Why Brits Do TV Right

We know you're all waiting for the Solipsist to weigh in on the Henry Louis Gates kerfuffle. Sorry, keep waiting. Today, it's all about the telly.

This past week, science-fiction (or "SF," never "sci-fi") enthusiasts have enjoyed a veritable feast on BBC America, anchored by the five-part miniseries, "Torchwood: Children of Earth," which began Monday and concluded last night. If you missed it, it will be rerun all afternoon tomorrow. Watch it, and then come back and read today's post so as not to "spoil" things for yourself.

"Children of Earth" once again proves that, when it comes to science-fiction television, the Brits do things right. Sure, America gave us "Star Trek" and "X-Files" and "Battlestar Galactica" and "Lost," but quality SF programs have been few and far between. And even the high-quality shows mentioned above are not uniformly perfect. "X-Files" was actually two shows: on the one hand, a brilliant anthology program featuring intrepid FBI agents investigating the weird and the wacky; and on the other hand, an inane, tedious soap opera revolving around government conspiracies--a soap opera made worse by the fact, obvious in hindsight, that the show's creator had no idea how to resolve it. "Lost" is usually engaging but often incoherent; in any event, we must withhold a final verdict until we see how the series ends, i.e., in a satisfying conclusion or an "X-Files"-like debacle.

But then there are the Brits. First and foremost, there is "Doctor Who" (see post of April 4, 2009), the 40-year-old franchise about a Time Lord who travels the universe saving planets with wit, flair and a minimum of senseless violence (and set your DVR's for "Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead" tomorrow evening). And then there is the subject of today's commentary, the "Doctor Who" spin-off, "Torchwood."

"Torchwood" is about a sort of extra-governmental law-enforcement agency, the Torchwood Institute, established during the reign on Queen Victoria to defend earth from alien incursions. The Institute is led by Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), whom we first met on "Doctor Who," a ridiculously handsome, omni-sexual adventurer who can never die. (Well, to be accurate, he can die; he just can't stay dead. He's killed in virtually every episode, only to revive moments later in what seems a fairly uncomfortable process.) Along with his partners, Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles), a Welsh policewoman, and Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd), a sort of butler and Jack's current lover, Jack monitors the "rift"--a sort of hole in time and space that runs through Cardiff, through which all manner of extraterrestrial hazards emerge. In "Children of Earth," an alien species known only as "the 4-5-6" (after the radio frequency on which they communicate) comes to earth and demands 10% of the world's children. Failure to do so will result in the extermination of the entire human race.

As the Solipsist watched "Children," we realized that the plot sounded familiar. It reminded us of an American television miniseries, "Storm of the Century" (1999). In this movie, with a screenplay by Stephen King, the tiny town of Little Tall Island is battered by a massive blizzard, during which a menacing figure known as Linoge appears. Linoge, we find out, is a demon, and he has one simple demand: He wants one of the townspeople's children. Linoge explains that he wants an heir, someone whom he can train to carry on his demonic work after he inevitably dies (he's extremely long-lived, but not immortal). If the townsfolk do not agree to give him a child, Linoge will kill ALL the children (there are eight on the island at this time). A fairly tedious moralistic debate breaks out among the townspeople over whether they should willingly sacrifice one of their kids or stand against Linoge and risk all the children's lives.

At this point in the show, the Solipsist talks to the screen: "Um. . . . Just give him the damn kid!" What's the problem here? Linoge makes it very clear that he will not harm the child--quite the opposite, in fact. The child will become a virtual immortal with all kinds of nifty demon powers to boot! Sure, we understand a parent's unwillingness to see their kid become an instrument of evil. But if it's that or DEATH? And death for EVERY child? We see this as kind of a no-brainer. The show wants us to be horrified (as good, moral people should be) at the very thought of handing a child over to evil. The problem is, there's so much evil in the world, there's a good chance a kid will fall prey to it anyway--at least Linoge's heir will be equipped for it.

And then there's "Children of Earth." With the same basic plot device--an evil force wants to make off with children--this show, primarily written by Russell T. Davies, takes us in a much darker direction. First, as mentioned above, we are dealing with 10% of earth's children, not one child from a small Maine town. Second, while Linoge wants an heir, the 4-5-6 want the children for "the hit": They are, in effect, drug addicts, and the drug to which they are addicted is a chemical compound found in pre-pubescent children. And the children aren't killed to extract the chemical: They are hooked into the 4-5-6 and kept alive perpetually while the drug is leached out of them.

