Occam’s Razor

A bundle of confusion

If you own a horse, you have to let it run regularly. If you own a sports car, you should take it on a racetrack occasionally for the pleasure of being smashed into your seat while you accelerate. Similarly, if you have a high definition television (HDTV), you do not buy it to watch interlaced analog TV signals with only 473 lines of resolution. You want content that will make you appreciate the fact you just spent $699 on a high definition TV.

That is how much we paid for our HDTV. It is an Olevia 37 inch HDTV that comes with more ports and options than we will ever use. Our TV room is small but despite its relatively modest screen size, it still seems enormous to us. The TV it is replacing worked perfectly fine. It is now sitting in our basement queued for a likely donation. While only about seven years old, it was doomed soon after it was bought. The FCC declared that on February 19, 2009 TVs like ours will be obsolete unless we buy a conversion box. Even if we did our picture quality would not have been improved. Neighbors would laugh at us for being so 20th century.

Both our cable provider (Cox Communications) and our phone company (Verizon) have spent years tempting us with their all-digital services. We have our Internet and cable TV service with Cox and an old-fashioned POTS line with Verizon. On a typical month, I pay Cox $93 and Verizon $32. Both Cox and Verizon have been luring us with bundled services. If we bundled all our communications needs with them, we were told, we could save some money.

Verizon has its fiber optic FiOS service. In addition to providing high-speed Internet access, you can also receive a lot of other content, including their version of movies on demand. Cox offers essentially these same services for roughly the same price. How do I know? Well, it is hard to tell. Masters of voodoo marketing are putting together their sales brochures. They excel in obfuscation. Yet they refuse to leave me alone. Roughly once a week I get a solicitation from each company. Typically, they come in the mail, but now and then, they also come attached to my door handle. Verizon has lately been very uppity, sending salespersons to my door to pitch their FiOS service. That was one strike against them; I hate door-to-door salespersons and by implication any company that would send me one. Moreover, I have an unlisted phone number. You would think Verizon would take this as a signal not to call me. You would be wrong. They have given me several calls pitching FiOS. Cox at least has neither knocked on my door nor solicited me over the telephone.

Now that we are HDTV owners it was time to consider their various offerings. As we soon discovered, analog TV on a HDTV looks ridiculous. Either much of the screen is black or if your TV is fancy like ours is, you can put it in a zoom mode. The screen fills up, but suddenly the picture looks fuzzy.

Both Verizon and Cox had mid-tier bundled service packages for $99.99 a month that combined telephone, digital TV and Internet service. At $99.99 a month, either looked like a good deal. Either deal appeared to be about $25 less than we were currently paying. The question became which one to choose? Which was better?

Naturally, both providers claimed they had a superior network, superior content and lower prices. Both though delight in obfuscating the consumer’s real costs. It is almost impossible to determine what you are actually buying and how much the service will cost you. I spent a couple hours on Verizon’s site trying to pick through the details of their bundles. Eventually I gave up. There is probably no way to know for sure without hiring a lawyer to decipher the fine print. Verizon though did have three strikes against them. First, they annoyed me by having salespersons knock on my door and call me unsolicited on the phone. Second, was their stance on network neutrality. Third and probably most importantly, like with their cell phone service if you select one of their bundles they want to lock you in for a couple years. I mean for such a steal as they are giving you they have to make up the difference somehow! I am old fashioned enough to think that if their service is that great it will be obvious to me, so I should not have to be locked into it.

Cox Communications had a few strikes against them too. About a year ago, I inquired about one of their bundles. I asked many questions and I did not like what I heard. I politely said no thanks, not at this time. A few days later one of their digital receivers arrived on my doorstep. That raised my dander. A phone call confirmed that I had not subscribed to their bundle. However, I still had to take an hour out of my life to return the box they sent me. They would not pick it up.

Nevertheless, between their latest brochure, reading their web site and a long conversation on the phone with their sales office, I was able to get a sense of what my bundle would actually cost me. Still, the devil is in the details. Did their $99.99 a month bundle include the rental cost of their digital receiver? Negatory. That was $4.50 a month, so the bundle was really $104.49. Did it include any HD channels? No except for the local HD broadcast signals. However, they did offer 31 HD channels. If I wanted them on top of our digital cable, they were $1.44 a month. What is this free digital tier that comes with the bundle? Apparently, the ones listed in the brochure were incorrect, but I could get the equivalent of their Variety Tier. This is what my wife wanted because she wants to see the latest Torchwood episodes on BBC America. Would there be an installation charge? Not if I install the digital receiver myself. They have to come out to the house to install the telephone interface, but there is no charge for that. Can I get extended local long distance like I have with Verizon? In other words, can I call my father who lives across the Potomac River toll free? No, but you can call the District of Columbia for free. Oh, and to get the bundle you have to choose Cox as your local long distance, long distance and international provider. Long distance rates are fifteen cents a minute, or more than three times what I pay Pioneer Telephone, my current long distance provider. However, this is not much of an issue since we hardly ever call long distance. We do email instead. Moreover, to maintain my unpublished telephone number I have to cough up another $1.71 a month. All totaled with taxes my $99.99 a month bundle would cost me $123.09. Hey, but at least I will only have to cut one check.

In short, I may save a few bucks a month but I will not be supplementing my retirement income with their fabulous bundled savings. On the plus side, we will no longer be stuck with analog TV signals. Digital signals will no longer be interlaced. The picture on these channels will not make them much bigger, but will make the picture smoother. Their 31 HD channels are expected to double soon and there will be no extra fee. We will get channels we do not get now, but that does not mean we are likely to watch them. In addition, as best I can tell I am not locked into a two-year contract.

In fact, the differences between Cox and Verizon are rather marginal, but I chose to go with Cox for these reasons. I may end up regretting my choice. Their eight-hour battery will keep my landline working during a power outage, but what if the outage lasts nine hours? While many of our TV channels will soon be in HD, I am still not sure I will watch any more TV. I largely gave up TV years ago. On the other hand, our daughter will be pleased.

