The Michael Canfield Channel

Charles Schulz / "Mad Men" / Radio Lab

"But in the mid-1950s a large part of [Schulz's] public consisted of good, plain people who felt guilty at being discontented in an epoch of unprecedented prosperity. Peanuts struck a chord with those who had thought they had everything they wanted only to discover that they didn't, and needed an acceptably gentle reminder of this insight."

-- David Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts pg 342.

Mad Men begins at the dawn of the sixties but the same dynamic is in play. Today the existential anxiety is coming from the unprecedented level of possibilities the connected world promises to offer (or should that be threatens to offer), as discussed in the first part of WNYC's Radio Lab latest program "Choice" with it description of new college grads frozen into inaction from fear of making decisions -- each decision taken represents an elimination of some tantalizing (and now lost) hypothetical opportunity.

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Tags: science fiction, starbuck obama, bsg

New "Heroes" post up

Of episode 13 "The Fix" at TvS. Takei!

Here's a snip, a mini-editorial on how I feel about George Takei being cast in the show:

Some viewers aren't looking to give Takei much of a chance, based on web chatter I've seen. I like Takei. He barely makes an appearance tonight, but the single shot of his stony visage as he stares down Hiro in fatherly disappointment is enough to make me willingly decide to forget Sulu for the purposes of enjoying Heroes. Takei is having a resurgence right now, and that is only part of a long and distinguished career. Meet him halfway. If the audience gives him the chance they would give any other well-known face in a new role I expect they will see he can do the character and the show justice.

My review of NBC's "Heroes" fall finale

has been up at TV Squad a couple days now.

And here's some thoughts by Michael Wentz and Wil Wheaton about the show. The general consensus being, and I concur,  Heroes doesn't annoy with endless meandering and dropped threads ala a certain ABC deserted island classic ...

The Wire: Boys of Summer

My coverage of The Wire (S04E01): Boys of Summer should be up by now...

(Somewhat, but not hugely, spoilerific.)

Everybody should watch "The Wire"

I'll be covering The Wire season 4, which starts September 10th for TV Squad which I am quite happy about. It's the best show on television  (beating out all the other best shows on television such as BSG, Deadwood, and even the previous bestest best shows on television like Six Feet Under and The Sopranos.) Good news for those without HBO. Seasons 1 and 2 have been out on DVD for awhile, and season 3 (which is even better than season 1) should be out soon is also out now.

You should watch this. I am not kidding. And give it a couple episodes, because the pace is different than a lot of TV.  What looks like just another cop show, is really a sweeping tragedy, an epic story of our times. If you like rich, profound portrayals of the human condition, you will be moved by it. If not ... fuck it.

The carrot

Rainn Wilson answers questions (in character as "Dwight" from TV's "The Office") for Forbes:

Getting ahead at 'The Office' - Aug. 14, 2006.

[snip]

And moving in the other direction, do you have any tips on managing from below?

Keep the subordinates in line, use the carrot and the stick, but use the carrot like, the same way you would the stick.

So beat them with it.

Exactly.

The horror ... the horror

'Masters of Sci Fi' a series of six episodes of stories adapted from Heinlein, Kessel, Walter Mosely, Sheckley, Howard Fast, and (of course) Harlan Ellison* will be on ABC next year. It's from the same company that produced "Master of Horror" on Showtime last year, which I found wretched, tedious, and inept.  So ... yippee.

*Update 3:25 pm. Oops forgot the trademark symbol after H*rl*n *ll*s*n. Hope I don't get sued!

TV Stuff

They've allowed me to expand a little at TVSquad and post on some news and other interesting stuff, so those of you who stop by this page, but never watch TV, can now be spared some of my obsessions over it, and those who do share them, can start here: Exposing the Hanso Foundation, or here: Terry O'Quinn misses the old Locke too.

South Park

[Via TV Squad] found a Penn (of Penn and Teller) interview Trey Parker (of South Park), which got me thinking about the show, which I love. It made me think of the most obnoxious unfunny episode of the year -- the one I found personally offensive -- the hybrid car episode which portrayed all hybrid car owners as smug self-righteous weenies. I don't have a hybrid car (I don't have any car, but when/if the point comes that I need one, I definitely would buy one).