Planet Earth: Seasonal Forests

Picture going south from the arctic circle ... and the first living organism you will see is likely to be a tree, then two, three, and more, and suddenly ... a forest! Soon the conifers of the taiga dominate the landscape. If you guessed I’m talking about another Planet Earth episode, you guessed right! Naturally we’re shown marvelous scenes this time around of snow-covered boreal forests, giant redwood trees covered in mist, incredible time-lapse images from space of North America turning red in fall, and the wondrous, nocturnal bloom of the primordial baobab tree.

Furthermore, this episode features a hilariously grotesque moose gnawing on pine needles; a gluttonous wolverine ravaging the cadaver of a caribou; black vultures, grey owls, and mandarin ducks; the mass emergence of the (17-year cycle periodic) magicicadas; squirrels, lemurs, pine martens, adorable pudus (deer) and the cutest codcods (a wild cat); gray langur monkeys feasting on the flowers of the mahuwa tree in India’s teak forest, while chital deer warn them about stalking Bengal tigers; a nearly ethereal lynx wandering in the arctic snow; and once more the majestic Amur leopard (the rarest cat on earth) that we saw in the beginning of this magnificent series!

Mad Men 3x09

Mad Man Don Draper has brought in the Hilton account for Sterling Cooper. Conrad Hilton warned him things are going to change with Hilton in his life. So, in the middle of the night, Don wakes up as the phone rings. Connie wants to talk business with him: he’s thinking about giving him Hilton’s international business. He wants hotels around the globe, even on the moon, “to bring America to the world.” At the pitch, Connie at first appears impressed but then gets upset when the campaign doesn’t show Hilton on the moon. Don is stunned, but Connie persists that when he says he wants the moon, he expects the moon... To compound things, Sterling Cooper just about lost the Lucky Strike account, because Salvatore (the new commercial director) rejected the owner’s son, Lee Garner, when he came onto him. Garner wanted Sal fired, but Harry Crane (the Media Liaison) told him he doesn’t have that authority. At the presentation, with Sal still there, Garner stormed out. And Roger fires Sal when he hears what happened. Apparently, Mad Men are supposed to be whores, too, if you pardon my French.

Bets has been dreaming about that Henry Francis from the Governor’s office – and trying to contact him. Then he rings her door bell unannounced, but changes the subject to a fundraiser when Betty’s help walks in on them. Bets gets miffed when, later, he doesn’t show up in person, but Henry wanted her to come to him, because she’s married. When push comes to shove, though, she backs off (fortunately!), reproving that “it’s tawdry” to have sex in his office. Meanwhile, Don’s been crossing paths with Sally’s teacher, sassy Suzanne – first by accident, and then not so much. After the debacles at work with Hilton and Lucky Strike, the numbskull visits her, telling her he can’t stop thinking about her and that he wants her ... and the rest you can fill in with your own vivid imagination. Great episode! Things are really heating up now. I can’t wait to check out the next one!

Burn Notice 3x15

In Burn Notice, our former spy Michael Westen is sent by evil limey mastermind Gilroy to a compound decorated with southern flags and armed guards, right-wing separatists (i.e., white supremacists) who wish the American Civil War had gone the other way. Without his knowing, Michael is used as a decoy to create a diversion while Gilroy steals a Browning machine gun. On their part Fiona and Sam are working together on a hostage situation that gets them much more than they bargained for! Not only is the kidnapper a violent paranoid, it turns out he isn’t interested in money but in stopping an American corporation from polluting his Argentinean town where his little daughter died. The questions remains, of course, who this high-risk prisoner is that Gilroy wants to break out by taking out the plane that is to transport him to Poland... When Michael blows up a bridge to prevent the police from following them and sprints to Gilroy’s car he finds him bloody and strapped with dynamite! The world class criminal set up Gilroy!! BOOM! Oooh, what an explosive cliff hanger!!! (Season finale next week.)

Caprica 1x04

Another explosion rocks Caprica City! This time no terrorist act by the Soldiers of One, but a high school student... or was it? At least there were no victims. Police raid the Athena Academy of headmistress Clarice Willow in hopes of finding any clues, if not for this recent explosion, then for the bombing on the monorail that killed Zoe Graystone and some many others. Soon after, the same police ransack Zoe’s room. Meanwhile, Joseph Adama still wishes to even the score and have Zoe’s mother dead, but then wavers after seeing her on TV, finally his guilty conscious weighs against it.

Strangely, Daniel Graystone apparently has very poor security at his home office, because Cylon Zoe can roam about, use his computers, the “holoband” and enter her simulated virtual reality to communicate with her friend Lacy. For his part, Little William Adama is still trying to figure out his life without his mother and sister (both were also killed in that train bombing), in a society that is unappreciative of his Tauron background. (It’s like being Mexican, Italian mobster, and Muslim all wrapped into one...)

What I really found interesting and well done is the scene at Backtalk, a Jay Leno-type talk show everybody on the Twelve Colonies watches, hosted by Baxter Sarno (stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt). Daniel Graystone is supposed to go on to defend his company from all the scandal revolving around his daughter’s involvement with the Soldiers of One as well as the possible connection with the holoband and the virtual reality it offers. Unexpectedly Amanda Graystone joins in, and a great moment finally occurs. It felt very much off-the-cuff, impromptu, like we were actually watching a live talk show. Well done.