Our next purchase will probably be a Bluetooth compatible DVD player. Apparently, regular DVDs are not good enough for a modern HDTV, which means that we will want to buy some of our favorite DVDs again so we can have a more proper theatrical experience.

Well, someone has to pull this country out of recession.

March 18th, 2008 at 08:40pm Posted by Mark | Technology | no comments

A West Wing Retrospective

It has taken me about eighteen months, but I finally made it through all 156 episodes and seven seasons of The West Wing. As I mentioned in my review of the first season back in April 2006, I never bothered to watch the show when it was broadcast. Indeed, when I popped the first DVD of the show into my DVD player the final episode was being filmed. Freed from the innumerable commercials and the necessity of watching it (or at least taping it) at inconvenient times, I was free to view it from a different perspective.

What follows is a number of random thoughts and observations on the series.

Overall, the acting was superb. As in any series lasting seven years, there were uneven moments. I would like to assign a best actor to the series but I cannot. It is a dead even three-way tie between John Spencer (Chief of Staff Leo McGarry), Richard Schiff (Communications Director Toby Ziegler) and Allison Janney (Press Secretary, and subsequent Chief of Staff C.J. Cregg). What is true of all the actors though is that from the beginning their performances were measured and consistent.

A few characters and subplots did grate on me. The unstated sexual tension between Donna Moss and Josh Lyman annoyed me more than intrigued me. For much of the show I found Donna Moss (played by Janel Maloney) annoying. The same was true with Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) who was perhaps not quite buttoned down enough to be anyone’s Deputy Chief of Staff. I will say though that he was dead on with his portrayal of an overly caffeinated, sleep deprived, Type A Washingtonian. Nor was I terribly impressed by Dulé Hill (Charlie Young, President Bartlett’s personal aide). Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) struck me as miscast from the start. Unfortunately, his replacement Will Bailey (Joshua Malina) annoyed me even more. At least there was some chemistry in the Josh/Donna relationship. The “chemistry” between Will Bailey and National Security Advisor Kate Harper (Mary McCormack) near the end of the show simply was not there.

As for how well the show portrayed the actual West Wing, while I have never worked in the White House, I have worked at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. I also worked in a few headquarters buildings so I have had infrequent and occasionally regular access to senior staff at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense. I know political types. Overall, I think series creator Aaron Sorkin was eerily accurate in his portrayal of the Washington culture and Washington politicians in general. I suspect they are not that different from many Hollywood producers. However, I am sure the real West Wing is far more complex than this series let on. For one thing, there are a lot more deputy, assistant and special assistants for every senior official than the story writers can show. This is understandable because even with a show with classy production values it is impossible to render the level of bureaucracy that actually exists.

Another thing the show does well is convey just how smart many in politics actually are. We tend to think of Washington as full of inept buffoons. Sorry to bust your balloon, but this is not typically the case. Granted there are politicians, including many in Congress, who are little more intelligent than a fruit fly. At the staff level though, whether they are political or not, people are uniformly incredibly bright and perceptive. If it seems otherwise it is because working around the bureaucratic kudzu of Washington is not for the faint of heart. It has developed over two hundred years and has its own culture that will continue no matter how much the Ross Perots of the world complain. I am no fan of Republicans, but I can say that the same is true regardless of party. In fact, arguably Republicans are much more effective at governing than Democrats. That does not mean what they are trying to do for the country is necessarily in its best interest. I am more than a bit astonished, for example, that President Bush, as bungling as he has been and as low as his poll ratings are, can still whiplash the Congress on national security issues and the Democrats fall sheepishly in line. Republicans know how to exercise power through intimidation.

The West Wing of course is fictional, and portrays an almost idealized progressive administration. Administrations like the Bartlett Administration never happen in reality. Perhaps the closest was the Roosevelt Administration. I think the series creators modeled Bartlett as a mixture of Roosevelt and Kennedy. Even the Republicans on the show are hard to hate. In some episodes in the middle of the series, a Republican congress tries to bring down Leo McGarry (chief of staff) for various sins related to being an alcoholic. Yet one prominent Republican staffer has the guts to stop the hearings when it clearly is about to go over the line. In real life, a Republican congress would have given Leo McGarry the equivalent of a public lynching. In addition, near the end of the series a libertarian conservative senator (Arnold Vinick, played by Alan Alda) wins the Republican nomination. I am tempted to say this would never happen in real life, but current Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani comes close. We will see if he actually is nominated. Anyhow, Arnold Vinick is one of the few Republicans who I might actually be tempted to vote for.

Mostly The West Wing is a classy show, of the sort that is increasingly rare on television. It may be the last of its kind on network TV. Overall, the writing, directing and acting were excellent. The show can be loosely organized into two parts. The first three seasons document the first term of the Bartlett Administration. This is “classic” West Wing before some of the established characters like Rob Lowe decided to move elsewhere. The second half of The West Wing feels transitional. Much of the last two seasons involve the waning days of the Bartlett Administration and the presidential campaign to replace him. Much of the continuity from the classic show was gone by this point. Near the end of the show, there are hardly any of the established characters left in the White House but Janney and Martin Sheen (who played the president). Still, the rough and tough world of running a presidential campaign is quite well portrayed, in a rather idealized way, of course. The series creators do their best to close the many hanging plot lines and relationships. It largely succeeds. The Donna Moss/Josh Lyman tension appears to be resolved. C.J. Cregg appears to be finally won over by the aggressive Washington Post reporter Danny Concannon. Democratic Party nominee Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) of course has to win the presidential election, but just by a hair. In addition, President Bartlett, despite some misgivings, pardons Toby Ziegler for disclosing that the military had a space shuttle.

The best of the show was probably its first two seasons. The fifth season was notably its worst, yet was far better than I anticipated. The last season often seemed a chaotic mess, but campaigns are typically this way. The series concluded in proper Hollywood style with all the loose ends wrapped up neatly. Alas, if only administrations actually worked that way.

Overall, my eighteen month adventure into The West Wing was worthy of my time, attention and money. My thanks go to my brother Tom, who hooked me with the first season, and supplied the last three seasons.

