Traveler Moves at a Breakneck Pace

The pilot episode of Traveler (sneak preview tonight on ABC, 10 PM, EST) hits the ground running—literally. Sirens blaring in the streets of New York, we see two young men running desperately, from what we don’t know. They retreat to a hotel room, where the TV newscast is giving updates about a terrorist attack, listing them as the suspects in this act of domestic terrorism.

The camera moves in for an extreme close-up of a book on the table-- Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. . .

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Starting a story in the middle of the action is rarely a bad idea. It may be a cheap shot, but it immediately engages the audience with a sense of “what did I just walk in on?” It’s called misdirection, and the creative team who helm this series are no strangers to the concept. Directed by David Nutter, best known for his work on the X-Files and Without a Trace, this pilot episode is paced more like a feature film than a TV episode. The script by David DiGilio (Eight Below) is taut as a kettle drum, tantalizing the viewer with well-placed, but murky clues in all the key moments,flashing back and forward in the action that would defy logic were it not for his deft scripting.

It all begins with a simple prank. Three grad-school buddies embark on what is supposed to be a cross-country last hurrah road trip before entering into their workaday futures. But when one of the trio, Will Traveler, convinces Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog to rollerblade through an iconic art museum in New York City, the first leg of the road trip takes a very twisted turn. An explosion rocks the museum, and Jay and Tyler suddenly find themselves prime suspects in an act of domestic terrorism. Worse, they gradually realize that their friend Will Traveler set them up to cover up his own involvement in the bombing.

Traveler takes the premise and runs with it. In so doing, it calls into question the nature of loyalty, patriotism and love, and wraps it up in the fabric of well-placed paranoia. If the pilot is any indication, this looks to be a series fraught with twists and turns to rival 24 or Lost in its heyday. We already know more than the protagonists in that we see that nothing is as it seems. It offers enough tantalizing hints to keep us going through the summer. If it can maintain the pace it set running out of the gate, it may very well end up being a must-see come fall.

After tonight’s sneak preview, Traveler begins its weekly run May 30. I suggest you watch tonight’s head start. You’ll be the talk of the water cooler.

The Exies End Their Exile

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It's been well over two years since the Exies released an album, and truth be told, they weren't greatly missed. They were one of those bands that seemed always on the cusp of success, what with landing soundtrack deals on a couple of Playstation and XBox games, and being an opening act for Motley Crue in 2005 ( a dubious distinction at best.) But they were unable to crack that sound barrier that would make them stars. After three albums, two of them on Virgin, it looked as if the Exies were done. Virgin dropped them, and the band began to disintegrate. Original guitarist David Walsh and drummer Dennis Wolfe decided it would be a good time to jump ship.

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Vocalist Scott Stevens and bassist Freddie Hererra soldiered on, though, and after reuniting with guitarist Chris Skane, they set about to resurrecting the Exies from the ashes of oblivion. What results is their fourth album, A Modern Way of Living With the Truth. It's not only their best effort to date--it stands apart from the current crop of LA bands.

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While their earlier efforts weren't terrible, they didn't do much to distinguish the Exies from other bar bands with a record deal. For the most part, they sounded like they were working the room. The songs on Inertia and Head For the Door showed promise, but failed to take that necessary leap of faith, and presented nothing challenging.

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The hiatus has done the band a world of good. "Exies" was always shorthand for "Existentialists", but A Modern Way of Living With the Truth is the first work the band has produced that actually reflects that stance. Oh, it still has that polished LA hard rock sound that gets airplay, but this outing sounds more sincere than contrived. They've emerged from their self-imposed exile rejuvenated, tighter and with a sense of purpose that simmers through the three chord structures. This time, the Exies mean business, and they're taking no prisoners.

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It takes some chutzpah to open what is ostensibly a hard rock album with an acoustic ballad, yet "The Leaving Song" sets the tone for what follows, if not musically, then certainly lyrically. Most of what follows (and this, according to the band) are songs about coming to grips with the past, while seeking the best for the future. There's nothing particularly earth-shattering in that approach-- themes of uncertainty have always been a mainstay of rock. What the Exies bring to the table, though, is a post-grunge sensibility to those themes. The result is often blistering, as in "Lay Your Money Down," with its rant against materialism, and sometimes plaintive, particularly on "Stray." "Different Than You," the first single from the LP, aptly demonstrates the band's new-found strength, with its staight-ahead, grinding guitars, solid bass and pounding drums (courtesy of "Hoss"). But its on their reworking of Talking Heads' "Once In a Lifetime" that the Exies prove beyond doubt they're a band to be reckoned with. The lyrics are the only reference point to the original tune, with the new version being a haunting acoustic tune punctuated with buzzsaw guitars in the chorus.

