"Battlestar Galactica" has always provided some of the best action on TV, not least because even though it's a sci-fi show, the guns still fire bullets and people still die in horrible ways. Similarly, the special effects are carefully constructed to tell the story but never override it; the beauty of the dogfights is partly that they're not just pretty explosions happening for no reason. The effects are remarkably detailed, too, right down to the "No Step" warning on the Viper cockpits. But the remaining humans have managed to stay mostly out of the way of the Cylons since escaping New Caprica, which would have made it understandable and even acceptable if the two-part finale of the show's third season had been a sprawling war arc that stretched from space to planet. But how did the show wrap up the season? Buckle up, kids:

Courtroom drama.



Of course, even when "Battlestar Galactica" isn't dealing with actual battles, it doesn't exactly slow down, merely trades the kinetic excitement of war for the deeper stories that explore the lives and motivations of the main characters. "A Day in the Life" was fantastic at this, reveling in the details of Admiral Adama's ongoing grief over his wife and the cracks spreading slowly between Chief Tyrol and Cally (but if she's willing to stay with him after he broke her jaw during a hallucinatory daydream, they can probably get through squabbles about who has to feed the baby). After setting up the show's mythology as the season's endgame — Tyrol's connection with the temple, Starbuck's connection with the, um, temple — the show made an abrupt left turn by doing two pretty huge things right in a row: Starbuck died, and Baltar got his trial.

The two-part finale, ominously titled "Crossroads" just to make sure we get that some pretty important crap is about to hit the fan, was nothing less than a 90-minute treatise on ethics and morality and how we define those very concepts that form the bedrock of our society. That's not to say it didn't do other things that TV dramas usually do (and do them pretty damn well). The strength of "Battlestar Galactica" is that it can do both: function as a tautly designed, structurally sound, emotionally resonant drama, and also reach for the bigger issues above the treetops.



It's a loose rule — very loose — that TV dramas thrive on change in a stable environment, while TV comedies thrive on stasis in stable environment. For one of many instances, the creators of "Friends" had to keep coming up with ways to keep Ross and Rachel in order to preserve the stasis of the group. (Chandler and Monica were allowed to hook up and stay together because of the corollary that allows secondary relationships to work out while the show's primary relationship continuously fails and succeeds in fits. This is why Tyrol and Cally are married, but Apollo and Starbuck will always have to find their way back to each other.) "Cheers" was 10 years in a bar, "Seinfeld" almost 10 years in a coffee shop, and both series thrived on the inherent unchangeability of their characters: Jerry is pretty much always going to be a germophobic prick, while George will always manage to repel women. The characters in a comedy stay, fundamentally, at the same emotional level throughout the series; Jim and Pam can try all they want, but it ain't gonna happen. However, characters in good dramas progress through an emotional arc over the course of the series, so that while their surroundings stay the same, they become different people as a result of their jobs, relationships, etc. The soapy on-again/off-again nature of TV relationships has a lot more gravity on dramas because the characters aren't simply marking time until the finale, when the leads can finally be together; these characters are actually experiencing all this pain, this heartbreak, and as a result they slowly become different people. Off the top of my head, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" probably did as good a job as any show ever did of showing marked change in its characters from pilot to finale: The lessons learned in one season were applied to the next, which raised the stakes, and so on.

However, the trick is pulling those characters through arcs of change without violating the story's natural feel. Perhaps the most egregious example (again, off the top of my head and glancing intermittently at my DVD shelf) is the horrible way that Aaron Sorkin kept Dana and Casey apart on the second season of "Sports Night" by concocting Dana's Dumbass Dating Plan, which forced Casey to feel ashamed for loving Dana and encouraged him to pursue other women, which of course he did. The characters weren't kept apart as a result of any growth or change they went through or any kind of relationship problems; they were just kept apart.

All of which is a long way to say that "Battlestar Galactica" showed once again how smart it is at making its characters grow while also putting them through the relational ringer. Admiral Adama and President Roslin have been growing closer since the evacuation from New Caprica, which has been kind of cute: They're old, and slow, and Adama will look at Roslin and growl, and Roslin will look back at Adama like a playful librarian, and maybe they'll hold hands, and etc. But in order to keep them from getting together (ew) just yet, the show needed a way to keep them apart, and it did so the best way possible: It established their conflicting ideologies over the fate of Gaius Baltar.

The trial itself was masterful in that it forced Lee to test himself like he never has before. Sure, he's rebelled several times in the past, and was barely on speaking terms with his father when the series began. But his acts of independence have always been in line with a belief that the military he serves can and should be the best force of good for the struggling society that's slowly making its way to the promised land of Earth. He went with Roslin to Kobol because he believed her, not because he stopped believing in the cause. But he turned in his wings and quit the service because he didn't like where Admiral Adama was taking things, especially when Adama expressed his belief that Gaius Baltar didn't deserve a fair trial. Lee hated Baltar as much as everyone else, but he wasn't willing to let his distaste for the man color his loyalty to the ideal of a free society. Lee's impassioned speech on the stand was fantastic: He spoke of salvation, and atonement, and the hypocrisy of letting everyone be covered by Roslin's amnesty except for Baltar, who had been made to suffer. He doesn't attempt to excuse Baltar's crimes, nor does his speech quite falter and slip into the murky areas of relativism, i.e., we all made mistakes, so Baltar can make them, too. No, he's arguing the opposite: We've all been forgiven, and Baltar deserves the same pardon.

Lee's speech won over Admiral Adama, demonstrating the old man's ability to grow and change, to mature. And Adama's vote to acquit Baltar in turn pushed Adama and Roslin farther away in a heartbreakingly natural way. While they will probably work back toward a close friendship in the future — hey, they got through the civil war of the show's second season — it won't be easy. "Battlestar Galactica" doesn't cheat like that; reconciliations here are hard-earned.

All of which makes it so much harder to accept that, for now, the show is gone for a while. Instead of beginning its fourth season this fall, the series isn't returning until January 2008, which is just an ungodly amount of downtime for one of the best dramas on TV. The series deals with politics and religion and what it means to live in a free society and what kind of laws we give ourselves, and it does it better than anybody else in the game. The finale relied on "All Along the Watchtower" as a plot device and as the soundtrack to the impending Cylon attack that filled the episode's final seconds, and the use of the song was an effective way to emotionally tie the fictional world to ours. It's not exactly a new trick — Stephen King also used "Hey Jude" to eerie effect in The Gunslinger — but it still managed to lend the sequence a weight, a sense of foreboding, that drove home the revelation of the identities of four of the remaining Cylon models (about which I'm sure I will write at length over this long, hot, empty summer). It's enough to make me want to dive back into the show on DVD. I'm really going to miss it.

The most recent episode of "Lost," the compelling "The Man From Tallahassee," is probably the best episode of Season 3. While it's clearly better than most of Season 2, which played out like a turgid melodrama stripped of any real consequence, it's also not quite up to the level of Season 1, which barreled along like a runaway train while successfully using a character's individual backstory to deepen the main island plot. Granted, it's not exactly rocket science to psychologically link a given character's past with whatever they're going through on the island — Charlie leaned on drugs and now can't emotionally support himself, or something — but when it cooks, it cooks.

