Category: Entertainment

One year ago today, Leonard Nimoy passed away. I was sitting in the control room at work when the alert flashed across my phone. I sat there and absorbed the news and hoped no one would come in as tears dampened my eyes. I’m sure Mr. Spock would not have approved, but as he so often reminded audiences in his post Star Trek career, Leonard Nimoy was not Spock…or was he?

The impact of the half-Vulcan, half-human First Officer aboard the fictional, futuristic U.S.S. Starship Enterprise can hardly be exaggerated. Up until 1965 when Spock was invented by Gene Roddenberry, extraterrestrial aliens were almost always viewed as hostile, evil forces who were bent upon invading Earth. Think “War of the Worlds,” or “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” If they didn’t want to conquer humanity, they wanted to imperiously save us from ourselves as in, “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

Spock represented a more optimistic relationship between humans and those of other worlds, embodying the notion that those of different cultures can work together for a set of common goals.

This isn’t to say that Spock embraced his human side. On the contrary. IN alignment with Vulcan culture, he suppressed it and was made to feel ashamed of his emotions. Whether intentional or not, this showcased a flaw in Spock and the Vulcan way of life. Some might disagree, but I believe that denying a large portion of one’s nature is…wait for it…illogical. Of course, many ancient Vulcans did continue to embrace their emotional nature, thereby seceding from Vulcan and becoming Romulans, a race depicted as mostly evil throughout the course of the franchise.

If the series had centered around Spock, it would not have lasted five episodes. A large part of what made Spock such a compelling character was the friendship he maintained with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy. They were the perfect triangle; Kirk, the bold, adventurous leader who was not risk-averse, Spock, the dispassionate pragmatist who viewed everything through a logical lens, and McCoy, the antithesis of Spock, the compassionate healer who constantly wore his emotions on his sleeve. It was not the various encounters with Klingons, parallel universes or retired Greek gods that made the series so fascinating. Rather, it was the emotional core of the relationship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy that brought viewers back week after week.

William Shatner was the star of the original series, but Spock was it’s most popular and enduring character. I don’t think it’s unfair to point out that Nimoy was probably the superior actor of the three main leads. In fact, with the possible exception of Mark Lenard who played Spock’s father Sarek, Nimoy mastered the complex intricacies of the Vulcan culture and remains unparalleled to this day. From the Vulcan nerve pinch to the Vulcan mind meld to the curious split-fingered Vulcan salute, Nimoy owned the essence of what it meant to be a Vulcan. Many future actors such as Tim Russ, Kirstie Alley, Jolene Blalock, Zachary Quinto and Kim Cattrall have tried to imitate Vulcans, but they don’t even come close to the subtle nuances that Nimoy brought to the role. Russ as Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager is particularly painful to watch. He sounds like a guy who is about to read you the stock reports on the radio. Quinto tries to portray a young Spock and he won Nimoy’s praise, but for my dough, he has the opposite problem, sounding too emotional.

The concept of Spock proved so popular that all future incarnations of the original series had to (ahem ahem( borrow from the Spock character. They did it twice in Star Trek: The Next Generation. They didn’t give us another Vulcan, but instead, we got an android named Data who viewed everything through the same emotionless lens. The twist…rather than having him suppress the humanity that he didn’t have, Roddenberry embarked Data on a quest to become more human. The other homage to Spock came in the form of Deanna Troi, the ship’s counselor who was half-human, half-Betazoid.

Future series also borrowed heavily from Spock. In Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Odo is the outsider alien who can never fit in and be happy anywhere. In Voyager, B’Elanna Torres is a half-human, half-Klingon engineer who constantly struggles with her identity. We also got a ship’s doctor who was a computer-generated hologram, thus enabling writers to continue the ‘no emotions’ trope. In Star Trek: Enterprise, we returned to the Vulcan science officer concept, along with an alien outsider doctor played by John Billingsley. All of these characters are cheap knock-offs of the original, to a greater or lesser degree.

