Saturday Night Live

When my parents bought a VCR back in 1978... or was it 1979?... one of the first things we did was tape a lot of PBS Masterpiece Theater shows, because MOM had control of the house dammit and nothing was getting in the way of her All Creatures Great and Small.

But we sons had the option to get Saturday Night Live recorded to our amusement, and that helped keep up appraised of the wild and crazy skits until we were old enough - about 12ish - to stay up late on our own to watch.

It's slightly amazing that the show is still chugging along 40 years after its debut in 1975.  Part of the reason is that the show works as an ensemble, it is not tied to one person, although one person or duo can tie everybody together to an era like no other.  Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Phil Hartman, Darrell Hammond, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey...  Eddie Murphy in particular became a superstar straight out of SNL, unlike any of the others.  Like Bill Simmons notes in his Grantland article about Murphy, I too watched the bit where Eddie mocks Stevie Wonder, and felt the same way about watching LIVE a classic moment that millions of others were seeing.

Over on the Salon site, that sharing among fellow viewers is argued as the main reason SNL remains on the air even decades after so many other skit shows - In Living Color, MAD TV, various others that barely lasted a season - faded into history.  Mostly because those shows encircled a key player or team - Living Color in particular revolved around the Wayans family - and when those players left, the shows couldn't continue.  SNL was one of the firsts to exist without revolving around a singular talent (even though a singular talent would rise to dominance over a 3-5 year period), taking from the variety act shows of Ed Sullivan and merging it with the improv and satire of underground stage comedy, and people keep tuning in because, God help us, we want to be there watching when something brilliant - More Cowbell! Lazy Sunday! - happens.  As Sonia Saraiya writes:

Saturday Night Live’s finest moments have a way of becoming instant history, meaning that we’re instantly nostalgic for them. And that’s because when we witness them, we sort of all feel like we were there for it, that we witnessed it firsthand. It doesn't have to be good, honestly, because the point is that we showed up—the bad moments sometimes just give you more to talk about.

I’m of the opinion—as is Gary Susman at MovieFone—that SNL has gotten way, way too safe as it’s aged, mostly because its star showrunner, talent scout and occasional on-screen presence Lorne Michaels has aged along with it. That’s left the show vulnerable to other shows that also rely on our sense of togetherness—The Daily Show with Jon Stewart being the best example. I’d love to see Saturday Night Live take a lot more risks, to get not-safe-for-work, to take advantage of its timeslot and its storied history to say something really provocative...

 ...Live television is so fundamentally exciting to watch—it’s a thrill knowing that it is happening now, and that you, as an audience member, are a part of it. But sports are a competition played on a field; awards shows are glorified industry events. It’s only stuff like Saturday Night Live that really talks back to its audience, that looks into the cameras and literally says “goodnight.” As it is now, “SNL” squanders something very precious—the opportunity to be on everyone’s TV, unvarnished, unedited and in a bad wig, making the rest of us laugh. Its very presence. If the show isn’t careful, even though it is the last/only live variety show we have, it may find itself replaced.

But I do hope that we are never without some version of Saturday Night Live—of the closest thing we have to all of America attending the same play. We have fascination and disdain for SNL, yes—at its inconsistency, its former glory, its cast members breaking character to start snickering during a bit. But at least we have it, together, and that is something.

There are a lot of memories for me watching SNL back when I could - when I was young enough to stay up late and not suffer for it.  I remember turning on the show one night in 2005, just no reason why, did it not realizing it was a new episode that night, and happened to turn it on just as "Lazy Sunday" started playing on the show.

By the end of the clip, I knew I had watched one of those Big Moments, when Saturday Night Live hit the home run, making a cultural and historical milestone around which the show could stagger on for another five years. It reminded me of the times back in 1992, during the Presidential primaries and campaigns, when Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman teamed up for some of the greatest political satire I've ever seen (and this is with SNL bringing in solid satire nearly every 4 year Presidential cycle).

We still tune in for those moments.

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Anniversary: Bravo

Before the day goes by, today is the 45th anniversary of one of mankind's greatest achievements:

With all congratulations to the late Neil Armstrong, to Buzz Aldrin, and to Michael Collins (who had to stay in the Command Module) for their historic flight there and back.

And also, due to their efforts, we were able to contribute to one of the best episodes of the television show Mad Men:

And with that "Bravo," Bert Cooper passes on... and later on that episode, Don Draper witnesses Bert's ghost sing "The Best Things In Life Are Free" in a mind-blowing (there are layers of symbolism behind this that would take a 20-page journal essay to spell out) closer:

The song, the setting, the moment... all because we as the human race achieved the moon.  We haven't really moved on from that moment - the technology can't sustain ourselves for long out there, so we're still on this fragile blue ball - but if anything out of all the wars and madness, we made it.  It may have cost a fortune, but we made it.  And it was a moment everyone back then shared... a moment we all share today, and it was in a way free for all.

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And The Fandom Rejoiced: The Night Of The Doctor

HOLY F-CKSH-T IT'S THE EIGHTH DOCTOR.

As the lead-up to the 50th anniversary to the start of the long-running science-fiction show, the producers have seen fit to give us some closure regarding the dreaded backstory of the Last Great Time War.  A war between the Time Lords and Daleks at the height of their respective empires that reportedly shattered much of space-time.

This mini-episode is about seven minutes long but packs a season's worth of details into it (The following CONTAINS SPOILERS STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE EPISODE YET):

• The Time War itself has become so massive that nearly every race has been dragged into it whether they wanted to or not.
• The War began during the lifespan of the Eighth Doctor, but he himself refused to participate in it and tries to help people flee from it.
• Other races are so horrified or disgusted by what was/is/will be happening that the ship's captain Cass flat out refuses the Doctor's help.
• The other elder races of the universe - the Sisterhood of Carn for example - are well aware of what's happening.  From earlier tellings we already know most of those races had fled the known universe altogether.
• EDIT: Has been noted elsewhere that The Eighth Doctor mentions all of his companions from the Big Finish audio series - the thing that kept Doctor Who popular between the 1989 cancellation, 1996 movie, and 2005 rebirth.  The Big Finish series is in fact still ongoing and very popular with the fans, and there's been a question if those stories would be accepted as canon.  YES THEY ARE...
• The Eighth Doctor himself is offered a handful of choices as he faces his own death in four minutes' time: accept his death and let the Time War destroy everything; regenerate and use his skill as The Doctor to save whatever he can before the Time War destroys everything... or become a Warrior and end the war by any means possible.  As he considers the rejection he endured by Cass' rage towards him, The Eighth Doctor makes his choice...
• Oh, and one more thing: McGann would have F-CKING ROCKED AS THE EIGHTH DOCTOR.

Damn you, Fox Channel.  You really screwed the pooch with that 1996 movie.

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Off-Topic: Gandolfini

The Sopranos changed a lot of how television works anymore.

Before, few shows were designed to hold season-long, series-long narrative arcs (the ones that promised to like The X-Files couldn't really pull it off).  Very few shows were character studies.  Drama itself was viewed as a dying breed as the costs of making them for the major networks were getting too high.  And TV drama was stuck in a kind of self-censored halfway point, unable and unwilling to push the boundaries of decorum to see how far audiences were willing to go.

In stepped HBO, offering an openness of its marketplace to allow for the creation of a show like The Sopranos to flourish.  Looking past the nudity and profanity and gore, this was a show that asked us to examine the life of a mafioso, slightly more sociopathic than most people but in most respects an Everyman stuck with the traumas and dread of middle-class, middle-age self-inflicted hell.

