The Week in Television
Most of my inside time this week was spent revisiting the ridiculously entertaining first season of Glee with my house guest. And we also started watching the first season of House, which I have never seen. I only managed to fit in one episode of Breaking Bad this week: the excellent penultimate episode of season two.
Tuesday, June 1st
Loved: Glee (1x21)
While Glee's titular anvillicious theme of the week concept is really growing old, "Funk" was one of the better examples in a while. The musical moments were above average, especially "Loser" and "Good Vibrations," Terri! was back and awesome, and Will seduced Sue in the most absurd storyline in the short history of this absurd series (edit: make that second most absurd, because I was just reminded about the Olivia Newton John and Sue Sylvester "Physical" video).
Wednesday, June 2nd
Liked: So You Think You Can Dance (7x2)
Thursday, June 3rd
Liked: So You Think You Can Dance (7x3)
Yeah, I'm watching SYTYCD again this year. What? Fuck off. If it's good enough for Mightyfuckinggodking to review on a weekly basis, it's good enough for me to watch but never, ever mention ever again on this blog.
Friday, June 4th
Liked: Party Down (2x7), Stargate Universe (1x19)
Stargate Universe's "Incursion" was better than last week's first part to this Lucian Alliance storyline, but it still felt too SG1ish (not a compliment). There were more character moments at least, but it was still very plot heavy and not entirely convincing in that regard. I have low expectations for next week's finale.
While the "Party Down Company Picnic" was an enjoyable change of pace for the series, it didn't quite have the magic of the past few weeks for me. There is just something slightly lacking when the Party Down crew is not screwing up someone's well-planned (except for the hiring of Party Down) party.
Saturday, June 5th
Loved: Doctor Who (5x10)
I wasn't sure at first what to make of Richard Curtis' first stab at writing for Doctor Who, "Vincent and the Doctor," but this was an episode that got better and better throughout. And one of the single best scenes in new Doctor Who history is in this episode; it brought tears to my eyes. Fantastic!
Monday, June 7, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Week in Review, May 24 to 30
The Week in Video Games
I picked up the new Super Mario Galaxy 2 earlier in the week, but I haven't put a lot of time into it yet, collecting only 10 stars so far. The original Galaxy is easily one of my favourite Wii games, so it's no surprise that I am greatly enjoying my time in Galaxy 2. Nintendo kept everything that was awesome about the original and improved everything that was merely good. The first few levels are each interesting and unique, and the new power-ups I've been introduced to so far are terrific. Nintendo's Mario games rarely fail to impress (I had to say "rarely" instead of "never" because of Sunshine, which had moments of brilliance but was overall only good), so I can't say I'm surprised by the superlative quality of this game.
The Week in Television
I originally started watching Californication to break up the darkness of Breaking Bad with something lighter, but then I became hooked on Californication instead, and whipped through all three seasons in a couple of days. I have always enjoyed David Duchovny (I really don't know why I didn't watch this series until now...?), and his Hank Moody is a hilarious asshole, constantly fucking up, redeeming himself, and then fucking up all over again. The third season, especially, was very, very entertaining, establishing a ridiculous sex farce and running with it. I'm now impatiently waiting for a fourth season.
Once I was done with Californication, it was back to Breaking Bad's second season, which quickly hooked me in its own way. This series is by turns intense, hilarious, heart-breaking, and depressing. Shocking events are the norm. I have two episodes left in the second season. And this can not possibly end well.
Monday, May 24th
Loved: Chuck (3x18/19)
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x23)
Meh: How I Met Your Mother (5x24)
Chuck already had a terrific season finale earlier this year, so when the season was extended by NBC, the writers must have felt challenged to top it. And, wow, they succeeded--big time! "Chuck Versus the Subway" and "Chuck Versus the Ring, Part II" were awesome. Simply fucking awesome. I'm glad they aired both of these episodes on the same evening, as they worked so well together, telling a great focused story of Chuck, with much assistance from family and friends, versus Shaw and the Ring. There was maybe a touch more cheese than I would have preferred, and some story details were retconilicious, but those are nitpicks. The Chuck and Shaw Intersect showdown in the Buy More with Jeffster's "Blaze of Glory" in the background was one of the best things this show has ever done. And the ending was simply jaw dropping, providing an intriguing setup for a fourth season. Holy hell am I glad this show was renewed.
The Big Bang Theory's season finale, "The Lunar Excitation," was somewhat underwhelming. It was funny throughout, but it was awkwardly structured, and the best moment of the entire episode was the end tag with Sheldon meeting his online dating match. And that scene was completely spoiled for me numerous times throughout the past week in promos for this episode--promos that effectively ruined this episode for me, because they made it seem like the episode was going to be about Sheldon meeting his match. But it was actually more about Penny getting drunk and regretfully having sex with Leonard.
"Dopplegangers" was a much better episode of How I Met Your Mother than last week's nonsense, but I gave last week a Liked nod... what gives? The difference is that "Dopplegangers" was the season finale for the ultra lame fifth season, and therefore my expectations for some substance and redemption for the season as a whole were much higher. And almost completely unmet. Sure, there was some funny stuff, and even a little storyline progress with Lily and Marshall and Robin and Don, but what's the title of this fucking show again? This entire season of How I Met Your Mother was a giant fucking waste of time. And it's a damn shame.
Tuesday, May 25th
Liked: Glee (1x20)
"Theatricality" was an okay episode of Glee. Musically, it was all Lady Gaga for the girls (and Kurt!) and Kiss for the guys, so bleh! "Beth" was okay. "Poker Face" was just fucking bizarre. The scene of the night belonged to Burt as he came to Kurt's defense over Finn's use of the word "faggy." Hopefully at some point in the future it will be acknowledged that Finn was not entirely in the wrong when he became angry at Kurt's stalkish behaviour. The other major storyline was Rachel meeting her mother, which had an unexpected ending.
Friday, May 28th
Loved: Party Down (2x6)
"'Not On Your Wife' Opening Night" was a farce-tastic Party Down, cleverly plotted, making good use of every character, and simply hilarious from beginning to end.
Saturday, May 29th
Loved: Doctor Who (5x9)
Doctor Who's "Cold Blood" at times felt much like an episode of Star Trek. This is not a bad thing, but the Trek vibe made it rather easy to predict the direction that the Silurians storyline would take. They thankfully aren't Cybermen or Daleks, but the Silurians weren't that much more impressive as villains, rarely feeling like the threat that last week built them up to be. In the end, though, this episode will be remembered for its devastating final minutes. Never before has new Doctor Who made such impressive use of a season long story arc. I realize that this ending will most likely be undone in the finale, but it was still a dark place to go.
I picked up the new Super Mario Galaxy 2 earlier in the week, but I haven't put a lot of time into it yet, collecting only 10 stars so far. The original Galaxy is easily one of my favourite Wii games, so it's no surprise that I am greatly enjoying my time in Galaxy 2. Nintendo kept everything that was awesome about the original and improved everything that was merely good. The first few levels are each interesting and unique, and the new power-ups I've been introduced to so far are terrific. Nintendo's Mario games rarely fail to impress (I had to say "rarely" instead of "never" because of Sunshine, which had moments of brilliance but was overall only good), so I can't say I'm surprised by the superlative quality of this game.
The Week in Television
I originally started watching Californication to break up the darkness of Breaking Bad with something lighter, but then I became hooked on Californication instead, and whipped through all three seasons in a couple of days. I have always enjoyed David Duchovny (I really don't know why I didn't watch this series until now...?), and his Hank Moody is a hilarious asshole, constantly fucking up, redeeming himself, and then fucking up all over again. The third season, especially, was very, very entertaining, establishing a ridiculous sex farce and running with it. I'm now impatiently waiting for a fourth season.
Once I was done with Californication, it was back to Breaking Bad's second season, which quickly hooked me in its own way. This series is by turns intense, hilarious, heart-breaking, and depressing. Shocking events are the norm. I have two episodes left in the second season. And this can not possibly end well.
Monday, May 24th
Loved: Chuck (3x18/19)
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x23)
Meh: How I Met Your Mother (5x24)
Chuck already had a terrific season finale earlier this year, so when the season was extended by NBC, the writers must have felt challenged to top it. And, wow, they succeeded--big time! "Chuck Versus the Subway" and "Chuck Versus the Ring, Part II" were awesome. Simply fucking awesome. I'm glad they aired both of these episodes on the same evening, as they worked so well together, telling a great focused story of Chuck, with much assistance from family and friends, versus Shaw and the Ring. There was maybe a touch more cheese than I would have preferred, and some story details were retconilicious, but those are nitpicks. The Chuck and Shaw Intersect showdown in the Buy More with Jeffster's "Blaze of Glory" in the background was one of the best things this show has ever done. And the ending was simply jaw dropping, providing an intriguing setup for a fourth season. Holy hell am I glad this show was renewed.
The Big Bang Theory's season finale, "The Lunar Excitation," was somewhat underwhelming. It was funny throughout, but it was awkwardly structured, and the best moment of the entire episode was the end tag with Sheldon meeting his online dating match. And that scene was completely spoiled for me numerous times throughout the past week in promos for this episode--promos that effectively ruined this episode for me, because they made it seem like the episode was going to be about Sheldon meeting his match. But it was actually more about Penny getting drunk and regretfully having sex with Leonard.
"Dopplegangers" was a much better episode of How I Met Your Mother than last week's nonsense, but I gave last week a Liked nod... what gives? The difference is that "Dopplegangers" was the season finale for the ultra lame fifth season, and therefore my expectations for some substance and redemption for the season as a whole were much higher. And almost completely unmet. Sure, there was some funny stuff, and even a little storyline progress with Lily and Marshall and Robin and Don, but what's the title of this fucking show again? This entire season of How I Met Your Mother was a giant fucking waste of time. And it's a damn shame.
Tuesday, May 25th
Liked: Glee (1x20)
"Theatricality" was an okay episode of Glee. Musically, it was all Lady Gaga for the girls (and Kurt!) and Kiss for the guys, so bleh! "Beth" was okay. "Poker Face" was just fucking bizarre. The scene of the night belonged to Burt as he came to Kurt's defense over Finn's use of the word "faggy." Hopefully at some point in the future it will be acknowledged that Finn was not entirely in the wrong when he became angry at Kurt's stalkish behaviour. The other major storyline was Rachel meeting her mother, which had an unexpected ending.
Friday, May 28th
Loved: Party Down (2x6)
"'Not On Your Wife' Opening Night" was a farce-tastic Party Down, cleverly plotted, making good use of every character, and simply hilarious from beginning to end.
