TV Review: How to Get Away With Murder

The new Thursday night entry on ABC is called How to Get away With Murder.  It is about an attractive African-American woman who is a top criminal defense attorney who wears red leather outfits while teaching first year criminal law at a prestigious law school and who recruits students to work with her in high profile criminal cases.

This premise is so outrageous it makes Lost look like a Ken Burns documentary.

Where to begin?  No top criminal defense attorney teaches a regular first year class at a major law school.  They are too busy putting in billable hours to take time off to teach first year law.  A top criminal defense attorney may teach a third year seminar, but first year professoring is pretty much a full time obligation (although I did have a civil procedure professor who was on a sabbatical from practice).

Second, what she is teaching is not anything resembling “law.”  For example, one student ingratiates herself to the professor by calling optometrists, pretending to be the secretary of a prosecution witness, and learns that the witness is color-blind.  And what legal theory does that support? All of her stratagems are based on facts, not legal principles, so the kids aren't learning anything about law.

The professor has each member of the class take 60 seconds to offer their best theory for a defense to an actual murder case.  These are first year students who know nothing about law, certainly less than any actual member of the bar, yet she spends a couple of hours (it’s a large class) listening to their uninformed, half-baked ideas.  Ideas that they are given 60 seconds to present, so heaven forbid the explanation be the least bit complicated or require legal research.

The winners of the competition get a highly prestigious position at her law firm. Despite the fact they know nothing about law.  And aren't licensed to practice. And, again, know less than just about any person who actually had finished law school and passed the bar. And they work at her firm while maintaining a full law school work load (she makes it clear in the pilot she expects the students to ditch their other classes while working on her case).

The preposterousness of the premise is matched by the insipidness of the plotting.  One of the eager first year students gets a bright idea late at night and so goes to the professor’s house (which is inexplicably on the campus). He arrives at the dark house, rings the bell, and when no one answers he tries the door and finding it unlock walks in.  Who walks in to a strange house at night when no one answers the door? He walks in on the professor occupied in flagrante delicto with a hunky detective.  I guess they were too distracted to hear the doorbell or the student yelling “Professor Keating! I’m breaking into your house late at night because I have something important to say!”

For years now I’ve said the Lost episode titled “Eggtown” set the record for most boneheaded legal errors in a single TV show, but How to Get Away With Murder’s pilot may break the record; I can’t say for sure as I threw in the towel about 2/3 of the way through.  In Eggtown, a character was being tried in Federal court on California for state crimes committed in Iowa, the defense was allowed to call a witness before the prosecution (because the prosecution’s opening statement, which has zero evidentiary value, was “devastating”), the main witness for the prosecution was allowed to talk with the defendant before the trial, and the sole witness for the defense is someone who met the witness months after the crime took place and who was in love with her.  That’s a load of BS to top, but How to Get Away With Murder topped it in under 40 minutes.  Congratulations.

Heaven knows I know that any realistic show about the law would be as boring a watching paint dry. And yes, I watched Allie MacBeal faithfully as she filed lawsuits against God and sang karaoke instead of putting in billable hours.  But there is a limit to how far outside the lines you can color before you have to conclude that the show is science fiction, taking place in a parallel universe where human concepts of logic do not apply.

I like science fiction, but How to Get Away With Murder was just too far out there for me to buy into. I just hope the show doesn't inspire hordes of impressionable college students into thinking law school looks like a lot of fun.

Maybe Weird Al isn't that weird after all

I've always been fascinated by the mayfly-like lifespans of pop acts.  One hit wonders are one thing, but if you go back and look at the length even a super group has on the charts, it’s a wonder anyone produces a second hit album.  Okay, there are outliers like The Rolling Stones who will be touring three years after Keith Richards dies, but on the other hand The Beatles lasted (in America) from 1964 to 1970, six years.  ABBA lasted eight years, from 1973 to 1981. Sheryl Crow first hit the top ten in 1994 and last hit the top 20 in 2003, a nine year span.

Okay, I’m cherry picking data; let’s not talk about Elvis, Elton John, or acts that were successful for decades like Sinatra. The fact is that if a pop act can last for more than a decade, they are special. Weird Al Yankovic first hit the top 20 of the US album chart in 1983. His latest album, Mandatory Fun, became his first number 1 album ever in 2014. That’s 31 years of accordion solos and song parodies; given that his gift is impersonating other acts, that demonstrates an amazing capacity for evolving with the popular times.

Weird Al Yankovic is a singular genius, literally. In a profession where imitation is the sincerest form of creativity, no one has EVER tried to copy what Weird Al Yankovic does, at least not on a regular basis. He has a knack for taking the melody of a hit song, finding the perfect way of changing the lyrics that both work with the music and are internally consistent, and afterwards it sounds like the song should have sounded that way to begin with. The rise of YouTube has fostered some imitators, but none operate on the scale Weird Al does.

Some of his early efforts are fairly obvious; it is no great feat of imagination to change “I Love Rock and Roll” to “I Love Rocky Road,” or “Another One Bites the Dust” to “Another One Rides the Bus.” But his creativity grew as he became more successful.  Converting “Gansta’s Paradise” to “Amish Paradise” is a stroke of genius, giving him not only one of his better parodies but also arguably his best videos.

Talking about videos raises another factor of his creative growth. From 1993 to 2003 he took over directing his own music videos, demonstrating additional skill in creating funny visuals to match the humor in his lyrics. His videos also reinforced his attention to detail; the parody of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” used the same actor who played a janitor in the Nirvana video, and the video for “Bedrock Anthem” was filmed on the same desert location that the Red Hot Chili Peppers used for their video.  It seems like Yankovic puts such confines on himself in order to be more creative.

As I mentioned above, another amazing facet of Weird Al’s success is his ability for follow the changes in the music industry.  He started out doing pop songs, but eventually produced parodies of rap songs, grunge songs, and songs whose genres have probably been forgotten.

Mandatory Fun is the first Weird Al album that I’ve heard that I have no idea what the source material is.  I am so divorced from modern music that the only melody I recognize on Mandatory Fun is Pharrell’s ubiquitous “Happy,” transformed into “Tacky.” But being unfamiliar with the songs he’s parodying doesn’t make them less funny.  “Foil” starts off as an ode to an alternative to Tupperware and devolves into warning about the Illuminati. “Word Crimes” is probably the first song in history to mention the Oxford comma and establishes Yankovic’s cred as someone who may act silly but he sincerely wants his fans to know the difference between “doing well” and “doing good.” The album ends with the epic, 8 minute long “Jackson Park Express,” an original song about a love affair that takes place entirely in a guy’s imagination during a bus ride.