You can talk to me all day about budgets, special effects and wooden acting, but Leonard Nimoy’s turn as Mr. Spock was a truly groundbreaking turn in television that has never been matched since in the Trek franchise. He was awarded with the juiciest dramatic moments throughout the course of the show’s history. Included were:

“The Naked Time,” in which the Enterprise is infested by a virus that causes the crew to act as if they were drunk. Spock is infected and hides in a rec room as he cries openly with shame and tries to regain control of his Vulcan side.

“The Galileo Seven,” in which Spock takes command of an away mission that goes disastrously wrong. Some of the crew exhibits bigotry toward Spock, which offends McCoy greatly. Spock also learns that sometimes, the logical way is not always the correct way.

“This Side of Paradise,” in which Spock is infected by spores that cause him to become happy and passive, along with the rest of the crew. Kirk must prod him back to duty by playing on race hatred, which triggers Spock’s own repressed anger at being a half-breed.

“Amok Time,” which is probably the best Spock episode. Spock begins to act in an atypically erratic manner. As it turns out, he’s hornie, which is something that only happens to Vulcans every seven years. To cure his lust, he must go back to his home planet, where he must get married and ultimately tries to kill Kirk. It sounds weird in writing, but believe me, it works!

“Journey to Babel,” in which Spock’s estranged parents come aboard the Enterprise during a dangerous diplomatic mission. Spock must choose between family loyalty and his duty when his father, Sarek, is suspected of murder.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” which contains the single most heartbreaking death scene in all of Trekdom. Yes yes, I know that Spock will be resurrected in the next movie, but I still shed tears every time I watch Kirk and Spock saying what they think is their final goodbye through a glass wall after Spock heroically saves the ship from danger, thereby sacrificing himself in the process.

On a personal level, I was hooked on Star Trek the original series from Junior High onward. Captain Kirk was my favorite character as a kid. And why not? He never faced a problem he couldn’t handle. As an adult, my appreciation for Spock has grown exponentially. The idea of a character who is a constant outsider and who must continually manage his inner struggle is appreciable to me. In those gloomy times after a break-up or some other loss, I harken back to Spock’s words after his girlfriend dumped him.

“She is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not nearly so pleasing a thing as wanting. ‘Tis not logical, but it is often true.”

Rest in peace, Leonard Nimoy. May your memory live long and prosper. Thank you for all of the happiness your talents have brought to me over the years.

In light of my recent musings about El Chapo and the ever-shrinking gulf that separates fact from fiction in the real world, I thought I would visit the other side of the coin.

Here are my top 10 most favorite television crime series of all time.

Just to be clear, my definition of a “crime show,” is one in which crime is a central thematic element. Many shows of other genres will dabble in crime, but they are not the main emphasis. Also, programs such as Glee, Duck Dynasty, Grey’s Anatomy and Hardball with Chris Matthews don’t count. They may perpetrate crimes against society by their very existence, but they don’t use it as a fictional device on a regular basis. Well…Chris Matthews…never mind.

Here we go!:

#10. Perry Mason:

This is the pioneer of the television courtroom drama. Raymond Burr plays Perry Mason, a lawyer who will go the limit to defend his client, who is always innocent of the murder of which he/she is accused. Erle Stanley Gardner’s series of novels are vividly brought to life by Burr and company in all of their black-and-white glory. The first three seasons come closest to the spirit of the literary version, featuring Perry Mason as more of a renegade who is unafraid to skirt the boundaries of the law, thereby creating an adversarial relationship with Lt. Tragg and open hostility between Mason and D.A. Hamilton Burger. The show is formulaic; you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen’em all. Yet, there is no spectacle that is more entertaining than Perry Mason closing in on the real murderer in court.

