I Get All Philological

There's a thing about swearing that puzzles me, but I'm not going to get to that first.

First, I'm not a big fan of it. I lived next door once to a woman who had fights every single night with her boyfriend. Every single night. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. He would come over, and something would happen, and she would run after him into the parking lot, and they would scream at each other, swearing up one side and down the other. And it was unbelievably tedious. I was also getting no sleep, but I don't think I would have minded so much if they had actually yelled interesting things at each other. But it was just "&%$#" and "!@*&" and "$%#! your car" when I was hoping for accusations of infidelity and the mention of his third child by another woman and her best friend's confession of what he said to her. But nah. No juicy gossip.

The second reason I'm not a big fan of swearing, fictionwise, is that 9 times out of 10 (the 10th being Stephen King or Heathers), it isn't used well. That is, it is used by lazy writers (or young ones) as a way of avoiding the (difficult) task of writing persuasive dialog. Instead of figuring out how to make a character express his anger, they opt for swear words because (1) it's realistic (oh, yawn) and (2) it's easy.

I'll bypasss the whole realism argument (and my annoyance with fiction writers who can't seem to figure out that they ARE writing fiction). When Stephen King argues that his fictional milltown workers talk like milltown workers because that's how milltown workers talk, and he thinks nothing of it because that's how he grew up, I actually buy that argument. He is reproducing a vernacular that is as common to him as saying "The rains of Spain fall mainly on the plains" is to Professor Higgins. And the excessive use of the f* word in Heathers (as noun, adverb, adjective) is an effective and satiric reproduction of high school talk (with all the accompanying self-consciousness).

But, as I've said, 9 times out of 10 it isn't satiric or matter-of-fact reproduction, it's an attempt to bypass real dialog, kind of like in Star Trek: Next Gen; every time the crew visited a new planet and encountered a new species, they would inform Picard, "There are these monster looking creatures, Captain. They're impossible to describe." As Phil Farrand points out in his Nitpicker's Guide, they aren't that hard to describe: tall, hairy, snout-nosed creatures of the humanoid variety wearing baggy pants. The real problem is lazy script writing.

So now that I've taken care of my overall reactions, here's my problem: the philology of swear words. What I mean by that is when people object to swear words based on their origins.

The exchange goes something like:

Person #1: *&%#
Person #2: You know that originated amongst drug lords in prison who used it during torture!

Huh? What on earth does that have to do with the price of oil at Cumberland Farms?

It isn't just swear words, of course. And it's not an approach to language that I particularly understand. It might be interesting to philologists, but in terms of meaning (how the word is used; what people hear/think/assume when you use it), it is hardly relevant. Every word we speak meant something else, something more or something less once upon a time. Every word originated sideways or tortorously from another word. But if you head straight for the birth, bypassing the word's current meaning, you end up with people who want to write "womyn" instead of "woman." Language itself becomes, in some weird 1984 way, dangerous not because of what people actually hear but because of what people, unconsciously, unintentionally, are actually saying. It's that strange right-brain/left-brain thing again where everything becomes literal but in a tangential, subconsious way. So if you write "woman" instead of "womyn", you are unconsciously but literally partaking in the patriarchal ethos of Western civilization. It does not matter if your meaning and the meaning that is heard arouse no feelings about the patriarchal system one way or the other. Language becomes a matter of semiotics, not communication.

Which I'm not a big fan of. Swear words, as bad dialog writers know, have meaning that is often completely unattached to what the words originally or even concurrently mean. An expletive is an expletive for a reason. Besides, it is entirely possible that if you went back far enough, you'd find the word didn't have a negative meaning at all. And if that is the case, is it still a swear word?

CATEGORY: FROLICS

Narnia

This is a difficult movie for me to critique. First of all, I'm a huge believer in books being different from movies. I'm also a huge believer in movies portraying the individual vision of the director. I disliked the first Harry Potter but quite liked the latter two for precisely that reason. I wish Jackson had left my favorite storylines in the LTR trilogy but in general was content with his vision. I read Seabiscuit after I saw the movie and was so stunned that the movie seemed pale in comparison, but I have since developed a liking for the (somewhat different tonally) movie as well.