Girls Next Door 6x07

Must be pretty weird for Bridget Marquardt to walk into her former room at the Playboy Mansion and find these twin twits live there now... But what I find even more remarkable is that suddenly Bridget strikes me as intelligent compared to these two brain-dead bimbos. Bridget is organizing a celebrity catwalk for an animal charity and now the girls want their own charity event, too... So they decide to sell lemonade for the AIDS walk and make $15,000... Um, that’s gonna take a whole lotta gallons of lemonade, you numbskulls! Hef meets them in the kitchen and begs them to stop squeezing already. He’ll supply the lemonade, ‘cause he has better usage for their time. Yeah, you betcha! They’re selling Minute Maid at the back gate to all the tour busses passing by, getting help from a whole slew of Playmates... but at the end of the day, they didn’t even raise $1,500! They made another $2,000 online, and Playboy doubled that to total just under $8,000. That’s barely half of what they set out to raise, but oh, well. Anyway, that’s a wrap. This show is so awfully appalling you feel mold growing inside your head! Yet I sit there in stunned fascination watching in disbelieve at these girls’ utter stupidity...

Hilary and Jackie

Your Music & Movie Cricket is going to kill two birds with one stone and tell you about the miraculously endearing movie Hilary and Jackie (1998). (No, not a film about American First Ladies!) This film tells the story of Jacqueline du Pré, the cellist who died of multiple sclerosis (a disease very close to what my father suffered). As a young girl, Jackie grew up in the shadow of her child prodigy sister ... but with the determined encouragement of their overbearing mother, Jackie got even better than Hilary, meanwhile winning one contest after another. Hilary, although very gifted on the flute, never achieved the fame of her sister. In music school she fell in love and later married the dashingly dapper Kiffer Finzi (who puts her in the spotlight like nobody else, makes her feel special), with whom she continued performing locally. Jackie, on her part, married Jewish Argentinean piano virtuoso Danny Barenboim. Jealous of Hilary’s happiness, self-absorbed, immature (or, maybe I should say, childlike), Jackie sleeps with Kiffer, just so that she could have what her sister has, except that’s not how life works. In fact it damages the love Hilary felt for her little sister.

Jackie was thrown into the international musical world without support or preparation, entirely on her own. Only gradually do we get a sense of her loneliness and despair – with no one bothering to help her translate foreign languages or even wash her clothes. She starts to resent the cello, her one and only talent. It’s in those spirits she first meets Daniel Barenboim, playing tango music. They can share their passion for music. They tour together to great acclaim, with Barenboim either conducting or playing the piano. But then the multiple sclerosis slowly starts to show its first signs, she loses sensitivity in her fingers, and after some time loses control over body parts. The scenes of her exercising to revalidate, then progressively deteriorating are heart wrenching ... and painfully remind me of my father’s last years... But you too will be crying bitter tears towards the end, I assure you. The acting, Emily Watson’s performance, is absolutely stellar!

Apparently the movie – and the book on which it was based, A Genius in the Family, by Piers and Hilary du Pré – sparked a controversy among Jackie’s friends, family and fellow musicians. Barenboim apparently felt they should have waited until he was dead himself. You see, he had a mistress and fathered two children with her, before Jackie died. So he feels guilty, maybe. It also seems that Finzi willingly engaged in the affair with Jackie (you’d say?) and had other mistresses, so his daughter says, which (for obvious reasons) Hilary neglected to tell... Jackie’s supporters sense jealousy and bitterness on Hilary’s part, and are distraught by the portrayal of Jackie as insensitive, spoiled and selfish. In her defense, Hilary has claimed that she wrote her memoir out of love, to tell the world the whole story, to present Jackie in all her facets, warts and all, as only she (Hilary) could have known – being her closest confidant throughout her life.

To me, the story is about having to choose between your talents and your happiness when the two aren’t the same. I’ve met a lot of talented people, and I’m still unsure whether following your talents with unfailing devotion will make you happy in the end. Yet I’m also still disappointed that I chose not to follow some of my own ... That’s not to say I would have been any good in other people’s eyes, but I’m wondering if I would have been any happier ... or what the source of happiness is for me... Is it love, friendship, in other words relations external to myself, or can I (can we) find true happiness within myself (within ourselves)? In this movie we’re switching back and forth between Hilary and Jackie, and while most of the drama lies with Jackie, of course, I’m not sure anyone would come out roundly for Hilary and say she found perfect happiness in her life, peace perhaps, and a measure of contentment... yet she remained in awe of her sister, secretly yearning for her success ... and willfully ignoring the fact that her husband was an insensitive philanderer. So, you see, this marvelous, deeply moving film is very emotionally gratifying, and is certainly worth watching.

BBC Horizon: Your Self

BBC’s popular science series Horizon is asking the probing psychological question: Who Are You? or, How Do You Know Who You Are? Jeez, man, that’s deep... Well, let’s start at the beginning with the time we first become aware of ourselves... Babies looking at themselves in the mirror seem to posses no sense of self-awareness whatsoever, but somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four months of age, children develop this recognition – and apparently only the great apes reach this level of consciousness. But there’s a price to pay: self-awareness also comes with the understanding of mortality, the awareness of your own death... This one researcher has even proven conscious brain activity (i.e., awareness of the outside world) in a comatose patient! Ultimately, of course, you’ll end up asking questions about the nature (and existence) of the soul, its relation to our body and its possible disembodied state... Maybe you’re thinking, “Oh, Plato” and his theory of psychosomatic dualism ... I was for sure, but Horizon is only going back as far as Descartes ... and is crediting him with the separation of mind and matter, the spiritual and material ... cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). You still with me? We then get talk about anesthesia and brain structure, as well as neuronal activity and trans-cranial magnetic stimulation in order to discover the source or essence of cognitive consciousness. Nor would this show be complete without at least a brief discussion of Free Will... Whether we call it our identity or consciousness, our thought process or free will, even our soul, we probably ought to conclude it is constituted by neurons sending electric shockwaves through your brain. Excellent show, this!