#9. Justified:

Another literary adaptation, this one from the pen of Elmore Leonard. The series features Timothy Olyphant as U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens, who is transferred to his home in Kentucky as punishment after the questionable shooting of a suspect. Raylan must contend with his violent past while chasing his childhood friend, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) along with an assortment of other colorful criminals. The series is uneven at times, but the joy comes in the off-beat dialogue and vast arrayed of characters that are so common to Leonard’s stories.

#8. Prime Suspect:

The only entry in the top 10 that comes to us from across the pond. This British series features Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison, a female cop who copes with sexism in the workplace while chasing serial killers, pedophiles and the like. Though feminism is a recurring theme throughout the series, it is not done to death. Tennison is not the minority super cop that you often see in Hollywood. Like her fictional male counterparts, she struggles with alcoholism and a damaged social life in the wake of her career, but at the end of the day, she is a talented cop who knows how to catch a bad guy.

#7. Fargo:

This series is based on the Coen Brothers cult classic film from 1996. I found the movie to be cartoonish and farcical, but the TV series (while existing in the same universe) is a much more three-dimensional presentation. It is a limited series, meaning that each season is comprised of different characters from a different time period in the same setting.

Season one stars Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman and Allison Tolman. It concerns a sociopathic hit man who stops in a small town in Minnesota and has a chance encounter with a downtrodden businessman. Soon, bodies start falling and a local lady cop takes interest. The second season stars Kirsten Dunst, Patrick Wilson and Jean Smart and concerns the war of two Midwestern crime syndicates and the subsequent police investigation in 1979.

The series features alternately dark, quirky humor and brutal violence, but at it’s heart are relatable, fully-realized characters.

6. The Shield:

“The road to justice is twisted.”

That is the tagline of The Shield, and it couldn’t be more apt. This police drama is anything but a procedural, featuring four crooked cops attached to an anti-gang squad in L.A. Michael Chiklis stars as Vic Mackey, a cop who has learned that street justice is far more effective than the law. If he and his partners can line their pockets along the way, so be it. But, as always, nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

#5. Columbo:

This series is known as the inverted detective mystery; you see the criminal commit the crime and then watch as the cop unravels his/her supposed perfect scheme. In this case, the cop is an unlikely hero; a diminutive slob who constantly wears a raincoat, smokes a cigar and is far less stupid and bumbling than he seems. Peter Falk plays Columbo to perfection and is always able to outwit those who think themselves superior. Some of his best foils include Jack Cassidy, Robert Culp and Leonard Nimoy. It’s also worth noting that the original movies that were featured as a part of the NBC Mystery Movie lineup in the 1970’s are the best. The revival movies that aired on ABC from 1989 through 2003 tend to play up Columbo’s eccentricities for comical effect and are therefore not as compelling.

#4. The Rockford Files:

From the ’50’s through the ’80’s, the television landscape was littered with private eye shows. The cream of the crop is Jim Rockford, played by James Garner. Rockford was a man wrongly convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison before receiving a full pardon. Jim decides to become a private detective as a means of balancing a flawed system. While other TV private eyes were consummate womanizers who drove fancy cars, dressed in smart suits and carried a gun, Jim was quite the opposite. He lived in a rundown trailer, hid a gun in his cookie jar, seldom wound up in bed with the woman of the case, lost more fistfights than he won and usually had a hard time getting his clients to pay his bill. The assets that carry Jim along are his charm and his brains. Garner’s likability, along with intelligent writing, are what make The Rockford Files a timeless classic.

#3. Homicide: Life on the Street:

The progenitor of the television police procedural is Dragnet. But if you ask me what the definitive cop show of all time is, I have to say, Homicide. It is adapted from David Simon’s book, “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.” It features the homicide squad of the Baltimore police department and chronicles the lives of the investigators as they go from one dead body to another. But it’s not merely about the solving of the case. Homicide takes an in-depth look at the cops who deal with man’s inhumanity to man on a daily basis and the toll that the job takes on them. The breakout star was Andre Braugher who played Frank Pembleton, a gifted cop who was a master at eliciting a confession from a suspect. Other noteworthy performances include Kyle Secor as Tim Bayliss, the troubled rookie of the unit, Melissa Leo as Kay Howard, the only female detective in the squad and Richard Belzer as John Munch. Yes, it’s the same Munch who later went on to Law & Order: SVU, though the Munch of Homicide is far more nuanced and funny than the later incarnation.

