So, I only have one dance.
And unfortunately, this is what it looks like.
And the next two games are spent making fun of Shepard for it.
Mass Efflections: Well, This Is Embarrassing
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24: The Longest Dead Series Discussion of Our Lives – Season Five
“EVERYONE YOU LOVE DIES RIGHT AWAY”
24 is a groundbreaking and important television series. Beyond the thrills, kills, twists and tragedies is a show that reached a new level of serialized storytelling and set the bar for action and suspense on network television. Lasting for 8 full seasons–192 Episodes plus a TV movie–24 is one of the longest-running shows of the past 15 years. Others, like Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, Smallville, all three CSIs and three of four Law & Orders, may have run longer, but the argument can be made that none of those shows are equally as worthy of contributing to the debatably labeled and vaguely-defined “Third Golden Age of Television Drama” that began with The Sopranos in 1999 and is now fading with the end of Breaking Bad and the impending finale of Mad Men. Perhaps 24 doesn’t quite reach the dramatic heights of those shows, or others like The Wire and Deadwood, or even The Shield, Lost or Battlestar Galactica, but it was always a strong awards and ratings contender and it was just so addicting and fun to watch.
Please join us—Patches, Zach, Jeff and MegaMix—as we take a look back at this series, discussing one season every month until the premiere of the new 12-episode miniseries 24: Live Another Day in May 2014.
This month’s discussion is focused on Season 5 of 24, which premiered in January of 2006.
It contains SPOILERS for the entire series of 24 and strong language. Parental discretion is advised. Discussion occurs in real time.
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Jeff
In season 5, 24 is on the decline. It’s not that the show is bad, but unfortunately it recycles several old ideas and brings us new characters and situations we never knew we didn’t want.
At CTU we get unwitting mole (and Chloe banger) Spenser Wolff, post-LOTR Sean Astin as Lynn McGill, the requisite “suit from Division” who comes in and messes everything up (along with his meth-head sister), Soul Man himself, C. Thomas Howell, as Kim’s psychologist/boyfriend, Barry, and also Miles Papazian. I hate Miles Papazian.
Elsewhere we get a love story between Aaron Pierce and Martha Logan. We get a candidate for worst non-season-6 episode, in which a Russian sex slave goes all Mrs. Ortega on her captor. Worst of all, we get an overly complex hierarchy of foreign and domestic villains involved in a plot hatched by weasely Charles Logan, whose evil is revealed in the most high-stakes ridicu-twist this side of season 6.
There are still classic 24 moments, scissor meets neck, submarine showdown, Walt Cummings’ beating, kneecapping Miriam Henderson and Jack choking half of the cast (seriously: Walt, Curtis, Barry, Collette, Audrey, Miles, Bierko). However, characters like Curtis and Edgar get brushed aside, with the former sitting out 6 episodes, and the latter sidelined until he catches a case of nerves, er, nerve gas. Chloe gets more of the same-old, secretly helping Jack on no less than three separate occasions. By the end of the season we meet her never-before-mentioned ex-husband, Morris. Sadly, he’s here to stay.
More baffling: Continue reading
Mass Effections: I Am Not a Hero
At their core, video games are mechanisms for people to play out their hero fantasies. Most of us don’t get the chance to be the sort of hero we grow up revering. The guy who charges a machine gun nest to relieve pinned down comrades. The gal who rushes into a burning house to save someone else.
We all want to be heroes and video games make for a painless way to “prove” that we are.
Some games give you classic heroes. Their honor, courage, and nobility are all that’s required to stack up a pile of corpses large enough to save the day.
Other games give you anti-heroes. They save the day by amassing an equally impressive pile of bodies, but through the POWER OF SARCASM.
Others still feature reluctant heroes. They require a catalyst, usually an attack on something or someone they love, before they save the day via a pile of corpses.
Also common are unlikely heroes. They are just an average Joe or Josephine; a common person who must create an uncommonly large pile of corpses to save the day.
At the root of it all is the belief that we would be heroes if only given the opportunity.
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Mass Effect lets you be your own sort of hero. You can be the product of a spacefaring family, a poor Earth orphan, or a survivor of a colony wiped out by slavers. Although I am of Earth, the colonial option sounded closer to my agrarian roots.
You also get to choose your backstory. You can be the sole survivor of a mission gone wrong, a war hero who single-handedly repelled an invasion, or a renegade who ruthlessly completes the mission regardless of cost.
Without a personal connection to any of them, I picked the war hero.
We all want to be heroes.
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I don’t have the physical courage necessary to be a hero.
That doesn’t make me a total coward. I probably have intellectual courage. I don’t settle for easy answers and I’m not afraid to question my beliefs, even those most cherished. That takes courage.
I have moral courage most of the time. I usually can be counted on to do the right thing. However, I’m also practical enough to choose my battles. Heroes don’t fight the good fight only when it’s easy or convenient. I could stand to improve in that regard.