Mad Men 3x08

On Mad Men, Bets and Don Draper have both been inching on the brink of extra-marital affairs... Their marriage has been tested by the arrival of a new baby boy ... and temptations were thrown on their paths... Don’s sent on a tour of Hilton hotels around the country, including a trip to Rome. Bets keeps working on the local campaign to save the reservoir and during the town hall meeting her connection at the Governor’s Office, this Henry Francis guy (I’m sorry, but that really is how they call him) delivers an order that the installation of the (huge) water tank be delayed. We all know he’s merely there to have his way with our angelic Elizabeth... Afterwards he walks her to his car ... leans in to kiss her ... and then she drives away... Of course Don doesn’t know his wife is about to be seduced, but the love and admiration in his eyes when he hears she achieved her goal in local politics, it’s the sweetest thing!

Next, Bets decides to join Don on his trip to Rome. They get a room overlooking the Forum. While Don’s catching up on sleep, she makes an appointment at a beauty salon and then enjoys a night on the town. Don joins her pretending they don’t know each other to tease the local Latin lover boys. It’s truly adorable! “By golly, you are an indecently lucky man,” Connie Hilton tells Don when he arrives. In the end, Don and Bets return to their room and make love. When they come back home and Don gives her a little souvenir dangler shaped like the Colosseum, something’s wrong. Betty is fed up with the town they live in, their fake friends, and the home she just redecorated. All this time of being a rich man’s housewife whiling away her time doing nothing has made her restless, eager for some excitement, and she wants to get away from the boredom. This was a quiet episode – a bit like filler before we get to the season’s end, I fear – but lovely nonetheless.

Dexter - season 1 recap

After watching the whole of the first season of Dexter (last year), I have to say I am still disturbed by its premise. I still feel little sympathy for this serial killer who believes that certain people somehow “deserve to die” – even though we have been offered something of an explanation how he became devoid of human emotions (repressing memories of the bloodbath that caused his mother’s death). In so far as murder is concerned, I refuse to be desensitized. I still abhor the notion of the vigilante killing people who somehow slip through the maze of justice yet in his sick mind “deserve to die.” I notice how the show toys with our moral concepts of good and bad, which by itself is interesting (it makes us question our assumptions), but I reject the notion that certain crimes, no matter how heinous, warrant death. Dexter himself fakes emotions to get himself through the day – in order to survive in society. He has absorbed the Code of Harry, his adoptive father, but he doesn’t “feel” good and bad. In other words, he’s acting the way he does because Harry told him so, not because he himself agrees with any of the ethical notions Harry tried to instill in him. It’s a matter of fitting in and not getting caught, while struggling to channel his urge to kill: better to murder deserving victims than innocent bystanders.

A friend of mine pointed out that you could see Dexter’s urge to kill as a metaphor, an extreme magnification of something we all deal with in one way or another: struggling to fit in with society’s constraints on our behavior; hiding our dark side; struggling to reconcile our public and private selves, our identity, personality, our character; trying to rein in a consuming compulsion; struggling to define what is good and bad, what is wrong and right. In that respect Dexter is a modern-day Jekyll and Hyde. It’s not that I don’t identify with that struggle, but I am for a large part quite okay with my private self – even if I draw boundaries around myself in public. My problem is that Dexter’s private self is devoid of human emotions. For me there simply isn’t anything with which to sympathize.

Fortunately there is a great supporting cast that gives the show needed human depth. Dexter’s sister Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter, also known from The Exorcism of Emily Rose) is adorably endearing in her effort to solve the case of the Ice Truck Killer. She’s a team player who wants to fit in, unsure of her own talents, and desperate to follow in her father’s footsteps. Dexter’s girlfriend Rita Bennett (Julie Benz, also known from Buffy and Angel) offers a great counterpart, because she’s so damaged and fragile, and believes in Dexter’s goodness. Lieutenant Maria LaGuerta is Dex’ intimidating supervisor, who seeks publicity at every turn, but often makes the wrong decisions. Detective Angel Batista is Dex’ funny co-worker, who appreciates Dex expertise. Sergeant James Doakes conversely always distrusts Dexter and hates the fact that Dex is usually right about cases. These characters give life to the series, and even though they add the familiar police/forensic drama tropes, they also keep the show interesting with all their human quirks and foibles. I can’t wait to check out season two! (Stay tuned!)

Burn Notice 3x14

So, Michael Westen has delivered some valuable information to this Gilroy guy, the freelance psychopath, in hopes of learning eventually why he got his Burn Notice. Now, Michael needs to know what that valuable information actually means to Gilroy... why it’s so important to him... Meanwhile, to earn some fast cash, Michael is helping Sam with a job tracing stolen money for some rich fashion designer lady. Lots of scantily clad models running about! Then the suspected thief, her bookkeeper, is framed for her death. Naturally, her business partner was behind the murder. So, Michael has to shake him good to get a confession out of him. Nice action scenes that kept me glued. Fiona, on her lovely part, has discovered that the information Michael delivered to Gilroy concerns flight information about some high-risk prisoner who’s about to be flown to Poland. No doubt Gilroy wants to release the criminal – and wants Michael to help... but that’s for next week.

