Debuting less than two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 2001, 24 has been a stalwart for Fox.  Told in real time, 24’s action-packed espionage storylines focus on the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit and its protagonist, Jack Bauer played by Kiefer Sutherland, who must uncover and stop terrorist threats within twenty-four hours.

Apropos after the September 11^th terrorist attacks, the popular show has dominated the television drama market as it has won several Emmy Awards and Golden Globes, including the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 2006 and the Golden Globe for Best Drama Series in 2003.  Additionally, 24 landed at number six on Empire magazine’s 2008 list of “The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.”

Although Kiefer Sutherland has expressed interest in a ninth season of 24, it appears that the countdown to the end has begun.  24’s thrills could not make up for the high production costs and falling ratings.  The premiere of “Day 8” was its lowest since “Day 3.”  With eight seasons, a TV movie event (24:  Redemption), toys, a board game, and a video game, 24 may have run its course.  However, just like every cliffhanger hour of 24, there may still be something left to keep fans intrigued and wanting more.

Rumors have swirled for years of 24’s big thrills hitting the big screen.  Those rumors have become all the more official with the statement from Fox on February 9, 2010 that its film branch, 20^th Century Fox, confirmed plans to produce a major motion picture adaptation of the show.  Billy Ray (State of Play, Breach, Shattered Glass) has been contracted by 20^th Century Fox to pen the screenplay.  Taking 24 into a new market, the film industry may prove profitable as the show may have done all it could do with the medium of television.  Yet, one interesting question remains:  how will 24’s final day end?

As the seconds tick down on the final hour of 24, what will become of Jack Bauer?  Will he die heroically to save the world?  Will he live happily ever after with Kim and Terri?  Will terrorists finally be able to sleep at night when Jack officially retires?

What do you think?  What would you like to see happen in the finale of 24?  Leave a comment!

There is only one true way to find out.  Tune in to Fox every Monday at 9 PM EST to catch a ride on the riveting rollercoaster that is 24.

Thanks to an email message sent by a producer of “The Hurt Locker” (asking voters to vote for his low-budget indie film over a certain $500 million budget 3-D contender), there is at least some drama in the contest for “Best Picture.” Word around Hollywood is that there might be a backlash vote against “Hurt Locker” for this, but I think that is just the usual Hollywood attempt to make a story when one doesn’t exist. Since most of the voters’ ballots were mailed in by last Tuesday at 5pm, the backlash will be minimal. By then most of the Oscar voters already voted for all their friends and mailed their ballots in. Besides, how many of the voters would listen to anything a producer has to say?

But at least it gave the press something to write about. The biggest unreported story for this years Academy Awards is that there aren’t many actual movie stars left in Hollywood… and there are even fewer nominated for a performance this year. Remember just a few years ago, when you could see stars like Clint Eastwood, Judi Dench, William Hurt, Maggie Smith, Paul Newman, Jon Voight, Cate Blanchett, Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Dustin Hoffman, and Meryl Streep on the red carpet? Well, some things in the universe apparently never change, so you will still get to see Meryl Streep show up for her 16th nomination. But other than that, you will have to settle for the likes of Vera Farmiga, Carey Mulligan, Jeremy Renner, Gabourey Sidibe, Christoph Waltz, and Anna Kendrick. Who, you ask? Exactly. It is no accident that this is the final year that Barbara Walters is putting together her famous “Oscar Special.” She can’t be expected to profile these non-stars forever, can she? I mean, is there anyone in Hollywood that we don’t hear enough about? OK, Jack Nicholson… I’ll give you that. Then again, maybe that’s precisely why he’s such a bona fide star.

At this year’s Academy Awards, neither of the two front-runners (“Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker”) feature a big name star in a leading role. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana weren’t even nominated for their pedestrian work in “Avatar,” and Jeremy Renner (who?) probably worked for scale in “The Hurt Locker.” Of the 10 nominees for “Best Picture” there are only 3 that feature a movie star; “Up in the Air” (George Clooney), “Inglorious Basterds” (Brad Pitt), and “The Blind Side” (Sandra Bullock).

