Those Creepy Dollhouse Ads

I'm a big fan of director Joss Wheden, but his work always seems to get screwed up at some point along the way. For instance, Firefly had the potential to be one of the best sci-fi series ever made, but then FOX messed with its schedule and canceled it. In the end, we got Serenity out of it, which is one of my favorite movies, but it's a crime that the show never really got a chance. On the other hand, with no network to blow it, I also really enjoyed Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog--until it jumped the shark in the third installment.

Thus I've been looking forward to Whedon's new series Dollhouse, which premiers this Friday on FOX, but I can't help but have a bad feeling that they are gonna screw this up too (why, oh why would he go back to FOX?!). Still, the premise sounds fascinating: It's about a company that reprograms its employees to do whatever jobs its clients wish--raising all sorts of interesting questions about human nature, free will and determinism, good and evil, etc.

But those ads! For the last couple weeks I keep running across these creepy advertisements (e.g. on Technorati) with the lead actress naked and surrounded by photographs or mirrors or whatever. I get that they are trying to highlight the way she is being exploited by the Dollhouse--thus, the images I've seen are not really sexual--but yuk! I hope this isn't the tone they are going to set in the show as a whole, or I may not be watching it long. Has any one else seen these?

Kings

I'm very curious where they're gonna go with this (HT In the Open Space):



As Carmen notes, for some reason Internet Explorer crashes when you try to embed this video (another reason to hate Microsoft, I guess). Firefox worked to embed it, but hopefully it won't crash IE browsers who simply access the blog.

BSG - "A Disquiet Follows My Soul"

The title of last night's episode of Battlestar Galactica aptly summarizes my feelings about where the show seems to be heading. Is their goal to prove that real heroes do not exist, that even the "best" are thoroughly corrupt? Where is the courage and hope? Left in the ashes of Earth, it seems. Along with the fleet, I have no idea where they are going anymore, and I'm not sure we'll like it when they get there (spoilers follow).

But despite all the "disquiet," this episode did explore some interesting ideas about the nature of humanity. In particular, it brought to the fore an issue that has underlain much of the series: the "humanity" of the Cylons. The Final Five Cylons have been revealed and have formed an alliance with the humans, and now they want to be treated as equals, full citizens with all the rights and protections that entails. Nor is their argument without merit. Are they not people too?

As is graphically illustrated by the scene in which Colonel Tigh and the Six first see the ultrasound of their unborn child, these "machines" are flesh and blood too, thinking and feeling people just like the rest of us. No, they were not born--as far as we can tell they are clones--but is that really relevant? Is it only one's birth that defines one's identity? As the movie Hellboy once put it, it's not one's origins that "make a man a man," but rather "the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them."

Yet that is just the problem, according to Felix Gaeta and many others in the fleet, who rightfully ask: Are these not the same Cylons who only four years ago destroyed the colonies--incinerating billions of people? Are these not the same Cylons who oppressed, imprisoned, tortured and executed many of the last survivors on New Caprica? Are these not the same Cylons who chased the remnant of humanity across half the galaxy, only finally giving up their war of extermination when they learned the Final Five were among them? Are these not the same Cylons who, only days ago it seems, threatened to nuke the whole human fleet if they refused to hand over the Five? But now--now that Earth is a wasteland and all hope seems lost--now the Cylons feel as frightened and alone as the humans. Now they want protection. Now they claim to have turned over a new leaf and want to be treated as equals. Is that justice? Is Gaeta wrong to insist that "someday soon there will be a reckoning"? Should we just forget the past with all its victims and join in a round of Kum Ba Yah?

If the Cylons are guilty as sin, however, their newfound desire to be treated as humanity's equal is not as out of place as it might seem, for there is little sign of righteousness among the Colonials either. They too have tortured and executed, imprisoned and enslaved, even coldly slaughtered their Cylon enemies. It wasn't long ago that these very humans and these very Cylons attacked and destroyed the resurrection hub, killing thousands instantly and condemning all Cylons everywhere to death. It may even turn out that it was humans who destroyed the Cylon "Earth" 2000 years ago. "All this has happened before, and all this will happen again."

And if this is true of humanity in general, it is also true of our "heroes," each and every one of whom has a closet full of too many skeletons to name. Gaeta himself, as revealed in the recent webisodes, is hardly a picture of virtue, aiding the Cylon pogrom during the occupation of New Caprica, attempting to kill Gaius Baltar and an Eight for reminding him of that treason, and now plotting mutiny on Galactica. Even Cally Tyrol--probably the cleanest character in the whole series until Tory flushed her out an airlock for discovering they were Cylons--has now been revealed as unfaithful: it turns out Nicholas is not Tyrol's child after all; she got pregnant by another man just before they got married, tried to get an (illegal) abortion, then changed her mind and lied about who the father was.

After all of this has come to light, however, Gaius Baltar--Gaius Baltar--has the audacity to blame God for the evil that has befallen them:

Baltar: What manner of forgiveness are you seeking? Is it that of disobedient children?... Are you all just children who transgressed against your Father's demands?
Crowd: No, we've done nothing wrong.
Baltar: Are you being punished for your multitude of sins? Are you?
Crowd: No!
Baltar: Is this really our lot? To have been lead, by a father, to the promised land? To paradise? Only to have paradise cruelly smashed to bits before our very eyes? Are these the actions of a father towards his children?
Crowd: No! It's not right!
Baltar: What have you done to deserve this punishment? What sins have you committed to condemn you--condemn you!--to wander through the universe, without hope, without light? So you have to ask yourselves, what kind of a father abandons his own children to despair and loneliness? Perhaps we are not the ones in need of forgiveness! Perhaps we are not. Perhaps we have been wronged! Perhaps it is God who should come down here and beg for our forgiveness!

Coming from Gaius Baltar--the most narcissistic, self-serving, morally bankrupt character of all, the very man who enabled the Cylons to wipe out the colonies, collaborated with them on New Caprica, and now leads a sex-cult on Galactica--this outburst of indignant blasphemy is deeply ironic, and made all the more so when it is immediately followed by a fight between Tyrol and the real father of Cally's child. It seems that Cylons and humans can't even stop fighting long enough to blame God for their troubles.

I wonder, if God really did come down, who among them would deserve to stand in his presence? But more to the point: Will God come down anyway, and will there be any redemption on offer if he does? Is there any hope at the end of this story, or is BSG content to leave us with the despair of a meaningless and Godless universe?

Quote - Smallville

From tonight's episode of Smallville:

Saving someone, truly saving them, is not about knocking them out and throwing them in a dark room; it's about helping them find their way back to the right side.

Red Dwarf - Backwards

If you feel like wasting some time this New Year's Eve (or New Years Day, for you Aussies and Kiwis), here's a brilliant episode from the classic British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. I was reminded of it today, and it's just as funny as I remember:

And you say you don't have time to read...

If Karl Rove is to be believed (eh hem), the popular caricature of President Bush as a near-illiterate rube is actually the opposite of the truth. Supposedly, the two have been competing against each other to see who could read the most books. Rove has won each year, but not for lack of effort on the President's part: In 2006, Bush finished 95 books, in 2007, he finished 51, and in 2008 he finished 40 books, mostly history, biography and current events (from the Wall Street Journal, HT Between Two Worlds):

His reading this year included a heavy dose of history -- including David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter," Rick Atkinson's "Day of Battle," Hugh Thomas's "Spanish Civil War," Stephen W. Sears's "Gettysburg" and David King's "Vienna 1814." There's also plenty of biography -- including U.S. Grant's "Personal Memoirs"; Jon Meacham's "American Lion"; James M. McPherson's "Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief" and Jacobo Timerman's "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number."

Each year, the president also read the Bible from cover to cover, along with a daily devotional.

The reading competition reveals Mr. Bush's focus on goals. It's not about winning. A good-natured competition helps keep him centered and makes possible a clear mind and a high level of energy. He reads instead of watching TV. He reads on Air Force One and to relax and because he's curious. He reads about the tasks at hand, often picking volumes because of the relevance to his challenges. And he's right: I've won because he has a real job with enormous responsibilities.

Well, there goes my last excuse not to read more! Then again, I'm sure my job as manager of a self-storage facility is much more time consuming than being President of the United States...

Battlestar Galactica and a Prequel Series

Good news for fellow Battlestar Galactica fans! The second half of the final season starts January 16 (you can also watch some full episodes here or on Hulu), and starting December 12 there will be a series of 10 webisodes at Scifi.com. They have also filmed a 2 hour TV movie called "The Plan," which will air sometime after the series ends in March. Finally, they just approved the prequel, Caprica, as a full series (HT FilmChat):

"Caprica" will star Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson and Polly Walker, and will be set 50 years prior to "Galactica's" seminal attack on human civilization by those dreaded 'droids the Cylons. [The] Family-drama-themed series will focus on the Earthlike planet of Caprica as two rival families deal with, among other topical issues, the broader implications of their society's emerging artificial intelligence technology sector.