Girls Next Door 6x06

“Dasha is wild,” the twins Karissa and Kristina say, talking about Dasha Astafieva, the Ukrainian model, singer, and Playboy’s 55th Anniversary Playmate. “We would definitely never ever, ever think of taking our panties off, especially on the red carpet!” the twin twits continue. “She is not very good at knowing where her boundaries are,” the other airhead, Crystal, explains, “maybe because she’s foreign. I’m not really sure.” From there the Girls Next Door are suddenly taken to Italy, where they are attending the Sanremo Music Festival with Hef. Once in Rome, the three girls go all, “yeah, wow you guys, pretty, cool, yeah, oh my gawd, it’s so pretty ... it’s so cool here ... there’s like a bunch of old buildings and walls and there’s people driving on vespas everywhere...” To surprise them, Hef also invited Dasha to the party ... and the little spoilsport brought a painting of Hef and her ... the girls feel she crossed the freakin’ line! Awkward! At the festival, all four girls walk him down the stairs where he’s interviewed for half an hour while they sit pretty. Then they attend the re-launch party of the Italian Playboy, where Dasha is still flirting with Hef, to Crystal’s great chagrin ... and on and on it goes. My goodness this is mind-numbingly tedious!

Kiss

“Kiss?” I hear you ask. Yes, Kiss: those guys in make-up, high heels, and flamboyant outfits. Last year (I think I’ve already reported) my friend Sander got me volume one of the Kissology DVD set (covering the years 1974-77). You all know songs such as “Rock and Roll All Nite (and party every day),” “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” “Shout It Out Loud,” “God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You,” and “Christine Sixteen” ... otherwise you’ve been living under a rock on Mars with your ears closed. Kiss were perhaps my first real musical love. At least I don’t remember being so moved by music, so excited about it, the way I was with Kiss. For me it began with “Sure Know Something” ... and from there my friends and I bought as many of the earlier albums as we could find until the three of us together had most if not all. But even for a fan like me watching umpteen versions of “Firehouse,” “Cold Gin” or “Black Diamond” gets tedious. So, I’ve been checking out a few songs at a time. Looking back, I find it hilarious that people could actually believe these guys were neo-nazis because of the lightning flashes in the SS of their logo... Look at their song titles, man, “Makin’ Love,” “Let Me Go, Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “I Want You,” “Hotter Than Hell,” “C’mon and Love Me,” I mean, really, what do you think these songs are about? The holocaust? Seriously. My favorites are still “Detroit Rock City,” “Cold Gin,” “Parasite,” “Shock Me” (in which guitarist Ace Frehley sets his guitar on smoke while soloing) and “God of Thunder” (in which Gene Simmons breathes fire and spits blood).

For me the larger-than-life characters were part and parcel of the appeal: the spaced-out Space Ace axe man, the starry-eyed Starchild singer of romances, the Demon of sin with his devilish tongue, the wild Catman behind the drum set; there was something in each of them that struck a chord. I was mesmerized by the enormously elaborate sets and brilliant pyrotechnics. Perhaps most of Kiss’ songs aren’t technically complex, but neither are most songs in the Beatles’ catalogue, to name just one obvious example. The strength of many songs lies in their anthemic quality (if that’s not a term it now is), their arena rock aspirations (even in the early days), and thus exactly in their relatively (yet deceptively) simple, uncomplicated structures and arrangements. Listen closely, though, and Ace Frehley’s licks and leads, his riffs and solos are full of melody and pathos! And of course, just like Chuck Berry hit a nerve with every teenager, Kiss sing about sex and love and rock and roll. As a teenager, who wouldn’t wanna rock and roll all nite and party every day?

Mad Men 3x07

Don Draper, the Mad Men’s creative Director at Sterling Cooper has been approached by Conrad Hilton to pitch an advertisement for free – obviously an opportunity for Don to bring in the hotel magnate as a client. Peggy has been offered a position at the company Buck Phillips moved to after he got fired by Lane Pryce. Roger Sterling and Bertram Cooper have been made aware how much they are now the pawns of the London office. This sure is a set up for a tremendous second half of the season! (I wish I could watch all episodes in just one sitting!) Walking into the office a little late, 9:30am, Don finds Conrad Hilton, “Connie,” waiting for him in his chair with a personal matter he didn’t want to settle over the phone... Unmarried Connie has an involvement, his significant needs are being met, but his eyes are starting to wander... What is he to do? He’s giving Don his three New York hotels to look after! Don gets all cheers at the office, and Sterling Cooper offer him a three-year contract with a salary raise and a bonus. (He’s been without a contract to free himself of obligations.)

The core of this episode, though, revolves around three subplots. In one, Don is chatting to Sally’s teacher, who’s openly flirtatious, while the kids are watching a solar eclipse... After a fight with Bets over his contract, he walks out ... drives off and picks up a couple of hitchhikers going to Niagra Falls ... takes them to a motel, where they drug him with Phenobarbitals and rob him off his money... Next day he signs the contract. The second subplot is about Bets, who’s talking to a political advisor she knows through Don, about preserving the reservoir. It’s clear he likes her, but she doesn’t answer his courtship. And finally there’s Peggy, put down again by Don when she’s asking about the Hilton account, still toying with the idea of Buck’s offer ... and she ends up meeting him in a hotel ... where they make love... Eww. Nice episode, not as good as the previous one, but enough to make me curious about the next!