I have some problem with the song “First World Problems.” First of all, the phrase “first world” no longer works; it was coined back when the Soviet bloc was the “second world” and non-aligned countries were called the “third world.” With the fall of the Soviet Union the phrase no longer makes sense. Second, the problems Weird Al details (a pixel being out on his laptop, not having small enough bills for vending machines) are not problems all people in first world countries have, they are problems rich people have. It should have been called “One percenter problems.”

I also find “Mission Statement,” a song that strings together meaningless phrases used by business consultants, to be kicking too easy of a target (it is also very easy to convert the phrases into lyrics as most end with a long E sound (synergy, efficiency, functionality)). The song is not a parody of any song in particular but is a general pastiche of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s style, down to sampling Suite: Judy Blue Eyes at one point (in addition to parodies of specific songs and original songs, Weird Al sometimes writes songs that are merely in the style of an artist; for example, Dare to Be Stupid was an homage to Devo).

Weird Al’s future has been the subject of speculation. An interview with a newspaper in Allentown, PA, was largely misinterpreted his announcing his retirement when what he said was a desire to do no more CDs but more digital distribution.  Part of the success of Mandatory Fun comes from his decision to release videos of the songs on the album for free on YouTube.  Leave it to Weird Al to adapt to the digital revolution.

Belated TV Review: Continuum

I’ll say it once—spoilers ahead.

I’m getting to this very late because for some reason I missed Continuum season 3 and just caught up with the entire season via streaming.  Continuum is an outlier, a television sci-fi show that sometimes has more ideas and better ideas than most literary science fiction.  In an era where much television science fiction is under-thought and over-wrought, Continuum is just about the sole beacon of light.

To recap quickly, the show is about a cop from 2077 named Keira Cameron (Rachel Nichols) who, while attending the execution of a band of terrorists, is caught up in the wake of their time travel device and is thrown, with them, back to . . . 2012 (they were supposed to travel back in time 5 years but missed). The group, calling themselves by the catchy name of Liber8, start plans to win the future by subverting authority in 2012; Cameron manages to insinuate herself with the local (Vancouver) police department, teaming with a hunky detective who has the very Canadian name of Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster).

I like Webster’s performance a lot; it is great that he establishes an immediate rapport with Keira, but there is zero sexual tension as her character tells him she is married (to her future husband).  He is a rare actor who can bring the beefcake but acts like he doesn't expect a woman to drop her panties at the sight of him. I also liked the dynamic between Carlos and the police cyber expert Betty (Jennifer Spence); it is immediately clear that she adores him (and is jealous of Keira), but he ignores her not because she isn't gorgeous, but because he is too just too self-effacing and clueless to notice her signals.

The series has always reveled in unclarity about motives; flash-forwards to the year 2077 reveal that Liber8 are pretty much psychotic murderers who are never the less fighting for freedom, while Keira is a descent, moral human being who defends a fascist corporate state. She spends much of the first season mooning over her son, wanting desperately to get back to him. But, realizing that Liber8 can prevent her world from ever existing, stays to fight Liber8 even as she slowly realizes that despite the high body count, they have a point.

She is helped by a teenager named Alec Sadler (Erik Knudson), who (in the future) invented all the technical gizmos that came back with her from 2077.  The younger version of Alec is able to communicate with Keira’s cerebral implant, view through her eyes, and monitor her uniform which, among other things, can make her invisible.

If it sounds a little confusing, it’s because Continnum has never shied away from some of the more troubling literary aspects of time travel. Early on, the mother of a character is killed before he is born, and he fails to fade away like Marty McFly.  At the end of season 2, Alec travels back in time a week to rescue his girlfriend, followed by Keira; the fact that there are now two of both of them propels much of the action in season 3.

The series grew more assured and daring in season 3.  One episode was set almost entirely in 2077; new characters were introduced as sort of “time cops” whose morality and aims were hard to suss out; a regular character was suddenly killed; and while Cameron’s police superior (Brian Markinson) embraced greater corporate control of the police department, her partner Carlos became increasingly uncomfortable with corporations treating the police as their personal security team.

One of the more frightening aspects of Continuum is how easy it is to project the current state of corporations into a dystopian future where there are no civil liberties and all decisions are made by a “corporate congress.” With US Supreme Court decisions giving corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money in the political process and impose the corporation’s “religious beliefs” on their employees, such a corporate controlled future seems a lot closer than 2077.

Towards the end of season 3, all of the characters begin to realize that there is no way to win “the” future because there is no “one” future, but a plethora of futures. Keira accepts that she can never return to her son, who no longer exists in the time line created by her time travel, just as Liber8 members realize that they may free one time line, but that means leaving their time line enslaved. This causes some major shifting of loyalties that none the less feels organic.

Season 3 ended with a doozy of a cliffhanger; here’s hoping that the producers of Continuum get a season 4 to prove that they weren’t just making it up as they went along.

In defense of Ben Affleck

Success in the entertainment world is such a fragile thing.  Talent isn’t enough.  Looks aren’t enough. Luck isn't enough.  Talent, looks and luck doesn’t cut it.  Sometimes someone succeeds and someone else doesn't for reasons that can only be described as ephemeral.

In 1997 two charismatic young actors won Oscars for Best Original Screenplay.  Forget the persistent rumors that William Goldman actually wrote the script, the fact is that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were on top of the world.  Where things went from there is two stories.

Damon was cast in The Bourne Identity and became the most famous spy in filmdom since Sean Connery was cast as James Bond.  He worked with Steven Soderburgh in the Ocean’s Eleven films. His career even survived The Brothers Grimm, no mean feat.  Success after success, with only a few bumps.

Ben Affleck became a punchline. He battled a killer asteroid in Armageddon.  He single-handedly nearly defeated the Japanese in Pearl Harbor.  The duo that was “Bennifer” begat Gigli, one of the ten or so worst films ever (although my money is still on Zardoz for all time worst).  He married another Jennifer, Garner not Lopez, and made Jersey Girl and Saving Christmas. 

