Down With Cleveland Brown

Back in 1971 CBS began airing a controversial sitcom about an overtly prejudiced white man, his subservient wife, feminist daughter and her hippie boyfriend. By 1975 All in the Family was at the height of it's popularity and spawned it's second spinoff, The Jeffersons, which focused on bigoted Bunker's black neighbors.

Flash forward to 1999. Fox began airing a controversial sitcom that begins the same way as the opening credits to All in the Family, with a married couple sitting at a piano. By 2009 Family Guy is at the height of it's popularity and is spawning it's second spinoff (if you count American Dad, which I do), The Cleveland Show, which focuses on idiot Peter Griffin's black neighbors. The similarities between the two sets of series doesn't end there. Both The Cleveland Show and The Jeffersons has a U.S. President's name in the title. Okay, the similarities end there.

Cleveland Brown is done with Quahog, Rhode Island, no offense Spooner Street residents. His cheating wife left him and got the house in the divorce, so Cleveland decides he needs a change of scenery. He and Cleveland Jr. (his son, not his penis) set off to California. A detour through Cleveland's hometown of Stoolbend, Virginia sidetracks those ambitions as Cleveland runs into his high school dream girl, Donna Tubbs, now a divorcee with two kids. Her teenager Roberta (Nia Long, Big Momma's House, Are We There Yet?) is the typical rebellious daughter with absent-father issues. Donna's little boy Rallo is a jive-talking clone of Stewie Griffin without the gay overtones or ambitions for world domination. In short, he's a precocious smart ass who often helps the adults see what's not obvious to them. As for Cleveland's son, the once-energetic Jr. is now lethargic and shy, an obese, friendless nerd. After Cleveland proves his love to Donna and his dedication to her kids, in Brady Bunch fashion the two families blend as Cleveland and Donna wed.

The Cleveland Show, having a different dynamic than Family Guy, is able to deal with issues differently. First there are the Brady Bunch blended family issues. Cleveland must become a father to two strong individuals who are dealing with their real father's absence. Though they resent Cleveland they appreciate his desire to make them a happy family. As a black family racial issues are likely to come up, especially since the show is set in a southern rural town. The supporting cast includes a Nordic Christian couple, who happen to be bears, voiced by Seth McFarlane and political pundit Arianna Huffington. There's also a racist redneck named Lester and a hipster wannabe named Holt, basically taking the roles of Joe, Peter and Quagmire as Cleveland's drinking buddies. Where as Quahog has the Drunken Clam, Stoolbend has The Broken Stool. Many scenes occur in this bar where the male characters (including the Christian Nordic bear) go to work out their problems. Unfortunately it seems Cleveland in taking on his own series has transformed somewhat, becoming more like Peter Griffin. The Cleveland of this show is dumber and more incessantly gleeful, perhaps allowing him to get into zanier situations than the Family Guy version of himself, who always seemed to be the backup punchline if the episode ran heavy on Meg jokes. The Cleveland Show is part of FOX's 'Animation Domination' Sunday. It airs at 8:30, after The Simpsons, before Family Guy. You can also watch episodes on hulu.com.