What made the episode so great was Jack's willingness to morally compromise in order to get things done and pursue what he perceived to be the greatest good for the islanders, namely, growing somewhat friendly with the Others and even offering medical care for Ben in order to secure passage off the island on the mythical submarine and possibly get help back in the real world and return later to rescue his friends. Jack has been the (often overly) moral leader of the group since the first year, playing the part of the great physician and watching over the flock of castaways to keep them safe and even journeying into dangerous parts of the island to rescue the one who'd gone astray or been kidnapped. He was an occasionally flat but ultimately noble representative version of all things good and true, which was the center of his beef with Locke: Locke was willing to redefine his worldview after landing on the island, and in fact deemed it necessary to mining the island for all its potential rewards, but Jack held even stronger to the ethical code that had guided him back home.

But Jack, after three seasons of getting jerked around, is finally starting to see the light by going dark. When Kate, Locke, and Sayid attempted to rescue Jack and wound up getting predictably captured in the process, Jack wasn't tossed into lock-up with them but actually given the opportunity to visit Kate and interrogate her. The scene was a fabulous inversion of the trials Jack had gone through while held captive by the Others, and the way he casually dragged up a chair and asked Kate just what she was up to spoke volumes about Jack's enlightened way of looking at things. Kate asked him, "So, you're with them now?" And Jack looked back at her with a mixture of annoyance, defiance, and even mild confusion, saying, "I'm not with anyone, Kate." Jack wasn't simply using the Others until he could escape back to his camp, or even get off the island. He was merely taking advantage of something that would first serve his interests and later, possibly, those of his friends. Locke has always been doing his own thing because of what he felt he owed the island after it magically healed him, which is why his decision to scuttle the sub and keep everyone trapped there, though lamentable, wasn't really surprising. No, the show turned a corner not by digging deeper into Locke's personal demons — though the episode was typical Locke-centric greatness, since Terry O'Quinn is hands-down the best actor on the series — but by finally setting Jack free to see where he goes. By eliminating the hero's strict moral code and having him venture into the surprisingly accepting waters of ethical unaccountability, "Lost" may be poised to have its characters do something I've been wanting them to do for a long time: Grow.

I remember what it was like to come out to my friends. I had to do it several times, since it's not like you can just gather everyone in your life in one room and tell them what's going on, so I had to keep bringing it up. I never even talked about it with my parents, though I assume they'll read this. Anyway, I would look at my friends and say, "So, I've got something I need to tell you. Something I've been doing recently." They would look at me and say, not without concern, "Well, what is it?" And then I would clear my throat, look at them, and say:

"I've been watching 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' And I love it."

I first came into contact with "Buffy" in the spring of 2003, when I saw the Season 2 DVDs sitting out at a friend's apartment. "Whose are those?" I asked her. "Mine," she said. "Yeah, right," I joked, thinking her far too smart to be involved with what I had prejudicially written off as a juvenile, campy soap opera. But luckily she was walking around the apartment and I didn't say it too loudly and I guess wasn't being too sarcastic (which is something), since my comment didn't really register with her. (Ah, the sweet joy of making a joke and having a woman ignore it.) A few months later, in the middle of that long hot summer, I came across a rerun of "Buffy" on FX one afternoon and decided to stop and see what was going on, since, after all, the girl who'd owned the DVDs really did have good taste. So I settled in and would up watching the Season 5 episode "The Body," and was blown away. I was thrust headlong into a universe that had been expanding for years and forced to play catch-up mighty fast, but that episode was enough to let me know I'd found something good. The show was smart without being smug, funny without sacrificing respectability, and blended action, comedy, drama, loads of pain, and all the other emotions that make for the best TV.

It took me a while to accurately assemble the show's chronology in my head, since I was flat broke and couldn't afford the DVDs, but also didn't want to stop watching the show. So I watched the reruns of Seasons 5 and 6, which is a fascinating way to enter the series: Willow was gay, there was the epic "Once More, With Feeling," and I had to put up with Dawn. Since Joss Whedon's series had ended only a few months earlier, the seventh year hadn't entered syndication yet, so FX returned to Season 1 after the sixth season episodes ended, and I soon caught up on everything. I was living alone in a college town that had been deserted for the summer, and watching "Buffy" was probably one of the two or three only good things that happened during that dry, blistering hell of a season. I felt as if I'd found this world that had been waiting for me, full of humor and pain, where it was okay to be a little cornball in the service of the greater story. The show ran for seven seasons, and each one has its glories¹: The show's core dynamic is flawless in Season 1-3, the high school years; Season 4 is a daring and wonderful transition to college and the real world; Season 5 has some fantastic moments dealing with love, sacrifice, and growing up; Season 6 is a vastly underrated look at the aimlessness of your early 20s and the damage we do to each other; and Season 7, despite the speechifying, manages to be a solid return to form as the show once again finds itself dealing with apocalypse at high school.

I could never pick a favorite season, or episode, or character. I've loved a lot of TV shows in my time, and still do, but "Buffy" is one of the few (along with "Sports Night" and a very few others) that transcends the level of beloved show and becomes an almost tangible presence in my cultural life; basically, the show helps me get over. I can't imagine anyone being able to turn to "Lost" or "Heroes" and find the same kind of emotional comfort and character-derived moments of genuine power like the ones Whedon turned out with stunning regularity. This show has heart, damn it, and that counts for something.

I can't believe how many moments are flooding back to me just banging out this half-assed salute to the show. There's Giles walking into a tree at the end of "Earshot"; that umbrella sequence in "The Prom" that gets me every time; the final shot of "Hush"; the music in "The Gift"; seeing Riley come back married in "As You Were"; Andrew turning off the camera in "Storyteller"; the sheer fun of "Halloween"; the surprising gender reversal in "I Only Have Eyes For You"; the jarring transition from Anya singing to being pinned to the wall, a sword through her chest, in "Selfless"; really, any moment from the gallons of angst the flowed through Season 2. There are so many, and I'm sure I'll get into more of them in this space in the future.

I guess I just felt like getting all that out there because the 10th anniversary of the show's debut recently passed, and a new line of comics written (initially) by Whedon just began, and are serving as a "Season 8" to continue where the TV series left off. And I know now that I'll read every issue, even though Whedon's only writing a few of them. There's just something about these characters I find compelling, an emotional strength of storytelling that outweighs the show's occasional weaknesses. I'll probably cobble together some kind of review of the comics after a while, but that's for later. For now, I just wanted to share my love for a show that got me through the black, that always entertained me, and that influenced the way I watch TV and the stories that affect me. That's all.



^{1. Man, that was an awful pun (for those who caught it). And I swear it was unintentional.}

"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" has by now established itself as perhaps Aaron Sorkin's weakest work (well, except for Malice). But it's certainly the weakest of his TV series, falling well behind "Sports Night" and "The West Wing" in terms of character development, creativity, storylines, and everything else. Sorkin is even up to his old tricks when it comes to dropping storylines whenever they begin to bore him; wasn't the "Studio 60" set supposed to be redesigned, like, months ago?

But the biggest change is perhaps in Sorkin's newfound cynicism for his characters that believe in God. Of course, Sorkin's distaste for zealots is hardly new; the pilot episode of "The West Wing" revolved around Josh almost getting fired for pissing off the religious right, and when the smug representatives of that movement came to the White House, the president smacked them down by quoting the Ten Commandments. This set two important precedents for the show: First, the religious right was going to be a pretty standard whipping boy for Sorkin's idealistic Bartlet administration. Second, Bartlet would be a man of well-reasoned, compassionate faith.

