Media killed the political star.

I mostly spend my time talking about the kind of media that most of us prefer. Fictional, disposable, fun. Nothing too heavy or hard on the stomach, like the the Caesar salad before the meal. But lately, I've been hearing a lot of people talk about the 2008 election and just wishing it would end and end now because of how "messy" and "dirty" it is.

To which I say:

Welcome to 21st century politics.

I once was a high school journalist, and in one of my journalism classes, we watched a documentary on the American press. Oh, there was more to it than that, but that was the meat and potatoes of the documentary: one hundred years of political press coverage.

One of the men on the documentary was in his later 70s. He'd been a young reporter during the FDR administration and was discussing his time as a White House correspondant. He talked with candor about his thoughts on the Clinton affair and the media coverage thereof as well, and during this, dropped a bomb: both FDR and Eleanor had lovers living in the White House during his administration.

Let me repeat: they both had lovers living in the White House.

The difference, he explained, was this: at the time that FDR was in office, there was an unspoked standard that the private life of anyone, even a politician, was meant to be private. It wasn't the business of the American people if FDR had a mistress or ten, living with him or just coming by for a quickie; he was the President, and he deserved some of his life to be outside of the public eye.

Now, I don't know when this standard shifted. Maybe it was after television. Maybe it was later. What I do know is that, somewhere down the line, it became expected that everything politicians did should be an open forum, available for public scrutiny. Your child went on a bender one weekend, you cheated on your wife, you choked on a pretzel and hit your head, whatever the "crime", it wasn't your own, private shame. It belonged to the world.

So many people seem dismayed that things like Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter or Barack Obama's pastor are being flashed all over the media. It's calling into queston the kind of mother Palin is, the kind of Christian Obama is, and with it comes all the dirt, the muck-raking, and the generally bad behavior.

There's a moment in The West Wing when the young, attractive minority candidate and his wife are shocked to find news stories about things like his wife's thong underwear (which is captured in a photograph when she crouches to pick up one of their kids), or when they broke a bed in the course of love-making. He is annoyed at some points, angry at others, and the general reaction of the people around him is, "This is what happens in a campaign."

This is what happens in a campaign. It's been happening since 2000. It will happen until a candidate stands up and refuses to parade his family, pastor, friends, distant relatives, and neighbors in front of cameras as proof of what a great guy he is. It will happen until a candidate doesn't use their child or children as another example of their platform. It will happen until a candidate is brave enough to stand up and say, "My family is not for public consumption. My private life is not for public consumption. I am not going to let them be humiliated."

That candidate will lose, but at least he'll make a point.

Is there life on Mars?

Once upon a time, there was a little broadcasting company. We’ll call them the BBC, since that’s their name. And the BBC came up with a show called Life on Mars. The premise was simple: Sam Tyler, a police detective, gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1972. He has no idea whether he’s in a coma, dead, dreaming, or something in between.

Life on Mars is a show I put off watching for a long time. Friends of mine loved it, but as much as I love British culture and my heart belongs across the Atlantic, the fact remains that I don’t know much about the 1970s in Britain. I was afraid it would be culture shock, too much for me to handle. For that reason, and basically that reason alone, I put off watching it until this summer.

I wish I could say the impetus for watching this show was something other than it is, but the facts are these: David E. Kelley decided he wanted to make an American version of Life on Mars. This is not the first time a BBC concept has been corrupted for American audiences. The Office, BBC style, was a one-season romp through office life, a parody and satire of reality. It is a four-season top-billed show in the U.S. When I heard that this beloved show was going to be aired on ABC, I decided I had to see the original before I dove into the classic, a bit like not being able to appreciate The Dukes of Hazard movie unless you’ve seen the original series.

I watched four or five episodes of the first series before I realized I could find the pilot of Life on Mars (U.S.) online. I know this is technically illegal, but so is playing a CD in the car when your friend who does not own that CD is listening to it. (Copyright law is fun!) So I decided hey, why not give it a look?

Big mistake.

Everything—and I mean everything—is a bastardization of the original. It’s not even set in 1972! It’s late-seventies L.A., which basically makes it a horrible homage to 1970s cop shows in the U.S. which, I’m sorry, is not the same as 1970s cop shows in Britain. Not at all. And that aside, they take the best parts of the show away and turn it into a parody of the original. Gene Hunt, the British equivalent of a captain, is an alcoholic, homophobic, angry racist with a predilection towards hardcore sexism and a superiority complex. He is all but castrated by Colm Meaney, an actor who I loved as Miles O'Brien but, let's face it, doesn't translate well from meandering starship crew to hard-drinking, hard-smoking detective. The original series focused a lot more on the politics of the police department, a luxury that the show can take because BBC series generally run a true hour (no forty-four minutes of glory like in the U.S.); the U.S. version instead spends its time setting up sexual tension for Sam Tyler.

Which is my biggest issue with the American Life on Mars, if I'm honest. In the original, Annie--the female cop, the main love interest, the "girl"--is a complex, really well thought-out character. She's completely part of the zeitgeist that is the 1970s in Britain's police force; she's relegated to menial labor when she could be part of the team because female police constables were not trusted or treated the same way as men. They call her a "plunk" the whole way through, but Annie still manages to have... I'm not sure I'd call it innocence, but there's a sweetness in her demeanor. She's not the hard-nosed anything, because that wasn't the time period.

Annie in the the American version is the Tough Chick Cop.

She's ballsy. She's brash. She's all guts and glory, swagger and sex. She's the victim of sexual harassment, maybe, to an extent, but she seems to like it. Instead of being embarrassed in the first episode, when Sam sidles up to her and makes her the "victim" in a case he's profiling (something new to the cops in the BBC version, but strangely, not the American one), she holds her own. No hint of being bothered by the hooting and hollering she gets from the other guys. She could just as easily be placed in a modern crime series--I think, for some reason, of Charlie Crews's partner from the NBC series Life as I say this--and fit in just fine, other than the slang.

It was forty-four minutes of just truly off-putting television.

I'm not saying that it's not possible to turn it around. Well, actually, I am. The concept loses so much in the translation that it's not worth the effort. The BBC's version of Life on Mars really seems to hook into the issues and tribulations of the time period; ABC's version feels almost like an homage, with the snappiest cars and outfits, the quirky chick detective, the glamour of early L.A. I don't feel it. The atmosphere doesn't allow you to suspend your disbelief. You're still tuned in to the modern times, and what you do see of those "glory days" belong more in an SNL skit than a whole series.

I'm not sure how it's going to go over when it premieres. I'll watch; I'll watch anything these days. But it's on late enough on Thursdays that I'm not sure I'll bother making it a regular event. There is no Sam Tyler but the original, no Gene Hunt but the original, and besides, I already know the whole plot, start to finish.

You can't really improve on something that's already tight, well-written, and atmospheric, anyway.

J.J. Jareau and the case of the magical boyfriend from N'awlins.

In the last few years, as shows I loved have come, gone, and jump the shark, I've started investigating running series that I'd never picked up when they started. One such show is Criminal Minds, which Lianne recommended to me because I'm a sucker for a.) a good crime drama, b.) strong characters, c.) some psychological intregue, and d.) pretty boys. I watched the first two seasons in less than a week, all-told, and devoured the first half of the third season over my Christmas break. It was instant and nearly obsessive love.