Fall Brings New Network Name, New Stargate Spinoff

Recently The SciFi Channel underwent some elective surgery- it had LASIK so it could lose the glasses, had it's acne lasered off and got Da Vinci veneers for it's bucked teeth. In short, it had a geek-ectomy. Since it came on the air on September 24, 1992 the channel has had a bit of a 'nerd' stigma. Early on, during the channel's awkward adolescent years, most of the programming was reruns of The Incredible Hulk, Lost In Space and Battlestar Galactica (the original series, not the slick revamp). Eventually SciFi was able to seek original programming, eventually acquiring the rebroadcast rights to ShowTime's Stargate: SG-1, a one hour action drama spun off from the Stargate movie starring Kurt Russell. The show began as an instant success and Sci Fi soon gained rights to produce new episodes of it. SG-1 lasted for five years on Showtime followed by five more on the Sci Fi Channel where it spawned a spin off of it's own, Stargate: Atlantis. Since the channel has lost it's nerdy exterior, it now goes by SyFy, a phonetically identical name that attempts to put some distance between the channel's cool present and it's dorky past. The new Syfy shows will still focus on scientific themes, but now the character drama of a show will be the focus. This has been the channel's trend for a while now. Shows like the new BattleStar Galactica don't use the science fiction aspect to drive the plot. Really, the show is a military drama that could as easily be set in space as in the Pacific Theatre of WWII or during those pioneering days of wagon trains to the west. The fact that it is set in space does not take away from the effective character drama.
The newest entry in the Stargate franchise, Stargate Universe hopes to marry themes from many contemporary science fiction series, including Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Star Trek and, of course Stargate. First, a primer on the Stargate universe. Stargates are round structures build by an ancient space fairing race. These gates are teleportation devices between worlds in other star systems. Humans discovered the one on Earth at an Egyptian dig site. SG-1 was the first team the Air Force sent through the gate, which at the time could only 'dial' to one planet. The story of that first off-world visit is told in the movie Stargate. One year after the events of the movie, the television series Stargate: SG-1 picks up the thread. Humans have finally figured out how to 'dial' all the planets in the gate system, so SG-1 was reassembled to explore them, make alliances and secure technology for the Earth's defense, which they did for ten years. Two years later Stargate Universe picks up the story. Mankind has discovered an ancient secret: a gate that can dial not just to planets in this galaxy, but to any galaxy. Of course, we they only know how to dial to one address. In a split second decision while their research base is under attack, everyone is evacuated through the Stargate to this mystery address. The escaping military and civilians end up on an ancient and vast space ship, crewless and badly damaged. They discover they are traveling the outskirts of the universe, near the outer galaxies, and that the ship had been sent on it's solo mission millions of years ago by the ancient creators of the Stargate system.
For the most part, the cast is a bunch of newcomers (read: nobodies). Ming-Na (ER, Disney's Mulan) and Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bomba) are the biggest stars in the ensemble cast, but don't let that deter you. What drives shows like this and Battlestar Galactica is how the cast interacts. Big names don't necessarily yield better interactions. With SGU the drama revolves around how each character reacts differently to their common misfortunes. The first episodes, a two part pilot titled “Air” examines how each stranded character handles their sudden change of situation, being thrown from an orderly research station through the Stargate to a cold, dark alien ship. The refugees soon learn that the ship's life support isn't working and that there are probably large section of missing hull. Due to the nature of their hasty egress some of them have severe injuries. So they have to seal the damaged ship sections, repair the life support system and treat the wounded. Unfortunately, none of them know anything about the alien ship, let alone how to use any of it's control panels. Again, the drama could be unfolding on a battleship in the Pacific just as well as a wagon train on the prairie. The specific circumstance is completely science fiction, but the way the characters deal with these problems is the show's focus. In such a stressed environment, many of the survivors lash out. Tempers are volatile as the command structure is overtly and covertly challenged. Hysteria and panic take hold. Paranoia spreads. Distrust grows. Taut psychological dramas unfold between the characters. But eventually the tension resides as solutions are found. The injured begin to recover. The scientists begin to figure out the aliens controls. The survivors make peace with their situation and finally focus on surviving. All this occurs in the first two episodes. In episode three, the ship's power fails. Imagine the opportunity for panic as the still-addled survivors must confront a new fear. Like Lost, the survivors are facing the unknown each episode, learning more about their strange situation as they explore and solve the problems thrown at them. And like Star Trek, they are likely to use their situation to explore new planets, to seek out new life and new civilizations. They have to, because without supplies or means to fix the ship they have no hope of ever seeing Earth again.
New episodes air on Syfy Fridays at 9 and are available at hulu.com and syfy.com