Sorkin's diatribes against narrow-minded religious extremists first appeared on "Sports Night," as in (for one of many instances) Casey McCall's on-air insults aimed at Jerry Falwell. Attacking the right-wing nutbars that are destroying the public faith of a lot of Americans is fine and dandy, it really is. However, the important thing on "The West Wing" wasn't just Bartlet's strong stance against the religious right, but his balancing that with his own yearning, personal faith. In the show's mythology, Bartlet minored in theology at Notre Dame, and his struggle to reconcile his faith in God with the horrible choices he faces as president added tremendous depth to the first few seasons of "The West Wing." The first season's "Take This Sabbath Day" shows Bartlet's spiritual vulnerability as he debates the commutation of a convict's death sentence, decides to let the sentence stand, and ultimately talks to his boyhood priest and asks forgiveness for his acts. Bartlet's spiritual vulnerability came to a head in Season 2's "Two Cathedrals," in which Bartlet curses and shouts at God as he reels from the death of Mrs. Landingham. Bartlet's soliloquy in Latin is heartrending, but he's not abandoning his faith: He's reasoning with it. There's never a sense that Bartlet is turning his back on his beliefs.

Which is what makes Sorkin's newfound bitterness toward Christianity in general so perplexing. He's got a track record of respecting characters of honest faith, yet Matt Albie is becoming an increasingly bitter spokesman for what one can only assume is Sorkin's developing animosity for people who believe in God. Entire episodes have revolved around the fact that Matt doesn't respect Harriet for having faith. The pilot episode revolved around a sketch called "Crazy Christians." And yes, both the sketch and Matt's mockery of Harriet are related to the religious right. But there is no Bartlet on "Studio 60," no man or woman who seems to represent the non-insane swath of believers out there. Sorkin keeps mounting attacks, but there's no one to respond with apologetics. I'd thought Sorkin respected people more than that, but I'm starting to think I was wrong.

So I leave you with this:

Over at The Stream, there's apparently going to be a new installment of Friday Fangirl Fantasm, which, word has it, is worth your time and attention. They'll be talking about when good TV shows go bad.

So at the risk of turning this site into deadline-driven place that relies on timeliness — as opposed to the history-making, timeless kind of vibe it currently puts out — you should all head over to The Stream on Sunday, Feb. 18, at 5 p.m. PST. (Which would be 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 Central, and 6 for anyone who lives in the Mountain time zone and has access to an internet in their woodsy little shack.)

That's all.

[A special dedication and salutation up front to the citizens of Curious People for a Curious America. This has been a long time coming.]

O "Lost."

Things have been going pretty poorly for the castaways for a long time now, and though the show isn't out of the woods (or jungle) yet, it just might be headed for a turnaround. Might.

• The biggest problem facing the show is that very, very little happens in each episode. Since half of each weekly installment is devoted to a flashback (the merits of which are also up for debate), only 20ish minutes per eipsode are used for actual plot progression. It's like watching one season of "24" stretched over three years, and it's more than little trying. The narrative boredom is compounded by the fact that this season, instead of sprinkling in repeats with the new episodes, the show took a 13-week break between its fall and spring segments. "Not in Portland," the most recent episode, feels so far removed from last fall's events I can't remember anything but the last few minutes of the fall "finale." (To be addressed shortly.) As for what's happening with the rest of the islanders: Who the hell knows.

• Juliet's ex-husband is Edmund Burke, apparently named afer this guy. This is not in any way deep or significant or a sign of writerly skill. The Wachowski brothers weren't brilliant for naming their hero the prefix for "new" and the anagram for "one," either. "Lost" already has Locke, Rousseau, and Hume. Adding Edmund Burke to their roster is neither original nor meaningful.

• Edmund is played by Zeljko Ivanek. You should all learn his name.

• Juliet is also one of the few hot grownups on TV. (Most women are in their 20s playing 18 or in their 30s playing 26.) I don't really know where to go with that. I'm just saying, if she made a movie with Diane Lane ... boy howdy.

• This is probably one of the better episodes of this season. The six episodes last fall had sporadic moments of greatness — the opening of the season premiere that revealed the second island was right up there — but on the whole, the best part of those half-dozen installments was the final moments of the previous episode, "I Do," which was a Kate-centric episode showing how she kept on breaking hearts and running from her problems back in her old life (this is easily the billionth time that's been pointed out to us). But it ended with a spectacularly taut sequence that recalled the show's heady early days: The stakes were high, the choices were clear, the consequences were unknown, and something big and bad was about to rain down.

• Jack's decision to use Ben's life as leverage to free Kate and Sawyer was a strong one, and Juliet's complicity in planning the murder finally gave her character some depth beyond the ice cold schoolmarm vibe she was putting out. "Not in Portland" picks up in that heated moment of balance, with Jack screaming at Kate over the walkie to run and escape with Sawyer.

• Juliet's backstory, though it follows the same pattern as everyone else's — get involved in something bad in the real world, look for similar situations on the island, attempt to right past wrongs, repeat — is rewarding because it actually has a bearing on the overall story and the reasons the island(s) exist in the first place. But for every sly hint the show makes at the details, it also beats the viewer over the head with meaning.

• For example: Juliet tells Shady Hispanic Doctor (Nestor Carbonell) that she can't go work for his creepy-ass experimental hospital without her husband's okay, and that will never happen, so unless he gets hit by a bus, she's stuck in Miami. SHD laughs it off, but sure enough, not too much later, Edmund is steamrolled like that kid in Final Destination. It's pretty clear that SHD arranged the vehicular manslaughter, which is driven home by the fact that he shows up atthe morgue to pass on his condolences, and he just so happens to have Ethan in tow. The shock of recognition as Juliet puts the puzzle together is wonderful, but it's completely undone by the fact that she keeps telling SHD about how she'd mentioned the bus thing before, and then SHD has to deny this, and blah blah go on already. The scene would have been stronger if she'd figured things out and then internalized it and gone right to "Why are you here?" The series wants to be a smart mystery, and that won't happen until it respects its viewers enough to expect them to keep up with the emotional changes of the characters and not spell out every little thing.

• What the hell happened to Walt and MercutioMichael? Oh, that's right, they sailed off into the sunset and were promptly forgotten by everyone. I haven't seen a series so spectacularly blunder characters since "The West Wing" phased out Ainsley.

• I strongly identified with Jack's mix of what could be called bemused indignation when Juliet informed him that yes, he would have to go back to his cell until his fate could be decided. That look is the look I usually have when watching "Lost" now: I just can't quite believe this all still happening.

• I've written before that "Lost" feels like two shows trying to co-exist in the same space, with one show following the medical conspiracy of Dharma and the other connecting the castaways through unbelievable interpersonal contrivances¹. The series is straining under the weight of its breadth, which is why "Not in Portland" could herald good things to come in that it represents a small but marked attempt to streamline the two warring shows-within-a-show. The relevance of Juliet's backstory provides welcome hints at the kind of genetic hijinks the Dharma folks have been up to, as well as explain why she's on the island and how she relates to its inhabitants. Granted, "Lost" still has a long way to go if it ever wants to come close to recapturing the fiery brilliance of its first season, which blended mystery and action in a kind of pop art/comic book mix that is poorly imitated to this day, most notably by "Lost" itself. But the show seems like it might finally have gotten the crap out of its system, and could be once more returning to its roots. I'm hopeful.

^{1. I stole that phrase from JMW's latest review. Just so you know.}

[Permanent disclosure, again, for those who need the help: Spoilers follow.]

• I almost didn't think it was possible, but Tuesday's episode of "Veronica Mars," titled "Poughkeepsie, Tramps & Thieves,"¹ explored even new realms of disillusionment, angst, and general all-out pain for the show. It was also the confluence of several of the show's developing storylines and in-jokes, as well as a continuation of things written here very recently, so much so that for one brief moment the universe unlocked and I was at its center.