That means it will be set 10 years before the first Cylon war, which ought to give them plenty of Terminator-esk themes to explore. I'm eager to see what they do with it.

Oh, and I almost forgot: I'm a Leobon, according to this Cylon Detector Test (HT: Carmen).

Self-Interest and Sacrifice on Stargate Atlantis

I think it's fairly well-known around here that I'm a fan of science fiction, and I'm not terribly picky about it. I'll watch just about anything that's not terrible, and even then I'm liable to enjoy the unintentional humor. As such, I've long watched the Stargate franchise, even though it's as often mindless as profound. But this week's episode was a notable exception (ok, obligatory Spoiler Warning):

For those who haven't watched the series, Stargate Atlantis centers on a team of soldiers and scientists who have travelled to the Pegasus galaxy (via a portal created millenia ago... long story) to look for the lost city of Atlantis (even longer story). Upon arrival there, they discover that the galaxy is in fact full of humans (longer story still) who are enslaved by a race of evil people-eating aliens called the Wraith (don't ask). Oh, and everyone speaks English! So anyway... our noble heroes take it upon themselves to try to free said galaxy from said wicked villains, leading to all sorts of entertaining but impossible adventures.

Now--if you've finished rolling your eyes--in this week's episode the team is visiting a planet, offering medical services, and being all good-neighborly. Suddenly a large group of Wraith arrive and demand that the locals turn over some refugees, threatening that if they refuse the entire town will be destroyed (apparently, there's only one town on this planet?). Predictably, the town is divided over this little moral dilemma. Some claim that to give in would make them no better than the Wraith; others insist that it's better to sacrifice a few--outsiders no less--than to let everyone be killed, including the refugees.

At this point the heroes offer a way out: They will help evacuate the town and relocate everyone to another planet. Noble folks that they are, they even offer to risk their own lives to fight off the Wraith to enable this escape. But of course, this only presents yet another dilemma: The townspeople must now decide whether to give up their own livelihoods to save the lives of others, essentially to become refugees in order to save refugees.

Put like that, it's easy see what the noble thing to do is, but what is noble and what actually happens is rarely the same thing. After all, our own world is full of dying people whom we could help if only we'd be willing to reduce our own standard of living and give. We needn't even join them in poverty; you can save a life for just a dollar a day. But they're all strangers, and we don't have to look them in the face as we choose our comfort over their lives. In theory, we're willing to help, but it takes effort and sacrifice, and too often self-interest wins out, whether our own or someone else's.

And so it was on the show. Though the town agreed with the plan to flee in theory, before anyone acted to help a few men took it upon themselves to form a brute squad and turn over a few of the refugees. Though they are arrested, by then there are too many Wraith for the original escape plan to work. So what happens next? Some heroic deeds to save the day and clean up this messy moral dilemma without sacrifice? Hardly. The mayor sneaks into the prison and tells them where the remaining refugees are hiding. He then lets them go and, predictably, they lead the Wraith right to the place. When they get inside, however, they find it empty and rigged with explosives. So the villains are killed. Our "heroes" are able to fight off the remaining Wraith and evacuate the town before more can arrive. The credits roll. Another victory for the "good guys."

And isn't that exactly how it goes in the real world as well? We in the West would like to help but, as nations if not as individuals, we let others make the sacrifice for us (or force them into it). Despite all our good intentions, most of the time we can't or won't prevent others from doing the dirty work for us while we live in relative comfort and sleep soundly at night. Sometimes we may throw the worst offenders in jail, but just as often we let our leaders quietly pat them on the hand and send them on their way--to kill or be killed. For either way, a sacrifice always has to be made, and if we are not willing to make it ourselves, there's usually someone else to make it for us. Some young soldiers perhaps? Or a child we'll never meet? Or maybe some "criminal" we can all villainize and execute in our place? Or does that only happen on TV?

Life on Mars

This week I caught the series premier of ABC's new show Life on Mars (watch it here). If you were a fan of that short-lived but excellent show Journeyman (my review) or are just hankering for some time travel while you wait for LOST to return, it's worth checking out. Though I'm not at all sure where they're gonna go with it, the premier was interesting and entertaining.

In short, the story centers on Sam Tyler, a New York city detective. Early on, his girlfriend (also a cop) is kidnapped by a serial killer but while Sam is trying to save her he suddenly gets hit by a car. When he wakes up, he's shocked to find himself in 1973, with no idea how he got there. But he hasn't (just) traveled in time; according to everyone around him he lives in 1973. He's got a car and a job (still a cop) and an apartment; as far as everyone else is concerned, the only thing strange about him is that he keeps talking about 2008.

His first reaction is to think this is all some kind of dream, and this seems to be confirmed when he occasionally hears the voices of doctors discussing his accident and coma. But as the voices fade he can't get around the fact that everything seems as real as can be, and his 1973 coworkers are not particularly impressed by his repeated assurances that all this is a delusion. When he then discovers that the case they are working on is eerily similar to the one he was chasing in 2008, he begins to wonder if he might be here for a reason after all.

Without giving away too much more of the plot,* the episode does raise some interesting questions. What you would do if you truly believed your life was just a dream? If you honestly believed that none of the people or situations around you were anything more than a figment of your imagination, how would you act? Would you go on with life as usual, play by the rules, try to be the same person you normally would be? Or would you throw inhibition to the wind, toss your responsibilities aside and live however you want (a possibility raised, perhaps most humorously, in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Window of Opportunity")?

On the one hand, such questions (to me) highlight a particular misunderstanding of morality that conservative theists sometimes tend toward, wherein right and wrong are deemed to be entirely dependent on eternal consequences, unrelated to the consequences of our actions in this world. If, as I believe, God's character is the ultimate determiner of right and wrong, that doesn't mean (as so often assumed) that disbelief in God automatically makes everything permissible. Eternal consequences are not the only ones that matter. Actions do have consequences, and these are real whether there is a God or not, whether the world is real or not. That is to say, even if all this were only a dream with no eternal significance, as long as you are stuck here you'll have to live with the consequences of your actions. In fact, even if the dream will end shortly, the choices you make in it will reflect and shape your character, and you take that with you through whatever world you live in (virtual or otherwise).

Which brings me to the last interesting question the episode raised: To what lengths would you go to prevent someone from committing a crime you know they will one day commit? Near the end of the episode, Sam finds himself face to face with a younger version of the person who will go on to kidnap his girlfriend. Sam seriously considers killing him, even though he is only a young boy who hasn't (yet) done anything wrong. Would you? Would it make a difference if it were only a dream?

*For those who have seen it, however (SPOILER WARNING), highlight for some thoughts on the ending: If (as the message over the radio seemed to imply), he really did prevent the kid from becoming a serial killer, thus saving his 2008 girlfriend, why is he still in 1973? Sam himself asks this question, so the writers seem to be aware of it, but really, if the whole reason he got hit by the car in the first place was because he was chasing this killer, shouldn't the fact that he changed the future also prevent him from ever needing to chase him, and thus from ever getting hit by the car? Does this imply (if he's not dreaming the whole thing to begin with), that he has created an alternate timeline, or is this just bad writing?

Sanctuary

What grants the right to live? Is it one’s humanity, or something else? This is a question explored by the new SciFi series Sanctuary, which follows a forensic psychiatrist named Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) as he is introduced to a world of monsters that humanity would rather ignore or destroy. Leading him down the rabbit hole is Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping), a 157 year old exobiologist who runs a “sanctuary for all” that offers protection for such “abnormals”—you know, mermaids, reptile men, 10 year olds with wicked snakes growing out of their sides....

Yeah, it’s all a bit cheesy, not to mention overloaded with CGI, but the premise is interesting enough for a geek like me, and the acting is pretty good. Plus, it’s based on a wildly popular series of webisodes, so you gotta give them credit for selling out seeking new avenues for original content. And I actually enjoyed the show, so there is that.

Besides the usual introductions—the misunderstood protagonist, the immortal doctor and her warrior-princess of a daughter, the naïve techy, the teleporting Jack the Ripper villain and, oh yeah, Big Foot (yes, Big Foot)—the premier raised some interesting questions about life and dignity. Faced with a bewildering array of evolutionary accidents and supernatural beings, Will has to decide whether he will let his own fear and revulsion prevent him from treating even such abnormals with decency and respect. This is particularly difficult for him once he faces the fact that his own mother was killed by just such a creature. In time, however, he discovers that many of these others are just as scared, loyal, thoughtful or selfless as any human, and when his own life is saved by one of these “abnormals,” he is forced to ask himself what really qualifies as a monster.

