TV: love for the misanthropes

[sigma7]

Day 01 - A show that should never have been cancelled
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
Day 14 - Favorite male character
Day 15 - Favorite female character
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show
Day 17 - Favorite mini series
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death

Also a true story: the closest I ever came to killing a fellow student was when they announced that they thought it was a bigger deal that Sam Walton had died than Isaac Asimov. A sixteen-year-old cheerleader was the only thing that stood between that student and a savage bludgeoning. But I digress.

There's a ton of shows in the running for favorite. Sports Night comes very close. Had Serenity been a Firefly finale episode, it'd be right up there. The Simpsons went on 12 seasons too long to be considered; Buffy two. TNG was probably one of the most important during my formative years, but its early and late episodes are both very shaky. BSG's "they had a plan, no really, they did" insistence in the face of all evidence to the contrary voids it, but that doesn't negate some awesome episodes and excellent drama in the process. Jury's still out on House, but it's in the conversation.

Of what I'd probably call my final three, the final margins are razor-thin. MST3K was a brilliant way to spend a good chunk of an evening or morning or afternoon. Some episodes were more slipshod than others, and some just tried too hard. Max Headroom was far too ahead of its time a quarter of a century ago and might still be for network TV, but it was insane cyberpunk fun, and I found myself identifying a bit too much with both its protagonist and resident technoguru to degrees that I'm still uncovering. Again, though, even when its best episodes were biting and insightful and engaging, its worst episodes were clumsy and pandering and uninteresting -- though the ratio was much more favorable, even after a distinct season-two budget slash and a very audible looming network death knell.

No, my pick has to go to Probe. Which obviously a few of you've heard of -- aside from its brief seven-episode run in the spring of '88 as a replacement series on ABC, it also aired a few times on Sci-Fi (with a few scenes missing/excised, said the neurotic who still has videotapes of the original airings). The gist, as hinted before, is a lot like House, if its protagonist was (a) not addicted to Vicodin (b) not a doctor but a scientist (c) merely socially inept and not genuinely miserable (d) chaotic good instead of chaotic neutral/evil (I'm not sure which House is, and I'm afraid to wonder) (e) without stubble but instead some pretty awesome hair. He's deductive, withdrawn, but aspiring to do good.

Think of Parker Stevenson's Austin James as Gregory House by way of Tony Stark, only keeping the better halves of each. Ashley Crow (recently of Heroes, I'm told) is his faithful Watson, as he's fired all of his other secretaries, and engagingly plays the foil as they embark on mysteries of modern science...er, almost; there are rogue AIs and vivid holograms, so we're not talking "hard" science here. The tone's probably most like Castle -- there are serious things afoot, but the most fun you have watching the show is following two genuinely interesting characters as they bounce off each other and amble down the path of the plot obligingly.

It's a ton of fun, and it looks like most of the episodes are on YouTube now. I know, at only seven episodes, it's hard to fault it for a lack of sustained quality, and it's cheesy in that late-80s sci-fi way at times, but I've yet to find anything to dislodge it from its very cozy perch in the center of the blackened, wrinkled husk that is my heart.

Comments

[teal-cuttlefish.livejournal.com]

When Asimov died, I was working at a big data center in the Operations area. My boss was a real jerk. I came in and said my favorite author had died. He didn't know who Isaac Asimov was, but he sure talked about Sam Walton a lot. Apparently he really admired Walton's small-town killing, employee-destroying ways.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

I have to say that Asimov himself made his death much less of a big deal than it could have been by keeping his AIDS diagnosis a secret.

[teal-cuttlefish.livejournal.com]

Yes, well it was contracted from a blood transfusion, but I'm sure he didn't want the press slavering over his health.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

I'm sure he didn't want the press slavering over his health.

The Good Doctor was not a modest or publicity-avoiding person in his later adult life, if he ever was. Even if he were, he could easily have arranged for it to be announced upon his death. It's a damn shame he couldn't bring himself to illuminate people on the issue, for what ever reason, like he did with so many others.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know it's up on YouTube. I've actually never seen Probe, since I was living in Europe when it first aired.

As far as Asimov anecdotes go, I was once told by a woman in position to make a relatively close together comparison that I'm a better kisser. Admittedly the circumstances surrounding both incidents were such where he would've come off better and I worse if they were reversed.

(Just realized that last could make it sound like she was unwilling to kiss him. Nope, she went up to him while he was walking through a lobby at a con and gave him a cloved orange and explained that SCA custom to him. I did think the relative lack of quality was probably due to a combo of being in public, not having encountered her at all before that, and him probably being on his way to an appointment or somesuch and not having any time.)

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I do have slightly better versions lying around somewhere, whether from the original VHS (via VHF from the next state, so the quality is occasionally variable) or the Sci-Fi reairings. Let me know if the YouTubes are inadequate (or are missing an episode or segment).

Asimov was "my" writer when I was growing up -- not on the basis of his science fiction, but entirely on collections of his essays, which the local librarian graciously saved and gave to me. I'm not even close to objective when it comes to Asimov, but I'm okay with that.

[manekikoneko.livejournal.com]

My brother once read a book by Asimov, I forget which, but it was the first time he'd read him, after a long string of Anne McCaffery and couple other women I can't recall; and then walked into the room where my mother and I were and announced that women were incapable of writing science fiction. We asked why he'd come to this conclusion, and he told us it was because this Asimov book was the best thing he'd ever read. He was pretty young, so we were able to straighten him out after a while.

I have to admit, I've hardly read Asimov at all. I read Caves of Steel a couple years ago, and I enjoyed it enough to hope that someday I'll find time to read more. But I was really amused by the language used by the characters, the 1950s, PG cursing. I could understand why it was in there, it just struck me as funny.

Since I haven't read much else, I obviously don't know if that was a thing with him, but I watched some Probe on YouTube, and I got a similar feeling. Is it the 80s? Or is it me? Am I just so jaded that an hour of TV in which no one says "Damn" feels unrealistic?

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure Asimov's contributions extended much past the conceptual stage; he doesn't have writing credits for any of the episodes, at any rate. I think it's a bit a conscious effort to be family-friendly at a time when that, on TV, meant being virtually pristine in a way that's striking to us now.

[beagle1971.livejournal.com]

Wow, I remember watching this in high school and being intrigued by it, except the most I remember is that his assistant had a cast on her forearm. Why that stuck, I don't know.