Could this be? Do my eyes and ears deceive me?

Is Saturday Night Live funny again? I never… *sniff* umm… I mean… *sniff*

Sorry. Got a little choked up there. I just never thought I would type those words.

Oh, Barak, Bringer Of Light, is there nothing you haven’t made better?

This is all wild speculation, of course, but I think that it not only fits but would be amazing television.

I know that some of you don’t like to think about this stuff and don’t want to potentially ruin the surprise, so it’s behind a “more” link. Click below to bask in my cleverness.

Still here? Good.

I predict that

• Near the end of the season, the Colonials and Cylons arrive at the Earth
• Adama’s role in history was to show the Cylons the way to earth, not the Colonials
• Thus it is revealed that William Adama, Colonial Admiral and bedrock of the surviving humans, is also the fifth and final Cylon.
• In the final episode, the Cylons kill the last of the Colonials
• The big, final reveal is that it was the Cylons who ultimately populated the Earth, and we are descended from them, not the Colonials

So say we… um… So says me.

The last few episodes of the “mini season” had been merely so-so, however, and I was starting to worry that they’d run out of steam. I loved the resistance on New Caprica episodes, but the “final five” bit got really strange (and not in a good way), and I was starting to worry that they were going Twin Peaks on me.

Last night’s episode proves that they haven’t lost any of what made the show great. It was six months worth of plot and excitement, packed into forty minutes of TV.

What makes the show so appealing is that it focuses on the humanity of the story. The science fiction stuff is just window dressing, and often provides only the barest of pretense for the stories. It’s a show about love and honor, about people making catastrophic mistakes and living with the consequences, and about how sometimes there are truly hard decisions with only bad choices available — intelligently written and well acted.

It’s got all of that AND killer robots, beautiful women, space battles, betrayals, and ray guns!

Best. Show. EVAR.

Check out this interview with executive producer David X. Cohen.

Writing is in progress, and they’re just starting animation. Watch for the full 22 minute version of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad!

My recollection of those evenings is mostly about her, but I remember genuinely liking Star Trek as well. A bit over the top, sure, but all in good fun.

Anyway, fast forward twenty years and three kids. Upon seeing that G4 is running the old Star Treks, we decided to watch an episode for nostaliga’s sake. By coincidence, it was The City on the Edge of Forever. That’s one of the good ones, and it won various awards for writing. So we opened some wine and watched. You can’t go home again.

Wow, what a stinker. Community theater quality. The cast blame typecasting for carreer troubles, but I think that the truth both is sadder and simpler: later casting directors had seen the show. It’s really hard to believe that any of them ever worked again. Shatner has to be physically restrained from chewing on the sets. That famous, hazy Kirk-POV whenever he looks at a woman really just makes it seem like he needs glasses.

Seriously, it looks like a bad fan film. Did I really used to like this? I remember other things I liked back then, so the only conclusion I can come to is that the show has received a halo from it’s association with The Girl.

This is kind of the same experience I had watching some old home video taken when Deana was pregnant with our youngest. I took the videos, and I clearly remember thinking how great she looked that day. Curvy and ripe and appealing. Not only was she incredibly sexy, but pregnancy itself was magical. Needless to say, I was a bit surprised upon watching the videos to see that she looked about as sexy as a tug boat. Watching the video, with years separating me from her emotions and her powerful chemistry, I have the same reaction that I do when I see any hugely pregnant woman I’m not married to: I think, “Poor thing, that looks uncomfortable”. Pretty much the opposite of sexy.

Man, those pheremones are some powerful stuff.

They are launching a web product called “innertube”, promoting it as “innertube”, marketing it as “innertube”… but they don’t own
innertube.com. The actual CBS innertube product is over at CBS.com.

Normally I would say that this is just amateur behavior by a clueless corporation, but it’s worse than that. Why? Because several months ago AOL released in2tv without owning in2tv.com.

That’s right, CBS didn’t just make an embarrassing, stupid, amateur mistake. They made the same embarrassing, stupid, amateur mistake that another high profile company made just months before.

Yeah, the iTunes guys must be terrified.

Sure, he claims to spend all that time in Vegas golfing, but I think we all know the truth: He’s there for the shows. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Nobody ever needs to know how many times you’ve seen Celine Dion.

Well, joy of joys, thanks to the blessed interweb you can make your own cut of the ad! They’ve put up a special site where you can wallow in everything there is to know about this masterpiece. Download the music as an MP3, or print out the sheet music and gather the family for a sing along! Like the costumes? They provide drawings and behind the scenes photos so you can make your own. There’s a making-of video. This one’s for you, Doc. Have it your way.

PS – All kidding aside, what the hell were they thinking? A small army of people is required to mount a production like this. They worked on it every day for months. Why did nobody ever say, “wait a minute! This is horrible! Let’s do something else, or even nothing.” I mean, it’s not like they show up at the office one day and there’s a video tape waiting. There are weeks of meetings and design reviews. Dozens of people have to approve every aspect. Casting, set design, choreography, music, costumes, and a million other things. There are days of rehearsal and shooting. When the dailies came back, why didn’t they just do the right thing and burn them?

Ronald wept.

Having read that, you’ve probably guessed by now that I’m one of those wack jobs who loves superbowl ads.

Yup. Busted.

I could not name the two teams who played and have no idea who won, but the first thing I did when I sat down at my interweb kiosk this morning was to go looking for a web site that had all of the superbowl ads posted.

So yes, I pay TiVo so I can watch TV without the ads and I pay Adelphia so I can watch ads without the TV.

I’m a complicated guy.

So anyway,
Stunt City was the best (I love the little beat at the end when the coffee is too hot), but the Hummer ad and the Bud Light ad with the bear were also good.

There were a few dumb ones that had good punch lines. The FedEx ad and the Bud Light ad with
the revolving wall both made me laugh.

Most of them were pretty standard, but some companies might just as well have made a big bonfire with the money. Emerald Nuts… what the hell was that?
The Blockbuster ad reeked of desparation and actually made me feel sad for them (quite a feat, considering how much I hate that company). Finally, Ford using Kermit to sell a car? That’s just freaking evil.

There are also a bunch of GoDaddy ads that never ran on TV, but the less said about them the better. “Remember when we did that funny thing five years ago? That was cool.” We get it; Your product is a commodity so you’re trying to sell it with sex but those repressed starched shirts just won’t let you. You’re rebels. Next.

Wow. People suck.