Saturday, May 29th
Loved: Doctor Who (5x9)
Doctor Who's "Cold Blood" at times felt much like an episode of Star Trek. This is not a bad thing, but the Trek vibe made it rather easy to predict the direction that the Silurians storyline would take. They thankfully aren't Cybermen or Daleks, but the Silurians weren't that much more impressive as villains, rarely feeling like the threat that last week built them up to be. In the end, though, this episode will be remembered for its devastating final minutes. Never before has new Doctor Who made such impressive use of a season long story arc. I realize that this ending will most likely be undone in the finale, but it was still a dark place to go.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Week in Review, May 17 to 23
The Week in Television
After this week's numerous season and series finales, next week will be rather quiet. Other than most of the Monday night shows, which are one week behind and airing their finales tomorrow, only Glee will be left on TV for me to actually watch as it airs. Everything else has to be downloaded; the remaining shows (Party Down, Stargate, Doctor Who) all air on channels that I do not receive.
In between the numerous season finales this week, I had some time to watch a few more episodes of Breaking Bad, finishing off the short first season, which ended as gritty, dark, and fantastic as it had started. And, for some much needed levity, although the series is more dramatic than I expected, I have started to watch the first season of Californication as well. It's also much better than I expected it to be.
Monday, May 17th
Loved: The Big Bang Theory (3x22), Chuck (3x17)
Liked: How I Met Your Mother (5x23)
Meh: House (6x21)
"Chuck Versus the Living Dead" was a return to form for the series, ramping up the Ring storyline considerably while bringing back the awesome Scott Bakula, and we are presumably building to a big Intersect showdown between Chuck and Shaw in the finale. But, wait one second? What was that about Shaw and the Intersect? Of all the crazy, episode ending twists, Shaw downloading the Ring's secret Intersect is quite possibly the biggest WTF moment in Chuck history. This could be awesome; this could be not at all awesome. I guess I'll find out in next week's two-hour finale.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Big Bang Theory's flashback episode, "The Staircase Implementation." Seeing the gang coming together for the first time was an undeniable treat.
"The Wedding Bride" was a strange episode of How I Met Your Mother. Half the running time was taken up by a purposefully awful romantic comedy adaptation of Ted's history with Stella. And the other half focused on Ted's latest "not the mother" relationship and a pretty amusing gag involving literal baggage. Overall: it was okay.
House's season finale, "Help Me," was another one of those "mix up the formula" episodes that they actually did an admirable number of in this sixth season. But... this one wasn't good. In one word: boring!
Tuesday, May 18th
Loved: Glee (1x19), Lost (6x16)
Lost's "What They Died For" was awesome, feeling very much like a part of the big finale. Jacob explained himself! Jack stepped up! Sawyer felt remorse! Desmond was the fucking man! Any worries that I had that the finale was not going to rock, due mostly to last week's surprisingly low-key disappointment (because I have loved this season as a whole), were completely washed away here.
Joss Whedon! Neil Patrick Harris! Glee's "Dream On" was pretty much guaranteed to be a winner in my books. And it was; easily eclipsing the previous five episodes. The "Dream On" duet was cool, although Matthew Morrison smoked NPH. The twist in the Jesse and Rachel storyline was pretty awesome. And Artie's "Safety Dance" was unquestionably the highlight of the episode for me.
Wednesday, May 19th
Loved: Modern Family (1x24)
Modern Family ended their season with "Family Portrait," a nearly perfect finale to a great first season. Phil's experiences at the basketball game made me laugh harder than anything else this week. And I can't remember a time that Claire was as funny as she was here.
Thursday, May 20th
Loved: Fringe (2x23), Parks and Recreation (2x24)
Liked: 30 Rock (4x22), The Office (6x26)
Fringe's season finale, "Over There, Part Two," was not what I was expecting after last week's action-packed introduction to this storyline. The big apocalyptic finale that seemed to be hinted at in part one was nowhere to be found here. Instead of an apocalypse, the climax was a kiss. But it worked--quite well. So, despite my expectations, this episode was still terrific for what it was, and maybe ever more for what it has set up for the third season.
Parks and Recreation continued their king of Thursday night comedy reign (note to fans of Community: I watched its finale as well, and while it was quite good, I still struggle to connect with most of the characters) with "Freddy Spaghetti," a finale episode that gave me welcome flashbacks to The Office's amazing second season finale. I'm not saying that this episode was as good as "Casino Night," but goddamn, what is? This episode was simply a great finish to a surprisingly good season of a show that I nearly wrote off one year ago. These things were awesome: Ron caring about Leslie keeping her job, April and Andy finally getting in sync (briefly, at least), and Rob Lowe, who is fucking killing it as "good cop."
The Office's "Whistleblower" was a good episode, but it didn't really deliver much that we have come to expect from season finales of this series. I guess the promise of Holly returning and what's going to happen with Dwight's purchase of the office complex are the cliffhangers...? Not that there needs to be a cliffhanger in a finale. The episode as a whole worked quite well and was satisfying as a standalone story. I loved Nick the IT guy calling out everyone in the office, and was pleased to see Andy and Erin briefly reconnecting.
I did not enjoy 30 Rock's season finale, "I Do Do," as much as last week's episode, but there were plenty of laughs to be had, and WTF moments, and Matt Damon (!). It definitely felt more like a season finale than The Office. Storylines were resolved, sometimes in questionable ways (pregnancy?--you're poking fun at other series, right, Tina Fey?) and sometimes in surprisingly sad ways (when did Wesley became so sympathetic?). And drunk Kenneth was pretty great.
Friday, May 21st
Loved: Party Down (2x5)
Liked: The Ricky Gervais Show (1x13), Stargate Universe (1x18)
Stargate Universe felt very SG1-ish this week with "Subversion," bringing the underused (justifiably?--they are pretty lame...) Lucian Alliance into play for the first time since the premiere. This episode was somewhat underwhelming in its reduced focus on Destiny and the characters I actually care about, and over-reliance on communication stone contrivances (again!), but this storyline has two more episodes to impress me.
This week, Party Down's crew were given the day off to party at "Steve Guttenberg's Birthday." This hilarious episode made inspired use of Steve Guttenberg (yet another in a long line of Veronica Mars vets to show up in Party Down) and gave us a taste of Roman's "hard sci-fi" writing while also introducing his awesome writing partner.
Saturday, May 22nd
Loved: Doctor Who (5x8), Legend of the Seeker (2x22)
"The Hungry Earth" was another strong Doctor Who episode, a surprisingly low-key reintroduction to the Silurians in the form of a slow paced character-focused episode with a palpable feeling of building tension. The ending of the episode promised a bigger story for next week's second part. I'll offer my opinion on the Silurians as (new to me) villains and on the two-parter as a whole next week, because this episode by itself only told half a story and is therefore difficult to review.
The problem with a series like Legend of the Seeker where one of the main characters is an all-powerful wizard, and there are no clear rules of wizardry, is that anything can happen and sometimes victories feel thoroughly unearned. The fundamental flaw of season finale "Tears" was that the storyline was effectively an endless sequence of "a wizard did it!" moments, starting with the far too easy way last week's cliffhanger was wiped away and ending with the single biggest unexplained plot contrivance I have ever witnessed. Sounds pretty awful, right? Wrong; it was great! It was a big, dumb masterpiece--the epitome of everything that was awesome and terrible about this second season. I'll miss you, show.
Sunday, May 23rd
Loved: Lost (6x17/18)
I watched four and a half hours of Lost-related content on Sunday evening, starting with the two-hour recap special, which was the only one of the hundred or so Lost recap specials over the past six years that I actually watched from beginning to end. It was more or less a waste of time. And then it was time for "The End."
The fascinating thing about "The End" is how completely satisfying and unsatisfying it was at the same fucking time. If you look at the finale from a perspective of character resolution, overriding series themes, and premiere to finale symmetry, it was brilliant. Emotionally powerful, action-packed, and never boring; the finale worked wonderfully in terms of storytelling. If you look at it from a perspective of "Where's my fucking answers, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof?!?" it was a crushing disappointment. Because there were NO ANSWERS. Well, okay there was ONE ANSWER: the sideways flashes were explained, at least. The island remained a complete enigma. Maybe there could be no satisfying answers, so this was the best approach? "Across the Sea" was certainly evidence for that idea. In the end, this series finale does not tarnish Lost in my eyes in any way, because I primarily watched for the characters and their stories, not the mysteries, but I would also completely understand it if someone else sees this finale as a travesty.
Now it's time for me to find out what the rest of Lost fandom thought, starting with Television Without Pity... this should be entertaining.
After this week's numerous season and series finales, next week will be rather quiet. Other than most of the Monday night shows, which are one week behind and airing their finales tomorrow, only Glee will be left on TV for me to actually watch as it airs. Everything else has to be downloaded; the remaining shows (Party Down, Stargate, Doctor Who) all air on channels that I do not receive.
In between the numerous season finales this week, I had some time to watch a few more episodes of Breaking Bad, finishing off the short first season, which ended as gritty, dark, and fantastic as it had started. And, for some much needed levity, although the series is more dramatic than I expected, I have started to watch the first season of Californication as well. It's also much better than I expected it to be.
Monday, May 17th
Loved: The Big Bang Theory (3x22), Chuck (3x17)
Liked: How I Met Your Mother (5x23)
Meh: House (6x21)
"Chuck Versus the Living Dead" was a return to form for the series, ramping up the Ring storyline considerably while bringing back the awesome Scott Bakula, and we are presumably building to a big Intersect showdown between Chuck and Shaw in the finale. But, wait one second? What was that about Shaw and the Intersect? Of all the crazy, episode ending twists, Shaw downloading the Ring's secret Intersect is quite possibly the biggest WTF moment in Chuck history. This could be awesome; this could be not at all awesome. I guess I'll find out in next week's two-hour finale.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Big Bang Theory's flashback episode, "The Staircase Implementation." Seeing the gang coming together for the first time was an undeniable treat.
"The Wedding Bride" was a strange episode of How I Met Your Mother. Half the running time was taken up by a purposefully awful romantic comedy adaptation of Ted's history with Stella. And the other half focused on Ted's latest "not the mother" relationship and a pretty amusing gag involving literal baggage. Overall: it was okay.
House's season finale, "Help Me," was another one of those "mix up the formula" episodes that they actually did an admirable number of in this sixth season. But... this one wasn't good. In one word: boring!
Tuesday, May 18th
Loved: Glee (1x19), Lost (6x16)
Lost's "What They Died For" was awesome, feeling very much like a part of the big finale. Jacob explained himself! Jack stepped up! Sawyer felt remorse! Desmond was the fucking man! Any worries that I had that the finale was not going to rock, due mostly to last week's surprisingly low-key disappointment (because I have loved this season as a whole), were completely washed away here.