I want to give a full throated defense of Ben Affleck, but I find it hard because frankly I've never understood all the hate.  I liked Daredevil, despite its 42 Metacritic rating (I will not defend the horrible sequel, Elektra; that’s all on Mrs. Affleck).  I liked Paycheck, the John Woo directed flop that Affleck starred in with another of my favorite actors, Aaron Eckart, that got a similar Metacritic score of 43.  He gave a solid supporting performance in the Oscar winning Shakespeare in Love, and did a great job re-teaming with Damon in Dogma. For that matter he was the best actor in a number of Kevin Smith vehicles, most notably Chasing Amy.

But weep not for Mr. Affleck.  For one thing, did I mention he is married to Jennifer Garner, a beautiful and talented actress (who was robbed by not winning a Best Actress Emmy for Alias)?  Professionally things started looking up for him in 2006 when he co-starred in Hollywoodland, where he played tragic TV star George Reeves.  He was nominated for a Golden Globe and his failure to get an Oscar nomination was considered a major snub.

He then started an impressive directing career with 2007’s Gone Baby Gone and 2010’s The Town.  That of course was followed by 2012’s Argo, winner of the Oscar for Best Picture despite the fact that its director, one Mr. Affleck, failed to get nominated for Best Director. This snub was completely unwarranted, as Argo was a period film with exquisite attention to detail and done with nearly unnoticeable technical craftsmanship. The only knock on Argo was that Ben Affleck was wildly miscast as protagonist Tony Mendez, and Affleck gives one of his most subdued performances.

Ben Affleck is now receiving the best reviews of his acting career for Gone Girl, the David Fincher directed film about a man whose wife disappears and he becomes the leading suspect in the media.  Fincher, best known for the technical brilliance and the visual look of his films, has always gotten exceptional performances from his actors (Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt in Seven, Jodie Foster in Panic Room, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt in Fight Club, Pitt again in Benjamin Button).  It should hardly be surprising that an actor with Affleck’s background should flourish under his direction; maybe Affleck will finally get that Oscar nomination for acting.  Of course he’ll still be trailing Damon who has two Oscar nominations for acting.

Of course Ben Affleck’s next role is taking over the cowl of the Caped Crusader, a role that seriously damaged the careers of Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and even George Clooney.  I think he’ll be okay as long as his Bat-costume doesn't have nipples.

Ten years later and we're still Lost

It is common for people to decry network television as being a vast wasteland, a medium that serves up nothing but bland pablum.  And they’d be right—mostly. But networks have to produce three hours of programming nightly, 15 hours a week, 780 hours a year, plus all the non-prime time programming.  Any beast that voracious demands to be fed, and oatmeal isn’t always available. 

Every so often the networks produce something completely original; networks produced TV fare such as Arrested Development, Pushing Daisies, and Quantum Leap.  Sometimes these shows are short lived, filed in the “brilliant but cancelled” category. Occasionally they last longer; Doctor Who has survived in some form for over fifty years now.

The last great innovative network TV show debuted ten years ago this week.  It was called Lost, which also describes how its audience felt over most of the next six years.  For six years water coolers in America were the scene of people discussing smoke monsters, The Others, fate, Benjamin Linus, the Black Rock, and a boy named Waaaaaaaaaaalt. It featured a group of castaways led by a doctor with a compulsion to fix things, a paraplegic named after a philosopher who was their best hunter, a bickering couple who were deeply in love, and the most sympathetic character happened to be a former torturer who had worked for Saddam Hussein.

Lost’s unique combination of character-driven story lines, over the top fantasy elements, kaleidoscopic cast mutations and perpetual cliffhangers spawn dozens of imitators, all of who failed miserably. Lost remains a singular accomplishment. Like the movie Citizen Kane, it is undeniably brilliant, yet we can learn nothing of why it is brilliant. It is more than the sum of its disparate parts.

Most people associate Lost with the more fantastical elements, the smoke monster, time travel, and such nonsense.  My mother, who described anything resembling fantasy as “silly” stuck with Lost even during season 5, which should be called The Season of Time Travel. Why? Lost gave us a collection of the most interesting, complex characters ever assembled for a single show.  Heck, the totality of programming on CBS doesn’t have as many interesting characters as the first season of Lost.

But they didn't stop at season one; it is astonishing to realize that the motivating force for the last three seasons of Lost was the character of Benjamin Linus, who showed up calling himself “Henry Gale” late in season two.  The last great episode the show produced, season four’s “The Constant,” was a love story about Penny and Desmond, also not original characters.  The show endlessly evolved, reinventing itself with each new season, which is an even better trick than creating an original show in the first place.

Lost had its flaws.  I still don’t believe creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof had a plan for the middle section of the show.  The first six episodes of season three are six of the worst episodes ever produced for television (in one, the main plot is John Locke’s quest to rescue Mr. Eko, who was kidnapped by a badly animated polar bear); they were clearly spinning their wheels, and got back on track once an end date of six seasons was determined. The episode Eggtown contains more legal errors than the entire run of LA Law.  After its first season, in which it won the Emmy for Best Drama, it won “only” four more Emmys, two for supporting actor (Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson) and two for technical categories, which is a small haul for such an influential show.

Lost unfortunately shares a fate that more recently befell How I Met Your Mother, namely a final episode that was deemed so disappointing that it tarnished all that preceded it. [SPOILER ALERT] They’re all in purgatory?  Sayid ends up with Shannon, not Nadia? The smoke monster is Allison Janney’s son? We knew the end would be weird, but seriously, Allison Janney?

Maybe Lost’s epitaph should be something Jacob uttered in the final episode of season five; “It only ends once; anything that happens before that is just progress.” There was a lot of progress before Lost got to its inevitably unsatisfying conclusion.  Lost came along at the perfect time, when the internet could propel it into the social media stratosphere but before the internet got too spoiler-y.  Probably no series in the future can produce so many surprises, because now everything is spoiled.

But I won’t say networks can’t produce another show like Lost; to paraphrase John Locke, I won’t tell networks what they can’t do.

TV Review: Gotham

At this point in time we have to conclude that the origin story of Batman is our culture’s Iliad and Odyssey. The tale has been told, retold, re-imagined, re-booted, and translated into every language on Earth.  So while most of time it is safe to call yet another remake a lack of creativity, in the case of the new TV series Gotham it’s more like another caveman gathering us around a campfire to tell the tale for posterity.