Hollywood has gotten rid of stars as much as they can. After all, one of the hosts this year is that bore from TV’s “30 Rock” Alec Baldwin. (Wait a minute – didn’t he promise to leave the country?) Thankfully, the other host is Steve Martin. So maybe the show won’t be half bad. Another plus: they finally got rid of the pathetic “Best Song” performance. We will at least be spared having to listen to five lame cover versions of songs so terrible the original recording artists usually refused to sing live in front of 36 million viewers.

Instead of real movie stars, now it is the movies that are the real stars, and this year’s expansion of the “Best Picture” category to 10 movies is just one more step toward that end. Let’s not forget that last year neither of the biggest box-office draws (“The Dark Knight” and “WALL-E”) drew a “Best Picture” nomination. So this year, the Academy decided to expand the list in a lame attempt to artificially boost ratings by rewarding mediocre, but extremely popular movies. This will go down in Oscar history as the year that 10 films were nominated in a year that there weren’t even 5 truly great films that deserved to be nominated. If that isn’t Hollywood for you, I don’t know what is.

The film that most deserves to be called 2009’s “Best Picture” is “The Hurt Locker.” I predicted the nomination and director Kathryn Bigelow’s win in my review last July, and I stand by that still. “The Hurt Locker” is an important and powerful film focused on the war in Iraq. The only film that could conceivably stage an Oscar coup is James Cameron’s “Avatar.” But for those of us that remember already seeing “Star Wars” and its sequels, we can still hope that the original screenplay of “The Hurt Lock” shocks and awes “Avatar” to oblivion on Oscar night.

And the Parcbench Oscar Picks are…
(Post-Oscar update: Looks like I got 17 out of 24 correct. Those that were chosen correctly are given an asterisk*… otherwise, the actual winner is listed in parentheses.)

Best Picture – The Hurt Locker*

Best Animated Feature – “Up”*

Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”*

Best Actor – Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”*

Best Actress – Sandra Bullock,”The Blind Side”*

Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”*

Best Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique, “Precious”*

Best Original Screenplay – “The Hurt Locker”*

Best Adapted Screenplay – “Up in the Air”(”Precious”)

Best Original Score – “Up”*

Best Original Song – “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart”*

Best Editing – “The Hurt Locker”*

Best Cinematography – “Avatar”*

Best Art Direction – “Avatar”*

Best Costume Design – “The Young Victoria”*

Best Makeup – “Star Trek”*

Best Sound Mixing – “Avatar”(”The Hurt Locker”)

Best Sound Editing – “Avatar”(”The Hurt Locker”)

Best Visual Effects – “Avatar”*

Best Foreign Film – “The White Ribbon” (Germany)(”El Secreto de Sus Ojos”)

Best Documentary Feature – “Burma VJ”(”The Cove”)

Best Documentary Short Subject – “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”(”Music by Prudence”)

Best Animated Short Film – “Logorama”*

Best Live-Action Short Film – “The Door”(”The New Tenants”)
The 82nd Annual Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, March 7, and televised live on ABC beginning at 5 p.m. PT/ 8 p.m. ET.

By Javier E. David and Don E. Smith Jr.

DON SMITH: Greetings, we are trying a “roundtable discussion via e-mail” with Tuesday night’s Mitt Romney appearance on “The Later Show” with David Letterman on CBS while Sarah Palin appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno.

JAVIER DAVID: You could call it the battle between the Head Cheerleader and the Mutual Fund Manager.

DON SMITH: That works! Both are expected front runners in the 2012 election for the Republicans going up against President Barack Hussein Obama (hmm, hmm, hmm).

Javier, how would call the match up?

JAVIER DAVID: Tuesday’s late-night talk show circuit could almost be characterized as the political equivalent of HBO Boxing After Dark, as two heavyweight Republican contenders went mano-a-mano (or rather couch-to-couch) on competing networks.

