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THINGS ON TV THAT MAKE ME HAPPY
AND THUS BETTER THE WORLD (PART III)
April 8, 2005
Welcome once again, coach potatoes (including spuds both aspiring and professional), to another breathtaking installment of "Things on TV That Make Me Happy and Thus Better the World." In this edition, we'll look at a rejuvenated "Survivor," those ingenious plotlines on "Lost," and Glenn Close's TV series debut. Now on to this week's happy things.
The incredibly brutal, and surprisingly thoughtful, challenges on the current season of "Survivor." The still-fit grandpa of reality TV suffered a sharp drop in quality during last fall's "Vanuatu" edition, but the now-showing "Survivor: Palau" is rocking, mostly because of mega-intense player challenges that are tougher, crueler and just more interesting than challenges of seasons past.
Some of this year's best include: A contest that had two teams carrying weighted bags around a large horse track-shaped pathway. The two teams started on opposite sides, and whichever team caught the other would be declared the winner. Contestants on the brink of exhaustion could bow out, but they had to pass their bag onto a tribemate, doubling the amount of weight he or she had to carry.
Another, more brain-powered challenge, had teams doing the best they could to secure a wooden box with rope and other trinkets. Then, they were told to secure the box in an entwined cage of sticks and debris. After providing as much protection to the box as they could muster, the tribes switched, and the first team that broke into the opposing tribe's box was declared the winner.
I don't know if producer Mark Burnett hired a whole new batch of challenge designers, or if he's given mental steroids to those already on his staff, but the exciting and original contests featured this season make the show feel almost as fresh as it did way back when Richard Hatch walked around the beach naked.
The tension-building false leads on "Lost." At some point in John Locke's life, his legs became paralyzed, then later rejuvenated on the show's mystical deserted isle. This, the viewer knows. And, since the writers know we know, they've decided to get all tricky on us. Consider the Locke-centric episode from two weeks back. (The one where his biological father duped him out of a kidney.) During that episode's flashbacks, the viewer was teased several times into believing the cause of Locke's paralysis was about to be revealed.
First, we saw him manning a gun while hunting for bird with his father. The tension mounted, and we just knew an accidental shooting would ensue. Wrong. Later in the show, Locke awoke from the transplant only to find the bed next to him, where his father should be lying, empty. The surgery has gone awry, we think! Wrong again. Locke still walked. Before you knew it, the 60 minutes was up, and we still didn't know how Locke was paralyzed in his pre-island life. Ooooh, crafty, I say! And I like it. Such clever teases keep one entertained while we wait for the writers to actually resolve some (any?) of the island's mysteries.
Glenn Close on "The Shield." OK, I'll admit it. I was worried when it was announced that the five-time Oscar nominee would be joining the cast of FX's wicked good Tuesday-night cop show. Although billed largely as a starring vehicle for Michael Chiklis, "The Shield" actually thrives utilizing a pretty darn good ensemble cast. Throw a big-screen diva into the mix, and the show could lose its balance and crash.
Thankfully, that hasn't happened. "The Shield" is as great as ever, and Close has been wonderful as The Barn's new police captain, Monica Rawling. Shows what I know.
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