Unfortunately, like with many people, there's always that one book or author where it almost doesn't matter what the director does, it isn't going to be enough. The Narnia books are like that for me. I enjoyed the movie, but I felt it wasn't very much different from the BBC production, only much MUCH better special effects.

If *I* were to do it (if someone were to walk up and hand me a ton of money and lots of artistic license), I would make the kids much older, and, more importantly, I would tell the story backwards. Or sideways. The exciting thing to me about movies is that you don't have to keep the narrator's voice or author's timeline. Sometimes, producers go too far in this respect (as my brother Joe has pointed out, if a producer is going to use a book, he/she should at least like the book--rather than claiming to do a movie based on a book and then just adopting the title).

Anyway, I would love to do a Narnia story where the story is told from a different point of view to the one you are used to. The kids are really the crux of the book so we'd have to stick with them (besides, as I've pointed out earlier, I'm not a big fan of anthropomorphized animals), but suppose the entire first part of the movie had been told from Peter's point of view? You would think, as Peter thinks, that his two younger siblings are going nuts. Of course, then you would miss the great faun scene, but that could be told in flashbacks. Or the entire story could be told by Tumnus, writing down the history of Narnia. Actually, I would opt for Edmund as the point of view, which also would excise the "first contact" but some stuff has to be excised and that's the best way to do it; the point of view can change of course; more importantly, what is shown and concealed can be handled by the camera's perspective; I think the fun of the camera is to remember (as nobody ever, ever does on Star Trek) that space is three-dimensional. Which means that the camera can enter the landscape and take a position. You don't have to stick to the book's linear narrative. You can create the story and then see where you want to stand inside it.

I do suggest seeing the movie, but I'm not one of those people who thinks that people MUST see it just because it's C.S. Lewis and Narnia. On the other hand, I'd really like them to make Prince Caspian so yeah, maybe you should go see it. But that's a financial reason, not a moral one. I adore C.S but that doesn't mean the movie couldn't have been more interesting.

CATEGORY: MOVIES

The Violence of Back to the Future

With all this free time (here today, gone in three weeks) between semesters, I've been watching some of the classics of the past decades, including the first two Back to the Futures. They are quite impressive. I don't know what Spielberg is up to these days, but once upon a time, he could lay out a solid storyline.

Watching the first Back to the Future and admiring the ever amusing Christopher Lloyd, I was reminded of one of the objections to the film: that it teaches violence as a solution. I've always considered this a rather petulant objection, and I was struck once more by (1) how inaccurate that objection is; (2) how stupid that objection is.

The film is about assertiveness. Marty's dad is a wimpy guy who gets some spine and voila, it changes his future. Spielberg carries the theme into the next two films, although he changed it slightly (possibly in answer to the objectors) by making Marty's assertiveness a matter of "Just saying, 'No'." But it's the same idea in different form.

However, let's suppose that the film is a kind of Hamlet meets Rambo declaration of the uses of violence to improve life, this is such a wrong-headed message because...? I suppose when the bully starts harassing the girl, Marty's dad should have called the police, lectured Biff on his non-PC behavior, written a strongly worded article, tried a diplomatic solution. And when Biff started wrenching on his arm, Marty's dad should have called a cease-fire and asked the UN to get involved.

Now, granted, movies (well, any created thing) set up their own problems or strawmen that they then solve. Which is why evil capitalist businessmen abound in droves in Hollywood. Set 'em up, kick 'em down, shake your finger a lot. And Biff is an over the top villain, but the basic problem remains. This guy is a bully who pushes people around. A martyr would take it. A Rambo would shot his head off. In a fantasy, he would be turned into a frog. In a Disney movie, he would fall on his own sword or trip over a cliff or something. In an Anne Perry novel, he would suddenly confess and tell you all about his bad relationship with his evil father. Jean Luc Picard would lecture him about free will before blowing up his ship. The Vulcan would have nerve-pinched him. But the easiest solution is just to hit the guy. Yet the objectors never seem to stop to think about the problem as an actual problem: here's a situation, what do you do about it? Which question is, I think, the whole purpose of fiction.

