by Robin Reed
Well, they didn’t tell me. I am the target audience for any show with a science fiction, fantasy, or horror premise. I will watch anything in those genres. And Stephen King – I have two shelves devoted to his books. I haven’t caught up with “The Colorado Kid” yet, a short novel of Mr. King’s from a few years ago, but if I had heard a hint of a TV show being made that was based on it, I would have been there to check it out.
Time to stop being so serious. I want to mention something that even the most jaded adult secretly loves: cartoons. Not just Adult Swim either, where you can feel hip and ironic about watching cartoons with swearing and violence. No, I want to talk about cartoons actually meant for kids. Specifically, I want to talk about “Phineas and Ferb.”
This show is so strange, so creative, and so damn cool that I can hardly stand it. And it’s on the Disney Channel, not usually a hotbed of actual goodness. (Though I was also fond of “Kim Possible.”) Hard core cartoon fans remember the 1990’s Warner Brothers TV shows, from “Tiny Toons” to the immortal “Pinky and the Brain.” I haven’t heard anyone raving about anything on the Disney Channel.
I have now seen two (count ’em) two episodes of “Alphas.” My immediate response is, “Hey Alphas, The X-Men called and they want their plot back.”
Let’s see, an “inevitable war between normal people and alphas,” the government imprisoning alphas because they are a threat to normal people, a shadowy character who wants to lead the bad alphas to that inevitable war, a professor who tries to teach the good alphas to control their abilities and use them for good…shall I go on?
Physicists say that you can’t observe an atom or subatomic particle without changing it. I have begun to wonder, in the cable reality TV shows that I watch, how TV changes its subjects. Is a fur trapper in Alaska in danger when his plane won’t start? What if he has a TV crew with him? Surely they have their own plane and can give him a ride.
The Ghost Hunters were plumbers when the show started, but they haven’t mentioned that for a while. How much does the show pay? Do the American Pickers really need the small profits from each item or is the TV show paying more than their original business ever could?
Last week, I talked about my history as a television viewer. Now let’s talk about something more recent.
First, one final nostalgic show reference: I always watch “The Wild Wild West” when I come across it. I don’t know why.