Some part of me wishes they had just kept The West Wing going with the fictional Santos Administration. The sets were already there, and many of the characters would have stayed on. Mostly though I am glad they had the good sense to end it after seven years. Their ratings were poor anyhow. Like After M*A*S*H which tried to keep actors employed when M*A*S*H finally ended, any subsequent version of The West Wing would likely be a poor imitation of the original and quickly canceled. Moreover, while the original had many blemishes, the blemishes are easy to overlook. Fortunately, excellence was typically what we viewers got.

I perhaps will go through the whole series again some day in more detail. Meanwhile, I ache for a Bartlett Administration in real life. Maybe someday we will be worthy of one.

September 23rd, 2007 at 01:04pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | no comments

The Rudest Man on Television

If the political right is wondering why Americans are abandoning it in droves, it is not just because of our catastrophically bad president. It is also because of the number of extremely annoying people that populate that side of the political spectrum. I have seen and heard enough to make one judgment: Fox News Commentator Bill O’Reilly is without a doubt the rudest person on television.

It is unlikely that Bill O’Reilly will call me on the phone and invite me to be on his show. However, if he did I can tell you my answer in advance. I would attempt to politely decline the offer but perhaps because my brain has been tainted by watching him, more likely I would utter something extremely rude into the receiver. Something like (you fill in the blank, I know you can), “No way. No ____ing way. Absolutely NO ____ING WAY would I be caught DEAD being on your CRAPPY, MEAN and HURTFUL show!” I do not care how many people I might have a chance to influence by being on his “show”. I do not even care even they offered me a million dollars to debate him. Money cannot buy some things, like my integrity. I would rather spend a day in a vat full of poisonous snakes wearing nothing but my skivvies than spend even thirty seconds on his show. It is not because I am afraid of Bill, it is because I know I would never be heard in the first place. Instead, I would be slimed. So Bill, don’t call me. I will not take your call and even if you did, I would have to hang up on you. I certainly would not let my daughter within a mile of you; some of your vitriolic toxic personality might rub off on her.

Naturally, I do not bother to watch his show The O’Reilly Factor on the Fox so-called “News” Channel. At this point when I am channel surfing, if I even see his ugly mug, an autonomic finger jab moves me to the next channel even before his face registers in my brain. Before I knew better though I did watch his show, each time with my mouth hanging open in shock and disbelief. When he invites someone he does not agree with the format is always the same: they “debate”. Debating, according to Bill O’Reilly means being mean, smearing and constantly interrupting guests. Except for the first thirty seconds or so and in the last five seconds when he makes a slight feint of politeness, he goes for the jugular the same singular way your dog goes for the dish of Alpo when you put it down.

Perhaps he would almost be tolerable if most of his arguments were not non-sequiturs. For example, he will pull some quote by his guest from five years ago, which has no relevance to the topic at hand, and try to use it to prove he is a slime ball. It may be one sentence or phrase from a couple paragraphs. It is likely the sentence must be understood in the context of the entire argument. That does not matter. Anything is fair game for him. All he really cares about is sliming those he does not agree with. If you once shook Jane Fonda’s hand, he will use it to insinuate you were burning American flags.

In front of a “debater”, he does not know how to shut up. In fact, he does not even know how to debate. To debate you must discuss an argument on its merits. Debate is supposed to consist of point and counterpoint, not to be entirely one sided. O’Reilly’s idea of debating is to invite you into his sandbox, immediately start throwing sand in your face, then kick you and beat you over the head until you leave or cry uncle or until the first commercial hits. O’Reilly is not a debater. O’Reilly is simply an emotionally abusive bully who is paid top dollar by his employer, Fox News so the sick voyeuristic tendencies of his audience can satiated. If he pulled this kind of crap in public school, he would have been expelled for the semester.

I read today that Michael Moore is planning to go on The O’Reilly Factor to promote his new movie about health care, Sicko. Perhaps “interviews” like this come with the territory when you have to promote a documentary. I would urge Michael to cancel his appearance. Michael, your “interview” may generate some heat, but do not expect it to generate any light. It is not as if the viewers of The O’Reilly Factor are going to be going to see your movie. Instead, you will just be more red meat for this crowd who, let’s face it, already hate you because (a) you are liberal, (b) you are fat, (c) you hate President Bush and (d) you believe in gun control.

The same goes with anyone else who shows up on Bill’s show from the left side of the political fence. The odds are not just stacked against you, you are guaranteed to be verbally abused and bullied. You would probably divorce your spouse if he did this to you. Why put up with it in public? Except for the first thirty seconds or so, you will be unlikely to get out a coherent sentence. Whatever the alleged reason for your appearance on the show was, Bill will quickly steer it in a completely different direction that will be designed to make you look foolish. The alleged topic for discussion is merely a means to promote his ideology, which seems to be that the right is always right, and the left is universally wrong.

Are you tired of Bill O’Reilly? Do you want a civilized alternative from the other side of the political spectrum? Why not listen to The Diane Rehm Show instead? If it is not syndicated on your public radio station, you can listen to it live online from 10 AM to Noon Eastern Time on wamu.org, or download the latest podcasts of her show. Here is an interviewer with manners who asks thoughtful and probing questions. Here is someone who even if she does not agree with you will give you the opportunity to get your point across in a coherent manner. She will never denigrate you for your beliefs. In short, Diane has been house trained. Guests do not leave the studio feeling slimed; they leave the studio feeling like they had a chance to be heard. What an idea!

I would have thought that O’Reilly would have crossed the line a decade ago, but like the Energizer Bunny, he just keeps going and going. There does not appear to be anything he can say on the Fox “News” Channel that will get him kicked off the air. As a cable network, Fox knows the FCC will not be coming after them, so I guess anything goes. In addition, there must be quite a market for his bilge. Two millennium ago, his viewers were the kind filling Roman coliseums to cheer on the gladiators.

So unfortunately, unless his ratings go through the toilet, or the right wing totally implodes (not impossible given our current president) Bill will continue to be haunting the Fox “News” Channel. However, I suggest that even if you agree with him, you have better things to do with your time. If you have children, keep them away from the TV when Bill O’Reilly is on. If you ask me, his “show” should be rated at least TV-MA (Mature Audiences Only). The only problem is that if you were truly mature, you would not touch his show with a ten-foot anaconda.