I suppose what the objectors dislike is that Marty's family benefits (oh, horrors) from this punch, which, as I've noted in my (1) response kind of misses the point of the punch, or what the punch represents. It's a kind of weird literalness which insists on taking the action literally but subjectifying the result to a bizarre degree. So, the movie was JUST about the punch, but the viewers won't understand that it's JUST about the punch, they will extrapolate, in a very right brained way, the punch for use in their own lives. So viewers are too left-brained to see the punch as symbolic but too right-brained to say, "Hey, this is just a movie."

When, the fact is, standing up for yourself violently, can make a difference in the future, good or bad. The whole point of turning the other cheek, etc. isn't that the Rambo approach doesn't work. Christ was advocating an alternative for entirely separate reasons from the effectiveness of violence. He was saying, "Let it go, even though you could take the guy's head off." Which is very different from saying, "Hey, this doesn't work." The Romans believed bulldozing Palestine would solve their problems in that area, and it did. It didn't solve them for anybody else, but it certainly solved them for the Romans. (Their particular end-of-the-line came from an entirely different direction.) On the positive side, the Revolutionary War worked too. Of course, the French Revolution didn't, but Waterloo certainly worked for the British.

Back to the Futures, I will admit, I think the truck in Back to the Future I is a bit much. I can well believe that Marty's dad learning to stand up for himself and not get pushed around could result in a slightly nicer home and a better relationship between the parents and more motivated kids and a writing career for the dad. I don't buy that any of that translates into a new truck. After all, a more assertive father might have decided that Marty shouldn't have any kind of car ("Pay for it yourself, son. I did when I was your age.").

Since, it's Christmas, I will end by commenting on the Sermon on the Mount (where the "turn the other check" statement is found). I think the purpose of the Sermon is to establish a standard, a palpable conception of moral righteousness, a center against which to compare ourselves. Do we hold grudges? Do we forgive? Trust? Do we hold by the truth? Do we stand up for our beliefs? Do we love our enemies? (And enemies includes all those people on the other side of the political spectrum and horrible bosses and faulty leaders.) It isn't about how to manage a political situation any more than the Creation vision is about how to create a world in six easy steps. Jesus made it clear on more than one occasion that he had no intention of involving himself, pro or con, in Rome's particular brand of diplomacy. He wasn't preaching about insurrections or cease-fires, he was saying, "This is the best kind of behavior. This is where you start." And he also said, "It's hard." "I came not to send peace, but a sword." "Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also." And the cross and the scars and the long, dark nights before the Voice spoke. It isn't about a situation out there that we can apply labels and arguments to, it's about me and you and everybody individually. And that's more than enough to grapple with.

CATEGORY: MOVIES

Rewatching LTR

I recently rewatched the Lord of the Rings, all three DVDs. It holds up surprisingly well. Just as with the books, Fellowship is still my favorite (but really two movies in its own right). I also think the war scenes in Return of the King go on forever and ever and ever and--did I mention?--ever. It would have been a better movie if the Faramir/Eowyn scenes (in the extended version) were put in instead of the excessive elephants, excessive stone throwing and so on.

I agree with my brother Joe that the lighting is wacky. I once read a review of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie that stated that Bruckheimer isn't interested in character development or working out a story, he's interested in setting up moments. So in Return of the Titans, he sets up the scene at the graveyard and the "dance" scene before the game, and the scenes in the hospital. There are heroic moments and tear-jerking moments. Bruckheimer is on to something (he is the producer of CSI and Pirates of the Caribbean); people, including me, like moments.

Lord of the Rings reminds me of the comment about Bruckheimer: there's no sense of continuity, in a lighting sense, between scenes: each scene is set up for its own sake; for instance in Two Towers, the scene where the king quotes a poem before the big battle (the poem that ends, "How did it come to this."), I can never figure out where the bright light is coming from. It looks great, but it always confuses me.

In a way, the movies are rather like comic books: a frame by frame montage. I happen to like Return of the Titans ,and I like Lord of the Rings, but it is a rather different experience from watching a movie where each scene blends into the one before.

