Haven’t done one of these for ages…
I’m somewhat upset that kids growing up today can watch science fiction on television without any fear of retribution. Being a fan of Battlestar Galactica now implies that you like to watch a show with excellent writing and surprisingly attractive cylons as opposed to in my day where it meant that you wanted to watch Lorne Greene and the exact same special effect shot repeated three times an episode every episode. And let’s not forget the original Star Trek reruns featuring trips to the planet of fake rocks. There was absolutely no sci fi on regular television and outside of watching Dr. Who on PBS it was an unknown genre.
Quantum Leap fixed that problem by doing one thing very well: not being an obvious science fiction show. Despite the fact that the entire premise is based in science fiction (scientist is caught in his own time travel machine, leaping from body to body through time only helped by his friendly hologram) they made sure that it didn’t get in the way of the story telling. Which is the entire point of science fiction. We aren’t interested in the technical details behind the story; it is just a setting to tell us truths about ourselves.
Few shows did that as well as Quantum Leap. You never knew what you were going to get when you sat down to watch an episode. Sure there were a few constants. Sam would spend the first part of the episode confused. Al would make a leering comment at a female. Ziggy the super computer would wait until the final minute to reveal the solution to the problem. But the stories themselves would vary from decade to decade and could focus on social ills to family struggles to just pure comedy. The fact that fifteen years later I can still recall about a dozen episodes from memory (the evil leaper, the three part trilogy, the much argued about final episode) tells you something about the quality of the show.
I think what has stayed with me most about the show is just how incredible the writing and the acting was behind the show. When you are growing up you reach a point at which your television watching habits change. You grow up laughing at shows like Alf and Perfect Strangers and while you might watch a show like St. Elsewhere you don’t really get it. Those are shows your parents watch and they control the remote. But at some point you are watching television and realize that it can be more.
Because Quantum Leap showed that subtlety could be a wonderful thing. The sly references to history hidden throughout the episode: items that would only be caught if you were paying attention. The fact that as the show progressed Sam and Al’s relationship became even more nuanced until the point in which they became more real than fiction. It was the first show that made me think. Really, really think about what I just saw and what it meant to the world.
There is one other reason behind my love of the show. I had my first lucid dream (the ability to be awake in your own dream) after watching an episode. I always say that it wasn’t coincidental. Something about the show helped to flip the switch in my brain that now allows me to fly whenever I feel the need to. I wish all shows could open up your consciousness to such a degree.
Showing posts with label Forgotten Television Shows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forgotten Television Shows. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Thursday, June 12, 2008
More forgotten television shows...
Let’s return to the glory days of television. Or at least back to when I was in college and had an awful lot of free time…
It’s strange to think of a time when Fox wasn’t a mainstream network. Right now it is strange to even think of just having the big three networks. With American Idol, 24 and The Simpsons it is hard to think of a network that has more tent pole shows on their lineup. But back in the early 90’s Fox was still trying to find its way and was throwing out any idea that seemed interesting. Some of this resulted in greatness like It’s Garry Shandling’s Show or In Living Color. Others were rather forgettable (Mantis anyone?). And then there was Herman’s Head.
This was a show built entirely on a concept. The main plot of the show was as completely typical as a sitcom could be. This guy (Herman) works in an office and struggles with romance while meeting marginally wacky characters. That wouldn’t even make it past the pitch meeting. Except that during the episode we peer inside Herman’s head and see what is going on with his psyche with four characters representing sensitivity, lust, anxiety and intellect. So instead of using clever dialogue and acting skill to display his inner turmoil they literally displayed his inner turmoil.
It wasn’t nearly as silly as you would think. In fact, you quickly preferred watching what was going on inside his head (which was funny because the aspects were so well defined and the interactions so enlightening) than what was happening to him in real life (which was standard sitcom fare other than the woman who voiced Lisa Simpson was one of the characters.) To see the different sides of his personality in conflict and influencing his actions was always interesting. I always cheered on the intellect of course and was always pleased to see how flustered he could be when the others got their way. It just seemed so natural.