Gotham has been described as “Batman without Batman,” which is both fair and unfair. Fair, if the pilot episode is any indication, because the series is going to endlessly tease us with references to what young Master Bruce Wayne will become someday. Unfair because by now the town known as Gotham City has evolved into an entity in its own right, as vibrant and realistic as New York City or Oz. Why shouldn't we be clued in on its origin story as well?

It main character is a neophyte detective named Jim Gordon, who we know will one day become Commissioner Gordon, the man who turns on the big spotlight with the bat symbol on it.  Ben McKenzie, fresh from Southland, plays Gordon with an intensity that was missing from the Commissioner Gordon on the 1960’s series. The dialog tells us he is a war veteran whose father was a crusading District Attorney.  Either that was a long time ago or he didn't crusade enough, because now Gotham is an utterly corrupt metropolis, with the police department barely feigning any interest in fighting crime.

The corruption is embodied by Gordon’s partner, Harvey Bulloch, played with his usual scruffiness by Donal Logue. Before Bulloch can show is new partner “the ropes” they are stuck with a big case, the murder of Thomas and Martha Kent in an alley, in front of their son Bruce. Instead of seeing it as a career making case, Bulloch is annoyed that it will be so high-profile he won’t be able to sweep it under the rug. Gordon makes a promise to Bryce Wayne that he will find the killer, but the audience knows that things won’t be resolved that neatly.

The series looks great, with Gotham alternating between grim dayscapes and even gloomier night scenes (this city must get maybe one day of sunshine per year). Of course it is filled with colorful characters, like Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) as a crime boss, Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor) whose odd gait and bad teeth make people call him a penguin, and Selina Kyle (Cameron Bicondova) who moves around with a certain feline grace.  Nudge nudge, wink wink.

The pilot does an excellent job of setting up the players, making it clear (but not too clear) whose side everyone is on, The acting is first rate (for a show based on a graphic novel), and heaven knows the Batman mythos is deep enough to expand upon.  The challenge will be to bring out the interstices in the Gotham mythology while not violating the story line the world is so very familiar with.

Gotham is off to an excellent start. But then I also thought Arrow got off to an excellent start, and while it is enjoying continued success I grew weary of it halfway through its first season. It is one thing to start off occupying a known space; it is another to find new ways to make it interesting. Gotham benefits from the long exposure it’s had in the public imagination, but that just means it will need to contribute to the mythology and not just feed off it.

TV Review: Forever

 Forever is an amalgam of several other television shows and movies, which is what passes for creativity in the TV industry. The main character works in New York City law enforcement (as a medical examiner) and is immortal (New Amsterdam); his long life has trained him to be hyper-observant and he can deduce things based on trivial evidence (Elementary, Sherlock, Psych); we see flashbacks of his previous lives in other eras (Highlander); the main character is a physically attractive male non-police officer working with an attractive and unmarried female detective (Castle); the main character’s secret is known by a shadowy figure who apparently stages mass accidents in order to locate people who are immortal (um, spoiler alert, but that’s the plot of M. Night Shamaylan’s film Unbreakable).

The show’s biggest asset is its star, Ioan Gruffud. Probably best known for the inane Fantastic Four movies, Gruffud exudes an easy charm, aided by a crooked grin and a lilting accent (he’s Welsh). He hasn’t had much luck with American TV since his breakout role starring in the British adaptations of the Horatio Hornblower novels, shown in America on A&E; he co-starred with Sarah Michelle Geller in the one-season 2011 series Ringer, and he played a lawyer in the very short-lived (four episodes) 2004 show Century City (which can be accurately described in four words: LA Law in 2030).

But Gruffud’s charm is actually part of the problem. His attitude is light and breezy, but at the same time he talks about immortality being his curse.  It’s nice that he is multi-dimensional, but the disparity in tone is occasionally jarring. I know that the “morbid medical examiner” is a stereotype of mystery television, and that breaking clichés is good, but an ME who is happy-go-lucky is hard to accept.

The pilot episode established a few other tidbits of information. Gruffud’s character fell in love with an Army nurse in WWII and adopted a baby rescued from a Nazi concentration camp (in a nice reveal, the baby is now played by Judd Hirsch). Hirsch’s character is the only one who knows Gruffud’s secret, except for someone who keeps calling in a whispery voice claiming to also know. Gruffud is suspected of murder by an attractive New York detective (played by Alana de la Garza) who initially thinks he is the creepiest man she ever met (to be fair, his home is filled with death-related tchotchkes), but she eventually comes to appreciate his deductive skills.  She’s a widow whom we meet leaving a one-night stand, so there is the requisite sexual tension.

It is always hard to judge a show by its pilot. Can the producers come up with clever ways to keep using his immortality as a way to solve crimes? Will the characters prove to have interesting back stories? Can they mesh Gruffud’s jaunty insouciance with the downbeat aspects of his “curse?” The pilot has a lot going for it, but it fails to feel fresh or distinctive.  Elementary is doing the “Sherlock Holmes in modern New York” thing, the flashback devise was done to death by Highlander, and MEs solving murders got worn out with Quincy.

There is potential, but it is hard to imagine Forever pulling out of its cliché nosedive and living longer than 13 weeks.

TV Review: Scorpion

Pity CBS.  Feel sorry for them.  The other networks you may laugh at, mock, point fingers at and snicker, but CBS deserves your pity.  Their problem is that they have been so successful for so long, they've forgotten how to succeed.  They get an innovative (for TV) idea, and they can’t help but pound that square peg until it fits awkwardly into a round hole.

They did it last season to a series called intelligence, which had a promising premise and an appealing cast, but it was forced into fitting the procedural mold that made the CSI and NCIS franchises so successful. What was produced was bland and predictable, and didn’t survive for another season.

This season they are doing the same thing to a new series called Scorpion (cool name, never explained). The concept is not earth-shattering but has potential: a team of socially inept super-geniuses are recruited by Homeland Security to solve what on The Middleman were called “exotic problems.” The show has potential, but first it has to escape the network notes emphasizing procedural elements over interesting characters.