Sidebar: Katy, if you’re reading this, listen up. If there’s one show that I want you to watch and hope you’ll appreciate, it’s Homicide. If you’re not reading this…yer silly.

#2. The Sopranos:

A mafia boss starts having panic attacks, so he goes to a therapist to talk about his problems. And man, what problems he has! A nagging wife, spoiled kids, untrustworthy business associates, snooping FBI agents and worst of all…a vengeful mother who wants to see him dead. That’s a surface description of this groundbreaking epic. Beneath the surface, there is so much more. James Gandolfini does a masterful job of bringing Tony Soprano, father, husband, Mafioso and murderer, to life. Through six seasons of whackings, family drama, double crossings and therapy sessions, we watch Tony and can’t look away. Is he a sympathetic figure or a monster? You be the judge.

And…who is the one knocking at our number one spot?

Drum roll…bitch!

#1. Breaking Bad:

None of my friends who are reading this will be surprised that this is my top pick. A high school chemistry teacher gets lung cancer and starts cooking meth so that he can provide for his family after he’s gone. On paper, it looks stupid. On the small screen, it is sheer brilliance. Many networks (including HBO) passed up on this little dark horse. Five seasons later, after multiple Emmy awards and massive critical and fan love, they all regretted it. Bryan Cranston’s turn as a man who experiences the ultimate midlife crisis, transforming from mild-mannered Walter White to the ruthless drug lord known as Heisenberg is a sight to behold. Also noteworthy is the performance of Aaron Paul as Jesse, his former high school student who becomes his unwilling partner in crime, Anna Gunn is Walter’s too-smart wife and Dean Norris as Hank, Walt’s brother-in-law who just happens to be a DEA agent. This series is beautifully shot, masterfully written and superbly acted. It’s the only series on this list that doesn’t have a single glaring flaw.

Honorable Mentions: Dragnet (1951), Law & Order (original series), Sherlock, Hill Street Blues, The Equalizer, Boardwalk Empire, Terriers and Broadchurch.

Extra-Special Honorable Mention: I know what some of you may be angrily muttering right now. “Damn you, RyanO! You snubbed The Wire…again! You’re no better than those Emmy whores!”

Look, I respect The Wire as much as the next guy. Yes, it’s a smart, densely-plotted crime epic full of social commentary about how the drug war in America is failing. I’ve seen it once and, while I respect it mightily, the rewatchability factor is way low. Next to The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, it’s still bottom of the barrel in the gloomsville department. Right or wrong, it’s just not in my top 10 favorites. Besides, David Simon gets his due for Homicide. Take it and be happy.

P.S.: Katy, if you’re still reading this, you’re probably wondering, “Hey! Where’s Dexter!? Yer silly.” Dexter is the perfect example of a show that starts out great and takes a massive nosedive half-way through. The finale was so hideous…so ludicrous…that I can’t even place it in the honorable mentions slot because the resolution ruins the entire experience for me. I know this makes you say, “Eep!” but your dark passenger will just have to deal.

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Wayne Rogers on the final day of 2015. He died at the ripe old age of 82. One or two readers might know him from his many years as a contributor on the Fox Business Network, but the vast majority of you will remember him as Trapper John McIntyre, MD from the long-running TV dramedy, M*A*S*H.

Rogers is the fourth regular cast member from the TV series to have passed away. He was preceded by McLean Stevenson (Colonel Henry Blake) in 1996, Larry Linville (Frank Burns) in 2000 and Harry Morgan (Colonel Potter) in 2011.

For those of you under 35, here’s a brief synopsis of the series, which ran from 1972 through 1983 on CBS.