Early returns indicate that Sarah Palin – the indefatigable former Alaska governor and Vice Presidential nominee (not to mention best-selling author), won the match-up handily. Yet the impeccably-coiffed former Massachusetts governor, appearing on CBS’s “Late Night with David Letterman” and currently on a widely-publicized tour for his new book, No Apology, Mitt Romney demonstrated some well-choreographed footwork, and even landed a few choice jabs of his own.

DON SMITH: I was going to add that for almost two years, Sarah Palin, has been the butt of jokes and thanks to her appearance on “The Tonight Show”, she was able to turn that around.

As Leno said in his introduction, “Either they love my next guest or they don’t…”

JAVIER DAVID: Yeah!

The contrasts between the two potential rivals could hardly be starker. I thought, Palin’s affable charm and crowd-pleasing humor can’t be denied. The former governor showed up comfortably yet stylishly dressed in jeans – thankfully she left the running shorts at home – and put her star-power on full-display for Leno’s audience (alas, a much hoped-for televised tete-a-tete between Palin and flamboyant “American Idol” rocker Adam Lambert did not come to pass). If the rousing applause she got from the audience was any indication, Palin’s charm offensive certainly paid dividends.

DON SMITH: Let me add something to that: Palin, for whatever reason, has probably probably the most maligned Republican since President George W. Bush, and Bush was treated with the same “whipping boy” status that former Vice President Dan Quayle was given. But Palin is capitaliznig on what these two gentlemen did not have - her “franchise” status.

In fact, back in January, I bought a special “collectors issue” write up on Palin I found at a CVS and Boom! Comics released a publication called Repuglicans! with a distorted view of Palin on the cover. But something that Leno and the people behind the “collectors issue” capitalized on is that Palin echoes a huge segment of America that is maligned by the current media. In fact, this is something she touched on last night.

Javier, how would you contrast this with Romney?

JAVIER DAVID: Well, Romney, on the other hand, appeared more the management consultant than relaxed talk-show couch fixture in his expensive-looking banker’s suit and tie. While he shouldn’t give up his day-job (come to think of it, does he even have one anymore?) for stand-up comedy, the former 2008 presidential nominee brandished a quick-wit and propensity for one-liners for the Letterman audience. Romney also regaled them with tales of his humble upbringing that included an anecdote about a tricked-out car he drove in college.

But like the encyclopedia salesman who struggles to get a rise from stone-faced clients, Romney sometimes tried too hard to be crowd-pleasing, in a way that makes his critics raise questions about his sincerity. His good-natured humor is sometimes strained in ways that fall short of the mark. Romney tickled the audience’s funny bone with a self-deprecating joke that a rap artist with whom he had an altercation on an airplane “broke my hair” – but prompted a wry reply from Letterman moments later when he stretched the joke near its breaking point, quipping he wanted to claim the rapper on his income taxes.

DON SMITH: Palin had some good one-liners too, but she did not touch on policy issues as much as I would like. But she did mention the liberal media.

“I want to build trust,” said Palin regarding her signing on to be a commentator with Fox News. She said that viewers no longer trust the newspapers and news broadcasts because of the need to insert their own commentary on the world, politics and Hollywood and hide it in the guise of “news.”

Not counting her stand up performance (I say this as a Palin fan, but she is not a stand up comedian), she was met with at least five resounding applauses in her 10 minutes she was being interviewed by Leno.

Probably the most resounding applause was met when she asked, “I wish my kids were left alone.”

JAVIER DAVID: Yeah, but regarding Romney, if nothing else, he’s demonstrated his penchant for policy matters and a well-earned reputation for economic savvy. He appeared in his comfort zone when holding forth on topics ranging from the troubled auto sector to the Tea Party Movement. Romney also showed his gallantry by calling Palin “terrific” – even if he couldn’t resist the urge to fire off one more one liner about her status as a pistol-packing mama.

Palin was effervescent, funny, and exuded a girl-next-door earthiness that eludes most politicians; that said, her remarks were light on policy specifics.

DON SMITH: Exactly! Actually, I thought the funniest parts were Palin giving it back to Leno.

“C’mon,” to paraphrase her. “You’ve been in the news in recent weeks.” Leno gave a self-depricating-Rodney-Dangerfield-like grin.

