I have been enthralled by the new 24 season, which was most unexpected. I had never really gotten into 24 before this year’s episodes. I had watched some season one DVDs with some friends but never was taken in because it seemed to hook you and you weren’t satisfied with each episodes ending.
Now thanks to the 24: Redemption 2 hour episode which alluded to this years seventh season and set a back drop for the show I have been entranced by the writing and plots of each episode so far.
It gets so intense with Jack Bauer being brought in for war crimes, then having to help the FBI track down an unknown terrorist. With the great twist of Tony Almeida being behind the terror plots, I was hooked in from the start. Plus there is a genocidal war going on in Sengala at the same time as the new president being sworn in. You don’t know who to trust and anyone could be playing for the wrong side.
I like the new character Renee Walker, she has some depth and is interesting. Plus the actress playing her does a great job as well. Walker is an FBI agent who goes along with Bauer when things get tough. She even interrogates someone in the same style that Jack would choose. She has a strong personality but still has her feminine side. Her boss has feelings for her and let’s that get in the way of his judgment as he sees Bauer as a threat.
This season deals with torture and the ethical argument of whether it is appropriate to save lives. There is the argument that to get information from “terrorists” you have to use torture or they’ll just ask for lawyers and you’ll never get anything out of them. There is the other side that they are humans and have rights and should never be treated inhumanely. They must be first prosecuted and evidence must prove they’re guilty. After all, what if you torture someone who wasn’t involved in a terror plot, or was framed, or completely innocent. Plus you are giving the government too much power to torture whoever “they deem suspect,” and that is a dangerous tool to give them.
I just take the show for what it is worth, whether I disagree or agree with their political beliefs. It is a fast paced show with tons of actions and twists around every corner. Jack Bauer is one of the best TV characters of all time, and will be such for some time to come.
Here is the video of the recent John Stewart rant against Jim Cramer’s stock picks and Cramer’s retaliation. I think John Stewart is just targeting Cramer because he is one of the few well known stock analysts on TV. Cramer has some valid points about the whole market coming down but he did recommend Bear Sterns.
South park is one of the longest running animated shows in America with a large fan base of fans. South Park just entered their thirteenth season, perhaps stronger than ever.
1. South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have no fear. They will attack anyone if they think it will warrant a good laugh. Sometimes controversial and often attacked by the media and various “offended” personalities, South Park has done the unthinkable. From defaming sacred religious figures, to offending popular celebrities, the South Park duo believes either everything is okay to poke fun at or nothing is.
One example some were appalled at in the media, was when South Park was running an episode in which Satan is holding a Halloween party in Hell in which people are expected to be wearing costumes. Satan spots someone in what appears to be a Steve Irwin costume with a stingray impaling him. Satan remarks on the costume claiming it’s “too soon”, to which the person replies that it’s not a costume, implying it really is Steve Irwin at the party in Hell. To which Satan replied that he must get leave the party as it’s costumes only. Such a scene appalled many on an almost international scale, but Matt and Trey make no apologies and have stood by their work.
2. The fresh ideas. In an industry full of re-hashed plots and boring sequels, South Park has done hundreds upon hundreds of episodes with undeniably original and creative plots. The episode in which McCain and Obama’s attempts at election were really a ruse for an “Ocean’s Eleven” style theft, or in which the South Park boys want to sue Lucas and Spielberg for raping Indiana Jones and at the same time within that very episode Cartman was trying to stop an imaginary invasion of the Chinese as the “American Liberation Front”. It’s hard to imagine these types of episodes being run by any television series other than South Park. Yet the “Look Out Indy” episode had earned South Park one of it’s highest ratings as the shows’ most watched premiere since 1999, despite perhaps offending millions at the same time.