Perhaps the line between good and evil may not be as easy to see as we prefer. Perhaps it isn't how human a person is that should matter. Perhaps even those society shuns deserve sanctuary and protection. And perhaps all of this might seem a bit more profound if the noble butler didn't look like one of Geico's cavemen. Ah well, I guess I'm still prejudiced after all....

Image Is Everything...

Jim West points to the revelation that the cute little girl who sang at the Opening Ceremony last Friday was lip-synching. Chinese officials now admit, the real singer wasn't cute enough:

One little girl had the looks. The other had the voice. So in a last-minute move demanded by one of China’s highest officials, the two were put together for the Olympic opening ceremony, with one lip-synching “Ode to the Motherland” over the other’s singing. The real singer, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, with her chubby face and crooked baby teeth, wasn’t good-looking enough for the ceremony, chief music director Chen Qigang told state-owned Beijing Radio. So pigtailed 9-year-old Lin Miaoke, a veteran of television ads, mouthed the words with a pixie smile for a stadium of 91,000 and a worldwide TV audience. “We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi,” Chen told Beijing Radio. “We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance.”

Jim responds:

And that, curiously, sums up the whole of China. It is a society dominated by a facade. Underneath, it’s something quite different than the face it puts on for the world. Its fake Gucci bags and its fake churches and its fake singers are all part and parcel of the falsity endemic to the government of that ancient culture.

As if to prove the point, even as the Chinese government tried to defend the choice, they were quietly forcing the major Chinese news outlets to remove all references to the incident from their websites. In fact, it turns out this wasn't the only part of the ceremony that was staged. The 55-second opening sequence, including the giant footprints leading to the stadium, were CGI:

According to The Beijing Times what people inside the stadium and watching on television saw were computer graphics of the footprints inserted into coverage.

Gao Xiaolong, the head of the opening ceremony visual effects team, said it had taken almost a year to create the 55-second sequence.

Actual fireworks could be seen outside the stadium but it was logistically impossible to film them by helicopter, so the decision was made to recreate the effect digitally. The last foot print was visible from inside the stadium and was captured on film.

But you can't just pin the fakery on China, this is just a symptom of our television culture which routinely replaces image for substance. After all, NBC itself isn't free from guilt in their presentation of the games.

Dharma Wants You "Security Upgrade" and "Glitch"

More for you LOST fans: Dharmawantsyou sent out a new email condemning:

the unauthorized release of confidential video documentation during a sponsored panel discussion with the makers of the TV show "LOST" at Comic-Con 2008 in San Diego.

That would be this video, which shows Dr. Marvin Candle (who reveals his real name to be Pierre Cheng) 30 years in the past but predicting the future. There is also a baby in the background and what seems to be the voice of Daniel Faraday and includes other points of interest.

In any case, the email states that the Volunteer Assessment will be delayed until a "security upgrade" can be added to the site and warns that any leaked information will result in the immediate termination of one's volunteer status (well, good luck terminating mine!)

So if you go to the site and sign in, then about 20 seconds after the "Volunteer Assessment Commencing Soon" notice appears, there is a "glitch" (see here), causing the screen to get blurry and displaying a series of apparently random letter combinations, one of which (kept on the screen longer) is always some arrangement of the letters aeeiiio dhmnnst, for instance:



Lostpedia claims this is an anagram for "I am on the inside" (which is probably right), but other (more fun) options I've found include: "He is a demon in it" or "adhesion in time." (And yes, James, I'll be sure to watch out for Sayid. After all, he might be interested to know that Dharma has a security breach!)

First Things First

This was previously posted here, and seems a good way to begin:

My daughter was born almost a month ago, and I could easily spend all day just watching her sleep (she returns the favor by keeping me up all night).* Of course, that’s not very practical—there are more pressing concerns in life. And yet, it’s funny how easily far less important things end up filling my time.

Stephen Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, First Things First, etc.) categorizes all activities into four types based on whether they are “important or not important” and “urgent or not urgent,” and urges us to analyze all our activities by these two criteria. Now you might expect him to advise focusing on the “important and urgent” activities, but he actually suggests focusing on those things that are “important but not urgent,” while cutting out the “not important and not urgent” pursuits that eat up so much of our time. As he notes, our natural tendency to focus on whatever is most urgent (interspersed with “breaks” filled with meaningless activities) may seem productive, but really prevents us from controlling our overall direction in life, and cuts out many of the best things in life. While we’re busy putting out fires left and right, we find that there’s no time left for things like poetry [do click through and read this, it's good!].

But my interest today is on those “not important and not urgent” activities. With the countless distractions modern technology has provided us, it's easy to feel that we risk burnout if we fail to take time for such trivia. We get the idea that occasional breaks for sitcoms or video games actually help our productivity as a whole, and feel justified in “vegging out” every now and then.

Unfortunately, this simply isn’t true. The problem is when you start thinking you need to do these things, they steadily eat up more and more of your time, especially if—like me—you work from home. At first, maybe you can work a whole day before feeling like you need to “check out” for a half hour. Pretty soon every three hours you need an hour break. Before long, you hardly get much done even when you are working; you feel like you always need a break.

But a funny thing happens when you stop and say: I really don’t need to be playing these games in the first place. You feel really bored for a day or two, and then suddenly you find that you can be productive for longer and longer stretches without any “brain breaks” at all. I know from personal experience: it's shocking how little such activities are missed once you get away from them, and how much more you can get done once they're gone.

And the best part is: cutting out such “not important and not urgent” activities doesn’t just let you be more effective at accomplishing the urgent activities, it also (and primarily) frees up your time for all those “important but not urgent” things that you always want to do, but never find the time for. When you cut out meaningless leisure activities, you suddenly have the freedom to pursue the ones that are truly satisfying: hobbies, sports, viewing/reading/listening to art (which can include good movies and television, though it probably can’t justify an afternoon of Friends reruns), deep thinking and reading, meaningful conversation and—my personal favorite—watching your baby girl sleep.

*Now two, my daughter no longer keeps me up at night (that will be my son's job now), but as a curious and conversational toddler, she certainly still keeps me busy.

The Dharma Initiative

Ok, one last thing before I take off. For all you LOST fans, check out www.dharmawantsyou.com (they sent me an email today; I think I remember signing up for something like this back at the end of Season Four).

Anyway, the site will run you through an interesting psychological test and if you pass (I assume you can't fail, but who knows), you can register as a Dharma Volunteer, whatever that means. Unfortunately, I kept getting an error message when I tried to register, but I'm curious what this is going to be. Try here for more information.

Mistaking Television for Reality

The opening paragraph of of this Newsweek article (HT Mark Shea) strikes me as ridiculously exaggerated, but... I don't even know what to say about the rest of it. Just wow:

The most influential legal thinker in the development of modern American interrogation policy is not a behavioral psychologist, international lawyer or counterinsurgency expert. Reading both Jane Mayer's stunning "The Dark Side," and Philippe Sands's "Torture Team," it quickly becomes plain that the prime mover of American interrogation doctrine is none other than the star of Fox television's "24," Jack Bauer.

This fictional counterterrorism agent—a man never at a loss for something to do with an electrode—has his fingerprints all over U.S. interrogation policy. As Sands and Mayer tell it, the lawyers designing interrogation techniques cited Bauer more frequently than the Constitution.

According to British lawyer and writer Sands, Jack Bauer—played by Kiefer Sutherland—was an inspiration at early "brainstorming meetings" of military officials at Guantánamo in September 2002. Diane Beaver, the staff judge advocate general who gave legal approval to 18 controversial interrogation techniques including waterboarding, sexual humiliation and terrorizing prisoners with dogs, told Sands that Bauer "gave people lots of ideas." Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security chief, gushed in a panel discussion on "24" organized by the Heritage Foundation that the show"reflects real life."

Somebody tell me this is fiction. Read the whole thing.

Army Wives

For the last four years, my wife and I have lived within two miles of a large Naval Air Station. With most of our current friends in the Navy, then, we’ve had front row seats to the displacement and uncertainty that come with regular deployments and frequent moves. It’s not an easy life, and I have great respect for those accept it for their country, but I'm not sure I could do it myself. Perhaps that’s why I’ve become a fan of Army Wives, even though it plays on a channel (Lifetime) which I’ve never previously found interesting. Now in its second season (you can watch full episodes here), the show is a bit uneven, but it offers an engaging and sympathetic picture of military life. Following five army families struggling to live and love in a time of war, it explores all the usual relationship tensions you’d expect in a modern drama, but it retains a natural and lighthearted tone. Though it can get overly-sentimental at times, it's usually thoughtful (without being overly political) and includes a strong cast of genuinely likable characters, imperfect though they are (spoiler warning).

