Catching Up...

So here's the mini-version of posts on recent DVD-TV watchings:

Boston Legal, Season 1: Very amusing, and much moreso for the fact that in the back of your head it's Kirk, Odo, and Murphy Brown running the firm...

Six Feet Under, Season 5: Much better than Season 4, and one of the best series finales ever.

The 4400, Season Two: Again, a big improvement over the mini-series, looking forward to more of that.

The Wire, Seasons one and two: Indeed, the best damn show on television. Stands up to multiple viewings; season three can't show up soon enough...

Next up: A few sf books; early 2006 awards handicaping

Political Mini-rant season again

Any theory of the ethics of warfare which fails to justify the decisions of the Allied General Staff during WWII is profoundly flawed. In fact, any such theory which, if followed, would criminalize those decisions, can be considered to be reducto ad absurdumed out of relevance.

And no, exceptionalism is not the answer.

Best news in DC's October Solicits

(From CBR)

Infernal Triangles, the third Rick Veitch Swamp Thing trade is not only coming out, but will include the Annual #3 that got skipped in the first Veitch volume.

Now, if only they could find some way to reprint "Loose Ends", Alan Moore's first Swamp Thing issue...

MI-5

First series. Mostly good series, evil cliffhanger. However, the first episode displayed a profound lack of understanding about America that one would think any show's editors would have caught somewhere along the line. (There's no state that refuses to extradite criminals to other states because they would face the death penalty. So the offer to land the baddie in a non-death penalty state was worthless on the face before it was even reneged on. Any everyone involved should have known that.)

Commander in Chief

Watched the first four of this one, not sure if I'm going to go back and hit the rest, so profound was the decline in this episode. At this point I simply can't swallow any conceivable reason why the Speaker hasn't gone public with the prior President's dying wishes...

Anyhow, at least some good acting out of Kyle Secor. Strange to see Tim Bayliss becoming a software magnate/prime suspect and then a First Husband in so short a timeframe...

And we're back...

Although not with very much content. Although:

Anyone notice that the latest reprinting of Alan Moore's Future Shock shorts contains all of the Abelard Snazz stories? Including the one that he specifically had removed from the Titan collection because he had inadvertently lifted the plot from a science fiction short story he had ready? Interesting...