I still think the casting is stellar, the best casting I've ever seen in a movie. The movie characters and the book characters match up extraordinarily well. They don't always utilize the range of emotions that I wish they would, but they look so perfect, it hardly matters. (Which fits into Jackson's scene by scene montage idea.)

Second Seasons: The Polished Draft

Whilst I sit here, rather hopelessly waiting for my final students to pass in their papers (I don't think it's going to happen, but you never know), I've decided to ponder on the problem of the polished draft.

What I mean by this is that I have occasionally read an old story of mine and been impressed by the energy. I write better plot-lines now and smoother paragraphs and whatnot, but that old story has more verve or wildcard ideas. The first draft, so to speak, is better than the polished, finished product.

How this applies to television: I am currently rewatching the first season of Nero Wolfe, which I love. It still makes me laugh like crazy. Now, I like the second season, I think it has a lot going for it, but the second season doesn't have the same flair or verve or huzpah or somethingness that the first season has.

It isn't that, knowing the characters, the jokes have become old because, as I have mentioned, I can rewatch season 1 and still laugh. Rather, I think Nero Wolfe is an example of the polished syndrome. Season 1 is a hoot, very stylistic, excellent period piece, great acting, snappy dialog, unusual set-up, and everyone loves it so they do season 2, thinking, "We'll give them more of the same, only better" and it kind of falls flat. And I think it's that "only better" that makes the diffference. Because the off-the-cuff, sloppy feeling of the first season (the episodes are cut in the most bizarre fashion) is part of what makes it so fun.

I think this happens quite often. The fans like X or Y or Z or whatever so the producers give them X or Y or Z only better, and it falls flat because X, Y or Z worked in conjunction with something else, not all by its lonesome. For instance, sure, Buffy fans loved Spike, but you can't just have Spike. You've got to have Spike and . . . Unfortunately, sometimes the fans don't realize that they don't really want just Spike, so they clamor for Spike and get Spike but Spike isn't enough, Spike has to be Spike with someone or for some reason. Likewise, the relationship between Archie and Nero is a blast but Archie and Nero for the sake of Archie and Nero simply doesn't work.

Which isn't to say that the second season of Nero Wolfe isn't good; it just lacks a bit of the "wow-za" of the first.

Now, Monk is a show where I think the second and third seasons improved upon the first. I get the impression (I could be wrong) that the producers (of which one is Shalhoub) run a tight ship, by which I mean that the show is meant to be about Monk and it is about Monk and nobody else; all other characters are supporting characters, and there aren't that many: the captain, his lieutenant, Monk's assistant and a kid. This extraordinarily tight casting means that no matter how much the fans like, say, Monk's brother, that doesn't mean he becomes a regular. It also keeps the episodes compact, focusing all the energy on the comedy, rather than developing characterization. It's a one-trick-pony kind of show, but it does its one-trick very, very well and better and better each season.

So I guess the answer is, Ignore the fans. Because you can't satisfy them even when you think you are going to. But don't ignore them completely because, well, they play your wages. Pay attention to them but ignore their suggestions. Something like that.

CATEGORY: TELEVISION

Funny Gal

Dorothy Sayers is often described in terms of her intellectual attainments (by her supporters and detractors), as falling in love with her own hero (usually by her detractors, including Ngaoi Marsh) and generally being high-falutin and academic and all that. What everyone seems to miss is that Sayers is also extremely funny.

I'm not refering to the blithe Peter Wimsey. Rather, I mean the wit behind the creation. There's a scene in Gaudy Night where Harriet attends a literary cocktail party which is so perfect (and so contemporary), I've excerpted it below:

The room in which [the literary cocktail party] was held was exceedingly hot and crowded, and all the assembled authors were discussing (a) publishers, (b) agents, (c) their own sales, (d) other people's sales, and (e) the extraordinary behavior of the Book of the Moment selectors in awarding their ephemeral crown to Tasker Hepplewater's Mock Turtle . . . A very angry young woman, whose book had been passed over, declared that the whole thing was a notorious farce. The Book of the Moment was selected from each publisher's list in turn, so that her own Ariadne Adams was automatically excluded from benefit, owing to the mere fact that her publisher's imprint had been honored in the previous January. She had, however, received private assurance that the critic of the Morning Star had sobbed like a child over the last hundred pages of Ariadne, and would probably make it his Book of the Fortnight, if only the publisher could be persuaded to take advertising space in the paper. The author of The Squeezed Lemon agreed that advertising was at the bottom of it . . .