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The Exies stumbled on their early efforts-- it happens. But with A Modern Way of Living With the Truth, they've finally found their voice. I think we'll be hearing a lot more of it. This is a guitar band that rocks without pandering. We need more voices like that.

Before We Wore Black

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Behind me, clouds boiled darkly, scarred here and there by jagged patches of light, constantly shifting by the whims of the wind. A storm was approaching, bearing the dregs of the past and heralding in an undreamed future. The wind hurled tiny needles of refreshing rain into my face as I hurried on to meet Elke at the bus stop, from where we would be ferried to the train. That part of the plan proved fruitless, as the storm had other plans, and I found myself flashing back to another time. . .

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It was a stormy May morning in 1985, and my wife at the time had just gone into labor. I couldn't help but smile to myself as we drove the Cutlass to the hospital, directly into the approaching storm. From what I'd been told, it was a day not unlike the morning I entered into the world some thirty years earlier. Margeaux would enter the world with a dramatic flourish, after all. . .

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The light rail train moved almost silently, shielding us from the storm without as we made our way through the concrete corridors of Dallas. The train was crowded, packed with an odd combination of weary office workers still strapped to laptops, street hustlers just beginning their workday, and assorted laborers, vagabond tourists and sullen city dwellers. Nobody talks much on those afternoon commutes. Elke and I were no different. We sat across from each other, exchanging nervous smiles and clasping each other's hand. I couldn't know what thoughts were racing through her head at this point. The daughter I'd been trying to find for 18 years was waiting just a few stops down the line. . .

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There was no happier man in the history of the universe than me when I first held Margeaux. I was in the delivery room when she emerged, and except for the doctor and the nurse, I was the first one to hold her. Imagine an ocean flowing over you, drowning you in the unknown, suffocating you, then releasing you you into a universe you could never have imagined, where an infinite future beckons. Imagine all that happening in a moment of touch, and you have a vague idea of how I felt when I first held my daughter. . .

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Light rail trains don't lurch to a stop--they glide imperceptibly to their destination, and if you're not paying attention, you'll float right by. The storm had subsided, but the gray skies against the skyscrapers of downtown Dallas--a hodgepodge of gargoyles, urban statuary and pale blue glass towers--only enhanced my odd sense of noir-ish ennui. I should have been nervous--I'd only reconnected with Margeaux two weeks earlier, and we'd only spoken via phone. It all happened so quickly that I didn't even have a current photo of her. She told me she was a bit on the goth side, and that she would be wearing black. That couldn't be too difficult--Elke and I would most likely be wearing black, also. After all, it simplifies laundry. . .

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We laughed a lot during those first few years-- at least, that's what the photos indicate. They're all full of bright colors and smiles, typical of happy dreams. The marriage was going south even then, though. The divorce was messy, I was blindsided, and despite court orders, Margeaux vanished from my life for a while, gone to parts unknown. I never gave up hope, though, and neither did she. . .

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The wind whipped in all directions as Elke and I raced to the Greyhound bus station. The storm had put us behind schedule for what would be the singlemost momentous event of our lives. She was rushing headlong into stepmotherhood, I was about to meet my baby daughter all grown up, and somewhere in that bus station was Margeaux, who I just knew had to be wondering what the hell she's gotten herself into. . .

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Enough flashbacks raced through my head to fill several books. I wondered what flashbacks Margeaux had on her bus trip. And I wondered what was going through Elke's head. . .

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Once again, storms turned out to be a salvation--Margeaux had come in from West Texas, and ridden the storm all the way. Some things never change. Elke and I, somewhat bedraggled but nonetheless for wear, were waiting as the bus pulled into the station. It was a cacophany in the Greyhound station, but we made our way to what had to be the bus from West Texas. Elke saw her first--"That's Margeaux!" she shouted, even though she'd never seen her before. (She said later it was the lips.) I looked up, dumfounded. . .

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Beauty, I know, is subjective. But when Margeaux first emerged from the Greyhound, time stopped for me. Her hair was raven black now,and draped over her shoulders, accentuated by twin ponytails, but I flashed back to her auburn tresses when she was three. Her eyes were accented with black eyeliner, making them even larger than when she was a baby. She was wearing a black jacket and indigo jeans, and I couldn't help but chuckle-- it was hardly goth. . .

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Margeaux and I had already made a pact we wouldn't cry when we met--and we didn't. But when we hugged, eighteen years of uncertainty were washed away in a nanosecond. She had heard tales of me, most of which ended in my demise. And I, considering her age wondered if she had been shipped off to Iraq, among other outcomes. Neither of us ever gave up, though.

She found some of my Blogcritics writings, and wondered if that guy might be her father. I searched for her, and thanks to the unique spelling of her name, found her in a martial arts forum. The hunt, as it were, was on..

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I had just come back from lunch when a co-worker told me I had a call. "Your daughter's on the line," he said. I took the call upstairs. The voice on the other end was faltering, nervous. "I think I'm your daughter," she said. . ..

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That was two weeks earlier. Now, I was hoisting her luggage as we made our way home. We didn't talk a lot-- there would be plenty of time for that once we unpacked. For now, the smiles were enough. We'd brought three umbrellas--Margeaux chose the black one.

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It didn't really matter. The storms had passed to the east, and the future lay ahead.

The Secret of Cinco de Mayo

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As an Irish boy from Texas, I'm usually more amused than perplexed by what passes as St. Patrick's Day in Dallas. I know, I know--everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's day, but that still doesn't explain why a large percentage of the populace paint themselves green and wear New Orleans juju beads and drink copious amounts of Guinness on public thoroghfares in the wee hours of the morning. Okay, the Guinness part I understand, but I don't get the connection between St. Patrick and the Hulk.

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If everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day, then everybody's Mexican on Cinco de Mayo. Coronas stand in for Guinness, we all become experts on Mexican cuisine and we all find another excuse to get soused. At least we don't put green dye in the Coronas. I'm not knocking it, mind you--it's a nice little party. It's just that we gringoes don't quite get it.

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We like to label Cinco de Mayo as Mexican Independence Day, which it isn't. Mexico declared independence from Spain 15 September 1810. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla, 5 May 1862, in which a heavily outnumbered, ragtag force of Mexicans, mostly Mestizo and Zapotec Indians called Zacapoaxtlas, defeated the French army of Napoleon III. It was a short-lived victory, since the French regrouped and eventually put Maxmillan in power in Mexico for a few years. Still, the Battle of Puebla is one of those inspirational events that speak to the universality of the human spirit.

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It's fitting that Cinco de Mayo is celebrated more north of the border than it is in Mexico. At the time of the battle, the United States was embroiled in its Civil War, and the French viewed it as an opportunity to stop the Monroe Doctrine's manifesto of one country that spanned the continent. They were already funding the Confederacy in an attempt to slow down the United States' westward expansion. While it may be a stretch to hint that the Battle of Puebla had a hand in saving the United States, it can't be denied that Mexico slowed France's empirical dreams that day. Today's world could be very different had it not been for what hapened Cinco de Mayo 1862.

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All of that being said, it's no small wonder that Cinco de Mayo today is a day of celebration and festivity. I think it's important to remember that we Americans are not an island unto ourselves today. We've had a lot of help through the years, often forgotten because the measures are often small and forgotten in the mix of the Melting Pot. Cinco de Mayo reminds us we'd be a very bland country were it not for the spice of bravery.

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When Rock Critics Go Bad

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My daughter Margeaux and I were in the Asian Arts Center the other day to check out an exhibition by contemporary female Vietnamese artists. That's not completely true-- we went there, as we do whenever she's in town, because of its quiet, understated beauty, and the solace it offers from the hectic pace of downtown Dallas. This exhibit was new, and a pleasant surprise, with works ranging from jagged portraiture to delicate brush and ink renderings that captured the breeze dancing on brooks better than any photo ever could.

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When Margeaux views a piece, she quietly inhales it, letting it wash over her to interpret it according to her own life experiences. She never attempts to second-guess the artist's original intent, and she has no patience for those who do. That explains why when the volunteer tour guides appeared from nowhere, we hastily retreated to the second floor of the Center, to further peruse Chinese and Indian antiquities in a more meditative environment.

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In a roundabout way, it also explains why Radiohead:OK Computer (A classic album under review) reduces OK Computer to a fanboy exercise of pretensiousness.

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It's been ten years since Radiohead released OK Computer, and depending on who you talk to, it's either the seminal canon of all rock music, or a paranoid post-industrial Luddite's vision of a bleak future. The truth is, it was neither. . . and it was both. At the time, I really thought that Radiohead was potentially the Pink Floyd for the new millenium. Ten years later, I realize they're a footnote, albeit an important one, in rock history. And while I still maintain it was one of the most important albums of 1997, that's all it was. Tom Yorke and company have moved on with their lives.

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The makers of this documentary, however, have not. What we have here is a collection of Brit rock critics dissecting every lyric, every chord, every note in some instances, in a vain attempt to elevate the album to a Work of Art. It's a valiant effort, but not a very compelling argument. They take each song on the album, inject it with their personal world visions and come to the conclusion that it's a work that's way too heavy for mere mortals to grasp.

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It's the sort of thing that gives rock critics a bad name. Albums like OK Computer stand as seminal works only because they add something to the subconscious vocabulary of pop culture. It came out at the right time, much the way Green Day's American Idiot or Pink Floyd's The Wall or any number of rock albums did. They spoke to a moment in our culture--nothing more, and certainly nothing less. For critics of questionable credentials to place any album on a pedestal from which hinges the course of civilization is to do a disservice to the artist, the listener, and to the whole business of constructive criticism itself. Yet, that's what these pundits attempt to achieve on this disc.

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Radiohead: OK Computer (a classic album under review) adds nothing to enhance the listening experience of the album. It may be of interest to the diehard fanboy, but for the rest of us, it's a stodgy, academician take on a work best left to individual interpretation. It's the sort of disc that makes me understand why Margeaux has an aversion to museum tourguides.

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Is Mike Doyle the New Jack Bauer?

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I've been a diehard devotee of 24 from Day One (no pun intended.) For five seasons, I gleefully accepted every leap in logic, every defiance of time and space, every torture scene (I'm thinking all of Day Three's plotline here) that they could throw at me. I never waivered from my devotion to Jack Bauer, no matter how preposterous the plotlines became. After all, the writers were working on the fly, and even they had no idea where it was going. You have to get behind that kind of moxie.

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After the ratings triumph that was Day Five, it was screamingly apparent that 24 would be around for a while. Sure enough, FOX guaranteed it at least three more seasons, and made Keifer Sutherland an executive producer of the series. It also became increasingly obvious at that point that the series was about to jump the shark.

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Let's face it: Day Six has been an almost incomprehensible mess, full of plotlines that sprouted like weeds, and were discarded just as quickly. It's as if the writers realized they'd painted themselves into a corner when they shipped Bauer off on a slow boat to China at the end of Day Five. From the moment Day Six opened, with Bauer released after 20 months of Chinese interrogation, nothing felt right. Within two hours, he got a designer haircut and a shave, (presumably debriefed while he was being groomed) and set about to doing what he does best: killing bad guys in creative ways. And that was all in his first couple of hours of freedom.

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Sure, other things have happened--nuclear attack on LA with 12000 casualties, failed coups, dueling terrorists, near-martial law in the US, paranoid romantic intrigues at CTU--but they were treated as minor annoyances. Bauer got all that cleaned up with six hours to spare--plenty of time to thread a new set-up poised to place Mike Doyle center stage next season.

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I'm not privy to CTU memorandums or FOX board meetings, but in my own private spoiler world, I'm almost certain that Rick Schroder's Mike Doyle will be the new 24 action figure next season. That's not to say Bauer will disappear--he may become next season's CTU director, a position befitting a TV series executive producer. Bauer's days as a renegade lone wolf world savior are almost certainly over, though. He's getting a bit long in the tooth to make it even remotely believable. It's time for Sutherland to pass the torch to younger blood, ala Bruce Willis.

Bauer can still be menacing, even in a desk job.

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The Mike Doyle character came out of nowhere this season, a sort of young Jack Bauer whose dedication to CTU was beyond reproach. While other characters in Day Six come across as plot devices with no discernible motivation, Doyle has been fleshed out as the season progressed, so that now we see him as a man with a shadowy past who keeps people at arm's length as a defensive mechanism. We know he's a student of comparative religion, that he is not above bending rules in the name of the greater good, that his dedication causes him to be reckless on occasion, that he will get his mission accomplished come hell or high water. But most importantly, he's playing Robin to Bauer's Batman.

