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by Rick Norwood
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SF on TV | |||
The end of April brings new episodes of Jeremiah, Enterprise, and
The X-Files. They are:
The big problem with this concept is that camp went out with the Adam West Batman. The story is full of nudges and winks
to let us know that the stupidity is entirely intentional. Chris wants us to know that he is really a very clever and
cool guy, who is just making this dumb TV show because, well, because... No, wait a minute, why is a clever and cool guy
making an intentionally dumb TV show?
The biggest problem is that, dumb as this show is, it isn't all that much dumber than the last two seasons of
The X-Files. They should have quit, or moved into films, while the show was still worth watching.
The next episode after this one is titled "Jump the Shark", but the truth is The X-Files jumped the shark
a long time ago. When, exactly? Some would say with "A Postmodern Prometheus", in which we get a version of
The X-Files as a comic book that is insulting to comic books. But I give that episode points for its clever title.
More than a year ago in this column, I predicted that once we, the viewers, demonstrated our willingness to sit through a
virtually unlimited number of commercials, TV would start showing commercials during the program. That happens during this
episode, with a banner running across the bottom of the screen in the middle of the story. This is Fox's way of thumbing
their noses at us, of saying "we know you haven't got a life and will just keep on sitting there no matter what we do". Those
of us who do have a life are saying, "It's a good thing there are only five more episodes, or I'd have been out of here a long time ago."
When the Adam West Batman first came on the air, it was funny, and had excellent production values. To give just one
example, the trademark "Smash! Bam! Pow!" lettering that appeared on the screen was hollow, so you could see the
picture behind it. About a year later, executive producer William Dozier, in a TV Guide interview, said
something to the effect, "We found out we could save a lot of money by using solid lettering. It's a lot cheaper, and
nobody noticed." We all noticed. The show had become cheap and repetitive. We stopped watching. Batman went off the air.
The producers who think the audience doesn't get it -- they are the ones who don't get it. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.
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Rick Norwood is a mathematician and writer whose small press publishing house, Manuscript Press, has published books by Hal Clement, R.A. Lafferty, and Hal Foster. He is also the editor of Comics Revue Monthly, which publishes such classic comic strips as Flash Gordon, Sky Masters, Modesty Blaise, Tarzan, Odd Bodkins, Casey Ruggles, The Phantom, Gasoline Alley, Krazy Kat, Alley Oop, Little Orphan Annie, Barnaby, Buz Sawyer, and Steve Canyon. |
Wednesday, April 24
The pre-show spot with the three stars shows them breaking up over the prospect of this intentionally bad
episode. It's about numerology, and Burt Reynolds plays God -- a particularly charming and sadistic God, it
would seem, who keeps urging a serial killer to just exercise his free will and stop killing, when, God knows,
there isn't any such thing as free will, the universe being entirely paint-by-numbers, our birth date being our destiny.
This is the first Jeremiah written by the show's other writer, Sam Egan. The story is about what passes
for a doctor after The Big Death. It's OK, but lacks the emotional resonance and the hints at a bigger picture, that make
the J. Michael Straczynski episodes worth watching.
 
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