Some Words

Waiting for law school to start up, and pottering around around getting moving stuff done, I’ve ended up watching a fair amount of History Detectives on PBS. The show is about people investigating artifacts from the past to see if they have any historical significance. You questions like, “Was this rifle owned by Herman Goering?”

The show, once you get into it, can be fun, but I don’t understand why they chose “Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello for the theme song. On the surface, sure, it makes sense. Yet, when you look at the lyrics of the song, you start to wonder. I’ll just grab a scrap.

They call it instant justice when it’s past the legal limit.
Someone’s scratching at the window. I wonder who is it?
The detectives come to check if you belong to the parents
who are ready to hear the worst about their daughter’s disappearance.
Though it nearly took a miracle to get you to stay,
it only took my little fingers to blow you away.

It seems a little dark. The show often borders on goofy. Even when the story is about something dark, they keep it light. Every time the heavily edited theme comes on, mangling one of my favorite Costello songs, I can’t help but laugh.

First: This is not good when you are a candidate who has been getting mocked for a lack of knowledge about the internet. Blocking ‘net’ in words hardly seems a sensible filtering policy.

Second: Twin Cities Public Television has a channel for children, which I don’t get as I don’t have cable (yeah…). At 12:30 in the A.M. they are showing Curious George, which seems to me to be more than tacit admission that they think of the channel a the stoner at night. I’m probably reading into this too much, but while I’ll buy that kids want to see the adventures of a curious monkey, I don’t think they do it after midnight.

Extra bonus side association: Has anyone fed George after midnight? I’d be interested in the results, though he probably just flings poo.

Ok, and now it’s time to put off some plotting. Nothing so satisfyingly avoids making outlines as writing short snippets that don’t lead to any fiction whatsoever.

I’ve been watching Heroes, and while it’s been good in some ways, it’s constantly skirting the “Ok, I’m done!” stage. In the end, if I do give up, it won’t be the plot holes or the weak characters. Now, in case you haven’t been watching this show, it has some impressive plot holes. I’m talking plot holes so big that I could mess with Texas, and Texas could then step through the plot hole to mess back. Mohinder, one of the ostensible main characters, is so boring and inessential to the plot right now that they stuck him with one of the villains to try to spark things. It’s like they are trying to see how amazingly stupid they can write a man who supposedly has a PhD in Genetics, (which I’m pretty sure they don’t just give away, at least not without being asked nicely) before the collective collapse in the audience’s suspension of disbelief creates a rift in space and time.

I mean, this is a show where characters can phase through matter, and fly, and have super healing, and turn invisible, and all manner of oddments, and I’m standing in front of the screen screaming “Oh, my fuck! He can’t be that dumb!” When that’s the biggest threat to my suspension of disbelief in a show based on comic books, you know you have problems.

And still I watch. Here’s what’s killing me.

The plotting. The plot for most episodes is the structural equivalent of watching a blind smack addict drive a pinto around the Black Rock Desert. I don’t care if the pinto has been redone as an art car. I don’t care that being blind is a tragic, and that it’s not his fault. The man is on fucking smack!

I can deal with not knowing where the plot is going, the mystery of it is part of what drew me in, but I get the feeling that the writers don’t really know either. Half the time I feel like I’m watching them try to write themselves out of holes that they write in the other half. Hmmm… this is turning out longer than intended. More on it later. Back to work with me.