Joss Whedon! Neil Patrick Harris! Glee's "Dream On" was pretty much guaranteed to be a winner in my books. And it was; easily eclipsing the previous five episodes. The "Dream On" duet was cool, although Matthew Morrison smoked NPH. The twist in the Jesse and Rachel storyline was pretty awesome. And Artie's "Safety Dance" was unquestionably the highlight of the episode for me.
Wednesday, May 19th
Loved: Modern Family (1x24)
Modern Family ended their season with "Family Portrait," a nearly perfect finale to a great first season. Phil's experiences at the basketball game made me laugh harder than anything else this week. And I can't remember a time that Claire was as funny as she was here.
Thursday, May 20th
Loved: Fringe (2x23), Parks and Recreation (2x24)
Liked: 30 Rock (4x22), The Office (6x26)
Fringe's season finale, "Over There, Part Two," was not what I was expecting after last week's action-packed introduction to this storyline. The big apocalyptic finale that seemed to be hinted at in part one was nowhere to be found here. Instead of an apocalypse, the climax was a kiss. But it worked--quite well. So, despite my expectations, this episode was still terrific for what it was, and maybe ever more for what it has set up for the third season.
Parks and Recreation continued their king of Thursday night comedy reign (note to fans of Community: I watched its finale as well, and while it was quite good, I still struggle to connect with most of the characters) with "Freddy Spaghetti," a finale episode that gave me welcome flashbacks to The Office's amazing second season finale. I'm not saying that this episode was as good as "Casino Night," but goddamn, what is? This episode was simply a great finish to a surprisingly good season of a show that I nearly wrote off one year ago. These things were awesome: Ron caring about Leslie keeping her job, April and Andy finally getting in sync (briefly, at least), and Rob Lowe, who is fucking killing it as "good cop."
The Office's "Whistleblower" was a good episode, but it didn't really deliver much that we have come to expect from season finales of this series. I guess the promise of Holly returning and what's going to happen with Dwight's purchase of the office complex are the cliffhangers...? Not that there needs to be a cliffhanger in a finale. The episode as a whole worked quite well and was satisfying as a standalone story. I loved Nick the IT guy calling out everyone in the office, and was pleased to see Andy and Erin briefly reconnecting.
I did not enjoy 30 Rock's season finale, "I Do Do," as much as last week's episode, but there were plenty of laughs to be had, and WTF moments, and Matt Damon (!). It definitely felt more like a season finale than The Office. Storylines were resolved, sometimes in questionable ways (pregnancy?--you're poking fun at other series, right, Tina Fey?) and sometimes in surprisingly sad ways (when did Wesley became so sympathetic?). And drunk Kenneth was pretty great.
Friday, May 21st
Loved: Party Down (2x5)
Liked: The Ricky Gervais Show (1x13), Stargate Universe (1x18)
Stargate Universe felt very SG1-ish this week with "Subversion," bringing the underused (justifiably?--they are pretty lame...) Lucian Alliance into play for the first time since the premiere. This episode was somewhat underwhelming in its reduced focus on Destiny and the characters I actually care about, and over-reliance on communication stone contrivances (again!), but this storyline has two more episodes to impress me.
This week, Party Down's crew were given the day off to party at "Steve Guttenberg's Birthday." This hilarious episode made inspired use of Steve Guttenberg (yet another in a long line of Veronica Mars vets to show up in Party Down) and gave us a taste of Roman's "hard sci-fi" writing while also introducing his awesome writing partner.
Saturday, May 22nd
Loved: Doctor Who (5x8), Legend of the Seeker (2x22)
"The Hungry Earth" was another strong Doctor Who episode, a surprisingly low-key reintroduction to the Silurians in the form of a slow paced character-focused episode with a palpable feeling of building tension. The ending of the episode promised a bigger story for next week's second part. I'll offer my opinion on the Silurians as (new to me) villains and on the two-parter as a whole next week, because this episode by itself only told half a story and is therefore difficult to review.
The problem with a series like Legend of the Seeker where one of the main characters is an all-powerful wizard, and there are no clear rules of wizardry, is that anything can happen and sometimes victories feel thoroughly unearned. The fundamental flaw of season finale "Tears" was that the storyline was effectively an endless sequence of "a wizard did it!" moments, starting with the far too easy way last week's cliffhanger was wiped away and ending with the single biggest unexplained plot contrivance I have ever witnessed. Sounds pretty awful, right? Wrong; it was great! It was a big, dumb masterpiece--the epitome of everything that was awesome and terrible about this second season. I'll miss you, show.
Sunday, May 23rd
Loved: Lost (6x17/18)
I watched four and a half hours of Lost-related content on Sunday evening, starting with the two-hour recap special, which was the only one of the hundred or so Lost recap specials over the past six years that I actually watched from beginning to end. It was more or less a waste of time. And then it was time for "The End."
The fascinating thing about "The End" is how completely satisfying and unsatisfying it was at the same fucking time. If you look at the finale from a perspective of character resolution, overriding series themes, and premiere to finale symmetry, it was brilliant. Emotionally powerful, action-packed, and never boring; the finale worked wonderfully in terms of storytelling. If you look at it from a perspective of "Where's my fucking answers, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof?!?" it was a crushing disappointment. Because there were NO ANSWERS. Well, okay there was ONE ANSWER: the sideways flashes were explained, at least. The island remained a complete enigma. Maybe there could be no satisfying answers, so this was the best approach? "Across the Sea" was certainly evidence for that idea. In the end, this series finale does not tarnish Lost in my eyes in any way, because I primarily watched for the characters and their stories, not the mysteries, but I would also completely understand it if someone else sees this finale as a travesty.
Now it's time for me to find out what the rest of Lost fandom thought, starting with Television Without Pity... this should be entertaining.
Friday, May 21, 2010
The Revenge of Brewblog
Brewing, exercising, vacationing--two of those things are way more awesome than the third (guess!), but all three are the subjects of today's random nonsense post.
Brewblog, Entry Three
Another two weeks have passed with another two Saturday brew days. We will need a well stocked beer inventory to get through summer, so there will hopefully be another two May brew days and then one in June before summer vacations and weddings and life interrupt.
On May 8th, we brewed our fourth experimental--for science!--beer, aka the Brewniversity series, a Blonde Ale made with a simple grain bill of Pale and Munich Malt and only US Goldings hops for bittering, flavour, and aroma. Previous Brewniversity beers have included: the not-so-great 101, originally known as "Ten, One, and One," which is a reference to its simple recipe of ten pounds Pale Malt, one ounce of Cascade hops for bittering, and one ounce of Cascade hops for flavour; the much, much better 122, which added specialty malts to the mix and more Cascade hops; and the arguably even better (I still prefer the 122, but it's close) 124, which was similar to the 122 but with slight modifications to the grain bill and a notably different Cascade hops addition schedule, and the unusual dry hop addition of loose-leaf Perle. The recipe for Brewniversity #4, aka Goldings Ale, aka the 112, was primarily formulated in the spirit of the 122. If it turns out as good as I think it will, a 124-style recipe may be attempted at a later date. Or maybe we'll do Brewniversity #5 as a 124-style Willamette Ale?
With Trevor's Blonde done its primary fermentation, the plan for May 15th was to make use of the Belgian Abbey yeast cake that had formed at the bottom of the primary fermenter. We had originally thought we'd attempt a second Tripel, but ultimately there isn't a huge difference between most Tripel recipes and the recipe we'd used for Trevor's Blonde. This gave us an opportunity to try something different.
Not to toot my own horn too much, but the following story is an illustration of my growing intuition for beer recipe formulation, with notable aid from Beersmith Brewing Software. Since late last fall when brew days moved to my garage, I have been responsible for formulating 90% of the recipes for brew day. Most of the early recipes came directly from external sources such as books or the Internet, and I was simply transposing them to Beersmith. But, more and more, I have been creating the recipes on my own, sometimes with inspiration from similar recipes, often with inspiration from past brew days, but increasingly pulled straight out of my head (or, if you prefer, ass). It is worth noting that beer recipe formulation is actually not that hard (for most beer styles that we regularly make) with the help of brewing software, but it is a critical component for creating an excellent beer and I take it very seriously--and I'm always striving for improvement. The 122 and 124 are examples of beers that I made up and am quite proud of. I also made up our Vanilla Porter (some minor adjustments could take it from good to awesome), Blackout Stout (jury's still out), and Scottish Ale (significant room for improvement). And I am always tweaking our recurring beers such as the Matrimonial Ale and Scott's Stout series. This whole paragraph is just a long preamble to the actual story.
We often plan our brew days through email while I am at work, which puts me in the shitty position of not being able to browse beer recipes (blocked by Internet filters!). But I do have the PDF of the BJCP Style Guidelines with me at all times. So, with a Belgian yeast to use, and no recipe selected, I opened up the style guide for inspiration. And there it was: Category 16E, Belgian Specialty Ale. From a quick read it appeared that you could make any base beer style but use a Belgian yeast, and you just might have an entry for Belgian Specialty Ale. And it immediately came to my mind that we should do an IPA--a Belgian IPA! And, with that inspiration, I started formulating the recipe in my head. We could use a similar malt profile as the Matrimonial Ale series, with minor tweaks, but use different hops (our Matrimonial Ale almost exclusively uses Columbus hops) to give it a more Belgian feel. For bittering, I selected Chinook, an American hop which had worked quite well in our Punk IPA clone. For flavour and aroma, I decided to go with the traditional Saaz, as you will find in many, many Belgian beers. I quickly drafted up an email, sent it off, and got very positive response from the group. When I got home, I pulled out Radical Brewing, my favourite of my books on hand for recipe ideas, to see if Randy Mosher had a Belgian IPA recipe. And he did. And it was exactly the same as the recipe I had made up in my head at work. Same malts, same hops. Awesome. I took that as pretty strong validation that I know what the fuck I am doing.
Saturday mornings before brew days are often busy for me. I frequently start by cleaning my house, vacuuming up as much of the dog and cat hair as I can. Typical brew day preparation includes recipe finalization, measuring out the grains, cleaning equipment, checking our propane stock, warming up the mash cooler, and stocking the fridge with precious brew day fuel. The morning of May 15th was even busier than usual, as I had to rack the 112 (aka Goldings Ale) into a carboy to free up a primary fermenter, and I had to sort bottles, because that day's plan included the bottling of our Anniversary Bitter 2 and Simon's Blonde during the Belgian IPA mash.
At the tail end of the brew day, we had to rack Trevor's Blonde to allow us to reuse the Belgian Abbey yeast cake. We took one scoop of yeast for the Belgian IPA and a second scoop to try our first experiment with yeast ranching. That second scoop of yeast is sitting in my refrigerator right now in a large plastic container also filled with water. At some point I will attempt to decant the cleaned yeast into a smaller container and store it until the next Belgian brew day. I need to do some more research on exactly what I am doing here...
