Which Battlestar Galactica Glasses Are YOU?

Glasses were created by Man
They evolved
They became progressive and photochromic
There are many brands

After 5 years, I decided it was time to get a new pair of glasses. It's not that I didn't have the insurance all the while, or that I'm reluctant to schedule regular doctor's visits. With the exception of a brief period after getting my two front teeth replaced with platinum rims, I've never even postponed a dental checkup. But optometrists make me nervous. Chalk it up to the pressure...

OPTOMETRIST: Which is better 1 or 2?

NARRAPTOR: 2.

OPT: 2 or 3?

NAR: 3.

OPT: 3 or 4?

NAR: Sorry. Again?

OPT: 3 or 4?

NAR: One more time.

OPT: [sigh]

NAR: Um, 3 is fine. I think.

OPT: 3 or 4?

NAR: 4.

OPT: Okay, now 1 or 2.

NAR: I'm not sure.

OPT: Not sure? Either one is better than the other or there's no change. And stop crying!

NAR: But the light hurts my eyes.

OPT: Look to the left of my ear. LOOK TO THE LEFT OF MY EAR!

...and a bad childhood experience that required me to pass a certain test before they'd consider the option of contact lenses.

Then there's the additional stress of trying on new frames. Not only can't you see how they look from six inches away, but by the time you're handed a "Finding the Right Eyewear" pamphlet, your eyes are dilated and you can't read. You roam the racks, hoping the next frames you pick up aren't on the wrong side of the unisex spectrum. Or that they're not completely wrong for you but no one will say so. You don't want to be the guy you saw leaving the store minutes earlier trying to convince himself that he made the right blind guess.

GUY: I can't see and need an honest opinion. How do these look?

SALES REP 1: It's good. You look like that comedian. Fellow sales associate, what do you think?

SALES REP 2: It's a look.

GUY: It is a look.

SALES REP 1: Like Drew Carrey.

GUY: What do you think, female acquaintance? Will this hinder my game?

FEMALE ACQUAINTANCE: Um...

GUY: It's a look.

FEMALE ACQUAINTANCE: It sure is.

Teh Interweb to the rescue. Not only can you take a Frame Personality Test before you arrive for your exam, but Google and Wikipedia offer what hairdressers have provided customers for years: the opportunity to style yourself after people you see in movies and on TV. There's no People (Who Wear Glasses) magazine for your optometrist to leave in the lobby. But there is Google Images! Forget oval versus square-face scenarios. Are you an HRG or a Hiro?

My FPT results were somewhat accurate, although the test questions did not appear to be for me. I don't know enough about shoes to say that I have a style; if I was a car, I'd either be a Japanese compact with good mileage or something that got points for running over pedestrians and causing awesome damage combos; and if I'm at a social event, I'm either A) thinking about when I can leave or B) the only person in my group that's happy to be there. The only answer I felt confident about was whether I was male or female.

I did the best I could with the multiple choices I was given. But it would have been easier just to point to a picture of Baltar.

No Spoilers

I'm going to break a rule here and not spoil something--unless you consider knowing how awesome something is before you see it a spoiler. If that's the case, skip to the end.

(non-spoiler warning)

I know some crazy people have been hating on it all season and embracing the answers served up on a platter by Heroes (can't wait to see how the fans turn on it halfway through season two!), but Lost is the only serial drama I can think of that has topped its season finales two years in a row. Yes, The Shield has mastered the art of melodramatic anti-climax, and each season of The Wire actually has an epilogue. But to the best of my knowledge, no television series has ever managed to produce compelling cliffhangers post season two. After that, it's always a gun to someone's head, or a division closing for the second time, or someone gets engaged and pregnant and kidnapped in an episode that will change everything until things revert to normal in mid-September, when said character gets rescued in the first ten minutes, rejects their engagement, re-takes their pregnancy test, and discovers it was all a dream.

Yesterday's season finale of Lost was as jaw-dropping as the end of Twin Peaks. But unlike Twin Peaks and its '90s-'00s kin, Lost is in its third year and the network has signed up to see it through to the end.

(non-spoiler warning ends)

If, for some crazy reason, you haven't seen Lost or just gave up at some point, you have until February to catch up. You have no justifiable reason not to.

The NYT Can FOATALWOASP

I wanted to write about Lost last night, but I didn't get around to seeing the first new episode of its 16-week uninterrupted run until 2 AM. And when I went on-line to read and blog about it, I got mad. But I didn't want to write a post titled "The New York Times Can Do Some Stuff And Expire." So I took a day to put things into perspective.

The New York Times can Take A Long Walk Off A Short Pier.

The Hater, my ideological counterpart at The Onion AV Club and pop-intellectual hottie, first brought this item to my attention. You can read the full New York Times review she eviscerates on-line. The majority of NYT content is available on the web for free, which is all any self-respecting genre fan should pay to read it from here on out, unless they actually happen to be anti-abortion activists.

