2007-08-20

Stuck In Your Head

I currently have a song very firmly stuck in my head.

I was watching a rerun of Scrubs late last night and after the episode I started humming on a song. After a while I realized that the song I was humming was from a Scrubs episode, but not the one that I'd just watched. It turned out to be the following song:

I've seen this Scrubs episode quite a number of time and I really like it, especially this sequence with Colin Hay singing "Overkill". It's just such a catchy song. I consider this episode a real classic among Scrubs episodes. It's not just that's good, it contains so much that is the essence of Scrubs, with all the relational conflicts and stuff.

Anyway, so how does songs get stuck in your head. It seems research find it mysterious too but this article explain it as some kind of brain-itch. And the cure seems to be to scratch it. The thing is, I seem to be extremely susceptible to getting songs stuck on my head. Once I had "Norwegian Wood" by Beatles in my head for several months. But it should be said that I didn't listen to the song even once during that period and when I finally listened to it a couple of times it went away. So I'll be listening to "Overkill" quite a lot for a few days now, so as to "scratch the itch". But not that I mind, it's a good song.

An Ingredient For A Good TV Show

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day about popular TV shows. As I mentioned in my last post the thing I like about The Simpsons is all the small absurd jokes they throw in all the time. But it's not the only show that uses this.

There's another show that me and my wife watch semi regularly, even the reruns, is Scrubs. Based on it's imdb rating I'd say it's a pretty popular show. That show is good for many reasons but one that I like in particular is the absurdities it throws in, all the weird behaviors and comments from the characters. While the humor is different from The Simpsons the concept is pretty much the same, although applied to a completely different show. And it works just as well in both.

Another example is Ally McBeal. The thing that made it popular and stand out was how it showed small clips of how the characters felt and what was going on in their minds. Not seldom was this rather weird and embarrassing stuff. Although different it is also in line with The Simpsons and Scrubs. Unfortunately the writing in Ally McBeal went downhill after a few seasons and the absurdities wasn't that exciting anymore. In my mind that's one important reason as to why it lost in popularity.

So there you have it. A nice ingredient for making a fun TV show. Have people say, think and do not only fun and weird stuff but push it towards the absurd. Now I only need to think of a set of characters and a cool environment for them and I'll start writing a pilot.

2007-08-10

The Simpsons Movie

We went to see The Simpsons Movie earlier tonight. It was good but it wasn't as good as I had hoped. The problem? I think it had too much of a story.

The defining things about The Simpsons for me is all those absurd jokes they throw in constantly which are just out of the blue. Sure, the episodes in the series do have some kind of a plot or story. But I find it secondary, it just sets the scene where they can do all these short absurd jokes.

So the problem I have with the movie is that they've cut down on the short absurd jokes. All jokes are longer and relate much more to the main story than in your typical episode. I think it's for the worse.

But that being said, I still had a lot of fun and I would still recommend the movie. It just that I don't think that it lives up to the standard of the show. If you haven't seen it, it's a good hour and a half.

2007-08-09

Who does what in the U.S. legal system

There is no shortage of crime shows on TV. Solving mysterious, perverse and/or obscene murders seems to be a very popular spectator sport. I also watch my share of these shows. Some of the ones I watch include CSI, Jordan, Law & Order, Shark and Numb3rs. But while I enjoy these shows they also greatly confuse me.

Solving cases typically involves evaluating evidences, interrogating suspects and witnesses, checking alibis and trying to fit all of it together. The peculiar thing with the crime shows is that all of these things are done by a single profession in each show, but the profession changes between shows. It ranges from the coroner, crime scene investigators to cops or lawyers, all depending the particular show.

The only show (or rather set of shows) that seems to have a more realistic tack is Law & Order. They have all the professions of the legal system represented and working together. It's actually kind of cool to see how the cases starts out with the detectives to eventually move over to the attorneys who needs to make the final conviction happen.

Sure, I realize that this discrepancy between between series is there to cut down on the number of main characters and make their work seems central and important. But when you compare CSI and Shark it just seems ridiculous. Obviously, they can't both reflect the reality. And even if the truth is somewhere in the middle the gap between them is so big that I think they're both pretty far from how it's really done.

Oh well. I'm glad I got that off my chest.