Republicans Love 'Breeder' Shows, Democrats Love Mad Men, Says New TV Study | Movieline

Politics and TV habits:

As it turns out, popular shows are watched by Republicans! The Amazing Race, Modern Family, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and The Big Bang Theory, among other Nielsen thoroughbreds, have a larger number of Republican fans than Democrat ones. The reason for this? Basically that Republicans like rooting for a winner. (No wonder so many Yankees fans are also Republicans.)

On the flipside, “critically acclaimed” series like Mad Men, Dexter, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights and Parks & Recreation are watched by Democrats. So, the losers. Of course the fact that Democrats might consider themselves “too cool for school” is only half the issue, according to John Fetto, senior marketing manager for Experian Simmons.

“The big shows with mass appeal tend to have above-average scores from Democrats and Republicans but with higher concentrations of Republicans. Looking at the Democrats side, I don’t mean to make light of it, but they seem to like shows about damaged people. Those are the kind of shows Republicans just stay away from.”

I would have been happier with the shorter version: Republicans watch shows that are stupid; Democrats watch shows that are smart.

Lance Mannion: All the mad men and all the mad women are about to go Galt

An analysis of Mad Men by way of Ayn Rand. Pretty great when you can read stuff like this:

Work, as far as they’re concerned, is not its own reward. They don’t take pride in a job well done because they can never be sure that they will continue to hold that job no matter how well they do it. Someone who can do it better will always come along to impress the bosses and where will that leave them? People who just work don’t have worth no matter how well or hard they work. People who just work are just useful to the people who produce.

Now, The Hobo Code is not an endorsement of their Randian world view. In fact the episode and the entire series is a refutation of the idea that the world of work and business is a world of solitary and independent heroes carrying the parasites along on their broad shoulders.

Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow!

Seagram's whiskey predicted the world we live in today.

China Mieville explains theology, magic, and why JJ Abrams hates you

And so he does:

I've never met [JJ Abrams]. I am not a member of his fan club or anti-fan club. I disliked Cloverfield a very great deal. I disliked Star Trek intensely. I thought it was terrible. And I think part of my problem is that I feel like the relationship between JJ Abrams' projects and geek culture is one of relatively unloving repackaging - sort of cynical. I taste contempt in the air. Now I'm not a child - I know that all big scifi projects are suffused with the contempt of big money for its own target audience. But there's something about [JJ's projects] that makes me particularly uncomfortable. As compared to somebody like Joss Whedon, who - even when there are misfires - I feel likes me and loves me and is on some cultural level my brother and comrade. And I don't feel that way about JJ Abrams.

He also "abjure[s] the comparison between leftist groups and cults" which is good enough for me.

The last Lost spoilers you'll ever read (or not, if you want to stay pure)

How stupid do they think we are? I'll give it a miss.

Charlie Brooker's Screen burn: Amish: The World's Squarest Teenagers | Television & radio | The Guardian

When I'm done being Scandinavian, perhaps I'll be Amish:

This time round, five Amish teens are dispatched to the UK in a bid to prove that – hey! – people are kinda different and kinda the same and gollygosh whoodathunkit?

For the first episode, they're whisked to south London to hang around with a group of street dancers and the occasional ex-gang member. The Amish kids stand out a little in the hood, with their olde-worlde hats and stiff religious backgrounds. And that's the point.

The results are predictably amusing, but in unpredictable ways. Rather than recoiling in horror at the godless lifestyles on display, the Amish kids are largely perplexed and a touch disappointed. For instance, when the London lads sit around indoors playing videogames, their Amish counterparts quickly grow unbelievably bored. Why? Because they'd rather be outside in the barn, fixing tools and carrying out chores. "But there is no barn," they sigh.

In one excruciating sequence, the street-dance crew perform their act – a full-blown Britain's Got Talent number – for the benefit of the Amish, who stare at them with expressions of blank disinterest; not even unimpressed, they're merely confused as to why they've bothered. It's the best critique of street dance I've ever seen.

I admire their naive-hipster rejection of an exhausted pop culture.

Mad Men Season Premiere Recap: Stage Fright -- Vulture

A recap of the season 4 premiere:

The gangs-all-here feel makes for a satisfying sort of reunion show, but in many ways, it's also a show about role-playing: How Don's most challenging creative account is his constant performance and spin — the brand management of himself. Seeing that his old answer to "Who is Don Draper" has become obsolete, Don, and the show, are refreshing and rebranding. Welcome to the reboot.

Which is true, but then again it isn't really. Like all great TV, Mad Men isn't really about its storylines or its historical moment. It simply asks the question: what is the good life and how does one live thoughtfully and authentically in a world of surfaces and commercial transactions? Existentialism 101; authenticity in the face of absurdity and contingency. "Who is Don Draper" is always the only question. The move toward and the dread the comes along with a self-authenticating self-awareness.