• Specifically, only a few days after I wrote about the subject, the series dealt with its own brand of love going to the highest bidder. The episode revolved around Max (Adam Rose), who enlists Veronica to track down a girl he met at Comic-Con. He says they fell in love talking about "Battlestar Galactica" and Chuck Klosterman, and aside from being just one giant screaming wish-fulfillment of a plot setup, it also introduces a guaranteed pain into the episode. As I wrote before — and as this episode bears out — it never, ever works out to fall in love with a girl who makes a living selling herself. Never. Ever. Max is going to learn this the hard way, and his heartbreak is so predestined that you know he'll be broken by the time the credits roll. It's a given.

• Speaking of the "Battlestar" thing: It's a weird running in-joke on "Veronica Mars," going all the way back to Veronica's R.A.-turned-rapist, who liked a little "BSG" with his abduction. Soon enough, Veronica was saying "Frak," and now there's an entire episode built around the fact that these two characters met while talking about "Battlestar" at that holiest of geek meccas, Comic-Con. This isn't the first geek crossover for "Veronica," either: Joss Whedon, Alyson Hannigan and Charisma Carpenter² have all been on the show, ranging from guest spots to major story arcs. So what is it about the show that makes it so appealing for geek references? I don't know. All I know is that there are people out there way more devoted³ to the crossovers than you'd think.

• Anyway: Veronica eventually tracks down the girl, who turns out to be a hooker hired by Max's dickish buddies to help him lose his virginity. But when Max finds out she's a hooker, he refuses to believe his time with her was an act. He's textbook romantic martyr: He believes that yeah, she's pretended to enjoy being with men before, but she meant it with him. What's more, he even arranges with her madam to buy her out of prostitution. It's pretty much exactly the plot of the "Battlestar" episode where Lee falls in love with Shevon.⁴

• And oh, the pain comes on big time when Max finally gets the girl. At first it appears rosy and sun-flecked and full of all the happy things a relationship with a former call girl should never be, but then the crap inevitably gets funnelled through the fan and splattered all over Max's mopey existence. His roommates try and hire his new girlfriend to strip at a bachelor party; Max can't get past what she used to do for a living; etc.; etc. He finally confronts her about the night they met, when she claimed to have a left a card with all her info on it back at the hotel, which was subsequently removed by housekeeping. Max asks her if it's true, and the look on her face as she slowly shakes her head is just devastating. "Veronica Mars" is no stranger to pain, but this is one of the most uncomfortable scenes simply because the destruction was so inevitable. Not inevitable in the typical way of most TV narratives, e.g., let's break up the leads again and keep stringing out the main story. No, this was inevitable because it was bound to fail from the start; there was, literally, no other option. And that's a whole other kind of pain than watching Veronica and Logan go round after round (which is good, though somehow always disconcerting considering how much she pined for Duncan the first year or so), because that relationship has something Max and Random Whore will never have: hope.

• So she leaves him, and winds up slowly paying him back in installments for buying her out in the first place. The first payment is a sweaty wad of singles she earned stripping. Ah, fate.

• Seriously, though, the "Battlestar" and Klosterman references are enough to make me very, very uneasy. Someone else might be flattered or pleased that their favorite show managed to reference their other favorite show and one of their favorite authors; I prefer to sink into a morass of self-doubt. It's like the show knows way too well who it's aiming for. That might not be bad, but it's definitely eerie.

<sup>1. Come on, you laughed. A little.
2. If I have to explain those names, you might be at the wrong blog.
3. I still watched it half a dozen times.
4. Only Max doesn't shoot anyone in the gut, though that would've been an interesting wrinkle.</sup>

If ever I needed proof of Veronica Mars' enduring humanity — i.e., her proclivity for stupid decisions — I had it Tuesday night as she fell for the thousandth time into Logan's arms as the music swelled.

Far from being a superhero with an overdeveloped sense of justice and the nature of right and wrong, Veronica at times has an almost fetishtic way of singlemindedly pursuing a goal. Granted, she's matured as the series has grown; when she was hired to discover the identity of the campus rapist in the first major story arc of Season 3, she didn't set out to crucify the frats like the rape victims wanted her to, but instead tried to find the truth of the situation. But she also has the habit of relentlessly pursuing a chosen goal and letting that lead her, however ungracefully, to the truth. For instance, in Tuesday's episode, she suspected a campus anti-fur crusader group in the recent vandalization of a research lab and the freeing of the lab's experimental monkey and 20 or so rats. So Veronica went to one of the group's meetings and started broadcasting in huge, violent, incandescent letters that she would be willing to go all the way with the group's "more active" protests. It was a pretty stupid way to blend in when she was on a case, but more importantly, it underscored her tendency to simply attack the first line of reasoning until it plays out, instead of more carefully weighing the alternatives. She still solved the case, of course, and did it with compassion, but that's not the point. That stuff came later; in the beginning was the wrath.

So I'm not completely surprised that Veronica went in essence crawling back to Logan, who'd ended their relationship in the previous episode. It's likely that the showrunners decided that they'd been apart long enough; after all, the story's chronology was roughly made to match its recent broadcast hiatus (the previous episode aired Nov. 28, 2006, and I've been waiting for the show's return like no other). But this was only briefly established when Keith referred to the death of Dean O'Dell "six weeks ago." As far as the viewers are concerned, it's only been one episode, a lousy 45 minutes, since Veronica and Logan called it quits (again), and to have them recouple so soon is an oversight in narrative structure. There's a difference between taking a break for repeats and actually extending the show's timeline; sure, it may feel like a long time since "Veronica Mars" has aired new episodes, but that doesn't mean that the writers should behave as if the residents of Neptune, Calif., have actually been up to their old tricks for six invisible weeks while the viewers waited. No major story arcs happened during that time; nothing did. This will become even clearer when the show is eventually released on DVD, effectively eliminating the emotional break caused by the hiatus and leaving only the erratic story that has Veronica and Logan bouncing from off again to on again in a matter of minutes.

But even worse, it's a betrayal of the kind of strength Veronica is purported to possess. Her character is one giant ball of trust issues and emotional unavailabilty, and creator Rob Thomas has gone to great lengths to show that while Veronica is capable of love and devotion, she doesn't come by such sentiments easily. She's been burned by a mom that left and then returned only to wreak more havoc, not to mention a string of complicated relationships that tend to end, well, badly. Veronica's loyalty has had to be earned by the other major characters, but she's got a blind spot for Logan. And while that sucks, I also think it's a good thing, in it's way. Her weakness in that area is a reminder of her fundamentally flawed nature. Everyone has that blind spot, too; for some its gambling, or alcohol, or whatever, and for Veronica it's intelligent assholes with a little too much hair product. I was surprised, and more than a little annoyed, when Veronica went running back to Logan so soon (or "soon"), but I also know that it's one more thing that gives the character dimension and reality, and a reminder of just how good this show can be.