"But what's Mock Turtle about?" inquired Harriet.

On this point the authors were for the most part vague; but a young man who wrote humorous magazine stories, and could therefore afford to be wide-minded about novels, said he had read it and thought it rather interesting, only a bit long. It was about a swimming instructor at a watering-place, who had contracted such an unfortunate anti-nudity complex through watching so many bathing-beauties that it completely inhibited all his natural emotions. So he got a job on a whaler and fell in love at first sight with an Eskimo, because she was such a beautiful bundle of garments. So he married her and brought her back to live in a suburb, where she fell in love with a vegetarian nudist. So then the husband went slightly mad and contracted a complex about giant turtles, and spent all his spare time staring into the turtle-tank at the Aquarium, and watching the strange, slow monsters swimming significantly round in their encasing shells. But of course a lot of things came into it--it was one of those books that reflect the author's reactions to Things in General. Altogether, significant was, he thought, the word to describe it.

Harriet began to feel that there might be something to be said even for the plot of [her latest mystery]. It was, at least, significant of nothing in particular.

This is smack dab in the middle of a rather more serious book than usual for Sayers and has nothing, really, to do with the rest of the plot. I think it's hilarious, especially the Book of the Fortnight bit and the stuff about "one of those books that reflect the author's reactions to Things in General." This sort of scene is actually more typical of Sayers than not, although she is usually more circumspect. If you listen closely to her dialog, there's all kinds of wacky stuff going on. And yet no one seems to notice.

I suppose if anyone did notice, her supporters would say she was "witty" and her detractors would say she was "flip" or "snide"--once again, artistry (or craftmanship) gets reduced to a label. So much seems to be invested these days in deciding the merits of a work rather than in actually enjoying it. C.S. Lewis once complained about students who insisted on taking everything they read so seriously, they couldn't appreciate that Jane Austen was funny and Chaucer wanted to make people laugh. Such works aren't even analyzed for whether they were well crafted or not, just whether or not they are ideologically "significant." So Sayers ends up being serious rather than funny when she was usually, for most of her books, more funny than serious.

CATEGORY: BOOKS

Models

Okay, I don't want this to sound catty. Because I don't mean it to be. I think beautiful people are enjoyable to look at. I think beauty is an asset. I also think beauty can make life difficult so I don't necessarily buy into the idea that beautiful people have easy lives. Nor do I buy into the idea--however tempting--that beautiful people are automatically shallow. Beauty has merit, as Michelangelo's David and Grace Kelly prove.

Okay, that being said, there's been a lot model stuff about lately, and I find it odd that, well, really, the models aren't what I would call drop-dead gorgeous or anything. I am talking about the women. The men on television right now all tend towards a specific type. It happens to be a type I have a yen for (Supernatural brothers, Wentworth Miller: more stocky, harsh-featured blokes--think Sean Bean and Ted Levine--than pretty boys although the younger Supernatural brother is borderline) and so I notice them (I preferred older Angel to younger Angel, for instance. I also really like Nick from CSI with mustache--I'm not a big mustache/beard gal, but it really works on him). And, too, there aren't, to my knowledge, any Victoria Secret male models. So I'm referring to the women, and they seem, well, very pretty--don't get me wrong--but mostly the kind of girls I went to High School with. Rather ordinary looking in a perfect-features kind of way. But not striking.