Charlie Brooker's Screen burn: Lost & 24 | Television & radio | The Guardian

Charlie Brooker examines "a bunch of irritating people going 'woo' on a rock in the sea":

The plot made less sense than a milk hammock. Jack was apparently no longer Jack, but a man who looked like Jack. He was certainly just as punchably earnest as I remember. There was much kerfuffle over a kind of magic reset button located down a well in the middle of the island. The story ended with alternative-universe-Jack having an existential chat with his dead dad. I remembered Jack's boring daddy issues from the first season; back then they struck me as a spectacularly tedious attempt to give our clean-cut hero some depth. Has any viewer, in the history of film and television, ever actually cared about a lead character's parents? Faced with a character as blankly dull as Jack, I'd be more interested in learning about the tortured background of a piece of office furniture.

24 Finale

Despite my complete mental breakdown in the wake of the Lost "ending," I can state with full confidence that I don't think I missed anything by never having watched 24. So. There.

The Lost Finale Was Incredibly Dumb

Yes, this:

For years, the show's creators and actors have been running the same bullshit line about how Lost is a character-driven show. Here is the thing, though: It is not a character-driven show. It is a show, that has characters! But the characters do not 'drive' the show, except in the sense that they do things that help advance the plot. Because it is a 'plot-driven' show! Lost is a show that is interesting because it has an interesting plot. Frankly, most of the characters suck! Especially Kate. And Jack. And Sawyer. And, really, all of them, except for Ben.

And:

I have taken a creative writing class or two (can you tell?) and do you know this thing they teach you? "Don't end your story with all your characters being dead." It is like cheating. It is worse than cheating! It is the wussiest thing a writer can do. And these smug dickheads went ahead and did it.

Lost Finale comments

Pretty much sums it up:

the limbo church ending could have been tacked onto any season finale of any show.

One-Hundred Unanswered Lost Questions -- Vulture

This.

Lost Bitterness - Heaven Can't Wait

Remember at the end of season one when everyone was like, how will Jack ever meet all his friends in heaven if he wastes his time trying to blow open that obviously unimportant hatch?

Me neither.

Lost Finale Recap: And So It Goes -- Vulture

Vulture gets the last word:

There are many people who loved this finale because they cried and found it moving and it gave them closure and had spiritual resonance.

There are other people who hated this finale because it copped out on the entire sci-fi mystery setup of the show and replaced it with a big goopy spiritual group-therapy sequence, taking once-rich characters and resolving their complex emotional issues with what amounted to a mass Moonie group wedding.

And then there are those who are just happy that Shannon and Sayid got to make out.

Lost was the ultimate long con

io9 looks at the lameness.

Lost Finale, Part 2

Ugh. They went all in on that last half hour forgetting what the show was about in favor of premature nostalgia.

Great episode, bad ending.

Like watching your favorite team lose on a last-minute interception returned for a touchdown.

Lost Finale, Part 1

Half way through the lost finale, and at the very least it's been incredibly entertaining. We may not get the ending we want, but at this point, who cares?

Does Lost Mean Anything?

How do you tell a science fiction story when you don't explain the rules? How do you have characters when you don't provide them with motivation or purpose? Where's the story if there are no stakes, just a lot of things happening at once? How do we react to death and life-and-death decisions when there are no consequences, just alternate realities?

These are the problem that the Lost audience has tried to deal with in Season 6. At this stage, the show is either dazzlingly groundbreaking or another Galactica-sized cluster-fail. The only question I have left is: do the personal struggles of the characters serve the Island (the tiresome Jacob v. MIB conflict), or has the Island acted as a catalyst to help the characters resolve their personal issues in the alt-universe? In other words, why have we followed these characters over the course of 6 seasons? What has been the point? Does the show actually have anything to say?

I'm rooting for the alt-universe because the Island has never been anything but trouble. Magic, smoke monsters, Others: escapist nonsense and false hopes. What really matters is the world and how you live in it, not a lot of crazy mysteries. Where did the Polar bears come from? What do the numbers mean? Who is Jacob? Ultimately, answers to questions lead to more questions, as Mother said, and one MacGuffin unfolds to reveal the next MacGuffin. But how does our desire to create meaning out of noise provide us with any real understanding?

My guess is that it can't, or won't. What Lost needs is a human sized ending that allows Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley and the rest to find their human sized destinies. Not a lot of smoke and mirrors.

What They Died For - Lost

Watched Glee instead of Lost last night. Tells you everything you need to know about who is in charge at my house.

All the same, finding out the identity of Rachel's mother was much more exciting than anything we've learned on Lost this entire season.

Plus Doogie. Plus Whedon.

Newswipe - Series 2 Episode 3

Part One:


Part Two:


Part Three: