Well, it’s that time of year again. Only five more weeks until America’s Got Talent! – which I will never watch, not only because of its dubious definition of “talent” (it’s all juggling), but because even its hosts realize it’s the gutter of reality show competitions (Regis ached for the days of Millionaire as he checked out of this show, as did Brandy. And don’t tell me that Hasselhoff’s drunken video was anything other than an attempt to get fired. And their replacements? Sharon Osbourne and Jerry Springer? Are there two trashier people in the name of reality television?) With such dim prospects for quality television viewing in the next few months, I thought it would be fun to revisit what I think is the best of this TV season.
1. Lost: After a weak six episodes to start the season in the fall, Lost roared back in February with the best episodes of the series. No other show on TV has a fan base willing to research Kierkegaard and Kant to further our understanding of what’s going on. Lost is as much fun (and maybe even more so) in the extra-curricular discussions, speculation, and research people engage in to make sense of the show’s countless threads. People always clamor for answers from Lost, but do they really want them? Take a scene from a recent episode: Locke and Ben are about to enter the insanely spooky layer of Others-leader Jacob. Locke pauses for a moment, and we see his yearning for answers tempered with a genuine fear that the clarity of understanding will not match the romance of mystery. Anyone who’s ever watched Lost knows how this feels.
2. The Office: “The clothes at Gap Kids are too flashy, so I buy clothes for extra-large colonial dolls at the American Girl store.” Would any other sitcom give a supporting character (Angela) such a great line? The Office works because it has the best ensemble cast on TV. Sure Michael, Jim and Pam are ever-fun to watch, and Dwight is quickly becoming a pop culture icon along the lines of Kramer or Phoebe, but it’s those more subtle moments from characters like Angela, Creed, Stanley and Toby which make this faux-documentary world complete. This is the rare TV comedy with as much heart as humor.
3. Heroes: “Hiro, from Heroes, that’s a real hero. Also Bono.” (Dwight from The Office). So true, Dwight. Masi Oka’s Hiro is the heart and soul of Heroes. His character represents everyone who thinks they’re special, yet struggles to convince the world that they actually are. Beautifully shot with bold colors and subtle frames (i.e. doorways, windows, arches) rendering many images like they’ve leapt off the comic-book page, Heroes is American mythology distilled to it’s basic intellectual and moral components: balancing self-interest with collective responsibility. For instance, one character depends on being around other superheroes to use his abilities while his nemesis forcibly takes others’ superpowers at the expense of their lives. This show clearly defines comic book stories as the new American mythology, a set of tales which, like the Western or sci-fi before it, helps us understand who we are and what makes us special.
Communication sophomore Christian Blauvelt is a PLAY film columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