me: if i had to shoot you in the gut and blow your blood across the wall so you could die and download into a new you just to save our baby...
me: i would do it
RMS: thank you
RMS: If you crashed over a hill 2 clicks away, I'd send sarah out for you
me: thank you
me: if you were stuck on the surface, i would act like i would nuke you to save the world, but i would be bluffing. i would let you live
RMS: thx
RMS: if you defied the authority of the group, I would tranfer your sentience to cold storage
me: i appreciate that
me: if you kept killing yourself to see the face of God, i would encourage you to follow your dreams
RMS: thanks
RMS: if you tortured me, I would imagine I was having sex at the time
me: good
me: if you got shot by a robot, i would totally kill her in cold-blooded vengeance
RMS: thanks
RMS: if I was really mad at you, i would have an intense boxing match then hug it out
me: aw, thanks
me: if your wife wanted to sleep with me, i would wait until she divorced you first
RMS: thx
RMS: If you betrayed the resistance, I would poison you
me: you'd better
me: if your wife was wounded a couple miles away, i would force you to stay with me at gunpoint
RMS: good
RMS: if you lost your eye and were embittering the crew, I would tell you to shoot me or get the hell out
me: if sarah was being held captive, i would go with you and help kill the guys who were about to hurt her
RMS: thx
RMS: if we got stranded with the rest of a sports team, I would lead us in the resistance
me: thanks
me: if you sided with the enemy during the occupation, i would consider throwing you out the airlock once we escaped
RMS: thanks
RMS: I you were under my command, I would speak in low tones and not look at you until things were bad and I started to growl
me: thanks
me: if i were captured and asked about you, i would let them pull out my eye, since i would never give you up
RMS: thank you
RMS: if they killed you in a raid on the temple, I would blow myself up at graduation
me: if you were shot in an away mission on the surface, i would lie to you and say the ship was here, so that you would be happy when you died
RMS: thank you
RMS: if you were captured and held prisoner by the cylons for years, I would admit that I lied to you
RMS: about being shot down by me
me: thanks, man
me: if you were a mean commander of a rival ship, i would arrange your assassination

Of all the random little motifs floating through film and TV, none guarantees a specific kind of heartbreak quite like the story of a man who, against the warnings of friends and pretty much all common sense, gets involved with a woman who makes a living by selling herself to some degree. (At first I thought all these stories were just coincidences, but it seems to be a legit little sub-subgenre of dramatic storytelling. I mean, it's not like I sat on the floor in front of my DVD shelves, listening to The Heart of Saturday Night and waiting for a pattern to appear. I was watching "Sports Night" and the whole thing just kind of fell into place.) The characters and specific situations may vary, but things always wind up turning sour, and eventually lead to pain, loss, and/or bloodshed. Given those built-in dramatic elements, it's easy to see why writers keep re-using the same tale in different permutations. And it works for a variety of reasons. Using the male character as a combination of coldness and vulnerability — he's willing to pay for sex, but also dumb enough to romanticize it — wouldn't work if it was a female character; for starters, she wouldn't be fool enough to make anything more out of it, and she wouldn't likely even go after it in the first place. What's more, the story is a reversal of the stereotypical roles usually found in film/TV: Instead of the callow man breaking the woman's heart, this is a vulnerable man getting gutted by an often equally vulnerable woman. It's unexpected, and it breaks with the messiah/martyr complex bred into every man that inevitably makes its way into fictional male characters. (TV being littered with men who go to great lengths doing stupid things for women they deem need saving; off the top of my head, Jack Bristow blowing Stephen Haladki's head off springs to mind.)

But what seals the deal is that the viewer knew things would never work out. From the first frame, no matter how great or different or unique this version of the man-loves-whore story seemed to be, it was bound to fail. Some might argue that romantic pap like Pretty Woman would contradict me, since everything ends well for that particular man and his prostitute. But that's because that story's a lie (if for no other reason that most women in L.A. don't look like Julia Roberts, least of all the streetwalkers). That movie won over audiences because it turned what should have been a tragedy — man hires hooker for a week, she gets raped by George Costanza, fade out — into a cheesy film that dilutes the legitimate power of romance in other works. Pain, as the man once said, is where the best stories hang their hat; that unavoidable moment of the relationship's dissolution that always hurts but somehow never kills, but instead makes things oddly okay. That's what I'm talking about, and that's what these scenes have.


"Sports Night" — "Draft Day, Part II: The Fall of Ryan O'Brian"

In the second season of "Sports Night," Jeremy (Joshua Malina) and Natalie (Sabrina Lloyd), the resident cute couple, have broken up, and Jeremy meets a girl named Jenny (Paula Marshall) when he's out drinking away his blues. Jenny turns out to be a porn star, and Jeremy being the decent guy he is, and Jenny being apparently one of the idealistic adult film actresses, they start seeing each other socially. It's awkward from the start, and barely gets off the ground before Jeremy begins to unwittingly sabotage things by condescending to Jenny because of her profession or else outright mocking her. Jenny visits Jeremy at the office, after he's already lied to his coworkers about what Jenny does for a living; he says she's a choreoanimator, some nonsense profession. Jenny meets Natalie and gives a sad, sad, sad little monologue about why she wound up in her chosen profession. Sad. Jeremy and Jenny exchange a few more words, but really, this one's been over for weeks. As is always the case with these stories, he couldn't get past her day job.


"Battlestar Galactica" — "Black Market"

The second season of "Battlestar Galactica" put all its characters through major emotional changes, particularly Lee "Apollo" Adama (Jamie Bamber), who gets his heart broken by Starbuck and decides to briefly shack up with a prostitute named Shevon (Claudette Mink). (Bonus martyr points: Shevon has a kid.) The episode ostensibly revolves around Apollo's investigation of the black market thriving within the fleet, headed up by awesome character actor Bill Duke, but it's really about his sad, doomed relationship with the hooker. The cold open throws the viewer into the middle of the action, and at first you're wondering if Apollo hasn't just moved on and found some nice healthy relationship. It's morning in Shevon's quarters, and Apollo gives her daughter a teddy bear. Things get a little weird when Lee says, "Look, I'm not sure when I'll be able to make it back." But then Shevon delivers the killer: "I know. Oh. Um … I'm gonna have to ask for an extra hundred since you spent the night." And all the desperation and guilt and self-loathing and horrible mix of emotions that led Apollo to Shevon's rented bed shoots across Apollo's face, and it's heartbreaking. The kid gets pretty predictably kidnapped, and when Apollo finally rescues her and attempts to barter Shevon's freedom from Duke, Shevon does what you can tell for Apollo is the unexpected: She tells him to get out. Apparently she isn't okay with Apollo projecting his past relationship failures onto Shevon — which way to be a holier-than-thou working girl — and makes him leave. But as bad as this is, it's just the merciful closure that's been coming since Lee had to fork over extra cash for actually sleeping with Shevon. Never a good idea to fall in love with a public commodity.


"The West Wing" — "The State Dinner"

Aaron Sorkin loses a few marks for originality by recycling most of his man-loves-hooker story arc from "Sports Night," but he did that with pretty much every major character. In the first season of "The West Wing," Sam (Rob Lowe) liked Laurie (Lisa Edelstein) enough to sleep with her, after which he found out she was a high-priced call girl; being a pretty prominent political figure, Sam decided that the best career move would be to continue seeing her surreptitiously, since D.C. is full of tolerant people who are happy to let White House advisers get away with that kind of thing. He gets all puppyish and insists that she do her best to get through law school and quit her night job, and she agrees that she needs the change. But it all comes skidding to a messy halt when she shows up at a state dinner on the arm of a rich Democratic fund-raiser, who introduces "Britney" to Sam and his coworkers. Sam's face falls in a wrenching and predictable way, and it only gets worse (of course) when he talks to Laurie later. She tells him: "You know, I'm sorry, Sam. But this isn't exactly your business. I'm not here because of you. I'm just here because I'm here. I would be here even if you were here or not. You're just some guy who happens to know me." Man. Twist the blade a little, too. Sam then offers her $10,000 not go home with her date, at which point she walks away offended (way to be picky about who pays your tab, lady). Sam and Laurie aren't done with each other yet — Sam, like any good Sorkinian male character, is a huge glutton for emotional punishment — but the state dinner catastrof**k is the first nail in the coffin.


