Since I'm still in the midst of my "funemployment" period, I've hada lot of time to watch a lot of TV.   This is bad, True Believers, really bad.   You know what they say about idle hands and idle minds, right?   If you do...please fill me in!  I have no idea what that means.  It hasn't been all that bad, I did finally get a chance to get caught up with Mad Men and, for better and/or worse, I'm hooked.   So now I can add that show to my must-not miss list.  It's right up there with Lost, Fringe, Dexter, Big Love, Entourage, True Blood...and if there's one thing I don't need, it's another TV show to get hooked on.   True to form, I am now hooked on Flash Forward, Breaking Bad, and Bored to Death.   With the re-imagining of "V" hitting the not-so-small screen in November, I am screwed, True Believers...completely screwed.

Being unemployed has also allowed to me catch up on shows that I let get away from me.  I used to work a lot of weird hours back in the day and as a consequence, I missed a lot of TV shows and had to give up on a lot of them.  This was before we were all saved with DVRs and On Demand features...again I'm screwed.   Some of these shows either died a quiet death by being moved around in the prime time slots, or they suffered a quick death by having the plug pulled on them.   In any regard, a lot of them had a very vocal fan base and were able to be revived for another season or two with mixed results.  There are four shows that I personally thought were canceled before their time, although opinions will always vary.

Before I go further, I want to give a shout-out to my community's public library.   Not only do they carry books, but they also carry audiobooks, CDs, DVDs, and videogames - and not just B-grade stuff, either.  We're talking first run titles here.   I have in my possession Tiger Woods 10 from the library.  The game was released in late July and I've had it checked out since early August (renewing titles online is a big help too!).   My library emailed me to let me know that they have Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol, available and wanted to know if I would like to reserve a copy.  Um...Yeah!   If you live in the Detroit area and follow local news, you'll know that many of our local libraries are in danger of being closed down due to lack of funding.   This is a damn shame.   So do your old pal Tim a favor and visit your local library and at least a get a library card.  The more cards that are issued, the more interest in our library systems will be conveyed to our erstwhile leaders in Lansing (whenever they decide to get back to work).   Plus - in these lousy economic times, why rent or buy a videogame, movie, or book when you can get the same service for FREE!!!!   Just good ol' plain dollars and sense to me!

CARNIVALE

Back in 2003, I got really hooked on the show Carnivale on HBO.  What I liked most about this series is that it was a mix of science, religion, and mysticism set in a Depression-era traveling carnival.   The trouble was is that I missed the 1st Season finale and completely missed the 2nd Season in its entirety.  The library to the rescue!  They had both seasons on hand for me to catch up on and watch.   The intent of this show was to be presented in three volumes spanning over six seasons.   However, HBO axed the show at the end of the second season in 2005, and while the main plot line was resolved, many sub-plots were not.  To further complicate matters, the main plot line took a twist in the last 20 seconds of the 2nd season finale.   Fans are still clamoring for a 3rd Season or movie, but HBO owns the title rights and characters, and quite frankly isn't interested in reviving the series.

Carnivale involves two opposing characters, Ben Hawkins, an Okie who lost his mom and farm, and Rev. Justin Crowe, a Baptist minister in a California town that appears to be unaffected by the Dust Bowl era in the Great Depression.    Both are possessed by recurring nightmares involving a man named Hank Scudder and both discover that they both have special powers.   Ben's power is that he can heal anybody with his touch.   The only drawback is that when he heals someone, somebody else has to suffer for it.    Justin has the power to know the secrets of person he touches and uses that power to help expand his ministry.   Both are trying to figure out who Hank Scudder is and why he pervades their dreams.  As the story progresses throughout both seasons, it is revealed the Ben Hawkins and Justin Crowe are to face off in a battle royale of good vs. evil.

