-
In the thick of it

Just a quick word on FX's latest show launch, Stephen Bochco's Over There. Last night was saw the launch of the series, as we meet and follow a group of recruits as they begin their tour of duty in Iraq. I was torn in my approach as a viewer, knowing on the one hand that when Bochco finds suitable collaborators the results, at least on the level of character-driven drama, are excellent, but on the other hand being distrustful of any series focusing on the war in/occupation of Iraq that would be appearing on a FOX station.

With the first episode down it's "so far, so good."

Bochco decided early on that he wasn't going to make a political statement, which still strikes me on some level as either gutless or displaying a lack of conviction on Bochco's part. However, once one gets past that objection we're given a blend of very human characters from different circumstances dealing with overwhelming circumstances. Based on the premier episode, Bochco and co. will be keeping the characters too busy surviving to step back and get an objective perspective on the situation. In that respect, they could be seen as a microcosm of most Americans in more ways than the intentional selection of characters from various backgrounds.

It'll take a few more episodes to see if it's something I'll stick with, but I'm still wary. I don't believe it's possible to do a series like this for long without taking a side, but perhaps they'll prove me wrong. The alternatives are either to be faced with an increasingly artificial structure or we'll see some strong, partisan arguments emerge.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
Image
Insurance Company-Driven Propaganda Storm It's almost heartening to see them go to these lengths - they're getting a little scared - though I worry how many wingnut media outlets will reference the report as if it's substantive..? ( From the Washington Post ) The Insurance Industry's Deceptive Report by Ezra Klein In the hallowed tradition of the tobacco and energy industries, the health insurance industry has commissioned a report (pdf) projecting doom and despair for those who seek to reform its business practices. The report was farmed out to the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has something of a history with this sort of thing: In the early-'90s, the tobacco industry commissioned PWC to estimate the economic devastation that would result from a tax on tobacco. The report was later analyzed by the Arthur Andersen Economic Consulting group, which concluded that "the cumulative effect of PW’s methods … is to produce patently unreliable results.&qu
Read more

The Tease of Things I Don't Need

-
Image
     The lure of things we don't need, could easily find greater needs to apply the cash to, and which we may not even have the space for, is a very First(ish) World Problem, to be sure.        HasLabs is a special projects division of Hasbro, that occasionally pitches large and/or elaborate items - oversized figures and/or vehicles - essentially crowdfunding each project. They set the price, and a funding line - the number of people who need to pledge to buy one (or more -- up to five) at the announced price, then collect the names and information of interested parties for a period of 45 days. Once the number of pledged buys hits the target, the project is greenlit.      A couple years ago there was a HasLabs special build project aiming to fund a production run for an oversized (32" tall), elaborately-articulated action figure of Marvel comics' Devourer of Worlds: Galactus. Back on July 18, 2021 I posted a piece on the project, which at the time was just two days
Read more

Oct.13-19 - More Returns and Changes

-
Image
      Even though I've already watched the pair of debut episodes of Frasier (see next paragraph), and this week's Star Trek: Lower Decks (which continues to do a stellar job of mining  previous Trek series for character, episode and extraterrestrial culture lore and deftly applying them at breakneck speeds), I still have multiple things I'm looking forward to catching up on, including new eps of Gen V (Amazon Prime), Loki (Disney+), and both Archer and Welcome to Wrexham (both on Hulu), along with the first two episodes of a final six for Doom Patrol over on Max... and that's just off the top of my head, so getting this week's streaming post out of the way brings those one step closer for me.       I've watched the two episodes of the new Frasier series that arrived on Paramount+ this week, and while it was a mixed bag it was good to see the character back, with him attempting to move into his third act by returning to Boston, where we first met the ch
Read more