Girl Detective

In my previous entry on the new Sci Fi Channel series of Battlestar Galactica, I noted that the show had “English roots”. My friend Blogenheimer asked me to clarify what I meant by this. Upon further reflection, I think it would be more accurate to note that the show has pronounced English influences. Technically, its roots are the original 1980’s era American television series.

First, the current series was developed and written by Ron Moore, a former Star Trek writer who is English. Second, the new series was partially financed by Sky One, “the UK’s most popular non-terrestrial entertainment TV channel.” The series initially ran on Sky One to strong reviews, and premiered in the US on the Sci Fi Channel in January 2005. I remark on the English influences because I think the show has a dark intelligence that is much more characteristic of English television than it is of most mainstream US television.

For example, in last Friday’s episode, “Act of Contrition,” Starbuck confessed to Adama that she had passed Zak (his son and her lover) for basic flight though he shouldn’t have qualified. Zak was subsequently killed in a flight accident. Edward James Olmos stood stony faced, inches from her as Starbuck stammered and sobbed. She finished, he made a comment about a related issue, and she began to babble, relieved to have come clean.

As I watched, I cringed as she began to speak again. “Run, run!” I urged her in my head.

“Get out,” snarled Adama, “while you still can.”

A lesser show would have played this scene differently. It would have had Adama forgive her, or at least show something less harrowing than the billowing, murderous rage that Olmos so skillfully projected without saying a word or moving a muscle.

I continue to be surprised that my new favorite show is science fiction. I worry for its success. Neither science fiction shows nor dark shows have a good record in the US. Yet spurred by HBO shows like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and Six Feet Under, networks other than the big three (ABC, CBS and NBC) and the newer three (FOX, WB, and UPN) are building a strong and loyal viewership for new shows, providing both strong support and canny marketing. FX has done well both with Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me. I hope that Battlestar Galactica will continue to surprise and entertain, and in the process become the Sci Fi Channel’s biggest hit.

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Here’s why the movie Constantine is going to suck.

1. Movies based on comics almost always suck. Recent notable exception: Spider Man 2. It helps if it’s made by a fanboy.

2. Keanu is seriously miscast for several reasons. The character of John Constantine is smart, blond, and English. He’s also in his early forties. Keanu is too young, stupid, American and brunette to play this part. Keanu only works in movies where he’s playing a NVB (not very bright) character: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Speed, the Matrices. You know who would’ve been great as Constantine, though now he’s perhaps a bit long in the tooth? Sting.

If the premise of Constantine sounds interesting to you then get to your nearest comic shop and pick up a copy of the GN (graphic novel) Hellblazer: Original Sins, by Jamie Delano et al. If you like it, then pick up some of the other Hellblazer GNs by Garth Ennis. Various authors have done awful things to the Constantine character over the years (as in the current Books of Magic series, which aggravates me) but these early collections are quite good.

My Chrismas gift from my thoughtful husband was an overnight at a nearby hotel. I left during Drake’s nap on Friday and returned 24 hours later. The short trip couldn’t completely reverse the upheaving effects of a tough week that was short on sleep, but it certainly helped, and was a lovely little interlude before jumping back into the fray.

I had a plan before I left, and it was to focus on things that are tough/impossible to do with Drake around. I took a lot of reading material, then picked out a movie to see and a closeby restaurant for dinner.

I saw In Good Company, a quiet little flick that was balm for my ruffled soul. It wasn’t high art, but it was charming, and smart in a subtle way. The ending didn’t feel surprising, but looking back on the movie, I thought it was easy to chart more predictable paths for it that would have left me at the end saying, “That’s stupid,” or “That’s obvious.” The movie adroitly sidestepped several trite possibilities and instead ended on a note that felt sweet and satisfying. I felt somewhat restored after the movie, as I did when I heard the uplifting notes of Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” on its soundtrack.

At dinner, then breakfast the next morning, I was deliberate in my choices of what to eat and my pace in eating. I also did not read or do anything else but eat. It was truly a luxury to eat what I wanted and at my own speed, which is slow.

I revelled similarly in the luxury of having several hours in which to read. I brought a novel, a collection of short stories and essays, several comic books and a couple graphic novels. I felt like I had the literary equivalent of tapas. Continuing this multiplicitous reading has left me a bit at odds, as I wrote about yesterday, but for a short period of time it was quite heady.