In fact later, he asked, “So are you going to be talk show?” And she joked back “The Tonight Show seems to go through hosts a lot!”

Leno gave the same smirk.

If there was one area I thought needed work, was it semed Palin and Leno just discussed the tabloid stories. I was actually hoping they would get into ideas about energy indepence, healthcare and the economy. Instead, it was Leno saying, “About you writing on the hand…”

Granted she had a great line calling it a “poor man’s teleprompter” but I get the feeling people are going to view her just as a tabloid headline and not the leader I know her to be. And I did not think her stand up act helped cultivate the image.

Though it did show she can remember anything and not need a teleprompter to speak to kids. (Follow the link: http://www.floppingaces.net/wp-content/uploads/610zxvsdx.jpg ).

JAVIER DAVID: I have to admit Romney reminded you of the guy who manages your retirement account, but came across as confident, encyclopedic and in complete mastery of details.

DON SMITH: As a Palin fan, I’d give this a “fair” rating, but I think she needs to get someplace where she can give a speech for all of America to see. Let’s see her for the leader we know she is and not the tabloid joke that everyone else has made her out to be.

Your final thoughts?

JAVIER DAVID: Romney/Palin 2012, anyone?

DON SMITH: Works for me! Let’s just wait and see what is out there!

After I wrote my first article, our illustrious Editor-in-Chief suggested I continue updating on Caprica and the progression of its social commentary.  I admit I was a bit under-confident that the show would continue its socio-theological commentary in earnest; that it would placate wider appeal at the expense of good thought.

After episode 5 aired Friday I am still repenting for my lack of faith.  Caprica continues its steady march into even testier religious waters, striking deeper at America’s Modernist core.  The show’s allegorical environment plus its refusal to allow even one of its characters to assume the mantle of ‘villain’ may serve to soften the blows the writers are dealing toward the modern establishment, but the provocations are obvious if only ye have eyes to see and DVRs to record.  This column is meant to make Caprica’s peculiar brand of social commentary as plain as this philosophy major can possibly make it.

SEMI-SPOILER ALERT:  Though I don’t really like describing plot twists in detail it’s probably best that you watch the episode before reading this.

Episode 5 is a game-changer.  The big (and beautiful) reveal is a new area in V-World called New Cap City.  It skirts close to being a re-hash of The Matrix except in this iteration there is no narrative of mental slavery and redemption.  Instead people live in the digital world to play ‘The Game’, a contest without rules or objective.

Tamara:  “What’s the object of the game?”

Gamer:  “It’s a mystery.  It’s almost like figuring out the object of the game is the object of the game.  But we think it’s about getting things that convert into points like money or weapons.”

Sound familiar?  The parallels to addictive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (or MMORPGs) are plain.  Tamara’s advice to her gamer friend to unplug and “be something” out in the real world could seem like a quick and relevant ‘moral to the story’ but the symbolism runs deeper.

The people of real Caprica and the gamers in New Caprica are in the same existential boat.  Caprican society does not believe in God, but gods; not in moral imperatives, but freedom from obligation.  Driving every character on the show is an unshakable need to connect with something beyond their present experience in order to give their lives meaning.

Joseph Adama returns to his traditional rites, Daniel Graystone reaches farther into the digital haze of artificial intelligence.  Though they both risk the public labeling them insane, neither one is content simply ‘playing the game’ of society, and it will be interesting to see where each man’s path to meaning leads him.

Getting points (money) or weapons (power) do not satisfy the objective.  The answer can only come from someone or somewhere beyond the present experience.  In this light, there are no ‘evil’ or ‘good’ only the distracted and the awake.

The scenes with Tamara and the Gamer are laden with existential meaning.  The way he stares at his collector full of ‘points’ and exclaims with wonder “It’s gotta mean something” is an affecting picture of the middle class American.  It doesn’t matter what your ‘points’ are (money, health, sex, power, etc.), there seems to be a common idea that getting enough of them will reveal the meaning of existence, the object of the game when in fact the only object is to get out.