I’ve been thinking about the show a lot recently because it dawned on me that is really how my brain works. In my instance I can sum it up more as having an emotional side and a rational side. Now typically the rational side runs the show. In fact, the emotional side tends to get shunted off into a corner and will occasionally meekly raise its voice only to have the rational side “We’ve been through this. You get no say in the matter.” This is due to those moments when my emotional side does run things because, well, if you would like to use a nautical analogy my emotional side tends to dash us against the rocks even when there are no rocks to be found.
But as I’ve thought about the past few weeks I can really see it as being the two sides of me working sometimes in tandem and sometimes separately. They were on the same page, which is rare. Then over the weekend the emotional side won out, resulting in much time on the couch in self-pity. I’m back being rational again. Things make sense. Maybe not in reality but I’ve gotten the equations to work out (given some assumptions, a couple of leaps of intuition and a few accidental sign errors). And it’s nice being back to normal. At least I now know that the emotional side can hold its own for a little bit.
For the upbeat song of the night I’m going with The Flaming Lips. Here is a line from a review: “The confetti, balloons and fanfare are all secondary to the message: Love hurts, everyone dies, simple things are usually the most amazing, life is tragic and magic all at once, and every day gives us a reason to be excited.” I think this song expresses it all and more and includes people in bunny suits.
It’s strange to think of a time when Fox wasn’t a mainstream network. Right now it is strange to even think of just having the big three networks. With American Idol, 24 and The Simpsons it is hard to think of a network that has more tent pole shows on their lineup. But back in the early 90’s Fox was still trying to find its way and was throwing out any idea that seemed interesting. Some of this resulted in greatness like It’s Garry Shandling’s Show or In Living Color. Others were rather forgettable (Mantis anyone?). And then there was Herman’s Head.
This was a show built entirely on a concept. The main plot of the show was as completely typical as a sitcom could be. This guy (Herman) works in an office and struggles with romance while meeting marginally wacky characters. That wouldn’t even make it past the pitch meeting. Except that during the episode we peer inside Herman’s head and see what is going on with his psyche with four characters representing sensitivity, lust, anxiety and intellect. So instead of using clever dialogue and acting skill to display his inner turmoil they literally displayed his inner turmoil.
It wasn’t nearly as silly as you would think. In fact, you quickly preferred watching what was going on inside his head (which was funny because the aspects were so well defined and the interactions so enlightening) than what was happening to him in real life (which was standard sitcom fare other than the woman who voiced Lisa Simpson was one of the characters.) To see the different sides of his personality in conflict and influencing his actions was always interesting. I always cheered on the intellect of course and was always pleased to see how flustered he could be when the others got their way. It just seemed so natural.
I’ve been thinking about the show a lot recently because it dawned on me that is really how my brain works. In my instance I can sum it up more as having an emotional side and a rational side. Now typically the rational side runs the show. In fact, the emotional side tends to get shunted off into a corner and will occasionally meekly raise its voice only to have the rational side “We’ve been through this. You get no say in the matter.” This is due to those moments when my emotional side does run things because, well, if you would like to use a nautical analogy my emotional side tends to dash us against the rocks even when there are no rocks to be found.
But as I’ve thought about the past few weeks I can really see it as being the two sides of me working sometimes in tandem and sometimes separately. They were on the same page, which is rare. Then over the weekend the emotional side won out, resulting in much time on the couch in self-pity. I’m back being rational again. Things make sense. Maybe not in reality but I’ve gotten the equations to work out (given some assumptions, a couple of leaps of intuition and a few accidental sign errors). And it’s nice being back to normal. At least I now know that the emotional side can hold its own for a little bit.
For the upbeat song of the night I’m going with The Flaming Lips. Here is a line from a review: “The confetti, balloons and fanfare are all secondary to the message: Love hurts, everyone dies, simple things are usually the most amazing, life is tragic and magic all at once, and every day gives us a reason to be excited.” I think this song expresses it all and more and includes people in bunny suits.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Forgotten Television Shows: Volume ??