Instead, I will channel Nancy Reagan and “just say no” to Bill, just as I have said no to Wal-Mart and Circuit City. I have taken the “No more Bill O’Reilly ever” pledge. I pledge not just to not watch his show any more, but also to do my utmost to avoid even the possibility of seeing or hearing him. Even if my favorite blog suggests watching a guest tussle with him on YouTube, I will wisely decline.

Like a Buddhist, I envision a more peaceful and gentle planet. Ideally, Bill O’Reilly would not be on it. If he has to be on it, people should be smart enough not to give him a microphone, because when someone like him gets a microphone it adds a couple centuries to our quest.

In any event, I do not need any more of his bad karma leeching onto me. Bye bye Bill.

May 22nd, 2007 at 09:31pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2007 | 2 comments

Public Radio: The Agony and the Ecstasy

I am a big fan of public radio. With rare exceptions, I do not listen to anything else on the radio. Perhaps if I subscribed to Sirius or XM satellite radio I would stop listening to public radio. On the other hand, perhaps not. All I know is that I consider public radio, and NPR in particular, to be a national treasure. Which is why I want to chew nails every time the local public radio stations, as they did last week, host yet another membership week.

Seriously, we loathe them. Heck, even public radio stations hate membership week. That is why increasingly stations like WAMU-FM here in Washington D.C. try to bribe us listeners into shortening membership week. For a few weeks before membership week officially starts they try to get us to send them money. If they get enough, they will take one day off the campaign. Yes. Anything but that. Anything but one more day of their grating and near constant grubbing for money.

Yes, it is sadly necessary, but is undignified. Our Congress can give obscene and duplicative payments to farmers, but just spare change to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Enduring public radio’s membership week is like watching a classy dame who goes regularly to the opera and shops at Neiman Marcus spending four weeks a year hanging out on street corners and hiking her skirt for strangers. It is not pretty and it is in fact just plain revolting. Just as you do not want to watch a car wreck, you do not want to listen to public radio during membership week. Really, I would rather have my fingernails slowly pulled out one by one.

At least with commercial radio you know what to expect: fifteen or twenty minutes of annoying commercials every hour. The master of it locally is WTOP, our local all news and traffic station. The proportion of commercials to content is so high you would think the volume of commercials on the station would be unlawful.

For 11 out of 12 months a year, public radio is a welcome respite from our overly commercialized world. Not that outside of membership weeks it is completely commercial free. Virtually every show is sponsored by some well moneyed commercial or non-profit organization that is anxious to tell you what they are up to and to give you their website address. Some TV shows, like The News Hour on PBS almost might as well be commercial TV, with the lengthy “sponsored by” messages that are (hate to break it to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) just shameless commercials.

Clearly, all that corporate and non-profit cash is not enough. That is why the announcer usually informs us that most shows on public radio and TV are also sponsored “by viewers like you”. That is nice to know. Viewers like me who appreciate public radio and TV contribute most of the funds necessary to keep them on the air. I know I do my part. I give my local public radio stations a healthy chunk of change every two weeks through the Combined Federal Campaign.

So since I am giving regularly, can you please cancel membership week? For that matter, will WETA stop sending me regular (as in once a month) junk mail soliciting further contributions? Yeah, I know I am on their mailing list because I made the mistake of just once contributing during membership week. Now they will not let me go. I am constantly badgered for more money. I have tried to tell them that I am sending them money via other means anyhow, but they never listen. They are like the doe-eyed orphan Oliver Twist asking Mr. Bumble, “Please sir, can I have some more?”

For the record, I certainly do not want public radio to go out of business. I make sure I send them money regularly to keep them in business. I depend on shows like All Things Considered and Morning Edition for my news fix. WAMU-FM in particular has just the right mixture of other public radio programming that keeps me tuning in for more. I need this refuge of commercial-free sanity on the airwaves to keep my psychic lid from popping. In my mind, public radio models what I want my country to be but simply is not. The announcers are scrupulously nonpartisan. They can discuss President Bush’s latest incoherent ramblings without even a hint of bias creeping into their voices. While I am sure I will get disagreement, I feel that on balance public radio shows are fair to both sides, as well as to the middle. Everyone is so thoughtful and civilized.

Until membership week. Then public radio becomes a bad carnie sideshow. It is amazing that public radio gets as much money as they do during membership week because public radio announcers are so excruciatingly bad at selling public radio. It is not that they do not have a valuable product. So many public radio listeners like me would not be listening to them if they did not. Their product is unique and singular. They just cannot sound convincing asking for money. The more they grub thank you products for $50, $100 and $200 contributions the less convincing they become. Besides, we know it is an important service and do not need further convincing. From the tone of their voice, it sure sounds like they too would prefer having their fingernails slowly pulled out rather than have to suffer through another membership week. This is to let you know that we here in the public suffer with you.

For me, membership week means tuning in for just the news or turning off the radio. Thankfully, in the Washington area, there is one final place of refuge on the FM dial when all else fails. It is WCSP, C-SPAN’s completely commercial-free public affairs radio station. (For those of you who live far from Washington D.C., you can always listen to it online.) Granted, spending your Saturday afternoon listening to archival recordings of the Lyndon Johnson tapes, or hearing the late Hubert Humphrey ramble about his life, may not be your cup of tea. Fortunately, its political content is usually more timely than these examples. However, at least in my area, its signal strength is low, so tuning it in can at times be hit or miss.

Membership week is beneath public radio. I think what public radio needs is a sufficiently well moneyed foundation. Perhaps Bill Gates, with all his billions, could put us public radio listeners out of our misery and fund an endowment for public radio. Then it would never be necessary again for a public radio or TV station to grub for money or have to find sponsors again.

And while I’m at it, I’d like pony.

October 23rd, 2006 at 04:06pm Posted by Mark | Life 2006 | one comment

West Winged

Okay, so the TV show The West Wing has been on for seven years and I never watched a single episode. That was my loss, apparently. On the other hand, I did not have the patience to make a commitment for a one-hour slice of my time at the same time every week. My life was too asymmetrical. While I own a VCR, it is a pain to program. The Tivo did not even exist in 1999, when this series first went on the air. In addition, I totally loathe commercials. These are just some of the many reasons that I missed not just The West Wing, but virtually all television series in the last ten years. After all, who need television?