Now replace Caprica with America and New Cap with World of Warcraft and you have the exact same situation.  We are all ‘players’ out here in the real world and none of us are (by law) allowed any authoritative clue as to what the objective is.  We are charged with finding it out for ourselves.  We have effectively turned our world into a big MMORPG (and we wonder why WoW is so addictive).  If escape from New Cap is Tamara’s raison d’etre, then our own must be the promise that “There Is Another Sky”.

Tiger Woods took home the silver medal for the United States, and Toyota’s Akio Toyoda earned the gold for Japan in the Men’s Downhill Apologizing event in Vancouver. Earning the bronze was Canada’s Wippy Stevens.

The Men’s Downhill Apology event is a recent addition to the Winter Olympics, testing an athlete’s ability to apologize in a grand fashion while his entire life and career go down the tubes.

Judges praised Tiger Woods’ performance, citing his self-control and well-practiced routine. He lost points for not taking enough risks and refusing to perform for 80 percent of the audience.

“Tiger’s performance was just a bit too short,” said Sports Illustrated Olympic Analyst Will Muir, “He just didn’t put himself out there enough. This is the Olympics. You have to let it all hang out. He definitely earned the silver. It was a performance you just couldn’t stop watching.”

The real talk of the Downhill Apologizing event was Akio Toyoda, who wowed the audience with his seemingly endless stream of apologies as he sank deeper and deeper into the guttural depths of public dissatisfaction.

“I think I counted an astonishing 58 ‘I’m Sorry’s,’” said Olympic panelist Steve Driehaus, “They just poured out of his mouth like the filling of my taco last night. The taco was really overstuffed.”

Toyoda’s torrent of apologies for quality and safety lapses in his company’s cars electrified a packed house as the company’s vehicles are increasingly becoming four-wheeled albatrosses around the necks of their doomed owners.

An emotional Toyoda thanked his family and his countrymen for supporting him, and he apologized.

“This is an emotional moment for me,” said Toyoda, “I am sorry for getting so emotional. Thank you to my family. I am sorry that I got a B- in physical science 37 years ago. Excuse me, Mr. Woods. I am sorry I am standing a little to close to your place on the platform. I am sorry for not having this shirt starched before presenting myself. I have more apologies, but I must return to my hotel room to apologize to room service for my substandard tip.”

Not much is known about the Canadian upstart Wippy Stevens, who earned the bronze medal, only that he spilled his soda on the person next to him and delivered a solid, “Dude, I’m sorry.”

Read more satire at The Endive…

What was originally reported as a disappearance, has turned in to what every one was dreading. His body was found around noon today in Stanley Park, in Vancouver. As I was writing my original article, I didn’t want it to be what I feared. All the signs were there – the history of depression, giving away his possessions, the note.

He had lived a full life after Growing Pains. He continued to act and produce on TV and on stage.

Eonline says:
“Just last year, Koenig appeared alongside Andy Richter in a video promoting the one-year anniversary—or, as he put it, “12 months of internety goodness”—of Koenig’s website, MonkeyGoLucky.com. Not short of concerned friends, Sarah Silverman, Alyssa Milano, Dave Holmes, Kevin Smith and good pal Doug Benson have all been tweeting about Koenig’s disappearance.”

Read more here.

He was an activist for many causes. Protesting the 2008 Olympics in China landed him in jail.

But he will forever be Boner in our hearts. He will definitely be missed.

This is particularly traumatic for me. As a middle schooler, watching Growing Pains, I remember having a crush on Boner.

Just to provide a little comic relief, in this very tragic situation, you can probably imagine the research process for this article. Just try Googling any phrase with the word “Boner” in it. In doing so, my computer crashed.

I had to use my less-than-helpful, but dreamy boyfriend’s computer, who had all sorts of disrespectful title suggestions for this article.

Andrew, who resided in California was last seen in Canada, where he was visiting some friends. He was supposed to fly back to California on the 16th, but never made the flight.