The plan for tomorrow's brew day is Scott's Stout 4. I don't intend to modify the Scott's Stout 3 recipe much, as it is pretty much exactly what it was supposed to be, but there is one major change in that we will be using a liquid Wyeast (1028 London Ale) instead of the standard dry Safale yeast we have used in the past. At the end of primary fermentation, I intend to try to ranch this yeast as well, because it should come in handy over and over again, but my fridge can't hold much more containers of yeast than that. With nothing to bottle tomorrow, it will likely be a 30-minute mash day. And this will be the first 90-minute boil for a Scott's Stout, which could have interesting results.
The one additional task I have for tomorrow, or possibly tonight, is the racking of the Bushwakker Russian Imperial Stout that was created on May 8th at the ALES club Big Brew Day. I don't want to go into too many details about that day, but effectively: the brewmaster at Bushwakker brewed over 600L of wort, we collected our 20L share, and we added our own yeast. We used Wyeast's Denny's Favorite 50 for this beer, which is an interesting all-purpose yeast that I will also try to ranch for future experimentation.
Shaping Up!--for reals
I have now biked to work on nine out of the last ten days. That definitely counts as shaping up. I now see no reason why I can't continue to bike to work every (reasonable) day this summer.
To counter that, I have been slacking heavily on the 100 Push-ups and 200 Sit-ups challenges. I can't help but notice that both push-ups and sit-ups are much harder when you have twenty extra pounds in your stomach area. I also need to step up the strength training for my arms before I start losing whatever little muscle I have there.
I'm already starting to see evidence of weight loss, and I am definitely feeling much better about myself. The daily bike rides are only one piece of the puzzle. I have also significantly improved my diet by eliminating the consumption of bags of chips (which is easy when you simply skip that aisle at the grocery store). One of the biggest unhealthy kicks I was on for the past few months was Tostitos and salsa, often consumed a bag and a jar at a time. Thanks to some smart thinking by a couple of friends, I have now replaced the tortilla chips with celery and cucumbers with acceptable results.
Daisy would probably appreciate more walks, but when I get home after biking from work, I don't exactly feel like going for a walk. Especially when there are TV finales to watch! But that excuse runs out on the coming Monday, so... fuck.
My Summer Staycation (now with 50% less Stay?)
My two-week holiday in June was always going to start with a weekend trip to Hanna, AB, to attend the wedding of my ex-brother-in-law. And I was hoping to follow that up with a short visit to Calgary. But now I may end up spending most of my first week in the Calgary area, with some of that time spent camping in Banff--which is by no means at all a bad thing. I can read a book in a camping spot in Banff just as easily as I can in my backyard. And I don't really care about the extra costs--although National Parks do rip you the fuck off with their park entry fees...
The major thing in my life that keeps me stuck at home (or quite possibly it's just an excuse) is my pets. Daisy will be coming with me to Alberta in June, which does make the situation easier in this trip's case, but there will still be three cats left at home. I will have to get someone to pop in to see and feed the cats a couple of times, which is not in itself a big deal, but that also means training that person to use the alarm system and trusting that person alone in my house. What can I say?--I worry about stupid things sometimes. I wonder if my dad would be up for doing this...
There was very nearly some big news re: that wedding of my ex-brother-in-law last week. In the most shocking question asked of me in all of 2010, my ex-brother-in-law (that I never talk to anymore) asked if I would be one of his groomsmen. Surprisingly, I actually considered the offer for a good ten minutes before turning it down as gracefully as possible in 140 characters--because this important conversation was via text messaging! Kids, today!
Brewblog, Entry Three
Another two weeks have passed with another two Saturday brew days. We will need a well stocked beer inventory to get through summer, so there will hopefully be another two May brew days and then one in June before summer vacations and weddings and life interrupt.
On May 8th, we brewed our fourth experimental--for science!--beer, aka the Brewniversity series, a Blonde Ale made with a simple grain bill of Pale and Munich Malt and only US Goldings hops for bittering, flavour, and aroma. Previous Brewniversity beers have included: the not-so-great 101, originally known as "Ten, One, and One," which is a reference to its simple recipe of ten pounds Pale Malt, one ounce of Cascade hops for bittering, and one ounce of Cascade hops for flavour; the much, much better 122, which added specialty malts to the mix and more Cascade hops; and the arguably even better (I still prefer the 122, but it's close) 124, which was similar to the 122 but with slight modifications to the grain bill and a notably different Cascade hops addition schedule, and the unusual dry hop addition of loose-leaf Perle. The recipe for Brewniversity #4, aka Goldings Ale, aka the 112, was primarily formulated in the spirit of the 122. If it turns out as good as I think it will, a 124-style recipe may be attempted at a later date. Or maybe we'll do Brewniversity #5 as a 124-style Willamette Ale?
With Trevor's Blonde done its primary fermentation, the plan for May 15th was to make use of the Belgian Abbey yeast cake that had formed at the bottom of the primary fermenter. We had originally thought we'd attempt a second Tripel, but ultimately there isn't a huge difference between most Tripel recipes and the recipe we'd used for Trevor's Blonde. This gave us an opportunity to try something different.
Not to toot my own horn too much, but the following story is an illustration of my growing intuition for beer recipe formulation, with notable aid from Beersmith Brewing Software. Since late last fall when brew days moved to my garage, I have been responsible for formulating 90% of the recipes for brew day. Most of the early recipes came directly from external sources such as books or the Internet, and I was simply transposing them to Beersmith. But, more and more, I have been creating the recipes on my own, sometimes with inspiration from similar recipes, often with inspiration from past brew days, but increasingly pulled straight out of my head (or, if you prefer, ass). It is worth noting that beer recipe formulation is actually not that hard (for most beer styles that we regularly make) with the help of brewing software, but it is a critical component for creating an excellent beer and I take it very seriously--and I'm always striving for improvement. The 122 and 124 are examples of beers that I made up and am quite proud of. I also made up our Vanilla Porter (some minor adjustments could take it from good to awesome), Blackout Stout (jury's still out), and Scottish Ale (significant room for improvement). And I am always tweaking our recurring beers such as the Matrimonial Ale and Scott's Stout series. This whole paragraph is just a long preamble to the actual story.
We often plan our brew days through email while I am at work, which puts me in the shitty position of not being able to browse beer recipes (blocked by Internet filters!). But I do have the PDF of the BJCP Style Guidelines with me at all times. So, with a Belgian yeast to use, and no recipe selected, I opened up the style guide for inspiration. And there it was: Category 16E, Belgian Specialty Ale. From a quick read it appeared that you could make any base beer style but use a Belgian yeast, and you just might have an entry for Belgian Specialty Ale. And it immediately came to my mind that we should do an IPA--a Belgian IPA! And, with that inspiration, I started formulating the recipe in my head. We could use a similar malt profile as the Matrimonial Ale series, with minor tweaks, but use different hops (our Matrimonial Ale almost exclusively uses Columbus hops) to give it a more Belgian feel. For bittering, I selected Chinook, an American hop which had worked quite well in our Punk IPA clone. For flavour and aroma, I decided to go with the traditional Saaz, as you will find in many, many Belgian beers. I quickly drafted up an email, sent it off, and got very positive response from the group. When I got home, I pulled out Radical Brewing, my favourite of my books on hand for recipe ideas, to see if Randy Mosher had a Belgian IPA recipe. And he did. And it was exactly the same as the recipe I had made up in my head at work. Same malts, same hops. Awesome. I took that as pretty strong validation that I know what the fuck I am doing.
Saturday mornings before brew days are often busy for me. I frequently start by cleaning my house, vacuuming up as much of the dog and cat hair as I can. Typical brew day preparation includes recipe finalization, measuring out the grains, cleaning equipment, checking our propane stock, warming up the mash cooler, and stocking the fridge with precious brew day fuel. The morning of May 15th was even busier than usual, as I had to rack the 112 (aka Goldings Ale) into a carboy to free up a primary fermenter, and I had to sort bottles, because that day's plan included the bottling of our Anniversary Bitter 2 and Simon's Blonde during the Belgian IPA mash.
At the tail end of the brew day, we had to rack Trevor's Blonde to allow us to reuse the Belgian Abbey yeast cake. We took one scoop of yeast for the Belgian IPA and a second scoop to try our first experiment with yeast ranching. That second scoop of yeast is sitting in my refrigerator right now in a large plastic container also filled with water. At some point I will attempt to decant the cleaned yeast into a smaller container and store it until the next Belgian brew day. I need to do some more research on exactly what I am doing here...
The plan for tomorrow's brew day is Scott's Stout 4. I don't intend to modify the Scott's Stout 3 recipe much, as it is pretty much exactly what it was supposed to be, but there is one major change in that we will be using a liquid Wyeast (1028 London Ale) instead of the standard dry Safale yeast we have used in the past. At the end of primary fermentation, I intend to try to ranch this yeast as well, because it should come in handy over and over again, but my fridge can't hold much more containers of yeast than that. With nothing to bottle tomorrow, it will likely be a 30-minute mash day. And this will be the first 90-minute boil for a Scott's Stout, which could have interesting results.
The one additional task I have for tomorrow, or possibly tonight, is the racking of the Bushwakker Russian Imperial Stout that was created on May 8th at the ALES club Big Brew Day. I don't want to go into too many details about that day, but effectively: the brewmaster at Bushwakker brewed over 600L of wort, we collected our 20L share, and we added our own yeast. We used Wyeast's Denny's Favorite 50 for this beer, which is an interesting all-purpose yeast that I will also try to ranch for future experimentation.
Shaping Up!--for reals
I have now biked to work on nine out of the last ten days. That definitely counts as shaping up. I now see no reason why I can't continue to bike to work every (reasonable) day this summer.
To counter that, I have been slacking heavily on the 100 Push-ups and 200 Sit-ups challenges. I can't help but notice that both push-ups and sit-ups are much harder when you have twenty extra pounds in your stomach area. I also need to step up the strength training for my arms before I start losing whatever little muscle I have there.
I'm already starting to see evidence of weight loss, and I am definitely feeling much better about myself. The daily bike rides are only one piece of the puzzle. I have also significantly improved my diet by eliminating the consumption of bags of chips (which is easy when you simply skip that aisle at the grocery store). One of the biggest unhealthy kicks I was on for the past few months was Tostitos and salsa, often consumed a bag and a jar at a time. Thanks to some smart thinking by a couple of friends, I have now replaced the tortilla chips with celery and cucumbers with acceptable results.
Daisy would probably appreciate more walks, but when I get home after biking from work, I don't exactly feel like going for a walk. Especially when there are TV finales to watch! But that excuse runs out on the coming Monday, so... fuck.
My Summer Staycation (now with 50% less Stay?)