I had hoped for a stupendous greeting from Drake upon my return, but it was not to be. He woke from his nap, as he often does, in good spirits but raring to get back on the ground and get moving. I’m not sure he even noticed that I’d been gone.

One thing marred the overnight. Even in a very quiet hotel, I had trouble sleeping. The last time I went away, I also was not able to sleep, so this time I’d taken the precaution of taking a sleeping pill. Alas, even on drugs, no dice. I think that the last 17 months of oft-interrupted sleep have permanently damaged my ability to sleep deeply. Even with restless sleep, though, I still returned home in better, calmer spirits.

My husband is the football fan in our house, not me. Yet even I got sucked into the playoff frenzy of the past weeks, and spent a good chunk of the past two Sundays watching football. I was sorry to see first Indianapolis and then Pittsburgh fall to the Patriots, but beyond thrilled that the Eagles finally won the NFC championship, after losing honorably three years ago and choking the past two years. I thought it was fun to watch the Patriots in ‘01, when they were an underdog team and seemed to have god-touched good fortune as they went all the way. I’m not sure the Patriots can be stopped, but I hope the birds can give them a worthy challenge at the Super Bowl.

I’ve seen a handful of cooking shows over the years but only America’s Test Kitchen has warranted my ongoing time. In the past, at least, the show has featured practical recipes that are reasonable to make at home. It also has good segments on product tastings and gadget testings.

A recent episode included pan-roasted lobster, though, and it left me rather disturbed. It was not a recipe I was interested in watching being made, or ever making myself, and I found the repeated twitching of the lobster, in spite of cook Julia Collin’s assertions that it was “perfectly normal,” perfectly awful.

I’m not a vegetarian, but I limit my consumption of fish and meat, and seek out organic and kosher meats and fish because the animals are raised and killed more humanely. Blogenheimer recently linked to David Foster Wallace’s article for Gourmet magazine, in which he queries �Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?� After watching that episode of America’s Test Kitchen, I feel pretty certain the answer is no.

On a more positive note, I was surprised during the episode by an animated segment on flambe, and highly entertained by it. The old science segments from the show were quite dull. The new animated one was not only interesting, but clever and informative. The animation was by Odd Todd. I hope that the show moves away from obscure recipes and on-air lobster butchering, and includes more animated cooking techniques. Otherwise my tv roster may get just a little bit shorter.

I was mistaken the other day when I said that My So-Called Life was my favorite show, ever. It was certainly one of them, but head to head, I think I’d have to say that another great cancelled show trumps it in my memory. EZ Streets ran for fewer episodes than My So-Called Life, but it packed quite a punch. The shows great cast included Ken Olin, Debra Farentino and Joe Pantoliano, and featured a haunting soundtrack by Loreena McKennitt. It was complicated and dark, and it got cancelled way too early. In Neil Gaiman’s comic series Sandman, Morpheus’ library included books that had only been dreamt of by their creators. I sometimes fancy that a complete collection of EZ Streets episodes would be in the AV section of Dream’s library.

There are other shows that I mourn on occasion: Action, Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, The Job. I’m just hoping that two of my current favorites–life as we know it and Veronica Mars–don’t join that list this season.

Claire Danes is the most likely reason for the demise of what perhaps was my favorite show ever, My So-Called Life. MSCL ran ten years ago for nineteen episodes, over every one of which cancellation loomed, until ABC finally pulled the plug. The scuttlebutt, then and still, is that Danes and her parents met with the folks from ABC and said that she wasn’t committed to the show any more and wanted to focus on movies.

Nowadays, Danes cries foul and says that she hardly thinks it’s fair that her fifteen-year-old self has to shoulder the blame for the show’s cancellation. It’s understandable that a young star getting rave reviews would want out of a show that was on such shaky ground when the movies beckoned. Ten years later, though, MSCL is still fondly remembered by many, and widely regarded as one of the best teen shows of all time, with strong writing and a stronger cast.

My So-Called Life got a bit precious at times; it wasn’t perfect. But I can’t help but wish that both ABC and Danes could have had to foresight to see what a gem it was and give it the support it deserved. Several shows since have mimiced it, almost always for the worse: Relativity, Cupid, Once and Again, Roswell. The latest homage is ABC’s life as we know it. It is also receiving bad ratings, though it has recovered from a shaky critical start to its present state, which I think gives MSCL the strongest run for the money yet. I think ABC is giving life as we know it a longer time to develop because they learned from the MSCL mistake.