On Little Tall Island, the townspeople are basically god-fearing Christians, trying to do what's best for the community. In the London of "Children of Earth," we are in the hands of feckless politicians, who want to save the world but who also want to ensure that they will receive no blame for the decision. (And in terms of dialogue--no offense, Stephen King--the debate between the politicians in "Children" is exponentially more compelling than the corresponding town-hall meeting in "Storm.")

Finally, there is the outcome of both shows (spoiler alert). In "Storm of the Century," a child is ultimately chosen by lot. And while the child's father--unsurprisingly, the one who most vocally wanted to defy Linoge--is distraught, he can hypothetically take some small comfort in the fact that his child survives: He even sees him later on. In "Children" Jack figures out how to stop the 4-5-6; the only problem is, in order to do this, he must directly cause the death of one child. And, through a series of unfortunate events, the only child available is his own grandson. The earth is saved, but Jack watches his own grandson die painfully right in front of his eyes. Oh, and the boy's mother--Jack's daughter--watches the whole thing happen, too.

The purpose of science-fiction--good science-fiction--is to present the audience with a vision of the world as it might be, or as it could be if we're not careful. British science-fiction television presents us with these visions and the moral consequences to which they might lead. Unlike much American television, though, the British give us the morality play without quite so much moralizing. Check it out!

("Torchwood" image from Scifi.co.uk)

Lies Your Teacher Told You

You know how teachers always say, "There are no stupid questions"? Well, we're lying. There are stupid questions--eye-rollingly obtuse questions that make us want to smack our hands against our heads or our heads against walls. We're not talking about intentional provocations or snotty questions lobbed by aspiring class clowns. Those are at worst minor annoyances and often kind of entertaining. No, when we speak of stupid questions, we are speaking of inquiries of an inanely specific, can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees type.

A hypothetical example:

Picture a math class. (Longtime Sloppists will recall that YNSHC is a writing teacher, so this is meant for illustration purposes only and does not portray an actual occurrence). Let's say we're trying to explain a basic algebra operation:

2X + 3 = 29

Now, we would presumably explain to the class that we want to "isolate the variable," i.e., get 'X' by itself, and that the first step would be to subtract 3 from both sides of the equation:

2X + 3 = 29

- 3 -3

2X = 26

Then, we would explain that you next divide both sides by 2 to solve for 'X.'

X = 13

At this point, there are any number of reasonable questions. "Why don't you divide by 2 first?" "CAN we divide by 2 first?" "Why did you subtract 3?" "Couldn't we have added 3?" Even the eminently reasonable, "I'm confused, can we do that again?" Seriously, the number of non-stupid questions is infinite! The stupid question, however, is a very specific animal.

It usually begins with something like, "So, just so I understand. . . ." Longtime educators have a visceral reaction to this preface and its ilk. Because invariably what's coming next is a statement that shows that, not only does the student NOT understand, but he has probably drawn some conclusion from the evidence presented that defies any concept of logic as propounded by any philosopher of any school at any time.

"So, just so I understand, you subtracted 3 because the number was 29?"

"Uh. . . no. The problem was (pointing slowly at the problem on the board) '2X plus 3 equals 29.'

"Right."

"So, I subtracted 3 because I'm trying to figure out what 'X' is, so I want to get the variable, 'X,' by itself."

"OK."

"And whatever I do to one side of the equation, I have to do to the other side of the equation."

"Right, because it equals 29."

"Well, here it does, but. . . . Wait, let's try another problem. Maybe that will make this clearer."

"OK."

"OK. How about this: 3y + 4 = 49."

"What happened to 29?"

"This is a different problem."

"Oh, OK! So, you added '15' to '29' to get '49.'"

"What? Well, no. . . . I mean, it would be '20,' but that's not. . . . "

At this point, the Solipsist will usually tell the class to take a five-minute break.

The thing that gets us is not that the student doesn't understand. That, after all, is what teachers are there for: to educate. What's exasperating about this kind of question is the underlying arrogance--"Just so I understand." In other words, "I've got this, but I'm going to show you how I have processed it, which is invariably going to display my superior grasp of this subject." These students think they have stumbled on to the fundamental truth underlying whatever subject you are trying to explain. They think that a basic memorization of a few basic facts (like the "fact" that 2X + 3 = 29) will allow them to understand everything they need to know. And they want to force this simplification onto the actual meaning you are trying to explain--onto reality, if you will.