Burn Notice 3x13

Michael Westen is still desperately trying to find out why he got the Burn Notice and is willing to do whatever it takes. So, he continues talking to Mason Gilroy, the sociopath who recently hooked him up with the best thief in the western hemisphere to steal some files from the Chilean embassy. But now the guy is dead ... and Gilroy wants the info on six weeks of all private flights in and out of Miami. Meanwhile a former partner who Michael thought was dead bursts into his apartment because some drug cartel is after him for the two million dollars he stole... Under those circumstances, Michael is left to his own devices when Sam and Fiona abandon him, both for their own reasons. In the end, he manages to give everyone what they want, without having to kill anyone. Sounds like fun? It should, ‘cause it’s a whole lotta fun!

Caprica 1x03

On Caprica Joseph Adama wants Daniel Graystone to help him talk to his daughter’s “avatar,” but because Graystone, believing he lost the program containing his daughter’s “avatar,” no longer wants anything to do with the whole sordid business he refuses. So, now Adama employs the help of his gangster brother, who throws a few punches until Graystone’s nose bleeds. Then, when Graystone finally allows Adama to return to the holographic virtual reality with a “holoband,” the girl is nowhere to be found. Adama, turning grief into anger, orders his brother to even out the score: he (Joseph) lost his daughter and his wife on the train ... Graystone only lost his daughter... Meanwhile, young Will Adama is gravitating towards his mobster uncle, trying to act like a tough guy, cutting class and running errands. The twists in the plot are getting a little more interesting.

On their part, Zoe’s parents are drawing closer over their shared grief and the realization that their daughter was involved with this monotheistic cult the Soldiers of One. With her disembodied “avatar,” uploaded into a Cylon prototype, she overhears her parents arguing whether she was the terrorist responsible for actually detonating the bomb... Then she figures a way to connect her “avatar” to the virtual reality in which she was created, hooks up with her friend Lacy, and stumbles upon Adama’s daughter Tamara! Fortunately that also means we go back to the sweating kids dancing to the droning music, but alas no sex, drugs or violence for now... More religious talk from head mistress Clarice about apotheosis and prophecies about Zoe being the Beloved of the Lord who received the spark of life, etcetera. (BTW: zoë in Greek means “life, life force, strength”; it’s also the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Eve.) Still, I feel this sounds more interesting in writing than it actually is ... and if you were bored to tears just reading this, don’t bother watching, of course, but it’s getting a tad more bearable than last week’s episode...

Girls Next Door 6x05

Let’s return to the Playboy Mansion and gawk at the atrociously annoying Girls Next Door. In this episode Crystal and her mum are planting a little vegetable garden in the backyard. “It’s always more fun when it’s growing,” Hef quips. He did, he went there. Sheesh. Karissa or Kristina says: “When Hef told us we’re going to be in a movie, we freaked the fuck out.” “Yeah, we freaked the fuck out,” the other twin echoes. Numbskulls don’t even know who Sofia Coppola is, or, worse, Francis Ford Coppola! “Hahahaha,” the twins go. “Learning how to use the pole was tougher than we thought,” one of them admits. “Oh, my gawd, was it hard,” the other sighs. After a few weeks of practice Sofia stops by and is impressed with their skills on the pole. Meanwhile Crystal is going for her first centerfold test shoot. She explains that just because you’re Hef’s girlfriend you don’t just automatically become a playmate, and is quick to point out that Barbi Benton, Holly, Bridget and Kendra never made it. Still, they wouldn’t show us her shoot if she’d gotten rejected, so it’s little surprise to hear that Hef loved it and picked her to be Playmate of the Month (Dec. 2009). Um, yeah, it’s starting to become like just another reality show... shucks...

Dollhouse - recap

By the first looks of it Dollhouse appears to be nothing more than a flimsy fast ‘n’ furious fun-filled show. But if you make some concerted effort there are one or two deeper layers addressing the ethical/moral underpinnings of the sci-fi premise of neurological imprinting (i.e., wiping someone’s mind blank and then reprogramming their neurological architecture). Naturally, the show deals with questions of personality and identity, what defines us, our character, our moral fiber, our human idiosyncrasies, our quirks and foibles... Most importantly, though, there’s the issue of consent: if someone volunteers for this program, he or she has to agree on future activities that can only be guessed at. Of course, you don’t have to be a neuroscientist or astrophysicist to figure out that something like the Dollhouse will often get involved in at least two questionable activities: prostitution and assassination. (Let’s just say that, because I’m a Dutch pacifist, I have little qualms about the former, but vehemently disagree with the latter proposition.)

If you could reprogram someone’s personality, obviously, there will be enough rich men (or women) who would be more than happy to pay a fair amount for a romantic engagement with the perfect girl or boy. We aren’t told whether or not Caroline understood that this is what she signed up for when she joined the Dollhouse, but Echo is never asked for her consent (nor could she have the means of making a calculated decision in her mentally blank state), and the personalities she becomes after imprinting have been programmed to agree on their mission. In a way, then, whenever Echo goes on a romantic engagement in which her personality agrees to have sex, Caroline gets raped in that she has not and could not consent to the deed. The same logic applies to “murder-for-hire” operations in which either the mission is to eliminate someone or in which lethal collateral damage is expected. Echo may be programmed to kill, but Caroline is never asked, and could never be asked her opinion. The audience could have realized these issues from the start, but they’ve only gradually become more explicit – and more so in season two than season one. Things started to heat up as Echo slowly became self-aware and has been trained to access her former imprints.