(Was halfway through this post last week when everything went pear shaped. It’s much too cool a topic to just let lie in my laptop.)
Back to one of my favorite topics…forgotten television shows.
I worry about kids today. Not because they have no sense of decorum and are inheriting a planet without polar bears or an ozone layer. No, it is because they have completely been ignored in the vital category of Saturday morning cartoons. Seriously, have you tried to watch Saturday morning television while hungover recently? Where did all the cartoons go? I’m stuck watching Hannah Montana and that just makes me wonder exactly who decided that mating with Billy Ray Cyrus was a good idea from an evolutionary perspective.
Now back in my day a nine year old, hungover or not, had plenty of options on a Saturday morning. Cartoons that would develop a sense of wonder. Shows that would make us sit spellbound for hours discovering just how to make an accordion out of a radiator or how to set odds on Laff-a-Lympics. But nothing matches the glory that was Thundarr the Barbarian.
Thundarr (and yes, there are two r’s even if spell check doesn’t believe me) had a rather amazing plot. In the future a runaway planet passes between the earth and the moon, ripping the moon in two and causing absolute chaos and destruction of civilization as we know it. How far into the future you might ask? 1994. Yes, even while watching Saturday morning cartoons I was reminded that the world would be destroyed by the time I turned 21. They didn’t coddle us and tell us that we were special. Our entertainment consisted of reminders that destruction was going to reign. It made us tough.
So the story goes that 2000 years after my 21st birthday party ends with the destruction of all mankind Earth has devolved into some strange mix of Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons. We have our hero, Thundarr, who seems to be unable to find pants in the future and runs around swinging his sun sword at anything that moves. Typically an evil wizard or some sort of mad scientist (well, really they just have these really bad headaches but diagnosis is also lacking in the future. Thundarr is joined by Princess Ariel whose actual claim to the title of Princess has never been documented. We never meet the king or queen and one would wonder why someone would raise a member of the royal family to be a sorceress who could shoot laser beams from her hands. She also seems to be lacking in the pants department but with much less complaints from the viewing audience.
Of course, the only reason one watched the show was for the third member of the team: Ookla the Mok. Some might consider him to be a low rent Chewbacca. He did happen to be a large, hairy, muscular non-verbal creature who seemed to only exist to help out the human heroes. But he was so much cooler than that. Mainly by the fact that a) it was never explained what a Mok was, b) he was never called just Ookla, it was always Ookla the Mok, and c) Ookla is a really fun name to say when you are nine. He was what nine year old boys love to watch. Some large creature whose only job is to break things. No character development, no love interest, just rampant destruction with a cool name.
How influential was this character on me? More than a decade later when I created a monk character in a role playing game he was named “Ookla the Monk”. That is so cool.
I can’t recall a single plot of this show. I had to have seen every episode though. It was just an escape from the everyday. It might not have been Shakespeare but it sure beats having to watch what is on right now.
The five random CDs…
1) Lyle Lovett “I Love Everybody”
2) Anders Osborne “Which Way to Here”
3) John Wesley Harding “Awake”
4) Ryan Adams “Demolition”
5) Victoria Williams “Water to Drink”
Note: I’ve made the executive decision that the random CDs should be listened to in the car like I originally intended. Since I’m driving a lot less right now it is no longer a guarantee that I will listen to five in a week. So I’ll just update the list as I make it through. For those wondering, in the past 29 months I have listened to 90% of my collection using this method. Not much farther to go.
Back to one of my favorite topics…forgotten television shows.
I worry about kids today. Not because they have no sense of decorum and are inheriting a planet without polar bears or an ozone layer. No, it is because they have completely been ignored in the vital category of Saturday morning cartoons. Seriously, have you tried to watch Saturday morning television while hungover recently? Where did all the cartoons go? I’m stuck watching Hannah Montana and that just makes me wonder exactly who decided that mating with Billy Ray Cyrus was a good idea from an evolutionary perspective.