And think about it: Someone who tries to adjust reality to fit his or her own worldview. To say, for example, that there are weapons of mass destruction or alliances with terrorists where none, in fact, exist. Does that sound familiar?

Is it any wonder the Solipsist gets angry?

(You may be thinking, "Gosh, Solipsist, aren't you worried that your students will read this?" Frankly, no. Any students who read this and "get it" are well beyond the impulse to force reality to conform to their expectations. They're not the ones asking stupid questions.)

"Plus Eight" Is Too Much!

We apologize in advance for the curmudgeonly, cranky, kvetchy (what is it about words for "complaining" that they have to start with a 'k-' sound?) tone we're probably going to drift into. We know you all look to the Solipsist for a daily dose of sunshine--especially you in the arctic--but we can't quite summon the spirit today. Not sure why. We found ourselves growing unaccountably, disproportionately irritated by the sight of Susan Boyle dominating the Yahoo! homepage. As far as we understand, she's this "America's (or Britain's?) Got Talent" star, and apparently what made her a star in the first place was the fact that she could actually sing despite being--what's the word?--unattractive. Maybe there's more to her story--we've never troubled ourselves with delving deeper. But, y'know, if people are shocked by the fact of an unattractive person who can sing. . . . Seriously, have they never heard of Mick Jagger?

Then our irritation grew at the supermarket checkout line, where no fewer than three periodicals featured news on the erstwhile TV stars Jon and Kate (minus "8"). And that was just the last straw. Honestly, why are these people news? So, they had a TV show for a while, but, y'know, we never cared for the show the FIRST time it was on, when it was called "Eight Is Enough"! And that had Dick Van Patten! (And. y'know, we can't get enough of ol' DVP! We could watch him read the phone book!)

So, what, "Kate" has high-functioning ovaries, and we're supposed to give a crap? We're willing to bet that there are more than a few families in the third world (in which we include Utah) who've managed to procreate themselves a baseball team, some of whom may even be more telegenic than the reverse-mulleted Kate and the frankly odd-looking Jon. But no! We get these two losers.

Look, Jon, how stupid are you? You had what must have been a fairly lucrative thing going with this reality show, the whole premise of which was that you and your wife were a loving couple dealing with the trials and tribulations of raising a litter. (Again, we're guessing: God knows we never watched THAT show!) So, what do you do? YOU CHEAT ON YOUR WIFE!!!

Hey, we can imagine what it must be like. As a reality-TV "star," you must have had women throwing themselves at you. We're all too familiar with the fact that all it takes to become an object of female desire is a bit of celebrity. Why, here at the Solipsist, we fend off at least a dozen marriage proposals a week. (WOS is NOT pleased!) Still, you're an idiot. You need to take your lead from other high-profile couples, like the Clintons. He cheated, but obviously he and Hillary have an understanding, and he became president, and she became a senator and secretary of state, and somehow, through it all, they managed to raise a poised, intelligent, well-adjusted daughter. You could have outdone the Clintons eightfold!

But we're getting off topic. Our original point was that we were infuriated by the attention being lavished on these two. We're all for distractions. Lord knows we need them these days. Still, with the economy still in the dumps, with unemployment growing, with the largest state in the union teetering on the brink of fiscal armageddon, with the American automobile industry decimated, with wars raging and Americans (and others) dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, with ethno-religious slaughter occurring in eastern Africa, central Africa, China, and elsewhere, with major portions of the world's population suffering the various indignities of illness, starvation, poverty, or just plain old desperate loneliness and depression, who in their right mind or in any kind of good conscience can waste more than a second's thought on this vacuous, voyeuristic, and frankly sleazy subject?

Enough!

Where have you gone Dick Van Patten? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

(Image from TV Guide)

Nuggets of Wisdom

Homo sapiens sapiens has existed on earth in approximately its current form for at least 100,000 years. And for at least the last 20,000 of those years, they have liked to eat. The evolution of eating, though, is a record of challenges overcome.

First, there was the difficulty posed by the mobility of potential foodstuffs. While a considerable variety of stationary edibles is available for human consumption, it's a well-established fact that the tastiness of a food is in direct proportion to its absolute land speed: Vegetables, bleah! Snails, only slightly better (and only if you're French). Cow, sheep, chicken? Yummy! Cheetah? De-fucking-licious! Still, as human beings developed in intelligence, they largely overcame this obstacle through steady innovation of hunting technology: clubs begat bows and arrows begat AK-47's.