However, I have no objection to watching DVDs of recommended TV shows in my spare time, I just do not normally bother. Even so, I probably would have given The West Wing a pass had not I been out in Boulder a couple weeks ago and sat down to watch an episode with my brother Tom. Before I could protest, the set of DVDs for the first season was in my suitcase.

I was unsure if I was ready for The West Wing. I am, after all, a Washingtonian. Consequently, politics is in my face 24/7. I did not need more politics, particularly politics that were entirely fictional. As you know, I often talk about politics in my blog. That, plus reading political blogs, The Washington Post and the incessant political discussions at the office water coolers usually makes me want to escape politics in whatever free time I have left. Nevertheless, since I had the DVDs and my wife was too busy watching episodes of Stargate Atlantis online to give me much quality time, I succumbed. I slipped that first disc into my DVD player.

Here is what I expected of The West Wing: a wonkish, unrealistic and glorified depiction of life inside the White House. It would be full of the types of people I unfortunately know too well from over twenty years in the civil service. There would be lots of guys in suits having important meetings about things most Americans could care less about, like a national energy policy. In short, I assumed it would be of interest to those who lived within fifty miles of Washington D.C. or who were political junkies and nobody else. I did not think these limited demographics could work for television.

Well yeah, it is full of wonkish and very senior staff members to the president in nice suits who work very long hours and get very concerned about things like a national energy policy. What I did not expect was that the series would be so exquisitely well done, so excellently cast, so well written and full of such high production values. I do not know how much the producers spent on average per episode, but it must be a ton of money. Just the cost of keeping a cast of thirty or so (when you include all the ancillary characters that had to show up every week) fully employed must have made NBC cringe.

Since at this point, I have only made it through the first troubled year of the Bartlet Administration, the vast majority of the show remains to be explored. I do not know if the series will have the same kind of magnetic pull that other series have had on me, like Josh Whedon’s Firefly series. I do though have to grudgingly admit based on the first year that it is a darn good series. If I can resist its allure, it will only be with some sustained effort.

I do have a few observations on the show (based on watching the first season only), that may be of interest to the few of you out there who have not seen the show. While I have never been in the White House, I suspect it does fairly accurately depict its environment. The show had former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers (1992-1994) as a consultant. Clearly, the producers got their money’s worth from her. What I did not expect was how well the show would be cast. It is hard to find anyone in the cast who is not wholly convincing. I know that most of the show was shot on a set in Los Angeles, but the White House is so intricately realized that I simply cannot tell. I fully suspended disbelief.

The producers, perhaps to spice up the show, create relationships that are at times annoying and implausible. For example, the relationship between Josh Lymon (Deputy Chief of Staff) and his secretary Donna Moss is a bit too cute and at times grating. Moreover, some of the relationships that develop serve to give the plots some spice, but are unlikely to happen in real life. These include Press Secretary C. J. Cregg’s developing fling with Washington Post White House reporter Danny Concannon, and the relationship between Charlie Young (the president’s personal aide, who also happens to be African American) and the president’s daughter Zoe.

However, I am not a Hollywood producer. It was probably a good call to add these many multilayered relationships because without them discussions on energy policy probably would get a little too dry. Anyhow, the show has real synergy and plausibility. Each character seems very comfortable in their complex and multifaceted roles. Perhaps this is why the show excels. Those of us who work for government know just how multifaceted government truly is.

The show actually makes me feel a bit wistful. It was not that long ago that you respected the person who held the office of president. You knew presidents were not empty suits, but people of substance who could fully handle the complexities of the job. In my mind no one was better at it that Bill Clinton. Josh Bartlet appears to model the best aspects of Bill Clinton without many of his worst aspects. It is a credit to the show’s producers though that Martin Sheen as the president does not overwhelm the show. It is in exposing the lives of those behind the throne where the show shines brightest.

The producers, writers and directors of The West Wing pull it all together. This is television where the production qualities are so high that the shows seem too good for television. If the first season is any guide, you can expect every episode to rate 9 out of 10. However, a couple episodes per season will just knock you for a loop. The episodes “In Excelsis Deo” and “Take this Sabbath Day” qualify as some of the best television I have ever seen. This makes me wonder how long I can avoid succumbing to watching subsequent seasons.

I am not surprised that the show has won so many Tony Awards. I am sure they were well deserved. I abandoned television because my life got too busy, but also because TV had again become a vast wasteland again. Perhaps it is time to turn on my TV again. Shows like The West Wing and the brief but greatly lamented series Firefly give me hope.

April 23rd, 2006 at 08:46pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | one comment

The Delight of Joss Whedon’s Firefly

Last October I posted a review of Joss Whedon’s movie Serenity. I found the movie to be wonderful. It was exactly what I wanted to see in the voluminous space operas out there, but never quite found. It was not long after the movie that my wife and I decided we had to go back and see the original thirteen episodes of the Firefly TV series, upon which the movie was based. We ordered the Firefly DVD set as a Christmas present for ourselves. We have now watched all but the last episode. We know we will have to watch the last episode eventually, but right now, it pains us to know there is only one left to discover. Like being in denial over a lover’s death, right now we cannot go there. It hurts too much.

Firefly had a sporadic but brief life on the Fox Television network. I was amazed it developed a cult following at all, since many episodes were shown out of sequence and were frequently preempted by Fox. After the show was unwisely canceled, episodes were rebroadcast on the SciFi cable TV channel. Having given up television, I was blissfully ignorant about the Firefly series.

