Top Five TV Moments — 11/22/08

Instead of trying to do a weekly TV synopsis wrap-up (‘cause we all know I watch too much TV to do that), I’ve decided to instead do a weekly post with my top five favorite moments of the week. So, for this week, here are the things that made me laugh, made me cry, made me hurl, or just stuck with me in general.

In no particular order:

• Smallville: “Bride” — In the “mid-season finale” (no more new episodes until January 15), Clark escorted Chloe down the aisle to marry her beloved, Jimmy Olson. Despite flushing canon down the toilet, it was still a great ep, especially when Clark and Lois came thisclose to acting on their feelings after sharing a dance. Of course, as always, stupid, stupid, stupid Lana had to ruin everything. (I’ll give the girl bonus points for one thing, though — somebody needed to light into Clark for giving Chloe selective amnesia, and Lana did a great job of it.)



• Heroes: “Chapter Nine: It’s Coming” — While I agree with those who think the show has lost its focus (and I totally agree that Mohinder needs to die!), I also think Heroes is in the process of getting its groove back. And the best example of this is the work done this week by the indescribably talented Kristen Bell and Zachary Quinto. It was pure magic to watch supposedly-evil Sylar help the supposedly-evil Elle get her powers back under control. In the process, he learned both compassion and how to keep his voracious hunger for others’ powers in check — and, I suspect, kicked off a love story that will cause ramifications for all of the other characters for a long time to come. Anyone else thinking that Sylar’s future son, Noah, looked a lot like Elle? Me, too.



• Chuck: “Chuck Versus the Fat Lady” — Yes, sometimes you can see the plot twists coming a mile away. But predictable or not, part of why I keep coming back every week is that Chuck and his portrayer, Zachary Levi, are just so darn charming and lovable. It may not seem so on the surface, but the stories on Chuck are driven by character, rather than plot, and you just can’t help but care about them. This week, the show made me laugh, kept me on the edge of my seat, and eventually broke my heart, as we found out that Chuck’s girlfriend is actually an enemy agent — the realization coming right after he nearly committed treason to save her life. It may be predictable, and Chuck may never catch a break, but it’s kinda like Charlie Brown. I’ll keep watching in the hopes that one day he actually gets to kick that football, ‘cause I just like him that much.



• Pushing Daisies: “Oh, Oh, Oh... It’s Magic” — On the other hand, one of the best things about Pushing Daisies is that it is always unpredictable. It’s hard to describe in terms of genre (fantasy-procedural, perhaps?), but eventually you stop trying to label it, because what matters is that it always delivers. This week, the best thing I didn’t see coming was a “reunion” of sorts between our heroine, “dead girl” Charlotte “Chuck” Charles, and her mother. You see, Chuck just found out that the mother she thought was dead is really her “aunt”, who is alive. And her Aunt Vivian has been mourning the daughter who she raised as a niece, and now believes to be dead. More complicated than your average TV show? Sure. But also more touching, as Chuck’s boyfriend, Ned, and best friend, Olive, arranged for Chuck to talk to her mother through Olive (think Cyrano de Bergerac, except with 21st-century electronics).



• Bones: “The Passenger in the Oven” — My favorite TV moment of the week. Investigating a murder on an international flight, Booth comes upon Brennan, wearing a passenger’s horn-rimmed glasses as makeshift magnifying goggles. Grinning, he says, “Alright. What I want you to do is take off your glasses, shake out your hair, and say, ‘Mr. Booth. Do you know what the penalty is for an overdue book?’” Brennan, of course, simply blinks and asks, “Why?” Booth tells her, “Never mind,” but after they discuss the latest evidence and Booth walks away, Brennan tries taking off the glasses and shaking out her hair. Priceless.

To watch these episodes for yourself, you can check out the links below. All are (or will be) available on iTunes, as well.

Smallville — “Bride”

Heroes — “Chapter 9: It’s Coming”

Chuck — “Chuck Versus the Fat Lady”

Pushing Daisies — “Oh, Oh, Oh... It’s Magic”

Bones — “The Passenger in the Oven”

(For other, free television online, I’d strongly suggest you check out Hulu. They do better with online streaming video than most of the networks.)

Kindlenomics — Amazon vs. Sony vs. Dead Trees

This time last year, I was trying to decide whether I wanted an Amazon Kindle or a Sony Digital Book Reader. Each had its advantages. The Kindle has immediate download and doesn’t require connecting to a computer to purchase books. The Sony is cheaper. The Kindle had a better selection of books. Sony e-books cost less. Kindle has newspaper and blog downloads, and Wikipedia access. Sony allows you to read .pdf files.

A year later, and I’m still on the fence. Two main concerns have stopped me from purchasing either device. The first is being unsure about giving up my paper books altogether. I can’t really pinpoint why it bothers me, although those who know me understand that I have a bit of a problem with books. I’ve lost track of how many I own — EAToo tried to make a spreadsheet once, and gave up. I currently have five full-sized bookcases that are all overstuffed and overflowing, in addition to a few random, overlarge piles of books in closets and such. And that doesn’t even count my pre-high-school collection, which I’ve completely lost track of, except for a few special volumes.