It’s interesting to see how Claire Danes’ career has gone, and ironic that perhaps she should have stayed with a great TV show instead of going on to mediocre movies, the best of which were almost a decade ago–Little Women and Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet–and even they weren’t great films. More recently she’s done Stage Beauty, an art house film with boyfriend Billy Crudup, that met with mixed reviews. Both Danes and Crudup were voice talent on the quite good but financially unsuccessful Princess Mononoke. According to sources like US magazine, Danes and Crudup became a public item just as Crudup’s ex, Mary Louise Parker, gave birth to his child.

Ten years ago, I loved Danes’ show, thought she had great talent and hoped that she’d have a successful career. At about the same time, David Caruso was pulling the same kind of move over at NYPD Blue. He’s received phenomenal reviews for his first season. Instead of sticking with the show that made him a star, he left immediately for the movies. He tanked in duds like Jade and now growls his predictable schtick on one of the CSI spin offs. I don’t blame Danes and Caruso for wanting to move on, but I do wonder if their potential would have fizzled so spectacularly if they’d stayed put and given their respective shows the respect they both merited.

I often gripe that TV shows shy away from the really dark stuff, as in my entry on House. I just watched the first two episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica series, though, and I found darkness in abundance. It is so dark, in fact, that it’s still rattling about in my head, demanding attention.

I watched the first episode as a kind gesture to my husband. Then I was the one who insisted that we watch the second as soon as possible. I am neither a groupie nor a detractor of science fiction television. I gave up on Firefly after two episodes. (I will grant, though, that the original pilot movie was quite good, and the cut-up version they ran was not, so there was unrealized potential there, in spite of the execrable space hooker with a heart of gold.) I did get hooked on Babylon 5, only to become disgusted with whatever season it was that Tracy Scoggins joined the crew. I think the Star Trek shows/movies have some good bits, as well as some terrible ones. I got bored watching Farscape. All in all, then, I wasn’t at all prepared to like Battlestar Galactica. Like everything else, I thought it would be just OK. I was wrong.

Battlestar Galactica is good television. Period. It happens to be good television that is also science fiction, and that is what is so surprising. There is no need to make allowances for its genre, or its campy origins. This is good stuff.

I think there are two main reasons that this re-imagined series so impressed me. One, they learned from the key mistake of the original. The original Battlestar Galactica started as a two-hour movie that was aired audaciously against the Academy Awards. In the post-Star Wars sci-fi frenzy, it completely trounced the Oscars. Everyone was so excited about it that the studio pushed the creators to get a series together immediately. The series was thrown together in a rush. No surprise, it lasted less than two years. This series also started with a mini-series, but then took enough time to start the series off right. It’s run in England already, and has just come stateside. How long it will run depends on its reception here.

Its English roots are the second likely cause of its quality. As Warren Ellis noted in his review of House that I posted here, the English do a much better job of dark TV. It is quite a job that’s been done with Battlestar Galactica. Mary McDonnel and Edward James Olmos lend quietly impressive performances in their leads. I was surprised at how un-pretty most of the rest of the cast is, with the exception of the actor playing Lee “Apollo” Adama. The human race has been wiped out, the Cylons are hounding the survivors, and things are neither played up or down. They are definitely not, though, played for camp. That was what I had been expecting, and I’m sure I’m not the only person experiencing geekjoy that I was mistaken.

I find all the girl muppets on Sesame Street annoying. There’s Rosita, the aqua, Hispanic monster whose voice has a grating whine. Then there’s Zoe, the female counterpart to Elmo. Elmo annoys because he refers to himself only in third person, but in general he’s a pretty nice, friendly monster. Zoe, on the other hand, can exhibit quite a mean streak, especially when she’s defending her pet rock, Rocco. She also sometimes exhibits behavior that is so flaky that she seems almost stoned. There’s one other recurring female muppet, Prairie Dawn, who is bossy and impatient.

I don’t have the same problem with the female humans on the show: Susan, Maria, Gina, and Gabrielle. These are all fine characters who are kind and interesting. I find the boy monsters–Grover, Cookie Monster, Telly, Elmo, even grouchy Oscar–cute and engaging. All these monsters were there when I was a child, though.