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When I add all that together, and couple it with the fact that both Bauer and Doyle are blond, grimace at inappropriate moments and have similar tastes in street-fighting clothes, it's not a major leap of faith to see Doyle as Bauer's heir apparent. It makes sense in other ways, too. Schroder has time to grow into the stress lines that are part of Bauer's character. Since there is a bit of a similarity between the two, his presence wouldn't have a jarring effect on audiences. Since he's mysterious at this point, the series writers have a new sphere in which to work. And as the new world savior, he could serve as the perfect foil to a more seasones, wiser, more beauracratic Bauer.

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I could be wrong, of course. This is 24, after all. Doyle could be killed off next week. WWIII might break out, making Day Seven a post-apocalyptic snooze. I sort of doubt it, though. One thing is certain though. CTU is too small for two blond bad boy world saviors.

A Fair Performance by Fairport Convention

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Trying to chart the history of Fairport Convention is akin to drawing a family tree with branches that snake out in a multitude of directions. Credited with creating British folk rock, Fairport Convention has evolved, in the forty years since its original incarnation in 1967, from a band to more of an organic experience. In theory, that was their plan all along. Then again, history has a tendency to revise itself as time moves forward.

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It's easy to say now that Fairport Convention was conceived to be more of an ongoing experience with an ever-changing lineup, much like a football team or a classical orchestra, with an eye to a certain music tradition. But the truth of the matter is that tragedies, restlessness and shifting tastes took matters largely out of their hands. Still, despite more than a few breakups, Fairport Convention has maintained a foothold, albeit it a cultish one, in the annals of modern folk music. Think of them at this point as a sort of British version of the Grateful Dead, with ale subbing for psychedelics. They have annual "reunion" festivals, dubbed the "Cropedy Festival."

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Fairport Convention 35th Anniversary Concert, filmed at Basingstroke, England's Anvil Theatre in 2002 is a live performance by the longest-lived incarnation of the band: Simon Nicol (lead vocal, rhythm and electric guitars), Dave Pegg (backing vocals, bass guitar, mandolin), Ric Sanders (violin), Chris Leslie (lead vocal, fiddle, bouzouki, mandolin) and Gerry Conway (percussion and drums). Nicol is the only member of the original 1967 line-up, and though he soldiers on valiantly as a lead man, he frequently plays the role by rote.

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It's not that it's a bad show, but far too much time is spent on exposition between performances. I realize that explaining the origins of the piece is something of a folk tradition, but the band explains the story to death before striking the first chord. The resultant performance is punctuated by long verbal lags, as if the band doesn't give the audience credit to interpret the songs on their own.

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At 153 minutes, this DVD fails to do what a concert DVD must do--which is hold the viewer's attention. The first third of the set, particularly, plods along with a somnabolastic pace. It's only when Chris Leslie takes center stage that the show comes alive. When he and Ric Sanders trade licks between violin and fiddle, the concert finally shows sparks of life. They fuel a life in a band that probably should have quit two breakups ago.

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The last third of the concert harkens back to the days that made Fairport Convention legendary-- traditional English folk music transformed, electrically, into a modern context. It's powerful stuff, to be sure.

Unfortunately, it comes too late for the average viewer to care.

The Man Who Would Be Soul

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It's impossible to talk about the evolution of soul music without crediting Marvin Gaye as a prime exponent of its development. He wasn't necessarily the funkiest or the smoothest of the Motown stable, but he was unequivocally the most rebellious. Not content to churn out surefire radio singles in the Motown mode, he was often at odds with the label's founder Barry Gordy. In fact, his groundbreaking What's Going On almost wasn't released because Gordy didn't want to put the label in potentially controversial territory. After the album's phenomenal success. Gordy rethought his position, of course.

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Soul wasn't just a stance with Gaye--it was his lifeblood, and nobody infused the genre with more conviction than he did. In fact, he did more than sing his songs-- he ushered the listener into a place where words and music melded into a sphere that transcended vocabulary to reside in a universal emotion. He took soul music into a new frontier, making it relevant to what was happening to American society at large. It didn't matter what he sang about-- it could be anything from a simple proclamation of love to a a clarion call to social activism--when Gaye sang it, you believed it. He had a voice that sounded like silk soaked in cognac, and it transported you from gritty streets to silk sheets, all hinging on his mood.