The first season included everything from adult friendship and teenage love, to unplanned pregnancy and adultery. It ended with various relationships in flux, three husbands leaving on a hasty deployment, and four of the “wives” trapped in their favorite bar where a disgruntled soldier, strapped with explosives, has come to confront his own unfaithful wife (a minor character, not one of the five). Picking up in the aftermath of this bombing, the second season has continued to explore the tensions and uncertainties in the lives of these five families as they try to find their way back to some semblance of normalcy. To tell the truth, the season premier was a bit awkward, by only revealing what happened at the bar slowly through flashbacks, but the three episodes since then have offered more interesting plot-lines, all of which emphasize the importance of love:

For instance, the youngest of the five wives (Roxy LeBlanc) selflessly invites the bar owner--a cantankerous woman named Betty (a civilian) who was already dying of cancer when her busines and home were destroyed--to stay with her while her husband is on deployment. A Lieutenant Colonel (Joan Burton) decides not to abort her unplanned (and decidedly inconvenient) pregnancy, choosing to forgive her husband Roland for cheating on her (he was deeply sorry) and working to restore their marriage. But perhaps the most interesting has been the story of Claudia Joy, whose teenage daughter was killed in the bombing. By the third episode of the season, called “The Messenger,” she is losing touch with everyone she loves. Standing outside her church where she has arrived late, she suddenly meets a mysterious elderly man named Henry, who is “visiting” the area. Unsure she wants to enter, Claudia Joy urges him to go in without her, but he replies “Going inside is not that important anyway; God’s out here too.” When she responds skeptically, he offers his condolences for her loss and wishes her a nice day, and she leaves without entering the church.

But he keeps turning up, that evening when she is sitting on her porch, the next morning when she is getting the mail, on her “date” with Roxy’s five year old son (who has a school-boy crush on her, and seems to be the only other person who can see Henry). Each time he draws the conversation around to her need for love: “Love is an amazing thing,” he says, “Can’t see it, can’t touch it, can’t smell it. Yet it’s there with us from the day we’re born.” Finally he turns up in her living room while she’s watching a movie late at night (hiding from her family, to whom she can't bear to speak):

Henry: Can we watch a comedy for a change? I need to laugh.
Claudia Joy: You’re not real; I’m not talking to you. Go away!
Henry : I told you, when you don’t want me here, I’ll leave.
Claudia Joy: I’m tired of these cryptic little sayings you use.
Henry: You’re angry.
Claudia Joy: Damn right, I’m angry. I wanted more, I wanted to see her graduate college. I wanted to help her buy a wedding dress. I wanted to hold her babies in my arms.
Henry: And you blame God.
Claudia Joy: Where was he, huh? You tell me that! Where the hell was God when my daughter was murdered?
Henry: Protecting Roland, and Denise, and you!
Claudia Joy gets up to leave the room.
Henry: It was Amanda’s time, nothing was gonna change that.
But Claudia Joy isn’t convinced. Turning away she mutters: No.
Henry: Death is a part of life. You can’t have one without the other.
Claudia Joy: It was too soon.
Henry: We all have our time, and it always comes. Until then, love is the best thing going. And there seems to be a lot of that around here. You just have to let it in.

The episode doesn't tell us who Henry really is (we later see him wave goodbye and then climb into a taxi), but in the end Claudia Joy takes his advice and begins the difficult process of opening up to her husband and (remaining) daughter, finding comfort and healing in their love and mutual grief. As I said, the show gets a bit overly-sentimental at times, but I do like this scene, not only because it explicitly brings up the question of God’s goodness in the face of tragedy (though, let's face it, “it was her time” really isn’t much of an answer), but also because it affirms that knowing “why?” may be less important than recognizing the essential role of love in our lives. In exploring how such love looks in a group of flawed and broken military families, Army Wives is in fact a refreshingly uplifting television show, and a welcome break from the reruns and game shows the major networks are running this summer.

Get Smart Review

So my wife and I saw Get Smart tonight. All around it's more mindless than Smart, but a lot of fun. It does include a fair bit of sexual humor, some skimpy outfits (including a shot of Steve Carell's bare butt), and lots of bloodless violence, but otherwise it's a relatively clean PG-13. There's plenty of action and a good dose of the quirky humor that I loved in the TV show (always a favorite when I used to watch Nick at Night), including a few truly hilarious moments. Steve Carell does a great job in the role of Maxwell Smart, and Anne Hathaway (apart from some excessive eye make-up) balances him well; even Dwane "The Rock" Johnson seems to be enjoying himself.

But my favorite line comes from the terrorists. About half way through, the baddies at KAOS are discussing their plans to nuke Los Angeles and the underling (Shtarker; played by Ken Davitian) says to his superior (Conrad Siegfried; played by Terence Stamp): "Seems a shame to kill all those Hollywood celebrities." Siegfried replies with perfect sarcasm: "Yes, how will we survive without their razor-sharp political commentary?"

At other times, the film seems to forget it's supposed to be a spoof at all and becomes a decent action movie, but just when you start taking it seriously they throw all believability out the window (literally, in several cases). All in all, despite Rottentomatoes only having it at 51%, Robert Ebert gets it right:

It’s funny, exciting, preposterous, great to look at, and made with the same level of technical expertise we’d expect from a new Bond movie.

Good popcorn flick.

[Updated 6:oo am]

[Update 2] Upon further reflection, the plot makes even less sense than I had realized (for instance, dozens of nukes are mentioned, but only one is ever accounted for. The rest are not left as a teaser for a sequal; they are simply forgotten by the end). Ah well, I still enjoyed it.

Todd Hertz at Christianity Today, on the other hand, didn't enjoy it quite as much, but he did point out a good theme that I overlooked:

One interesting thread to the plot is Smart's care for individuals—even if they're employed by KAOS. Often, Smart discusses how our enemies are humans, too. "They do bad things, but that's only what they do—not always who they are," he says. That theme comes to a head in the film's middle when Smart shows that compassion for an individual can truly be mightier than violence.

In fact, the scene to which he refers is a rare treat for an action movie: an attempt to actually love your enemies, to convert or save a villain rather than just to thoughtlessly destroying them. It's played for comic effect, but it ends up being rather central to the film's resolution. Maybe Get Smart isn't so mindless after all....

Christian Carnival 229 and Other Good Stuff

This week’s Christian Carnival is up at RodneyOlsen.net and includes my post on Art, Nudity and Sex and the City. Among the other posts, I found David Gushee’s The market economy’s moral influence, at CounterCulture, to be the most interesting.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Ted Slater has added a follow-up to his criticism of Christianity Today’s approach to Sex and the City; Jeffrey Overstreet and Peter Chattaway have responded. Ted also invited Adam Holz (Senior Editor for Plugged In) to explain their approach to immoral content in film, and I found his explanation much more sensible than Ted's own posts.

Battlestar Galactica’s mid-season finale has also gotten a lot of attention (again with the spoiler warning). James McGrath links to a number of posts (including mine), Maureen Ryan offers perhaps the best run-down of the episode, and in case you missed the comments on my entry, check out this startling post at the JLA Battlestar forum. Whoa.

Battlestar Galactica "Revelations" and Unanswered Questions

UPDATE March 2009: This post covers the mid-season finale. For my thoughts on the answers given (and further questions raised) by the series finale, go here.

This week’s Battlestar Galactica mid-season “finale” was one of the most fascinating in the whole series. Though I still think last week’s episode, “The Hub,” was better, this one raised the more interesting questions (do I need to say spoiler warning?).

In last week’s episode the humans and rebel Cylons rescued the resurrected Three/D’Anna who knows the identities of the Final Five Cylons. On the rebel Basestar she tells President Roslin that she will only reveal them once she is safely with the human fleet. This week, they return to the fleet and D’Anna turns the tables on them. Revealing that only four of the Final Five are in the (human?) fleet, but not giving away their identities, she offers the Four to join her on the Basestar, warning that Roslin and the rest will remain captives until then. Not unexpectedly, Tory immediately accepts the offer, reveals her true identity to Roslin and coldly declares that she won't follow her orders any longer.

As if to prove she’s serious, the Cylons then airlock one of the Colonials and insist that they will continue to kill one hostage every 15 minutes until all four Cylons are handed over. In response, the Colonials gear up for a rescue mission and consider destroying the Basestar (including all the human hostages) if it should fail. The Cylons in turn respond by preparing to nuke the civilian fleet. All of which raises an acute question: How much sacrifice is worth the hope of reaching Earth? Both humans and Cylons seem willing, if necessary, to sacrifice a great many lives to accomplish that goal.

