SEASON FINALE WEDNESDAY: A few things to say about the season finale episodes of the past few days (Spoilers for all):
- I didn't watch the last "Buffy"; in fact, I never really watched the show at all. Shame; I probably would've liked it.
-"24"- eh. It could've been worse I suppose, but- where the hell did Jack get a high-powered rifle, in the middle of LA Coliseum? Did one of those crazy Raider fans leave it behind after the final L.A. Raider game, in 1995? Is there any reason for Kim Bauer to even be on the show, aside from the not-so-insignifcant fact that she's hot? What was the point of having an all-powerful super-villain character (Peter Kingsley) when he's only introduced in the last few episodes and given no background whatsoever? And worst of all, why did the first season's villains try for an entire 24 hours, unsuccessfully, to kill David Palmer, when the new bad guys were able to hatch an assassination plot and carry it out- successfully- in ten minutes? I guess that's what happens when you send Dennis Hopper to do a man's job.
-"Law & Order" ended tonight with a clusterfuck of a two-part episode: the first part tried to shoehorn the Laci Peterson case together with the woman-running-over-her-husband, as well as a third Ripped From The Headlines plot that I didn't pick up on- it was so busy they didn't even have time for the lawyer half of the episode. The second half was like a montage of Michael Jackson's Greatest Scandals- the baby dangle AND the molestation thing- and was noteworthy for two things: the actor who played Enrique Morales on "Oz" guest-starred- as a character named Morales! (JK Simmons and Chris Meloni were not in the episode, unfortunately). And even better, figuring prominently in the storyline was a fictional version of The Smoking Gun website, called on the show by the memorable name UpYourButt.net. Now UpYourButt.net, somewhat surprisingly, does not actually exist. If I were the producers of "L&O" I would've bought that domain name, or just had it re-direct to the show's site- because you just know everybody who was watching punched in UpYourButt.net as soon as it was mentioned. I know I did.
(UpYourButt.net is not to be confused with "Up Your Ass," a radical feminist play written in the late '60s by Valerie Solanas, the woman best known for shooting Andy Warhol and subject of the feature film, yes, "I Shot Andy Warhol." A revival of "Up Your Ass" was actually performed in New York last year.)
-I barely watched "American Idol," this year or last, but I'm glad Ruben Studdard won, beating out Clay D. Lang (I don't know who first came up with that nickname, but it's pure genius). As Michael Wilbon pointed out today on PTI, Ruben deserved to win because American popular music is right now missing the sort of iconic, large, black, soul singer in the tradition of Barry White and Luther Vandross- both of whom, incidentally, are ailing right now. What Michael Wilbon has done for sportswriting and television pontificating, hopefully Ruben Studdard can do for popular music.