Hurley has a blog
Sweet Marvin Candle! How come no one told me that Hurley from Lost has a blog?
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Beloved by 86.47% of the web.
kottke.org posts about TV
Supertrain!
Supertrain was a massively promoted and extremely expensive 1979 NBC adventure drama that lasted only a few episodes before being cancelled. Along with the US boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, the superflop nearly bankrupted the network.
The show featured an “atom powered steam turbine” train that could travel from NYC to LA in 36 hours. Infrastructurist has posted links to the awful and campy pilot episode of the show. Here’s part one to get you started. I love that the train’s crew is right out of a 1970s disco and the board of directors are bona fide 1890s railroad magnates. This thing is a train wreck. (Layered narrative again! Bam! (Again!))
The food of Star Trek
In celebration of Star Trek opening today, Adam Kuban goes long on a piece about food in Star Trek movies and TV shows.
Science fiction often holds a mirror up to contemporary culture, critiquing its practices, politics, and mores. So, too, with Romulan ale. Because of the United Federation of Planets’ standoff with the Romulan Empire, the drink is illegal within the Federation — much like Cuban cigars are in the U.S. But like the captains of industry of today, captains of starships indulge in this vice.
Oddly, my only complaint is that (somehow) his piece isn’t long enough. Adam, you didn’t even get in to “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” (thx, alaina)
Hating The Wire
During a discussion with friends the other day, someone wondered, “Who doesn’t like The Wire?” The show is easily one of a handful of shows considered the best ever and even those who feel that The Wire is overrated still don’t dislike it. But someone’s gotta hate it, right?
In the spirit of Cynical-C’s excellent You Can’t Please Everyone series, I went to Amazon and looked for bad reviews of The Wire season one DVD. There were six one-star reviews and four two-star reviews (versus 190 five-star reviews). Three of those were customer service complaints and one read like a five-star review that was accidentially mis-rated; here are parts of the remaining reviews:
I have watched 6 episodes of Season 1 and have desperately tried to get into The Wire. Despite the hype, and all the trendies saying what a mahhvellous show it is, actually it is pretty dull. Boring characters, little conflict, confusing scripts, same stuff repeated ad nauseam. Frankly, the lives of petty drug dealers in Baltimore don’t do it for me, and not do the cops who are a pretty unattractive bunch with few dramatic qualities. I know that Prison Break was appallingly acted but at least it had a story line. The Wire is like an improvisation at one of those let it all hang out stage schools which never produces particularly great actors.
I had 1000’s of hours of viewing movies, television series, and television programming behind me before I sat down to watch this series on DVD, season one, the box in my hand. I was very dissapointed. This series stinks. I watched only episode 1, and have the experience and perception to know that it won’t get any better. […] If watching cheap white trash and cheap black trash destroy themselves and probably each other interests you, this is for you. I have a better way to spend my evenings. I experience enough negativity in the world on a daily basis, that I don’t have to put it in my dvd player after dinner for it to “entertain” me.
I really disliked this show, i watched the entire first season in two days, i only did so because i was waiting for it to become interesting. After so many glowing reviews, i could not belive how just plain awful this show turned out to be. I would rather watch reruns of Barney Miller, you get the same effect of watching the Wire except with slightly more enjoyment. I know it’s not The Shield and it’s not supposed to be but i implore you to purchase that series if you want to enjoy a television experience.
I got the Wire because I thought I was missing the boat on ‘the best show on TV’. Well…I must be missing something because after watching 5 episodes I don’t get it. I kept thinking it was going to get better..not that it was bad…it just wasn’t that interesting. The only reason I kept watching was to see Idris Elba who plays Stringer Bell cause he is a cutie!
Perhaps it is in the office where the show falters the most, sometimes having camera shots zoom in on a person for three seconds at a time while they are thinking about nothing. Then there is the whole thing with the detective using a typewriter. Okay, did I miss something? Is this 2008 or 1978 people?? High Profile crime unit using typewriters, sure I buy it and a bag of that counterfeit money they had in the first episode.
I tried it sober; perhaps I should have tried it drunk. Ham acting, cliched backdrops (pole-dancing was an idea already on its last legs before The Sopranos ran it into the ground) and dialogue which may possibly be realistic but certainly is dull. I labored manfully through the whole first episode. I shall not torment myself with a second.
If Barney Miller is more your speed, season one of that show is also available on Amazon with reviews almost as good as The Wire’s.