The supporting cast of characters in this show also makes this show even more worth watching.    There's Samson, the carnival boss who is the liaison between the carnies and "management".  Samson is also a dwarf and the former strongman of troupe and he is more often than not the voice of reason in the group and "management"...well, we're not really sure just exactly what he/she/it is.   The psychic/Tarot card readers are the  Bojakshiyas, a mother and daughter team from a long line of Gypsy heritage.   The mother Apollonia is in a perpetually catatonic state, but somehow can only communicate with her daughter Sofie.   The Dreifuss family is basically the "cootch" act - strippers to the uninitiated - and in spite of what you may think on the surface, their story is the most interesting, and tragic.  The villains of the troupe are Professor Lodz, the mind reader and his lover Lila, the bearded lady.   At one point in time, Lodz was the big cheese and in favor with "management."  For reasons unknown, he is now the pariah of the group, but is plotting a nefarious takeover.  I've not touched on all the storylines or the characters of this series, but with this summary, you should get the flavor of the show.

Over the course of Carnivale's two seasons, Ben and Justin come to terms with who they are and every character in the show is connected to them in one way, shape, or form.   That's what made this show's premature end so damn frustrating.  Not only were we left in a last-minute cliffhanger for the main plot, but many of the other storylines were left unresolved.   However, don't let that deter you from watching this show.   Carnivale won a bunch of Emmies, and for good reason, too.  The show was well-written, well-acted, and the settings...dude I don't know how they did it (and they didn't use CGI that often), but I've not seen a show that went into such great detail showing just how dusty, gritty, and dirty the Midwest was in the early 30's.  So...do yourself a favor and check both seasons out.  I know they're available at my library...and my library is linked to most of libraries in Oakland County.  So what're waiting for?  Go online and reserve a copy!  I'll wait.

QUANTUM LEAP

OK..you've had enough time to put on hold on Carnivale.  Now it's time to move on to Quantum Leap.   I'm one of those people who likes this show but doesn't readily admit it in public.   I don't think Scott Bakula's a good actor at all...and I don't think he looks as smart as his character Sam Beckett is supposed to be.  I did like his sidekick Al, played to the hilt of corniness by Dean Stockwell (Battlestar Galactica).  I mean, what's not to like about about a womanizing, cigar-chewing, short guy who wears loud clothes.   Then again, there's always Danny Devito, isn't there...without the womanizing...or the loud clothes....or even the cigar...I think.

Quantum Leap's story arc was simple...for those who understand quantum physics...for the rest of us, the show was about a time-travel experiment using quantum theory of mechanics gone wrong.   Each episode Sam inhabits the body of somebody (male, female, any race...and in a pure moment of jumping sharkiness...Dr. Ruth) in any period of time.   The only constraint is that the periods of time that he can "leap" into are only during his lifetime.   Sam was born in the mid-50s, so the show doesn't go that far back.   To make the next leap, Sam must do whatever he can to change events into the correct time-flow.   How does he do this?  Enter Al.   Al homes in on Sam with the help of Ziggy and Gooshie (Sam's supercomputer and I'm not sure who..or what...Gooshie is) and then communicates with him via hologram.   Al provides Sam with any backstory he can on the person he's inhabiting, his surroundings, and some simple statistics to let Sam know whether or not he's on the right track.

Most of the episodes on Quantum Leap were a little too earnest and somewhat cheesy.  There were some that were absolutely brilliant, like the "Trilogy".   This 3-part series had Sam jumping to three different individuals in the same town in different decades with interconnecting stories involving a murder mystery.   Another fantastic episode involves Sam inhabiting the persona of an African American during the Watts riots in the 60s.   Not all episodes were laden with this much gravitas.   There's a couple of them where Sam helps this farmer kid named Buddy write a song called "Peggy Sue" and teaches a kid named Mikey how to do the Moonwalk.

How the show ended though, left me a little flat.  A few seasons prior, there was an episode where Sam had a chance to help Al save his first marriage by preventing him from becoming a POW in Viet Nam.   Sam felt it was more important to find his own way home rather than fix what's already happened to Al.   At the series finale, Sam leaps into this bar that seems to be located near a steel mill and is tended by this enigmatic man who seems to know a lot about Sam's situation.   In order to put everything right in the world, Sam must leap back and save Al's marriage.   In doing so, Sam does save Al's marriage, but then disappears without a trace.   Now, there are some, my wife, especially, who thinks that this was perfect ending for the series in that Sam corrected the ultimate wrong in his personal space-time continuum and sacrificed himself in the process.   I, however, thought, and still think, that the way Quantum Leap ended was a little too neat and a cheap ending.  After all that, I at least wanted to see a resolution to Sam's time-travel experiment...no matter how wild the ideas might have been.  The creators left the finale open because they thought they had a shot at a sixth season, but it wasn't to be.  So now, we just have to accept the fact that Sam sacrificed himself for the greater good.