In the midst of all this, the Four begin hearing music again (as at the end of Season Three, when they first discovered they were Cylons), and this time it leads the three left on Galactica to the Viper in which Kara Thrace returned from earth (again, from the end of Season Three; as you can see, they are finally tying up some of the many storylines introduced in that episode). Not seeing what significance the Viper could have, Sam Anders and Galen Tyrol decide to enlist Kara’s help, while Colonel Tigh decides that the time has come to reveal his identity to Admiral Adama. Thus, while the rest of the human and Cylon leaders consider sacrificing thousands of others to ensure their own path to Earth, Tigh takes the truly noble course and sacrifices himself to prevent such bloodshed. Adama’s devastated reaction to the news that his oldest and best friend is actually a Cylon is predictable (at least he didn’t wreck his model ship again!), but well-acted and moving, and before Tigh finds himself in an airlock while Lee Adama (acting as President in Roslin’s absence) threatens D’Anna with his execution if she won’t release her hostages.

In the end, of course, Tigh is not sacrificed. At the last moment Kara discovers that the Viper to which they led her was receiving a transmission which pointed to Earth. With the Four now known and the way to earth revealed, the humans and Cylons reach a tentative peace, the hostages are returned, and they all together jump to “Earth.” After much celebrating, the episode ends with a brilliant final pan: Beginning with Adama finally picking up “that first fist full of earth,” a Geiger counter suddenly chirps to life, as the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust are slowly revealed, including what appears to be an overturned car, the ruins of various stone and metal buildings (one of them looking like a cross, another perhaps being the Temple of Aurora discussed at beginning of the episode), and a collapsed bridge that looks suspiciously like the Brooklyn Bridge.

This Planet of the Apes-style twist leaves us with plenty of questions, the most basic being, Is this Earth? Though it seems plausible (Gaeta did say the constellations “matched,” whatever that means), there are several things that make me suspect that all may not be as it appears. First, it is odd that when they discover the bearing provided by the Viper, it’s said that they will need to “adjust” their trajectory as they go, but they only seem to jump once. Second, when they are shown above the planet, no recognizable continents are shown (as North America was at the end of Season Three), nor is the moon visible. Third, did not Pythia’s prophecy say that the dying leader would not herself live to see the new world? Yet Roslin (the clear candidate for this role) is shown on the ground here. Fourth, when Kara returned at the end of Season Three, she said she had been to Earth and it was “beautiful,” and this planet certainly is not (it’s even worse than New Caprica), which either means this isn’t Earth, or something drastic has changed since she was there. Finally, in the original Battlestar Galactica, the humans are shown to reach a planet that they believe is Earth, only to discover that it is in fact Terra, yet another human colony. In the original, Terra had itself been on the brink of nuclear war, which was only avoided through the intervention of the Galactica. It would not seem too much a stretch, then, to think that this “re-imaging” of the series might explore a similar possibility, with the twist that the war has already occurred.

Whether this is Earth or not, I suspect that when the series returns we will discover that there is more to this planet than it now appears. Perhaps they will find survivors, or some sort of beacon, or maybe even the final Cylon. If this is Earth, though, there are even more perplexing questions to answer, especially What happened? One possibility might be that the non-rebel Cylons somehow reached Earth first and are responsible for destroying it. Another is that Kara herself somehow caused this to happen when she was here before. Still another is that Earth was destroyed long ago by their own version of the Cylons (of whom the Final Five might be a remnant). As Pythia said, “All this has happened before. All this will happen again.” On that possibility, there is Kara’s (possibly prophetic) comment at the beginning of this episode that “the parents have to die for the children to reach their full potential;” is this perhaps a hint that the search for Earth might itself be getting in the way of their true destiny? In the end, will this crop of humans and Cylons together have to restart the cycle? Who knows, but I can’t believe we’ll have to wait until 2009 to find out!

Quote - Wendell Berry on Art and Sex

Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community:

When sexual lovemaking is shown in art, one can respond intelligently to it by means of a handful of questions: Are the lovers represented as merely "physical" bodies or as two living souls? Does the representation make it possible to see why Eros has been understood not as an instinct or a "drive" but as a god? Are we asked to see this act as existing in and of and for itself or as joined to the great cycle of fertility and mortality? Does it belong to nature and to culture? Can we imagine this sweetness continuing on through the joys and difficulties of homemaking, the births and upbringing of children, the deaths of parents and friends--through disagreements, hardships, quarrels, aging and death? Does it encourage us to forget or to remember that "certainly it must come to pass that the very gentle Beatrice will die."?...

The relevance of such imagining is urgently practical; it is the propriety or justness that holds art and the world together. To represent sex without this fullness of imagination is to foreshadow the degradation and destruction of all that is not imagined. Just as the ruin of farmers, farming, and farmland may be predicted from a society's failure to imagine food in all its meanings and connections, so the failure to imagine sex in all its power and sanctity is to prepare the ruin of family and community life and of much else. In order to expose the privacy of sex, we have made of it another industrial specialization, leaving it naked not only of clothes and of customary discretions and courtesies but also of its cultural and natural connections. (pgs. 165-166)

Gregory Wolfe on Pop-Culture and Battlestar Galactica

Gregory Wolfe (editor of the “highbrow” journal Image) offers some excellent perspective on the highbrow/lowbrow distinction and why "popular culture" is a bit of a misnomer (HT Jeff Overstreet):

The problem isn’t really Highbrow versus Lowbrow. That’s a simplification. The criticisms of pop culture I most resonate to are not the ones that decry pop because it’s not sophisticated and complex. No, the problem with popular culture these days isn’t that it comes up from the people. It’s that it comes from massive corporations, who produce it according to marketing statistics so that the end result is bland, lowest-common denominator schlock.

True pop culture came from the people; it was hand-made, plucked on guitars and sawed on fiddles. It arose out of common experience; it had a history, even a tradition.

He goes on to explain why, despite all this, he’s become a huge fan of shows like Battlestar Galactica, which defy that lowest-common denominator approach:

BSG has everything I’d always loved in sci fi—space battles, ethical dilemmas, and a certain grittiness that reminded me that those space-faring folks were still profoundly human. The retro elements of the series—the Battlestar is more like an aircraft carrier in WWII than a starship, there are no transporters, and they still use telephones attached to the walls!—keep it real. Moore has given us a series that contains three things that Star Trek had abandoned: politics, war, and religion.

Moreover, by having the rebellious robots (known as Cylons) evolve into biological entities indistinguishable from human beings, Moore came up with a perfect device to explore the ambiguities of the human condition.

Selfishness and Sacrifice in LOST: There’s No Place Like Home

I only started watching LOST a couple months ago, but thanks to ABC.com generously offering all four seasons in HD – for free! – I’ve been able to catch up in time to watch the last few episodes live, and man am I hooked. Last night’s season finale reminded me why this has become my new favorite show (sorry Battlestar). “There’s No Place Like Home” had everything I could want in a TV show: mystery and revelation, action and suspense, character and charm, and one shocker of an ending. As Carmen Andres has noted, however, perhaps the best thing about it was its exploration of the opposites of selfishness and sacrifice (spoiler warning).

“There's No Place Like Home” included a number of powerful moments of selfishness – especially when Ben callously murdered Keamy, knowing full well it could mean the deaths of everyone on the boat – and ultimate sacrifice, as when Michael and Jin stay behind to give the others a chance to escape before the boat is destroyed. As for Ben moving, and leaving, the island, we don’t yet know if that was truly a sacrifice, or yet more selfishness. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this theme lay in the contrast between Jack and Sawyer.

Since the beginning, LOST has presented Jack and Sawyer as opposites: Jack has always been the selfless one, his only goal to ensure that his fellow castaways get home. Sawyer, on the other hand, has always been self-focused, concerned only for his own survival. Even their appearances reflected the contrast – Jack was always clean-cut and respectable, while Sawyer was gruff and uncivilized. But ever since Season Three ended with a drunk and bearded Jack, back in Los Angeles, actually hoping another plane will crash so that he might return to the island, their roles have been reversed. Throughout Season Four we’ve seen him descend from everything he stood for, most notably when he held a gun to Locke’s head and pulled the trigger in “The Beginning of the End.” Now in the two-part Season Finale we find that three years after escaping the island, he has not only become a drunk, but has abandoned Kate and Aaron, and is willing to do just about anything – even trust Ben – to get back.