I know I have a problem. I also still have every college textbook I ever owned. And two copies of each Harry Potter book, hardcover and paperback. (Three if you count audiobooks.) And I probably shouldn’t even go into the fact that I subconsciously don’t even crack the spines of paperbacks I read — something I wasn’t even aware of until EAToo pointed it out to me.

But nostalgia for “dead trees” aside, I’m also held back by the economic side of the equation. The Amazon Kindle, originally $400, has only dropped to $360 over the course of a year. The Sony Reader is $270. And I’ve never been sure that the convenience factor would be worth that kind of money. I’m also not sure if “convenience” is a good thing in this situation — I love bookstores, and while being able to buy a book within seconds would be nice, I can’t imagine not hanging out at Barnes & Noble (or “the mothership”, as I have come to think of it).

It turns out, I’m right to be worried about that. According to this blog article on ZDnet.com, an analysis of “Kindlenomics” shows that for the average reader, you must download and purchase at least six books per month, or 72 per year, in order to save enough just to cover the cost of the Kindle itself. The analysis is a bit more advantageous if you are a college student (a literature student in particular), although that logic falls through a bit considering that a lot of college textbooks aren’t yet available in digital form.

I keep coming up with “ifs” — a digital reader would be great if I went back to school... if I found another job that would require me to keep my documents portable... if I traveled more. But for where I am right now, it seems like it’s more economically advantageous to keep killing trees. Physically, I could certainly read six books per month (being something of a natural speed reader anyway), but my schedule doesn’t ordinarily permit me enough time to do so. Plus, I’m not sure I want that kind of pressure, constantly worrying if I had wasted money on a digital reader.

According to the ZDnet article, the current price point to make the purchase of a digital reader reasonable if you read one or two books per month is $125 – $150. If you assume three or four books per month, an appropriate price point is about $200. (Here’s the actual math.) While I’m sort of leaning toward the Kindle over the Sony, I’m positive of one thing — it will make a lot more sense to buy a digital reader when (or if) the current prices drop by about half.

Does Television Cause Unhappiness?

Apparently, I’m terribly unhappy.

I didn’t know I was. I thought I was pretty content. I mean, sure, there are things in my life I would change, given the option — a better job and more money would be nice. And I’d like to get a bit more sleep on average. But here I was, blissfully ignorant of the fact that I must be miserable, despite the fact that I have a great husband, a nice home, and wonderful family and friends that I love and who love me.

And it’s all because I watch too much television.

It’s a good thing I read this story, entitled “Unhappy People Watch More TV.” It led me to this story, “Watching Television, Channeling Unhappiness?” (Clever with the puns, that one.)

According to those stories, the study in question revolved around the question of how one’s level of happiness correlates to the amount of television one watches. It seems, from the results, that happy people spend more time being “socially active”, participating in church activities, and reading newspapers They also voted more. (That last one still mystifies me. I don’t know about you, but voting does not take up a significant amount of my time on a weekly basis.) Apparently, unhappy people watch 25 hours of television a week on average; happy people “only” watch 19 hours.

(At this point it should be noted — the news stories focus on the fact that the unhappy watch 20% percent more television. Setting aside the fact that an increase of 19 hours to 25 is an increase of 31.5%, not 20%, no one seems to be paying attention to the fact that what appears to be a huge increase when described that way is actually only a difference of six hours per week — less than one hour’s difference per day.)

My first thought after reading this was to rail against the biases of the scientists who performed the study. And they do seem very biased — one of them going so far as to take the clichéd (and pompous) approach of calling television an “opiate”, an “addictive activity” that would by definition “produce momentary pleasure but long-term misery and regret”. They also kindly noted that heavy television viewers are just the socially disadvantaged type to become addicted. The abstract seems to suggest that they set out to compare television to other, better activities. Even the title of the study, “What Do Happy People Do?”, suggests a predisposition that television watchers are sad and pathetic.

But after doing some poking around, I have a slew of problems with the methodology of the study as well:

• The researchers themselves note that their research is inconclusive as to whether television causes unhappiness or whether unhappiness causes television viewership. Which means that even if they’re right, they didn’t look into other potential reasons for unhappiness. (Their “predictors of happiness”, for what it’s worth, were age, education, and marital status.)



• The study doesn’t seem to address at all what kind of television the survey participants watched — for example, I’d bet that watching several hours of television news each day might just cause depression, and quickly. Just as watching several hours of say, professional wrestling each night, might cause significant loss of brain cells.



• The study seems to assume that social activity and television watching are mutually exclusive — that all television watching is done by lonely people, sitting in a sad, empty room, staring motionless at the set, with perhaps a cat or 12 to keep them company. In addition to the possibility of people watching television together, or doing other, more “productive” things with the television on, there’s also the watercooler effect — people watching shows with the intent of discussing them with friends the next day. As I’ve mentioned before, popular culture can be very useful in bringing people together.



• The study appears to be based entirely on self-reporting. I daresay that a lot of people either don’t realize how much television they watch, or, more likely are reluctant to admit it — particularly to Ph.D.-level researchers who will likely look down on them for doing so.