Sesame Street is a show that I like and respect. I hope that it will inspire the same feelings one day in my son Drake. Is it me? Do I dislike the girl monsters because they’re new and different? I didn’t grow up knowing the characters of Gabrielle or Gina, though, and I still like them. Do I dislike the girl monsters for the same reason that teachers favor boy students over girls? Or have the creators of Sesame Street, in their efforts to round out their cast of monsters, created girl monsters who are less likeable than the boys?

I no longer subscribe to Warren Ellis’ mailing list Bad Signal. To use one of Ellis’ own favorite phrases, the list had a high signal to noise ratio. Ellis one of those strong personalities that inspire a lot of fans to think he’s a guru. He’s a smart, funny writer with a well-developed–perhaps TOO well-developed–dark side. My friend Blogenheimer, though, forwarded me Ellis’ review of the Dead Baby episode of House, which I will print below, because a lot of his commentary is spot on. If you’re interested in reading more by Ellis, go to warrenellis.com, but it’s not for the faint of heart. You have been warned.

I continue to have some lurking doubts about House, but I continue to watch it. House is definitely an Ellis-y protagonist. Smart, pissed and unafraid to let you know about it, but not without occasional glimmers of soul, conscience and humanity. What’s good about House is that there is some dark stuff, and they don’t usually drive home every point till you want to vomit. It’s also got fast, funny dialogue. What’s not good about House is that it’s yet another medical diagnostic show and sometimes requires the viewer to do some pretty strenuous sustaining of disbelief.

For example, in the Dead Baby episode, Dr. House was the first person to cry epidemic when babies started getting sick. As in most House episodes, they have no idea what the patient has, so they have to make a guess, treat it, see if it works, (it never does, and it’s often gruesome like a spinal injection, or claustrophobic like a long MRI), learn from their failure and still (in most cases) save the patient in time. As Ellis notes, the baby episode hinges on their best guesses being two types of bacteria, each of which requires a different treatment. So they treat the baby of the blond, American looking parents with one antibiotic, and the baby of the ethnic lesbian couple with another, and the lesbians’ baby dies. I was more than a little disturbed by the implication, and surprised that Ellis did not remark on this. The writers pulled their punches a bit by immediately making blond baby get sick anyway. The upshot was that it was a virus, not a bacteria, and they eventually figured out which one and were able to treat it, saving blond baby and the others.

The end of the episode aggravated me when it was revealed that the source of the virus was an elderly candy-striper handing out teddy bears to the new parents. Even if most people don’t know that nearly all stuffed animals contain choking hazards for infants (the ones on the show had button eyes AND a neck ribbon–double whammy) and are labelled “for children 3 and up”, ALL health care professionals know that stuffed animals are unsanitary breeding grounds for dust mites and other allergens. So even if a hospital would’ve had a person with a persistent cough doing the rounds of VULNERABLE NEWBORNS, she wouldn’t have been handing out stuffed animals, much less ones with ribbons and bite-off-able eyes. At the end of the episode, the only one so far in which one of the patients dies from the hypothesized treatment, I was left with fatigue from having to hold up my disbelief for so long, and annoyance that they’d killed the lesbians’ baby. The writers tried to show they were serious by killing a baby, and at least with this viewer, it backfired.

> bad signal
> WARREN ELLIS
>
> So Adi Tantimedh says to me, you
> should see this new series on US TV
> called HOUSE, because the
> protagonist could be one of yours.
> So I downloaded the fourth episode
> the other night, and watched it
> before bed last night.
>
> Two surprises: the lead is played
> by British comedian Hugh Laurie,
> and the credit sequence uses the
> excellent “Tear Drop” by Massive
> Attack with Liz Fraser.
>
> Hugh Laurie’s only done a little
> straight acting that I’m aware of –
> some light stuff in a Ken Branagh
> fillum and a quick thing in SPOOKS.
> Here, he wears a near-beard, an
> American accent — not perfect, I
> suspect — a limp, a cane, and a voice dropped an
> octave into an earthy croak as
> Gregory House, a nasty medical
> consultant in a nice hospital.
>
> House is a cranky genius with the
> social skills of a wild boar. He is the
> Unpleasant Doctor we’ve all met.
> I like stories about clever people,
> but I like some intimation of method,
> and House appears to be psychic
> in his apprehension of an epidemic
> in the hospital based on two babies
> getting sick. It’s a bit, you know,
> this man arrived at the morgue with
> two sticks of dynamite covered in
> his own prints lodged in his lungs, but
> it was Moider and I Resign and Dr
> Quincy You’re Amazing.
>
> Naturally enough, a bunch of babies
> get sick. And the hook of the episode
> is that they have two possibilities
> as to the disease, with two different