In the end, South Park stands as the lone champion fighting for the right to poke fun at anything and everything in order to provide hundreds of original comedic episodes that have won them one of the largest fan bases in television. Matt Stone and Trey Parker can boldly and proudly take responsibility for millions of laughs, and have helped to bring about change that extends past the borders of their own show as they constantly appear on the news and political talk shows with their bold messages, giving birth to a new group of people who identify themselves proudly as “South Park Republicans” or more recently “South Park Libertarians”. Matt and Trey have hit a vein with America that goes deeper than simple comedy.
In HBO’s series “Big Love” a key plot moment revolved around a Mormon endowment ceremony. HBO took special care in preparing the scene and consulting experts on LDS temple protocol. Apparently these precautions were not enough as The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints found it disrespectful.
“Obviously, it was not our intention to do anything disrespectful to the church, but to those who may be offended, we offer our sincere apology,” HBO said in a statement today.
Jeanne Tripplehorn’s polygamy-favoring Barb is set to participate in an endowment ceremony, in which church members perform symbolic acts to prepare themselves for admittance to heaven.
On Monday, church leaders were outcrying against HBO’s depiction of their sacred ceremony. They said that even members vow not to reveal the secret traditions of the endowment ceremony to anyone.
“In approaching the dramatization of the endowment ceremony, we knew we had a responsibility to be completely accurate and to show the ceremony in the proper context and with respect,” Olsen and Scheffer said in an additional statement issued by HBO today.
“We therefore took great pains to depict the ceremony with the dignity and reverence it is due.”
Some church members are calling for a boycott. But the Church leadership isn’t concerned too much overall, they said even “extreme misrepresentations” won’t have a “long-term negative effect on the church”.
“24″ is a television show hosted on Fox that portrays a former Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) agent Jack Bauer pursuing terrorists and other rogue operatives in the country and protecting the nation. 24’s main audience is consistently made up of both an age group and a demographic that leans quite heavily to the right wing of American politics. Fox also runs news channels which, most critics contend, lean to the right wing.
Rupert Murdoch in spite of all this, donated heavily to Hillary Clinton and supported Barack Obama. To add insult to injury, Rupert is now beginning a green campaign with his networks. “24″ is the first to become “carbon-neutral”, which is slang for paying a bunch of money to “carbon credit” companies which allow companies that put out carbon to pretend that they are not. To announce the move, Rupert had one of the “24″ actresses, Cherry Jones (who plays the president) announce the move before the return from commercials, and the dangers of “climate change” and reducing their “carbon footprint”, all the while perhaps forgetting that CO2 is emitted from the breath out of her mouth.
One can imagine if Rupert Murdoch were to make this full scale move on the news networks. Imagine Glenn Beck, the conservative radio show host who moved to Fox News recently, railing against the global warming hoax, only to have Fox running a public service announcement ramming it down his listener’s throats. Will the myth of Fox News’ supposed right wing nature be dispelled by Rupert’s ever aggressive progressive agenda?
Regardless of anyone’s political leanings, the idea that Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, is not only espousing and pushing a global warming agenda, but has run the first “carbon neutral” television show, is bitterly ironic. Fox News has been portrayed as the right wing arm of the media, and thanks to Rupert Murdoch, the veil is being lifted. Perhaps there is no left or right. Only the collective versus the individual. The elite versus the common man.
Will Fox News ultimately embrace Rupert Murdoch’s green agenda? What will happen when climate change skeptics on his news programs are confronted with Murdoch’s agenda? It could certainly lead to the more right wing personalities on the show who question their bosses’s agendas and could lead to a falling out. This type of a “green initiative” was to be expected of say, MSNBC, but to see Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch pushing it is all too surreal. Only time will show the consequences of the Murdoch agenda.
Bob Bowersox is leaving the shopping network QVC. It has not been clarified whether the famous actor/spokesperson was fired, quit, or retired. The network did not extend or make a big deal of his leaving. The most agreed on conclusion in the QVC viewer community is that he did not renew his contract and the network didn’t fight to get him back. Bowersox has done some acting work and had said a couple of months before that he wanted to pursue other avenues. Who knows? He may become a famous actor one day.
