Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Demons of the Punjab”

As much as I like to poke fun at the British, you'd think I would enjoy this episode a lot more than I actually did. But I didn't.

I give the show credit for attempting to show a slice of history rarely seen from a non-English perspective but in the end, I could not help feeling that the show's writers could have done a better job. And I could not help but find something sad about the show's attempts to depict the conflict between Muslims and Hindus in post-British Pakistan as exclusively the fault of the British. As much as I like twisting the tail of the British lion, I can't help but suspect that there was much more to that conflict than that.

Literary Quote I Like

The fat old correspondent was running out of indignation and energy. “I broadcast for four years from Berlin, McMahon,” he grated. “Goebbels himself never dared to tamper with my scripts like this. Not once! The British administration of Singapore does dare. How is that?”

“My dear fellow, the Germans only talk about being the master race,” Elsa McMahon’s husband said drily. “You’re on in ten minutes.”
--Herman Wouk, War and Remembrance

TV Quote of the Week

I wouldn't take Britain if I were you. There's nothing of value there and the people make terrible slaves.
--Ian Ogilvy, I, Claudius, “Waiting in the Wings”

Random Thoughts


Cool! Miss Michigan aka Rima Fakih won the Miss U.S.A. contest. I guess our national image of beauty is changing. Plus it doesn't hurt that she hails from my home state.

I guess it's a good thing I don't have a burning desire to see the Grand Canyon this year because even if I could afford to travel, there would be no way short of a dire family emergency I would be caught dead going to Arizona. And it's not like I have relatives in Arizona anyway.

I used to find it frustrating enough that so many liberals are ignoring the drug-related violence occurring in Mexico right now but at least they're not using it as an excuse to tell anti-Mexican jokes like the good folks at Big Hollywood. And no, I don't really care whether or not site editor John Nolte has a Mexican wife, a Mexican niece, a posse of Mexican friends or a long-standing relationship with the President of Mexico. The minute he started allowing anti-Mexican jokes on his site, I stopped taking his political arguments seriously.

Where's Red Adair now that we need him? I'm quite sure he would have found a way to cap that oil leak even if he was more a specialist in oil fires.

If BP's handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is supposed to be an example of the superior way the British handle things, it's not working.

Oh no. Parks and Recreation is going on hiatus. That means I'll have to rely on old Office reruns and bad Hollywood movies to get my weekly Rashida Jones fix.