> treatments. Which means that
> some babies will be given one treatment,
> and some the other, and obviously
> one method or the other will lead
> to dead babies.
>
> Which, for US TV, is kind of
> interesting. I mean, it’s squeezed
> dry of emotional milk, and naturally
> enough one of the young and
> pretty supporting cast (including
> a wasted Omar Epps) has a dead
> child in her past and blah blah —
> but for soft American entertainment,
> that’s actually kind of hard stuff.
>
> House isn’t jagged enough to be a
> complete bastard, although one of
> his troops names him such, but
> that’s less Laurie’s fault than the
> script’s. Long and crooked, Laurie
> stumps around the place like a
> wounded spider, a murky fog of
> Hate trailing behind him. Standing
> in the maternity ward, another
> doctor comments that it’s unusual
> to see him willingly be in the presence
> of patients.
>
> “Patients don’t bug me until they
> get teeth.”
>
> The actress — I’ve blanked on her
> name — who did that turn as Sam’s
> Prostitute Friend in WEST WING
> appears here as the hospital
> administrator, a thankless role in
> this kind of show (the person who
> has to tell Quincy it’s not Moider
> and therefore be Wrong every
> week), and pulls it off with some
> charm.
>
> Clever Scumbag shows tend not to
> have a great lifespan in American
> television. VENGEAANCE UNLIMITED
> and PROFIT come to mind. They
> do better over here in Britain, where
> it’s something of a tradition. HOUSE
> isn’t a great Clever Scumbag, but
> it’s nice to see US TV trying it again.
>
> — W
>
> —
> Sent from mobile device
> probably from the pub

The first few episodes of The O.C. that featured Alex, Seth’s new girlfriend, had her straight blond hair with its purple streak up in an elaborate ‘do. The artifically stiff, round curl on the side of her head reminded me fondly of one of my favorite childhood dolls, Quick-Curl Barbie. QCB had strands of wire intermixed with the normal platinum strands so that you could use the plastic curling wand to style her hair into a curled coif with staying power. Alas, the wires became brittle after much manipulation and broke off, leaving QCB with rough bits of wire sticking out of her head, looking much more like a science project gone horribly awry than a beauty maven.

I didn’t have much luck with doll hair during childhood. Another favorite doll, Velvet, had blond hair with a ponytail fountain that sprung from a hole in her head and could be pulled out or retracted back. One day the obnoxious neighbor boy yanked on the ponytail for the last time, and Velvet’s crowning glory got pulled clean out, leaving her forever with a short bob and a gaping hole in her head. Her big sister doll, Crissy, had no such problem, but I was unconsoled; Velvet had been my favorite. Like Barbara Eden on I Dream of Jeanie, Velvet’s ponytail was a source of power and wonder. Its loss was a hard one.

The writers of last night’s episode of Lost, in which we got the back story for siblings Boone and Shannon, were back in the saddle again. It moved quickly, was interesting and gave us a few more things to puzzle over even while some questions were answered. I think the writers chickened out a bit by making Boone and Shannon step-siblings. I don’t think they were willing to get as dark and twisted as it would have to be to make them half- or full-blood siblings. In any case, I was relieved that last week’s bad episode was just that–an episode. The series continues to be mostly fun. And I loved that little bit where they showed Sawyer being escorted, shouting, through the police station. They never have explained what he was doing in Sydney, and why he was going to LA.

Lost is one of my favorite new shows this season. It’s not perfect, but it’s been quite good. This week’s episode, though, definitely showed signs of weakness. Much of what makes Lost a compelling watch is that the information is doled out bit by bit so we are not left completely stymied week after week.

Good secret management is what makes for a compelling thriller. Make the secret too obvious, and it’s no fun when it is officially revealed. But make it too obscure, and it doesn’t pay off either. Good secret management keeps the viewers engaged, drawing them along to a conclusion that will, they hope, have good closure.