Next, human beings had to deal with the fact that foodstuffs often proved deadly. The ratio between a food's tastiness and potential lethality is also apparently a direct one (see: fugu). Again, though, human ingenuity triumphed as people learned that cleaning and cooking their meals significantly reduced the incidence of post-prandial mortality.

(Digression: And you have to admire what this says about human determination. After the first fugu-eater died, people didn't stop trying to eat it. No! It moved, ergo, it was potential food! They just had to solve the mystery. So they went after that little blowfish! How many people were sacrificed in the name of culinary delight? It doesn't matter! Pass the wasabi! EOD)

By the time we reached the modern age, we had largely solved the problems of food-gathering and food preparation. Now, however, we faced the problem of inconvenience. After all, we were a society on the move. We could hardly be expected to sit placidly at a table just for the sake of eating. We had things to do. Thus the advent of hand-held food (sandwiches and the like). And it was not too long ago that man devised the ideal food design.

We speak, of course, of the nugget.

Seriously, is there any more perfect nutrient-delivery system? You can get all your basic food groups--meat, dairy, grain, uh. . . trans-fats--one finger-full at a time. We're not just talking chicken, you understand. Today we sampled an A&W special: the corn-dog nugget! (It's just what you think it is.) And why stop there? The possibilities are limitless:

The breakfast nugget: bite-sized portions of scrambled eggs, wrapped in bacon, dipped in corn meal and deep-fried.

The fruit nugget: strawberries stuffed with watermelon and apples and . . . and. . . and figs! (Dipped in corn meal and deep-fried.)

The nugget digestif: prunes stuffed with bran, wrapped in a corn husk, dipped in corn meal and deep-fried.

The nuggetberg: chopped liver mushed together with gefilte fish, wrapped in matzoh-meal and, well, you know. . . .

If humanity is to continue evolving, our foodstuffs must evolve with us. The nugget is the clear next step on the evolutionary ladder.

The perfect food? (Image from flickr.com)

The Final Frontier (A Brief Post)

This was not--we repeat, NOT--the "Mr. Irrelevant News Story of the Day": "Toilet Is Fixed on Space Station"

Seems a toilet pump in a laboratory broke, and it fell to Colonel Gennady A. Padalka and flight engineer Frank De Winne to fix it. Who knew that "flight engineer" was a euphemism for plumber? And do you suppose that you need a certain rank in the Russian military before you're allowed near a cosmic commode? "I'd like to help, Sir, but I'm just a lieutenant. I lack the proper clearances."

Amid all the reminiscences and celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, it seems both ironic and appropriate that the next day's news highlights the mundanity of spaceflight. We've come far enough in our conquest of the heavens that shuttle launches and spacewalks are routine, and the words "space station" are no longer confined to science fiction. Yet we still remain prisoners of our earthbound needs.

We can't help but feel a certain disappointment that we haven't gotten farther.

(Image from The New York Times)

Grammar in the News: Can You Google Someone on Yahoo!?

When is a xerox not a Xerox? Quite often, really. Any time you make a photocopy of a document on a Canon or a Hewlett-Packard or a Minolta, in fact. For Xerox is a brand and not a verb. In principle, you can no more "Xerox" something than you can "McDonald's," "Adidas," or "Home Depot" it. In practice, of course, people xerox at least as often as they photocopy--if only to save themselves a couple of syllables.

What's interesting is companies' changing attitudes towards such verbification. In the past, Xerox waged a fierce if ultimately futile campaign to discourage people from using their name as a verb. Their not unreasonable concern was that people would link their name with their competitors' products, thus undermining their marketing department's efforts to create a distinctive brand. Lawyers even have a term for this process: genericide; this is what happens when a brand name becomes associated with a "generic" product or action. Thus any photocopied material becomes a xerox; anything used to dull a headache is an aspirin (originally a trademarked term); any piece of tissue into which you deposit bodily fluids is a kleenex.

But far from seeing it as a death-knell, companies now are often indifferent to--or even enthusiastic supporters of--genericide. Rebecca Tushnet (and if ever a name deserved trademark protection, that's one!), a trademark law expert at Georgetown University, says, "What people know from marketing experience now and what people now understand as a practical matter is that it is very good when people use your name as a verb" (see "The Power of the Brand as Verb").

Perhaps no fiercer defender of corporate intellectual property exists than Microsoft. And yet, referring to the name of their new search engine, Bing, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has expressed enthusiasm at the possibiliy of Bing to "verb up." Ballmer hopes that in the not-to-distant future, people will "bing" prospective employees, romantic partners, or even (especially) themselves.

