In Praise of Endings

Narrative artists, whether they write books or make movies or produce television shows, have a fundamental responsibility to their audiences: to provide closure. One of the earliest lessons we received about writing (we're talking fifth grade here) was to know how your story would end before you started writing it. Unless the ambiguous ending is the point (see, "The Lady or the Tiger"), no writer should leave the audience hanging without having a damn good reason for doing so--like, dying before finishing the manuscript (see, The Mystery of Edwin Drood). For the most part, writers have observed this basic rule.

Television writers, though, have a problem. Unlike novelists, who pretty much have sole control over their means of production, or filmmakers who, while dependent on others to finance their projects, still have the ability to create and release only self-contained stories, television producers--show-runners--are at the mercy of networks and sponsors. Thus, while long-form television dramas have arguably become the primary vehicles for narrative artistry ("The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Mad Men," etc., etc., etc.), viewers of these shows run a constant risk of being heartbroken when they reach the shows' (non-)ending.

You may recall our lament upon reaching the end of season two of the Danish supernatural-horror series "The Kingdom." Director Lars von Trier hooked us utterly on these characters and their story and then, at the end of season two, left us hanging. We don't know whether the decision to stop after two seasons was his or his backers', but either way, we felt cheated (which is why we informed our brethren in the international Jewish conspiracy to mess with von Trier, thus explaining his recent antisemitic outbursts--which, if you read them, don't even sound that anti-semitic--but we digress. Where were we?).

We recently checked out "Flash Forward" on Netflix. In this "Lost"-style show, the entire world blacks out for about 90 seconds, during which everyone has visions of their future. An FBI agent (Joseph Fiennes) and others race to figure out the meaning of the blackout and the visions. The first and only season ends in a cliffhanger, and the network (thank you, ABC) declined to pick up the show for another season. Another recent show, "Reaper," is a black-comedy about a young man, Sam, whose parents sold his soul to the Devil. Satan, who dresses and acts like a Rat-Pack lounge lizard, employs Sam in capturing escaped souls. After two seasons, the show went off the air, leaving unresolved the question of whether Sam would ever escape eternal damnation. It makes us reluctant to invest our time in what may be a worthwhile aesthetic experience, the fact that we may grow attached only to be left in limbo.

It's one thing for people's real lives to end suddenly and unexpectedly. We hardly need to suffer through that sort of thing in fiction.

Which brings us to "Life on Mars." In this show, NYPD detective Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) is investigating a murder in 2008. He is hit by a car and knocked unconscious. When he awakens, he is still an NYPD detective, but a glance across the East River, where he sees the Twin Towers, tells him that something has changed: He has traveled back to the year 1973.


On one level, the show is a straightforward police drama. While Sam adjusts to the social norms of police work in 1973 New York--the casual police brutality, male chauvinism, and general slovenliness--he and his partners investigate the same sorts of murders and mayhem you would find in any episode of "Law and Order." But the show works on other levels, too. There is, of course, the science-fiction time-traveling mystery: Why was Sam transported back in time, and can he get back to 2008? One potential reason for his adventures may be his need to grapple with traumas from his past, particularly his relationship with his absent (and, we soon find, criminal) father. Each episode nicely interweaves these different aspects. And Harvey Keitel, who plays Sam's lieutenant, is by himself worth the price of admission.

We watched this show, which ran for one season, with growing trepidation as we neared the 17th and final episode. We feared that Sam would remain trapped in 1973, with no answers and only tantalizing hints about a way back--hints that would, because of penny-pinching network executives, never lead to a solution.

You can imagine our relief, then, when the final episode actually, get this, concluded the story. The ending was thorough and satisfactory (if not wholly satisfying). All the major questions were answered. And what we found truly gratifying was the sense that the show's creators fully intended for the show to end this way from the beginning: The plot points that made the ending reasonable and understandable were there throughout the series.

So, if you're looking for something to watch over the course of a rainy weekend, check out "Life on Mars" with the full assurance that the show will satisfy your need for closure.

More Musings

Something major struck us this morning: None of the Hogwarts faculty are married. There's no Mrs. Dumbledore, no Mr. McGonigall. Maybe there was a Mrs. Snape, but he probably killed her.

You suppose they take a wizardly vow of celibacy or something?