With only thirteen episodes (including a two-hour pilot), you would wonder why I would even bother to invest myself in this universe. Barring a miracle, new episodes of TV show will not be filmed. (Brownshirts, i.e. Firefly fans, though have not given up hope.) Even another Firefly movie looks dicey. While the movie attracted most of the Firefly fans out there, it did not get much box office attention. Reviews like this one were generally very enthusiastic. The timing of the movie’s release might partially explain its lackluster box office numbers. September is not prime time at the box office, and movie receipts in general have been declining. The reason that many like us went through the trouble of buying the Firefly DVDs is that though the episodes were few, each one was a sparkling diamond. If TV could be this innovative and interesting, the networks would never worry about their bottom line. For in Newton Minow’s vast wasteland of television and cable TV, Firefly demonstrated the full potential of the medium when the right ingredients are present.

The Firefly universe postulates a Wild West solar system. Most of the solar system is controlled by The Alliance, a totalitarian-lite form of government not unlike what George W. Bush seems to want the United States to become. The outer planets and moons are full of largely untamed but terraformed worlds suitable for human habitation. Each of these worlds look uniformly look like the Old West and are often populated by associated ruffians and misfits. The technology is a mixture of high and low tech. On these outer planets and moons, 20th Century pistols and rifles integrate well with various second and third-rate space transport vessels like the Firefly class ship named Serenity that is captained by Mal Reyolds (Nathan Fillion).

Mal is no heroic starship captain bringing a utopian vision to the uninformed masses. Mal is more like an officer in the Confederate Army five years after the Civil War. He is a conflicted soul, still licking many painful wounds from helping lead a valiant but doomed war against domination by The Alliance. He is trying to remake his life by earning a marginal living carrying dubious cargo from the various planets and moons that make up this solar system using a spaceship that is the equivalent of a ten-year-old Chevy Suburban with 200,000 miles on it. In short, Mal has issues. It would be easy to typecast him as another Hans Solo, but Mal has many more dimensions than Hans.

The same is true with the entire cast. Creator Joss Whedon has placed inside one spaceship a small collection of complex and often troubled characters. He lets them develop and play off against each other in his rough and tumble solar system where humankind is technically more advanced but is still mired in our modern hatreds and prejudices. Also on board is Zoe Washburne (Gina Torres), a no nonsense woman who fought with Mal against The Alliance, and who acts as the ship’s second in command. In addition, there is Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin), a gunslinger of his day who can barely operate in the civilized world. Keeping the ship running is Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite), the ship’s engineer. Kaylee is a sweet and wholly inoffensive young woman who never attended engineering school but nonetheless has amazing skills keeping the aging ship from moving toward total dysfunction. At the con is “Wash” Washburne (Alan Tudyk) who is married to Zoe and quite jealous of her long-term relationship with Mal. So much for the ship’s official crew.

Also on board are a number of paying and non-paying passengers picked up along the way. These include Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin), a “licensed companion”. She is the equivalent of a very high-class interstellar call girl. She keeps her shuttle docked in one of Firefly’s bays and takes opportunities at various ports of call to attend to the intimate needs of selected high-class clientele. The ship even has its own preacher, Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), and a brother and sister team: the brilliant physician Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his crazy but even more talented sister River (Summer Glau). As in the movie, he helped her sister escape from the clutches of The Alliance and they live their lives as fugitives aboard Serenity.

All these characters appear in the movie, but in the TV show, we get to watch their characters develop and morph over time as this Wild West solar system throws everything it can at them. There is not a bad episode in the whole series. As the series progresses the relationships between characters and the characters themselves morph. What we viewers get is a fascinating set of characters and dynamics made more interesting by the complex situations they get into. The choice of actors is inspired, and it is clear that the cast had developed real synergy.

The lovely result is a series that in just thirteen episodes is so packed with character development and plot that it still feel like several seasons worth. Joss must have had some inkling that, like a real firefly, his dream show’s life on network TV would be brief. Consequently, every episode is a rich smorgasbord for the viewer.

Just as the Old West was raw, the show can be very raw too. Between the graphic violence, adult themes and sex it borders on being R-rated TV. This is at least PG-13 TV. It is not suitable for young children at all, and I would have hesitated to let my daughter see it age 13. This realism though just adds to its plausibility.

Fans like myself who discovered the series years after it was shown may have to resign ourselves that there will simply be no more morsels of this universe to savor. Nevertheless, I do know that this DVD set will get many viewing from me in the years ahead. Just like there are only ten novels in the Hornblower series, yet I feel I have to reread them all every few years, so I will periodically go back and marvel at the unabashed excellence in thirteen episodes of Firefly now permanently in my DVD collection.

January 22nd, 2006 at 12:16pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | no comments

Who Needs Television?

There was a time (late 1960s and early 1970) when I lived for TV. TV was my escape from monotony. Life at the time was pretty boring. I was living in New York’s Southern Tier. There wasn’t a whole lot to do besides eat, go to school and attend church. Binghamton, New York is not exactly the center of upstate New York culture. It didn’t help that my large Catholic family was somewhat financial challenged. We went to movies maybe once a year. Vacations were perhaps every other year. With one car in the driveway our amusements were limited to anything we could reach on a bike.

Reading the local paper offered little stimulation. We subscribed to The Binghamton Press, which at the time was an afternoon rag. But it was a shallow, uninteresting paper full of brief news articles from the Associated Press. Our suburb was too wholesome to have drug problems. If kids were practicing premarital sex I didn’t know of any (but wished I did). That left two forms of amusement: radio and TV. Radio was out. There were a couple rock and roll stations but the same music was repeated endlessly and the commercials were endless too. At that time there was no public radio. That left TV. TV became about the only entertainment in my life. I looked forward to the autumn TV season the way some baseball fanatics look forward to the World Series. For a couple hours a day at most (and we were generally limited to an hour of TV a night on school nights - my parents were so cruel) I could escape into something else. For reasons I never really understood certain shows were out. Believe it or not we were not allowed to watch Star Trek. (Too racy I guess.) Laugh In was also out. Oddly it was okay to watch All in the Family and M*A*S*H. Dreck like My Three Sons and Hogan’s Heroes were always okay. I’d live for Friday and Saturday nights. Then I could watch quality shows like The Carol Burnett Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. They seemed a whole lot more interesting than my humdrum life.

