished.

I can’t believe anyone could cancel a show like that. Solid writing, solid performances; how could you go wrong? Forget numbers! It even laid the groundwork for future story-lines: Graham and the restaurant business, Angela’s hatred towards Rayanne, Angel and Jordon, Angela and Brian, Rayanne and her loneliness and alcoholism, Rickie and his familial problems… and it continues. It was an unflinching and unparalleled look into the lives of teenagers.

I’m not trying to sound bitter but how on earth could you cancel such goodness? Maybe, in some otherworldly way, it’s a good thing it ended shortly and so abruptly. We don’t deserve such quality. It’s classic and timeless. It can’t gain or detract. It is and will always just be there.

I was talking to a girl in the hallway the other day about that Hills show. She’s basically my polar opposite, but it’s a real hoot when we interact because of her obsession with that show. I really should ask her what’s the hook because I’ve seen my fair share and it seems lame.

I’m not hating the show, I just don’t understand it. Clearly, if millions of MTV-subscribers are watching it, there has to be something. But what is it? The drama is is like a watered-down high school series with highly-polished 20-somethings. I saw a few clips of this one episode where apparently one girl talked behind the other girl’s back and it just seemed silly.

Oh, and then there was this one line where the girl who was pissed over the whole talking smack incident said something like: “All I can do is forgive and forget. And I want to forgive you … [dramatic pause, breathes in] and I want to forget you”. So they just kept playing and playing and playing and playing that clip on MTV Canada during the commercials and, of course, it made me wonder why she’s so pissed she wants to “forget” someone. Turns out this was over that said talking smack issue. Aww, boo hoo! This is much better.

She (the girl from school) actually had a “Hills Party” for the season premiere. It makes me cringe with laughter but I’m sure I’ll throw one for Lost cum a month’s time. Oh, stupid writers’ strike. That episode (Lost’s eighth episode of season four) wasn’t even all that great. It was nice having a flashback err… flashforward… no, wait, it was a flashback for Michael and figuring out his place in all this. It was also a great segue into the second half of the season since I’m sure Sayid’s startling(?) revelation to the captain will have some major repercussions.

However.

Why one EARTH would you kill off Rousseau? Not so much why, but how. That was the crappiest send off. She was so rad, and it was extremely uncharacteristic for a woman of that calibar who once trapped and tortured Sayid and genuinely seems to be a hunter only comparable to Locke to just stand there and get shot. Argh, they better give her some stellar flashback treatment to compensate.

And the twist, that was horrible. As far as good Lost twists go, this one wasn’t well executed. We had like what: 10-minutes of buildup for the Alex/Rousseau/Carl subplot? And we all knew one of them had to die since it was nearing the end and the announcer outright declared that in the promos.

But so okay, they die and Alex is being chased, she lets everyone know she’s “Ben’s daughter”… and!? This episode left us disoriented. It did not fit in at all. What they should have done was reveal the mysterious shooter(s) with someone (some people?) we’d never expect. That would have been swell. It would have given us some tangible base to think about for the hiatus and would have left us, well, lost. And if that declaration of being Ben’s daughter means she’s not as friendly as we previously thought, I didn’t believe it for a second. Pregnant? Maybe.

I think I did detect some underlying message regarding the strike through that ending, but it still left me wanting more.

On another note, learning of Tom’s sexuality was a hilarious nod to his “No offense, Kate, but you’re not my type” line in the 3rd season. Brilliant!

I saw a bit of that Pussycat Doll Idol show on MuchMusic. Funny, I haven’t seen a music video on that channel for ages (I guess The O.C. is much more important). Admittedly, I watched most of the first season. I think the actual ’singing’ group is awful in their own right, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Surprisingly, the show does have a few descent singers and dancers. Or so it seems, anyway. I don’t know who does the editing, but I’m sure they’re under strict orders to make the ‘bad’ dancers look awful and glorify the ‘better’ dancers. I’m also not entirely digging the way they drown out the lounge’s sound so that it sounds like we’re only hearing the singers. It feels a bit too computerized in my opinion.