Aside from the cases, though, I really felt drawn to the cast of characters. Even in their weakest moments, every one of them felt fleshed out and developed, from Elle (who I was glad to see go, and frankly, I always think a mark of a strong character is being able to hate them), to Spencer, to Hotch, Garcia, Morgan, Emily, and even Gideon. In a lot of ways, though, J.J.'s development was my favorite, mostly because of its subtlety. I spent half of the first season thinking that she was, to put it bluntly, a pretty blonde who served next to no purpose in the show. As time wore on, however, she was given clever slivers of personal development that slipped in almost unnoticed. By season three, I really liked J.J. and how she fit into the team.

And then, we had the writer's strike.

Now, this is not another instance of me raging against the WGA and talking about how the strike simultaneously saved and ruined television. That would be petty. However, while the strike was on-going, A.J. Cook--who plays J.J. on Criminal Minds--announced that she and her husband were pregnant. If the strike hadn't occured, the pregnancy might have been able to keep out of the show, because they wouldn't have been filming so late into the spring or starting to film the next season as early (that is, during the first few summer months). The show was clearly at an impasse: write Cook's pregnancy into the scripts, or have her spend half of season four hiding behind file cabients, desks, bags, coats, and other various "baby blocking" equipment (a la Mariska Hargitay).

They decided to write the pregnancy in.

I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about writing in the pregnancy. Part of me thought it would be an excellent chance for development and evolution in the character, but let's face it: the rest of me was cringing. There's always the risk in giving a character--any character--an in-show pregnancy that it will come off as artificial and lame. Truthfully, and especially in shows that spend as much time on cases as Criminal Minds and its ilk, there's a fine line between satisifying character development and overwrought melodrama (a la Law & Order: Special Victims Unit).

When the post-strike episodes began to air, then, I spent my time waiting for a reference to, if not the pregnancy, a boyfriend. Or, if not a boyfriend, some sort of tryst or affair. An interest in artificial insemination. An act of the Holy Spirit. Anything, really, to set off the pregnancy plot. I figured that, with seven episodes before the season finale, there would be some opportunity to set up J.J.'s coming bundle-of-joy properly.

The fourth episode in, Detective Will LaMontagne (first featured in a second season episode) appeared, quite literally, out of the blue to help the BAU and the Miami-Dade Police Department work on a case. This was all well and good. What wasn't? The sudden revelation that he and J.J.--who'd had some chemistry when they'd first worked together, yes--were entangled in a secret love affair that had started when they first met and now, a year later, was still going on.

What?

There was never any indication this was happening. To watch Will and J.J. in the first episode where they met was to watch the slow build-up of flirtacious fun, to this I will admit. But the episode was more than a year gone and without so much as one hint that J.J. was going to New Orleans literally every weekend. At the end of the episode, the other characters congratulated themselves for having had the relationship figured out from day one, but clearly their profiling powers are in the "Superman" range, because no viewer had a clue. And yes, I realize that there are "offscreen" moments that these characters clearly have with one another, but if they were going to drop this bomb, what about sort of pushing it towards the audience?

The next few episodes, though, were worse. From discovering the relationship between Will and J.J. to the season finale, where someone is probably dead (there was an exploding SUV, for pete's sake), J.J. shifts from a strong, capable woman to someone's wishy-washy girlfriend. She wants Will, then she doesn't. She wants to be with him, then she wants to break up with him. She wants to tell her colleagues about her pregnancy, then she doesn't. She wants to marry Will, but she doesn't, but she does only if he'll quit his job, but she doesn't want to quit hers, but she's torn between going into the field while pregnant and chasing down a bad guy to going back to the hotel and making sweet love to Will... You get the idea.

I'm all for character development. I don't want any character to stay stagnant, because that is simply bad writing. Even some of the baddies in Criminal Minds show remarkable, surprising amounts of growth. But for J.J., it's like a switch was flipped from "off" to "on" within ten seconds, and we lost her.

There's a moment where she and Will are arguing. I don't remember the full body of the argument, or exactly what is said, but J.J. suddenly throws what is basically an ultimatum at Will: give up your badge if you're serious about me and the baby. She does it in part because Will thinks she shouldn't be diving face-first into streets filled with a killer gang, but it just goes to show how absolutely self-centered and ruined J.J. has become. She won't give up her own job and believes she shouldn't have to, but this man she supposedly loves does. J.J., who calls these people she works with her family, who has literally killed for them, turns into a petty high school girl: "I don't wanna unless you will! So there!"

It's just sad.

At the end of the season finale, an SUV explodes, and we know it has to belong to one of the cast members. All of them except Hotch is in one of the black monstrosities. Recently, a promo pictures of Hotch standing over J.J., who is lying prone on the street, was released. I know it sounds awful, but I hope it was her.

It's the only way to save her character and, maybe with it, that entire storyline on the show.

For triteness and for worse.

I know I have been sorely remiss in updating this blog, which you may all now feel free to hate me for. Wish death upon me, if you're really feeling overzealous, but the facts are these: the summer is a media black hole, and while I have a list of topics to talk about, none of them are as interesting to me as the slow and terrible death knell of a comic strip that has become an institution: For Better or For Worse.

I can't remember when I started reading FBoFW because I must have been a child. The comics were always my favorite part of the newspaper, and I remember events (such as April's birth) that took place in the very early 90s, so I must have been reading the comic since I was seven or eight years old. It's the story of a middle-class Canadian couple, Elly and John, who are blessed with three children: Michael, the oldest, an aspiring writer with a creative (if sometimes also illogical) mind; Elizabeth, the middle child, who goes off to the northern parts of Ontario to become a teacher in a small native community; and April, the accidental youngest who is born when Elizabeth is in late elementary school and is a budding musician with an interest in veterinary medicine.

Elizabeth's official birthdate makes her two or three years older than I, so I think I've always considered her the character I'm most like in the strip, my Canadian kindred spirit. She was finishing her education as a teacher as I was starting it, and when she left home to teach "up North", it was a beautiful day for FBoFW. For once in the history of the strip, it broke the middle class norms of going to high school, college, getting married, and popping out children with in a half-hour drive of your family. Michael was already married, a budding writer and mildly successful freelance journalist, and while he wasn't exactly making the big bucks, he and his wife were happy. April was starting a band and in her first relationship, the sort of happy-go-lucky kid we've come to expect as the youngest in a family (like Lily in long-gone sitcom Step by Step, or any other late-added baby to a series).

But a few years ago, as Lynn Patterson started planning her retirement, the plots suddenly shifted.

Elly retired.

Michael's apartment burned down and he and his family moved in with his parents.

Elizabeth quit her job up North after being assaulted at her summer job and decided to come home.

Grandpa Jim had another stroke.

April befriended a student with a disability.

A neighbor put a house up for sale that John and Elly wanted to buy.

Michael got a book deal out of the absolute blue.

Elizabeth hooked back up with an old boyfriend.

April decided that her dreams of being in a band as a professional were unrealistic.

Michael and his wife bought the homestead from his parents to live in with their two kids.

I am tempted to just say "et cetera" here, because trust me, all the other plots are just as bad.

On Monday, the strip goes into a time freeze in which Patterson's assistant artists (she, herself, has a disease and cannot really draw any longer) will integrate new material in her old, very rudimentary style into old storylines, giving more history of characters she never before fleshed out (and committing the creative sin of a retroactive continuity--that is, changing the history of a character whose life story is already established--for others). Over the last two weeks, Elizabeth has married her high-school boyfriend and gone to see her grandfather, suffering after a heart attack, in the hospital immediately after the ceremony. No, this is not something I imagined during a fever dream. This is the actual storyline I had to suffer through over the last few weeks.