Now we have over a hundred channels to choose from available day and night. And while our daughter still gets off on TV I hardly ever go near it. I’d like to say this is a recent phenomenon but it’s been this way for about the last fifteen years. While everyone in my office was watching Seinfeld I was clueless. (It could be that raising a daughter and going to grad school broke me of the habit.) I’ve never made it through an episode of Friends. I’ve never seen The West Wing (a show I doubtless would love if I could take the time to watch it). I don’t even know when it comes on, or even if it is still on the air. I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation regularly. But I lost interest in all the other Star Trek spinoffs. Even shows I would never miss like Masterpiece Theater and 60 Minutes have dropped off my radar.

The one TV constant in my life had been TV news. I watched The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite religiously. After he retired I would watch it with Dan Rather. But eventually I discovered there was much better news programming available on the radio. From National Public Radio, the public affairs programming locally on WAMU-FM and (a Washington blessing) C-SPAN Radio I can get much better in-depth news than I ever got from Uncle Walter. I won’t put up with commercials. I stay strictly with the public stations. During pledge week I turn off the radio.

It’s probably just as well. When I do get bored enough to surf the channels it seems a complete waste of my time. First, there are even more commercials than there were when I was growing up. Most commercial channels have 20 minutes an hour (sometimes more) of commercial blocks. But even minus the commercials the content is mostly just not there.

I understand “reality TV” is now all the rage. Oddly enough I have no desire to see “real people” engaged in these strange and pointless contests. The one time I tuned one in I quickly channel surfed away. Why would I want to watch someone eat a bug? Or get fired by Donald Trump? Or try to survive on some deserted island? It’s not like these things are all that real anyhow. Like professional wrestling these “reality shows” are actually usually pretty well scripted.

But the real reason I’ve given up television is that it is a passive experience. I’d much rather talk back. And I’d much rather take things at my schedule, not someone else’s. I don’t want to arrange my life so that Wednesdays at 9 PM I have to be glued in front of the TV. I don’t even want to bother to set the VCR to record shows to see at a time that does suit me.

Instead of TV I have a computer and an Internet connection. Rather than limit myself to 100 cable channels I now have billions of web sites. But like with TV viewing I tend to go to the sites whose content is fresh and interesting. But unlike TV my new channels are pretty much always available. TV channels don’t have hyperlinks.

On the Internet I can talk back. I can’t do that with my TV. Most of the sites I hit are blog sites. Most of the time I don’t leave comments. But I like the freedom to be able to comment when it suits my mood.

What do I use my TV for? It’s not to watch cable TV. Mostly my TV exists to let me enjoy videos and DVDs. My TV is not just a TV anymore. It’s part of a home theater. I have surround sound now. But even with the lure of my home theater most of the time I am surfing the Internet instead. While DVDs are fun they too are passive experiences. I’d rather be reading DailyKos.com, or Steve Gilliard’s Blog, or catching up with my friend Lisa over at Snarkypants, or hanging out with fellow Tolkien fans, or thrashing through the issues and trivialities of life on my forum The Potomac Tavern, or enjoying the latest bizarre amusements in the world on Memepool or Dave Barry’s Blog.

I’m wondering why more people aren’t like me. Why are they watching people eat bugs when there is much better amusement on line? If nothing else, you can only get PG-13 sex on TV. On the Internet you can dine from a fine buffet of X rated amusements if so inclined. Or if virtual sex is insufficient there are endless temptations with online personal sites where maybe, just maybe, you find your ideal mate or find someone who shares your particular erotic kink.

I have to wonder how much life commercial TV has left. Like the mainframe, stories of its impending death are probably greatly exaggerated. But I have to think with its limited buffet and with the unlimited buffet available on the Internet its days are numbered. I’m hoping that twenty years from now network programming will be obsolete. Instead I expect we will get the information and amusement we want from our very fat Internet pipes or from our high bandwidth portable Internet devices instead. If I need to see TV news I’d much rather do it at Naked News anyhow.

To survive perhaps TV will have to find an excuse to become good again. It doesn’t have to dwell forever in mediocrity. Maybe we will get programming for people with an active and curious mind, like me. Maybe instead of pandering to the lowest common denominator TV will pander to those of us who imagine ourselves as full of class, intellect and style.

But those shows are few and far between. Yet if PBS ever does shows like Meeting of Minds again I could be lured away from my computer. How about it, entertainment industry?

August 14th, 2004 at 05:31pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | no comments

The Prisoner: Classic TV with Modern Echoes

Since I don’t watch much TV it was not surprising that I first saw the TV Series “The Prisoner” (starring “Secret Agent Man” Patrick McGoohan) in a theater. The year was 1976 and the place was the University of Central Florida. For a number of successive Friday nights we dorm rats would traipse down to the Student Union to watch three back-to-back episodes from the classic British TV Series “The Prisoner”. I was hooked on the first show “Arrival”. Recently I got to enjoy the series again. Yes, the complete 17 episodes are now in my DVD collection.

For those of you who have never seen “The Prisoner” it is a British produced series about a secret agent who abruptly resigns from the spy service. The actor, producer and occasional writer and director Patrick McGoohan plays the resigned spy. He returns home to pack for an extended holiday. As he packs gas comes through a keyhole in his door and renders him unconscious. He wakes up to find himself in “The Village”. The Village appears to be on a large unknown island. All the villagers seem to be people who used to work for the intelligence services and know too much to be free. So they are confined in “The Village” instead. Stripped of their names they are given numbers. McGoohan plays a man identified only as “Number Six”.

The plot is one of irresistible force meeting an immovable object. In pretty much every episode the head honcho of The Village (Number Two) tries every nefarious means he can think of to get Number Six to tell him why he resigned. Number Six of course wants to know what side Number Two is on. Has he been captured by the enemy or by his own government? Number Two refuses to tell him. All he wants to know is why he resigned. Number Six resists. “I am not a number, I am a free man!” he exclaims. When Number Two is invariably foiled by Number Six in the next episode we find a new Number Two to take his place bent on cracking his will.

For a series produced in the middle of Beatlemania the shows holds up very well. The series consists of seventeen episodes. With every episode the pressure on Number Six grows. Increasingly the strategies get more desperate and bizarre. All sorts of mind games, medical experiments and drugs are used to try to break Number Six.

