TV & DVD I didn't get into watching Breaking Bad right off, so ended up watching the whole thing on DVD. Now that I've caught up with the rest of the world, I can finally talk about it. This has to be the best show ever. Well, o.k., sure, there were other shows out there that at the time were the best show ever, like Buffy or Hill Street Blues, and nobody can deny how far The Simpsons has penetrated the zeitgeist. But Breaking Bad was so enthralling, even as you knew it shouldn't be. I don't know that I'll watch it through again, now that I know how it all comes out, but if an episode is running when I'm scrolling through the channels, I'm likely to linger. Update O.k., so, in response to the comment received, why is this so good? Well, there are no extraneous characters for one thing. Across the entire season, everybody ties in, serves a purpose, either in the plot overall - and from beginning to end - or in pushing the character development of the majors. Take the tweaker friends who hang around Jesse; by the end they still drive the plot and Walt's character forward, although in Walt's case, backward may be more appropriate, since they are now contributing to a kind of redemption. The structure of the episodes is also very tight; even the less cliff-hanging endings still are cliff-hanging enough to make you want to know what happens next, and season-ending episodes more so. The idea that this is a show that somehow celebrates a descent into evil misses the point. Yes, Walt does in fact go, like Michael Corleone, deeper and deeper in, and although some of the more heinous acts are committed by others they are often committed on his behalf, whether directed or not. But what's fascinating about this is the way he clings, at least initially, to the idea that his actions harm no one who would not otherwise have been harmed. The meth-heads would still have been meth-heads; he just gives them quality, and helps his family as a result. Drug dealers and higher-ups get killed, but that's the life they chose and they deserve it, don't they? Unlike Walt, he justifies to himself, that is. And Walt's development as a character is mirrored, in different ways, by his wife, his brother-in-law, and his partner-in-crime, each having an arc equally fascinating to watch, and sometimes devastating. There are the drug cartels, the lawyers who practice to the letter of the law but not its spirit, the easy marks, the easy money, the police taking shortcuts and the police doing the hard yards. And there's the society in which it takes place and the politics, at least implied, that have gotten us there. So, tightly drawn characters and plots over a short timeframe, with insights that can be applied in a variety of socio-political real-life issues. What's not to like?

Pewter
Watching the London Olympics on Australian television has to be one of the finest examples of how bad sports television can be. If the Nine network can't do any better than this, how did they manage to get the contract for the broadcast in the first place? God only knows there must be some people who think field hockey, horse jumping, and rhythmic gymnastics are popular, but not in prime time, especially when you're playing, effectively, replays all day long, and even more so when you have analog and digital channels, so that you could play more than one event at a time - and, God help us all - more than just the same four advertisements.  But if there isn't an Australian in the event, it doesn't go to air, and if there is, and he or she doesn't do well, God help them in the interview, which will inevitably be abusive, derogatory, or skipped altogether in favor of using BBC coverage to gloss over it.  But, Bolt, Pistorious, and even the bronze, silver, and fifth-place finishing Australians, well, it has been special and worth watching (everything but the drag queen wannabes with their ribbons etc.). Sport - even outside the Hemingway definition (motor racing, bull fighting [which is immoral], and mountain climbing only; all else being recreation) - is remarkably compelling.

Like the Sound of Enormous Bees Right Up in Your Face
I've tried to watch the world cup. I got home from the game late last night so stayed up for the Socceroos, but I can't stand the constant drone of the vuvuzelas. I know it's part of the experience of a game in South Africa (although I'll bet it's nothing like this bad normally), but surely television broadcasters have the technology to eliminate it? Even live games are digital, so it seems hard to accept that they wouldn't be able to introduce some sort of noise-cancellation filter in place.

Racism Heyday Is Long Gone
The revival of the variety show “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” didn’t generate any interest in me. It looked to be a silly show at best, utterly naf, bogan even. Turns out I was right, and more, since even now they couldn’t resist a minstrel show. That was embarrassing when it was Bing Crosby, let alone Al Jolson. It’s sparked considerable debate here, largely due, however, to the fact that it’s generated some degree of furore back in the States. What’s most galling to me is how many have come forward to defend it. It’s just a joke, they say, it’s supposed to be funny, nobody meant any harm. Yes, they did, even if they were too stupid to understand their own message. Blackface was always demeaning and derogatory and it’s more so now. Golliwog wigs don’t make it any better. The whole country makes me cringe sometimes, and Julia Gillard just lost her favored position as next Labor PM as far as I’m concerned.