This strip has been a mainstay of the comic pages for something like thirty years now, but as it wraps up and goes on to the great comic page in the sky, I have to ask: why is this strip so beloved? It's a white family with primarily white friends. It's a middle-class family with no lower-class struggles, unless you count Mike and Deanna's early financial troubles (which always had a certain lack of urgency about them, like we were just waiting for his parents to sweep in and set them right). Mike and Elizabeth both are reunited with and marry their high school sweethearts. April is back together with her creep boyfriend as far as any of us know, and who knows what will happen to them as their lives continue on. There is no real diversity, no real adversity, no real meat to so many of the plots. It's all circumstantial: if it's time for a heart-warming moment, well, someone has a crisis; if it's time for a controversial plot, well, someone knows a gay or a rapist or a girl who's been accused of sleeping around.

As a child, it was easy to point at the page and go, "I love these characters." Why? Because they were as deep as a nine or ten or fifteen year old expects them to be, sort of like wading into a warm kiddie pool. As an adult, I sympathized with and encouraged Elizabeth because it felt like swimming slowly into the deep end for the first time; she was far away from home and her feet weren't brushing the bottom of the pool any longer. There was a real chance of drowning.

But in the end of the series, it's less a deep end and more just losing our balance. Whoops, we slipped, and our head almost went under, but now our feet are planted again and we're able to rub the water out of our eyes. It's like so many other series finales, warm and fuzzy but completely without real substance. Nothing is resolved, and in resolving nothing, we realize with crystal-clear accuracy that there was never anything to resolve. All the hard moments, all the struggles, they were all incidental and just beyond the core.

I like the idea of life and history coming full circle. The concept has always interested me. But I guess in these final moments of For Better or For Worse, what I'd really like to see is April standing in the rain in a graveyard, umbrella as black as her dress, watching one or both of her parents be buried while Mike and Elizabeth stand with her. Elizabeth is still part of her community in the North, and Mike still a struggling writer who perhaps is in his third edit with a publisher, and as the rain pours down, there's no final pun or stupid sentimentality, just the siblings saying goodbye and walking away. Elizabeth can go to her constable Paul Wright, the one male character worth his salt (and actually getting points for acting like a real-life man); Michael can go to his wife and their children before heading back to the apartment; and maybe April is single, working her way through a music career even though it means a lot of singing in bars. But it's something more than what we've gotten.

And apparently, more than we're allowed to want for, too.

I can't get no satisfaction.

The last couple weeks of television have been rough. Let's just admit it together, now: the strike crippled TV as we know it and now we're all struggling to catch up. I think this is especially true with serious character dramas, like House, MD. Sorry, fans, but Grey's Anatomy doesn't actually have character development to be affected, nor does Two and a Half Men or Law & Order, but House and its ilk does. You can feel when you watch that the writers and producers are working with half time and thusly trying to shove all they can into a few short episodes, which means it ends up feeling false. House doesn't know, at least in what we've seen, that 13 is bisexual. Since when have Chase and Cameron still been together? And don't get me started (again) on Amber and Wilson.

With the season finale being a week away and Amber's mysterious illness building to its conclusion, I am pondering not the season but rather the series finale. A friend of my feels that it's "unfair" that Amber should get sick and (possibly) die, because it's already a show about misery and someone (Wilson) deserves a happy ending. I argue that the misery is the best part of the show.

In fact, I would argue that it's so much the best part--and so integral--to the show that there are only three ways the series can actually end without being the least satisfying piece of tripe imaginable. And here they are.

1. House dies.
   The cyclical nature of the season finales have worked this way thus far: House loses someone he loves (Stacy); House gets hurt (shot); House loses someone he loves (the fellows resigning or getting fired); House gets hurt (bus accident). House puts himself in some of the most ridiculous and dangerous positions imaginable and never seems to expect that he'll die or almost die. There's also the argument that with episodes like "97 Seconds" (House electrocutes himself to see if there's anything "there") and "House's Head" (House self-medicates and goes into cardiac arrest), his self-destructive behavior is amping up. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine a finale in which House dies. It could be in the tireless pursuit of knowledge and a cure for a disease, but I think it's more likely to happen that he destroys himself. House is surprisingly adept at putting himself in danger, and wouldn't it be just like him to get in a bad motorcycle accident and be lying in a coma while the team has to scramble to save the half-diagnosed patient of the week? The patient lives, House dies, and the show ends (in a way) as it began. It is, after all, the pilot in which House gives his "dying isn't dignified" speech. It would be a strong coda to the show, too.
   
   
2. Wilson or Cuddy dies.
   The cyclical nature of the season finales being as they are, House could possibly lose someone he cares about. But who does he care about? The two people he most is connected to and cares about are his two close friends: Wilson and Cuddy. The fellows dying would be bad but not necessarily touch him the same way losing either of these two would, and in the same way, I don't think there's going to be an emotional connection to any new character in the next few seasons that will rival the connection he has to these characters. I'd go beyond calling it unlikely to calling it "impossible."
   But if House is going to be affected by a death, anyone's death, it's going to end up being either Cuddy or Wilson. Frankly, I think that Wilson is a more likely candidate. Cuddy and House are close, but not like House and Wilson. If House is going to lose someone who he cares about, Wilson will be this person. It may crush House worse than anyone else he knows--it may be worse for House than his own death--but it's a possibility. Especially since I get the feeling that House is very much the kind of person who "don't know what he's got 'till it's gone."
   
   
3. It's all a dream.
   In "Three Stories," arguably one of the best season one (or perhaps overall) episodes of the series, we discover that House underwent surgery for his infarction after he was put into a drug-induced coma. From the point of view of the show, he comes out of the coma with his injured leg, but as we watch the show, we realize that "time is not a fixed construct." The show slides through time almost fluidly, when three months and three minutes can all take place in the same episode. It's never been perfect reality. Plus, we get to see inside House's psyche several times ("No Reason", "House's Head", even "Three stories" to an extent) in a way that no other show does. It's entirely possible, perhaps even logical, that he could still be in the coma and this reality we see as the viewer is actually the drug-induced reality of House's head. We know what his mind is capable of. Why would this not be a expanded a few beats further into it being all one giant, drug-induced dream? Reality is not a fixed construct in the House universe, either.
   

It's not that I want my show to end. It's not that I like thinking about the series finale. But I think, in a way, the show is edging along a terrifying cliff. Finding a satisfying ending is going to be a challenge, but there's no room for "happily ever after" in a show that is about, in its essence, misery.

It's just the level of misery we find at the end to mitigate the misery we've had from the start. Maybe it won't be warm and fuzzy, but it will be a little less frigid. At this point, that's the best we can hope for.

The Princess and the Peach.

My previous post was about video games, too. Clearly, I am just on a roll in this department.

As I said in the previous post, I've been a gamer since the inception of gaming. My most recent system is the Nintendo DS, Nintendo's answer to the next generation of hand-held consoles. I love my DS. The games are unique and a number of them are quirky, but hey, I like a healthy dose of quirk with my gaming. Especially given that the Super Mario Brothers franchise has been healthily recreated for the system.

One of these new Mario games is a game called Super Princess Peach. The plot is simple: Bowser, the great and evil cretin of the Mario series, has kidnapped Mario, Luigi, and most of the Toadstool people. Because there is no one left to defend the Toadstool Kingdom, Princess Peach and a talking umbrella named Perry set off to save the Toadstools and rescue the Mario Brothers.