And Then There's the "With or Without You Polka"

This morning, a radio station was giving away tickets to a U2 concert. In order to win the tickets, one had to correctly identify snippets of three U2 songs that had been arranged as lullabies. We easily picked out the first two, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "One," but we were stumped by song number three (turned out to be "Beautiful Day").

The POINT is, there MAY be creepier things in the world than a music-box-style lullaby version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," but if there are, we can't think of any.

Glee

No, not the show. Rather, a reaction to what happened yesterday in New York's 26th congressional district. The 26th is one of the most conservative districts in the country. It was one of only four New York districts to go for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008. Indeed, voters in the 26th preferred Carl Paladino over Andrew Cuomo in the race for governor. To put that in perspective for those of you unfamiliar with New York politics, voting for Paladino over Cuomo in New York would be like a Massachusetts resident voting for, say, Sarah Palin over Ted Kennedy: Only the hardest dying of diehard Republicans would do it.

And yet, in a special election held yesterday to fill the seat vacated by Representative Christopher Lee, forced to resign after e-mailing shirtless pictures of himself to a prospective paramour (in his defense, did you see his abs?!?), Erie County clerk Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, defeated Jane Corwin, the Republican who had held the seat on an interim basis. At the outset, Hochul was given virtually no chance of prevailing, but the tide turned after Corwin cast a vote in favor of Paul Ryan's budget plan to "reform" (read: destroy) Medicare.

Does this mean the GOP has finally overreached? Will the backlash go national next year? It's too early to tell. As GOP spin doctors and others point out, this was a special election that largely turned on one issue, and a Tea Party candidate likely drained support from Jane Corwin. Still, it's a promising start, suggesting that the general public, once they recognize what the Republican majority has in store for America, may start to realize where their true interest lies.

One can hope.

Solipsistography
"Democrat Wins G.O.P. Seat; Rebuke Seen to Medicare Plan"

Baryshnikov Gets a 10 from the Russian Judge

So about those cheerleaders.

About a month ago, we posted a piece about the lengths colleges and universities go to so as not to run afoul of Title IX, federal legislation promoting gender equality in higher education. Some colleges, for example, double- or triple-count female athletes for partipating in the same sport for multiple "teams" (e.g., cross-country, and track and field); others have even counted men who participate on women's practice squads as women. All things being equal, then, the movement to have cheerleading recognized as an official NCAA sport, which would immediately go a long way towards addressing gender imbalances, is an improvement.

We have a problem, though, with considering cheerleading--or "competitive cheer" as it is technically known--

(DIGRESSION: Yeah that's MUCH better. "Competitive cheer"? Sounds like an olympic event for depressives: "Come on, Mitch! You can do it! These guys can't cheer up to save their lives! You got 'em Mitch, you got--Oh, no, Mitch! Not the fetal position!" EOD)

--a "sport."

Understand, we emphatically agree that cheerleaders display athleticism. We certainly couldn't do anything close to the flips and flops and twirls these ladies (and a few men) do. But just because something is athletic does not make it a sport.

Sports require winners. And winning must be objective. If winning is based on subjective, aesthetic criteria, then the event in question is not a sport--it's an art. Some will argue with us: "What about figure skating? That's in the Olympics!" It is in the Olympics, but it is not a sport--it's an artistic display. The fact that scandals and controversies frequently erupt over the judging of figure skating only confirms our belief that it is not a true sport.

To put it another way, while judges (or referees or umpires) certainly have an impact on sporting events, they cannot simply declare one individual or team the winner based on personal preference. A football drive starting on the one-yard-line and covering 99 yards will always--and regardless of aesthetic considerations--be worth more points than one that goes 98.

And if the sole criteria for something to be considered a sport is athleticism, why not hold up scorecards during performances of "Swan Lake"?

Solipsistography
"Born on Sideline, Cheering Clamors to Be Sport"

Time for Movement

We have skewed priorities. This realization struck us when, today, we realized we were more perplexed by the question of whether cheerleading qualifies as a sport than by the question of what should be done in the Middle East peace process.