Meanwhile, Sawyer has moved the opposite direction, and broken free from his old selfishness. Again, we saw a hint of this (though not the first) at the end of Season Three, when Sawyer turned back to save Sayid, Jin and Bernard in “Through the Looking Glass.” His newfound nobility has also been seen, for instance, in “The Shape of Things to Come,” when he risked his life to save Claire from the attack on the Barracks. Now in the two-part finale, his transformation seems to be complete. In the first half, he turned Jack’s signature line (“live together or die alone”) against him, by insisting that “You don’t get to die alone.” Then in the second half, he does what even Jack was unwilling to do: sacrifice himself to save the rest in the helicopter. While Jack remains silent, it is Sawyer who tells Kate he loves her then gives up his chance to escape. I love the symbolism too: his plunge into the water seems a kind of baptism, which leads to new life for himself (back on the island) and for the rest (who escape on the helicopter). Jack, meanwhile, is nothing more than a spectator to this scene, and as we have seen – he comes to dearly regret that he too did not stay behind.

In so reversing Jack and Sawyer’s roles, LOST has not only presented a powerful image of the nature and results of these two essential options – life-giving sacrifice or soul-destroying selfishness – but also emphasized the inescapably present choice between them. The decision between selfishness and sacrifice is not once for all, but a constant demand. It doesn’t matter how noble Jack was, unless he continues to be so. It doesn’t matter how selfish Sawyer was; for today he can make a new start. Virtue is never satisfied with the past, but awaits each new decision. No one can rest on their past deeds as proof of their character or hope, and no one is so far lost that they can’t find their way home. Sawyer seems to have learned that, as did Michael and Charlie and many others before them; I just hope that Jack, too, will remember it before the end.

Battlestar Galactica "Escape Velocity"

I never thought I’d say it, but the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica had too much religion. The funeral at the beginning was nice; it reminded me of the positive treatment of religion in the first couple seasons. It was polytheistic, of course, but a good reminder of how hope for the next life can offer comfort, but can sometimes feel hollow. I also continue to appreciate the portrayal of Admiral Adama and President Roslin’s relationship. In a show which places such an exaggerated emphasis on sex, it’s refreshing to see a caring relationship that is not sexual. But the rest of the episode was a mess. From the attack by the fringe sect the “Sons of Ares,” to Gaius Baltar’s spiritual horse-pucky in the final scene – God loves you because you’re perfect, just as you are! (from the man who is anything but perfect) – I’m longing for their old sense of balance. The only thing I enjoyed about the Baltar story-line was when the Six in his head physically lifted him up like rag-doll – humorous, and somewhat ominous as well. Perhaps she’s more than just his imagination after all?

I’m dearly hoping the show gets better, and fast, but today I’m feeling snarky. So rather than a more comprehensive review (try here), I give you a picture of how my twisted mind works:

Me: I just don’t feel the same spark anymore…

BSG: But isn’t this what you wanted? You’ve been saying all along that you loved the way I focused on religion, said it was my best quality!

Me: I know, I know, it’s just… well, it feels like you’re trying too hard.

BSG: Ooh, so that’s how it is, is it? I sacrifice to give you what you want, but it’s never good enough!

Me: I just miss the old days; you used to tell such good stories, and the religious component was just a part. Why’d you have to get so fundamentalistic on me?

BSG: I’m just being honest! I thought you appreciated that about me!

Me: You can be honest without having to be so depressing all the time. Where’s the love? Is there any light at the end of this tunnel?

BSG: Oh come now, have a little faith!

Me: Yeah well, it’s just…

BSG: Just what?

Me: Well, to tell the truth… I’m seeing someone else.

BSG: WHAT? You two-timing - who?

Me: No one, just this show about people on an island, I forget what it’s called.

BSG: Sure you do, and what’s it got that I don’t?

Me: Well for starters, it doesn’t beat me over the head every episode. And when it explores religion, it lets us see broken people, not just broken theologies. And it gives an idea of the real struggles and joys of community, like you used to do. Like this one episode, “The 23rd Psalm”…

BSG: Yeah, yeah, you’re just starry-eyed; you haven’t even finished their second season, have you?

Me: That’s not the point!

BSG: You just can’t handle commitment! The first sign of trouble and you run off for someone else. Well what happens when you get bored of them too. You’ll find some new tramp I suppose!

Me: What do you expect? I’ve always been promiscuous in my TV viewing; you knew that from the start! You can’t expect me to put up with Gaius frakkin Baltar forever!

BSG: But all I’m asking is a little patience. You can’t stay with me for one more season?

Me: Alright, alright, I’ll give you another chance, but we’ll have to negotiate a more open relationship.

BSG: And what’s that supposed to mean?

Me: You get Friday nights, but the rest of the week I’m free to watch what I want. Yes, even LOST reruns.

BSG: Fine!

Me: Fine!

He That Believeth in Me - Battlestar Season Four Premier

Battlestar Galactica’s season premier last night was titled “He That Believeth in Me,” a quote from John 11:25. In fine style, the episode plays on the whole verse from which this quote is drawn, which reads (in the old King James): “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” This episode is all about death and resurrection, and sets an excellent beginning to the final season of this great show (eh hem, Spoiler warning!)

Season three was by no means my favorite (I still think the first season was the best), but towards the end they built up to a number of very interesting developments, most notably the apparent death of Kara Thrace (Starbuck), the trial and acquittal of arch-traitor and Cylon-sympathizer Gaius Baltar, and the climactic revelation of four of the final five Cylons paired with the sudden reappearance of Starbuck, all set to a rousing rendition of “All Along the Watchtower.” It was brilliant, and left us plenty to contemplate over the last thirteen months.

After the long wait, I was certainly hoping for something spectacular for the premier, but unfortunately I think there was a bit too much anticipation. It was a good episode, but not their best. Barbara Nicolosi complains that they tried to do too much too fast, and I think she is right. There was a lot there, but we had to fly past all of it. I’ve been dying for a good old-fashioned space battle, but the one that began this episode was over too quickly. It may have been climactic, but it didn’t feel at all heroic, and they certainly could have done more to play up Ander’s choice to throw himself into his first battle as a Cylon, before he was spared having to fight it. The moment when the raider scanned and recognized him was great though, raising all kinds of questions about the nature of Cylons’ ultimate “plan.” Cathode Tan suggests this proves the Cylons may not be pursuing humanity’s destruction at all, but rather see themselves as the (divine) instrument of humanity's purification:

There has been a lot of indication that the race sees themselves as essentially the hand of God. Here - it is practically the only explanation. It's not that they're out to exterminate the entire human race, they're playing their part in man's morality play. They're the flood to God's Noah.

I think this is a very interesting possibility, though (like everything on BSG) it raises difficult questions. After all, if we think their near annihilation of the twelve colonies is horrific even if it were the will of God, can we say anything different about the original Noah? After all, in both cases humanity is just as flawed after the flood as before. Still, I have to appreciate how they continue to build a genuinely interesting theistic worldview into the story, and that leads to the two most interesting features of the premier:

First is the return of Kara. Barbara is right that they raced through this much too quickly. Starbuck went from telling Admiral Adama that they were going the wrong way, to confronting President Roslin with a gun, in no time at all. It felt very rushed, but it does set up an excellent question for this season to explore. We still don’t know who the final Cylon is, but it seems to me that Kara and Roslin are the two best candidates for the job (Gaius is too obvious, it would be anticlimactic and would make nonsense of his relationship with Caprica Six), so it will be interesting to see how they draw out the question of which one of them is right about the path they should take. In short, this is the question highlighted by the episode’s title: is Kara’s return a true resurrection, or merely another Cylon reincarnation?

But the resurrection theme didn’t end with Kara. The most interesting aspect of the episode was its treatment of Gaius. I was glad to see them return to season one form by including a genuine miracle in the healing of the boy (even if it was clichéd and obvious), but what I really appreciated was how they insisted on combining their exploration of resurrection with its essential pair: self-sacrifice.

Gaius is a sleaze ball, and the cult that springs up around him is nearly incomprehensible, but he seemed to reach a definite turning point in praying that God would take his life in place of the boy’s. He seemed to finally recognize his own wickedness in admitting that he truly does deserve to die, and that made his subsequent near death experience all the more intriguing. It will be very interesting to see whether he lives up to this new-found selflessness, or if he quickly reverts to his old narcissism. As always, Gaius and Six are hardly the people I want representing Christianity, but this connection between sacrifice and resurrection is exactly right, and I can’t wait to see how they play it out in the rest of the season.

Battlestar Galactica Season Four Premier

In case you've been hiding under a rock, the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica premiers tonight (actually, you can watch it right now on SciFi.com). Joe Carter offers his own take on why this is the Best Show on Television, perhaps ever (see also my review here). But it really needs to be watched from the beginning to make sense, so if you're late to the game, make sure to start with the Pilot (originally a mini-series). Remember though, it's not for kids.

UPDATE: My review of the season premier is here.

