Cocktail Party Primer (Episode #13): They Said I Was a Fool to Buy All the Ken Burns DVDs, but Who’s Laughing Now?

Mostly Martha is back with another hilarious installment of the Cocktail Party Primer.  She cracks me up.  Show the love!

So apparently, there’s some kind of strike or something going on. Know anything about it? I mean, it’s such a minor thing I’m sure you probably haven’t heard anything at all— who am I kidding? It’s all strike all the time in the world of TV this week. I’m trying not to panic. Sure, I’ve draped black crepe over my TiVo and have stockpiled the BBC’s Robin Hood, two back seasons of Dead Zone, my extensive collection of PBS documentaries, the entire run of Pinky and The Brain, and 3 gallons of gin to help me through the duration. I’ve also go reams of various Law & Orders in a sealed box marked “Open in case of emergency,” but I wouldn’t define any of that as panicking. Yet. Here’s a few key tidbits from the thing we’re all talking about this week, whether we like it or not.

• Maybe I just have the longest attention span in the universe, but I don’t think this season of Heroes has been boring at all. I’ve enjoyed the slow building of story threads and characters, and I’ve assumed it’s all going to come together in a fulfilling way. As it turns out, I am utterly alone in this sentiment. After weeks of viewers bemoaning the slow pacing and lack of high stakes, producer Tim Kring actually apologized in the pages of Entertainment Weekly. I wonder if we should all feel spoiled when a show creator has to apologize for his show being a merely above average level of awesome and not the ass-whomping mega-awesome we have come to expect. Of course, this comes from a girl who genuinely enjoys what she calls British “murder most moderate” shows about unspectacular crimes that unfold at a snail’ place in picturesque English villages, so I’m comfortable saying my opinion probably doesn’t count.

• I have a list. A list of the dead, you might call it. It’s a list of shows I, and apparently, I alone, really loved that got cancelled early and with extreme prejudice (I’m looking at you Andy Richter Controls the Universe.) It happens often enough (Hey there Kitchen Confidential!) that I have come suspect that sheer force of affection (Je t’aime, Clone High) might be in some way responsible. Perhaps there’s a cabal of TV execs who sit around plotting ways to bum me out (Hasta la vista, The Handler). I know, it sounds paranoid, but just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean nobody’s out to get you. It’s a very long list (John Doe, Invader Zim, Jake in Progress). So with that in mind, I’ve discovered a silver lining to the writer’s strike. Life and Journeyman, two shows I knew were doomed the moment I realized how much liked them have been given temporary reprieves, just to keep something on the air. Of course, the strike ensures these, and basically every other show, are inevitably hopeless this season, so I’m trying not to be invested. When you’re the sort of person who was foolish enough to enjoy The Dresden Files, you know better than to get attached.

• I heard in passing that Stephen Colbert actually ranked higher Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul in a presidential poll, and it’s so fantastic and absurd, I almost didn’t want to actually fact check it, just in case it wasn’t true. Turns out it was, but that quirky little tidal wave of what I suspect is primarily ironic support won’t be able to come to anything. Alas, Stephen Colbert has dropped out of the presidential race on the heels of being rejected for inclusion on the South Carolina Democratic Primary ballot (not to mention losing the comedy writers so essential for running a comedy presidential campaign). Although, between Mike Huckabee’s crazy diet plans, Paul’s aura of crazy old coot, and the fact that Kucinich is a tiny little troll man married to a babe, I sometimes get the impression Colbert isn’t the only one running on a joke.

• Sorry 24 fans, but you didn’t need a mole in the CTU to know that this season just wasn’t meant to be. First, the writers had to scrap all their scripts and start over because everything they had sucked. Then the star got busted for DUI. Delay piled upon delay. This week, Fox finally announced that they’re giving up the ghost and postponing Day 7 until next season because of, you guessed it, the strike. Without a seventh season to keep him busy, maybe Jack Bauer can rush to our rescue, hog-tie the studio heads and force them to play nice with the WGA. If he was feeling super special, maybe he’d do me a solid save Life and Journeyman while he was at it. Sigh. Even a girl with obscure, boring tastes can dream, can’t she?

Martha Smith is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and editor. She writes mostly about food, TV, and other things that can be enjoyed while sitting down.