James Gandolfini imbued Tony Soprano with calculated savvy and genuine intellect: a character twice as smart as everybody else in the room yet with little to show for it, but a suppressed rage and a desire to find some honest meaning in the world and his place in it.  Before this, he'd been a Hey It's That Guy background character, providing some memorable performances in small roles such as the ex-stuntman in Get Shorty, or the guy beating up Patricia Arquette in True Romance, talking about how his first kill was such a shock to his system and inadvertently giving Arquette the incentive to kill him.  Tony Soprano made him an A-Lister.

Gandolfini passed away today at 51, preliminary report is due to a heart attack.

Trying to find an appropriate YouTube clip to do him justice.

This might work.  It's from Get Shorty.

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Playing The Game of Thrones, and Why Nearly Every Character Can Lose At It

“Oh, I think not,” Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. “Power is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”“It has crossed my mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, two many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”“And yet he is no one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.”“That piece of steel is the power of life and death.”“Just so…yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, who do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?”“Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.”“Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or…another?”Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?”Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”“So power is a mummer’s trick?”“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”Tyrion smiled. “Lord Varyls, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I’d feel sad about it.”“I will take that as high praise.” - from the book source A Clash Of Kings

With the recent much-ballyhooed episode of Game of Thrones that threw out all established tropes of heroes and happy endings, one thing that popped into my mind was how the whole series - both book and show - seem to be literally about "the Game of Thrones".  A Game over power and who truly wields it.

Partly I see the warning of Machiavelli in the series: the question "whether it is better to be loved or feared," and the answer "the real solution is to avoid being hated, which is the worst thing a Prince can accomplish." No finer example to be offered than Joffrey himself: the spoiled brat of a boy king who views himself perfect and noble and strong and yet everyone else - and whoa do I mean everyone - sees as weak, craven, worthless.  Made king only through rite of birth, Joffrey does nothing to prove himself: he immediately expects everyone to bow and scrape and follow his orders.  Of the flawed characters with a claim to The Iron Throne, Joffrey's the worst: the believer of the Divine Right of Kings and title holder of Zero Percent Approval Rating.  (Viserys is even worse than Joffrey, with the saving grace that he got himself killed in karmic fashion early enough that he doesn't leave the destruction that Joffrey does)

But Joffrey's not the only one.  Every character with an eye on that throne has a serious flaw when it comes to power and how to use it.