Tensions flared after President Obama explicitly stated that any comprehensive peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians must use Israel's 1967 borders as a starting point. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others took exception. What has gotten lost in the uproar over the President's remarks, however, are the facts that (a) Obama proposed this as a starting point for negotiations, not a goal; (b) he emphasized that the 1967 borders will need to be adjusted with mutually-agreed upon land swaps to account for modern reality; and, most importantly, (c) President Obama merely made explicit what everybody, American and Israeli (and Arab and European and Russian and so on), has implicitly understood for the last 40 years. Only those fundamentally opposed to a peace deal see things otherwise.

For what it's worth, we think Israel must make some grand gesture along the lines Obama and others have outlined. We understand and sympathize with Israeli fears that a large portion of the Arab world is hostile to the very idea of Israel's existence, and we worry, too, that these parties are less than reliable peace partners. But what choice is there? Ultimately, Israel is surrounded by enemies. Her only hope for long-term survival is to build and maintain as much international support as possible. By showing willingness to embrace serious peace proposals, Israel maintains the moral high ground she has as the only truly functioning democracy in the Middle East. If and when Israel is still met only with terrorism and other hostilities, she can legitimately claim she has tried everything and been met with nothing but recalcitrant violence.

Some will say this is too risky a strategy, but they should remember that Israel still has the most sophisticated military in the region and, yes, the explicit backing of the most powerful country in the world. Israel needs to take some risks, and now is the time to do so.

OK, we'll get to the cheerleading thing tomorrow.

Trendy

Well, the world's still here. Frankly, we didn't prepare for this eventuality. We thought our blogging days--everybody's days, really--were over. But, here we still are, still feeling the pressure to enliven the days and embrighten the nights of Solipsist Nation. And we are not prepared! Thanks a lot, Mr. Camping.

Well, let's count down what's "Trending Now," at 3:46 PM, PST, on Sunday, May 22, 2011:

10. SOCIAL SECURITY: Starting May 1, the Social Security Administration will no longer issue paper checks. Instead, seniors will receive their payments via direct deposit. The fact that this item is "trending now," on May 22, some three weeks after the direct-deposit program began, provides appropriate commentary on the wisdom of implementing a high-tech program for the senior set.

9. OWEN WILSON: Because he's in a Woody Allen movie that is actually doing well at the box office. While we're on the subject of Owen Wilson, are other people out there as disturbed by his nose as we are?

8. STOCK PRICES: Because, in a true oddity, the Dow was at EXACTLY the same level at the end of the day Sunday as it was at the beginning!

7. KIM CLIJSTERS: It turns out, the 'j' isn't silent.

6. NOODLING: "Noodling" is the "sport" of "catching" catfish "with" your bare hands--or, more specifically, by letting the catfish swallow your arm up to the elbow. The Texas legislature has just legalized noodling. This will come as a relief to all those who desperately wanted to stick their arm down a catfish's guller but feared running afoul of the law.

5. RANDY SAVAGE: Still dead. His body was buried at sea in a dignified ceremony befitting the greatest wrestler never to hold elected office in Minnesota.

4. LADY GAGA: No particular reason. But Lady Gaga's appearance on a list of "trendy things" is akin to Meryl Streep's appearance on a list of Oscar nominees: Legally mandated.

3. PARALYZED MAN IMPLANT: A London man, Rob Summers, paralyzed after a car accident has begun to walk again thanks to a revolutionary spinal implant. Coincidentally, last night, WOS and the Solipsist watched "Extreme Measures," in which Gene Hackman plays a neurosurgeon who develops a technique to, yes, regrow damaged nerves to cure paralysis. Unfortunately, he has to experiment on homeless people, who die horribly shortly after receiving Hackman's implants. All we're saying is, congratulations to Summers and his doctors. But the London police may want to carefully investigate any disappearances among the City's homeless population.

2. JODIE FOSTER: Her latest directorial endeavour opened this weekend. In this movie, "The Beaver," Mel Gibson plays a mental patient who needs to communicte through a beaver puppet that he wears on his hand. Insert your own Mel-Gibson-talking-through-Jodie-Foster's-Beaver joke here.

And, the DAY'S TRENDIEST STORY is. . . .

1. RACHEL MCADAMS: Apparently she's an actress, and apparently she's dating Michael Sheen, not to be confused with Charlie Sheen, which we assume is what happened 'cause otherwise why would this be the day's trendiest item?