0101010101...
Last weekend I bought a digital t.v. set-top converter, but couldn't for the life of me get it to work. Luckily, the salesman at the store was helpful, acknowledging that pretty much everyone who'd bought that particular model had tried to bring it back as defective, when really it was just the instructions failing to mention a few crucial configuration matters. Like which wires to plug in where. (Not just a matter of swapping out the aerial feeds, apparently.) And how to get the menu displayed.

Never mind, it's working now, and I have two whole additional channels, leaving aside the additional public access stuff (one of which broadcasters was presenting the results of the 2007 Sculpture by the Sea awards - a repeat, I guess). Unfortunately, it's also altered my ability to record one program and watch another, and not for the better. Suddenly, entering the digital age returns me to something slightly pre-digital. Not that I record very much generally. Frankly, the DVD mail-order thing is more worthwhile than anything on broadcast television anyway, HD or SD. Other than getting cable, which is expense, this is probably as far as I need to go.

I heard that the digital change-over recently accomplished in the US wasn't entirely successful - I wonder how many people have no t.v. now, having failed to get a converter - but the anecdote's I've seen have largely been in regard to signal strength. What with the numbers of drop-outs I experienced last night, I'd guess there are a few people back home who are not entirely pleased with Congress right now.

Serenity Now
Stuck for something interesting to rent, I picked up the entire series of Firefly, Joss Wheadon’s post-Buffy endeavour. Just sixteen episodes, but I can see why it didn’t go any further, or any further than the movie (which I’ll have to rent again, I suppose, as it’s supposed to be the culmination of the series). First, cowboys in space just means lots of shooting and cheesy accents, regardless of Gene Roddenberry’s characterisation of Star Trek as “Wagon Train in space,” so making the joke explicit doesn’t mean you’re making the next Star Trek. The idea of drifters working the edges of a galactic empire borrows from Star Wars, but maybe not the best bits, which were in the conflicts between the two groups or their representatives. More importantly, however, is that the characters never do much to drive the series as anything other than a collection of episodes, so the producers learned nothing from Buffy’s success. In that series, everybody grows, so even if each episode can largely stand alone, there’s usually a threaded storyline throughout, driving to the end of the season, where what’s been learned can be applied. Not so, in Firefly. Finally, and most importantly of all, is the clear impression left that while the producers may have had a goal for these characters, particularly the doctor’s mysteriously brain-damaged sister, they took fourteen of the episodes to even start hinting. It’s just not going to hold anyone’s interest, especially not in the era of the multiple-plot series. Remember Hill Street Blues, ER, etc.? More characters, maybe, but pretty much everyone gets something to do, often affording parallels and linkages, but forcing audience attention. Missed that, too. Oh, well, I suppose it would be wrong to write off Wheadon at this point (he’s busy with the Astonishing X-Men at the moment, as well as a Buffy comic), but I’ll be more cautious in the future.

Usual Year-End List Mania
Last night, the ABC aired “Australia’s Favourite Album,” a top-ten publicly voted list of rock ‘n’ roll records, with a panel commentary. The full 100 list has a lot more satisfaction to it, for me, than the top ten, because while I’ve heard at least songs from the albums, I’ve only ever sat down and listened to the entirety of two of them, Jeff Buckley’s Grace and (because I was a college student at the time and every dorm room had a copy) Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Australia’s number 1.

As the panel noted late in the program, not a woman in the ten, not a single non-white person. Carol King comes in at 18, with Tapestry, of course (did she record anything else?), and Prince’s Purple Rain at number 61. If we discount for “Australian Idol” and the “latest release” phenomenon, the list is pretty typical, and it was no surprise that that particular Pink Floyd album was at the top or that Sgt. Pepper’s was included, since the Beatles were sure to be represented. Abbey Road may be a little bit of a surprise, but only because of “Octopus’s Garden”, although at least it doesn’t ever get played, even by Ringo). Still, very few women, very few black people, no Aretha Franklin or any of the soul greats, and the Velvet Underground only edging over the line at 100 despite the undisputable fact that everyone who ever heard their record at least wanted to start a band of their own.

I voted for Brian Eno’s Another Green World, but I’m neither surprised nor disappointed that it didn’t turn up. Even I don’t listen to it that often.