I do not possess physical courage. Brave a storm of gunfire? Continue reading
Mass Efflections: Introduction
In July of 2009, I wrote a piece about the “10 Best Video Games I’d Played.” It wasn’t a bad list, but four and a half years later, little would be recognizable.
Black Ops II has replaced Modern Warfare. Splinter Cell: Blacklist is up there somewhere now. I’ve played enough Operation: Flashpoints, Gears of Wars, Halos, and Batmans to know that only Fallout 3 and Eternal Darkness would remain on that list today.
There is one other similarity, though: A Mass Effect game would occupy the top spot. In fact, the Mass Effect series would occupy three of the top four spots, with only Bioshock: Infinite making me think twice about a sweep.
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My first Mass Effect playthrough was pretty predictable. I played as a male Shepard, making sure to go paragon on everything. My initial Shepard was super nice, as are pretty much all of my Action RPG characters.
I romanced Liara in Mass Effect. If I had to guess, I was drawn to her innocence in a cold, unforgiving universe. Or something like that. Sadly for her, I moved on to Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2 because Yvonne Strahovski. I don’t think I need to explain more, although I’m sure I will later.
This time, the rules are simple: Continue reading
A Holiday I Don’t Hate
Hello. In case we haven’t met, I’m the douchebag that hates everything fun. I figuratively poop New Year’s parties. I’m a boo-humbug in October. I wouldn’t celebrate my birthday if my friends (bless their hearts) didn’t drag me out of the house. I ignore so many reasons for joy that they don’t even have terms for me for each and every occasion.
No, really. Here’s proof that I can piss on every holiday on the Federal calendar:
New Year’s Day – The day we celebrate our arbitrary timing for changing a number.
Washington’s Birthday – Thanks, guy who won our independence. And we thank you by celebrating your birthday on a day that’s never your birthday.
Memorial Day – The day we memorialize our veterans by continuing to ignore their medical and emotional needs. New seasonal-wear!
Independence Day – We celebrate the day we said we were independent, rather than the day we actually were.
Labor Day – Great job, workers. Now, back at it. These sales aren’t gonna sell themselves.
Columbus Day – Columbus was a douche.
Veterans Day – Okay, this one’s pretty damn legit. Maybe something about no one knowing how to pronounce it? “Vetrens Day?” “Vennerans Day?”
Thanksgiving Day – Hey, remember that one time we got along with Native-Americans before we drove them off their continent?
Christmas Day – Y’all know this is in December to co-opt indigenous religious holidays to hasten their conversion to Christianity, right?
Seriously, that took no time at all. My typing can’t keep up with my cynicism.
Thankfully, even my cold, dead heart softens a bit on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Sure, I could ramble off something cynical about holiday tokenism and probably be correct. However, if any one person deserves his own holiday, it’s MLK.
Today, you’ve undoubtedly heard the same four lines of his “I Have a Dream” Speech. You’ve heard that King was the leader of the American-American Civil Rights Movement. You’ve heard that he was a great voice for equality in the United States.
None of those things are wrong, but they are not why MLK was so damn important.
He taught us to not only refuse to fight back, but also to refuse to hate back. He knew that hate cannot be harnessed, but can only corrupt. He knew that nothing is more powerful than forgiveness. A person who turns the other cheek awakens another’s shame.
He also understood that a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It’s why he endangered his domestic progress by speaking out against the Vietnam War. It’s why he spoke out against a society that refused to allow those born into poverty an equal opportunity to succeed. He was concerned for all people, not just his people.
Most of all, MLK is important because HE WAS RIGHT. Certainly, violence can bring about change. However, only nonviolence can bring about justice, which is the only foundation for lasting peace. We’ve seen it in India and South Africa. Sadly, we saw it only briefly in the United States. No one was able to fill King’s shoes.
That’s why we celebrate today. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the greatest voice for love, forgiveness, and justice the world’s ever seen. That’s why MLK Day is important.
Or at least, why it should be.
24: The Longest Dead Series Discussion of Our Lives – Season Four
“IN WHICH AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE MEETS AN IMPLAUSIBLE OBJECT”
24 is a groundbreaking and important television series. Beyond the thrills, kills, twists and tragedies is a show that reached a new level of serialized storytelling and set the bar for action and suspense on network television. Lasting for 8 full seasons–192 Episodes plus a TV movie–24 is one of the longest-running shows of the past 15 years. Others, like Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, Smallville, all three CSIs and three of four Law & Orders, may have run longer, but the argument can be made that none of those shows are equally as worthy of contributing to the debatably labeled and vaguely-defined “Third Golden Age of Television Drama” that began with The Sopranos in 1999 and is now fading with the end of Breaking Bad and the impending finale of Mad Men. Perhaps 24 doesn’t quite reach the dramatic heights of those shows, or others like The Wire and Deadwood, or even The Shield, Lost or Battlestar Galactica, but it was always a strong awards and ratings contender and it was just so addicting and fun to watch.