In other words, Ballmer is really hoping that Bing will supplant Google--not just in terms of what people use to conduct internet searches, but in how they think of internet searches, period. But Microsoft's willingness (or hope) to be thought of in the same way as Google must not be seen so much as generous self-effacement or even resignation to the inevitable as a wish to reform their image: "See, the Evil Empire is really just like the 'Don't be evil' empire. Why google someone when you can bing 'em?"

No word yet on whether the Twitter people are going to attempt to trademark the verb "to tweet." Let's hope not. Just in case, though, the Solipsist is accepting contributions to a legal defense fund set up on behalf of birds.

Ageless Wonders (Plus, Stuff WOS Hates)

Although he came up short in the final round of the British Open, Tom Watson was the talk of the sports world this weekend. Watson, in case you don't know, is a professsional golfer. Going into today's final round at Turnberry Wells (Scotland), he held a one-stroke lead in the tournament. Had he held on to win, it would have been his sixth victory in the tournament, tying a record. More notable was that Watson was accomplishing this less than two months away from his 60th birthday.

People everywhere, golf enthusiasts or not, thrilled to this story of the ageless wonder keeping pace with--indeed, outperforming--competitors half his age. While we respect Watson's feat as much as anyone, we cannot help but see his impressive run for the claret jug as support for a hypothesis that we formulated some time ago: Golf is not a sport.

Now, wait, just wait. We do not deny the skill of professional golfers. But that's all it is: a skill, something that can be learned. What makes Tiger Woods special is not that he can shoot under par at a major golf tournament; what makes him special is that he can do it over and over and over again (with the exception of this weekend, apparently). It's really just about discipline and practice. In other words, there is nothing stopping anybody, anywhere, from beating Tiger Woods. If the Solipsist started today and practiced regularly, HE could challenge Tiger.

You may object that this is true of any sport. It isn't. Consider: Do you know anyone who plays tennis? Not a pro, just somebody who enjoys the game and is in pretty good shape. This player probably beats most competitors. But could this person outplay Roger Federer or Serena Williams? Hell, could he or she return a SERVE from either of these people? Our guess is, no. On the other hand, if you know people who play golf regularly, you would have to say that, if they went to Bethpage Black and had a great day, they could conceivably shoot as low as anyone on the professional tour. Why not?

The essence of sport is competition between players, whether individuals or teams. What makes sports interesting is watching well-matched competitors trying their best to outperform each other--trying to excel while their opponents try to keep them from excelling. And it really has very little to do with the absolute skill level of the competitors. That's why it's ultimately more interesting to watch a couple of equally-skilled amateur tennis players battle it out than it is to watch a professional golfer make a spectacular tee shot, even if that professional golfer is a member of AARP. Watching sports is fascinating; watching skill demonstrations can be interesting, but more often than not it just reminds us of grading papers.

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STUFF WOS HATES

You know what I hate? Keith Morrison! He's a television "journalist" on NBC. He's also a pseudo-literary wannabe intellectual toolbag! Who the hell does he think he is? Shakespeare? Now, I love me some real-crime TV like Dateline. But every episode narrated by that wombat makes me want to shoot myself in the head! If there were a dictionary entry for "brain-dead jack-off," his picture would be next to it! Good God! I mean, every cliche, every melodramatic metaphor, every moralistic rant, every line of his crap writing is enough to make me sick! (Ack! I just puked in my mouth!) He thinks he's some kind of master stylist, but he's more Jenny McCarthy than Cormac McCarthy, less Elmore Leonard than Elmer Fudd! You ever see a sine curve? You know how it goes uuup and dooown, uuuup and dooown? Well that's Morrison's speech pattern! Just what we need, right? An anchorman who learned his diction in trig. class! Could he BE more monotonous? My laptop has a less irritating speech pattern. Less boring, too! "TIME (rising voice) was an enemy (falling voice) for the prosecutors (leveling off)." It's not easy to lull someone to sleep with a description of a triple homicide, BUT HE MANAGES TO DO IT! It's as if Count Chocula were anchoring the nightly news! This man makes Maury Povich look like Walter Cronkite, and Walter Cronkite look like. . . .well, like God! Listen, Keith Morrison, you cereal-shilling, pseudo-vampiric, sine-curve speaking dolt: Get off the air and out of my life before I find you and punch you in your stupid ugly face!!!!

Thank you for listening.

--WOS

Better watch out for WOS, Keith

(Image from "Inside Dateline")