His father, Walter Koenig who played Chekov on Star Trek, said on his website, that his he had received a letter from his son which said, that he “wasn’t going to work anymore,” he told KABC that his son had “been depressed.”

It sounds as though Koenig was planning to stay in Canada. There is speculation that he may have moved to Vancouver to “start over,” and is remaining inconspicuous for the time being. A friend told the Daily News that Andrew Koenig turned down multiple job offers and cleared out his Venice Beach, California home before leaving. He left a bag with a book and other personal items on the friend’s doorknob.

According to Fox news, since the disappearance was made public, last Thursday, the Vancouver Police Missing Persons Unit has received “a substantial amount of tips and sightings. For instance, he was sighted at a bakery in south Vancouver. Police are hopeful that he’s still alive. They say Koenig’s ATM card and cell phone records indicate that they were used up until his last sighting.
There has been no activity on either account since then. In the meantime, Police are wishing that Koenig would throw them a bone as to his whereabouts.

This is depressing for me, and it’s a time of year when Jews like myself are supposed to be happy, so I’ll be brief.

When I watch Deadliest Catch, I view all of the boats like businesses, and I like to think about which captain I would most enjoy working for based on his business sense and management skills.

For the record, Sig Hansen of the Northwestern is the best manager in the fleet; pushing his employees to work hard while promoting teamwork and rewarding performance. Keith Coburn of the Wizard is the worst, constantly showing inability to plan ahead and allowing his employees to keep annoying him until there’s nothing left to do but blow up.

One boat stood out from the rest because it was never seemed like a company to me – The Cornelia Marie. When the cameras shifted over to Phil Harris’s boat, we weren’t watching a boss handle his employees. We were watching a father handle his children.

Harris’s two sons were part of the crew, and while he tried to treat them like employees, the father in him always came through. Phil Harris did his best to strengthen both of his sons and teach them that there was no such thing as a free ride. Sometimes he wasn’t the best father in the world. Sometimes he blew up at them on camera or set a bad example.

But that was part of what we loved about Phil Harris. He was a real human being and a real father. He faced his own challenges and displayed his own weaknesses, including the poor health habits that ultimately lead to his demise.

By the end of each season we all joined Phil in feeling proud of the Harris boys. According to Discovery Channel, Phil Harris fought to the end, attaining improbable consciousness and spending quality time with his kids right up until the end. He acknowledged that his own bad habits lead to his poor health, and he left his sons with parting advice that only a life of experiences like his could produce.

Deadliest Catch has lost one of those rare gems of reality television – a geniune character – an everyman that any of us would love to have a beer with and share our own war stories.

We are fortunate that the cameras gave us this tiny shapshot of Phil Harris’s life. Godspeed, Captain Harris - Captain, CEO, and father of the Cornelia Marie.

-

Sid Bridge, APR is the Senior Editor of Parcbench and the Editor-in-Chief of The Endive.

Kingdom of Heaven?  Nope.  Expelled?  No.  Religulous?  Heavens, no.  Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?  Warmer, but no.

Today, theology is the last thing the entertainment industry wants to deal with in any kind of intelligent way.  It’s difficult to find one popular TV show or film that explores religion in any form other than abject villainy.

To find the epicenter of theological inquiry in modern entertainment one must dive beneath the mainstream and descend into the world of fanboys and comic conventions.  For all the diverse achievements the past ten years of film and television have produced, the only focused exploration of the religion in modern society was a contemporary remake of a failed 1970s television show called Battlestar Galactica.

Spaceships and robots, you say?  Are these really the proper metaphorical tools for exploring humanity’s longest held institution?  Perhaps not, but however little intellectual legitimacy you feel comfortable giving the science fiction genre, Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar indeed went where no popular television show dared venture.  It spun a deeply theological narrative that is more than worthy of repeat viewings and armchair conversation.

Now, SyFy–the Sci-Fi channel’s sleek new brand name–is airing Battlestar Galactica’s prequel, Caprica.  The series replaces spaceships with a sprawling city and trades military battles for family conflicts.  The title is the name of the capitol planet of the thirteen human colonies.  Earth is out of the picture, as original BSG fans know well, and each of the thirteen human planets has its own distinct culture and identity.

