And another thing

I've found my Lois Lane. That is all.

Look Up in the Sky

Since my attempts to blog about politics tend to devolve in to rants (seriously, you should have seen the one I planned about cherry-picking the Real America. Completely. Imploded.), I've decided to direct my ranting powers toward something a little more down-to-Earth. I'm talking here about Superman, the Man of Tomorrow.

News has reached me of the rumor that Christopher Nolan will be shepherding, "godfathering," in fact, a new Superman film while at the same time continuing his fine work on Batman.

I like Christopher Nolan. The man does fine work. 'Memento' is a revelation, his work on Batman has been top-notch, I'm even looking forward to 'Inception,' though every trailer seems only to up the "what the HELL?" factor. But I think this is the wrong direction for a prospective Superman sequel.

Nolan's pedigree with superhero movies is he puts 'em back in the grim and gritty category, and that works great for Batman. He's been doing that schtick since '86 and it works fantastic. But Superman...not so much. For evidence, check out the Singer version.



Singer's Superman is loaded down with hopelessly on-the-nose Christ allegories and a talky plot that's all about how Superman--played by an actor who's 25--has been gone for five years, leaving Lois--who's played by an actress who's 23--with an infant son because he schtupped her while still pretending he and Clark were two different guys. The ick factor alone coming off this film was enough to doom the project. Darkness does not equal quality. Grittiness does not equal greatness.

So, for what it's worth, and for anyone reading this who hasn't heard my constant entreaties to check out Grant Morrison's 'All-Star Superman,' let me hold forth the example of how the Superman reboot should be handled--and every Superman project, really.



One of the many, many good things about 'All-Star' is how it captures Superman's origins in four panels. The latest spate of superhero franchise movies all start with the origin story. Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, even (gagh) Daredevil and Ghost Rider, all follow the same beats. The only thing 'Superman Returns' had going for it was ditching his familiar-as-rote origin story. Unfortunately it replaced all this with baggage from a film that was released twenty-six years before.

Superman needs to not be about x-raying through your ex's house walls and listening to her phone conversation. It needs to not be about deadbeat dads and just the terrible, terrible burden it must be to fight giant cube planets full of zombies, here to eat the Earth.



Superman as a character tends to get the short shrift. He's dismissed as dorky and anachronistic and leeched of drama because, really, you have to drop a mountain on the guy to hurt him. These are not elements that can be fixed by making him, well, Batman.

Warner tried this tactic once before, with a TV adaptation of 'The Flash.' Following Bruce Wayne's cinematic success in 1989, Barry Allen followed suit with a dark, set-at-night show where he growls at people a lot. You've never heard of it. There's a reason.

I don't think Warner Brothers understands this. Morrison knows it, though. That you can tell stories with a mythic quality and still make them human. That the crux doesn't have to be "will Superman survive?" but rather "Can he save everyone?" And the answer to this is always going to be "no," even for him, and he's going to keep fighting anyway, and that's what makes him great.

Whatever Happened to Mister Garibaldi?

A number of complicated, trenchant, well-phrased and generally bloggable thoughts came screaming through my head as I glimpsed the inaugural authorial work of one Mr. Gerard T. Doyle.



Who is Jerry Doyle?, I hear you asking. THIS is who Jerry Doyle is.



Or was, rather. For five years, Doyle played Chief of Security Michael Garibaldi on the syndicated TV show ‘Babylon 5’ Garibaldi was an intensely likeable, average-joe type, with a history of drinking and, you know, a raygun. And that was it. That was pretty much his life. He briefly tried to run for Congress in Orange County, quipping when asked why we should take his campaign seriously “I’m the only candidate with my own action figure” but he largely disappeared from the TV landscape. Imdb lists one screen credit between 2004 and 2010. It also tells me he’s good friends with premiere American nutjob asshole Michael Savage.

Three thoughts ran through my head as I considered this, Doyle’s first work of non-fiction. The first was a pointed, “Fuck YOU, JD.” I don’t need fucking actors, even actors whose work I enjoyed when I was eighteen, even actors whose politics I like and respect, weighing in on the current political discourse. I resolved to do up an angry blog post about it.