(If you skipped both of those links because this started out about Lost and you either haven't seen it or dislike the show for some reason which is not insane, I urge you to reconsider. The NYT author was too bored with the show to even get the details right, so she spent most of her time ranting about Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, supernatural-lite shows like Medium and The Ghost Whisperer, and comics, fantasy, and sci-fi in general. And for you hardcore fans, I'm sure she would have mentioned Firefly, Farscape, or Buffy if she even knew what they were. You know, if they were an "in" elitist thing to rip on.)

I've waged an active campaign against anti-nerd bias in print media for the last few years. As World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, videogames, and nerdiest of all, teh Interweb, are embraced worldwide, it rankles me when mainstream outlets pay writers who fall back on outdated stereotypes:

"Lost” is at heart a science-fiction thriller, while “Heroes” is more of a comic book, but both genres have a similar appeal: they provide an alternative society for those who don’t fit comfortably into their own. (That is to say, smart, socially awkward adults and all 12-year-old boys.) [NYT excerpt by Alessandra Stanley]

Wait. Television shows with superheroes, epic mysteries, real-world political analogues that feature evil robots, and supernatural procedurals are so popular that you can write about them for a national newspaper, but they are only of interest to pre-teen boys and nerdy adults? Who's really wishing for an alternative society here? For that matter, if a TV show appeals to smart adults, then it has to be smart, too, right?

The NYT can FOATALWOASP. If I want to read uninformed opinions about high-quality genre fiction that requires you to turn your brain on, I can get on the Internet. No one should be paid to be this stupid.

(Edit: I have a lot to say on the subject of ignorant genre criticism, perhaps too much for this post. This article has undergone several edits, and more are anticipated. I refuse, however, to go back and italicize "New York Times.")

Lost Update

The reports come in varying degrees of certainty, some with more cattiness than necessary, but it seems clear that the producers behind Lost intend to wrap things up in a season and a half or two. They're also pushing to air the fourth season episodes consecutively, with no midseason break to irritate the more skeptical and impatient fans.

I consider my defense of the show vindicated. Even if it ends badly, at least I'll know they tried to learn from The X-Files, at a time when Battlestar Galactica steadfastly ignores its lessons and Heroes takes the easy way out by being easy. (Just a guess here, but I bet the T. Rex Hiro encounters is stuffed.)

Six episodes into season 3, we're being introduced to the Others, and there will be a Juliet flashback when the show resumes in a few weeks. It feels like we've already passed the plot's midpoint. It's nice to know the writers and producers feel the same way. Maybe I can justify getting a Hanso Foundation polo shirt now.

Having given up on Battlestar Galactica, the only end game I'm concerned about is the one on The Office. There are a lot of relationships up in the air, and then there's the more vicious brand of office politics courtesy of Andy from Stamford. I'm beginning to understand why the British show closed up shop before exploring all the possibilities of its concept, and let's be honest, totally caved in the series finale. I watch The Office hoping everyone has a happy ending, but it wouldn't be the same if they did.

Do We Really Need Heroes?

As I mentioned yesterday, I watched an unhealthy amount of television last week. I sat through three hours of The Wire, two hours of Heroes, Dexter, Lost, The Nine, The Office, two hours of Battlestar Galactica--oh, and The Venture Bros. As you might expect, George Pelecanos' The Night Gardener is still unfinished on my nightstand.

I am on the fence about Heroes. I had hoped this would be Unbreakable: The Series, and it succeeds with the vibe. However, with so many characters spread across the planet, the pacing was frustrating. (I'm aware that the first two episodes were intended to be a two-hour pilot and that the flow probably suffered when it was recut. We'll see if this improves tomorrow.) Unlike Lost, where you know from the first flashback that, crap, it's a Boone episode, Heroes jumped back and forth between its protagonists throughout the hour. This would be fine if all the characters were interesting, but I spent most of the show waiting for the white people to go away.

Heroes also tried my patience with some of its plot developments. Two characters were improbably arrested for crimes they did not commit in the second episode. The Japanese guy had only been at the scene for a minute when several dozen police officers flooded in and accused him of murder. Where did they all come from, and how could they suspect Hiro of freezing the victim to death and taking his brain out in 60 seconds? It's a good thing none of that has happened yet.

Dexter was an improvement over the novels, though I hope the voice-over will be toned down as the season progresses. The gay guy from Six Feet Under makes a good serial killer, and rather than being complete idiots like they were in the books, the supporting characters are camped up to tolerable levels. They help to round out the over-the-top nature of the premise. I already know the identity of the mysterious serial murderer, but assuming my source continues to tape it for me, I'll stick around for the filler killings along the way.

The Nine was enjoyable despite the presence of several actors I can barely stand. In execution and heart, it reminded me of Boomtown. It was nice knowing you, The Nine.

Rambling aside, Battlestar Galactica, kicked every other show's ass last week. Far from being the ho-hum "reboot" many fanboys fretted over, the premiere was like watching a nightmare. It's the ballsiest political commentary I've seen on TV since Joe Dante showed us zombies eating Ann Coulter. In a time when irony is used ad nauseam to reflect dissatisfaction with the political climate, I guess it takes a drama to deliver a real kick to the viewing public.