Now, to give you an idea of what I mean, I consider Jeri Ryan (7 of 9) to be a truly gorgeous woman. And also unique. A little unusual. I always recognize her. And if you've ever seen The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (which I watched recently), the woman who plays Sheila Fentiman is classically lovely--in a Kate Winslet kind of way--and noticeable. But the models turning up lately--I can't tell them apart: oval face, straight nose, long hair, wide smile, slightly pouty lips. Same same same. And I wonder, because I haven't the faintest idea, is this a current tread? Has the model industry always been like this? Or are models more in demand now so the pool is wider? Has the industry veered away from the admittedly startling Angelina Jolies? Is it a politic decision--choose a type that everyone thinks nice (because the biologists have shown that people do respond to a particular blending of features) rather than someone who shocks? Or, like the men I mentioned, do most unusually beautiful people just end up on T.V.?

Take Katherine from CSI: Las Vegas--she's getting older now, but you can tell from her bone structure that her looks aren't just makeup and glamour laid over rather ordinary prettiness. When Teri Hatcher pulls her hair back, you can see she's got the same underlying quality. "Willow" still has the most beautiful eyes of any woman on T.V. And I think that Kari Matchett is one of the most stunning (and unique) women on television (Nero Wolfe regular, now on that ABC show, forgot its name).

Of course, television has its own penchants. The women of House and Bones all share a similar look: small-boned, finely drawn features. (Rory from Gilmore Girls is starting to get the same look.) Gorgeous but you've got to think modernist school rather than Rubens. (They are also more the types who grow on you--you become aware of how stunningly beautiful they are over time.)

Maybe, with TV, it's that there's a difference between looks and presence, and if you've got presence, you go into show biz. But maybe that's not fair to the modeling world which is very high pressure. Maybe, with modeling, it comes down to whether you can wear the clothes (such as they are), in a back-atcha kind of way, rather than whether you can act or sing or whatever. But these models don't strike me as even having that Julie Andrews "here I am" quality. Julie Andrews is a lovely but certainly not drop-dead gorgeous woman. But good grief, whenever she shows up on anything, she effortlessly carries the scene. She's got that regal bearing and ageless features. But maybe that's a different kind of beauty. After all, of the Star Trek gang, Nimoy and Lenard aged the best in that craggy old guy way. And Brent Spiner has the sexiest back in all of television, shoot all of showbiz. Really--the guy's face is pleasant to look at it, but watch old Star Trek: Next Generations, and his physical build just blows you away. Someone figured it out, because, unlike Picard (who they started putting in jackets--which looked good) and Riker (who just kept doing that burly big guy thing), someone tailored Brent Spiner's uniform to show off his exceptionally fine physique.

Which is getting away from the topic. Except I really have nothing more to say. This is just a rambling series of queries. Which I shall place under "Fares and Festivals," partly because I have very few posts there and partly because, although my references are mostly from television, the issue is a broader, cultural one. What is beauty? Does it change? In what way? And so on and so forth . . .

CATEGORY: FARES

"Lodging"

One of my short stories, "Lodging" was just published by Talebones magazine. This makes nine for the published short stories (eleven altogether, including on-line publications). "Lodging" is a sort of sequel to "Golden Hands" (the second story I had published), but with a completely different set-up. So it isn't really a sequel. But I had to bring the ghost of "Golden Hands" back to haunt the prince. Even if he is a totally different prince. And she is a totally different character.

Such much for the vagaries of fictional composition.

Out of respect for the copyright laws upon which my contract depends, I will not be posting this story. But you can see my name on the Talebones website!

The Oddness of Dr. Phil

I rather like Dr. Phil. I'm not a huge fan of talkshows in general, but I don't particularly mind them in the "universe is coming to an end" kind of way. In college, society is always about to implode due to reality television or Oprah or the "dumbing down of America" or whatever. I think this is hokey. What amazes me about Dr. Phil isn't the host, what amazes me are the guests.

When I used to listen to Dr. Laura, I felt similarly about her guests. Why are these people calling up so they can be yelled at? I would know within three seconds of any call what Dr. Laura was going to say. But it seemed like every guest was surprised--THEIR circumstances were different! Followed by another five minutes of the guest saying, "Yeah - but -" and Dr. Laura laying down the law. Why do people expose themselves like this?

However, radio is somewhat person-less; there's a literal AND figurative facelessness--but on T.V., there are the guests, don't ya know, all faceful and angsty and THERE.

