Life Imitates Art

So, KFC now has a sandwich held together with two pieces of chicken, rather than bread:




Sorry, Colonel, but the Tracy Jordan got there first:

In Defense of (some) Television

FCC chairman Newton N. Minnow famously remarked in a 1961 speech that the television was a "vast wasteland," a remark that has only gotten more true in the nearly 50 years since then. However, people often forget a line which prefaced that remark: "when television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better." For good or for ill, television is one of the important ways that our society manifests its culture, so it would be a mistake to dismiss it all as lowbrow garbage. It has been remarked that if Beethoven or Mozart were alive today, they would probably be composing scores for movies, since that is where the top-flight jobs in orchestral composition are; similarly, if Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be just as likely to write for television as for cinema.

So, where are the oases in the vast wasteland?

CURRENTLY RUNNING

• South Park - Finally getting its edge back after a couple of inconsistent seasons, and still one of the best sources for social and political satire available today. Usually thought provoking and occasionally brilliant, it has a lot in common with Greek Old Comedy. They're all available online, and legally, at South Park Studios.
  
• 30 Rock - Whenever South Park fails, 30 Rock picks up the slack. Jabs at deranged corporate culture, vapid entertainment, and career obsession abound. If you're a Netflix subscriber, all of the seasons released on DVD can be watched online.
  
• Castle - Unlike many other police procedural shows on the air today, there is very little reliance on magical forensic science. Basic forensics are there, but what's more important is old-fashioned reasoning and pounding the pavement, much like Sherlock Holmes. And, for once, we have a TV show in which we see a good father raising a happy and well-adjusted teenage daughter.
  
• Jeopardy! - This has been highly regarded and on the air for decades for one very simple reason: its a game show that spends less time on gimmicks and drama, and more time testing real knowledge.
  

NO LONGER RUNNING:

• Jericho - This show really thought long and hard about how modern people would adapt to life without electricity, and about what the fall of the United States would be like. Both seasons highly recommended.
• Firefly - Smart, fun, and politically thoughtful. Be sure to see the followup movie, Serenity. All episodes available cyclically on Hulu.
  
• Red Dwarf - A long-running and side-splittingly funny sci-fi parody from the BBC. Leaving no sci-fi trope unskewered, it really is oddly thought provoking. I normally hate laugh tracks in shows, but here it's appropriate: the over-arching plot is the life of the last human alive in a mostly empty universe, so the simulated laughter of an audience helps to balance out the loneliness. All eight series recommended, but the Back to Earth special was a bit of a disappointment. Also available on Netflix streaming.
  

STATUS UNCERTAIN:

• Torchwood - The first six episodes were terrible, like a 12-year-old with a really filthy mouth stole a few ideas from The X-Files and wrote some Doctor Who fanfiction. Once it found its feet, however, it became quite good. The strength of British science fiction has always been its willingness to ask weird existential questions, and that's what Torchwood is all about. It's off the air at the moment, though rumors are circulating of a forth series, and possibly an American version. Also available on Netflix streaming.