Please join us—Patches, Zach, Jeff and MegaMix—as we take a look back at this series, discussing one season every month until the premiere of the new 12-episode miniseries 24: Live Another Day in May 2014.
This month’s discussion is focused on Season 4 of 24, which premiered in January of 2005.
It contains SPOILERS for the entire series of 24 and strong language. Parental discretion is advised. Discussion occurs in real time.
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MegaMix
Whew! Season three was good. Like, REALLY good. So, what now? Where do we go from here?
From the start of 24’s fourth season, there is the sense of a radical shift in the style of storytelling the producers are utilizing. Instead of using three season-long arcs as they had for the previous days, they chose to adopt the “barrel-through-a-series-of-disasters” method that creates a relentless pace of intensity not seen before on the show. “Hold onto your butts!”
In some ways, this was a pretty interesting way to tell the new developments in Jack Bauer’s life, but not so much in others. This approach allowed the show to become the “action” series for which it would become most well-known, however, it ultimately takes away from the show’s ability to connect with new characters and create relationships like it had for three years. For me, this season comes off as an ultraviolent step in a direction counter to that which made the show great to this point. Continue reading
My Evening with LeBron James
Sixteen years ago, I attended my first NBA game. It was a DARE field trip and a Minnesota Timberwolves team on the cusp of relevance was playing the Utah Jazz. Karl Malone was there. John Stockton was there. Tom Gugliotta was probably there. I bought a David Robinson pennant. I peed next to Flip Saunders.
Sixteen year later, I attended my second NBA game, mostly to see LeBron James.
I’m no fan of LeBron. I’ve poked plenty of fun at him in the past and he broke my heart beyond description during last year’s Finals. Even if I always hate him, he now commands my eternal respect. Watching him play basketball live was beyond beautiful; it was frightening.
It isn’t just that he’s large. And powerful. And fast. And graceful. It’s that he combines all of those things together in a way that makes “violent” the only proper adjective.
LeBron James plays basketball like the US Marine Corps conducts war. It’s surgical, it controls the tempo (usually fast), it’s powerful, and it is both emotionless and remorseless in its precision.
So, yeah. James and the Heat beat the hometown Wolves 103-82. Everyone had their scrubs in by the middle of the 4th quarter. But, I got to see the best in the world.
A Documentary a Day III: The War of 1812
(Ed: Scoring system explained here)
The War of 1812 (History Channel, 2004) **
Save yourself the time. Watch PBS instead.
If you love Baltimore, New Orleans and Washington D.C. and hate Tecumseh, Decatur, Macdonough, and Perry, then watch this film. If you think America chased off the British with two battles, then watch this film. If you think it’s important to dwell on the British raping and burning the Chesapeake coast while giving one sentence to America doing the same in Canada, then watch this film. If you think an English admiral with an axe to grind is “obsessive” while an American general with the same is just “looking for payback,” then watch this film. If you want re-enacting and computer graphics, then watch this film. If you want to learn something, watch PBS’s The War of 1812 instead.
The War of 1812 (PBS, 2011) ****
I typed the above review without ever having seen PBS’ The War of 1812. Thankfully, it was as good as I expected. Where the History Channel went focused on two battles and a handful of men, PBS tried to tell the entire story, incorporating American, British, Canadian, and Native-American History together in a fascinating examination of this weird, small, forgotten stalemate.
The most interesting part of the program is their examination of the historiography of the war. The War of 1812 looks at the myths that grew from the war and how every nation involved seemed to perceive the conflict differently. Americans, British, and Canadians all have reasons to claim victory, even if the result of the war was 4,000 KIA and a return to the status quo. The only thing everyone seems to agree upon is that Native-Americans were the primary losers. Following Tecumseh’s death, tribal nations lost massive tracts of land and would never again come together to stop America’s expansion westward.
A Documentary a Day II: The American Revolution
(Ed: Scoring system explained here)
The American Revolution (History Channel, 2006) ****
The History Channel’s thirteen-part (Get it? Thirteen?) documentary series on the American Revolution is a triumph of historical storytelling. It’s a staggeringly complex, yet imminently watchable, retelling of the American struggle for self-determination and independence.
The American Revolution is organized very effectively. It does a marvelous job separating the wheat from the chaff, discussing only the most important events and concepts. Every episode focuses on a major arc or idea, usually blending political, social, and military history together to form a coherent central narrative.
The series goes far beyond the simplistic treatment that pervades discussion of our nation’s founding. Concepts are explored in depth and stories are told from multiple perspectives. Women and minorities are seamlessly included. The British are humanized. It’s not just good television; it’s good history.
That’s not to say the series is perfect. Continue reading
The Places You’ll Go
Not that I need additional motivation to turn more of this map red, but just in case…
Nothing But The Rain 