Do I watch a lot of television? Sure. Some (cough — Mom — cough) would say “too much”. But I still spend time with friends, read, participate in other hobbies, and have a very full life in general. It makes no more sense to accuse a television fan of needing a pseudo-narcotic to fill the unhappy void than it does to assume that everyone who enjoys food is substituting cookies for hugs.

Am I just being defensive? I don’t believe so. With all due apologies to Will Shakespeare, the fault, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves, but in the researchers. In looking for answers and enlightenment, I think there is a real danger of trying to pigeonhole the world into easily-quantified divisions — group a versus group b, you must be one or the other, you can’t be both. But that’s not real life. In real life, you can be a happy, productive person who really enjoys television. Or you can be miserable and lonely while appearing to have an active social life. People are all about the gray area, and trying to neatly label them is an exercise in futility.

Besides, trying too hard to quantify our universe generally sucks all the wonder right out of it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a full DVR of television to watch. Right after I go out to dinner with my husband.

Twilight: Reluctantly Jumping on the Bandwagon

Yes, I know.

I’m a bad, bad blogger.

I could give you a line about how September and October are my busiest time of year at work (which would be entirely true), but honestly, I’ve been gone due to a mixture of business, job dissatisfaction, distractions, general malaise, and lack of inspiration. I’ve been thinking that eventually, something would happen that would inspire me to pick back up and post again.

This week, it finally happened.

So, you may ask, what have I run across that caught my attention so powerfully that I was compelled to put fingers to keyboard again? I finally got around to reading Twilight.



As usual, I’m a bit late to the party. I didn’t read Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone until July 2000 — the same week that Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series, was published. But, much like my experience with The Boy Who Lived, Twilight has become an instant obsession for me.

At first, I wasn’t terribly excited. I’ve read and seen a lot of vampire stories. And as a veteran Buffy/Angel fan, I assumed that as far as the star-crossed vampire/human love story goes, I’d been there, done that. Plus, I’m still a bit irritable about the whole Harry Potter being pushed back thing.

Sometimes I’m very pleased to be wrong.

Twilight is told from the point of view of Bella Swan, a 17-year-old in the process of moving from her lifelong home in Arizona to live with her father, Charlie, in the sleepy (and annoyingly rainy) small town of Forks, Washington. Arriving in town, Bella finds Forks to be exactly what she expected from her sporadic visits growing up — a small town where everyone knows each other, everyone already knows more about her than she would like, and a school curriculum that runs a couple of years behind her school back home, leaving her completely bored. However, she also finds several surprises in her new home: good friends, a better relationship than she expected with her father, and a lot of male attention.

The biggest, most life-changing surprise of all, though, comes in the form of her new lab partner in biology class — Edward Cullen. At first, Edward confuses Bella. She doesn’t understand why she is attracted to him, especially when he alternates between being interested and friendly one minute and cold and angry the next. Even more puzzling is the fact that Edward always seems to be there at the exact moment that accident-prone Bella needs help. As Bella begins to discover Edward’s secrets, he can’t help but let her in. As their story progresses, their lives become inextricably intertwined, their relationship growing stronger and more powerful than either is prepared for.

In describing Twilight, I hesitate to use the word “epic” — at best, it’s overused. But I cannot think of another word that accurately describes the relationship between Bella and Edward. (It reminds me of a quote from “Veronica Mars” — “I thought our story was epic, you know. You and me…. Spanning years and continents... lives ruined, bloodshed, epic.”) You understand from the beginning of their story that their lives will never be easy again. There will be angst, and pain, and yes, considering that Edward is a 107-year-old vampire, there will most likely be bloodshed. But you also know that their connection is so strong, so undeniable, that it’s already too late to turn back.

Twilight is marketed as a book for kids and teens. But that label doesn’t do it justice, any more than it did for the Harry Potter series. Even at my advanced age of close-to-40 (although I’m not quite there yet!), the themes and characters are completely relatable. (And it’s not just that I refuse to grow up.) I felt immediately connected with Bella, in particular. Brainy, sarcastic, and terribly clumsy, Bella has a difficult time believing that she is particularly attractive. Part of her journey involves trying to truly believe that anyone as physically and intellectually spectacular as Edward could possibly be interested in her. I suspect that struggle to believe in yourself, to see what others see in you, is something none of us ever completely outgrow. I know I haven’t — that feeling can still be just as strong now as it was when I was Bella’s age.

And even if you don’t identify with the clumsy, brainy girl who fully expects to be unpopular, you can certainly identify with the story of two people in love who were never meant to be together. True, Bella and Edward have bigger problems that just being incompatible — their relationship exposes them to literal danger, in addition to emotional danger. But their connection is so strong that it’s irresistible, undeniable. They can’t live without each other. They have the kind of connection that we all crave, in theory, regardless of whether it would truly be healthy in real life.

Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a little obsession. At least, that’s what I’ll be telling myself when I buy the soundtrack and tear through the rest of the books in the series, immediately after I see the movie on the weekend it opens.