My two-week holiday in June was always going to start with a weekend trip to Hanna, AB, to attend the wedding of my ex-brother-in-law. And I was hoping to follow that up with a short visit to Calgary. But now I may end up spending most of my first week in the Calgary area, with some of that time spent camping in Banff--which is by no means at all a bad thing. I can read a book in a camping spot in Banff just as easily as I can in my backyard. And I don't really care about the extra costs--although National Parks do rip you the fuck off with their park entry fees...
The major thing in my life that keeps me stuck at home (or quite possibly it's just an excuse) is my pets. Daisy will be coming with me to Alberta in June, which does make the situation easier in this trip's case, but there will still be three cats left at home. I will have to get someone to pop in to see and feed the cats a couple of times, which is not in itself a big deal, but that also means training that person to use the alarm system and trusting that person alone in my house. What can I say?--I worry about stupid things sometimes. I wonder if my dad would be up for doing this...
There was very nearly some big news re: that wedding of my ex-brother-in-law last week. In the most shocking question asked of me in all of 2010, my ex-brother-in-law (that I never talk to anymore) asked if I would be one of his groomsmen. Surprisingly, I actually considered the offer for a good ten minutes before turning it down as gracefully as possible in 140 characters--because this important conversation was via text messaging! Kids, today!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Week in Review, May 10 to 16
The Week in Television
What's that? NBC renewed Chuck for a fourth season and finally put Heroes out of my misery? Awesome.
Also good news: this television season is nearly at its end.
Monday, May 10th
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x21), Chuck (3x16), House (6x20), How I Met Your Mother (5x22)
"Chuck Versus the Tooth" had some interesting ideas and cool dream sequences, and it makes sense that the Intersect would fuck with Chuck's brain like that, but this episode's biggest flaw was that there were no hints of this storyline in previous episodes. One or two similar dream sequences in the past couple of episodes would have gone a long way toward making this episode a winner. The best thing to come out of this episode was Ellie's storyline and how that is leading to the return of Chuck's dad.
"Robots Vs. Wrestlers" was another iffy How I Met Your Mother episode. Lots of funny stuff, sure, such as Mexican Wrestler Ted and Pretentious Ted in his element, but the episode had a bizarre message that I can not support. Enjoying the company of fellow intellectuals makes you a douchebag? No.
The first half of The Big Bang Theory's "The Plimpton Stimulation" was terrific, with Sheldon welcoming his new lady friend (but not in that way) to their apartment, and Leonard getting a surprise visit in the night. The episode went a little off the rails in the second half, although Raj did his best to redeem it, and it was lacking an ending in a big way.
This week's House episode, "Baggage," the first I've commented on in ages, was actually quite good, with the writers finally remembering that House was in mental institution for two hours at the beginning of the season--although if they expect us to believe that House has been in therapy this whole time, they should maybe have mentioned that once or twice. I liked the slick way the therapy session was entangled in the medical mystery of the week. And I enjoyed the return of Alvie, although that character is definitely a case of a little goes a long way.
Tuesday, May 11th
Liked: Glee (1x18), Lost (6x15)
"Across the Sea" was easily the biggest disappointment of the season for many Lost fans. How could the origin story of Jacob and the Man in Black be one of the lesser episodes of this season? For those expecting an episode on the level of the Richard Alpert centric "Ab Aeterno," it wasn't to be. Awkward acting, very few solid answers--instead, we got answers that are still vague and confusing--and a story that could have been told in half the time. Having said all that, I still liked it quite a bit and felt it was thematically consistent with the series, but I'm one of a select few. With only 3.5 hours left in the series, which I am still very much looking forward to, it remains to be seen if this episode will look better in retrospect, or if it will look much, much worse.
Glee's "Laryngitis" had a couple of great storylines (Puck being a dick, and anything involving Kurt and his dad) and one completely awful storyline (Rachel losing her voice, but being inspired by a paralyzed friend of Finn--really, show, really?). The music was above average this week with great renditions of "Jessie's Girl," "The Lady is a Tramp," and "[Kurt]'s Turn," but also included a questionable version of "One" that tied into the awful paralyzed guy story. (Nintendo fanboy nitpick: if you are going to make jokes referencing the Super Mario Bros series, do better research! Star World was introduced in Super Mario World, not Super Mario Bros 3. Sheesh!)
Wednesday, May 12th
Liked: Modern Family (1x23)
"Hawaii" wasn't as good for me as last week's airport-based Modern Family, but it still had plenty of good moments. Phil's futile efforts to turn the family trip into an overdue honeymoon for him and Claire was the strongest through story, and easily had the best ending with a surprisingly well-handled dramatic moment. Also excellent: Manny and Luke as mismatched roommates.
Thursday, May 13th
Loved: Fringe (2x22), Parks and Recreation (2x23)
Liked: 30 Rock (4x21), The Office (6x25)
Meh: Survivor (20x14)
The best thing on TV this week was Fringe's "Over There, Part One," the first part (obviously) of a very cool game-changing season finale. Awesome: two universes, two Walters, and two distinct Fringe teams, as well as the return of the Cortexiphan kids (with a nod to Heroes), the ZFT, Peter reunited with his real mother, and William Bell. Not quite so awesome: the Heroes are all dead, already?--dammit show!
Parks and Recreation introduced new cast members Rob Lowe and Adam Scott with the fun "The Master Plan," where proposed budget costs threatened Leslie's world and, hilariously, amused Ron to no end. April's birthday party led to the best moments, including Tom's hopeless attempt to court a bar full of women, Ann getting wasted drunk, and April and Andy still unable to get in sync.
The Office's "The Chump" was anther solid episode. The Dwight and Angela storyline was quite funny, and had the best payoff when it tied into Jim and Pam's sleeping on the job storyline. Pam's plan to keep Michael's spirits up after the expected end of his relationship with Donna was amusingly elaborate, and Andy's terrible plan to introduce Michael to Donna's husband brought the awkward in a big way. Also good: Toby hate.
30 Rock's absurdly titled "Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land" was very funny. Liz's attempt to give her old boyfriends second chances worked out about as well as would be expected, with "future husband" Wesley somehow looking better and better to her because the only thing wrong with him is that she hates him. Brilliant.
This week's Thursday Survivor was pretty uninteresting, with the next member of the jury being obvious from the start, and no major moves made to change shit up. Family reunion episodes always come up a little short for me, because I don't fucking care about these people's families, although I did laugh at how pissed Colby got with his brother during the challenge. And it's very lame that the show kept setting up immunity challenges that strongly favoured tiny Parvati.
Friday, May 14th
Loved: Party Down (2x4)
Liked: The Ricky Gervais Show (1x12), Stargate Universe (1x17)
Stargate Universe's "Pain" was an okay episode, well-constructed for the most part, with good character development for Chloe, Scott, and Rush, as well as less used characters Volker and James. Greer's storyline was the weak link for me, and when the episode devolved into Greer taking Rush and Camile captive, it lost my interest.
If you hire Party Down to cater a funeral, you get what you deserve. "James Ellison Funeral" was full of ridiculous moments, many cringe-worthy and awkward, but just as many laugh out loud funny.
Saturday, May 15th
Loved: Doctor Who (5x7), Legend of the Seeker (2x21)
"Amy's Choice" was a pretty fantastic standalone Doctor Who episode, with a terrific villain in the Dream Lord, crazy old people doing their best zombie impressions, a cool twist ending that actually makes beautiful sense, and good characterization of everyone. I'm still really enjoying the addition of Rory to the crew of the Tardis.
I certainly did not expect the big two-part season/series finale of Legend of the Seeker to go the direction that it went in "Unbroken," but after my initial WTF-ness, I completely got behind this concept and enjoyed the hell out of it. And, holy shit, that was a pretty bleak ending, leaving a lot hanging off the cliff for part two to pull up. The biggest problem with taking an alternate universe approach to the story telling is that they did the exact same thing with the first season finale. Way to rip yourselves off, guys! Next week: the last Legend of the Seeker ever... sad.
Saturday, May 16th
Liked: Survivor
This Sunday was the big three-hour Survivor finale event. Which means, as is typical: shit loads of filler, such as the 15-minute recap of the season and the silly and boring walk of fallen tribe-mates; the jury being bitter; and the least deserving of the final three winning the game. The reunion show was actually the most enjoyable of the three hours, with Russell being an ass about wanting to change the rules of the game to favour his shitty social play style. But the best thing about the three-hour Survivor finale event: this means that the show is over for a few months--yay! It was a good season, well above average, but watching Survivor is overall a thoroughly empty experience. I probably won't be back in the fall; I'll wait for the next all-stars season.
What's that? NBC renewed Chuck for a fourth season and finally put Heroes out of my misery? Awesome.
Also good news: this television season is nearly at its end.
Monday, May 10th
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x21), Chuck (3x16), House (6x20), How I Met Your Mother (5x22)
"Chuck Versus the Tooth" had some interesting ideas and cool dream sequences, and it makes sense that the Intersect would fuck with Chuck's brain like that, but this episode's biggest flaw was that there were no hints of this storyline in previous episodes. One or two similar dream sequences in the past couple of episodes would have gone a long way toward making this episode a winner. The best thing to come out of this episode was Ellie's storyline and how that is leading to the return of Chuck's dad.
"Robots Vs. Wrestlers" was another iffy How I Met Your Mother episode. Lots of funny stuff, sure, such as Mexican Wrestler Ted and Pretentious Ted in his element, but the episode had a bizarre message that I can not support. Enjoying the company of fellow intellectuals makes you a douchebag? No.
The first half of The Big Bang Theory's "The Plimpton Stimulation" was terrific, with Sheldon welcoming his new lady friend (but not in that way) to their apartment, and Leonard getting a surprise visit in the night. The episode went a little off the rails in the second half, although Raj did his best to redeem it, and it was lacking an ending in a big way.
This week's House episode, "Baggage," the first I've commented on in ages, was actually quite good, with the writers finally remembering that House was in mental institution for two hours at the beginning of the season--although if they expect us to believe that House has been in therapy this whole time, they should maybe have mentioned that once or twice. I liked the slick way the therapy session was entangled in the medical mystery of the week. And I enjoyed the return of Alvie, although that character is definitely a case of a little goes a long way.
Tuesday, May 11th
Liked: Glee (1x18), Lost (6x15)
"Across the Sea" was easily the biggest disappointment of the season for many Lost fans. How could the origin story of Jacob and the Man in Black be one of the lesser episodes of this season? For those expecting an episode on the level of the Richard Alpert centric "Ab Aeterno," it wasn't to be. Awkward acting, very few solid answers--instead, we got answers that are still vague and confusing--and a story that could have been told in half the time. Having said all that, I still liked it quite a bit and felt it was thematically consistent with the series, but I'm one of a select few. With only 3.5 hours left in the series, which I am still very much looking forward to, it remains to be seen if this episode will look better in retrospect, or if it will look much, much worse.