At a surface level, I was exceedingly excited for this game. I may love the franchise, I may adore Nintendo, but the facts are these: most Nintendo protagonists are male and those who are not tend to be painfully androgynous. (Samus, anyone?) The classic "princess is captured, man must rescue" plot is followed by a number of the games, and even the Mario franchise's newest version--The New Super Mario Bros.--follows this cookie-cutter outline. It's a formula, but the formula works, and I'm not overly offended by it. I mean, it's a video game, and while I would have loved Tetra in Legend of Zelda: Windwaker to be a little more like Shiek in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I can't complain that she's not. It's the nature of the game.

But here is Super Princess Peach, a game that promises to have a female protagonist and give Peach a chance to shine for the first time in Nintendo's history. I want to say that the game was all that I, almost a feminist but not really a feminist, if you catch my meaning, was craving.

It fell short.

For one, Peach's abilities and "powers" aren't the usual head-stomping, fireball-shooting fare. While Mario jumps on creatures, Peach uses her umbrella to smack them, and many of her enemies don't die as much as they are smushed down and wander harmlessly around. (She can jump on the enemies, but the results are not the same.) There are no flowers for fireballs or raccoon tails for thwacking enemies, either. Peach's powers come from emotion. Let me repeat this: emotion. She can cry and drown enemies, get angry and set them on fire, feel calm and restore her strength, and be happy and fly through the air. None of these are actually as effective at hurting her foes as they are at destroying blockades that hinder progress through the stages. But then again, that's all right, given that the enemies are never hard to beat and power restoration gems are, quite literally, everywhere. If you do "die", there's no immediate repercussion other than restarting the level, either; there are no lives, and if you die, you just start over. That's it.

Another of my issues lies in the fact that the entire game is "cute". It's not subtle, either. Even the big baddies are adorable, like the smiling caterpillar in the fire level. Mario games are no paragon of terror, but the ghosts and some of the creatures in the later games were at least a bit menacing. Peach's world is sunny, happy, pastel-colored, and with soft corners. I was shocked in a recent level that spears were being thrown at me because it was the first time that it wasn't something cute and harmless trying to cause my downfall.

The talking umbrella, Perry, is just as ridiculous. Mario never needed a talking piece of rainproofing to help him on his quest. Sometimes, he had his brother, who kicked equal amounts of butt. That was it. Now we have talking umbrellas? Oh, come on. At least give her an animal companion or something else that has a prayer of, well, being menacing to the forces of evil.

I know that Super Princess Peach is and was marketed to girls in the sort of eight to twelve range. I'm all right with that; my cousin, who I think is ten now, got it two Christmases and so did I. But the fact remains that it characterizes girls as emotion-drive "cutiepies" who need help from any and all sources possible, up to and including animated inanimate objects.

I'm not sure I can really tolerate this as a creative movie. Shiek in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was a woman taking her own fate into her hands, but she was a.) androgynous for most of the game and b.) not a playable character. Several other popular games have playable female characters or, indeed, female protagonists--Touch Detective and its sequel, Nancy Drew and the Secret of Olde World Park, the Mia Fey level of Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, a number of the other RPGs available for the system, Trace Memory, and probably others that I've never played--but the fact remains that they all end up tripping over this fatal flaw. I'm a character writer and a character buff and frankly, I love stories and series about and heavily featuring men. But I also want to be able to look at a girl and see more than a cute thing in a pink dress running through puffy worlds of clouds and defeating the big bad lizard with an umbrella.

Don't get me wrong. The game is addictive in a way that only Nintendo can manage. I just wish there was more to it for me to appreciate. Or, barring that, no umbrella.

Adventures in gaming.

I've always considered video games a form of media. They tend to serve the same purpose, and a lot of games end up acting as stories in and of themselves, which is part of the allure of any piece of media. (Well, that and gratuitous violence.) Me, I grew up on the original Nintendo, that innocuous gray box that sat under our television for most of my formative years (we got it when I was five and didn't get a Super Nintendo until I was in the sixth grade). Some of my fondest childhood memories are watching my parents play games like Dr. Mario, Silent Service, The Legend of Zelda, and Duck Hunt. While most first graders aspired to be doctors or vets, I desperately wanted to design the first The Little Mermaid Nintendo game. My friend Eric and I spent tireless days discussing the different levels. I made endless sketches.

But I'm a "grown up" now and with that comes a whole new level of gaming interest. Frankly, I'm still a Nintendo nerd, and as I type this, my DS is sitting about two feet away, complete with my Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass decal and five three-game protective cases with my current conquests lovingly organized. I've got a GameCube and a PSX, as well (not a PS1; it's that old school), and I dream of the day when a Best Buy delivery truck overturns in my presence and I can make off with a Wii. But I digress, because this isn't about the fact that I am devoted to my reputation as a nerd.

This is about gaming in general.

There was a day that the fact that I was a girl and liked video games made me something of an oxymoron. Blame the ex-boyfriend who sat me down and forced me to play a half-hour of Final Fantasy VII, moving me from the girl who occasionally played pick-up games of Dr. Mario with her less-coordinated siblings to something of a game nerd. Over the years, I started to pick up games that interested me, and found that the genres I (predictably) enjoyed best were RPGs, "adventure" games (not in the sort of Indiana Jones vein as much as in the Myst one), and real-time strategy. I could rattle off the games I ended up with, but some of my favorites were in the glory days of Sierra, when King's Quest wasn't a joke and games like Shivers and Phantasmagoria were out there. I loved going through creepy-as-hell mansions, dungeons, museums, ghost towns and finding the right penny to put in the right jukebox to play the right song and then unlock the demon. And no, I'm not kidding.

Somewhere down the line, though, adventure games fell to the wayside. I don't know why, and I'm not going to sit here and try to figure it out. The fact is, there aren't many out there, and the ones that are bank less on the using your brain and more on the "freakout" factor. I went shopping this weekend looking for a good Mac game--more on that in a moment--and decided the best place to look for a good game was Fry's Electronics, the home of every piece of technology you could ever want, period.

I was really disappointed.

In terms of games in general, there really weren't that many "adventure"-style games that weren't rated Mature and promising me, right there on the cover, blood, guts, gore, death, violence, destruction, and terror. I don't want to be scared out of my wits every time I turn on a game, so that ruled most of them out. The others either fell into the category of Myst-style brave-new-world exploration or Nancy Drew adventures, and trust me, I'm not joking about the latter.

What's more, in the Mac section, my choices were limited to real-time strategy games (several of which I already own) and every Sims expansion pack known to man. I'm not kidding. That was the range of game available to me as a Mac consumer.

So here is the question: what happened, gaming industry? Where have all the adventure games gone? I can't imagine that there's absolutely no market for them, and yet the ones that are out there, all ten or fifteen titles, are thriller-style crap that seems to bank more on being Saw: The Game than a legitimate adventure. Never mind the fact that the Mac doesn't even offer a crappy choice of adventure game.

The glory days are over for adventure games, it seems, and just at the time when I have (occasionally) the disposable income to invest in a video game here or there. I ended up buying a game that is based off Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but I'm not particularly enthused by it. Maybe I'd love it if it were on my Mac. Or maybe I'd love it if we could step away from the low-hanging fruit of adapting a book to a video game (I mean, really?) and focus on original plots again. Remember The 7th Guest? Now there was a game.

Maybe I'm just waxing nostalgic for my youth of gaming. But moreover, I think I'm wondering if the days of clever games have been replaced by first-person shooters and games where you make an avatar of yourself and have it sleep with your best friend, boss, neighbor's wife, or just an Italian-looking stud named Rubio. I miss when my mind needed a challenge, when a game made me shout and scream and pace for the difficulty of the puzzle, and when I really felt satisfied with an ending.

Feels like it was a long time ago.

Welcome to the digital age, television.

