We love fall. No more re-runs (unless you count Iraq and the Republicans imploding), and reality shows are in balance with dramas and sitcoms (unless you count Iraq and the Republicans imploding). It's just so exciting! We just don't know where to start!
Well, yes we do, let's start with our favorite villainess, Ann Coulter, the lithe blonde (well, bad dye-job) in the little black miniskirt who is the Fascist spokesmodel for the far-right-wing conspiracy Hillary Clinton used to talk about before the Republicans appropriated that concept too (changing it to far left, natch).
Mademoiselle Coulter (she hates the French, but she hates feminists more, so let's not call her Ms.), like so many TV folks we are mesmerized by, has been off the tube on summer hiatus. She didn't want to be off the tube, mind you. But she got canned by CNN for being, well, crazy. Then she was bumped from a line-up of speakers at Bob Jones University for being, well, divisive, and it looked like her little brassy star was about to fall from wing-nut heaven.
Thank the Lord for Fox News! There she was, in the anorexic, twitchy flesh, on the September 28 edition of Fox News' Day Side, being, well, crazy and divisive.
She was defending former (as of the day before) House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) after his fourth indictment. Mlle. Coulter attacked everyone who wasn't there, but reporters and liberals were her main targets as she went on her rant. "They want it to be against the law to be a Republican, and they would like us in Guantanamo," she said in her customary banshee shriek, her hair tossing from side to side.
Lest we take her out of context, as Bill Bennett has been asserting the media has done with him — hey, we heard him. He wasn't taken out of context, the full text was actually worse than the clip on the news. Conservatives just need to understand that they really can't say everything they think — we will provide the context.
Coulter was discussing, with Day Side co-hosts Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy, a reporter's question to White House press secretary Scott McClellan, "Is the President concerned that there's a stench of corruption around the Republican establishment in Washington?" Was this guy serious? President Bush doesn't even know what the words mean, let alone their implication.
"The stench of corruption means Republicans are in power," Coulter said. This is a little like the line delivered by Robert Duval in Apocalypse Now after the strafing of a Vietnamese village: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." Later she asserted, "They want us all in Guantanamo. And, by the way, I want to say, if you're a Republican in Washington and you haven't been indicted, you're doing something wrong."
Isn't she, well, fun? Although she does have a point. We wouldn't be adverse to seeing Mlle. Coulter in Guantanamo. Somehow we think if someone pissed on her Book of Common Prayer, she'd raise the kind of ruckus that would get the place shut down in a nanosecond.
Woman power
Seeing Mlle. Coulter again made us think about women in power in Washington. This, of course, led us to what we consider the absolute worst new show of the fall season, ABC's Commander-in-Chief. (Actually, the worst new show of the season is ABC's remake of the terrific old scarefest Night Stalker. Cheesy beyond belief, with bad special effects. As its star, with an American accent, Stuart Townsend just isn't very sexy. Besides, the WB's Supernatural follows the exact same premise and is terrific: sexy guys and real chills.)
First, a disclaimer. We love NBC's The West Wing, which, except for one faltering season in 2003, has been a beacon of Emmy-winning and Emmy-caliber writing and acting. It's the best show about politics ever, and this season is no exception. Where else can you get a civics lesson (usually more than one) while being entertained with snappy writing, superb acting and rapid-fire dialogue, an insider view of the Beltway (the show's consultants are former White House insiders from Bush I and Clinton Administrations) and be left teary-eyed and grateful to be an American (that sure doesn't happen much in real life these days)?
We are partial to WW. That said, we were prepared to enjoy another smart show about insider politics, with the added enticement of a woman President. So we tuned in, along with 18 million other Americans, to last week's premiere of Commander-in-Chief.
Here's the ludicrous premise: Academy Award-winner Geena Davis plays MacKenzie Allen, Vice President to Teddy Roosevelt Barnes, who despite being young and virile, has had a stroke. His deathbed wish is that Allen resign and let Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (played with a long-haired Dr. Strangelove ghoulishness by Donald Sutherland) assume the Presidency.