This week’s episode was a long backstory on Kate, which served to show that she’s a good liar. I could sustain my disbelief to believe that she’d lie to another thief in order to break into a bank to access a safe-deposit box containing only a personal memento. I could not, though, believe that she’d lie to both Sawyer and Jack to retrieve it out of a salvaged case. Neither of them, when the case was opened, would have prevented her from taking a personal memento, or questioned her on it. The conflict among them was artificially heightened in order to call Kate’s honesty into question. I’m left with a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps the writers will give more context to make her behavior more credible. Right now, though, it feels like they clumsily wrote an episode simply to highlight that she can’t be trusted, which probably means that she can be.

Here’s my take on a few other of the show’s secrets. I think that Rousseau’s child Alex is a girl. She never used a gender pronoun, and it was only Sayeed who referred to Alex as him. Also, my guess is that the man Kate referred to when she said “I killed the man I loved” is her father, not a former lover. We’ve been given hints about these, over a few episodes. These secrets are being well-managed, then.

A great example of secret-management gone bad is the X-Files. It was also built around secrets, but over time the explanations grew so unwieldy and complex that it broke down. Some viewers stayed till the end; I wasn’t one of them.

Sometimes a good secret can elevate a merely OK work. I thought Donna Tartt’s first novel, The Secret History, was pretty good. The secret, though, was so cool that I still remember it fondly.

Other times, a bad secret can drag a good book down. I loved the book Smilla’s Sense of Snow right up till the end and the revelation of its lame secret (which was the same secret as an arctic episode of the X-Files). Wondering if revealing the lame secret in advance would lessen the disappointment, I revealed it to my husband–with his permission–before he read Smilla. He still thought it was a lame ending. Smilla’s lame secret is also why I no longer recommend a book until I have finished reading it. Endings are hard, no matter what medium or genre one works in. One of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson, does annoyingly short-shrifted endings.

I too, both in my fiction writing and in these weblog entries, often struggle with endings. While I can empathize with the writers on Lost, they’re paid way more than I am to do what they’re doing, so I hold them more accountable. I’m expecting those secrets to be well-managed, and I’m going to be mighty peeved if they are not.

On television, that is. On Tuesdays, I curse the network programmers. They have scheduled three of the shows I deign to watch during the same time slot. House is on ABC, Veronica Mars is on UPN and Scrubs is on NBC, all between 8 and 9 p.m. Central time.

Luckily, our DVR can record two shows at once. Then we watch the third in real time. If you haven’t, here’s why you should check out these shows.

Scrubs is a good half-hour sitcom. It has amusing fantasy sequences, and the actors do a great job with the good writing, and actually seem as if they’re having a good time. Especially good is John McGinley as Dr. Perry Cox.

House is medical procedure drama. I have not yet committed to this program but it shows promise. Hugh Laurie, an English actor best known for comedy (see Blackadder, if you haven’t), is a grouchy, pill-popping doctor with a crippled leg and a crappy bedside manner. Interestingly, his character is not that different from Dr. Cox on Scrubs, when you make the adjustments for an hour-long drama. There is an underused supporting cast who do a great job with the slight stuff they’re given. House still hasn’t found its balance. Dramas with dark, unlikeable protagonists usually get cancelled quickly. If it can stay afloat till it finds its stride, it may be a good show with a truly complex lead.

Veronica Mars has been compared, rightly, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Like Buffy the character, Veronica is a sassy blond. Like Buffy the show, Veronica has great dialogue and explores some dark stuff, like rape and murder. Unlike Buffy, the monsters here are all human, not fantastic. Veronica’s dad is a detective, and in true girl-detective fashion, she helps him solve cases plus takes on some of her own, including the quest for her long-gone mom. Veronica Mars may well be not only my favorite new show of the season (yes, I like it better than Lost) but perhaps my favorite show right now.

I nurse a small hope that House will take a turn for the worse and that I can stop watching. So far, though, I’m not able to give up on it yet.

My mother and sister Sydney are big fans of Law & Order. I don’t mind the show, but I don’t go out of my way to watch it. I wondered about this for a while, since it is a good show, well-acted, -plotted and -written. I think my preferences in television are analogous to those in reading. I prefer novels above everything else. Even in comic books, my preference is for graphic novel collections, rather than one shots, or ongoing, meandering series. I like my entertainment fictive; I like it to have good character development and for those characters to have distinct voices.