Caprica sets a rich metaphorical stage for modern America while planets like Tauron and Gemenon are looser amalgams of third world cultures.  Because Caprica takes place in a sort of American alternate reality, it is freer to explore touchy subjects like religion and terrorism behind a thin allegorical veil.

The show begins by setting up Caprica as a society drunk on its own prosperity.  It is the paragon of democracy, in which even divine power is shared between a pantheon of gods.  When a member of a rebellious monotheistic cult miraculously succeeds in creating an artificial intelligence, tragic events are set in motion that bring together a diverse group of people and force them to reconsider what is right, what is wrong and what is possible.

So far, the heart and soul of Caprica’s drama and philosophizing is a robot.  The creation first true artificial intelligence (or ‘Cylon’) is chronicled in detail in the show’s two-hour pilot.  Creators Ronald Moore, David Eick and newcomer Remi Aubuchon succeed in finally bringing A.I. into its proper thematic habiliment:  the religious.

The ‘creating life’ motif has been slathered onto plenty of other human/robot stories, but Caprica is the first to actually place God at the center of its mechanics.  In the show, a true A.I. is finally created by a monotheistic cult that credits the one true God as its source of inspiration.  This is not a mere plot device.  It is clear that someone on the creative team had done his homework.

Creating A.I. is impossible without a specific kind of miracle:  the miracle of language.  One need not come from a religious heritage to agree with this.  There has not been one successful attempt in the history of science at either creating language or teaching an animal how to use language.

The problem is methodological.  Scientists assume language to behave in much the same way, like a computer code that can be deconstructed and replicated.  It turns out that language is nothing of the sort.  It is more of an epiphany than an evolutionary process.  One cannot build consciousness; it happens usually all at once in a human child.

The closest anyone has come to describing the experience in detail is Helen Keller in her autobiography.  Because she could neither see nor hear, her ability to recognize language was severely slowed.  But after a month of vain behavioral learning (Helen holds doll, Helen spells ‘D-O-L-L’, Helen gets treat), the leap of consciousness was made all at once while standing at a water pump.  Keller recounts the experience:

“Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten, a thrill of returning thought, and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.”

There is no way to prove that this moment was God’s inspiration acting upon Helen’s consciousness but over a century later, there is still no way to prove that it was otherwise.  Evolutionary scientists are powerless to explain the event.  The thing just happens, all at once, catastrophically, like a great flood or a pillar of fire illuminating the mind.  Sometimes it’s best to call a spade a spade.  It’s impossible to talk about the creation of artificial intelligence without talking about God and the good people behind Caprica know it.

I wouldn’t count on the storyline to support Judaeo-Christian theology–or any theology for that matter–to the letter, but do expect Caprica to fearlessly examine religion, the only subject that the entertainment industry has kept taboo.  Battlestar Galactica was profoundly interested with religious questions though its answers to those questions remained ambiguous to the end.  Caprica will likely follow suit, which is not at all bad thing.  If anything it’ll just be nice to watch a show that doesn’t automatically assume faith to be the same thing as psychosis.

In many ways, Science Fiction is the best-equipped genre to explore religion today.  It allows the audience to re-consider the mysteries of the universe by wiping away the haze of our spiritually disinterested society through all manner of fantastic (but not usually improbable) catastrophes and weird alternate futures.

The genre’s cult status is actually rather fitting considering how many people take God seriously these days.  I’ve had to come to grips with the fact that being religious in modern times is, well…geeky.  I’m always reading the same books over and over again, always coming back to uncomfortable subjects that nobody wants to talk about, obsessed with stories about some other world and the ash on my forehead makes me look like a Klingon.

No matter.  I shall soldier on.  I shall continue to attend church on Sunday and on Fridays I shall select Caprica on my DVR, go into my upper room and ‘play.’