• The Stark family as a whole - Kings of the North - are a noble breed but rule with their hearts more than their heads.  Eddard Stark is too trusting; Robb Stark too impulsive and focused on personal honor.  Both suffer, both die, and the aftermath of each one's fall leaves their House in great disrepair (albeit still alive through respectful allies keeping certain children safe). 
• The Lannisters - right now the family of power in the Seven Kingdoms - are wealthy and feared (Machiavelli would be pleased) but each prominent member has issues: the patriarch Tywin is obsessed with the family name even as he disparages all of his children for their folly; eldest son Jaime is favored but is foolish and headstrong (and boning his own sister); Cersei imagines herself a player but is too vindictive and overplays her hand, and too much fears a prophecy of her children's fate that makes her commit acts that doom them anyway; Tyrion is the smartest character in the whole world, shows adept skill at manipulating ally and foe alike, and in all regards would be the best suited to rule... except as a dwarf he's dismissed by many of his fellow lords, is blamed for the sins of his nephew Joffrey, and his one strength - his wit - is also his weakness because Tyrion can't stop himself from saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time.   
• The Baratheons have the current, more honest claim to the throne through the accusation that Joffrey and Cersei's other children are not those of Robert Baratheon, the king who dies at the beginning of GoT.  But they start off divided even in their own House: the elder brother Stannis claims the throne but internally knows he's disliked for his stubbornness (if he ran for President he'd be an Active-Negative like John Adams); the younger brother Renly is the more charismatic and openly courts favor from his followers (he wants to be loved), but proves indecisive and disorganized and is ill-positioned when the moment comes to act.
• The Greyjoys aren't even really playing for the Iron Throne: basically a House of pirates and raiders, they're in it to deal their rival family the Starks a serious blow.  Short-sighted, self-serving, needlessly cruel (leading to the "hated more than feared" doom) with the only decent characters - Theon, Victarion - suffering or due to suffer massive humiliations.
• The Martells are either level-headed or honor-obsessed, and sometimes both.  They backed the wrong House in the last big war before GoT and suffered for it.  Opposed to the Lannisters, they would be formidable opponents except for their current leader Doran's fear of exposure (he's confined to wheelchair, fearing he would be viewed as weak) and proper paranoia that any move towards a deal could lead to betrayal... which leaves them incapable of making any deals at all.
• The Tullys own a key point of land - the Twins, a vital bridge linking the North lands to the other kingdoms - but not much else: they are used by the other families or ignored.  Except for when one of their minor Houses - Frey - takes revenge on one such slight against Robb Stark and his House... by violating the most inviolate rule in human history (Sacred Hospitality); by doing so the Freys become hated - having rarely been loved or respected, this essentially dooms their House.  And it leaves the Tullys with almost no players on the board at all...
• The Tyrells as a whole are quiet, watchful, intelligent, shrewd... and let themselves be manipulated by the other Houses - Lannisters especially - only because they came to power in their kingdom over more legitimate Houses, meaning they have little loyalty outside of their small circle of allies (again, the Lannisters).  They are good at playing the Game of Thrones (and are major characters because of it) but are playing for such long odds that they can miss every opportunity that arises to claim it...
• The Targaryens are the fallen House, the kings before the start of the story whose rule was dominated by arrogance and madness (sourced to their open inbreeding campaign of marrying brother to sister).  Driven by a variant of the Divine Right concept - that they are Dragons (literally) - the Targaryens created a hostile environment against their House leading to Baratheons' rebellion and the wiping out of nearly every Targaryen claimant to the throne.  Except for two (really three, but the third remains hidden): Viserys and Daenerys.  Already mentioned Viserys as unstable and worse than Joffrey, and got himself rightfully killed off for his folly before he could do serious harm; on the other hand Daenerys has proven nicer, genuine and respectful of the people she now leads in foreign lands building up an army to reclaim the Iron Throne.  And it doesn't hurt that Daenerys has her dragon pets, and has proved her invulnerability to fire (!) confirming her divine right as Dragon.  But she's easily distracted, obsessed with a form of justice that her contemporaries refuse to accept, and tries too hard to be both loved and feared, which Machiavelli noted was difficult to manage for even the best of Princes.

The riddle Varys presents at the start of this article remains potent: who truly is in power?  Who is best using such power?  Solve the riddle and you figure out who is going to be left standing at the story's end.

Personally, I got money on (discovers Littlefinger has poisoned his drink) WHAT?  NOOOOooooo...

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Speculation for Twelfth Doctor Who Already In Earnest. Here's My List

The Intertubes exploded last night with the word that Matt Smith, Eleventh Doctor, was quitting the show for the Christmas episode, meaning the push is on right about now to find a replacement Doctor (if you're one of the non-geeks out there: Doctor Who is a Time Lord and able to regenerate which is why there's been 11... no actually 12 different versions of him).

Everyone's already been on Twitter pushing their faves, which of course merely shows off that particular person's geek leanings.  But this is Serious Business, much in the way that getting a replacement James Bond is Serious Business (once they found an actor to play Spock in Zachary Quinto, doing a reboot of Star Trek was easy-peasy: finding an actress to fill out the costume for Wonder Woman after Lynda Carter... /headdesk).  There are rules to consider:

1) The next Doctor has to be British, or at least United Kingdom (Scots, Irish, Welsh).  They could go with Canadian or Australian or other Commonwealth if they could, but this is the UK's primary contribution to global geekdom.  It's gotta use home-grown talent.

2) The next Doctor to be younger or as young as Matt Smith now.  The producers are clearly thinking long-term: once a Doctor always a Doctor (even Chris Eccleston has learned that), and they're gonna want to have someone filling the role of Number Twelve for a good 40-50 years.  There's also a bit of archetype at play: The Doctor as a secular variation of Merlin/Wandering Jew, with the idea that such immortals age backward, meaning the older the Doctor really is the younger he's going to look.