Moulin Rouge

Even in Baz Luhrmann's world, love can't overcome the world's obstacles: Money, class, tuberculosis. In Moulin Rouge, Christian (Ewan McGregor) enters a relationship with Satine (Nicole Kidman), knowing full well she's a pricey hooker, because he's romantic enough to think that it's worth the risk of 19th-century venerial diseases to sleep with a girl in a sparkly hat. They have an inevitably tortured relationship, made even harder when Satine promises to love Christian forever even as she's leaving to go sleep with the Duke (Richard Roxburgh) to secure financial backing for a play. The best number of the entire musical is the darkest one, "El Tango de Roxanne," a reworking of the Police song into a mournful, screaming elegy for Christian and Satine's polluted and dying relationship. The rousing finale doesn't hold a candle to the haunting tango at the center of the film, in part because it's only prolonging Satine's unavoidable and messy death by consumption. But the finale is all smiles, and only regains its credibility when the curtain closes and the doom that was promised in "Roxanne" finally comes calling.


Paris, Texas

Wim Wenders' 1984 masterpiece Paris, Texas follows Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) as he tries to reconnect with the young son, Hunter (Hunter Carson), he left several years earlier. Travis, an amnesiac, is taken in by his brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell), who's been caring for Hunter since Travis' abrupt departure. Travis and Hunter set out together to find Jane (Nastassja Kinski), Travis wife, and Travis eventually finds her working at a weird little sex parlor. The film is deliberately paced, and has been building to this reunion the whole time: Jane in a small room, with Travis watching her through a two-way mirror, talking to her on the phone. She doesn't know it's Travis talking to her. They have a long conversation there in the peep-show room, and another one the next day. Their exchanges are heartbreaking because it becomes clear just how much they loved each other, and how much pain they managed to inflict for no real reason. Travis' old jealousy flares up briefly — he badgers Jane, asking if she goes home with any of her clients — but eventually dies out as he finally starts to bury the past. When I was putting this piece together, this scene, this example, seemed to fit in with the rest. But I realize now that this is the one that transcends the others, and almost redeems them. Jane didn't start to sell herself until Travis left, and it's with his return that things start to maybe change. It's not clear where things will go, but it doesn't need to be. This is the one where they just might able to save each other after all.

My sister told Entertainment Weekly about how "Battlestar Galactica" was unfairly snubbed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association when it comes to Golden Globe nominations. She even threw in a dig at "Heroes."

I don't know what to say. I'm just proud, is all.

Does This Look Infected to You?

Gay, Straight, or Rapist

Taxidermy Idol

Survivor: NAMBLA

I Dare You to Join the Army

Stabbing Homeless People for Cash and Prizes

[As always, discussions of TV shows currently airing are likely to contain, you know, spoilers. If you're not quite smart enough to figure that out, this is your warning. If this warning doesn't work, please have your home health care provider turn off your computer and take you out for ice cream.]

I've been writing about the wonder that is "Battlestar Galactica" for a while now, and this season I've become more convinced than ever that it's one of the greatest shows on TV. And it's not just the show's willingness to explore the dark side of humanity that keeps me riveted, but how the stories manage to marry that darkness with a sense of honor, and hope, and unrelenting struggle against impossible odds.

In only the first 11 episodes of its third season, "Battlestar Galactica" has gone through more upheaval and turmoil than other shows would dare pack into an entire year. The seires could have spent the entire season focused on the New Caprica settlement established at the end of Season 2, which was accomplished with a one-year jump forward in the show's chronology. But no; after four episodes, the settlers had been rescued from the Cylon invasion, Baltar had cast his lot with the Cylons, the men all changed their facial hair and then changed it back, and Tigh lost an eye before assassinating his own wife for betraying the cause.

So, things have been eventful.

Yet I find myself moved again to praise the show, despite the fact that my repeated mentions of the show probably bore some people¹, because it continues to bravely explore such relevant issues as the role of military in the government and the place of religion in public society, and it does it with flair and grace and downright beautiful storytelling. After the fleet was restored and had fled New Caprica, the show dealt with the treacherous nature of insurgency fighters and vigilante justice by having a cabal of crew members dispense private retribution for war crimes. And then there was Starbuck and Tigh's personal quest to sow discord among the ranks just for the hell of it. And who could forget Apollo's argument in favor of genocide?

But it was the ninth episode, "Unfinished Business," that again raised the series' bar for pure sweep. Tying together most of the major characters' stories in an episode that relied purely on backstory and relational history to drive the plot, it ostensibly revolved around a boxing match for the officers. The structure of the episode is moving, as repeated images and scenes become expanded until the full plot is revealed. The episode takes place during the year of action the viewer never saw, between the discovery of New Caprica and the later retreat from the planet. It built on the festering Apollo-Starbuck relationship and showed in greater detail just why he hated her so much, and letting them beat each other up in the ring was a sadness only matched by Apollo's look of heartbreak when he discovered Starbuck had literally abandoned him at dawn.

And while "Unfinished Business" featured the show at the peak of its character-driven melodramatic power, the latest episode, "The Eye of Jupiter," was another great marriage of the show's tangled relationships with its increasingly complex mythology. Having the humans and Cylons clash over the latest signpost on the way to Earth is inevitable, but the series keeps the conflict fresh by making it a political standoff and an observation of the power of religion. It's infinitely more unsettling when, instead of simply engaging in a firefight with the enemy or running away, the Galactica hosts Cylon representatives for an uneasy discussion of a possible temporary truce. Seeing the opposing sides come to an impasse over the newly discovered holy temple has an odd grounding effect on the conflict, and instead of casting one group as inherently good while the other is irredeemably evil, the humans and Cylons are simply portrayed as having two different approaches to survival. It's a nice move to make the "bad guys" so fascinating and relatable, and it's one of the many things that helps the show transcend its narrow genre and become a beautiful, compelling drama.

^{1. Deal.}

If the guys from "Twentyfourseven" were trapped in a burning building, I would shut the door and walk away and let them burn. And L.A. would be free of seven of the countless poser hipster morons that clog the place.

I think people would throw a parade in my honor.

I wrote a little while ago about the artificiality of "Heroes," and I still maintain that it's an awkward, forced attempt at selling to geekdom, instead of just being naturally somewhat geeky and casual about its genre.

Here's a similar take from Awakeland:

ok, i've had it. i am honestly shocked that heroes is as popular as it is. ... do people really not see how bad this show is? i'm sorry, i really thought i was done blogging rants about anything artistically negative, but this whole heroes craze has just got me perplexed beyond recognition.
why is it bad? honestly, i think the concept is a great one, albeit unoriginal but who cares because it's a comic book story. but the way it is written is so forced and one-dimensional, i cannot understand how it is so popular. not just popular, this show is LOVED by people. what the--?
and please please please, don't read this as an egotistical rant from sethius mcfilmsnob. this is seth worley. firefly advocate and lost addict, registered trekkie and loveslave to spiderman 2. this isn't just another pious blowing off of genre material. this is a huge nerd watching a show about superheroes and being flabbergasted in wake of its worldwide following.

I knew it wasn't just me.

TV Land, the network haven of shows that couldn't quite make the cut for Nick at Nite, recently compiled a list of the 100 greatest quotes and catchphrases in TV history. The entire list, organized alphabetically, can be found here. There are many, many things wrong with this endeavor.

• The list includes not just TV catchphrases, but things that were simply said on TV. John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you..." isn't a TV catchphrase. It's a great moment from a classic speech that was televised. Likewise, Neil Armstrong's "One small step for man" line is news, not programming. There's a difference, TV Land.