Which brought me to Thought 2: Since when am I qualified to bitch about Doyle’s qualifications to bitch about the current political discourse?

Thought 3: This is AMERICA. Doyle can say whatever the Hell he wants, no matter how ill-informed, bent, or insane. That somebody gave him a book deal because he knows the right people or because they thought the whole “This is the moment I was born for” fight against the invisible Shadow beasts was, well, let’s face it, pretty bitchin’ means nothing. People of arguably less talent and ability have produced more. See also: Michael Savage.

Thought 4: Hm. Doyle’s been out of circulation since god-knows-when (imdb would later fill in the blanks for me). I smell a PLOT! A plot to resuscitate an image that, frankly, no one cares about.

Thought 5: I’m not even going to bring up ‘Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys.’ I just won’t. You’re welcome.

Thought 6: Well, Largo, if you’re hell-bent on bitching about the thing, least you can do is read it. (See also: Atlas Shrugged.) So I did.
…And I didn’t get that far. Seriously, I can’t even listen to the RADIO half the time before wanting to kick someone. So let me give you the highlights, because I’m not a book reviewer and my father used to tell me if I kept torturing myself, I’d go blind.

Doyle opens his book with the cigarette tax and SCHIP. He explains, with an irony that’s so heavy-handed on-the-nose it could be sued by a personal injury attorney, that he smokes cigarettes “for the children.” He expands on this premise, slyly decrying “sin” taxes and generally coming off as just your average joe who wants to sit back and enjoy a beer and the game without all the damn liberals in Congress getting on his damn case about it.

It was around here that I put the book down. I picked it up at a random spot a little further on where Doyle explains that he left his career in film and television (and what a lucrative career it was, ladies and gentlemen) to run for Congress. I remember reading on the imdb that, when asked why his campaign for California District 24 should be taken seriously, Doyle replied "I'm the only candidate with my own action figure."



In here there's little of that. Doyle says his career as an actor was never brought up because his opponent, incumbent Brad Sherman, knew he had too much of a command on the issues. To be fair, he doesn't spoil the rod when it comes to, say, Tom DeLay and his rigging of the Ethics Committee (p. 203) to protect his own ass. Though, mostly, the book is a tirade against what Doyle perceives as Economic Fascism and the Media Obsession with President Obama, something which already dates the book by several months and it's only been out one.

Turns out Doyle's got his own radio show, which is nationally syndicated, so that shows me, I guess. The book is less of a cynical attempt to reform his career than I thought. Following his electoral defeat in 2000, Doyle declared himself an independent and started 'The Jerry Doyle' show.

The problem with Doyle's (and Bill O'Rielly and Glenn Beck's, really) brand of Independent Conservatism is it comes from a false premise, that the sense of privilege we enjoy in this country is our God-given right, and that if somebody wants you to, say, give a damn that people in your own country are starving to death, for instance, well then you're a goddamn Communist, and if you want to legislate ANYTHING, well, then you're infringing on every American's God-Given Right to Be American, Damn It. Nevermind anybody else. This sense that things are OWED us, simply because they are the things we're used to. It's this myopic sense of entitlement that tells us the Fifties were the best time in history, that the world outside doesn't exist except when it sends us Islamofascist Terrorists and High-Quality Hungarian Porn, and Secret Kenyan Plots to Rule the World. Boo.

A Lesson in Hollywood, from Uma Thurman

When you're eighteen, you play Venus.

When you're forty, you play Medusa.



That is all.

Geeky Blog Post

[image 1]

Single word conveying exasperation. Witty statement. (1)

[image 2]

Point-by-point analysis of how image 1 is simply Missing . The. Point., starting with the tips of the guy's wings. Witty statement. Briefly bring math in to this. Assert that image 1 is incapable of appearing realistic on screen. Rational acceptance that the vagaries of prime-time television can't allow for the kind of literal translation one would expect. (2) Point out, however, that they've been doing this kind of crap before. For, like, ten years. Supporting example. And another, because seriously, that painted-on mask wasn't fooling anyone. What if it rained?

Summary of argument. Conclusion. Labored invocation of an even more obscure figure in popular culture (3). Witty statement.