Review of Everything Bad Is Good For You - Part 3

In Part 2, I noted a few important omissions from Steven Johnson’s book Everything Bad Is Good For You, challenging especially his emphasis on structure over content. Yet to point out the importance of content is not to dismiss his argument as worthless (nor pop culture itself). Indeed, whether high-brow or low, written, filmed or sung, art doesn’t have to debase and distort, it can also uplift and illuminate, and Johnson is right that pop culture's dangers and drawbacks are too often wielded as a club to beat back any serious consideration of its benefits. To that end, he has identified some encouraging developments.

First, we need to put aside some dearly held illusions. Frequently, in judging popular media, we have an unrealistically romanticized view of the past. We remember the good ol’ days when television was innocent and uplifting, but forget that it was also simplistic and patronizing. We dream of the glory days before television, “when kids used their imaginations,” but fail to consider that they spent more time playing Kick the Can than reading Shakespeare. Compared to that, your typical ten-year-old computer wiz doesn’t seem so brain-dead after all.

Truly, Johnson has identified an important trend toward greater media complexity. Neil Postman did not anticipate this development, because it’s being driven primarily by the rise of newer “technologies of convenience,” from VHS to TiVo. The many ways these have pushed media producers away from the “Least Objectionable Programming” model of yesteryear, toward a “Most Repeatable Programming” model that rewards deeper concentration and long-term commitment, has not always been recognized by otherwise insightful cultural analysts.

When Postman was writing in 1985, television was essentially a “present tense medium,” and networks rightly feared the slightest confusion or offense might drive away their audience. In contrast, many of today’s popular programs--from 24 to LOST and Battlestar Galactica--absolutely depend on challenging their audiences to return again and again. Similarly, the most significant but often-overlooked feature of many recent video games is not the thumb exercise they provide, but how much intellectual work they demand. Anyone who has ever seriously attempted to succeed at SimCity or even Grand Theft Auto knows how blisteringly, frustratingly hard it is. Despite appearances, many of today’s most popular entertainments demand a remarkable degree of patient endurance, conscious interaction and long-term commitment.

Moreover, I wonder if simply restricting our indulgence in pop culture to rare and superficial engagement actually risks backing us into the very dangers we are trying to avoid. If the main thing making pop culture smarter is that producers can now expect us to pay better and longer attention (as Johnson helpfully notes: the separation between set-up and punch line on shows like Seinfeld can sometimes be measured in years rather than seconds), might it be that any proper response to modern society will have to leave room for the occasional obsession? Pop culture is here to stay, and Johnson is right that: “Out of obsession comes expertise, a confidence in your own powers of analysis – a sense that if you stick with the system long enough, you’ll truly figure out how it works.” (pg. 194) While learning the minutiae of Seinfeld lore might seem a waste of time, the skills necessary to discover such trivia probably do have wider applicability than is usually assumed.

If nothing else, the days of treating modern entertainment as a kind of degenerate second-best to the pristine realm of text should finally be put aside. There are clear and important differences between reading and gaming and television viewing, and the kinds of society they foster, but not all differences are bad. Writing is one art, not the only one. Truly, the “boob tube” is no substitute for literature, but it might just be that even great books are no substitute for good popular entertainment?

Review of Everything Bad Is Good For You - Part 2

As mentioned in Part 1 of this review, there is much in Steven Johnson’s book that deserves consideration as we think about the potential and dangers of modern entertainment. Before getting there, however, we must first step back and examine the book’s presuppositions: Everything Bad is Good For You, regrettably, suffers from a kind of schizophrenia of purpose that deeply undermines its force.

As the provocative title implies, Johnson wants to be iconoclastic, but in the end he’s too smart for his own good. His book brims over with qualifiers and his conspicuous back-peddling strongly suggests that the thesis has been hyped to increase sales (a tactic which worked, by the way). Everything Bad is Good For You quickly becomes something like: Pop Culture Is Smarter Than It Used to Be – Though Maybe It Still Can’t Compare to High Art – and Can Be Part (But Only One Part) of a Healthy Media Diet. The latter statement is certainly closer to the truth, even if it makes for a lousy title. But in shifting towards this more nuanced stance, his point is nearly reduced to an empty shell aimed at a straw man. There is much worth pondering here, but it’s up to the reader to sort it out of the rubble.

The problem, it seems, is Johnson’s willingness to emphasize the positives while downplaying or ignoring the negative aspects of these “distractions.” For instance, you will search in vain for a discussion of the close connection between infant TV viewing and attention deficit disorder. Similarly, Neil Postman’s point that our overly visual culture has diminished our tolerance for sustained public discourse is all but dismissed as irrelevant (I wonder if Johnson learned his lesson promoting the book on various talk shows?). He elects to focus on how TV lets us see our politicians in more candid settings – providing “valuable” insight into their integrity – while completely ignoring the medium’s far broader implications on the political process.

But television's predisposition to replace substance with image must not be ignored: It’s no accident that flashy crime dramas like CSI – with their high tech gadgetry, attractive actors and tidy conclusions – far outperform true crime documentaries. Real life can’t live up to fiction in any form, but no previous medium provides a more convincing illusion that its truncated worldview is actually educational.

Finally, by focusing on structure rather than content, Johnson misses a great deal of what is most important in determining the potential benefits and dangers of these media. For instance, it’s hard to believe that anyone would try to judge the “cognitive value” of 24 based solely on the number of plotlines and significant relationships it juggles – yet this is precisely what Johnson does! Apparently, he hasn't considered that by this standard daytime soap operas would be the smartest thing on television. And when he starts praising Reality TV because it can teach “social IQ,” I’m tempted to respond: Sure, and you can learn risk-assessment betting on cock fights....

Despite all of this, however, Johnson is right to criticize those who appeal to poor content in dismissing television and gaming as media. Not all television, movies or games are mindless – far from it – and just because some popular choices are immoral or worthless, does not prove these media are irredeemable. One need only mention The Da Vinci Code to realize the same criteria would also eliminate reading as a waste of time. Indeed, doesn’t even the Bible include a rather large amount of immoral behavior? Clearly there is more to the value of a medium than whether all of its content is “family friendly,” and Johnson is right to insist upon this. In Part 3, then, we will consider the more positive aspects of his argument.

Review of Everything Bad Is Good For You - Part 1

The following is a review I wrote a couple years ago, but never published. I will post it in three parts over the next three days:

Have you noticed how cell phones have replaced lighters at concerts? Where once we lifted little flames, we now raise tribute to a new addiction: modern technology. Welcome to our digital world, where every 3rd grader has a computer, and we’re hooked on television before we can walk. Conventional wisdom (including mine) finds something particularly apt in this connection between addictive drugs and modern technology. According to Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, the rise of television and its many offshoots has dulled our minds and undermined public discourse of the sort that previous, book-focused cultures supposedly maintained.

But what if this conventional wisdom is misleading? What if the attraction of these flickering screens derives less from their propensity for mindless distraction, and more from their participatory nature and underlying challenge? Addictive though they are, what if there are important aspects of the mind that such technologies actually nourish better than reading?

In his intriguing little book, Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, Steven Johnson suggests that this may well be true. He argues that by focusing so exclusively on the immoral content and non-literary nature of modern entertainment, we have missed the benefits our society has gained from this addiction. He argues that we must balance pop culture’s perceived dangers with an even-handed assessment of its potential rewards if we are to make informed decisions about its role in our lives.

To that end, he offers an impressive catalogue of intellectual skills that modern media, especially video games, have been unconsciously teaching us. These include the abilities to probe and explore one’s environment, to problem-solve and hypothesize, to strategize and anticipate the future, to assess risks and make decisions, to overcome failure and pursue goals, and many more.

Johnson suggests that even the notoriously passive medium of television has been growing ever more interactive in recent decades. Increasingly demanding programming has been steadily abandoning the “flashing arrows” and predictable stories that Postman lamented, forcing its audience to “lean forward” and “fill in” to make sense of the complex plots and social situations depicted on screen.

He also provides some interesting (though controversial) reasons to connect this “Sleeper Curve” of quietly increasing complexity, with the rising IQ scores of the 20th century known as the Flynn Effect. For he notes that the types of IQ test which have shown the most improvement are precisely those which measure the pattern-recognition and problem-solving skills video games teach.

For all these reasons and more, this breezy but thought-provoking book deserves wide consideration to balance the derision of critics like Postman. While there is much to question in this volume, there is also much that is worth earnest reflection as we seek to make our way through this inescapably technological world.

Continued in Part 2.

River Tam and Shepherd Book Discuss the Bible on Firefly

Yesterday’s post reminded me of a great scene from the short-lived but brilliant show, Firefly. Leave it to an atheist like Joss Whedon to explain my faith better than I can… what’s up with that?



"You don't fix the Bible... it fixes you."

Beliefnet Interview on the Religion in BSG

I just discovered this interview with Ron Moore (producer of Battlestar Galactica) on the religious component to the show (HT: Greenflame). If you're a fan, the whole thing is worth reading; here's an excerpt:

Do your own religious views shape the story lines?