The team is overseen by Robert Patrick, who brings his best glower.  Patrick is a solid actor, best known for Terminator 2 but who also did some underappreciated work subbing for David Duchovney on The X-Files.  He should ground Scorpion when the plots start to spin out of control. The team of geniuses consists of a math prodigy, an engineering genius, and master psychologist, and their leader who claims to have an IQ of 190.  Oh, and a waitress.  Can’t forget the waitress.

The plot of the pilot was mercifully free of the standard terrorist threats or super-villains.  Thanks to a computer glitch, the software at every airport in Southern California goes on the fritz, which means every plane in the area will crash in about two hours.  Or 45 minutes.  Or ten minutes.  It’s hard to keep track, because deadlines keep coming and going. The whole thing is contrived, but what television show plot isn’t?  The plan is to find an uncorrupted version of the software, transfer it to a laptop, then e-mail it to the control tower at LAX, which eventually means having to connect a laptop to an airplane’s computer—with a cable, while the plane is flying.

The whole thing is kept moving at a brisk pace by veteran director Justin Lin.  He not only directed the later installments of the Fast and Furious franchise, but he also directed the brilliant paintball episode of Community (he deserved a best director Emmy, but shows like Community never win Emmys).  Lin keeps things moving fast enough that we don’t have too much time to soak in how absurd the situation is.

It’s hard to judge shows based on pilot episodes. The first episode of Scorpion was amusing enough, but I don’t know if the showrunner and writers will be smart enough to keep a show about a bunch of geniuses credible. And I suspect that the Suits at CBS will provide the producers with “notes” that will slowly drain Scorpion of what little innovation it possesses. 

Scorpion has potential, but I doubt that potential will survive CBS’ need to make the show look like all its other shows.  So feel sorry for CBS; they can win for winning,

Are Commercials Necessary?

Okay, show of hands—how many of you have watched old TV shows from the 1960s on DVD? Did you find it amazing that back in the Stone Age of television broadcasting a 60-minute long shows ran for more than 52 minutes? Now a days hour long dramas on the “broadcast” networks run for at most 42 minutes out of every hour. One of the recurring themes on the commentaries on DVDs of The Simpsons’ early seasons is the lament that the program is now about two or three minutes shorter because of more commercials, making the inclusion of secondary plot threads problematic.

More commercials per hour creates all sorts of problems.  Channel surfing is impossible, or at least highly inefficient, as you now have more than a 25% chance of landing on another channel during a commercial. Committed storytellers like Matthew Weiner of Mad Men demand that their shows run overtime, commercials be damned.  Taut dramatic programs found on commercial free premium networks like Showtime and HBO consistently win Emmies over network shows that have to break every ten minutes to sell toilet paper.

Television consumers have fought back.  Many people DVR (or record; I still own a VCR) programs just to fast forward past the commercials (a tactic I find essential during election season).  According to MarketingCharts in December of 2013, 7 of 10 homes now have a DVR, subscribe to Netflix, or use Video on Demand.  Or, if they are patient, they may wait for programs to come out on DVDs.  It’s like an ever-escalating war; we zip through commercials on a DVR, and the ad people insert more product placement into programs.

I want to raise a question that I haven’t heard asked here in America—are commercials necessary?

After all, commercials were born in an era when “broadcasters” emitted radio waves and had no way to regulate who received them.  So, in exchange for free entertainment, Americans had to endure two or three minutes of informative playlets that told them what coffees were delicious down to the last drop and what cigarettes had full-bodied flavor.

Britain went a different direction, charging each household with a TV set and annual license, which then went to reimburse broadcasters.  That way Benny Hill was never interrupted by commercials.

Things have changed since the early days of network TV here in America.  The percentage of household enjoying television via the airwaves is somewhere between 7% (CEA, July 30, 2013) to 10% (Hollywood Reporter, September 3, 2013) of American households.  At least 90% of American homes pay to watch TV via cable, satellite, or some streaming system like U-verse. 

So, since watching television is no longer free, why are we still watching commercials?

Let’s do some math (all numbers were found on the internet, so they are naturally indisputable).  The Hollywood Reporter estimated that approximately 103 million out of 114 million US households subscribe to cable, satellite, or some streaming service. The ad group eMarketer puts the amount of ad revenue spent on TV in 2013 at $66.4 billion.  If we divvy that up, it comes to $644.66 per household.  If we wanted to eliminate 25% of commercials, that comes to $13.43 a month per subscriber.

However, that revenue number is for broadcast and cable TV ads; I’m just suggesting subsidizing broadcast providers. The total ad revenue for them is $40.1 billion (according to a website called The Verge), which would break down to $8.11 per month per household to eliminate one-quarter of all commercials.

Would you pay less than $9 a month for 25% fewer commercials eating into episodes of Modern Family or The Good Wife?  My cable bill is pretty high, but I’d be tempted.

Maybe a British system with a “license fee” tacked on to everyone’s cable bill isn't the answer.  I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know the current system is unsustainable.  The eMarketer source projects that TV ad revenue as a percentage of all ad revenue is expected to fall from 39.1% in 2012 to 35.7% in 2018.  An April 10, 2014 posting on The Verge noted that for the first time ever, in 2013 media spending on the internet exceeded ad spending on broadcast TV, by $42.8 billion to $40.1 billion (citing the Interactive Advertising Bureau).

Americans don’t want to watch commercials and so rely on DVR and streaming; that makes each ad minute worth less to advertisers, who pay less; broadcasters (and I use that term loosely) need more revenue, so fill each hour with more commercials, which pushes more people to find ways to avoid commercials.  It’s a vicious circle.

At first affiliates paid networks for content; now networks pay affiliates for access to an audience.  The economics of television have changed over time. Maybe they need to change some more.

The People vs. Roger Goodell

In my previous post I ended by opining that Roger Goodell should be fired. Let me make the case more clearly.

I am not saying Goodell should be fired for his initial handling of the Ray Rice suspension. A great many people found two games to be too small; I find the debate over how many games Rice should have been suspended similar to that over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Two’s not enough? How about four? Eight? Sixteen? What is the price for beating up a woman? The question is absurd, and I can absolve Roger Goodell for making what turned out to be an unpopular decision. He knew the penalty for clipping is fifteen yards, but the penalty for domestic abuse is a bit more amorphous.

