Wednesday, July 22, 2009

BLACK OPS, SCI-FI TECHNOLOGY, AND TISSUE REGENERATION: On the advice of Matt, Alan, Daniel, and Mo, I've watched the first two episodes of Torchwood: Children of Earth, and I'm ready to declare that the TV event of the summer is ... still Better Off Ted. There's nothing particularly wrong with Torchwood -- I liked how it cut right to the chase with the first scene, instead of clearing its throat with a half-hour of exposition; I like some of the gags, like the bad guys' exasperation with Captain Jack's immortality; and I like the way that you never really know how long a BBC show is going to run, so the cadence messes with you. Still, 40% of the way done, I haven't had that pulse-quickening moment that I feel like I need from my miniseries. Plus, it doesn't look that great. Part of this, I think, is that the exteriors are shot in the flat grey light of Wales instead of the saturated glare of LA, but a bigger part is that we don't get an HD feed of BBC America where I live, and it's virtually impossible for me to watch standard-def TV without some kind of upconvert now. Does anybody else have this problem?

Meanwhile, Ted was in a groove last night. You know that segment of Tosh.0 where he tries to do as many jokes as he can in 20 seconds? That's almost what Ted feels like now. It's mixing in one-liners, escalating absurdities, callbacks, sight gags, and traditional three-beat jokes, all while telling funny stories that both have a heart and savage people who are ostentatious about having a heart. It's both ambitious and dangerous -- as demonstrated by the fact that since Ted premiered, tens of millions of people have died.

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