When the combination of television and a certain well-known talk radio personality who describes himself as a “harmless little fuzz ball” were letting me know a plane had smacked into the Austin IRS complex at 825 East Rundberg Lane last week, casting a sheen of fiberglass and concrete into the sky like so much air freshener, I didn’t think much of it. I thought someone had fallen asleep at the wheel or skipped out on the test for his sport pilot’s certificate.

Seeing as this is the Information Age, you can cruise the dark bowels of the Internet and find unintelligent, badly worded accusations of “tea party terrorism” (I’m not talking about the Daily Kos or the Democrat Underground but I might as well be) fueled by neckbeards locked in their homes.

I found plenty of online blogs and news services with things to say on Northwest Austin, some with statements that just plain rubbed me the wrong way. For this, dear readers, we at Parc will invoke one of my writing staples and ask – what would a triangle MMA match between three people for the title of “Worst Statements of the Night” look like?

Let’s see: Pre-fight sizing of Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Capehart showed us two seasoned veterans to the cable news circuit and one relative newcomer. Johnny was at a decisive reach disadvantage, folks, so he had to make up for it with some well-placed blows.

Kayo was our first combatant to hit the canvas. Putting the truth to the pest-inspired adage “sting like a bee,” he floated like a butterfly with his continuances of the crude and ridiculous antics of Jackass for the small screen. Between words to the “unbearable whiteness of the tea parties” (which was funny for his being employed by the one cable news station with a roster of unbearable whiteness) and juvenile T.P. jokes, the German Bomber took a few minutes to throw weak jabs and portray the attack as being solely motivated by anti-government terrorism.

His assessment of Stack cherry picked many of the details, and he didn’t go overboard like he did when Scotty B was elected, but there was no mistaking his intent. Olby is the crowd favorite in this fight, here at Parcbench, but our judges have to do their job fairly.

Washington Post correspondent Capehart knocks K out, tries to perform a flying knee on his next target, and misses the mark entirely – struck by an off-base assessment of “alienation similar to” that felt by tea partiers. This has opened Capehart up for a very strong and fast retaliation, seeing as the tea parties are (by their very virtue of being anti-government spending) pro-private sector spending. Pro-free market solution to America’s problems. How can our “PostPartisan” fighter from New jersey really claim that a movement encouraging capitalism – the very free enterprise system upon which America flourished – squares away with the words “from each according to their gullibility, to each according to their greed?” Is it possible for him to get away with painting us as the ideological brothers of a man that believes unthinkable atrocities have been committed by General Motors and rips off John Edwards’ “Two Americas” campaign theme?

He can’t, unless failing to include Stack’s improv of the Communist Manifesto in his “excerpts.” That’ll count as a point deduction with our judges.

“Mad” Rachel Maddow, having survived tooth-and-nail throughout our mayhem, has made all the right moves so far, even avoiding the mistake made by Capehart. While pointing out his devotion to Marx (and the Facebook group that supported him) she turned our East Coast nine P.M. hour into Fight Club, making a stab at blocking the inevitable blows to Stack’s liberal leanings:

“People were looking for some sort of clear political signal here. You can’t find . . . in the Unabomber manifesto, I don’t believe you can find that here.”

And she just followed that last block with a series of punches that are destroying our male fighters! I can’t believe this! Let’s put this on instant replay for our fans at home –

She didn’t refrain from finding “clear political signals” when she called Tea Party Convention attendees racists with white hoods. She didn’t refrain from finding those signals when ascribing to Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter James Von Brunn an “anti-government” agenda and a set of “extreme right-wing political views, exactly what the (Homeland Security) report was warning about.” Most importantly, she didn’t refrain from finding those signals when designating George Tiller’s death as part of an organized “anti-abortion terrorist movement” with ties to right-wing groups — and questioning whether Bill O’Reilly is actually sorry that Tiller is dead!

So this is the big one folks . . . she just . . . stabbed Olbermann’s eye out with her thumb in plain view of the ref, and kicked Johnny C in the groin area! He’ll be feeling that for weeks!

She’s finally managed to avoid going down hard and it is ALL OVER! Your winner at three minutes thirty seconds into the very last round, due to disqualification:

Janet Napolitano!