Another logical outcome of the Dollhouse premise is that the Doll will become emotionally attached to his or her handler. It depends on the uprighteousness (if that’s a word) of the handler whether that bond becomes physical too. We might have thought it was cute when FBI agent Paul Ballard was dating his neighbor, but when he found out Mellie was actually a sleeper agent spying on him, he should have responded with moral indignation and vehement revulsion. Instead, he offered his services to the institution he loathes so much, on the condition they release Mellie (a/k/a November, real name Madeline)... Why release only one of the Dolls? Why her? We’re never made to ask that question – at least not explicitly. It’s simply implied that he fell in love with Mellie, and that that explains why he wanted her to regain her freedom... We’re never told why Ballard was so preoccupied with taking down the Dollhouse (but that could be taken for granted), and somehow they neatly brush under the carpet that he is completely obsessed with Caroline (Echo) to the point of stalking her – despite falling in love also with Mellie (gosh, the guy couldn’t even keep it in his pants). Unlike Boyd Langton (Echo’s first handler), Ballard is personally, emotionally and physically drawn to Caroline/Echo. That, too, is something Caroline never signed up for, to be attached to some hotshot douchebag with a moral spine as weak as snot.

Later in the second season, however, we hear about a portable device (hinted at in the unaired “Epitaph One” episode appended to the first season) that can wipe and imprint any mind remotely. That is to say, the issue of consent becomes moot. This is the neurological apocalypse the show has been heading toward. The Rossum Corporation will be able to imprint whomever they choose for whatever shady practices they desire. Somehow their technology will end up in the hands of the Chinese government who will know exactly what to do with it... program an army of “Imprints”... We learn that Rossum founder Boyd Langton deviously manipulated the team at the L.A. Dollhouse to discover exactly how far they could take the technology. At the same time, he’s also been willing to find a vaccine. But at the end of season two, Caroline uses Boyd to blow up the Rossum lab... After that, things got a very rushed ending in the show’s finale. Apparently we have to worry about “Imprints” returning to their original personalities, despite the fact that the entire time we’ve been told that, once your mind’s been wiped blank, your own identity is gone unless it’s backed-up on a hard drive...

I cannot help but mention that we shouldn’t expect Joss Whedon or the Dollhouse series to be philosophically sound. I don’t know what he studied (I could check on wiki, of course, but I’m too lazy for that), but the Dollhouse is a form of pop-cultural mass entertainment that cannot be expected to hold up to rigorous logical, ethical, philosophical examination. When we scratch two or three levels beneath the surface, there’s nothing left. The sci-fi mumbo-jumbo is so illogical that I have to ignore it. If it were possible to wipe someone’s mind blank and then imprint different personalities onto their neurological architecture, if a person then gradually becomes self-aware and can access those imprints, he or she should also be able to return to their original self. So far as I remember, we were never told how Echo was able to access Caroline, and we sure weren’t told how Topher’s “Pulse” was able to reverse the effects of his imprinting technology. Let me finish by saying that I clearly enjoyed this show (for the fun of it, and the cuties), but we have to resist reading too much into the storyline, because at some point our over-interpretation becomes more our own creation, than what Joss Whedon and his crew ever intended. Keeping in mind that Fox Network exerted quite some pressure, threatening to cancel the show after one season, then forcing to end it after two (while five were initially anticipated), Whedon no doubt was had no choice than to leave out details we’ll never know about. Overall, I’m glad I watched it, but not very sorry it’s over.

Planet Earth: Shallow Seas

“Shallow Seas” is the title of the next episode of BBC’s Planet Earth, about the seas surrounding the continents on the fringes of the tectonic plates, and which contain the vast majority of marine life. Naturally, I can only marvel at the superb satellite images of continental shore lines. But the true wonders are found under water: the countless shoals of colorful fish swimming through bountiful coral reefs; sea urchins, star fish, and minute pygmy seahorses butting heads to claim their territory; banded krait snakes teaming up with trevally and goat fish hunting for prey; turtles, sea lions, seals, dolphins, stingrays, and sharks; primordial sirenian sea cows herding on the sea grass meadows in Australia’s Shark Bay; most of all majestic humpback whales singing to each other on their journey from the equator to the arctic sea! Surely by now you’ve downloaded the series or got yourself the DVD set, because this really is a show you can’t afford to miss.

Mad Men 3x06

The next Mad Men episode is really terrific – it’s hilarious, serious, very emotionally gratifying and with many surprising twists! One of the characters I rarely talk about is Joan Holloway, the head secretary at Sterling Cooper. She married a handsome doctor, Greg Harris, after Roger Sterling ended their affair. But her doctor seems to harbor some sort of secret... A few episodes back they hosted a dinner, and one of the guests advised Joan not to get pregnant adding ominously that she’s optimistic about Greg’s future, no matter what happens, because he married a woman like Joan... Then there’s some kind of mishap during one of his surgeries he tries not to talk about... Now, Joan is about to quit her job, because he’s expecting to be appointed chief resident at the hospital. But when she’s waiting for him with a romantic celebratory dinner for two, he comes home drunk late, trying to hide the fact that he got passed over. He admits he’s not a good surgeon, and tells her she needs to keep working. Despite all the setbacks, she remains clam and gentle: “I married you for your heart, not for your fingers,” she tells him. The unbelievable patience and kindness she shows him while her own world’s suddenly turned upside-down, too. What a woman!