And to make it even weirder, you have people like the lady who wishes she could "let herself go" in bed and the woman who doesn't want her neighbors to know how imperfect she is and people who are ashamed of their looks (actually that was on Oprah)--anyway, people who declare that nothing on earth will get them to reveal themselves to others except . . . they are on T.V.! Go figure. (It's hard not to suspect that the beautiful people who fear being looked at are just vain egomaniacs.)

I've decided that for many people, T.V. isn't real or is so glamorous it overcomes any reservations. But I actually go more with the first--that the little actress/actor in all of us kicks in on T.V.: a distance develops between the audience and the people on stage. And, as well, there's a hope that this--THIS appearance--will fix them, which is a debatable point. I once knew a therapist who believed that counseling was useless until the person/family was ready to change because otherwise, it was just a lot of talk. So, I suppose Dr. Phil's guests could see their attendance on the show as the last hurdle, the decision that now, finally, things will get better; and I suppose other guests just like their ten minutes of fame and will return to the same old same old patterns.

CATEGORY:TELEVISION

Lois & Clark

Lois & Clark: The Further Adventures of Superman has got to be the most unself-conscious show I've ever watched. I didn't see it back when it first aired so I'm watching it now for the first time. It's a hoot! Pleasantly so. What amazes me is the "whatever" factor. Every show has a plot, sort of; if they want to throw in funny lines, they do; if they watch to throw in kissing, they do; if they want to throw in hokey acting, they do.

It isn't deliberately unself-conscious or deliberately formulaic or deliberately anything, as far as I can tell. It isn't like watching Smallville where the plot is entirely haphazard but you still feel that the writers take themselves very, very seriously. Lois & Clark isn't even deliberately non-serious. It's all very Zen-like.

It is helped by the fact that Dean Cain is not a great actor and Terry Hatcher is little better. John Shea is better than them both but after about ten minutes in the pilot, Shea obviously decided to go for over the top villainy. He has that voice (sort of deep and rumbly) that gives anything he says extra cache, and he uses it.

One of the main reasons I think the show works is that Dean Cain and Terry Hatcher are good-looking people (they make, as the saying goes, "a striking couple") but not so devastatingly gorgeous that you never buy into the premise that these people can have normal lives and relate normally to the people around them. Of course, the whole Clark not looking like Superman thing is silly. But the writers know that. Of course it's silly! Ha ha! So suspend your disbelief already! (There's a scene in the pilot where Clark removes his glasses and says something like, "People won't know who I am. See--" and his parents kind of make these, "Uh huh, whatever honey" replies.) We are having fun, the writers seem to be saying, so much fun we don't care whether you (the audience) are having fun or not. This type of writing approach is rather refreshing.

The other thing I like about the show is that unlike the Superman movies (at least, the first one, which I rewatched recently) Clark IS Clark. In the Superman movies, Superman is Superman with a Clark disguise. But Clark of Lois & Clark is intrinsically Clark--he just happens to have powers and so adopts a Superman disguise. It may sound like nitpicking, but it actually makes a huge difference. In the Superman movies, Superman woos Lois as Superman, but Clark of Lois & Clark woos (and becomes good friends with) Lois as Clark. In fact, sometimes, I think the writers forget that the show is, eh hem, about Superman, not about this particular reporting team. Oh, yes, they seem to say, uh, throw in a Superman scene here.

And the show can be downright hilarious, usually in a comments-in-passing kind of way: a character says something, and you go, "Wait, huh?" There's this scene where Lex Luther marches around a room where he has all these artistic artifacts: the missing arms of Venus, the Boy in Yellow. The script doesn't even stress it. He just mentions the artifacts and goes on, and you're sitting there going, "What? What? Did he just say what I think he said?" (In that same episode Shea and his butler are discussing Superman's globe: "It's better than cable," one of them says. "In the future, every household will have one.")

What makes it so bizarre is that unlike Buffy and Angel, the humor--like everything else--doesn't seem to be deliberate. Nobody seems to be using humor as commentary or to create a certain type of show. It's just . . . there, available, okey-dokey, let's use it!

Which, all in all, makes the show extremely relaxing to watch.

CATEGORY: TV