3) Here's the variation: The Doctor's Wife introduction of The Corsair makes gender-crossing Time Lord a canonical fact.  Which means a woman / actress can be hired for the role.  So this is more up for grabs than anyone realizes.

That said, here's my list of Who To Be Who:

Matthew Lewis (formerly Neville Longbottom):
PRO: familiar to geeks, already has established fanbase of geekgirls; relatively young enough to fit the producers' needs
CON: already tied into a massive UK geek franchise with Harry Potter, he may not be interested in getting further embroiled into the geekdom's dark side of nitpicking.

Evanna Lynch (formerly Luna Lovegood):
PRO: England's answer to Summer Glau (minus the ass-kicking); also a known quantity with geeks from the Potter Verse; of actresses "qualified" to be quirky enough to play The Doctor, she's on the short list.
CON: Like Lewis, may be content with being a major star in other established franchise.

Idris Elba:
PRO: established television actor, well-respected, has huge geek cred (from, of all things, The Wire); there's been a clamor for a non-white Doctor for some time, and he's current on the Hot List.
CON: Is 40ish, on the wrong side of the age scale that producers might be looking for.

Helena Bonham Carter:
PRO: Geeks would die of geekgasm the second her name gets announced.  Which might be a CON since, you know, you've killed off your fanbase.  Has a knack for playing off-kilter, quirky, incredibly cool characters.
CON: Same problem as Elba, on the wrong side of the age scale; demand for her to star in movies and other time-consuming activities may make her unavailable anywho.

David Morrisey:
PRO: Already played The Doctor (kinda) in a Christmas special with David Tennant; fans liked the performance and wouldn't mind him as a real Doctor; has expressed interest; depends on when he needs to finish up filming for Walking Dead series (his character is due to die soon, but filming schedule is a tricky thing).
CON: Wrong side of age scale (late 40s)

Neve McIntosh (aka Madame Vastra):
PRO: Fans love her performance as Vastra, and some are arguing the Doctor could (in a rather complicated way) merge/regenerate using her as a template; having a non-human Who would be tempting to pull off.
CON: Make-up effects are costly; Vastra is already a cool character to begin with and she, Jenny and Strax deserve their own mini-series spinoff; don't want to confuse new fans with how regeneration works.

Emily Browning:
PRO: I'm just really keen on seeing a female Who, okay?  Browning is a slightly recognizable actress from a few fantasy/horror films (best known for Sucker Punch) but not too well known to be an established quality meaning fans might be intrigued to see what she brings to the role; plus is on the right side of the age scale (24, younger than when Smith took on Eleven).
CON: All depends on her schedule, really; as an Aussie she's not home-grown, but she's Commonwealth and has the accent; I don't see a downside.

Someone We've Never Heard Of:
PRO: Leaves fans guessing how the character will act; unheralded actors come CHEAP.
CON: Gambling big time on a franchise to give it to an unknown quantity; yes it worked well with Smith as Eleven, but you can't stay lucky forever.

If I had my druthers I'd go with Lynch first, Browning second, Lewis third.  We'll see if I'm right.

In the meantime, wanna good reason why Doctor Who is such a major force in modern geekhood?

"You'll Be Safe Here" artwork by Dean Trippe

The potential.  Not just time-travel, or space-travel, but universe-travel... the hopping between 'Verses.  ALL 'VERSES.

ALL OF THEM.  And there's few things that gets a geek worked up than the idea of all our heroes, in one spot, on one adventure to end all adventures...

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Very OT: The font of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce

Just in case people want to make their own "Mad Men" fan blog.  The font used for office signage at SCDP is Akzidenz-Grotesk.  Not Helvetica or Arial.

It's be nice if HTML can handle True Type fonts.

You have been informed.

Also, Breitbart Delendus Est.

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