Update: I had totally forgotten about Andy Baio’s Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game.
Madison Avenue Cookware
Madison Avenue Cookware. The only thing that cooks better is a woman.
The site, which seems to be down right now, is actually a promotional site for Mad Men.
Conservative Colbert viewers not in on the joke
According to an article published in The International Journal of Press/Politics, both liberals and conservatives find The Colbert Report funny, but the two groups differ in their perception of Stephen Colbert’s actual ideological allegiances.
Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism.
(via cyn-c)
Lost vs. Victorian literature
Plot-wise, Little Dorrit is just as ridiculous as Lost, frozen donkey wheel and all. Discuss.
Disturbin’ Strokes
The intro to Diff’rent Strokes set to some disturbing music is “far more creepy than I thought it would [be]”. (via cyn-c)
John Madden retires
I was up waaay too early this morning watching some trending topics on Twitter Search and John Madden’s name suddenly appeared. When you see a boldface name pop up on Twitter Search like that, it usually means they’ve died. I’m glad Madden’s not dead but I’m sad that he’s retiring from calling football games. I know he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved listening to him.
The Wire Bible
This is quite a treat. Someone got ahold of some scripts from The Wire and posted them online. [Update: I’ve mirrored the files for convenience.]
Season 1, episode 1, “The Target”
Season 1, episode 9, “Game Day”
Season 5, episode 10, “-30-“
But the real gem is a document dated September 6, 2000 that appears to be David Simon’s pitch to HBO for the show. The document starts with a description of the show.
Simon had the show nailed from the beginning. Near the end of the overview, he says:
But more than an exercise is realism for its own sake, the verisimilitude of The Wire exists to serve something larger. In the first story-arc, the episodes begin what would seem to be the straight-forward, albeit protracted, pursuit of a violent drug crew that controls a high-rise housing project. But within a brief span of time, the officers who undertake the pursuit are forced to acknowledge truths about their department, their role, the drug war and the city as a whole. In the end, the cost to all sides begins to suggest not so much the dogged police pursuit of the bad guys, but rather a Greek tragedy. At the end of thirteen episodes, the reward for the viewer — who has been lured all this way by a well-constructed police show — is not the simple gratification of hearing handcuffs click. Instead, the conclusion is something that Euripides or O’Neill might recognize: an America, at every level at war with itself.
The list of main characters contains a few surprises. McNulty was originally going to be named McCardle, Aaron Barksdale became Avon Barksdale, and the Stringer Bell character changed quite a bit.
STRINGY BELL - black, early forties, he is BARKSDALE’s most trusted lieutenant, supervising virtually every aspect of the organization. He is older than BARKSDALE, and much more direct in his way, but nonetheless he is the No. 2. He has BARKSDALE’s brutal sense of the world but not his polish. BELL is bright, but clearly a child of the projects he now controls.
The final section is entitled “BIBLE” and contains draft outlines of a nine-episode season. I didn’t read it all, but the main story line is there, as are many plot details that made it into the actual first season. (thx, greg)
Namaste
Someone scanned and uploaded some old Dharma Initiative ads from 70s magazines like National Geographic. Wow, that’s a long-running ARG.
BTW, the island on Lost has to be the largest MacGuffin in the history of moving pictures, right?
Cosmos on Hulu
The entire Cosmos series is available for free on Hulu, in 480p no less (US only). From the Wikipedia:
[Cosmos] covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe. The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, and was the most widely watched series in the history of American public television until 1990’s The Civil War. It is still the most widely watched PBS series in the world. It won an Emmy and a Peabody Award and has since been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 600 million people, according to the Science Channel.
(thx, sam)
Planet Earth on Discovery now
Tonight on Discovery HD: Planet Earth marathon until 3am ET. If you haven’t seen it, now’s your chance.
Jimmy Fallon mines the web
Being that Jimmy Fallon is a big nerd and his show’s producer is Gavin Purcell (formerly of TechTV, G4, and Attack of the Show), I knew it was only a matter of time before The Late Show started featuring more online stuff than its predecessor. But I didn’t know it would happen so soon. So far Jimmy has welcomed Kevin Rose & Alex Albrecht (of Diggnation) and Josh Topolsky (of Engadget). On last night’s show, they turned a Twitter user with 7 followers into an instant Twitter celeb. The show’s web site is mainly a blog staffed by full-time editors.
Socials & More