The Writer's Guild of America strike this past winter annoyed me. There, I've said it. As a creative mind and a writer, myself, I understand the WGA's position and I am never going to stand up and beat my chest about money-grubbing writers when I know far well that they do not get paid the wages they probably deserve. I will not, however, stroke the corporations behind these shows for standing their ground and throwing the television industry as we know it a monkey-wrench that destroyed the gears for the better part of a season.

My issue is with the internet.

Ah, yes. The internet. That mystical place where media is available at a single keystroke or click of a mouse. I'm not sure why it took until the tail end of 2007 for the internet to become a hot-button issue for television studios, producers, writers, and consumers. I have friends who have been using the internet--perhaps less legitimately than we would like--to view and collect television episodes and full movies since I was in high school. We're talking as early as 2000 here, folks.

But now, and for the first time, the year 2007 was the year of streaming full episodes, web-only content, AppleTV, and the iEverything. iPhones, iPod Touches, and even iPod Classics were able to hold gigabytes of visual media and play it through (rather than hold the gigabytes but only have three or four hours of viewing time). Every major network offered at least one of their major primetime hits as streaming media online with minimal commercial interruption. "Webisodes" (don't look at me; I didn't coin the term) popped up in just as many places. A few networks even piloted web-based shows. Entire television shows, available only online! I'm not making this up. Moreover, iTunes surged into its greatest popularity ever. American Idol (yeah, them again) hooked in with iTunes, and while NBC pulled all its content from the system, most other stations doubled and even tripled the content that was available to the public via the iTunes store. iTunes was actually lauded as saving a few "bubble" 2006-2007 television series--most notably the NBC comedy 30 Rock--because it gave viewers the opportunity to try on one-episode mid-season and decide if they were interested.

Factor in YouTube--which became a breeding ground for television clips that then companies like Viacom had to fight to be removed from the site--and you got a banner year for media, the internet, and our techno-savvy culture.

One of the touchstones of the strike was the fact that writers wanted to be given royalties for online and iTunes content. I suppose I understand this. If you're to be paid every time a rerun is shown, a streaming episode seems to count to me as a rerun. Whether it should be a flat rate or per viewer, I'm not sure. In the same way, an iTunes download should possibly count as a DVD purchase and not a rerun, but there's still the issue that the writers deserve their due. I'm not going to deny that.

But I have to wonder: how was this not anticipated at all in the last ten years? I'm all for crossing bridges when you come to them, but it seems that in 2007-2008, both the studios and the writers glanced down, realized they were on a bridge, and then went, "Oh no! We didn't discuss toll rates!" This volume of internet media is new, yes. The concept of internet media is not, and considering that You (and YouTube, to an extent) was Time magazine's "person of the year" in 2006, I would think television would have braced itself for this change.

I'm all for internet media. Personally, I'm an internet junkie. (Exhibit A: I have a blog.) But hand-in-hand with internet media comes anticipating the next step. In this entire process of the writer's strike, I often just felt that both sides--the networks and the writers--were being very short-sighted. Technology moves faster than a conversation penned by Aaron Sorkin. We need to be ready for it, or more than just our television series could crumble. After all, this is the digital age. Welcome to it.

(And if you don't get the Aaron Sorkin reference, I'm going to be sad.)

American Idle.

Ha! Starting it off with a pun. Go me.

American Idol has been a staple of American reality television for the last six years. I'm not going to go into the history of American Idol, or about how the British show Pop Idol came first, because that would make me sound like a bitter Anglophile who is sick of America ripping off other programs.

Anyway.

This season of American Idol, if Ryan Seacrest is to be believed, is the "best", with some of the "brightest talent" and "most amazing singers" that the franchise has ever seen. As viewers, we have the "amazing" talent of these young people beaten into our heads every time we turn on the television. Simon, Paula, and Randy assure us that it's "anybody's game".

And that's my issue with this season's Idol.

I was never a great AI aficionado. I watched Season 3 because my mother watched it, and Seasons 5 and 6 under great duress from friends who are far more in tune (music pun!) with reality television than I am. Reality television bores me, mostly because I watch television to escape reality, and watching a mockery of "real life" never suited me. But American Idol offers the voyeurism and buy-in of watching some young person supposedly make or break their career, and that hooked me. Some singers were talented and some were not. I liked that. I liked the fact that Sanjaya from Season 6 couldn't carry a tune in a bucket but had great hair. I liked that Chris Daughtry in Season 5 had a lot of personality and his own idea of how his songs should go. I never felt like any of the major personalities that came out of the competition lacked, well, personality. They always had something to them, some meat to sink my teeth into.

This season is just boring. Every singer is a good singer. Every singer is a consistent singer. Performances are universally pretty decent (with the exception of the Andrew Lloyd Webber theme night, where people actually didn't do well for the first time in weeks). Literally anyone could win, and it's come down to technicalities and who the American voting public thinks is cute.

The talent aspect of the oft-lauded "talent competition" has been removed.

As far as I'm concerned, this is the universal issue with reality shows once they hit the third or fourth season. Take Top Chef, my favorite reality competition, as an example. First season, several of the contestants weren't professional chefs. They were caterers, or just stay-at-home moms who really liked to cook. They had personality and drive, which made them interesting to watch even if they couldn't flambe particularly well. I related better to them as competitors because they weren't all executive chefs at such-and-such a restaurant in Big City, USA.

But as the show has become popular, the caliber of contestants who audition increases. As the caliber increases, it's less interesting to watch as a viewer because everyone's so good. This season's Top Chef is mostly about technicalities because all the chefs are talented and all the food is good. They have yet to serve a dish that the viewer, as a lay-person, can look at and reject as not appetizing. During one elimination round, one of the three who were on the chopping block was there because his station was too messy. That was it! Not a technical issue with the dish, but because it just wasn't neat enough.

I don't want to watch chefs organize their area. I want to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I don't want to watch the people on American Idol get voted off based solely on the fact that the fifteen-year-old-girl fanbase is simply not present for contestant X, Y, or Z. I want to see the drama and the actual talent.

We're not getting that, and frankly, it's starting to make guilty-pleasure TV boring. I'm not actually complaining--I think that it's time for the swan song of reality television, or at least, the prelude to it--but if you're going to sell it to us, Seacrest, tell it like it is:

"The most vocally similar and personality-less set of contestants in Idol history."

It's American Idol. Trust me, we'll still watch.

Low-hanging fruit would be calling this entry "Doctor? Doctor who?"

I finally figured out one of the things that was bothering me about the new series of Doctor Who.

I think I need to start by defending the fact that I've never seen classic Who and wouldn't know the Third Doctor from the Sixth Doctor if he walked up and bit me, but the fact remains that I am now watching the fourth series of new Who as a first-time watcher. It's a television series about an alien called a Time Lord who travels through space (and, clearly, time) in a spaceship that looks like an emergency phone box, landing on planets and rescuing them from unspeakable dangers just in the nick of time. He's always accompanied by someone else, called a companion (and usually a woman), who helps him out and brings a sort of human perspective to the whole mess.

I will also admit here that of the four series so far, I have not watched the first. This is because I cannot stand the actress who plays the first companion, and one series with her (namely series two, because I got started late) was absolutely and positively more than enough. The character's name is Rose, which I tell you because you will hear more about her and I will gladly say from here until forever that she's annoying. She's blonde, skinny, pretty, and in love with The Doctor. (That's the alien's name, by the way.)

Rose is killed--well, sort of--at the end of series two to make way for the next companion, Martha. I liked Martha better, but I noticed as time goes on that Martha had a few things in common with Rose. Namely, she was skinny, pretty, and in love with The Doctor. Okay, sure, she wasn't blonde. She was black. But at the end of the day, she was not really any better than Rose other than being less annoying.