• The list is a fawning rip-off of AFI's annual pointless lists, and just like the film organization's countdowns, the TV Land list tosses in a few more modern entries in hopes of appearing hip and relevant. But is Denny Crane's "Denny Crane" really worth praising? And the inclusion of "Nip/Tuck" and the insipid Paris Hilton is just embarrassing.

• Just thinking about the list has completely robbed me of all energy. I'm done now.

• Teach the other housemates fake vocabulary, like "frambly" and "turnwillish." Enjoy newfound power.

• Attempt to explain to the housemates that having sex anywhere in Denver would automatically put you in the Mile-High Club. Eventually give up.

• Make the producers immediately regret installing giant clear glass doors in the shower.

• Pretend to be mildly retarded to earn sympathy from the housemates. Walk around naked. Hump the leg of the trashy-looking girl. (I realize that's all of them, but go with me.) Eventually admit that it was all an act. Make up further story about abuse to justify my behavior. Become hero of the house.

• Speak only in dialogue from Diner.

• Ask the two black residents of the house if they know my friend Ray Ray, who's in the joint on some b.s. B&E charge. Just to see what happens.

• Soil myself during the confessional interviews.

• Kill everyone in the house.

About a month ago, I asked an open question: What makes "Grey's Anatomy" so appealing? Most straight women I know have a special place in their heart for the show, and the comments I got backed that up. But the supporters of the show showed that support in a peculiar way: By couching it in a defense of the show's declining quality. Most of the people who praised the show did so with several qualifications.

Teresa listed her top five reasons for liking the show, but also said: "...but it's gotten a little more Melrose Place-ish and less slapstick. It was a bit funnier in the ep when Ellen Pompeo was on painkillers running her mouth."

Mike said: "It is (relatively) smartly written and it is humorous (in a ha ha hmm, but not a HA HA HA sort of way). ... I really liked last season untill the last couple of episodes, when the show became a lot more soapish, a trend which has continued into this season. Now everyone is sleeping with everyone else and it's getting a little tired."

Katie said that "it beats watching 'Deal or No Deal.'" This is true, but also a bit misleading, since getting groped by Zed and the Gimp beats watching "Deal or No Deal." Seriously, it's a game of no skill where people scream at briefcases for an hour. But that's a mystery for another time.

Caitlin compared the show to Clooney-era "ER," stating that "'Grey's' has three doctors who hit Clooney-ish levels of attractiveness (at least for my friends and I) in Patrick Dempsey, Isaiah Washington, and Eric Dane's characters." But she went on to offer a well-reasoned defense of the show:

"As others have noted above, the characters are flawed enough to be relatable, and the episode-to-episode writing and plot arcs are strong enough to make watching our McDoctors something more than a guilty pleasure. And while we all wish Ellen Pompeo would eat some food, already, Sara Ramirez has a relatable figure and gets to sleep with hot doctors. Even though the female character we wind up annoyed by the most is Ellen Pompeo's, others (including Sandra Oh's and Chandra Wilson's) are strong enough to keep us from dwelling on Meredith Grey's flaws. In short, not a perfect TV show (I am a Veronica Mars fan, so I've experienced perfection), but for my girls and I, the pluses by far outweigh the negatives, and that level of quality is definitely enough to keep us in love with it. I can see how some guys might not reap the same level of enjoyment from that formula (and I know some girls who don't), but overall it is one of my favorites these days."

I appreciate that. (And not least because, by praising "Veronica Mars," Caitlin became my new best friend.)

But that was about the best response I got. Christina compared the show's fandom to a sorority, saying that:

"You can easily relate to whichever girl reminds you of you (the smart one, the damaged one, the pretty one, the slutty one) and you can lust after the guy that is most to your liking (the hot one, the other hot one, the other hot one, or the cute/nebbish one) and pick your favorite line to repeat over and over and make your headline on myspace."

"Hot guys" seemed to be theme that occured most often in the comment thread.

Probably my favorite response was Brenda's, who assumed that my use of "girls" was meant to be condescending. Brenda, I can assure you, it wasn't meant to be a slight. I also sometimes use "guys" instead of "men." Sometimes I call my sister "kid." That's right; I won't even use a gender-specific noun. That's how mean I can get. It happens. But anyway, Brenda said something that caught on my brain:

"The tone of total mystification at its success -- 'I just don't understand what all those womenfolk see in those sexy doctors scored to non-threatening indie music' -- is a little disingenuous and a lot superior. The appeal of Grey's Anatomy is much less confusing than Jackass's, or the WWE's."

Really? The success of "Jackass" isn't confusing at all, at least to anyone who's even seen a group of 12-year-old boys running around a park or basketball court trying to kill each other. But by comparing the two, are you somehow implying that "Grey's Anatomy" appeals to the simplistic, juvenile part in women that corresponds to whatever male neurons get all wonky over "Jackass"?

Anyone can feel free to answer that question, and these:

1. Most of the comments I got last time seemed to say that the show used to be better but has since devolved into an extreme soap opera. Is there any truth to that?

2. Again, most of the comments last time carried an air of "Okay, it's not great, but it's good." Is the show just a guilty pleasure? If so, is there anything wrong with admitting that? I've got plenty of guilty pleasures. Do you really need this show to be Good, or is it okay if it's just good fun?

3. Is the show now worse than it used to be? If so, what could make it better? And if it is getting worse, what keeps you watching?

Like I said, the questions are open for anybody to answer. Don't forget to sign your name if you're posting anonymously. Also, any personal attacks lobbed in my direction should also try to include some legitimate discussion of the show in question. Gotta stay on topic, people. Thanks.

EXT. STARS HOLLOW — NIGHT

LUKE stands before LORELAI and CHRISTOPHER.

LUKE
You got married?

CHRISTOPHER
Yeah.

LORELAI
Don’t be mad.

LUKE
Why would I be mad? Just because I waited a decade for you
and put up with your endless crap and everything else?
LUKE pulls out a GUN from inside his jacket.

CHRISTOPHER
Hey man, don’t do anything stupid —

LUKE
Too late.
LUKE FIRES two rounds into CHRISTOPHER'S CHEST.

LORELAI
Luke! What are you doing?!

CHRISTOPHER
(whispering)
That hat was always stupid, anyway.

LUKE
Shut up!
LUKE FIRES a third round into CHRISTOPHER'S FACE, killing him. LUKE then turns the gun on LORELAI.

LUKE
Did you ever love me?

LORELAI
What? What do you mean —

LUKE
(shouting)
Did you ever love me?
LORELAI is openly WEEPING now.

LORELAI
Yes! Yes, I loved you!

LUKE
(beat)
I loved you, too.
LUKE SHOOTS himself in the head, crumbling to the ground as the gun falls from his hand.

LORELAI
No!
LORELAI runs to him and cradles the BLOODY REMAINS of LUKE'S HEAD in her trembling arms.

LORELAI
Why, God? Why? WHY?!
FADE TO BLACK. CREDITS.

I started out this season with reasonably high hopes for "Heroes." Granted, I tend to expect good things from most TV shows or movies, which is on the whole a better way to live; hoping for the best beats expecting the worst every time out. That moment when the lights do down and the curtains part and the trumpets blare: That's a good moment, maybe the best one there is, full of the possibility of a story so good it may not even exist.

