A telling sign?

I went in to cast my vote in the primaries today. I’m a “declined to state” voter, no party affiliation, which means that here in California I can vote in the primaries of any party which will let me — which includes the Democrats (and two smaller parties), but not the Republican.

The voter behind me, however, was upset, because she was a registered Republican, and thus they wouldn’t let her vote in the Democratic primary. She really, really, really wanted to vote for Obama.

Putting the Lie in Eli?

Eli Stone, about a lawyer who is having visions and is moved to good works, is smoothly made. And while there are supreme differences, it has a major factor in common with the earlier called-by-god series Joan of Arcadia. In Joan, it seemed like something they wanted you to consider only in the first episode; in Eli, it’s feeling more like an accident, but I would be glad to be wrong.
The similarity? Things make more sense if you believe that he is not being led by a force for good, but misled by a force for evil. If you haven’t watched ES, you can skip the rest if this post, it won’t mean anything to you.

Still here? Okay, consider that:

• The singer in his visions is George Michael, who is now noted less as a saintly figure than as a man who engages in sex in public restrooms.
• The song that is invoked is the one to which Eli first had (premarital) sex.
• The woman he comes out in support of was the woman who premaritally took his virginity
• In following this call, he took the ethically questionable step of abandoning his client to stand for their opposition, without any sign of client approval or of client malfeasance.
• The case that he won was in support of a medical theory that has not stood up to real-world scrutiny, and the victory will make needed vaccines less affordable, not exactly a rousing triumph

Of course, the show is pushing that the visions are medically inspired and may well have no supernatural hand in them… but it still leaves those rooting for the protagonist’s transformation in the position of possibly supporting evil

Terminator

Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, is an action series at heart, like so little that I watch. Tied into the movie series, all of which I’ve watched, but none of which captured me to the degree that bred T2 die-hards. The folks behind this seems to be working hard to try to make a working ongoing plot structure out of a time-travel threat that is hard to build complexity into.
But they didn’t build in any fun. Nothing intriguing, nothing humorous. Nothing that pulls me in like the dozens of ways that Buffy did. I don’t know why I’ve watched two-and-a-half episodes so far (admittedly, not always paying close attention)… although do have to give them strong points for who they cast as the character who takes the T2 Schwarzenegger-style role. Summer Glau, who mixed a distant, unreadable-but-thinking look with impressive motion when playing River Tam on Firefly brings much the same effect to killer robothood. But that doesn’t give me enough reason to care what happens. Done watching, I think.