Polar Opposites

In the cultural melting pot that is America bigots and supremacists thrive partly because of our black and white view of the world. You’re either white or not, Christian or heathen, a member of the majority or the minority. I can’t speak for countries other than The United States because I haven’t visited any of them, let alone spent enough time abroad to develop a world picture bigger than the tableau I see from my metaphorical back porch. Maybe it’s this way everywhere– maybe mankind is incapable of thinking in anything but binaries. Hell, we’re predisposed to pairs. We each have two hands, feet, eyes, ears, hemispheres of the brain, et cetera, unless we’re “deformed.” See, there it is– if you don’t have two of any of the above listed things, something’s “wrong” with you. Anything more or less is a deviation. But our affinity for twos goes beyond biology. In American politics, for example, we have two major political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. Sure, there are other parties, but Independents rarely garner more than a few votes. Occasionally the Libertarian and Green parties act as spoilers, taking votes from the two big boys, but never have third parties ever truly threatened the supremacy of The Donkey and the Elephant. In the last presidential election, for example, the Democratic candidate (Barack what’s-his-name) took 52.4% of the vote and the Republican candidate (I believe his name is Father Time) took 46.3%. That leaves 1.3% to the leftover parties. I voted for that Barack guy, not because I agree with everything he and his party wants, but because I agree with most of their platform. What a different election we would have had if there were more than two viable options. When we eat at a buffet (something Americans do too often, evidenced by our growing waistlines and shrinking arteries), it’s easy to pick and choose, to pass on the dry drumsticks or overcooked pork chops and instead opt for the roast beef. But when your options are cake or death your choice is already made for you. Unless you’re on Atkins. Then, by all means, enjoy you’re sugar-free Jello.

But our form of government, a representative democracy, has three branches. Many people forget this, that we have executive, legislative and judicial branches on our government’s tree. It takes an appointment (Sotomayor, I’m looking at you) or a controversial ruling (Roe V. Wade is not about the best way to cross a stream) to remind Americans that the Judiciary branch not only exists but also matters. Ideally, all three branches would check and balance one another. In reality, the White House and Congress make most of the political decisions. Again, it seems all our brains can handle is a dichotomy.

We find polar opposites in nature as well. Magnets literally have them. With the Earth’s rotation we get night and day. And let’s not over look sex. Every animal– okay, every important animal, sorry sponges, starfish and sea cucumbers– has a male and female gender. Humans have a hard time understanding transgendered and transsexual people because they don’t fit into our ‘this or that’ structure. We get ‘yes’ and ‘no’, but ‘maybe’ often baffles us. Homosexuality violates that same concept. We get putting a man together with a woman because that’s natural. Two girls together most can tolerate, mainly because our male-dominated society finds that erotic. But two guys, that’s icky. Or worse, some consider it a transgression against society or God. And three guys? Inconceivable to most. Two guys and girl? Only acceptable if one of the dudes is Ryan Reynolds and a pizza shop is somehow involved.

One of the peculiarities of the English is that it’s an amalgam of several other languages. Indeed, English integrates words from nearly every tongue. Back in the day, which was a Tuesday, when a new word was added to our lexicon it was paired with a more common word already in use. These ‘pair phrases’, like ‘odds and ends’, ‘prim and proper’ and ‘safe and sound’ were meant to help English speakers understand a new word by coupling it with a familiar one of the same meaning. In modern times colloquial pairs like ‘hard and fast’ or ‘down and out’ are not only unnecessary but also excessive. Why use three words when one will do? Is this another example of our dependence on duality? If so, I am ‘sick and tired’ of it.


There is only one true black, one true white, but infinite shades between. A visit to Sherwin-Williams attests to that. Ever try to match the wall color of the apartment you’ve wrecked in a vain attempt to recover your security deposit? If so then you know that barring removing a chunk of the wall to take with you, your chances of matching the color exactly are ‘slim to nil.’ Baytree white is different from off white which is different from eggshell which is different from cream. Sure, things would be simpler if all the grays went away. But how boring that would be. Variety, they say– and by they I mean the President and his wife– is the spice of life. Cumin is the spice of death, but that’s neither ‘here nor there’. So instead of thinking of things in twos, thinking a person either a friend or an enemy, a motive good or evil, a belief right or wrong, maybe we should start living in the gray. While I may believe in the validity of my point of view, and fight ‘tooth and nail’ to defend it, I shouldn’t dismiss the beliefs of others simply because they don’t coincide with mine. I don’t have to accept an asshole’s arrogant assertions, but I can at least tolerate them, if only for selfish reasons, so that my view, misguided as it may be, is tolerated as well. After all, there are billions of people on this planet, ‘by and large’ made up of ashen, smoky and silvery shades. No blacks, no whites, just grays.