I’m glad Smallville is coming back for a few more episodes. But, sadly, I read a spoiler-filled description of an upcoming episode in which Clark will be taught to fly by Kara. No! Why would they put that in the description!? That’s why I hate descriptions, they give too much away. At least make it ambiguous! Write something like “Clark will finally face this season’s manipulative nemesis but will need guidance from his Kryptonian cousin, DC Comics’ Supergirl-to-be, that will take his abilities to new heights”. Okay, it still ruins the prospect of him finally learning how to fly but at least makes it a fun kind of way to ruin it. It gives you the spoiler without really telling you.

Hmmm, what else is in the news. Ahh yes, Earth Hour! Everyone keeps saying how this won’t do anything and that’s quite wrong. Firstly, it will technically do something to help the environment, no matter how small. But the point of this event is to make a statement, not really to conserve energy for 60 minutes.

Unfortunately I’ll be working for this year’s Earth Hour, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I doubt I’ll get management to turn off the outdoor sign/a few lights inside, but since I run the Photo Lab I can make some impact. I plan on taking a 1-hour break during the event. Since we close at nine anyway, I can shut down the machines right before my break and turn off all the lights I physically can in the department.

Technically there’s this one light we’re suppose to keep on forever, but I’ll still turn it off and just “happen to forget” if anyone asks. I really wish I could stay home and reminisce about things in the mask of candlelight. Instead, I’ll do it here.

The bittersweet thing about disasters is remembering where you were when it happened and how you found out about it. I was at a friend’s house during 2003’s blackout. This is a really lame story so you ought as well stop reading now. We played video games and watched various movies in the basement. Then we got bored and began playing cards. We decided to play another video game and, wouldn’t you know it, the power was off!

So we actually began playing games (cards) that you would ordinarily only play during a blackout, before the blackout! The card game lasted tens of minutes (or so) so we had no idea when the blackout hit, let alone the magnitude. How exhilarating, I know. I decided to walk home for some reason and that was not fun at all when I had to cross a few intersections.

Oddly enough, we had a few generators at home so we supplied our own power and lived normally throughout the blackout. The Christmas lights actually came on as well (because the timer restarted, mind you) and took a few minutes to shut down, all the while I feared a crowd would swarm us for having electricity like with the car in War of the Worlds. To be fair, though, we totally shared our power with the rest of the neighborhood. Because we’re cool like that.

Well, there goes 2007. It certainly wasn’t a bad year. I started this website, quit a job I hate and was given a much better one, held the best grades I’ve ever gotten, and got my G2 license one day after my birthday (about a week before my 1st anniversary of getting my G1). Not too shabby, especially when I went into this last year fairly negatively.

But negative Steve no more! Life is negative at many, many times. I hated the fact that I turned 17 — nothing particularly cool happens at that age. But I still managed to keep my chin up. And it’s that optimism that keeps the world turnin’.

2007 brought a lot of weird changes to my body physically, however. I LOVE Indian food — no, seriously — I am just obsessed with it. I must have been Indian in my last life or something. But my body has been going through a late taste-puberty. I just can’t handle the spices anymore. Even the “mild” sauce people put on wings and such is quite the discomfort.

It’s odd, does this happen to many people? In fact, I had Indian food just hours ago and my stomach is throbbing. This really sucks, and is definitely going ot affect my diet in the coming year. I need a reboot.

2007 also brought some great TV, namely Lost. Season 3’s finale twist was the best and most appropriate twist I have ever seen. Not even The Sixth Sense’s twist topped that. Heroes was also fine, save the first season finale and whole of Volume 2. In the classics department, My So-Called Life was finally given a proper DVD release. Nuff said there. Pushing Daisies won my heart, though this continual Writers’ strike isn’t helping. It’s also looking a bit grime for Smallville’s already underwhelming season 7.

I still have stacks of movies to watch so I won’t quite touch upon 2007 movies. Though, I did watch The Departed recently and was pleasantly surprised. I tend to loathe mafia movies, but this was done right. And I loved Planet Terror!

The thing about new years is that things really do re-begin, no matter what they say. Things just have a different vibe. I’ve never been one to really follow through with resolutions, but I’ve made a few. I want to get back in shape. And no, I’m not fat. I don’t know what I am, I just know I’d like to feel better physically.

I also plan to go back to the things that make me happy. Like scuba diving. Ahhhh… Happy day, everyone promise me you’ll do something happy this year. Something that truly makes you happy.

I don’t have anything else really interesting to write. Plus, my stomaches killing me. So, to all a good year.