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Marvin Gaye #1's is the latest addition to the everflowing well of "greatest hits" collections paying tribute to (or cashing in on, depending on your measure of cynicism) to Marvin Gaye's genius. In that regard, it doesn't really offer a lot that's new--since Gaye's untimely death in 1984, everybody and their dog has jumped on that bandwagon. A couple of things, however, make this release stand out from the gazillions of Marvin Gaye collections.

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Firstly, this album plays more like a soundtrack for an as yet-to-be-made biopic of Gaye's life, played out in flashbacks. It opens with some of his later work, the period when he was grappling with the dichotomies between spirituality and sensuality. He slithers through "Let's Get It On" and walks us through the animus of relationships with "Sexual Healing." Then we go back a few years, when social activism was his torch to bear, with the jazzy anti-war ballad "What's Going On," only to be whiplashed to his more innocent days, with "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," one of his early duets with the ill-fated Tammi Terrell.

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It goes like that, skirting between timeframes, flashing from different personnae and different emotions-- seventeen songs in all and not a stinker among them. There are the obligatory tracks, like "I Heard it Throuth the Grapevine" and "Inner City Blues(Makes Me Wanna Holler)" counterpointed with innocent romps like "Ain't That Peculiar" and "I'll Be Doggone."

Admittedly, there's nothing here that's not on other collections, but as an introduction to the diverse stylings of Marvin Gaye, this is a nice package.

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The other thing that makes this set stand out has nothing to do with the music, but it bears mentioning. This is part of the Number 1's series by Universal Music Enterprises, and what makes them stand out is the packaging. Touted as "eco-friendly," the releases in this series are packaged, both sleeve and tray, in completely recyclable paperboard replacing the traditional jewel case and plastic tray. I'm all for it--it's a bit retro, considering vinyl was always packaged that way, but it's more environmentally friendly-- and it reduces consumer costs. However, I'm not buying the company's argument that they've eliminated the liner booklet to save trees thereby further helping the environment.

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Still, I'd like to see the industry as a whole adapt this sort of packaging. In the meantime, give Marvin Gaye #1's a listen. It's a perfect driving CD. And it works pretty well for late night listening.

When Superman Wasn't So Damn Super

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I was five, maybe six, when I discovered the awesome power of gravity. And I owe it all to Superman.

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Like most little kids at the time, I was a huge fan of the Superman TV series gtarring George Reeves. It didn't matter that virtually all the flying scenes consisted of a single stock shot of him flying in profile. I was more interested in how he made his takeoffs--that had to be the key to flying. Jumping up in the air wasn't working. But then I noticed the Reeves Superman did a sort of double jump before he flew, and that set my wheels turning. If I threw my legs out from under me on that second jump, I would obviously soar to the heavens. So I marched out to the driveway, confident I had at last unlocked the secret of flight.

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When my tailbone hit the concrete with a force I could have sworn shot my entire spine through my brain, I realized my plan was a wee bit flawed. I never tried to fly again.

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If only I'd seen the Superman serials from some years earlier, I might have figured out that Superman actually turns into a cartoon when taking flight, and most likely would not have contrived an experiment to turn myself into a cartoon. (That wouldn't happen until my college days, and it involved mushrooms. But that's a completely different story.)

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The point is, those old serials fueled your imagination and imbued you with a sense of wonder that made you really believe anything was possible, if you just never lost sight of the magic. That's why Superman: The Theatrical Serials Collection is a genuine treat to view.

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This four-disc boxed set comprises both complete Superman serials--"Superman" (1948) and "Atom Man vs. Superman" (1950). To enjoy them to the fullest, it's best not to view them through the jaded eyes of 2007, but to watch them with a wink and a nod to a time that wallowed in its wide-eyed wonder of a new era on the heels of the second world war. Somewhere in those two extremes lies the truth of why they were made in the first place. They were low budget entertainment delivered in 15 episodes of roughly 15 minutes each, filled with enough implausible thrills, chills and cliffhangers to ensure audiences would return the next week to watch the feature film.