Roger Goodell has lost all credibility, and he won’t get it back. Remember during the “bountygate” incident, when much of Goodell’s case against the New Orleans Saints was based on, “I’m the Commissioner; trust me”? He can’t do that again. Every attempt by the Commissioner’s office to be less than 100% transparent, to try and sweep some embarrassment to the NFL under the rug will now be pounced upon by a pack of reporters looking for another “second video tape” gotcha moment.

Roger Goodell is a small boy standing before his parents, being asked what he did wrong and having no idea.  He is desperately searching for the right thing to say, because he has no idea what is right.  "Mommy, I think Ray Rice should be suspended for two games.”  Mommy glares.  “I mean six games!” More glares.  “I mean, he should be suspended forever and ever!”  If Roger Goodell had a moral center, he would have made a decision and then stuck with it.  Instead, he changes his mind, desperately seeking approval.

Here’s the thing about spin; it only works if you can’t tell its spin. Every statement coming out of the Commissioner’s office now is carefully worded, overtly trying to sound definitive while allowing for wiggle room. It doesn’t help his credibility that he keeps saying things like “we got it wrong.” If I was an owner I’d ask, “What do you mean we, Kemo Sabe?”  That wasn’t a racially offensive joke, right?

Goodell insists he had all the facts before him when he made his decision to suspend Rice for two games. But now he says he had no idea what happened inside the elevator. So, why did he make a decision to suspend Rice for two games without finding that tiny detail out? What did Rice say? What did his finacee say? Did he interview them separately and compare their stories? Did he release Rice’s statement, or make Rice repeat it for reporters to establish a record?  All Rice was required to say for reporters was that he “didn’t want to talk about the past.” How’d that line work out for Mark McGuire?

Goodell says he didn’t know about the second tape. Has he ever BEEN to a casino? There are cameras in the men’s room; of course there was one inside the elevator. If the tape was impossible to get, how did TMZ acquire it? Even if he couldn’t get the tape, what did he think was on it? Rice’s fiancée slipping on a banana peel like in a Keystone Kops movie? He had footage of Rice carrying her limp body out of the elevator and tossing her on the floor like a pile of dirty laundry; he had to know something bad happened, and at that point he should have assumed the worst and allowed Rice the chance to produce the tape to exonerate himself.

Goodell initially suspended Rice for two games for domestic abuse. He then announced a new policy of six game suspensions for first offenders. After the second tape came out, he then suspended Rice for life for a first offense.  Does this sound like the sober, deliberate decision-making of a man paid $44 million a year?

Goodell has either lied or misrepresented himself.  He either knew about the second tape, or he should have known about it.  He either knew what happened in the elevator, or he should have known. He either made the initial decision about Rice without having all the evidence, or he had the evidence and thought a two game suspension was adequate even though he later said a lifetime ban was appropriate.

Do I think Roger Goodell will be fired? Let me ask a question: how many owners are women? Roger Goodell is the NFL Sherriff, but only when it comes to players.  Players like Josh Gordon are suspended an entire year for a drug test so slight that it would have passed if the samples had been tested in the opposite order. Owners like Jim Irsay commit a DUI, yet he is “punished” by being told he has to watch six football games in their mansion instead of the stadium (okay, the billionaire was fined $500,000 too; is that tax deductible in Indiana?). No draft picks lost, no suspension during draft day. Irsay will have Goodell's back, no matter what.

Much to my surprise, 64% of people responding to an ESPN poll agree that Goodell should be fired. Lest you accuse them of liberal bias, ESPN polls also show that an even larger percentage think the Washington team name is okay.

If it happens, I’ll be shocked. But someone making $44 million should be held to a higher standard than Roger Goodell has displayed in handling the Ray Rice case. He has significantly damaged the league’s credibility, and that will interfere with his ability to execute his duties in the future. Reporters will question his every decision, the player’s union will challenge his assertions in negotiations, his ability to enforce the code will be undermined.

Goodell is the face of the NFL. He should have made the right decision and then stuck with it, not made a rash decision and then vacillated trying to appease public opinion. His remaining Commissioner of the NFL is hurting the shield that he has sacrificed his soul to protect.

Here we go again

A few weeks ago, amidst the tumult if the Ray Rice scandal, I posted a blog about how the narrative of the Ray Rice situation, as well as the Donald Sterling situation, had been driven by the fact that people sometimes have trouble processing too much evidence. Ask someone what the penalty for abusing a dog should be and they’d say a week in jail, or maybe a month; show them a video of a man beating up a puppy and they’d say life without parole would be too lenient.

Guess what? It’s happened again.  And it happened to Roger Goddell, so it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. When Goodell imposed a two game suspension on Ray Rice, all we had to go on was the video footage of Ray Rice dragging his then-fiancée’s limp, unconscious body out of a hotel elevator. Roger Goodell spoke with Ray Rice, who apparently assured him that it was a slight misunderstanding, and Goodell decided a two game suspension was adequate.

Now the footage of what actually happened inside the elevator has come to light, and Roger Goodell’s immediate reaction is to suspend Ray Rice indefinitely. First of all, let’s go over the reasons why this reaction is incredibly stupid.

First of all, it is a classic example of double jeopardy. Ray Rice was tried for the crime of beating his girlfriend and sentenced to a two game suspension. There were howls of protest that the penalty was inadequate, and Goodell later admitted he had screwed up. But still, Ray Rice was convicted and sentenced, and so now it seems unfair to convict him again for the same act.

Okay, let’s say you are one of those people who think that the Founding Fathers put that “double jeopardy” nonsense in the Constitution to help out trial attorneys (those guys were all lawyers). Roger Goodell initially said that the appropriate policy called for a two game suspension, but he subsequently said it would now be 6 games for a first offense and a lifetime ban for the second. But applying this new policy to Ray Rice is like overturning the outcome of a football game in 2013 because the rules were changed in the off-season. This is another thing the Founding Fathers put in the Constitution, no “ex post facto” laws.

But that’s just another lawyerly trick. Let’s say that Rice can be tried under the new policy. In that case, his indefinite suspension only makes sense if this was a second offense, and this is his first, so he should be suspended only six games. Somehow we must live in a universe where if I don’t see Ray Rice hit his girlfriend, but I know he does, that’s one count; but if I then SEE him hit his girlfriend, that’s a second violation. If the incident happened in public, and multiple people took pictures on their cell phones, would each photo be a separate instance of domestic abuse?