I had hopes for "Heroes" because I'm both a geek and a nerd. (A nerd is someone whose intellect has at one point proven a barrier to social interaction; a geek is someone with an unhealthy focus on or obsession over any given band/TV show/created work. The two groups often overlap, but are, indeed, separate groups.) Pop culture in recent years has given rise to a kind of Everygeek, which only means that producers have figured out that there are ungodly amounts of cash to be made from geeks: The X-Men, Spider-Man, and The Lord of the Rings franchises have too many execs looking at the legions of pasty-faces kids you ignored in high school and seeing big, sweaty dollar signs. And the premise of "Heroes" is aimed squarely at the Everygeek's eager little heart: Normal people wake up one day and realize they have superpowers. It seems like a surefire winner.

But, for a variety of reasons, it's not. The dialogue oscillates between horrible exposition and overly ominous warnings about power, bad guys, etc., and it's often painful to hear. There are also the voice-overs, apparently meant to bring an air of gravitas to the series, but the aimless speechifying only makes the show dumber. The same thing happened with "Desperate Housewives," and "Sex and the City" before that: A lead character offering sporadic narration meant to tie together the larger themes explored by the show. It doesn't matter that the voice-overs are senseless, or that they gleefully defy logical flow in favor of such pseudo-meaningful statements as "The world is large" that meander through a few more pointless sentences before petering out.

But the biggest problem is the fact that it's a show aimed at geeks but packaged and sold by soulless TV executives who only care about stories inasmuch as they boost the bottom line. The creator of "Heroes," Tim Kring, seems to be a decent and fairly talented guy, but "Heroes" plays like a story without an emotional center that's trying to coast by on its looks. It feels too forced, as if someone tried to make an overly comic-book show without actually caring about the heart of the tale. The show even has an online graphic novel on NBC.com, which both makes perfect sense and is completely stupid. It makes sense because Kring so clearly wants the show to be a comic book, right down to the chapter titles and stylized captions and endless "To be continued..." title cards. But it's dumb because it's pandering to its own supposed origins instead of trying to live up to them, or even surpass them. "Heroes" has all the right moves, but it still feels fake.

RS: Your show has thrived during the Bush administration. Will you miss it?
STEWART: I remember people used to say, "What are you gonna do when Clinton leaves?" And I'd say, "I'm really OK not having to make another intern blowjob joke in my life." And it'll be the same with these guys. I'd much prefer these guys to leave than to have to continue to make Lord Vader jokes about Cheney. I have great faith in institutional absurdity.

RS: But wouldn't, say, a President Obama be harder to make fun of than these guys?

STEWART: Are you kidding?

COLBERT and STEWART in unison: His dad was a goat-herder!

STEWART: I'd rather make fun of somebody who is wearing their humble beginnings on their sleeve than somebody who has created a situation where casualties are involved. So the idea that somehow it's easier now — it's not. Because right now it is a comic box lined with sadness.

Read the rest of the interview here, though you'll have to pick up a hard copy to get the whole thing. And you should. It's worth the $5.

I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for "The Real World/Road Rules Challenge." There is absolutely nothing redeeming about the show, and I'm completely okay with that.

I haven't kept up with "The Real World" in a long time, and "Road Rules" was canceled a few years ago, but I'm still an easy mark when it comes to the Challenge. When I was in high school, I would watch MTV's hallmark reality shows and wonder, Is that what people are like in and after college? Once I reached college, it sunk in that the kids on MTV weren't just dumb; they were cataclysmically retarded, the kind of simpering morons who love high school and hate college and barely manage to survive in the adult world with their philosophies of interpersonal relationships cobbled together from selfish desires and a belief in moral relativism and topped off with old reruns of "The Real World": They were living parodies of themselves. That's what makes "The Real World" so pointless now. MTV has stopped trying to pretend that they're doing anything other than recruit seven attractive and deeply f**ed-up young people and forcing them to live in a swanky apartment for half a year and hold down the kind of part-time job that most teens coast through with ease but that never fails to produce headaches for the slope-browed and big-chested denizens of The House.

Perhaps sensing that "Road Rules" lacked the inherent drama of its flagship show, MTV turned the outdoorsy reality program into an elimination-based affair (I think the series peaked around the "Northern Trail" era). Later versions of the show were just shamless attempts to weed out normal people and cull a group of hypercompetitive athletes for the Challenge, which has managed to top itself this time out with "The Duel."

Honestly, the show's so crazy I barely know where to start:

• The women. The women are insane. And not your garden-variety insane, either, the kind of well-meaning crazy that you'll find in most girls (and yes, I often use "girls" and "women" interchangeably, and anyone who thinks that's biased can cram it). These women are full-tilt wackos, and it's awesome. Now that Tonya isn't on the show, having apparently decided to make something of her reality TV fame, the producers have defaulted to Beth as the villain. It's a lazy choice, but somebody's got to be the villain, and it's not like they're gonna choose Paula, the anorexic one. Although Skinny P did look right into the camera after being eliminated in The Duel and say: "This was a duel between me and myself." Right on, sister.

• The men. Oh, the men are frightening. Tall, brooding, bizarrely muscular, relentlessly stupid, and never more than one crooked stare away from starting a fight with the other males. My favorite part is watching these guys be completely honest about their intellectual shortcomings. A lot of the challenges, especially the final game, involve visual puzzles of some kind, which is always when the guys hit a wall or defer to their female partners. This happened a lot on last season's "Fresh Meat," and the best scenes were always where cast member Wes, who's bound to be wanted in a score of frat-related rapes throughout the Midwest, would turn to his partner Casey, a pretty but vapid girl who was recruited to be the fresh meat, and expect her to solve the puzzle. Confronted with horrifying riddles or, God forbid, a tangram, Wes would take a break from calling Casey a "lazy bitch" (which he did a lot) and wait for her to fix things. That kind of unselfconscious neediness, that forthcoming idiocy, is almost endearing. But it's ultimately just watchable TV.

Honestly, what's not to love about the show? Watching the weekly competitions is a chance to zone out completely and watch completely unbalanced people compete for fabulous cash and prizes. Casey used some of her prize money from last season to buy breast implants, which she bragged about in the first episode of this season. Really, how can you not cheer on someone like that?

I know, I know: Most of you think I should lay off "Studio 60." But let me reiterate that I'm not out to bash the show, which I still think is better than most other programs on the air (it certainly beats people yelling at briefcases). It's just disappointing that the show is having trouble finding its voice. Granted, it could likely find it in time; "Seinfeld" wasn't even "Seinfeld" until its third season or so, all Chinese restaurant trips aside. But TV is a horribly numbers-oriented business, and I'm afraid NBC execs aren't willing to let shows grow anymore. But anyway:

Somebody a lot smarter than I am figured out that all great dramas have three players. Whether it's two men and the woman between them, or any one of a dozen other stories, the three players can ultimately be boiled down to two opposing forces and the conflict that defines their relationship. That conflict is a vital thing, since it drives the characters to interact and influences their decisions, while also acting as its own storytelling element. Aaron Sorkin's first show about TV, "Sports Night," has this in spades, and it's another in the list of things missing from the new "Studio 60" that, if things continue unabated, will keep the latter show from reaching the heights of the former.

"Sports Night" dealt with a sports news show on a third-rate cable net that was constantly trailing Fox Sports and ESPN in the ratings. From the get go, the producers and anchors struggled to do their show while putting up with interference from their corporate owners. Sorkin set the tone in the show's second episode, "The Apology," in which Dan Rydell gets a slap on the wrist from corporate after supporting the legalization of marijuana in an interview with Esquire. Sorkin's druggy moralizing aside (and believe me, I'll get to that another time), the episode highlighted the opposition between the heartfelt aims of the creatives and