TV: What I want to know is....

[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 one of your favorite shows
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of one of your favorite TV shows
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch A show that's had a significant effect on who you are today
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

This was one of the audibles I was considering calling -- and I think I can bear the weight of the rest of the meme without wholesale changes anymore. But that still leaves me with a dilemma.

House and Probe kinda occupy the same space in my mindset, which is fine -- I watched Probe when I was a naive altruistic optimist, and House sees me as a much more pessimistic pragmatist. Either way, it's a little reassuring (and maybe encouraging) to see a protagonist so obviously detached from the rest of humanity with a sole confidant and friend as a tether.

I do also think about TNG, though -- especially in its earlier seasons (while Gene Roddenberry was still alive and active), it de-emphasized conflict, especially within the Federation itself, portraying a humanity that'd finally shed its infancy and was ready to ascend to a much more civil state than we'd seen even in the original series. That didn't last too long -- idyllic societies just don't make for good drama (of course, neither does being stuck on the far side of the galaxy and whining about it for seven seasons), so the cracks in the Federation got pried wide open by later showrunners, but it's still hard to appreciate that engaging, accepting culture in which money has no meaning and bettering oneself is the ultimate aspiration of existence. And it helps that the show's central philosophies carried much greater weight when their exemplar was played by Patrick Stewart....

But here's an odd choice: Max Headroom. I didn't notice a lot of reporters as role models growing up. Even then it was never an aspiration one undertook for the money. But there's something about Matt Frewer's Edison Carter -- the show's actual protagonist -- that engaged the viewer's empathy. While he's on-sight recognizable and probably one of the city's media icons, he doesn't suffer with modern celebrity, but instead operates on a very sharp sense of right and wrong, of what one of his spiritual descendants, Spider Jerusalem, would fatefully call "the truth: no matter what," often to his own detriment. Sure, there was Bryce Lynch chewing on the technical dilemma du jour and being amusingly isolated and inscrutable -- not unlike a watered-down Austin James in many ways -- but Carter managed to outshine him.

It's funny because, 20 minutes into the future, there's no illusion that anything Edison Carter says or does is going to cause the sun to break out from behind the clouds and rattle the world out of its perpetual dystopia. It's soulless corporations and slightly-less-soulless computers from horizon to horizon -- and Carter works for and with both. And still he's relentless, whether he's simply following the money or fighting for a friend he might lose or even one he already has. He's less Woodward and Bernstein and more Diogenes, and probably on an equally-futile endeavor in the long run, but you can't help but root for the man. I knew of the inherent virtues of public service in the traditional fashions -- cop, soldier, doctor -- those were paraded on multiple channels every day and night. But nobody else really embodied the best of what it was to be a journalist to me before Edison Carter.

Tomorrow, the best scene of all time. From one of the series mentioned above. Probably not the one you expect. Hint: it goes from commercial to commercial.

Comments

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

This is apropos of absolutely nothing, and probably has something to do with consuming a martini on an empty stomach. But I was thinking it had been a while since I watched this, and then it occurred to me that maybe you'd like it too! And then I realized you might have seen it when I posted it on my blog, but that was like five years ago so you might have forgotten it. Or you might have seen it on any of Tim Burton's DVDs as an extra. But in case you haven't, here you go. Enjoy. :)



Maybe I should have eaten something this afternoon...