I'm an Irish Catholic, not practicing. It probably just reflects my interest in my movement from Catholicism to atheism to agnosticism to interest in Eastern religions. I think the show is a reflection of my acknowledgement that faith and religion are a part of the human experience, even if I'm not quite clear on exactly what it all means and what I truly believe. The most direct reflection of me in the show is this idea that when the Cylons became self-aware, when they became sentient, when they became people, they began to ask themselves the existential questions: "Why am I here? What is this all about? Is this all that I am? Is there something more?"

My view is that that's fundamental to a thinking person. And that inevitably leads you to questions of faith and religion and "what will happen to me when I die?"

Funny how he still calls himself a non-practicing Catholic, even when he has since moved "to atheism to agnosticism to interest in Eastern religions...."

Battlestar Galactica

To balance out yesterday's rant, here’s another repost from the defunct Situation Critical, first written before season two aired (I’ve reworked it somewhat):

Battlestar Galactica (produced by Ron Moore and David Eick) is what television should be – thought provoking, edgy, true to life where it counts but fueled by a fertile imagination and a talented cast and crew. This is a show that unflinchingly confronts some the toughest moral dilemmas in a way that is hugely entertaining, defies pat answers, and leaves an important place for the sacred and the spiritual.

The story centers on a rag-tag group of refugees from a Terminator-esk apocalypse at the hands of their robotic creations, the Cylons. Of twelve colonized worlds, less than 50,000 survivors have formed a small fleet of civilian vessels guarded by the sole remaining human warship (that they know of), the Battlestar Galactica. The Galactica herself is an aging cruiser that had been slated for decommission and only survived because it lacked the advanced electrical systems that were the primary target of the Cylon attack. On the run and short on supplies, this band of humans led by Galactica’s Captain William Adama (Edward James Olmos) and Secretary-of-Education-turned-President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) are in search of the mythical planet Earth. Desperate to hold on to some semblance of civilization but unsure if they can even trust one another, the last remnant of the human race (in that part of the galaxy at least) struggles to survive without losing their humanity.

Beginning with a 2003 miniseries, this “re-imaging” of the 1978 ABC space opera is quite unlike anything else on television. Despite its outlandish premise, this is a show brimming over with characters and stories that are true to life. There are no cut and dried divisions between “good guys” and “bad guys,” no cookie-cutter story-lines or simple solutions to difficult problems. Instead, we are faced with realistic, complex, imperfect people forced into an impossible situation, struggling to do the best they can. In the words of Ron Moore, this show, “dare[s] us to invest ourselves in flawed characters who face ambiguous choices in an imperfect world.”

Galactica also maintains a high view of organized religion that is almost unknown in contemporary television, especially science fiction (a notable but short-lived exception was Firefly). Even better, this is a show that allows not just a vague human “spirituality” in the tame Hollywood sense, but a truly active role for the divine: A priestess known as Elosha (Lorena Gale) is given a positive and recurring role as an advisor to President Roslin, and is sometimes called upon for prayer and religious ceremony. Roslin herself experiences prophetic visions and, on more than one occasion, risks the future survival of the fleet on her faith in these visions and the teaching of certain sacred scriptures. A working downed spacecraft is discovered just after a character offers a desperate but skeptical prayer for aid. A split-second “guess” is (apparently) used by God to secure fuel for the fleet. Such events occur both for the polytheistic colonists and the atheist-turned-monotheist Dr. Gaius Baltar (James Callis). What kind of a theology that presupposes is an open question, but that such things are even granted possibility is a vast improvement over the secular humanism that dominates so much of television.

Battlestar Galactica is by no means a Christian show. It is not for children nor the faint of heart. It explores adult themes, including wartime violence, torture and sexual promiscuity, in a style that draws more inspiration from Black Hawk Down than Star Trek. It maintains a deep belief in moral truth, but an unflinching honesty about the struggles and ambiguities real people face in the struggle to survive. The theology is certainly not Christian, not even allegorically. The original series was marked by strong allusions to Mormonism, and while this re-imaging has avoided that connection, its theology has at least as much in common with ancient Greek myth as with traditional Christianity. But that’s OK, because this is not a show that asks to be accepted unthinkingly, but one to be chewed on and debated.

Writing on the politics of the show, Ron Moore stated that the point is “to raise questions in the minds of the audience, and make them think.” Questions like: Is it ever justifiable to sacrifice some lives for the sake of others? Is lying to and torturing a known spy acceptable if it might save thousands? Is political intrigue warranted if it is necessary to prevent a charismatic terrorist from taking office? Does a positive result justify the questionable risks accepted to achieve it? And is the survival of the human race even worth the trouble if we must abandon everything that makes us human to accomplish it? You will find no easy answers to these questions here, nor will you find characters who always choose correctly, but you will be forced to consider all of them and more. There are no pious platitudes and this is no morality play, but it is a powerful human drama that presents a realistic (though fictional) theistic worldview through a great script, some fantastic acting, and feature-film quality special effects.

The Dark Side of Sci-Fi

The following is an modifed version of the very first post I ever wrote, originally submitted to the old Crux Project blog Situation Critical (no longer available online). This is admittedly one-sided, so please read John's piece for the other side of the coin:

John Colman has written an excellent post defending science fiction’s ability to ask deep questions and point us toward the supernatural. I wholeheartedly agree with him. Ever since I was a kid watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my dad, I too have loved science fiction. Besides the positive aspects he mentions, I also love the adventure, the dream of exploring the unknown and fighting wicked villains. But most of all, I love the camaraderie that so often characterizes these stories--a tight-knit group of friends facing the future together, come what may!

But our favorite genre also has a dark side that John neglected to discuss. The more I watch these shows, the more I realize just how many of them fairly drip with naturalistic philosophy. Indeed, much of the sci-fi genre is based on thoroughly materialistic presuppositions. And while a lot of mainstream television and film shares these assumptions, sci-fi is uniquely suited to showcase them in that it expresses, more than any other genre, the hopes and fears of a society.

Consider the Star Trek universe, for instance: Here is depicted a future when humanity will finally see past its differences and live in peace and harmony. Of course, there is still war and violence, but not generally among humans or the United Federation of Planets. If every worldview must tell us who we are, what’s wrong, and what's the solution, then Star Trek tells us we are the product of evolution on one of many planets that have evolved life--not the least advanced, but certainly not the most either. What’s wrong with the universe is not human rebellion against her creator, but interspecies strife among the various races in our galaxy. The solution? Not the final victory of God, but the victory of the Federation against all who oppose peace in the universe--whether they be Klingons, Romulans, or the Borg.

Or take another favorite of mine: Stargate SG-1. Where Star Trek generally ignored religion, Stargate tried to reinvent it in light of modern science. The ancient gods were really just powerful aliens who visited earth throughout our history--some, like the Goa’uld, in hopes of enslaving us, others, like the Asgard, to bless and protect us. In this universe, science is king, and God has no real place. Humanity is a fledgling species, teetering on the brink of either a major evolutionary step forward or complete destruction by our own or some malicious alien’s actions.

Just consider the one episode in the show’s ten-season run which included the word “God” in its title ("There But For the Grace of God," Episode 119): Through a “Quantum Mirror” we are taken to an alternate earth (one of the infinite universes that exist alongside ours, we are told) where things have not worked out so fortuitously--earth has been invaded by the Goa’uld Apophis and faces slavery to a false god. In the end, this alternate earth is saved by the intervention of another alien, the Asgard Thor (note the Egyptian and Norse mythology lying behind their names), but it is clear that “the Grace of God” had nothing to do with it. The show does admirably remind us that we cannot save ourselves, but when God is barred from that role, an alien or superhuman is forced to take his place.

For, in the end, shows like Stargate teach that our universe could just as well be overrun with evil as saved by good. Indeed, the fact that there are an infinite number of universes means that an infinite number have been overrun by evil, and there is no good reason why ours shouldn’t be one of them. For sci-fi is not without its pessimists.

Where the ancient Jewish apocalyptic writers maintained an unwavering faith that even their darkest dreams of worldwide catastrophe would be tempered God’s grace, today’s secular futurists have no such assurances. Whether we are threatened with destruction by our own technology (as in Terminator), an alien race (as in Independence Day), or a killer virus (as in Resident Evil), there are no guarantees that human life will survive. Only God could promise that, but he is too often dismissed as a figment of our imaginations, a relic of bygone days when primitive men still believed in a universe controlled by spirits. Now, apart from alien intervention, we must trust our own resources to overcome such dangers and charge ahead to a glorious future, unless of course this is one of those universes that ends badly. I’ll have to watch next week to find out.