I never really noticed this as I watched the episodes. I suppose, intellectualism aside, I'm a sucker for a good "unrequited love" plot, and what love is less requited than between a twenty-something Londoner and a nine-hundred-something-year-old Time Lord? Rose's personality was more shallow and less fleshed-out than Martha's, and by time I got to Martha, I was seriously sad for her that The Doctor spent the first ten of thirteen episodes all emokid over Rose no longer being able to travel with him and the last three running around, flirting with Jack (remember Jack?), and then in mortal peril. Poor girls, I thought. They really care about The Doctor. The Doctor doesn't really get it. Maybe it's a deep disconnect between humans and Time Lords or something. And this is the impression I carried with me for quite some time, this business of a deep Time Lord/Real Person disconnect.

And then, I met Donna.

I guess Donna, who is the new companion, was in one of the infamous Doctor Who Christmas specials, but I never saw that episode. I met her for the first time in the first episode of series four, when she's essentially sticking her nose in other people's business for a reason that's not revealed until the end of the episode. Donna is played by Catherine Tate, a comedian (which is a little strange for Who), but she's got something the other companions doesn't.

She's not skinny, she's not traditionally pretty, and she's not in love with The Doctor.

Don't get me wrong. I think Catherine Tate, Donna, whatever name you want me to cal her, is gorgeous. She's a redhead! She's actually got a figure! Yes, yes, yes, and please may I have some more? But compared to Rose and Martha, she really just doesn't end up being the pretty little companion-thing that they are. She's not fat, she's not really even overweight, but she has flesh and curves and an actual figure, never mind real life breasts. For the first time, I feel like the companion is an actual human being, not some sort of convenient model in the middle of London who happened to get plucked up for being in the right place at the right time.

But more than this, she's the first companion that I've seen who isn't completely in love with The Doctor. Now, I don't blame the girls for falling for him, not really, but there's still the fact that it's annoying to spend thirteen episodes a series watching some attractive young woman fall over herself trying to get The Doctor to notice her. Donna isn't. And because Donna's not, and this is important, she can hold her own against The Doctor. She stands up to him, she argues his decisions, she comes up with solutions as readily as he does. It's not a one-sided relationship with The Doctor as a time-space travel guide and the companion oooh-ing and aaah-ing over all the wonders of the universe. She still does, but in the end, she also tells him where to go when he deserves it. I don't know about you, but I like that in a woman.

Of course, I do have the slightly secret fear that Donna and The Doctor will end up embroiled in another of the show's fantastic unrequited love plots, but I don't actually think they will. Donna just seems to have more sense than that, and in the way, qualifies as the first really fleshed-out female I've seen on that show. Comparatively, Rose and Martha were archetypes of humans, first the little shop girl who wants to see more than her average life, then the medical student who wants to save people. Great, fantastic, but there was never really anything there. Donna has motivation, Donna has personality, and Donna uses her brain instead of her throbbing, bleeding, angsty heart to function. I can't think of anything else I'd want to watch.

Well, except when Jack inevitably shows up in this series of Who because, quite secretly, he's my favorite companion. Not that we couldn't guess that.

Poptastic Danceability: Ianto Jones and Those Crazy Fictional Bisexuals

"Aww. When she found out about Jack?"

"When I was fourteen."

Gwen stopped again. "I dunno which scares me more - that your mam worked you out ten years before you did, or that the fourteen-year-old Ianto Jones used the phrase 'poptastic danceability' without getting beaten up."


I generally don't read television series novelizations. The reasons are many and varied, but I can list them with the skill of a list-serv ninja: the characterizations are often weak, the plots tend to be better suited to TV in the first place, the authors aren't necessarily familiar with the source material, et cetera, so on, and so forth. I can count on one hand the number of novelizations I've read and enjoyed: Planet X, an X-Men/Star Trek crossover novel (and proof that I should always take Lianne's book recs seriously), and The Twilight Streets, one of the new Torchwood novels.

For those of you who don't know Torchwood and have never suffered through my thirty-second plot synopsis, Torchwood is a BBC sci-fi series about a group of five individuals who are employed to find and obtain alien species and artifacts that come through a rift in time-space that runs through Cardiff, Wales. In the book The Twilight Streets, their leader is perplexed and frustrated by a section of the city he cannot physically enter (it makes him ill), and, as the strange happenings in this mostly-deserted section of blocks increases, involves his team in searching for an answer.

At one point in the book, Gwen and Ianto are walking together through this suspicious area, looking for one specific house, and they strike up a conversation. Gwen, who is to be married soon, dives into the conversation after a stream-of-consciousness train of thought about (and I am not making this up) IKEA, Abba, men who like Abba, and the relationship of men who like Abba to men who like women (inversely related). She turns to Ianto, and out of the blue, asks him his opinion about Abba.

This is not, in fact, a non sequitur. For some character background, Gwen is the every(wo)man of the group, the humanizing factor, the empathic, kind, grounded one who keeps the rest of them in check thanks to her emotional connection to other people. She's engaged to her long-time boyfriend and is the only one of the team to really have a life outside their jobs, something that--by the point the novel is written--she takes quite seriously.

Ianto's job is sort of team gopher. He runs the archives, liaises with other groups, and makes the coffee. In the first series of Torchwood, it's discovered that he is secretly keeping his girlfriend--who is half evil robot and half human (I told you it was a sci-fi series)--in their facility. She loses what little of her mind is left and tries to kill them all, and Ianto falls to pieces and is later suspended from duty. As time goes on, however, it is slowly revealed that he is embroiled in an affair with their team leader, Jack. By series two, it's clear that the affair is now a relationship, or at least hedging on the edges of one.

I'll give you a moment to process that statement.

Now, lest you think this is Kate's Big Gay Blog (everything is better with "Big Gay" in front of it), I will eventually talk about things other than sexuality in media. But one of the issues in media that I often discuss with others is the portrayal not of homosexuals or heterosexuals, but rather of bisexuals. The fact is, the list is short and a little shameful. In fact, some of the words that most often pop up on the Wikipedia list of bisexual characters, especially in the television section, include "confused", "primarily straight", "socially problematic", and "sociopath". I only wish I were joking.

There is a tendency in media, I've noticed, to gloss over even the concept of bisexual characters. The list is very short when compared to a list of homosexual characters (never mind straight characters), and much of the bisexuality is reserved for females who, at some point, end up in bed with another female. I realize the thousand and two stereotypes that play into the idea of a bisexual man, and how threatening it is to manhood, and the whatnot, but this doesn't change that simple fact. Moreover, there have been many characters in media in which bisexuality is suggested--Greg Sanders, Jordan Cavanaugh, Nigel Townsend, Tim Bayliss (arguably, not really suggested), Spike (from Buffy), and many more that I don't feel like naming (including the rest of the Torchwood characters)--but never explored or stated.

Ianto, then, is clearly something other than heterosexual, though it was never stated in the series proper. The series glossed over it and went simply from Ianto having a girlfriend who is hidden in the basement to Ianto bandying about innuendo with Jack, and the fans of the show speculated everything here and back again as to Ianto's "team membership": he was gay, he was straight, he was using Jack, he was bisexual but mostly wanted Jack, he was bisexual but insofar as Jack was the first and possibly only man he had been with, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The show's creators at least had the sense not to dwell on it, and let viewers have the meat and potatoes of the interactions instead of stopping to garnish it with "and Ianto is bisexual."