Now back in my day a nine year old, hungover or not, had plenty of options on a Saturday morning. Cartoons that would develop a sense of wonder. Shows that would make us sit spellbound for hours discovering just how to make an accordion out of a radiator or how to set odds on Laff-a-Lympics. But nothing matches the glory that was Thundarr the Barbarian.
Thundarr (and yes, there are two r’s even if spell check doesn’t believe me) had a rather amazing plot. In the future a runaway planet passes between the earth and the moon, ripping the moon in two and causing absolute chaos and destruction of civilization as we know it. How far into the future you might ask? 1994. Yes, even while watching Saturday morning cartoons I was reminded that the world would be destroyed by the time I turned 21. They didn’t coddle us and tell us that we were special. Our entertainment consisted of reminders that destruction was going to reign. It made us tough.
So the story goes that 2000 years after my 21st birthday party ends with the destruction of all mankind Earth has devolved into some strange mix of Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons. We have our hero, Thundarr, who seems to be unable to find pants in the future and runs around swinging his sun sword at anything that moves. Typically an evil wizard or some sort of mad scientist (well, really they just have these really bad headaches but diagnosis is also lacking in the future. Thundarr is joined by Princess Ariel whose actual claim to the title of Princess has never been documented. We never meet the king or queen and one would wonder why someone would raise a member of the royal family to be a sorceress who could shoot laser beams from her hands. She also seems to be lacking in the pants department but with much less complaints from the viewing audience.
Of course, the only reason one watched the show was for the third member of the team: Ookla the Mok. Some might consider him to be a low rent Chewbacca. He did happen to be a large, hairy, muscular non-verbal creature who seemed to only exist to help out the human heroes. But he was so much cooler than that. Mainly by the fact that a) it was never explained what a Mok was, b) he was never called just Ookla, it was always Ookla the Mok, and c) Ookla is a really fun name to say when you are nine. He was what nine year old boys love to watch. Some large creature whose only job is to break things. No character development, no love interest, just rampant destruction with a cool name.
How influential was this character on me? More than a decade later when I created a monk character in a role playing game he was named “Ookla the Monk”. That is so cool.
I can’t recall a single plot of this show. I had to have seen every episode though. It was just an escape from the everyday. It might not have been Shakespeare but it sure beats having to watch what is on right now.
The five random CDs…
1) Lyle Lovett “I Love Everybody”
2) Anders Osborne “Which Way to Here”
3) John Wesley Harding “Awake”
4) Ryan Adams “Demolition”
5) Victoria Williams “Water to Drink”
Note: I’ve made the executive decision that the random CDs should be listened to in the car like I originally intended. Since I’m driving a lot less right now it is no longer a guarantee that I will listen to five in a week. So I’ll just update the list as I make it through. For those wondering, in the past 29 months I have listened to 90% of my collection using this method. Not much farther to go.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Forgotten Television Shows: Volume Twelve
A quick update on Tawdry Amusements at Respectable Prices: Still haven’t, you know, started to do any actual writing but by compiling up a lot of my old posts and creative writing exercises I am up to over 30,000 words. Of course, this includes several pieces that I wrote in high school and my one good short story from college (which I don’t think that I’ve posted in any legitimate form). Given that I am nowhere near finished in terms of gathering up all my old writings it does seem that I have a legitimate book on my hands. Maybe not the best book, but a book nonetheless.
And, since I haven’t done one of these in a while…
Forgotten Television Shows: Volume Twelve
Typically, when I write about a Forgotten Television Show I am really writing about a popular show that has been pushed aside from society’s conscious memory or at least is no longer in reruns. Cheers is not a Forgotten Television Show while Night Court is. Tonight is going to be a little different. Tonight I am going to talk about a show that almost no one watched and didn’t even last a full season because it was too damn smart.
It’s Like, You Know…
First off, this is a real show. It was on ABC in the late 90’s and starred Chris Eigeman, Jennifer Grey and that girl from My So-Called Life who wasn’t Claire Danes. It was about an upper class New Yorker (Eigeman, who was required by law to only play New York preppies and is in three quarters of my favorite films of the nineties) who moves out to California to write a book about how horrible and selfish and plastic California is. So your main character’s motivation is that he is intentionally having a bad time.
