Rex's Top Five: Favorite TV seasons of the decade
We embraced James Poniewozik's "consistency is overrated" philosophy pretty enthusiastically this week when counting down our favorite games of the year, and though the idea fairly applies to interactive entertainment, it's perhaps best employed where it began -- with television.
TV and the miniseries are my favorite storytelling mediums, bar none. Gaming narratives are maturing, sure, and I really should be reading more books, but letting a sophisticated yarn play out over 6, 13 or 100 episodes breathes unnaturally involving life into something that never would fit in a two-hour movie.
I've wrestled somewhat with how to pick my top television programming of the decade. Do I pick shows that began and ended between 2000 and 2009? And even then, do I choose the whole show or individual seasons? Should I make separate lists for dramas and comedies? What about shows that I appreciate emotionally but reject intellectually? And need I have seen the entire run of a show -- or to distinctly remember it and understand its impact -- to fix it to a place in history?
Then I snap out of it, because the whole exercise is silly. I just want to recommend some great TV, and since I started watching it seriously in 2002, this decade is as good a place to start as any. Without further preamble, my favorite seasons of television from the aughts:
Movie Review: "Virtuality"
(editor's note: Nathan is wrong about almost everything he says in the next 700 words. Also, this comment is meant in jest! I just aggressively disagree with him.)
*Spoiler Alert*
(Actually, I’m just saving you time.)
I started Virtuality expecting that a thriller with a space-exploration subplot that would have a somewhat resolved ending. But wait!
Virtuality is more about petty drama between characters than solving the dilemma with their virtual world and their mission. While traveling to another star system to save mankind— Alpha Centauri, I believe — the crew can’t think of anything better to do than bicker amongst each other, some doing so just to boost ratings for their reality show.
The reality show about their expedition is backed by FOX, so I guess this adds to the realism of the film. I can imagine easily a future when, facing environmental catastrophe, humanity at large will continue to sit on their couches and let the stupefying glow of reality television wash over their doughy bodies.
The antagonist — known as “Virtual Man” — shows his intimidating face about four or five times throughout the movie. He kills crew members in the virtual world, but unlike the Matrix, the characters survive their imagined deaths. An exception to the killing arises when “Virtual Man” decides to rape crew member Billie Kashmiri because of her shitty Japanese rock performance.
Though this is merely virtual rape — a daily and casually observed slight in games like HALO — Billie feels that it is too real. For me, this was where Virtuality hit rock-bottom. It evolves into a Lifetime special as shipmate Parsons comforts Billie by telling her something along the lines of, “All men will hurt you, even virtual ones.”
Finally, the commander is killed by a glitch in the computer system that opens an airlock, allowing him to test his lungs in space. I was left to wonder if the commander was killed by "Virtual Man" or a rogue crew member, but we’ll never know because the movie is a pilot for a show too shitty to be picked up by any network.
Commander Pike unsuccessfully tests the new plush-model space suit.
For all my bitching, the concept was interesting. Had the same plot and setting been fused with better acting and an ending with some closure, it would have seen better ratings, although lack of strong (read: absolutely no) promotion and the fact that the pilot aired in June (on a Friday) didn’t help.
Virtuality also believably showcased some near-future technology. Without light-speed travel, the ship voyaged to the distant galaxy via an orbital slingshot and nuclear pulse propulsion. The spacesuits, although betraying the fact that costume designers were on a meager budget, closely resembled the Biosuit.
Some people may disagree, but I feel that Virtuality didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell regardless of its air date. If the show is picked up by a network, I will play and review a shitty game. At least CHOCOBO RACING is out of the question since Benji lost the Final Fantasy quiz in podcast 11.
For all my bitching and cynicism, I will point out a few positive aspects of the film. The concept was interesting. Had the same plot and setting been fused with better acting and a conclusion with some closure, it would have gotten better ratings, although lack of strong promotion and the fact that the pilot aired in June didn’t help.
Another strong point of Virtuality was its accuracy in portraying technology of the near future. Without light-speed travel, the ship voyaged to the distant galaxy via an orbital slingshot and nuclear pulse propulsion. The space suits, although betraying the fact that costume designers were on a meager budget, closely resembled the Biosuit ()
Some people may disagree, but I feel that Virtuality didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell regardless of its air date. If the show is picked up by a network, I will play and review a shitty game. At least Chocobo Racing is out of the question since Benji lost the Final Fantasy quiz in podcast 11 ().
Barack "Muad'Dib" Obama?
This video is a couple of days old by now, but I just caught it a few minutes ago at The Digital Bits. It's John Hodgman's address from the Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner in Washington last week.
I'm not usually one to watch such things (media wankfests, I mean) because they celebrate the breed of "journalist" I find more nauseating than any other — the White House reporter. Seriously, has a West Wing correspondent ever broken a story? Ever?
Sure, their catty, perfunctory back-and-forth with presidential spokesweasels yields the occasional gem. Consider Dana Perino's thorough dissection of the Cuban missile crisis a few years back.
But by and large, the White House briefing is an opportunity to gauge the ease with which a press secretary can dodge questions from mediocre, showboating reporters who know they're being videotaped.
Of course, Stephen Colbert's hysteria-inducing send-up of Washington power-writer culture at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner made these evenings appointment television, given the right keynote speaker. And so I give you Hodgman, celebrating all things nerd in front of the president of the United States.
(Is it a badge of pride that I could answer every question Hodgman posed to Obama? Can I be blamed for knowing my "Dune" cover to cover?)
Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak"
There must be some kind of way out of here.
My plan was to word-vomit some impressions immediately after watching BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's series finale Friday night, but the climactic two-hour wrap-up left me numb.
And not in a bad way. My synapses just needed some time to reboot, reconfigure and learn to process a universe where my favorite show isn't airing new episodes.
Nearly all of the Battlestar's dozens of open questions — including several I hadn't even thought to ask — are answered with a wave of the proverbial wand. All along, it's been God, the Divine, the Eternal, the Something Greater to which the show has been referring explicitly since its debut in 2003.
The Internet is outraged. It wails. How could the creators of one of the headiest, best-acted and most tightly scripted television shows in the history of the medium end it all this way? We're talking about spaceships and faster-than-light travel, right? What's God got to do with it?
I'm as hard-boiled an atheist as anybody who's watched the show, though I wear the label differently than some do. I don't believe in God, but I don't presume to understand enough about the universe to say we got here by any other means, either.
And that's why I have absolutely no problem with the Powers That Be in Galactica's universe. In its final moments, the show goes out of its way to say that the Divine is unknowable, that it takes no one's side, that you can be damned one moment and blessed the next without ever understanding what you did to curry karma's favor. The only thing you can do is to persist, without being too much of a prick about it.
To have qualified it beyond that would have been disastrous.
I loved that the survivors of the terrific final stand — the finest, prettiest, most geographically sensible space battle ever assembled, in film or television or literature — found some peace. I'm thrilled and encouraged that these tortured people ultimately opted to simplify.
And while I'm tremendously saddened that Battlestar Galactica is over, I'm satisfied with what we've got. It's been a force for good for more than five years. I've mounted recruitment drives for the show's sake. I've begged and pleaded with everybody I know, but 19 out of 20 of you never made it past the miniseries, if you went that far.
Thankfully, the show has ended with dignity and of its own accord. And now we don't have to worry about cancellation, or endure any more glib dissections from the army of professional reductionists who feel they're owed something. If you didn't watch the show, or if you refused to enjoy it, it's your loss.
And you can borrow my DVD sets anytime.