(As a side note, Jack is from the future--the 51st century, if we're being honest--where pansexuality is the norm and there is absolutely no social eyebrow raised to sex with a man, woman, alien, two aliens, and probably robots as well.)

But then, after all of that, came Gwen's conversation with Ianto in The Twilight Streets. Here is the word-for-word conversation (starting with Ianto's response to the question):


"Fine. Then I admire the Andersson/Ulvaeus writing partnership as craftsmen and songsmiths. I believe 'One of Us' may be the best song written about relationship break-ups ever, and I have a soft spot for the fusion of witty lyrical content and poptastic danceability of 'Voulez-Vous,' but let me make this absolutely clear: I bloody loathe 'Dancing Queen.' All right?"

Gwen stopped walking and just looked at him.

"What?" he asked.

"You've had this conversation before, haven't you."

"Might have."

"Jack?"

"You honestly think Jack knows anything about music after 1948?"

"Who then?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Who?" She started walking again. "Come on. I might die tonight, never knowing."

"Me Mam."

"Aww. When she found out about Jack?"

"When I was fourteen."

Gwen stopped again. "I dunno which scares me more - that your mam worked you out ten years before you did, or that the fourteen-year-old Ianto Jones used the phrase 'poptastic danceability' without getting beaten up."

Ianto stopped suddenly. "She didn't work me out, Gwen. No one has. And if I ever do, I'll let you know."

Gwen smiled, nudged his arm. "Oh come on, smile. Lisa, Jack...being bisexual is hardly a crime. Best of both worlds, isn't it?"

And Ianto pushed her away. "No, Gwen. No, really it's bloody not. It's the worst of any world because you don't really belong anywhere, because you are never sure of yourself or those around you. You can't trust in anyone, their motives or their intentions. And because of that, you have, in a world that likes its nice shiny labels, no true identity. For Torchwood's 'Little Miss Sensitive', you don't half talk crap sometimes. So do me a favour and shut up about it, all right?"


I read this particular passage while administering the AIMS test at work (because it was either read my book or go slowly insane from pacing the room in slow circles and watching students fill in bubbles) and immediately marked the page. When I had a spare moment at home, I typed up the passage and sent to to my friend Gayle, with whom I often discuss these issues with. I believe her response was something along the lines of "YES."

When I saw the way the conversation was being steered, towards Ianto's sexuality, I will not deny the bolus of dread that formed in my stomach. I was absolutely convinced that it would become some light-hearted joking about how, yes, being bisexual meant all the sex in the world! and life would be a happy rainbow-themed fun fair.

Instead, we have, for the second time in my media searches for well-written, well-characterized, non-pigeon-holed bisexuals, honesty from a character. No dismissal, no clever joke, but a flat-out explanation of himself (he doesn't know and it is certainly no one else's place to say) to a rosy-cheeked go-girl who thinks that being bisexual means twice the sex and zero the awkwardness.

Now, I do have to pause and say that this is not the first time in the last six months I have been impressed by the revelation of character bisexuality. 13 on House, MD was more-or-less outed by Eric Foreman in the episode "Don't Ever Change", and I honestly liked Foreman's take on her character and her reaction to it; not once did she stand up and deny or flail. She took his comment, she listened to his thoughts (that people who argue the uselessness of "check boxes" in society tend to be the same people who can't find a box to check for themselves), and then, the show moved on.

I'm not sure I agree entirely with Foreman or Ianto in that there is no box to check, no "true identity", but I appreciate that media is opening discourse on the subject instead of layering on the black-versus-white simplicity of "you are straight, you are gay, or you are crazy/slutty/desperate". It's been a long time in coming, given that L.A. Law opened at least the televised door of bisexuality many years ago, but I hope this manages to be less then exception and more the norm. We need characters who can discuss themselves, who understand themselves, and who can stand up and admit to being whatever it is they are. Gay, straight, bisexual, purple-polka-dotted.

Don't be scared, media. It's okay. Really, I promise, it will all turn out right in the end.

A Tretise on Amber Volakis

My friend Carrie and I, last night, were currently embroiled in an epic (epic) text-message conversation about this David Shore interview and the titles of the rest of this season's episodes. Or rather, that is how it started. It swiftly made a change when I got on the subject (as I often do) about Amber, and her relationship with Wilson, and the ineffective plot device of the recent House/Wilson/Amber "triangle", if you will.

I am the first to concede that the arc with Wilson dating Amber could have been absolutely brilliant from the get-go. Moving from my reading of the "new" ducklings as aspects of House's personality, Amber fits right in; she basically is House in heels and a skirt, a counterpart to Cuddy's version of "tough woman" politics in a male-dominated field, and serves as a balance to Cameron and 13 as the other major women in the competition-cum-House's life. I really liked Amber as a character. As a person, I thought she was underhanded, cutthroat, and winner-take-all, but that was what I, as a viewer, was meant to see in her. She was meant to get on my nerves at times and for that she was absolutely stellar. I respected Amber. I wouldn't want to have beers with her or watch American Idol while sharing a plate of nachos, but she was well-written and well-done.

My problem with Wilson and Amber as a couple, and indeed the entire plot with Wilson and Amber as a couple, is what it's done to Amber as a strong personality. I no longer can look her in the eye and see the Cutthroat Bitch because, from the minute she started crying at the end of her swan song episode, she was no longer the Cutthroat Bitch. Even if she was upset, even if she thought she deserved it, it felt massively out of character for her to cry in front of anyone, up to and including the patient. Another friend once described Amber as "calculating", and I think that's the perfect word for her; no one that calculating and manipulative would have broken down in front of these people she is trying to impress and win over the way she did.

I could have lived with that, but frankly, nothing's been improved with the advent of Wilson's dating game. I wish I had "Don't Ever Change" on my harddrive to watch again, so I could lay out all my issues as well as I'd like to, but to me, the most telling moment was when she arrived home in Wilson's McGill sweatshirt. Now, I understand wearing your boyfriend's shirt; I've been guilty of it. I understand comfortable clothes. But Wilson is at least three sizes bigger than Amber, and for her to leave the house in his clothes? From the woman who is always perfectly put-up with neat hair, makeup, jewelry, et cetera? Completely wrong for the character. If she'd been home and lounging around, I would happily take that. But for her to arrive from being out dressed like that is completely contrary to everything we'd seen of her so far. I am not necessarily saying that people who look nice for work are incapable of wearing crappy clothes outside of the house on other days, but frankly, there is so much of Amber's personality up to that point that is against the very notion of her leaving home like that that I cannot process the sudden "cutesy" and "I belong to Wilson" image that is her in that too-big sweatshirt. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but when she arrives to House's office later to confront him, she's wearing nice clothes again. Clearly, she does think about what she wears even when her dress doesn't necessarily effect what happens to her. (Meaning that she could have worn junk clothes to House's office and it wouldn't have mattered; she was already fired.) So why that time?

More than that, the whole "love versus respect" thing? No. Not only was it cliched and possibly some of the purplest prose in the show (again, I wish I had the episode), but it was just wrong for Amber. When have we ever seen her care a mite about love? When has she ever cared about being accepted or part of something? She's a self-serving bitch who wants to be on top. That's why the character was a fan-favorite. That's why people were sad to see her go. She never made any pretense about being more or less than that, and it completely cuts apart her character to suddenly make her craving love as much (or more) than she does respect. Show us some inkling of her having that as part of her personality. Drop us a line about it! But of course, they never did, because it wasn't there.