Roger Goodell may try and argue that the reason he gave Ray Rice a light suspension is he hadn’t seen the footage from inside the elevator of Rice landing the blows. That’s nonsense. What did Goodell think happened, Ray Rice kissed her really well and she swooned? When you see footage of a man dragging his girlfriend’s unconscious body out of an elevator, you have to assume the worst. You have to assume he hit her as hard as a man can hit a woman, and then tell Rice to prove something else happened, and with hard evidence not just his wife’s say-so (either she loves a man who beats her senseless, or she thinks being the wife of an NFL star is worth an occasional left hook). So even if Goodell didn’t see what had happened, he should have had it is his mind before passing judgment.

This happens on the day when the other shoe dropped in the Donald Sterling saga; another NBA owner announced he was selling his interest in the Atlanta Hawks because of an allegedly racist e-mail he sent several years ago. This is what Sterling hoped to bring out in a trial—how many owners have made statements that in retrospect could be considered offensive to some of their clientele? If Sterling had used his billions to hire detectives to unearth these facts, half the teams in the NBA would probably change owners.

Maybe you think Ray Rice got what he deserved, especially after seeing the video inside the elevator. Maybe you are glad the paltry two game suspension now teeters on becoming a lifetime ban. Fair enough.

But process matters, people. I remember on my first day of law school my civil procedure professor stressing that the Code of Civil Procedure didn’t promise a just outcome, only a fair one. Donald Sterling was railroaded out of the league, so the league never defined exactly what was unacceptable behavior and what wasn’t. Did the comments by the Hawk’s owner rise to the same level? We’ll never know, so he has to sell his share of the team. What if Marc Cuban makes some provocative yet thoughtful comments on race? That might force a sale of the Mavericks.

At some point in the future there will be another domestic violence instance. When that happens, will Goodell (or a future commissioner) follow the process he set down and suspend the player for 6 games? Or will they use Goodell’s power to make ad hoc judgments and reduce the penalty to four games? Or two? Will the case depend on whether there is film or not? Women who get hit where there is a camera will be protected; all others, you’re on your own.

Roger Goodell’s two game suspension of Ray Rice was completely inadequate and morally repugnant, and the man now making that claim is Roger Goodell.

The 2014 NL MVP race

I am not the kind of person to take pleasure in another person’s discomfort, but I have to confess I was extremely relieved when Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki went down with a season ending injury. It’s not that I hate the Rockies; who could hate a team that usually finishes in last place, except their own fans? No, I was relieved that the world would be spared yet another debate over a player on a losing team being seriously considered for league MVP.

It’s happened before. In the late 1950’s Ernie Banks won two MVP awards playing for a Cubs team that finished in the second division, back when the bottom half of the teams in the league were called the “second division.”  Andre Dawson led the league in RBIs and picked up the award playing for a different (but not THAT different) Cubs team.  Alex Rodriguez won the MVP for a last place Rangers team in 2003 (it was later revealed that he had tested positive for steroids, not that the use of performance enhancing drugs enhanced his, you know, performance).

Tulowitzki led the National League in about every offensive category when he went down with an injury. Most mid-season polls had him leading in the MVP race despite the fact that the Rockies were pathetic. Currently they are on a pace to win 40% of their games, easily the worst in the league by a wide margin. But still many baseball writers would have voted Tulo the MVP award.

Look people, the award isn't “Best Hitter” or “Best Player” but “Most Valuable.” The situation can be summed up by a story about Ralph Kiner, who led the league in home runs playing for a last place Pirates team. He was asked to take a pay cut because this happened before Marvin Miller explained how the world worked to baseball players. Kiner said he would sit out rather than take the pay cut; his owner said, “Ralph, we finished in last place with you; we’ll finish in last place without you.”

Back in the old days when one team from each league made the playoffs (then consisting of the World Series and nothing else), it was possible to make a case for a player leading his team to NEARLY winning a pennant to win the MVP award. But now that one-third of the teams in each league make the post-season, it is nearly impossible to consider the efforts of a ball player on a team that does no make the post-season to be “valuable.”

Other leagues understand this. Kevin Love is considered a great player in the NBA, but last season he finished 11^th in MVP voting.  No quarterback with a losing franchise has ever been named NFL MVP. But for some reason baseball considers the Most Valuable Player award less a team achievement and more for racking up individual stats.

But we’re not out of the woods yet.  Now the most talked about potential MVP winner is Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins, who are right now 3 games below .500 and 11 games out of the NL East lead.  But Stanton leads the NL in home runs and runs batted in by a wide margin, even if his team isn't winning many games because of it.

The MVP needs to be from a winning team who will make the playoffs. But the reality is that better teams are not constructed around one player like they used to be. No position player on a winning NL team really stands out, which leads to another MVP debate: pitchers versus batters.

Clayton Kershaw is dominating the National League like no one since another Dodger pitcher named Koufax. He is leading the league in wins and ERA, and is three strikeouts behind Johnny Cueto despite starring six fewer games. He would be a lock for the MVP if many voters didn’t have a bias against pitchers winning the MVP award.

One line of reasoning is that pitchers have their own award, the Cy Young, so only batters should be considered for the MVP. That’s a nice theory except for the fact that the rules say nothing about pitchers being ineligible for the MVP award. If someone wanted to create a “Hitter of the Year” award that would be terrific. But nothing says pitchers can’t win the MVP.

A second theory goes that a pitcher who works every fifth game couldn't be as “valuable” as a player who plays EVERY DAY. This is, of course, absurd. Position players may play every day, but they only bat 4 or 5 times a game, while pitchers face three or more batters every inning for 6 or 7 innings (or more). The fact is that Clayton Kershaw has faced slightly more batters than Stanton has had plate appearances (Stanton has 607 PAs, Kershaw has faced over 620 batters). It is generally true that a good starting pitcher will pitch to as many batters as an everyday player will have plate appearances.

So let’s have a vote for the MVP of the National League that focuses on successful teams, and let’s not be biased against defense over offense.  They (whoever “they” are) always say pitching wins championships. So doesn't that mean that pitchers are more valuable than batters?

Regulations for the Birds (and the Bees)

Legislatures try and regulate all sorts of things that they shouldn't.  The Indiana legislature once considered a bill that would have defined the value of pi as 3.2.  The state of Texas has a law creating a program that will allow for control of the weather. But nothing is sillier than the state of California’s latest attempt to legislate teenage hormones.