Of course, he gets sucked into the California culture. Spending an afternoon watching high-speed chases and keeping score. Falling for the flighty My So-Called Life chick (Ali something). And meeting Jennifer Grey, played by Jennifer Grey. In the only reason why this show should not be forgotten.
In what is possibly the first attempt to portray meta-fiction in a three camera sitcom, the fictional character of Dirty Dancing star and nose job victim Jennifer Grey was portrayed by Jennifer Grey. She was playing herself except that it wasn’t her. She wasn’t neighbors with a writer and a dude who was broadcasting jewish religious ceremonies on pay-per-view. All they had in common was that both had danced with Patrick Swayze and had rhinoplasty that was so successful that she became completely unrecognizable. It was just bizarre as you couldn’t tell if this was a real person who found themselves in a sitcom or the imaginary life of a person you haven’t met but vaguely know.
And let’s face it, that is the show that we most want to see. We want to see how celebrities really live. And not big celebrities. Watching Tom Cruise sleep on a bed of money while forbidding Katie to talk wouldn’t make interesting television. We want to see the people who used to be famous go about their daily lives. There is a familiarity in their past fame and viewers would line up to watch them buy groceries or do laundry. We don’t want to watch the famous succeed, we want to follow their struggles with the most normal tasks.
It’s Like, You Know did that for a few episodes. And people didn’t get the joke. You can’t find it on DVD. I might have an episode on a slowly degrading VHS tape somewhere. But at one point in time there was a show that talked about fame from the other side of the mirror.
And, since I haven’t done one of these in a while…
Forgotten Television Shows: Volume Twelve
Typically, when I write about a Forgotten Television Show I am really writing about a popular show that has been pushed aside from society’s conscious memory or at least is no longer in reruns. Cheers is not a Forgotten Television Show while Night Court is. Tonight is going to be a little different. Tonight I am going to talk about a show that almost no one watched and didn’t even last a full season because it was too damn smart.
It’s Like, You Know…
First off, this is a real show. It was on ABC in the late 90’s and starred Chris Eigeman, Jennifer Grey and that girl from My So-Called Life who wasn’t Claire Danes. It was about an upper class New Yorker (Eigeman, who was required by law to only play New York preppies and is in three quarters of my favorite films of the nineties) who moves out to California to write a book about how horrible and selfish and plastic California is. So your main character’s motivation is that he is intentionally having a bad time.
Of course, he gets sucked into the California culture. Spending an afternoon watching high-speed chases and keeping score. Falling for the flighty My So-Called Life chick (Ali something). And meeting Jennifer Grey, played by Jennifer Grey. In the only reason why this show should not be forgotten.
In what is possibly the first attempt to portray meta-fiction in a three camera sitcom, the fictional character of Dirty Dancing star and nose job victim Jennifer Grey was portrayed by Jennifer Grey. She was playing herself except that it wasn’t her. She wasn’t neighbors with a writer and a dude who was broadcasting jewish religious ceremonies on pay-per-view. All they had in common was that both had danced with Patrick Swayze and had rhinoplasty that was so successful that she became completely unrecognizable. It was just bizarre as you couldn’t tell if this was a real person who found themselves in a sitcom or the imaginary life of a person you haven’t met but vaguely know.
And let’s face it, that is the show that we most want to see. We want to see how celebrities really live. And not big celebrities. Watching Tom Cruise sleep on a bed of money while forbidding Katie to talk wouldn’t make interesting television. We want to see the people who used to be famous go about their daily lives. There is a familiarity in their past fame and viewers would line up to watch them buy groceries or do laundry. We don’t want to watch the famous succeed, we want to follow their struggles with the most normal tasks.
It’s Like, You Know did that for a few episodes. And people didn’t get the joke. You can’t find it on DVD. I might have an episode on a slowly degrading VHS tape somewhere. But at one point in time there was a show that talked about fame from the other side of the mirror.
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