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Superman as a character was late into the serial game--in fact, the Superman serials were among the last of the 15 chapter tradition. It didn't matter--after all, this was Superman, and this was the first time the iconic superhero was presented as a real live person. Kirk Alyn brought the Man of Steel to life with an exuberance that might have inspired Frank Miller, decades later, to refer to the character as "the big blue schoolboy." Oddly, Alyn wasn't credited with the role, supposedly because the studio wanted to maintain the illusion that he was, really was, Superman. And given the time, he really was. In those days, Superman was not the messianic figure we think of now--he was a bit of a goofus. Alyn played him exactly like the comic book--gleefully saving the world from destruction while not fully comprehending that was what he was doing. He never even picks up on Lois Lane's double entendres. ("Are you ready?", he asks, before flying her out of harm's way. "I was born ready," she coos, arms draped over his shoulders.).

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These two serials are by no means high art, and that's what makes them so endearing. They are Superman comic books come to life, and as incomprehensible as the plots may be, however crude the special effects may be, they possess an innocent charm that brings a smile even to 21st century eyes. Lex Luthor was a simple mad scientist out to take over the world back then, Lois Lane was just a spunky female reporter and Superman was just having a good time ducking into broom closets pretending to be Clark Kent.

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Oh. By the way, when I realized I couldn't fly, I set about devising Batropes.

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You live and learn.

The Tudors: Pragmatic Pageantry Among the Pawns

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With its third episode, The Tudors completes its introductory arc, setting the stage for a launch into the darker intrigues and alliances that marked Henry VIII's monarchy. What we've seen thus far has been an evolution of sorts. In the premiere, Henry came across more as a spoiled playboy, with affairs of state more an annoyance keeping him away from his more serious affairs, such as tennis, jousting and bedding ladies in waiting. By the second episode, he was settling more into the political weight his throne afforded him. In the latest installment, Henry's grown comfortable in his skin, and has learned to reconcile the playful passions of youth with the more deliberate maneuverings of diplomacy and power.

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It's not as though Henry had an epiphany-- from the beginning, he's used boyish charm to mask his calculating shrewdness. He was more reckless then, hastily declaring war on France almost as an afterthought, only to dissuaded by the pro-French Cardinal Wolsey from acting too hastily. Wolsey has his own Papal ambitions, of course, and needs the support of the French to fulfill them. And on Henry's other shoulder is his humanist conscience, in the form of Thomas More. For a while, it appeared Henry was easily swayed by either of them.

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Throughout most of the second episode, Henry seemed more a pawn than a ruler. The real battle for dominance seemed to be between Wolsey's quest to be Pope and More's humanist ideals. Even the Duke of Buckingham's execution for treason seemed vaguely orchestrated by Wolsey, more than by order of Henry. Henry, however, is entranced with the writings of Machiavelli, and wonders aloud if it's better for a king to be loved or feared. But once Elizabeth Blount bears Henry's illegitimate son, whom the king names Henry Fitzroy, his entire demeanor changes. We suddenly see Henry in a new light, and find that he's no longer a king to be taken lightly. By the episode's end, he's even "persuaded" Wolsey to happily turn over his palace to him.

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In episode three, any hopes for peace with France are all but extinguished. Even Wolsey has allied himself with Spain, and Charles V, King of Spain and the nephew of Henry's wife, Catherine. Henry, too, is anxious to ally himself with Charles, and the two strike up a pact to unite against the French. Because of the ramifications, Henry is careful to make it appear he and Catherine are blissfully married. But once he comes face to face with Anne Boleyn, Henry is once again smitten. . .

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Is The Tudors historically inaccurate in places? Of course it is-- that's why it's called "historical drama." Shakespeare's take on Julius Caesar wouldn't have played well to audiences if he'd done a barebones account, either. What's important in dramas of this sort is to capture the essence of the events, which, thus far, The Tudors does admirably. The sets, the costumes, the characterizations--all lend an air of sensuality necessary to capture the intrigues of the time. In a series like this, we're not interested in the plight of the masses--we want to know what is transpiring in the offices of power. What this series demonstrates, above all else, is the rich and powerful now are not that far removed from their 16th century boardroom equivalents.

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Showtime is showing the first three episodes of The Tudors back to back on 21 April, and they're all available on Showtime on Demand. They're loosely constructed if viewed individually, but seen together, they serve as an enticing preamble for what looks to be a series that delves deeply into the motivations of power.