It still seems a bit futuristic, even if the styles are dated and the computers are huge boxes sporting large reel-to-reel tape recorders. It has a creepy film noir all its own that includes an amorphous large object (actually a weather balloon) that tracks down escapees and miscreants and smothers them. McGoohan does actually manage to escape a couple times, only to find himself back in The Village at the end.

Throughout the series one hanging question is who is the unseen “Number One”. It is Number One who gives orders to Number Two. If you watch all seventeen episodes you will eventually have the satisfaction of finding out. The series ends on an existentialist note that made many angry. But now forty years later it looks increasingly brilliant.

Essentially the series is a parable on the boundary between freedom and the needs of a larger community. Does anyone have the right not to conform and live by his or her own rules? Or all we all bound together in a common collective whether we like it or not? McGoohan plays an unyielding individual who proclaims and exercises his innate right to live his life ordered his way. Number Two represents obedience to a higher authority and the necessity of everyone to fit in.

A feeling of low-grade horror pervades the series because everything seems so ordinary. Seemingly happy people who have had their soul ripped out populate the Village. They move around and talk and do things but they don’t seem alive. They are wholly superficial. And yet some people mysteriously disappear when they don’t conform. The state watches everything and everyone, but seems abnormally obsessed with Number Six.

As a parable, the series seems more familiar these days than I would like. Since the oxymoronic Patriot Act was passed many of the things shown in “The Prisoner” are now quite legal.

For example our president is now permitted by law to detain anyone, including a United States citizen, indefinitely and without trial based on national security grounds. All he needs to say is that it is justified as being necessary for the security of the state. Potentially today anyone considered “unmutual” (a term used in “The Prisoner”) might be locked up. President Bush doesn’t even have to tell anyone who he has “detained”. Our modern day “prisoners” (potential terrorists and “enemy combatants”) can be locked up indefinitely in their own far less lovely villages, never seen by the International Red Cross and tortured by our own government. At some point they may be subjected to Village-like “tribunals” without benefit of a lawyer or the right to gather evidence in their defense. Number Two and the Village Council would approve of these tactics, I think.

Today the new Number Two no longer lives at the Green Dome. He is living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But hopefully those of us who are still Number Sixes at heart will form a critical mass and put in a more benevolent Number Two this November. Perhaps the latest Village Rules (The Patriot Act) will be repealed and we can all get back to living in glorious disharmony again.

March 8th, 2004 at 08:29pm Posted by Mark | The Arts | no comments

Star Trek: It’s Dead Jim. Let it Lie

I didn’t think it would happen to me. But I’m finally Trekked out.

Star Trek was so 20th Century anyhow. It’s a new millennium. Let’s evolve. Let’s acknowledge that Star Trek was one fairly cool TV show and surely a powerful meme for a lot of us. But its time is over. It’s time for Trekkies to get a different life and move on.

Admittedly I’ve been on the downward slope for a long time. I usually wasn’t allowed to watch the original TV show it, and caught most episodes on reruns. Much of it was, and still is, excruciatingly bad, but for its time it seemed brilliant. (Compared to “Land of the Giants”, “Time Tunnel”, “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” and “Lost in Space”, the competition, it was positively brilliant.) Now the sets look cheap. William Shatner is a horrible actor and painful to watch play James T. Kirk. Occasionally a really good director could make him convincing. Nicholas Meyer, who directed Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan managed to do it. But usually Shatner reverted to form. After a while it was increasingly painful to watch the wreckage.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was a vast improvement, but even it stumbled in its first year and suffered from some continuity problems. (It got better when Riker got a beard.) STTNG revived my interest in the show. As a liberal Democrat I was very much a Jean Luc Picard fan, and to this day I am astonished by the quality of Patrick Stewart’s acting. I know there are a lot of Captain Kirk bigots out there, but Jean Luc was the captain that Kirk was not. Kirk was hot tempered and emotional and survived on tricks. Jean Luc was compassionate and thoughtful and you felt the presence of his command.

The movies were off and on. The even ones tended to be good, the odd ones sucked. STTNG movies have suffered from a similar fate.

I knew I was in trouble when the Star Trek: Nemesis came out and I couldn’t be bothered to see it. My loss I guess. I’ve heard it was pretty good. But as happened to the original cast, STTNG cast is old now too. Even my heartthrob Marina Sirtis is suffering from a sagging face and breasts.

The one thing that might bring me back is a movie with the Borg in it. Star Trek: The Borg Encounter is in production right now and should be out this year. The Borg were absolutely the creepiest villains ever created. I loved all the shows and the movies with the Borg in it. Even Sauron (from “Lord of the Rings”) cannot seriously compete with the Borg for the dubious title of most awful enemy of all time. Klingons and Romulans don’t even raise my eyebrow anymore.

I didn’t like it when STTNG ended but it had seven years and it was about time. I was seeing the same plots over and over again. It went out well.

I tried to watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine but couldn’t get into anything other than the Ferrengi. It was too shoot ‘em up for me, but the Ferrengi were hoots:Republicans and Libertarians of the 23rd century run amok! They were the perfect way to laugh at the Reaganism and neo-conservatism of the time.

I was disgusted with Star Trek: Voyager. I thought it was cool to have a female Captain but that was about it. Blasting them across the galaxy was just a gimmick. But it didn’t take long before it became more plot repetition. We’d seen these plots before. Actually we had seen them many times. The words were spoken by new characters, but nothing had really changed.

I watched a couple episodes of Enterprise but other than the Vulcan’s curves and one cute dog there was not much there to spur me to watch more. I got out of the habit. Going back in time didn’t seem to make it any more interesting.

Its time is up. Thank you to Gene Roddenberry and the rest of the crew for a nice ride. I enjoyed the couple of conventions I attended. It was nice to meet Majel Roddenberry one time, and lots of cool Trekkies. I’ve enjoyed some of the better fan fiction. When you were good you were really, really good. Sometimes you were really bad. You also had a lot of mediocrity. But it’s dead Jim. It’s time to put Star Trek into its historical package and evolve.

August 15th, 2003 at 11:53am Posted by Mark | Best of Occam's Razor, The Arts | 6 comments