At the Draper residence, Don and Betty are dealing each in their own way with the birth of their child – and especially Sally’s response to her little baby brother. She’s afraid of the dark at night, she doesn’t want to come close to the baby during the day. Bets thinks that Sally is simply jealous, resentful of the attention baby Gene is getting. So she gives Sally a Barbie doll, as a “gift” from baby Gene. But Sally tosses it out the window later. At night she confides to her father that she’s afraid of the baby because she thinks it’s inhabited by her grandfather’s ghost... poor thing! Bets and Don argue about it. She won’t change the baby’s name. It’s her way to keep her father’s memory alive. “I hated him, he hated me. That’s the memory,” Don shouts... Then Sally walks in to apologize and Don takes her to baby Gene to hug and cradle him. How endearing!

At Sterling Cooper, the news is that London executives will visit the New York office (meaning everyone will have to work on July 3rd, although they had originally been given a day off before the Fourth of July celebration). It’s a hush-hush affair rife with speculation. Bertram has a hunch Don might be offered a dual post in London as well as New York... The next day the Brits arrive, all pomp and circumstance, praising the accomplishments of this chap, Guy MacKendrick, and before we know it, we hear that Guy will replace Lane Pryce as Sterling Cooper’s liaison with the London office. He sets himself up as part of a triumvirate also including Bert and Don – Roger is nowhere to be found on Guy’s reorganization chart! Don is likewise dismayed he won’t be moving to London... Then Guy commences with celebrations, including a toast to Joan. When folks get too tipsy, people jump on the lawn mower Ken Cosgrove had brought in. The thing spins out of control ... and runs over Guy’s foot, blood gushing everywhere! Oh, my goodness, freaking unbelievable! How do they come up with this! Incredible! Sad and gross, and funny and completely unexpected! Wow, this is a marvelous show! Joan manages to apply a tourniquet and they take him to the hospital. The British executives fear that Guy’s career is over after losing a foot. They reappoint Lane in his position at Sterling Cooper.

Burn Notice 3x12

I’m excited that Burn Notice is back! Did I tell you that? So, Michael is trying to meet up with this freelance psychopath, Gilroy, right? (This is part of his continuing effort to learn why he got blacklisted.) Well, unfor-tunately, Gilroy brought along another guest for lunch, who allegedly is the best thief in the western hemisphere... Michael is supposed to work together with this guy, stealing documents from the Chilean Consulate... But he makes sure the guy has a fall ... and breaks his ankle. With the guy out of the way Michael hopes he can finally deal with Gilroy one on one. Meanwhile, Michael’s drug pushing neighbor asks for help because his cousin Dougie ran into trouble hanging with the wrong crowd... They’re notorious thieves hoping to employ Dougie in a heist. Michael, once more, is our heroic vigilante who uses his team of closest friends, Sam and Fiona, to defend the weak. It’s such a cute show, full of wit and explosions! Hahaha!

Caprica 1x02

Probably unintentionally the sci-fi show Caprica picks up some of where Dollhouse left off... Last week I told you about Zoe, a young girl who died in a monotheist-fundamentalist act of terrorism, but whose “avatar” (a virtual representation) continues to live. Her father uploads her avatar onto a robot to create the first cybernetic lifeform node, that he calls a Cylon. “Boring,” I hear you say... maybe... but let’s see where this show may take us, okay, I mean, I’m willing to give it a shot. Zoe’s parents are each in their own way trying to deal with the death of their daughter. Her mother wonders if Zoe was running away from her family, and who this Ben was, who detonated the explosion and turns out to be Zoe’s boyfriend. Her father is doing his best avoiding thinking about his daughter by working on the military applications for his Cylon prototype.

Joseph Adama is similarly trying to deal with the loss of his daughter Tamara, while his son Will is struggling with family life and being from Tauron. Then we have Lacy, who was Zoe’s friend. She’s now approached by her dope-smoking head mistress, who happens to be a Soldier of the One, and a practicing polygamist (married to multiple husbands and wives). So, now this girl Zoe (or her “avatar”) is trapped inside the body of a robot... Slowly she’s learning how to use her body’s mechanical strength. She’s still dealing with an identity crisis: being Zoe, the avatar and the robot, all at once. She’s a trinity, Lacy explains – throwing in another religious reference for good measure: three faces of the same entity. Alas, the CGI’s are rather bad ... I still can’t appreciate that awkward mix of futuristic features and elements straight out of the here and now ... still that annoying dangling hand-held camera work ... oh, yeah, and the cheesiest opening sequence (like the main titles from some kiddie fantasy show)...

