Shows with Promise

It's not like Jason and I need to add more TV show watching to our schedule, but I do like when a new show shows some promise. So far we really enjoyed Modern Family and The Good Wife. We're trying not to add too many news ones since we're both trying to get some semblance of a life now. Accidentally On Purpose and Cougar Town we're only okay, so if we miss those it won't be the end of the world. We're going to try out Trauma and The Middle next week to see how that is, but I think that's where we're going to stop.

P.S. Mia if you're reading this we should get together Thursday nights for Survivor. Do you watch Grey's, I saw you watch the Office? Talk to you soon. Oh and do you watch Dexter, that starts tomorrow? We're so excited.

Survivor: Undisputed King of "Reality"

I love Survivor. Love it! Never thought, years ago, that I'd hear myself say that, but it is some of the best television available today. And I was one of those people that poo pooed "reality" TV pretty heavily during its genesis. "Real World", "Big Brother", and "Survivor" were all part of the same "watering down" of American culture. None of it was "real" anyway. As an editor I know that a skilled one of my kind, given enough raw footage can tell any story they like, irrespective of "reality." And if you're creating fiction, why not have it be scripted.

I was so wrong. About Survivor at least. Years ago friends talked me into watching it. Begrudgingly I agreed, and I've been hooked ever since. On its surface the show is simple. Strand 18 or so people in some far-off, forbidding landscape without stable food or water supplies and have them battle each other for a million dollars. But that so belies the complexity of the game.

You have competing individual personalities, alliances that shift constantly, back-stabbing and blindsides, deep personal connections between players, as well as colossal disagreements. And what these people are enduring is no boyscout camping trip. I've seen tribes go a week or more with little food and only rainwater to drink. I've seen injuries bad enough that people have had to be removed from the game. And I've routinely seen players come back from facing elimination to winning or nearly winning the game. It's all about strategy and cunning, playing to your strengths, whatever they may be. And knowing yourself. Knowing what you are and aren't capable of. Knowing when to extend yourself, and when to ride the flow. Knowing the sort of player you are, and being able to successfully read the sorts of people you're up against. It is the sort of game that would be extremely fun (and difficult) to play, and is equally as entertaining to watch.

And yes, it is superbly edited. Doing the job, I can imagine what the editors are up against. It would be a blast (and hell) working on that show. They manage to ween 39 days worth of footage into roughly fourteen or fifteen 46 minute long shows. That is a colossal cutting ratio! Quite an endeavor, and one that's brilliantly carried off.

I'm still not a fan of all reality TV. I don't like the shows that play to the worst elements of human nature. Shows that are all spectacle with little or no redeeming qualities. That's the stuff that's watering down American culture. The shows that glorify stupidity, recklessness and callous greed. Survivor is not a member of that cabal.

Survivor is great entertainment, pulling in action, intrigue, sport and physical competition, strategy and mental discipline, wrapping it all up in a very difficult fight for survival. If someone says they dislike the show they've either never watched it, watched only a very small portion with strong preconceptions, or they're communists.

Survivor was one of the first, and it remains a benchmark of what reality television should strive for.

OLEDs: You May Not Know What They Are, But You'll Want One

OLEDs are to video display technologies what the printing press was to written communication. They are game changers. Here's a pop culture reference to drive home the power of this technology. If you've seen the Harry Potter movies, you've seen the magical newspapers with moving video playing on them. OLEDs will give muggles a shot at them.

OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode. We're all familiar with LEDs. They're the little colored indicator lights we see in electonics everywhere, among other things. They are solid-state electronic components that give off light when an electrical current flows through them. OLEDs are different. The light emitting component here is not a solid-state element. It's a thin film of organic compounds. So you can use them to make very thin screens. Absurdly thin screens. Televisions the depth of playing cards. Like this screen, which is made of plastic, and is flexible.



How #$%* cool is that!? Pair that with printable electronics; organic electrical components that can be printed on paper, plastic and other non-conventional materials, and you can see how Harry Potter's magic paper isn't so magic. And I was thinking of other, more interesting uses for flexible display screens.

Imagine if the body of your car were coated in OLED display plastic. You could change the color and pattern of your car instantly. Constantly if you wanted to. Displaying ads on business vehicles would be a breeze, complete with moving video. Ultimately clothing could also be imprinted with video capabilities. You could eventually "paint" a television right onto your wall. Truly anything could function as a video display mechanism.

And, since, at their heart OLEDs are just lights, you could design some pretty wild home lighting options. Imagine window drapes treated with OLEDs that would glow at night and illuminate your living room. Or pressure sensitive OLED coated carpets that illuminate just the part of the room you're standing in. Or, if you were inclined, benches fitted with cameras that display a glowing image on their surface of the last person that sat on them.

OLEDs will revolutionize just about everything.

You Had Me at "Lost"

I used to not watch any television. Now I watch far too much. But all of that mind-pulping, eye-glazing time is well spent because it brought me to "Lost."

What a brilliant show! Not since Twin Peaks has there been a more convoluted, non-linear story arc on television. The writing is impeccable. The characters are well-developed and engaging. The tension from episode to episode can be sleep-disturbing. And the story depth is unmatched. After the second season I was terrified that maybe the writers were just throwing in new story elements willy-nilly, with no thought to pay-off or narrative development. For the most part that's proven to be completely untrue. While there are a few details that seem to have been abandoned, most things have managed to tie into what is becoming a masterful twine ball of a story.

I'll sum up the story for those of you that haven't started watching without giving anything away. Something happens to a bunch of people, and after a time they think they have it worked out. They don't. A whole mess of crazy stuff happens to them. They process it and think they have it worked out. They don't. They break into smaller groups, hoping to mull over and work out their new circumstances. This fails miserably, leading them further down the rabbit hole, deeper into confusion and crazed in-fighting. Then, a Eureka moment! Something makes sense. A light in the darkness. They finally understand what's going on!

Except they don't.

That's the sort of ride you're in for once you plug your brain into the "Lost" universe. It's a frustrating, aggravating, and delightfully confusing experience interspersed with epiphanous periods of deep understanding. If you're a TV junkie, you need to add lost to your roster. If you don't watch television, make an exception for this show. If you don't own a television, break into your neighbors house while they're on vacation and watch the series on DVD. Do whatever you have to do...knock over a Best Buy if need be. Just watch the show.

It's the best 46 minutes (skipping commercials) on television.