Chickens are Most Illogical

I'm almost finished watching Arrested Development, I only have a few episodes left. It's been a sometimes ingenious string of comedy logical turns. My favourite episode by far being "Forget-Me-Now", a rather breathtaking exercise in wordplay. Maybe my favourite line in the series concerns the character Gob (pronounced like biblical Job)--he's one of Michael Bluth's siblings, and when Michael confronts the family about kidnapping his girlfriend, Rita, who had nearly been injured by Bluth brother Buster, their mother mutters she wished "Buster had finished the job!"

When Michael asks suspiciously, "What job?" their mother, apparently shocked by her own error, says, "Did I say 'job'?! I meant Gob!" and points an accusatory finger at him.

Elsewhere in television dimensions, I'm happy to say I finally got to see a good episode of Star Trek last night.



Go on, Spock, we all know you want to kiss Scotty.

The main reason The Galileo Seven is so good is that it's primarily concerned with Spock's character and does a credible job (and I mean job!) setting up a life or death situation where the shuttlecraft is stranded on a dangerous planet and Spock's in charge. You have the usual friction between Spock and McCoy but also the Vulcan/human cultural divide between Spock and the five other stranded crewmembers.

One comes away liking Spock's ideas more than maybe the episode intended. Kirk's kind of douchey laugh at Spock at the end for having made a decision apparently based on emotion drives us further towards accepting Spock's explanation of it, which lies within the realm of logic and in fact makes sense.

I know there are episodes of the original Star Trek series I haven't seen--I used to watch the show as a kid, but of course networks would generally replay the same ten or so most famous episodes over and over. But even most of those I haven't watched in over fifteen years so they feel practically new, which is nice. Though I have to admit I'm surprised by how easily Doctor Who from the period outdoes Star Trek in the writing department. Maybe not standout episodes, but it seems like Doctor Who had more consistent quality.