It takes place during the Korean conflict, though it is really a thinly-veiled commentary on the more-recent and unpopular Vietnam War. A group of doctors, most of whom are drafted, are serving in a mobile medical facility near the front lines. The show chronicles their lives as they receive one batch of wounded soldiers after another during the fighting. In order to calm their frazzled civilian nerves, the doctors go a little nuts in their off hours, particularly the lead protagonist, Benjamin Franklin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce, played by Alan Alda in the TV version. Pierce is a gifted surgeon, but he’s also a skirt-chasing, booze-swilling cuckoo bird who loses his marbles more than once over the course of the 11 seasons.

Pierce never met a nurse he didn’t bed, a general whom he didn’t defy, a martini that he didn’t vanquish and a scalpel that he didn’t make sing. His talent was the only reason why he didn’t end up on permanent KP duty over some of his antics. I’m not kidding. Hawkeye had a libido that made Bill Clinton’s look like a kitchen match next to a flamethrower by comparison. The difference was that Bill’s excuse was Hillary, while Hawkeye’s excuse was the hard-to-argue fact that war is hell. I understand. I do battle with my coworkers every day and I get crazy by day and hornie by night.

Hawkeye was also validated by the fact that his compatriots were all either as crazy as he, incompetent or too in awe of him to care. They included his sidekick, the afore-mentioned Trapper John, as well as a bumbling company commander, a walking set of military stereotypes, a sexually frustrated female major, a naive company clerk, a chaplain who never mentioned God and a cross-dressing corporal bucking for a psycho discharge.

The head writer for the first four seasons was Larry Gelbart. In an interview, he once claimed that M*A*S*H was not anti-military, but rather, anti-war. I think this is a distinction without a difference, but more to the point, Gelbart is being disingenuous. There are numerous examples of the show poking fun at the command structure and the actions of the military. Exhibit A was Frank Burns, a character who was written as a collection of negative military clichés and who served no other purpose than to be a weekly antagonist to Hawkeye and Trapper. In fact, the only part of the military the writers treated with respect was the infantry soldiers who were wounded and arrived in the operating room at the 4077. This was characterized by the absence of the standard television sitcom laugh track during scenes in the operating room.

On the surface, you wouldn’t think that I would enjoy a show like M*A*S*H. I find the anti-war mentality of the left to be willfully ignorant of world history and human nature. As a kid, it never came up on my radar (no pun intended.) I didn’t do sitcoms. I stumbled across it in college only because it came on just before Star Trek: The Next Generation every weeknight on KPTM Fox 42. I sat down one night and watched an episode called, “Life Time,” in which the doctors only have 20 minutes to save the life of a boy who will die if he doesn’t get the aorta of another patient who is barely hanging on. It was the constant ticking of the alarm clock used to heighten dramatic tension that really got me. It was unintentional foreshadowing of the spy series, 24.

From that moment, I was hooked. Part of the reason was due to the fact that I flirted with liberalism in college. Yes, you read that right. I was nearly seduced by the dark side of the force, if you’ll pardon my metaphor mixing here. I wasn’t as sensitive to Hollywood’s liberal bias as I became in subsequent years. But even after I returned to my conservative roots post college, I still held a soft spot for Hawkeye and company. Once I pealed away the preachy, anti-war rhetoric, I could relate to the idea of an on-edge guy who was trapped in an extreme situation that he despised. If you’ve ever been to a residential school for the blind, you can relate to the 4077. Moreover, I found the humor of the Gelbart era to be genuinely clever and witty, unlike many other sitcoms of the time; Three’s Company, anyone?

In late 1998, I blundered into a massive black depression. Coincidentally, the F-X cable network acquired the rights to M*A*S*H and began running it eight times a day. I would wake up, eat hamburger helper for breakfast while watching M*A*S*H, get dressed, go work my five-hour shift at Gallup, come home, strip naked, crawl under a blanket and watch more M*A*S*H. I think I devoured the entire series in about three months. This is what I learned.