Glee's "Laryngitis" had a couple of great storylines (Puck being a dick, and anything involving Kurt and his dad) and one completely awful storyline (Rachel losing her voice, but being inspired by a paralyzed friend of Finn--really, show, really?). The music was above average this week with great renditions of "Jessie's Girl," "The Lady is a Tramp," and "[Kurt]'s Turn," but also included a questionable version of "One" that tied into the awful paralyzed guy story. (Nintendo fanboy nitpick: if you are going to make jokes referencing the Super Mario Bros series, do better research! Star World was introduced in Super Mario World, not Super Mario Bros 3. Sheesh!)
Wednesday, May 12th
Liked: Modern Family (1x23)
"Hawaii" wasn't as good for me as last week's airport-based Modern Family, but it still had plenty of good moments. Phil's futile efforts to turn the family trip into an overdue honeymoon for him and Claire was the strongest through story, and easily had the best ending with a surprisingly well-handled dramatic moment. Also excellent: Manny and Luke as mismatched roommates.
Thursday, May 13th
Loved: Fringe (2x22), Parks and Recreation (2x23)
Liked: 30 Rock (4x21), The Office (6x25)
Meh: Survivor (20x14)
The best thing on TV this week was Fringe's "Over There, Part One," the first part (obviously) of a very cool game-changing season finale. Awesome: two universes, two Walters, and two distinct Fringe teams, as well as the return of the Cortexiphan kids (with a nod to Heroes), the ZFT, Peter reunited with his real mother, and William Bell. Not quite so awesome: the Heroes are all dead, already?--dammit show!
Parks and Recreation introduced new cast members Rob Lowe and Adam Scott with the fun "The Master Plan," where proposed budget costs threatened Leslie's world and, hilariously, amused Ron to no end. April's birthday party led to the best moments, including Tom's hopeless attempt to court a bar full of women, Ann getting wasted drunk, and April and Andy still unable to get in sync.
The Office's "The Chump" was anther solid episode. The Dwight and Angela storyline was quite funny, and had the best payoff when it tied into Jim and Pam's sleeping on the job storyline. Pam's plan to keep Michael's spirits up after the expected end of his relationship with Donna was amusingly elaborate, and Andy's terrible plan to introduce Michael to Donna's husband brought the awkward in a big way. Also good: Toby hate.
30 Rock's absurdly titled "Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land" was very funny. Liz's attempt to give her old boyfriends second chances worked out about as well as would be expected, with "future husband" Wesley somehow looking better and better to her because the only thing wrong with him is that she hates him. Brilliant.
This week's Thursday Survivor was pretty uninteresting, with the next member of the jury being obvious from the start, and no major moves made to change shit up. Family reunion episodes always come up a little short for me, because I don't fucking care about these people's families, although I did laugh at how pissed Colby got with his brother during the challenge. And it's very lame that the show kept setting up immunity challenges that strongly favoured tiny Parvati.
Friday, May 14th
Loved: Party Down (2x4)
Liked: The Ricky Gervais Show (1x12), Stargate Universe (1x17)
Stargate Universe's "Pain" was an okay episode, well-constructed for the most part, with good character development for Chloe, Scott, and Rush, as well as less used characters Volker and James. Greer's storyline was the weak link for me, and when the episode devolved into Greer taking Rush and Camile captive, it lost my interest.
If you hire Party Down to cater a funeral, you get what you deserve. "James Ellison Funeral" was full of ridiculous moments, many cringe-worthy and awkward, but just as many laugh out loud funny.
Saturday, May 15th
Loved: Doctor Who (5x7), Legend of the Seeker (2x21)
"Amy's Choice" was a pretty fantastic standalone Doctor Who episode, with a terrific villain in the Dream Lord, crazy old people doing their best zombie impressions, a cool twist ending that actually makes beautiful sense, and good characterization of everyone. I'm still really enjoying the addition of Rory to the crew of the Tardis.
I certainly did not expect the big two-part season/series finale of Legend of the Seeker to go the direction that it went in "Unbroken," but after my initial WTF-ness, I completely got behind this concept and enjoyed the hell out of it. And, holy shit, that was a pretty bleak ending, leaving a lot hanging off the cliff for part two to pull up. The biggest problem with taking an alternate universe approach to the story telling is that they did the exact same thing with the first season finale. Way to rip yourselves off, guys! Next week: the last Legend of the Seeker ever... sad.
Saturday, May 16th
Liked: Survivor
This Sunday was the big three-hour Survivor finale event. Which means, as is typical: shit loads of filler, such as the 15-minute recap of the season and the silly and boring walk of fallen tribe-mates; the jury being bitter; and the least deserving of the final three winning the game. The reunion show was actually the most enjoyable of the three hours, with Russell being an ass about wanting to change the rules of the game to favour his shitty social play style. But the best thing about the three-hour Survivor finale event: this means that the show is over for a few months--yay! It was a good season, well above average, but watching Survivor is overall a thoroughly empty experience. I probably won't be back in the fall; I'll wait for the next all-stars season.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Week in Review, May 3 to 9
The Week in Television
This was an unusually busy week (OLP concert, ALES meeting, family gatherings), so I didn't have a lot of spare time. On Sunday, with shitty weather outside again and a few hours to kill, I finally started watching the first season of Breaking Bad. So far, so very, very good. Each episode has had one or two "holy shit!" moments, often with one as a cliffhanger. I don't know how this series can be in a third season as it seems like such a time-limited concept, but I'll definitely be finding out in the coming weeks.
Monday, May 3rd
Loved: The Big Bang Theory (3x20)
Liked: Chuck (3x15), How I Met Your Mother (5x21)
Meh: House (6x19)
"Chuck Versus the Role Models" was a goofy, mostly inconsequential episode, feeling more like an episode from earlier in the series. There is nothing wrong with that, and a lot of the fans want exactly this, but I was amused but unmoved. The ending provided hope for bigger episodes to come.
How I Met Your Mother revisited both Barney and Robin and Ted and Robin with "Twin Beds," an episode that had some good ideas, and some quite funny Drunk Ted scenes, but was fundamentally flawed because Don has been such a non-entity in the series that it makes no sense for Robin to be changing her entire life philosophy for this guy that we know nothing about. The title actually refers to the amusing B-story of Marshall and Lily experimenting with twin beds to get better sleep.
The Big Bang Theory writers came up with a great idea for "The Spaghetti Catalyst," sticking Sheldon uncomfortably between the now broken up Leonard and Penny. This is the kind of Sheldon episode that I can get behind, and consequently I really enjoyed it. It was a little much when Leonard and Penny started explicitly treating Sheldon as a child in a custody battle, but I still laughed at the absurdity of it all. I also watched this episode with my grandma, who had never seen the show before and got a pretty big kick out of both Sheldon and Raj, which maybe made it funnier than if I had watched it alone.
Tuesday, May 4th
Loved: Lost (6x14)
Liked: Glee (1x17)
Holy shit! Did all of that really just happen?!? Lost's "The Candidate" kicked the season ending action into gear in a big, big way, while finally answering some questions about Not!Locke's motivations and continuing this season's trend of Jack actually being kinda awesome. The sideways flashes were used this week to help the audience catch their breath, telling a quieter but no less interesting story about the other Jack and Locke.
"Bad Reputation" was a much better Glee episode than the last few, with a number of excellent musical moments, most notably "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (which has a bad reputation now?) and "Can't Touch This" (which had the best payoff of the night). A lot of people hate when Matthew Morrison raps, but his "Ice Ice Baby" was also enjoyable for me. The storylines were also much more interesting (and absurd!--Olivia Newton John, really?) this week, with my favourite moment being Emma confronting Will about his dishonesty.
Wednesday, May 5th
Liked: Modern Family (1x22)
There was lots of funny stuff in Modern Family's "Airport 2010," the first episode in a two-part Hawaii trip storyline, including Jay's exasperation about "Gloria's money," Dylan getting trapped, and Mitchell reacting to Phil's driving. But Manny getting taken away for questioning by airport security was thoroughly unbelievable.
Thursday, May 6th
Loved: Parks and Recreation (2x22), Fringe (2x21), Survivor (20x13)
Liked: The Office (6x24)
Meh: 30 Rock (4x20)
While "Telethon" was not quite as good as last week's Parks and Recreation, it was another hilarious episode with smart use of the entire cast. Written by Amy Poehler! There were many great Jerry jokes, some cute April and Andy moments, drunk Tom, Ron being his usual awesome self, and Leslie in way over her head.
"The Moms" was not a great episode of 30 Rock for me. It frequently crossed the thin line from stupid funny to just stupid.
"The Cover-Up" was a solid episode of The Office. The series is typically more fun with Michael in good spirits, although that had to inevitably crash and burn somehow. In light of the episode ending twist, Donna's strange behaviour in last week's episode makes loads more sense. I also enjoyed Jim and Pam's Morse Code prank on Dwight and Andy and "Darnell" learning about Sabre's dirty secret.
"Northwest Passage" was a strong Peter focused episode of Fringe, effectively tying the series' ongoing arc to a monster (er, serial killer) of the week storyline. Despite being heavily foreshadowed, the ending still packed a hell of a punch.
I am willing to admit when I am wrong. And I was wrong that the rest of this season of Survivor was going to be boring and predictable. After last week's episode, I never would have predicted the two new members of the jury this week. Candice got what was coming to her in a very satisfying boot, and then Russell destroyed any hope he had of winning in a jury vote by turning against his own alliance and orchestrating Danielle's early exit. Rupert surprised me again this week by actually playing the game, hard, and not once whining about his toe.
Friday, May 7th
Loved: Party Down (2x3), Stargate Universe (1x16)
Liked: The Ricky Gervais Show (1x11)
Stargate Universe's "Sabotage" was another strong episode, continuing the alien threat storyline while dealing with the last episode's cliffhanger as if it was an afterthought. There was also clever use of the communication stones to introduce an interesting new character that will hopefully be back again.
New cast member Megan Mullally was surprisingly key to a lot of best moments in Party Down's hilarious "Nick DiCintio's Orgy Night," as she absurdly attempted repeatedly to partake in said orgy. Guest star Thomas Lennon was also fantastic as the bitter divorcee throwing this poorly planned party.
Saturday, May 8th
Loved: Doctor Who (5x6), Legend of the Seeker (2x20)
"The Vampires of Venice" was a fun Doctor Who episode, with the Doctor reacting perfectly to the crazy ending of last week's episode by bringing Amy's fiance Rory along for the adventure. The sparring between the Doctor and Rory was actually the highlight of the episode, bringing the funny numerous times. The alien creatures were cool, the story was pretty good if a little confusingly open-ended, and the scenery and architecture were quite spectacular (I had flashbacks to playing Assassin's Creed II).
In Legend of the Seeker's pretty good "Eternity," Kahlan and Richard rescued the Stone of Tears (finally!) from a creepy Creator cult while Cara and Zedd were captured and tortured by a newly re-bad-ass-ified Darken Rahl. The episode-ending twist, which I should have seen coming from a mile away but did not, nicely set up the big two part season/series finale.
Sunday, May 9th
Liked: The Amazing Race (16x13)
So, my favourite team, the cowboys, didn't pull off the win, but awful Brent and Caite didn't win either, so that was a decent ending to an average season of The Amazing Race. And I don't think we've ever seen a sour grapes bitch fest at the finish line like we got here with Caite vs Brandy.
This was an unusually busy week (OLP concert, ALES meeting, family gatherings), so I didn't have a lot of spare time. On Sunday, with shitty weather outside again and a few hours to kill, I finally started watching the first season of Breaking Bad. So far, so very, very good. Each episode has had one or two "holy shit!" moments, often with one as a cliffhanger. I don't know how this series can be in a third season as it seems like such a time-limited concept, but I'll definitely be finding out in the coming weeks.
Monday, May 3rd
Loved: The Big Bang Theory (3x20)
Liked: Chuck (3x15), How I Met Your Mother (5x21)
Meh: House (6x19)
"Chuck Versus the Role Models" was a goofy, mostly inconsequential episode, feeling more like an episode from earlier in the series. There is nothing wrong with that, and a lot of the fans want exactly this, but I was amused but unmoved. The ending provided hope for bigger episodes to come.
How I Met Your Mother revisited both Barney and Robin and Ted and Robin with "Twin Beds," an episode that had some good ideas, and some quite funny Drunk Ted scenes, but was fundamentally flawed because Don has been such a non-entity in the series that it makes no sense for Robin to be changing her entire life philosophy for this guy that we know nothing about. The title actually refers to the amusing B-story of Marshall and Lily experimenting with twin beds to get better sleep.
The Big Bang Theory writers came up with a great idea for "The Spaghetti Catalyst," sticking Sheldon uncomfortably between the now broken up Leonard and Penny. This is the kind of Sheldon episode that I can get behind, and consequently I really enjoyed it. It was a little much when Leonard and Penny started explicitly treating Sheldon as a child in a custody battle, but I still laughed at the absurdity of it all. I also watched this episode with my grandma, who had never seen the show before and got a pretty big kick out of both Sheldon and Raj, which maybe made it funnier than if I had watched it alone.
Tuesday, May 4th
Loved: Lost (6x14)
Liked: Glee (1x17)
Holy shit! Did all of that really just happen?!? Lost's "The Candidate" kicked the season ending action into gear in a big, big way, while finally answering some questions about Not!Locke's motivations and continuing this season's trend of Jack actually being kinda awesome. The sideways flashes were used this week to help the audience catch their breath, telling a quieter but no less interesting story about the other Jack and Locke.
"Bad Reputation" was a much better Glee episode than the last few, with a number of excellent musical moments, most notably "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (which has a bad reputation now?) and "Can't Touch This" (which had the best payoff of the night). A lot of people hate when Matthew Morrison raps, but his "Ice Ice Baby" was also enjoyable for me. The storylines were also much more interesting (and absurd!--Olivia Newton John, really?) this week, with my favourite moment being Emma confronting Will about his dishonesty.
Wednesday, May 5th
Liked: Modern Family (1x22)
There was lots of funny stuff in Modern Family's "Airport 2010," the first episode in a two-part Hawaii trip storyline, including Jay's exasperation about "Gloria's money," Dylan getting trapped, and Mitchell reacting to Phil's driving. But Manny getting taken away for questioning by airport security was thoroughly unbelievable.
Thursday, May 6th
Loved: Parks and Recreation (2x22), Fringe (2x21), Survivor (20x13)
Liked: The Office (6x24)
Meh: 30 Rock (4x20)
While "Telethon" was not quite as good as last week's Parks and Recreation, it was another hilarious episode with smart use of the entire cast. Written by Amy Poehler! There were many great Jerry jokes, some cute April and Andy moments, drunk Tom, Ron being his usual awesome self, and Leslie in way over her head.
"The Moms" was not a great episode of 30 Rock for me. It frequently crossed the thin line from stupid funny to just stupid.
"The Cover-Up" was a solid episode of The Office. The series is typically more fun with Michael in good spirits, although that had to inevitably crash and burn somehow. In light of the episode ending twist, Donna's strange behaviour in last week's episode makes loads more sense. I also enjoyed Jim and Pam's Morse Code prank on Dwight and Andy and "Darnell" learning about Sabre's dirty secret.
"Northwest Passage" was a strong Peter focused episode of Fringe, effectively tying the series' ongoing arc to a monster (er, serial killer) of the week storyline. Despite being heavily foreshadowed, the ending still packed a hell of a punch.
I am willing to admit when I am wrong. And I was wrong that the rest of this season of Survivor was going to be boring and predictable. After last week's episode, I never would have predicted the two new members of the jury this week. Candice got what was coming to her in a very satisfying boot, and then Russell destroyed any hope he had of winning in a jury vote by turning against his own alliance and orchestrating Danielle's early exit. Rupert surprised me again this week by actually playing the game, hard, and not once whining about his toe.
Friday, May 7th
Loved: Party Down (2x3), Stargate Universe (1x16)
Liked: The Ricky Gervais Show (1x11)
Stargate Universe's "Sabotage" was another strong episode, continuing the alien threat storyline while dealing with the last episode's cliffhanger as if it was an afterthought. There was also clever use of the communication stones to introduce an interesting new character that will hopefully be back again.
New cast member Megan Mullally was surprisingly key to a lot of best moments in Party Down's hilarious "Nick DiCintio's Orgy Night," as she absurdly attempted repeatedly to partake in said orgy. Guest star Thomas Lennon was also fantastic as the bitter divorcee throwing this poorly planned party.
Saturday, May 8th
Loved: Doctor Who (5x6), Legend of the Seeker (2x20)
"The Vampires of Venice" was a fun Doctor Who episode, with the Doctor reacting perfectly to the crazy ending of last week's episode by bringing Amy's fiance Rory along for the adventure. The sparring between the Doctor and Rory was actually the highlight of the episode, bringing the funny numerous times. The alien creatures were cool, the story was pretty good if a little confusingly open-ended, and the scenery and architecture were quite spectacular (I had flashbacks to playing Assassin's Creed II).
In Legend of the Seeker's pretty good "Eternity," Kahlan and Richard rescued the Stone of Tears (finally!) from a creepy Creator cult while Cara and Zedd were captured and tortured by a newly re-bad-ass-ified Darken Rahl. The episode-ending twist, which I should have seen coming from a mile away but did not, nicely set up the big two part season/series finale.
Sunday, May 9th
Liked: The Amazing Race (16x13)
So, my favourite team, the cowboys, didn't pull off the win, but awful Brent and Caite didn't win either, so that was a decent ending to an average season of The Amazing Race. And I don't think we've ever seen a sour grapes bitch fest at the finish line like we got here with Caite vs Brandy.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
About Me - Skeptic
In one of the first posts on this blog, The World As I See It, I established my skeptical leanings pretty clearly. Ten days later, I focused on Atheism in its own About Me post. This long delayed post is about my many other areas of skeptical inquiry.
Of all the terms in my About Me list, skeptic is probably the easiest to abuse. Even the most gullible people in the world think they are skeptics of one thing or another. But, most of the time, these people aren't using skepticism properly.
Some re-frame skepticism in terms of conspiracy theories, usually involving government cover-ups or mysterious shadow groups that secretly hold all of the world's money and/or power. These tin-foil hat wearing lunatics are my favourite type of phony skeptic, because they are at least usually fucking hilarious. Their campaigns of misinformation are generally harmless and thoroughly inane.
Some misapply skepticism to well established scientific theories that they can not even begin to understand. No one person can know everything, but when the scientific consensus among the specialists in a field is that one theory unifies all of their evidence, who the fuck are you to think you know better? That's not skepticism; that's stupidity. And these stupid motherfuckers are continually working at spreading their bullshit and compromising human knowledge, because if there is one thing that science is terrible at, it's public relations. How is it possible that in two-thousand and fucking ten, there are still numerous people out there that are skeptical about evolution, the approximate age of the Earth, and anthropogenic global warming? Leaving aside the unavoidable impact of religiously inspired ignorance, this stupidity is possible because in public debate, it is much, much harder to explain scientific evidence in terms that everyone will understand than it is to distort that scientific evidence with lie after lie after fucking lie. And, sadly, it is the nature of the beast that there will be gaps in the scientific evidence. (But a gap in the fossil record proves that the Christian God created us in his image 10,000 years ago how? To briefly continue this tangent, it is amusing to realize that every transitional fossil that is discovered actually creates two new gaps where previously there was one. Science can never defeat the fucking god of the gaps!) Scientists can only do their best to develop theories that fit the available evidence, with continual improvement as more evidence is discovered, or--and this is where science is awesome!--a complete rethinking if contradictory evidence is ever discovered. Now, please remember that this paragraph was about established scientific consensus. It is perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of new scientific ideas, at least until corroborating evidence is available.
Expanding upon both of those groups into not at all hilarious and extremely dangerous territory, some of these phony skeptics misapply skepticism to modern medicine, notably targeting the safety of vaccinations. This group both distrusts science and sees conspiracies everywhere. You will know you are dealing with one of these assholes if there are any mentions of conspiracies involving "Big Pharma," derogatory usage of terms like "Western Medicine" or "Allopathic Medicine" (as opposed to "Holistic Medicine"), inane "quantum" babbling, or an unwavering belief that a vaccine caused their child's autism, evidence to the contrary be damned. I'm not saying that no one should ever be skeptical of the medical industry or new medical treatments, because any time corporations and profit motive are involved, there is going to be some bullshit, but you can't ignore evidence when the medicine works.
Skepticism depends on reason, rationality, and, as already mentioned a hundred times, evidence. Skeptics are often accused of having a closed mind, but skepticism is the correct application of an open mind. Skeptics are also willing to be proven wrong. Many people claiming to have open minds are actually so unwilling to consider the possibility that they are wrong in their personal beliefs about the world, that they have the most closed mind of all. Maintaining a contrarian position on a generally accepted truth with mountains of available evidence is not skepticism.
This post is not about providing evidence that the three groups of phony skeptics that I have identified above are the lunatics and assholes and stupid motherfuckers that I have labeled them as. (The evidence that they are wrong is freely and widely available.) This post is about my personal skepticism. I just wanted to introduce the topic by establishing what skepticism is not. And maybe tweak some people for fun.
This is a little redundant with the last few items on the previously mentioned The World As I See It post, but I am primarily skeptical of the following: the efficacy of alternative medicine, which includes seemingly plausible but unproven ideas like herbal medicine, chiropractic medicine, and naturopathy, as well as blatant quack nonsense such as homeopathy, reflexology, acupuncture, and Chinese medicine; the existence of the supernatural, which includes "I would love to be proven wrong!" shit such as psychic powers telepathy, telekinesis, and clairvoyance, obviously fictional creatures such as vampires, werewolves, Bigfoot, and Nessie, as well as religious nonsense like ghosts and demons (and god, but I've covered that topic enough); and the presence of extraterrestrial life on Earth, which, again, I would love to be proven wrong about, and obviously includes alien abduction stories and anything relating to the general public's perception of Roswell and Area 51.
In the case of the first two of those topics, something interesting happens if any of these concepts are proven to be true: the alternative medicine becomes medicine, and the supernatural becomes natural. Science will always welcome new effective medicines with open arms, provided they meet the required standards of testing (oh, sorry, how dare science insist on that?!?), and scientists would be thrilled to test a genuine psychic, fundamentally altering our understanding of how the human brain works. Goddamn, who would not love to suddenly acquire fucking psychic powers? And I would be just as happy (but absurdly jealous) to meet someone that could move shit with his fucking force powers. Sadly, this awesome person does not exist. And, despite everything science fiction has taught me about advanced human evolution, it does not necessarily lead to advanced human brain power. Damn!
Along with the previously mentioned "closed mind" canard, one of my favourite silly misconceptions about skeptics is that we have no sense of wonder. How dare we reject a wonderful idea just because we haven't yet found evidence for that idea? Here's the thing: science is a wonderful thing; the universe is full of wonders that we do have evidence for. I reserve my sense of wonder for the true wonders of this amazing universe we live in.
And then there's always the classic tack of insisting that you can't prove a negative. Fair enough, I guess I can't prove that there is no one on Earth with psychic powers. But the burden of proof for your ridiculous idea is on you, not me. A famous Carl Sagan quote is appropriate here: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." And the people claiming psychic powers repeatedly fail to offer that extraordinary proof. Damn my insistence on evidence!
Oh, what's that? You heard a psychic say some amazing things on TV one time? The psychic couldn't possibly have known those things? Actually, I really hope that no one reading this blog is that fucking naive, but in case you are: please educate yourself on hot and cold reading. Google is your friend. While you are at it, also look into confirmation bias and anecdotal evidence.
Now, I'm not actually going to go into any more details on the topics I am skeptical about (in this post, at least). We've already established that the burden of proof for a wacky idea is with the originator of the wacky idea. There are oodles of information already available on these topics at places like Quackwatch, The Skeptic's Dictionary, and the James Randi Educational Foundation, among hundreds of other excellent educational sites.
And, of course, you will just as easily find hundreds of sites claiming that I am wrong about all of these topics. Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing? Yes, yes, it is. What's the difference between the sites I have listed and the quack sites? Ignoring quality of web design, although an awful colour scheme and ridiculous text fonts are pretty good indications that you are on a quack site, the important difference is the lack of evidence. It always comes back to the evidence. The quack sites will usually try to fake it, relying either on scientific sounding words arranged nonsensically ("I do not think that word means what you think it means.") or completely untrustworthy anecdotal evidence. But if their claims are true, there should also be corroborating evidence elsewhere. And there won't be.
When I first started this blog, I was expecting to spend more time writing about skepticism. Being a skeptic is important to me, something that truly defines me, but it is also a subject that is well covered on many blogs elsewhere, so I haven't felt the need to contribute. I'm not saying that this is going to change, but this post is at least a good introduction to the topic if it does.
Of all the terms in my About Me list, skeptic is probably the easiest to abuse. Even the most gullible people in the world think they are skeptics of one thing or another. But, most of the time, these people aren't using skepticism properly.
Some re-frame skepticism in terms of conspiracy theories, usually involving government cover-ups or mysterious shadow groups that secretly hold all of the world's money and/or power. These tin-foil hat wearing lunatics are my favourite type of phony skeptic, because they are at least usually fucking hilarious. Their campaigns of misinformation are generally harmless and thoroughly inane.
Some misapply skepticism to well established scientific theories that they can not even begin to understand. No one person can know everything, but when the scientific consensus among the specialists in a field is that one theory unifies all of their evidence, who the fuck are you to think you know better? That's not skepticism; that's stupidity. And these stupid motherfuckers are continually working at spreading their bullshit and compromising human knowledge, because if there is one thing that science is terrible at, it's public relations. How is it possible that in two-thousand and fucking ten, there are still numerous people out there that are skeptical about evolution, the approximate age of the Earth, and anthropogenic global warming? Leaving aside the unavoidable impact of religiously inspired ignorance, this stupidity is possible because in public debate, it is much, much harder to explain scientific evidence in terms that everyone will understand than it is to distort that scientific evidence with lie after lie after fucking lie. And, sadly, it is the nature of the beast that there will be gaps in the scientific evidence. (But a gap in the fossil record proves that the Christian God created us in his image 10,000 years ago how? To briefly continue this tangent, it is amusing to realize that every transitional fossil that is discovered actually creates two new gaps where previously there was one. Science can never defeat the fucking god of the gaps!) Scientists can only do their best to develop theories that fit the available evidence, with continual improvement as more evidence is discovered, or--and this is where science is awesome!--a complete rethinking if contradictory evidence is ever discovered. Now, please remember that this paragraph was about established scientific consensus. It is perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of new scientific ideas, at least until corroborating evidence is available.
Expanding upon both of those groups into not at all hilarious and extremely dangerous territory, some of these phony skeptics misapply skepticism to modern medicine, notably targeting the safety of vaccinations. This group both distrusts science and sees conspiracies everywhere. You will know you are dealing with one of these assholes if there are any mentions of conspiracies involving "Big Pharma," derogatory usage of terms like "Western Medicine" or "Allopathic Medicine" (as opposed to "Holistic Medicine"), inane "quantum" babbling, or an unwavering belief that a vaccine caused their child's autism, evidence to the contrary be damned. I'm not saying that no one should ever be skeptical of the medical industry or new medical treatments, because any time corporations and profit motive are involved, there is going to be some bullshit, but you can't ignore evidence when the medicine works.
Skepticism depends on reason, rationality, and, as already mentioned a hundred times, evidence. Skeptics are often accused of having a closed mind, but skepticism is the correct application of an open mind. Skeptics are also willing to be proven wrong. Many people claiming to have open minds are actually so unwilling to consider the possibility that they are wrong in their personal beliefs about the world, that they have the most closed mind of all. Maintaining a contrarian position on a generally accepted truth with mountains of available evidence is not skepticism.
This post is not about providing evidence that the three groups of phony skeptics that I have identified above are the lunatics and assholes and stupid motherfuckers that I have labeled them as. (The evidence that they are wrong is freely and widely available.) This post is about my personal skepticism. I just wanted to introduce the topic by establishing what skepticism is not. And maybe tweak some people for fun.
This is a little redundant with the last few items on the previously mentioned The World As I See It post, but I am primarily skeptical of the following: the efficacy of alternative medicine, which includes seemingly plausible but unproven ideas like herbal medicine, chiropractic medicine, and naturopathy, as well as blatant quack nonsense such as homeopathy, reflexology, acupuncture, and Chinese medicine; the existence of the supernatural, which includes "I would love to be proven wrong!" shit such as psychic powers telepathy, telekinesis, and clairvoyance, obviously fictional creatures such as vampires, werewolves, Bigfoot, and Nessie, as well as religious nonsense like ghosts and demons (and god, but I've covered that topic enough); and the presence of extraterrestrial life on Earth, which, again, I would love to be proven wrong about, and obviously includes alien abduction stories and anything relating to the general public's perception of Roswell and Area 51.
In the case of the first two of those topics, something interesting happens if any of these concepts are proven to be true: the alternative medicine becomes medicine, and the supernatural becomes natural. Science will always welcome new effective medicines with open arms, provided they meet the required standards of testing (oh, sorry, how dare science insist on that?!?), and scientists would be thrilled to test a genuine psychic, fundamentally altering our understanding of how the human brain works. Goddamn, who would not love to suddenly acquire fucking psychic powers? And I would be just as happy (but absurdly jealous) to meet someone that could move shit with his fucking force powers. Sadly, this awesome person does not exist. And, despite everything science fiction has taught me about advanced human evolution, it does not necessarily lead to advanced human brain power. Damn!
Along with the previously mentioned "closed mind" canard, one of my favourite silly misconceptions about skeptics is that we have no sense of wonder. How dare we reject a wonderful idea just because we haven't yet found evidence for that idea? Here's the thing: science is a wonderful thing; the universe is full of wonders that we do have evidence for. I reserve my sense of wonder for the true wonders of this amazing universe we live in.
And then there's always the classic tack of insisting that you can't prove a negative. Fair enough, I guess I can't prove that there is no one on Earth with psychic powers. But the burden of proof for your ridiculous idea is on you, not me. A famous Carl Sagan quote is appropriate here: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." And the people claiming psychic powers repeatedly fail to offer that extraordinary proof. Damn my insistence on evidence!
Oh, what's that? You heard a psychic say some amazing things on TV one time? The psychic couldn't possibly have known those things? Actually, I really hope that no one reading this blog is that fucking naive, but in case you are: please educate yourself on hot and cold reading. Google is your friend. While you are at it, also look into confirmation bias and anecdotal evidence.
Now, I'm not actually going to go into any more details on the topics I am skeptical about (in this post, at least). We've already established that the burden of proof for a wacky idea is with the originator of the wacky idea. There are oodles of information already available on these topics at places like Quackwatch, The Skeptic's Dictionary, and the James Randi Educational Foundation, among hundreds of other excellent educational sites.
And, of course, you will just as easily find hundreds of sites claiming that I am wrong about all of these topics. Isn't the Internet a wonderful thing? Yes, yes, it is. What's the difference between the sites I have listed and the quack sites? Ignoring quality of web design, although an awful colour scheme and ridiculous text fonts are pretty good indications that you are on a quack site, the important difference is the lack of evidence. It always comes back to the evidence. The quack sites will usually try to fake it, relying either on scientific sounding words arranged nonsensically ("I do not think that word means what you think it means.") or completely untrustworthy anecdotal evidence. But if their claims are true, there should also be corroborating evidence elsewhere. And there won't be.
When I first started this blog, I was expecting to spend more time writing about skepticism. Being a skeptic is important to me, something that truly defines me, but it is also a subject that is well covered on many blogs elsewhere, so I haven't felt the need to contribute. I'm not saying that this is going to change, but this post is at least a good introduction to the topic if it does.
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