I realize that the strike rushed and changed some elements of the storylines that were meant to weave together for Season 4 - we were knocked down to a sixteen-episode season, for god's sake - but the fact is that, by making Amber the flavor-of-Wilson's-week, the writers ruined Amber. Using her as a device for delving into House and Wilson's relationship and looking at how Wilson, at base, does crave someone with House's personality traits? Brilliant. But I saw very little of House in the Amber we met in "Don't Ever Change". Instead, I saw someone who was just like Wilson's wives, and that's something we know he does not need or want. Why not keep her as she was? Why not press Amber as the bitch and have Wilson really adore her despite that?

But no. He meets her crying, he comforts her, and it's just another tooth in the gear called "Wilson's vicious cycle." There will never be any real future with Amber because Amber is no longer the kind of woman Wilson truly craves - self-actualized, confident, honest, ballsy. Instead, she's a shell of that woman, and frankly, unless dating Wilson is a ploy to get back at House, I don't see any way of salvaging her character.

It's sort of ironic that she features so heavily in "Don't Ever Change." The character who changes most is not House, or Wilson, but her.

Bag Mags: A Theory on Forced Shame

It's a long story and involves many characters and plot twists, but I shall sum it up as thus: a year ago, and without really my express permission (but not so much so that I would describe it as "against my will"), I became a subscriber to both Out and The Advocate. I'm not sure they are magazines I would have ordered for myself if given the opportunity, half because of content ("and here is another straight person that we gays writing this like, so let us feature him or her instead of featuring a real-life homosexual") and half simply because I'm not a magazine reader. That said, I usually read at least some of the articles, and occasionally find things I really like. (Examples include the profile of The Arizona Republic's news editor, who is now the most powerful out gay man in journalism, and the issue of Out which featured a bio on John Barrowman and Scott Gill's first ever interview in the fifteen years they've been together. Let me repeat this, because I am a fangirl: Scott's first interview ever. Yeah, that's right. I kept that baby and I reread it.)

But this is not really about the fact that I subscribed unwittingly to two Big Gay Magazines. This is about their little plastic wrappers.

I do not know if any of you who may read this subscribes to or ever has subscribed to these magazines, but they arrive in an opaque gray plastic wrapper that has printed on it only your address and the return address. The return address, too, is listed by company name - LPI, for instance - and leaves no indication of what is in the wrap. The first time one arrived, I staggered to a stop because I had no idea what had been delivered in my mailbox. Visions of Playboy and Penthouse danced in my head. I thought I might have been the butt of a cruel joke, or that the previous renter of this apartment had an interesting taste in magazines.

Imagine my surprise - and confusion - when I discovered that, no, it was The Advocate.

All this leads me to the title in a way (not as interesting as a coming entry that I have already titled "Poptastic Danceibility"), because this is how I feel: forced to be ashamed of my reading choice.

I understand, of course, homophobia. I understand it the way I understand racism and bigotry. People are homophobic and, when it comes right down to it, can be unforgivably cruel to others. But I don't feel these bags are a protection from homophobia, or from the local mailcarrier, I don't know, leaving dog poop in a bag on your doorstep. I think it's forcing people who subscribe to be xenophobic, and fear what other people might think.

Isn't that the gist of it? "Hello, subscriber who may be GLBT. As the publisher of this magazine, I know that you are uncomfortable with your sexuality. I will protect you from all those bad heteros out there who may see this magazine when you remove it from your mailbox and come after you with torches and pitchforks. Also, did you know a lot of gay people like John Mayer? Trufax."

It's contrary to the mission of the magazines, creating solidarity and a culture for a group of people who, to date, rank as some of the world's most persecuted. How many articles that actually do feature gay artists, actors, or businesspeople stress the importance of being out and proud? And yet, the mostly-harmless covers of these magazines are hidden from the public eye when they arrive in the mail bin. I wouldn't even know any better were I a militant "all queers must die" homophobic. The first time I saw The Advocate, I assumed it was just another entertainment magazine, and it took until halfway through an article on the RENT movie that I realized no, no, I most certainly was mistaken.

How many people who are going to go out on the limb of ordering these magazines are really so deeply closeted that they fear what their postman or the guy who accidentally sees him pick up his mail thinks? The innocuousness of this is so silly. It's like the "yellow equals sign" of the Human Rights Campaign: unless you're "in the know", you truly have no idea what it is. I believe in the HRC mission but I am not sure I would put the bumper sticker on my car because it would only make people wonder. In the same way, I am curious to what my neighbors think of me toting around a bag-covered magazine when I leave the mailroom.

LPI, and also Out's publisher (the name escapes me), offers the option of "going bagless". I have yet to take them up on this, but perhaps I should, and come "out of the closet" as a subscriber. But at the same time, I am tempted not to save them these pennies because this should never have been the option. The option should be "would you like to have your magazine bagged?" when you sign up, not vice versa.

If we really want to build a better mousetrap (or in this case, build a better society), we should start by not fearing something as simple as the associations people might have with our magazine subscriptions. I am not saying that every LGBT individual should go march in a Pride Parade or wear a big rainbow jumpsuit. I'm saying that, if we're expected to accept everyone in society, then we should start with media. I'm more offended by half of what I see in Cosmo or Elle ("50 Ways to Please Him in Bed"? Puh-lease.) than I am in reading about Rufus Wainwright's "blackout" concert. (The cover story in this week's Advocate, in case you are curious.)

If we expect media to help change our world, we need to be willing to take the censor bars off it once in a while. Especially in our mailboxes.

And so it begins.

My friend Carrie and I were embroiled in a text-message psuedo-argument of epic proportions today not over anything of importance but over the character of Amber Volakis from the television show House when I came to a shocking realization: I like talking about media. I don't just like taking it in with popcorn and a Diet Dr Pepper, I don't just like letting it wash over me, I like the discussion and the discourse. Media, especially in the 21st century, is a unique beast; it is one-half reality in easily compartmentalized bits, but it is also one-half fantasy, the way the world could, should, or perhaps even someday will be. I often like to theorize that television, books, movies, and even video games offer a vision of a world that is somehow better, where the cops always arrest the badguys, the leaders of the free world make mistakes but are still good people, men and women fight for what they believe in even against all odds, and yes, the hapless character wins over his or her romantic interest.

Of course, by saying this, I run the risk of over-simplifying the entire world of media studies, but it's my blog (and I'll over-simplify if I want to; you would over-simplify too if it belonged to you). But the fact is that, for me, media is a reminder of both the good and evil things in our world, and, moreover, what brilliant minds can do when they sit down and consider it.

So, this is my blog. I will post episode reviews for my favorite programs (including, but never limited to, House, CSI, CSI:NY, Criminal Minds, American Idol, Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, Dr Who, Torchwood, Psych, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and probably others I am now forgetting to mention); thoughts on movies, books, magazines, and even the odd song; theories on sexuality, crime and punishment, law enforcement, romance, and relationships in the media; my thoughts on the painfully bad For Better or For Worse (you knew that was coming); and just general ramblings of a media persuasion. If you're well-behaved, I may mention video games, anime, and fanfiction. (Beware, Torchwood fan-writers, I'm coming for you.) All in one easily-accessed public dominion for everyone to see and enjoy.

Tomorrow, you'll recieve my "Tretise on Amber Volakis". I also have pending a series of entries on topics such as Ianto Jones' bisexuality (as presented in The Twilight Streets by Gary Russell; not, of course, that I bought and read a Torchwood novelization and loved it), the Goren/Eames partnership from Law & Order: Criminal Intent, all the reasons that American Idol has done the reality-TV equivalent of jumping the shark, and probably something else. Will it be CSI related, M*A*S*H related, or a look at the domination of male protagonists in Atari games? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, enjoy.