JERICHO

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this one as Don and I wrote about this show last year (Click here to read).  All I can say is that I am glad that the fans were able to convince CBS to allow Jericho an abbreviated second season to wrap up the loose ends.   However, I am somewhat miffed at how ham-handed the series finale was.   The second season was so good until that last episode - and then the creators sloppily cobbled together a resolution that had Hawkins and Jake bringing down the new government in Cheyenne with an ambulance, an airplane, and a couple guns.   I was disappointed in it.  But...the alternate ending (included in the Season 2 set), while not resolving anything, was a little better...and would have left us all really, really hoping for a third season.   Go get Season 2 (and Season 1!) at your local library and check it out!

MIRACLES

True Believers, let me ask you something, what is it with Skeet Ulrich and TV series that get canceled before their time?  Before Jericho, there was this engaging little TV show called Miracles.  Unfortunately, this show only aired for six episodes before ABC pulled the plug on it.   It got decent ratings, but apparently all of its viewership momentum got lost when the US invaded Iraq (and the constant 24 hours news flurry that followed) and most of the midseason replacement shows got lost in the shuffle and exiled to timeslots that only Dracula and Charlie Sheen would stay awake for.

Miracles deals with this group known as Soladitas Quaerito (Latin for Brotherhood in Search of Truth).  Soladitas is very much like the X-Files and Fringe, except that they interpret strange phenomena from a spiritual stance as opposed to using fringe science or theories of extra-terrestrial forces.   Skeet Ulrich plays Paul Callan, an investigator of miracles for the Catholic Church in Boston.  Very well educated in science and nature, his job is to basically debunk all the so-called miracles that pop up from time to time.   He's the guy who would tell people that they're not seeing the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast, but just random heat patterns.   He is very dissatisfied with his job as he is deeply spiritual and is tired of telling the laypeople that what they're witnessing is coincidence, not divine intervention.  Because of this, he takes a leave of absence to go "find" himself.  In doing so, he comes across a little boy who has the power to heal people with his touch.   He cured a woman's blindness and helped others as well.   Like Carnivale, however, there's a price for this power, and the more the boy uses his power, the sicker he becomes.   Paul thinks that this could be a true miracle and thereby proving the existence of God.   During his investigation, Paul gets into a massive car accident, and is dying in his car.  He looks at the windshield and written in his blood is the phrase "GODISNOWHERE."  The little boy shows up out of nowhere and heals Paul, telling him he has work to do, and then dies.   Paul takes his findings back to the church and tries to convince them of this miracle.   They don't want to publicize this for political reasons, and Paul quits the church for good.  He then gets recruited by Dr. Alva Keel from Soladitas to help them investigate spiritual mysteries.

That was just the two-hour pilot.   Throughout the next 5 episodes, the Soladitas group encounters all sorts of weird phenomenon. Some of which cannot be explained, some are total frauds.  The most interesting plot line is Paul's effort to figure out what GODISNOWHERE means.   After witnessing the little boy heal him and then die, Paul is convinced that the word should be broken into "God Is Now Here."   Dr. Keel, however, explains to him that there have been six other instances where people have seen this phrase before.   Most of them believe that it meant "God Is Nowhere".   So which is it?  Well, that's what really sucks about this, we don't know...and we'll never find out either.

On the DVD set, there are a total of 13 episodes (7 of which were never aired) that really add to the over-all story line.   The series is quite good and if you're looking for a great mystery-drama with a spiritual slant, look no further than Miracles...just try to contain your frustration in the last scene of the last episode.  I was screaming, "Oh No Way!!!!" at the TV.  Sometimes, ya really gotta hate cliffhangers with no cliffs.

OK, True Believers...that's it for me on this merry-go-round of fun, frolic, mirth, and mayhem.  I'll be getting in touch with my sensitive side next time and will list some movies that are deemed "chick flicks" that I actually liked.   It might be a real short column.   Until then...support your local libraries!

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