Dollhouse 2x13

Dollhouse, “Epitaph Two,” Los Angeles 2019 ... chaos, anarchy, the end of civilization as we know it... Another year later in this post-apocalyptic state and half the world has been wiped and imprinted to kill the other half. Our savior, humanity’s hope for survival, Caroline/Echo, has been imprinted into this young girl, named Iris in “Epitaph One” ... but she and her sidekicks get abducted and taken to Neuropolis ... “The City of Minds,” young Caroline explains (in case you don’t speak neo-Greek; it actually means “nerve-city,” but who turned on the History Channel, right?) ... where once Tucson, Arizona, used to be ... where the Rossum Corporation used to have its headquarters ... and where they developed the vaccine against neurological imprinting... Had they not blown up Rossum’s laboratory, would its technology have been safe? It sure doesn’t seem to be in the right hands now... Young Caroline ends up locked inside with the real Caroline (Eliza Dushku), who’s still with Paul Ballard kicking ass. Then they bump into genius whiz kid Topher, who’s on the brink of reversing the effects of imprinting, “bringing back the world,” as he puts it...

Adelle DeWitt is living in some agrarian community with Priya (beautiful Dichen Lachman) ... and then Echo barges in with Ballard, Topher, Iris and her sidekicks ... “The world still needs a hero,” Ballard blurts out, and finally they call him corny. Fortunately that’s when things get interesting! The compound gets raided by some poor Mad Max imitation, oh, wait, it’s Victor speaking whatever foreign language, and he’s here to help (with another sexy Asian toting guns). Alas we soon find ourselves in the mid-episode dip, when things get mushy and melodramatic in some unsuccessful attempt at psychological depth ... the kind of sentimental blah-blah I’ll spare you... “You got a hundred people living inside your head, yet you’re the loneliest person I know” ... that kind of crap, but then again, they’ve already called Ballard corny.

Anyway, they drive into L.A. where Armageddon is still on its last legs ... to get inside the Dollhouse ... fighting, confusion, lots of guns are fired ... and Big Bad Ballard takes a bullet in the head trying to protect one of Iris’ sidekicks (and I still don’t rokin give a dam)... Then they find the Dollhouse is in fine working order, thanks to Alpha (the original rogue Active). Victor’s sidekicks get anxious and start pointing guns hoping to become masters of the universe, but Alpha, Echo and Victor take them down easily. Some alone time in his old bunker bed and a video of Bennett Halverson (that awfully cute Summer Glau) allows Topher to finish the “Pulse” tech to reverse imprinting. We get some more pseudo-religious crap about shepherds leading the flock, while Topher sacrifices himself for the salvation of mankind and atone for his sins. Then, whoosh, all is forgotten ... well, not for “Actuals,” they all remember everything ... and Caroline walks to the chair to be with Ballard one more time... The End. (Next week I’ll give you a final analysis of the show.)

Girls Next Door 6x04

“Look, you guys, it’s the world famous Playboy Mansion, you guys. He’s got all kinds of animals over here. Everything is over here, you guys.” Um... yeah... this is why I absolutely loathe reality shows with a vehement passion. Girls Next Door for five seasons has been astoundingly atrocious, so ghastly appalling that it was jawdroppingly fascinating. Now that Kendra is gone, Holly has left, and Bridget is no longer there ... it’s not been the same. The twin twits Karissa and Kristina, and their BFF Crystal just scream and yell, just “oh, my gawd” and “hahaha” ... they hurt my ears and they aren’t lookers either... I can’t watch this for much longer... Just skinny, blonde airheads can’t entertain me.

This one episode, they decide to go out camping ... in the Mansion’s backyard ... “We’ve never been camping before,” twin number one says. “No, we’ve never been camping before. Camping is not our thing,” twin number two echoes... “I’m impressed you got it up,” Hef says when he sees the tent the girls made, “I’m always impressed when you get it up.” Oh, jeesh, he didn’t. “I just wanna know how many blondes it takes to light up a fire,” one of their playmates quips. And in the end, the most annoying thing they always say on reality shows ... “We really got to bond with each other and get to know each other more.” Ugh!

Mad Men 3x05

When we return to Mad Men, Bets and Don Draper’s daughter Sally’s acting up at school, getting into trouble beating another girl, because she’s grieving over the loss of her grandfather who just passed away. Obviously, the teacher who calls them to school for a conference has the hots for Don seriously ... are we heading towards another extramarital swing? (We already know from an earlier episode that Don’s captivated by her.) Don’s been so faithful while Bets was pregnant... Do we really need to throw another eager distraction on his path? She’s seriously smoldering, though, when she calls him later on the phone all tipsy and flirtatious!

Then Bets goes into labor, Don gets pushed into the waiting room the moment they arrive at the hospital. From there we slide into some kind of frightful fusion of Hitchcock and the Twilight Zone. Bets believes she spots her father mopping the floor. The nurse treats her horridly. Her doctor is not on duty that night. She tries to resist and calls for Don, but the nurse gives her a sedative. What a terribly impersonal alienating clinical nightmare! When she comes to, Don is there in the room with her. She says the baby’s name is Eugene, after her father. At home that night, Don is cooking a late-night snack. He has a little moment alone with Sally that’s so adorably endearing! You gotta love this guy, despite his obvious flaws.

Once more, I find it marvelous how the show weaves in issues that were current at the time. In this episode the theme is civil rights. At school, Sally has been asking questions about Medgar Evers, the African-American activist who was murdered (June ’63). In one of her sedated hallucinations, Bets dreams that her long-dead mother tells her never to speak up, standing next to a black man while holding a bloodstained cloth. At Sterling Cooper, Pete is trying to get his client Admiral to target their advertising for the African-American market where the TV brand is popular. But all he gets is resistance. On her part, Peggy asks for equal pay, but Don tells her this isn’t the right time for a raise. She gets up, distraught, and asks him, “What if this is my time?” Really a terrific show!