Let me begin by saying that “date rape” is a serious problem on many, if not most (or all), college campuses. Many young men, away from home and forming their own moral code for the first time in their lives, often make dubious decisions about what a young woman “wants” when the two of them are together.  Any young man who forces or coerces a young woman, or takes advantage of her incapacitation, for the purposes of sex should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

That said, the California legislature is going about it all wrong.  The California Senate recently passed, unanimously, SB 967 (De Leon). The bill requires all higher educational institutions in the state, under threat of having state funding cut off, to adopt certain policies regarding sexual assaults.  If the bill was concerned about general policies to reduce the incidence of date rape maybe wouldn't be so bad, but the legislature had to go into detail.

To determine if “affirmative consent” was given by both parties to the “activity”, the standard is that there must be an “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.”  Further, it is the responsibility of “each person involved” (I’ll give the author credit for not limiting sexual activities to twosomes) that he or she has the consent of the other parties (singular or plural). If there is an accusation of violation of the policy, it is not a defense that the accused was intoxicated, and the accused must have taken “reasonable steps” to ascertain that consent had been given.

So here’s the situation: Timmy and Debbie are in a dorm room, and they decide to take things to the “next level.” Upon hearing this from Debbie’s lips, Timmy reaches for his wallet and pulls out . . . a pre-printed consent form that he carries around in case of emergency. How else can Timmy prove that he took “reasonable steps” unless consent is in writing? He fills in Debbie’s name in the appropriate blank, notes the date and time, and checks the boxes denoting exactly what “activity” he is anticipating, while Debbie waits patiently to sign.

But wait! How can Timmy demonstrate that Debbie’s consent was not acquired through intimidation or coercion? Obviously the document will have to be notarized. Yes, after this bill becomes law, thousands of college students will be able to pay their way through college by working as freelance notary publics. Timmy calls the dorm notary and asks him or her to stamp the document.

But wait! How can the notary attest to whether either party is competent to give consent? The group will have to go to the campus health center, so Timmy and Debbie can take a blood test to determine that neither is inebriated enough to nullify consent.  After all, the law specifies that either person’s intoxication nullifies consent. The blood test taken, the document notarized, Timmy and Debbie can return to the dorm room for an evening of discovery and wonder.

But wait! SB 967 says that “[a]ffirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time.” So the document time-stamped at 10:15 is no longer valid at 10:30. Every ten of fifteen minutes (assuming young love is capable of sustaining itself for that long) Debbie and Timmy will have to stop and go through the entire process over again.

No college wants to be cut off from state funding, so every campus in California will have to deputize hundreds of special “967 enforcers” who will have to roam through dormitory hallways trying to locate offenders.  If suspicious noises emanate from behind any dorm room, these enforcers will have no choice but to interrupt the participants and check out their paperwork. If the appropriate forms are filled out and notarized, the activity may continue; of course the enforcers, like meter maids, will have to return after fifteen minutes to make sure new consent papers have been filled out.

Yeah, this sounds workable to me. If the Governor signs this bill and it becomes law, I'm sure there will be no more illicit sexual activity on college campuses. SB 967 passed the Assembly by a vote of 57-20 and passed the Senate by a unanimous vote of 36-0. I have always said the stupidest decisions in human history were made unanimously.

I guess now that the California legislature has solved the problem of on-campus sex, it can now turn its attention to other, less pressing matters. Like global warming or nuclear war.

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

To give credit where credit is due, Guardians of the Galaxy sounds like no other science fiction film I've ever seen.  I’m not talking about the sound mixing or the audio effects, but the music.  Kubrick introduced the idea of classical music in science fiction for 2001: A Space Odyssey.  George Lucas then used John Williams’ original, but classical sounding, music for Star Wars (possibly the best music score in film history). And now Guardians of the Galaxy gives us K-Tel’s greatest hits of the 1970’s and 80’s.

It’s an original idea and a neat marketing tool; it means that the film has a hook for older viewers who remember the 1970’s but don’t know what a “graphic novel” is. There is an energy I've rarely felt in other comic book-based, derivative science fiction films when the action is being played out over Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” or Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love.”

So Guardians of the Galaxy has that going for it.  What else?  Well, it has an honest to goodness sense of humor, even about itself.  It’s not fair to say that lacking a sense of humor is a failing of the other Marvel Comics titles, although most of the jokes in Iron Man landed because of Robert Downey Jr., not the script. And certainly Joss Whedon brought his patented wit to The Avengers.  But it takes a special kind of sense of humor for a film featuring a genetically modified, gun-toting talking raccoon to recognize the inherent silliness of a gun-toting, talking raccoon.

Other than the soundtrack and the self-reflexive humor, the movie is another summer sci-fi shoot ‘em up with all the CGI effects needed to send kids out there into endorphin induced DTs.  The plot has the usual comic book (excuse me, “graphic novel”) plot holes.  The bad guy is after a stone that will destroy all life on a certain planet.  Where did the stone come from?  Let’s not get into that.  Why was it created? Um, never mind.  How did it get lost in the first place; I mean, if there was a rock capable of ending all life on a planet, you’d think someone would take pretty good care of it.  Look, let’s just say that the stone exists, the bad guy wants it and the hero found it.  Let’s start the story from there and not ask any questions.

For what it’s worth, the acting helps propel the story along, with Chris Pratt hitting the right notes as a low-rent Indiana Jones wanna-be. Most of the rest of the cast does a good job of projecting through their prosthetics, and Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper does nice vocal work as the voice of the genetically enhanced raccoon (I can’t wait to see that on his resume). Zoe Saldana has played so many butt-kicking women that it must be second nature by now, but she still pulls it off. Lee Pace and Karen Gillian as the bad guys are virtually unrecognizable under their latex.

One wishes this sort of summer entertainment made more sense, like the first Star Wars trilogy or the first Superman film (wait a minute, he reversed time by flying around the Earth really fast; never mind). But a coherent plot and imaginative twists is probably too much to ask for in a film where the closing credit list of digital artists FILLS THE SCREEN (and is, as best as I could tell, listed alphabetically by first name). Guardians of the Galaxy is amusing, done with energy and humor, and has a killer soundtrack; if you want more than that from a summer blockbuster, you’ll have to look in a different galaxy.