1. Footnote
2. Second footnote, reminding us this isn't the first time the character's been handled poorly. Remember those Baby Ruth commercials?
3. Probably Zatanna, because really.
   

Essential Viewing

So, you've got through David Tennant's swansong and are eager for more 'Who?' Can't wait 'till Spring to see it turned up to 11? Want to bone up on your classic series knowledge? My recommendations for the best serial for each of the seven classic Doctors is below. Where possible I've included a clip of the episode, although in the case of One, Five and Seven, they're fan-made trailers.

First: The Aztecs—“You can’t rewrite history. Not one line!” Most people who grew up with First Doctor stories say his fourth story, “Marco Polo” is his best, but that one got chucked in the bin. To save space, the BBC wiped dozens of Dr Who stories from the Sixties (Syndication hadn’t been invented yet) and “Polo” as one of the casualties. However, as historical adventures go, you can’t get much better than “The Aztecs,” which sees The Doctor’s companion Barbara trying to steer the course of Aztec society away from human sacrifice, only to cement it. It was the beginning of a kind of waxing and waning when it came to what you could do with history, but as a story and as an example of what the series could do even with a limited budget, it’s stellar.



Second: The Tomb of the Cybermen—The story behind this serial is almost as cool as the story within it. Though lost from the BBC archives, a print of “Tomb” was found almost twenty-five years later in a basement in a Hong Kong BBC affiliate studio. The story is the second to feature the Cybermen, and easily the strongest story they’ve been in. Troughton’s Doctor plays to his strengths here, pretending to be a buffoon while playing a group of archaeologists against each other, all to buy enough time to stop the Cybermen from awakening from their frozen tombs and slaughtering them all.



Third: The Sea Devils—Does what Pertwee’s era does best. Monsters, The Master, and a plot to take over the world. The Sea Devils are an offshoot of an ancient race of reptiles that lived on Earth millions of years ago, then escaped underground when catastrophe threatened. Now they’re back. Except they’re not all bad. They’re being manipulated by The Doctor’s opposite number, The
Master, played by the incomparable Roger Delgado.

(The guy with this clip disabled embedding. It's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwAahSsAARI )

Fourth: City of Death—Tom Baker’s era on the program can be separated in two: the brooding, gothic-horror inspired tales of his early run (such as “Pyramids of Mars” and “The Brain of Morbius”) and the more Star Wars-flavored space opera of the latter end, like “The Ribos Operation” and “City of Death.” Both, incidentally, wear Douglas Adams’ fingerprints all over them, which is why “City” remains my favorite of the Baker era. Adams was script editor for Doctor Who in 1979 before going on to some other sci fi series no one’s ever heard of. “City” brims with Adams wit and flair for language and shows off Baker at his zany, weird best.



Fifth: The Caves of Androzani—It’s kind of a tragedy that Peter Davison’s far and away best serial would be his last in the role, but “Caves” is a classic, one of the all-time greats of the whole series. “Caves” remains an object lesson: rather than being about galaxies exploding or timelines erasing, reality bombs or Dalek armies, this serial manages to ratchet up the tension by placing just two people in danger, The Doctor and his companion Peri, who has been poisoned and is slowly dying.



Sixth: The Mark of the Rani—By the time Colin Baker assumed the role, things had gotten a bit stale. Baker hardly has a good serial to call his own and struggled under the demands of a role that shifted underneath his feet by the time he got it. “Mark” has a lot of classic Who elements—historical setting, bad guys mucking about with time, mindless drone henchfolk—enough to become rote, but Baker, in this serial at least, invests it with enough verve and joy to compensate. It wasn’t until much later with the audio plays, that we got a full idea of what we missed from this era.



Seventh: The Curse of Fenric—By the Seventh Doctor’s era, things were changing again, and “Curse” was meant to be a sign of things to come. Sylvester McCoy had first been charged with portraying the character as a blundering fool, but his portrayal of the character darkened in Season 26, becoming much more the manipulator, willing to place his friends in danger in order to achieve a greater goal.