The first three seasons are faithful to the original motion picture, which is itself based on the novel written by Richard Hooker. Though there are dramatic underpinnings, the tone is that of a black comedy. This changes when Colonel Blake is killed off in the third season finale, “Abysinia, Henry.”

In the fourth season, Hawkeye’s partner in crime Trapper John goes home off screen and is replaced by the more straight-laced B. J. Hunnicut. Colonel Blake is replaced by Colonel Sherman Potter, who is *gasp* regular Army, but who enables Hawkeye’s antics because he recognizes his surgical skills. The show still leans toward comedy, though more dramatic stories are introduced. The most notable of these is, “The Interview,” in which the members of the 4077 are interviewed by a news crew about their war experiences.

At the end of the fifth season, Hotlips gets married and is henceforth known as Margaret, causing Frank Burns to go crazy and to be sent home. He is replaced by the more surgically adept and pompous Charles Emerson Winchester, who serves as a more intelligent foil for Hawkeye. The series continues to angle more toward overt drama. Hawkeye’s chronic drinking is addressed in the episode, “Fallen Idol,” in which Radar is injured during R&R and Hawkeye is too drunk to operate on him.

At the beginning of the eight season, Radar is sent home on a medical hardship discharge. Klinger gets out of his dress and replaces Radar as company clerk. B. J. gets depressed and beats up Hawkeye and Potter amps up his cowboy clichés to an annoying level. For it’s final four seasons, the show becomes a much more overt drama. The laugh track disappears, as do the musical stings that transition between scenes. The jokes become stale, paling in comparison to the days of Trapper and Blake and Hawkeye’s still is replaced by a weekly soapbox.

Honestly, the entire unit probably should’ve been sent home along with Radar. By this time, it was fashionable for television series of the ‘70’s to dispense a heavy dose of moralizing along with their storytelling. This is best illustrated by shows such as All in the Family, Lou Grant, Quincy, M.E. and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. M*A*S*H was no exception. In the wake of Larry Gelbart’s departure, Alan Alda became an executive producer. You can always look for a show to jump the shark when a lead actor tries to take over creative control. Carroll O’Connor is exhibit A for this phenomenon. It didn’t matter that the stories imposed the morality of the 1970’s into a 1950’s setting. War is hell, damnit! What else matters?

To that end, Margaret goes into full feminist mode, demonstrating time and again that, by God, she doesn’t need a man. B. J. cheats on his wife, but has the decency to feel guilty about it. Winchester softens up his snobbish, blue blooded conservative views. But most important of all, Hawkeye learns to respect women by not tapping every nurse’s ass that he comes across. Oh God, the humanity of it all!

The series wrapped up in February of 1983 with a two-and-a-half hour finale entitled, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.” Hawkeye chokes a chicken that’s not really a chicken. B. J. does the ultimate boomerang act. Margaret is still shrill and still in the Army. Father Mulcahy goes deaf. Klinger gets married and stays in Korea. Colonel Potter rides off on his horse. Winchester rides out on a garbage truck and everyone has a good cry before flooding the New York City sewer systems with a massive toilet flush after the final credits. Goodbye, farewell and pass the Charmin.

After these many years, I still like to pull out the DVD’s of M*A*S*H and watch them on occasion. When I first got turned on to the show, I didn’t care for the early episodes. Now, I prefer the antics of Hawkeye, Trapper and Colonel Blake when the show didn’t take itself so seriously and the social commentary was far more subtle. I think that Hawkeye, the gifted surgeon, consummate womanizer and raging alcoholic was probably a more accurate depiction of a civilian trapped in a war setting than was the kinder, gentler, more preachy Hawkeye of the later seasons.

So, R.I.P, Wayne Rogers. Say hi to Pernell Roberts if you see him. If anyone gets that reference without using Google, I’ll send you a gallon of martinis, fresh from my homemade still right here in the control room. Don’t cheat or the ghost of Harry Morgan will gitchu!