Adding to the suspension-of-disbelief factor is that Allen is an Independent who was a college President (the name of the institution is wisely left off the table when she meets with Barnes in a diner ) who spent one term in Congress. Barnes himself is a Republican. He asked Allen to be his running mate to woo female voters — because they are so easily wooed in the Republican Party by Independent female college professors, just ask Mlle. Coulter. But he never expected his one-trick pony to assume the Presidency. On his deathbed he says he wants Templeton, who will "implement his programs" and "shares his vision," which after seeing Sutherland, one can only imagine is some sort of American Third Reich.
Fast-forward. After meeting with Templeton, Allen decides she will not resign. Her first order of business: threaten to go to war with Nigeria because they are about to execute a woman for adultery. (This last is based on a real-life case, except the Bush Administration did nothing. Former Pres. Clinton, with the UN, intervened, and the woman's life was spared.)
Aside from the ridiculous series of premises, Davis is woefully miscast. One would as easily believe Pamela Anderson in the role. Davis is wooden, oddly dressed and wears far too much garish makeup. Allen is not like any woman we've ever met: utterly inhuman, yet incapable of decision-making until the final five minutes of the show. We, like Barnes, don't want her to be President. In fact, we want to run far, far away from her.
The show is disturbingly amoral as well as creepily totalitarian. Barnes is a Republican, and not, we are led to believe, a moderate. Yet he chose the allegedly Independent Allen for his VP. But Templeton asserts — in a vehemently sexist diatribe to Allen where he actually refers to her menstrual cycle more than once — that it was merely a "stunt." Which means Barnes is craven and has no concern for the American voting public (which does signal him as a true Republican), and Templeton has even less.
Factor in the aside that Kyle Secor (Homicide ) plays Allen's sputtering, emasculated, gay-ish husband. Could they find no man in Hollywood as tall as Davis? He is taken on a tour of the "First Lady's" digs and duties, which becomes a veiled slam at Hillary Clinton. "Mrs. Clinton had too much staff — it didn't go over well." "Mrs. Clinton did this, didn't do that — it didn't go over well."
We're all for fair and balanced, but Commander-in-Chief is neither. If we believed in conspiracy theories, we might think it was meant to inculcate American voters with the idea that America is not ready for a woman President, for all the reasons that were given for women not being ready for the vote itself. Frankly, if we were to judge based on this appalling piece of drek, we'd have to agree.
Almost as creepy as C-i-C is the idea of Laura Bush invading the feel-good territory of ABC's Emmy-winning Extreme Makeover–Home Edition . The First Lady is scheduled to do damage control — uh, we meant help provide homes for folks displaced by Katrina. Not in New Orleans, natch, but in Biloxi, where the folks are more easily controlled. We find the entire concept icky.
Speaking of Katrina and icky, we could write several columns about the TV coverage of Michael Brown's testimony about his role in the disaster, but the late-night talk shows did such a good job, we needn't repeat. Our favorite was Jimmy Kimmel, who did commentary over a split-screen of Brown talking about what a great job he did and shots of the havoc in New Orleans. When Kimmel's on, he's on. ("Brown blamed everyone, including his parents for raising him wrong.")
Speaking of on, Melissa Etheridge was so on, singing her heart out on last week's Oprah and looking amazingly good for a woman who just went through grueling breast-cancer surgery and treatments. In fact, we would say she is in top form. She looks better than ever and sounds fantastic. Her message — a combined one of love for her sweet, talented wife Tammy Lynn Michaels (Popular) and hope for recovery for cancer victims — was super. We liked her before, we love her now. This is what Oprah does best: shows that spotlight real people who have overcome tremendous odds and inspire the rest of us.
Finally, the new season has spawned numerous alien adventures with terrorist overtones, most of which are fabulous. But on the September 28 Nightline, the spotlight was on the looming possibility of a real attack of killer proportions: avian flu. The show was scarier than Lost, Invasion, Surface and Threshold put together. Envision between five million and 150 million dead, borders closed and the world in chaos. Factor in that the US is way down the list of countries to acquire the drug to treat it because BushCo didn't prioritize.
This story is just beginning to hit the tube, but expect to see more on it in coming weeks. Good Morning America devoted much of its October 1 show to the topic. ABCnews.com at the Nightline site has a series of reports on the impending pandemic. Stay tuned.