He Will Knock Four Times

Where to start? I finally watched the Dr Who New Year's Special yesterday, and like everyone else, I was half keeping my eye out for that last minute. For our first glimpse of The New Guy, Matt Smith.

So let me get that out of the way first:



So there's that, then. He still looks too young to even shave, and his first few lines didn't do much to dispel the off-put feeling I felt when his casting was announced. Still. Back in time.

Part 1 of "The End of Time" was a tremendous letdown at first because it didn't follow up on what "Waters of Mars" was promising, that somehow The Master's return was linked to Ten screwing with history like, well, The Master. Instead we get some bizarrely over-the-top cliched prophecy bullshit, and wild overacting from Simm. I miss Roger Delgado.

It was all lead-up to this, though. Part 2 was a vast improvement, with more of those quiet moments Davies does well when he's not threatening the Universe in some bizarrely new convoluted fashion.

For those of you who aren't as rabid as I am, Timothy Dalton plays Rassilon here. Rassilon is basically Time Lord Jesus. In the classic show he sort of originated their entire society millions of years ago, and every other damn thing is the Staff of Rassilon or the Key of Rassilon or the Coffee Mug of Rassilon. He showed up once in the classic series as a talking mummified corpse; the Time Lords must have brought him back to lead the fight, or something.



And speaking of Time Lords, I don't know who that lady Claire Bloom was playing was. The most obvious answer is she was The Doctor's Mum, or Susan (his grand-daughter) or Romana (the only Time Lord other than Susan to travel with him). Lucky thing that she managed to switch from her red robes to a smart white suit number when traveling across time-locked whoozits.

I'd always figured they'd come back in some form or another (Davies doesn't like to let anything lie) but was pleasantly surprised when it was just to grumble around and threaten the Universe in, again, some draconian and excruciating way. The Doctor as re-envisioned by Davies has been personified by his survivor's guilt, and that's explored more in depth here, rather than being absolved by some McGuffin.

Far and away, however, the best bit of "Part Two" was the end. Just like The Ninth Doctor's tenure, we're given a whole bait-and-switch through this episode. We expect the four knocks to come from The Master, and they don't. We expect Wilf to somehow save Ten, by taking up arms (even though we know this is the end) and he doesn't. We expect a lot of sound and fury (because this is Russel T. Davies) and we get that (again: Russel T. Davies) but it's not the sound and fury and universe-ending peril that does Ten in.




In really the only good scene in Part 1, (a quiet scene, note) he explains the stakes to Wilf, and to the audience. The Doctor is functionally immortal. He's got thirteen lives (though I'm sure if the show remains as popular as it is right now, they'll find a way around that). He's died more times than Gary Coleman's career, so it's hard to imagine the stakes here. So Ten lays them out. He's not going to walk away from this, someone else is. Someone else with his name and his memories but not him. A new man in the way they've all been new men.

The best Doctor send-off of the classic series was the Fifth, in "The Caves of Androzani." There's good reason for it. Rather than galaxies exploding or the Cybermen turning everyone's brains in to rice pudding, "Caves" is all about The Doctor racing against time to save his friend. Just one person, just one life. And in what I'd unabashedly say is the most affecting scene of the series, The Doctor does what he does best. He jumps in, feet first, and saves somebody.



Tennant's resignation to his fate is the series' most affecting moment because it's the series'--and the Doctor's--most human. We're about to be separated from him (again) and unlike the byzantine reasons he gets separated from his companions (walls of the universe, Time Lord Metacrisis) this is a human one. He doesn't want to go, but the man he's become, the man he's worked all his life to become, won't let him go any other way.

And this is where Tennant really shines. Drop the overpresent musical score, no growling Time Lords or shrieking Daleks or scene-chewing Masters, just him, and old man, and a locked room.

And then we get a series of goodbyes long enough to make you think The Doctor had fought Sauron or something, which would feel self-indulgent if it didn't feel earned. And then he changes, his last words being what anyone's last words would be. "I don't want to go." It's a grounded moment, a human moment, and in a show like this--a bull loose in the china-shop of physics--that human moment is critical. It grounds us, reminds us, and sends off this character with whom we've spent all this time in a proper fashion. Allons-y.

Looking back: