Come with me if you want to live

I've watched episodes 1 & 2 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It's off to a pretty good start. The action is good, and the writers managed a deft sidestep of the blatant continuity error that everyone familiar with the Terminator movies recognized as soon as word of the series came out... i.e. in Terminator 3, Sarah Connor dies of cancer in 2005.

I'm nearly alone in this assessment but I honestly thought T3 was a drastically underrated movie. I rented it with some friends on a New Year's Eve a couple years ago, expecting to get drunk and make fun of it MST3K-style for a couple hours, but even the most jaded of us had to admit that it wasn't quite as bad as we figured it would be. It was more of a return to the roots of the series... Terminator 2 was a really good big budget action flick but it was much less of a science fiction movie than the original. T3 brought back the lower budget sci-fi feel to a large extent. I'm willing to admit that my opinion of T3 is colored by expectations... I was expecting nothing but was rewarded with an entertaining movie.

I'm worried that The Sarah Connor Chronicles will fall victim to really bad tech and continuity errors. Even in the 2nd episode, they ran into a rigged safe that delivered a jolt of electricity big enough to reboot a Terminator... which John was able to touch by putting his sweatshirt over his finger. Not to mention the fact that there are now apparently roving packs of people from the future living in 2007 fighting over the future. It's going to stretch the boundaries of plausibility that all this time travel won't have long term effects.

In the end though, it's an entertaining show - things blow up, there's some robot kung fu, and hot chicks. I can't complain.

Primary Colors

I wrote up this huge post as a response to Carrie's political angst post (which itself seemed to be a response to Mrs. White's political angst) this week but then realized that it was the sort of thing I ought to, you know, put on my own blog. But seriously, go read the two blogs I just linked because they're both way better writers than I am.

I've done little to differentiate any of the Democratic candidates in my mind because the Democrats have decided that Michiganders are not worthy to participate in their primary. However, I do have a lot of concerns regarding whether either Clinton or Obama can actually get elected.

Hillary faces the conundrum that Carrie has experienced... if you're a strong woman, you're a bitch; if you're a caring woman, you're weak and emotionally unbalanced. If you're a Democrat and support Hillary, you hate brown people. She and her husband also galvanize the Republicans like no one else can. Republicans HATE Bill Clinton (they impeached him for lying about a blow job!!) and if Hillary is nominated the Republican turnout for the Presidential election will be absolutely enormous.

I'd love to think that the fact that Barack Obama is an African American won't matter in 2008, but there's a corner of my brain that snickers every time I try to tell myself that with a straight face. If he is the Democratic candidate, he will bring a LOT of people to the polls who wouldn't normally go near a voting machine. Whether that turns out to be a positive or a negative is up in the air, but the cynic in me believes that there are more non-voting racists who will vote against Barack Obama than non-voting minorities who will vote for Barack Obama. So you have the racist front, which is a problem for the Democrats, but one which the Republicans can't really advertise. The other front that Obama faces a lot of problems on is his lack of experience. He's a great speaker, and a good senator, but he's been involved in national politics for only 4 years, and has never lead the executive branch of anything. I'm not saying I agree with this point... I'm just saying it's going to be a valid concern for undecided voters. Once again, a 2nd candidate with major roadblocks to winning a national election.

But then again, where does this leave us? Edwards? Pray that Gore pulls a Nader and decides to run? Once again, the Democrats have brought us a completely uncompelling set of candidates. This feels exactly like 2004 all over again, and it scares the bejezus out of me.

The Wire: Season 1

The Wire: Season 1 is one of the best seasons of television you will find anywhere. The writing is superb. My heart was in my throat as various plots wound towards the conclusion. It teaches of... inevitability, which isn't exactly a hot topic for most cop shows. Most cop shows are simple and neat, and the streets of Baltimore as shown in The Wire are neither. The complexity and nuance are way beyond anything you'll see on network TV. It rings with truth that most shows about crime can't touch. It's a damned shame not many people watch this show. It's certainly better than The Sopranos, and I really liked that show.

If I or someone in my family were murdered, I'd want Jimmy McNulty on the case.

Seasons 2, 3, and 4 will follow. Series-ending season 5 starts this weekend - hopefully I'll be able to catch up and watch the last episode when it airs. Not being done with The Sopranos when the finale aired last year really sucked and I don't want a repeat this year, even if The Wire isn't nearly as popular as The Sopranos was.