I find Law & Order more akin to a collection of short stories. There is little continuity, and little character development for the series regulars. Also, it relies so heavily on real-life events that it loses some of the feel of fiction.

My theory about those who love Law & Order is that, as readers, they aren’t novel-centric, as I am. They are more accepting of other forms, like non-fiction, essays, magazines, short stories and one-shots. I read all these things, too. If I had to choose, though, it would be no contest.

A friend of mine, The Big Brain, contends that there are no such thing as bad teen movies–they’re either good, or so bad that they’re good anyway.

In my current TV rotation, I watch several teen shows: Veronica Mars, Life as We Know It, The O.C. and Joan of Arcadia.

Previous beloved teen shows include Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I contend should have ended at the end of Season 5), Daria, and the much-lamented, short-lived My So-Called Life. There were other teen shows that I tched for a while, but then gave up when I couldn’t stand them anymore: Roswell, Smallville, and way, long ago, Beverly Hills 90210.

As you can see, I’ve long been a fan of the genre. I’m also a fan of young adult literature, and the novels I’m writing are YA. It’s easy to figure out why I’m drawn to teen shows, at least the well-written ones. Being a teen felt complicated, but it wasn’t, compared to parenthood and mortgages and jobs, etc. So it’s a lovely escape to watch people who think their lives are complicated, when they’re not. Also, being a teen was confusing and largely sucky. Good teen shows capture some of that confusion and suckiness, but edit out all the truly awful parts as well as the mind-numbing boredom as well. So viewers can empathize and laugh at the moderately tough stuff, sub-consciously be glad that they’re not seeing the really brutal stuff, and not have to endure the dull stuff, all the while living vicariously in a skillfully written and edited much simpler time.

I gave this show a miss when it premiered because several reviewers who wanted to like it just didn’t: Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, and TeeVee.org. I wanted to like it too, since the creators spoke homage to My So-Called Life and had worked on the excellent Freaks and Geeks.

Weeks passed, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake in skipping it. Then my friend The Big Brain said that it had only been OK, but then got really good. I tuned in to a few reruns on MTV, where teen shows go to garner support, and was unimpressed. Unimpressed, that is, till I saw one of the more recent episodes, and was dragged right in. It took a few weeks, but they’ve got the character development simmering nicely along with plot complexity. So if you, like me, gave it a miss because of early bad reviews, check it out this week

I started watching Joan of Arcadia midway through last year’s season, its first. I did so after reading good things about it by Lisa Schmeiser at City Pages. I found the writing good, all the characters complex and that the show had a good sense for where the line of schmaltz was, though it did flirt awfully close with it at times. Plus it has some nice echoes of one of the best teen shows ever, My So-Called Life.

Joan, then, is one of only three non-new-this-season shows that I watch. (The others are Scrubs and The O.C.) I thought last year’s season ender was good, and admired how they brought those issues into the new season. And in the first couple shows of the season, I liked the new character they introduced that Joan had met over the summer at “crazy camp”, Judith Montgomery. We got a little more information about Judith in each episode. She, like the others, was complex, interesting and likeable. I was especially impressed with the writing, when, early in the season they had her drinking at a party till she was sick, but they didn’t kill her off. Oh, I thought, that was nice. She wasn’t just the person brought in for an episode or two so that they can kill her off and give faux trauma to the characters.

So imagine my extreme displeasure, several episodes later, when the writers killed Judith. They made no effort to hide what was coming in the episode. Still I watched in disbelief, incredulous that they would have almost done so early on, then not done so, waited till all the viewers liked her and thought she was sticking around, and then killed her. I wept. And wept. And over the next few days, every time I thought of the show, I thought of Judith, and I teared up. I’m still upset about it. I curse them for snaring me so effectively, even while I admire the skill it took to do so.

Lost continues to be one of the shows that I feel good about watching. It’s interesting and mostly well-written and plotted. The danger, of couse, is that what makes it intriguing is its mysteries. While good secrets can elevate good shows, bad ones can sink them.

But the writing on last week’s episode of Lost impressed me greatly. Not only was the pregnant character given a plausible reason for flying so late in her pregnancy, but when she started to have contractions, HER WATER DIDN’T BREAK.

Did you know that the water breaks at the onset of labor for only 10% of women? Water isn’t supposed to break at the onset. But you’d never know it by watching TV or movies.

Until last week’s episode of Lost. Great job, folks. Keep it up.