Sorry, but tax cuts don't stimulate the economy

Republicans have predicted that the just passed GOP tax cut bill will work like gangbusters on the economy.  And they are right, but for the wrong reason.  Tax cuts don’t stimulate the economy, but government deficits do, and the GOP tax cut bill promises to increase the federal deficit by around $1.1 trillion.

The same thing happened with the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s.  People forget the bad economy during the first part of the Reagan administration and only remember the strong economy after the 1981 tax cuts were passed without any corresponding spending cuts.  The cuts were supposed to “pay for themselves” but when they didn’t, the deficit soared.  Reagan and the Congress then passed tax increases to control the deficit (no one remembers “Ronald Reagan, tax raiser”), but the initial stimulus created the “Reagan miracle” of an improved economy.

Why doesn’t a tax cut stimulate the economy?  Don’t tax cuts put more money in people’s wallets?  Let’s look at the impact of a state tax cut on a state economy, one where the state has to maintain a balanced budget since states can’t pay for tax cuts by printing money.  Every dollar of tax cuts must be accompanied by a dollar of lower state spending, whether it be on education, social services, or the proverbial waste, fraud and abuse.  So the economy is stimulated by greater private spending, but retarded by less public spending.  The economy can’t tell the difference between a dollar spent by the state or a dollar spent by a private citizen; the net effects cancel out.

But wait, there’s more (as the infomercials say)!  Under standard economic theory, people don’t spend every cent of every dollar they earn.  Most people, especially those who are not in poverty, save some of their income for the proverbial rainy day.  Let’s assume that the typical person saves 5% of their income and puts it under their mattress, or in a nice savings account.  That means that a dollar tax cut only produces 95 cents of actual stimulus.

The government, of course, does not save for a rainy day (at least, not usually; some states, like California, have a “rainy day fund” to help the state during economic downturns. But these funds are usually a small percentage of the budget and are quickly exhausted during an economic downturn).  So when a state cuts taxes, it forgoes spending 100 pennies in order to give a dollar to a taxpayer who will then spend 95 pennies.  Thus state tax cuts do not stimulate the economy, they actually make it less robust.

Federal tax cuts can stimulate the economy, but only when they are accompanied by increased deficits.  It is the deficit that improves the economy, not the tax cut.  Republicans claim they hate the federal deficit, but they love cutting taxes that makes the deficit bigger.

There is one possible rebuttal to this analysis, that tax cuts do increase savings but savings are used by banks to lend capital, and capital is used to build businesses up.  That is factually true, but the mechanism by which increased investment leads to economic growth is not well understood, and the benefit should be delayed by several years.  Also, increasing the deficit by printing money will affect both inflation and interest rates in ways that difficult to anticipate.  That spending (either private of governmental) stimulates the economy is straightforward and incontrovertible.

So the GOP tax bill might stimulate the economy in the short run, but eventually the deficit-hawks are going to start demanding spending cuts (or tax increases) to pay for them and when that happens the economy will dip into another recession.  Yes, Republicans may think that taking food stamps away from hungry children is a lot of fun, but the money in that social program (and others) goes to farmers who support their families by buying consumer goods, and it then is spent by providers of consumer goods on their families, and so on and so on ad infinitem.

The next stage in this pantomime is that after a slight boom the economy will start to lag, Republicans will say it is the deficit’s fault and urge spending cuts in social programs, Democrats will counter with proposals to pare back on the tax cuts, Republicans will accuse the Democrats of wanting to raise taxes yet again, and meanwhile the deficit will grow. 

The irony is that the Republicans are right to worry about the deficit, but will attempt to benefit politically from making the problem worse.  Will voters be smart enough to realize this?  That is what the 2018 midterm elections will show.

Sexual harassment is everywhere!

We are in the middle of a sexual harassment tsunami.  All over the place well-known producers, directors, actors and politicians are being accused of doing things that range from creepy to, well, really creepy, either to members of the opposite sex or, in some cases, members of the same sex. 

It is easy to believe these allegations when they are made against someone who looks like every wanted poster for a child molester ever made (Harvey Weinstein), or there is confirmatory evidence (Matt Lauer and his door that secretly locked), or are confirmed by photographic evidence (Al Franken).  With all these women coming forward under #metoo, what is next?

The next phase is inevitable: women with an axe to grind will start making false accusation against innocent people and hope to ride the coattails of outrage that accompany these revelations.  With all these seemingly credible accusations being made, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we do live in a nation where the cornerstone of our legal system is innocent until proven guilty.  This is extremely inconvenient in the inevitable situation of “He said/She said.”

People tend to believe what they want to believe.  If you believe that all Hollywood producers have casting couches in their offices, then a wave of accusations vindicates your beliefs.  But the fact that evidence supports your pre-existing belief system does not make it more credible.  Creating a mentality where every woman’s accusation is accepted by a knee-jerk reaction as fact does not get to the truth.

Remember the security guard at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 who found a bomb, and was then accused of planting the bomb?  There was never any evidence against him, but people thought the narrative would make a good movie-of-the-week and so tended to believe the story, even though it was fictional.  We are so accustomed to seeing fictional stories in movies and on TV that we start to evaluate all stories not by their plausibility but by whether the story is entertaining.

To take another example, remember the McMartin pre-school case in the 1980’s, when people were convinced that there was a vast underground conspiracy of Satan worshippers in America, and these cults were systematically abducting very young children and subjecting them to horrific rituals?  People believed it even though it made no sense and there was no evidence, just because it was an entertaining, if disturbing, story.  The folks that ran the McMartin pre-school who were accused of being the ringleaders of these cults were exonerated, but only after a lengthy trial and even then, many people probably dismissed the not guilty verdict as a product of the Devil’s handiwork.

Thus far, the accusations of sexual harassment (and worse) that have been made have at least had the appearance of credibility, and few accusers have categorically denied the allegations.  But at some point (it may already have happened) someone is going to make a false accusation, and when that time comes it is important that the accused be given every o0pportunity to respond, including the presumption of innocence.

You can look at the tidal wave of disclosures about sexual harassment as evidence of just how bad the problem has been in Hollywood and in politics, but at some point, the insatiable maw that is the internet and the news industry will demand more victims, and someone out there will be only too happy to offer up some more examples of male oppression, even if they have to fabricate them.  When that happens, I hope that people can stop surfing the wave of accusations and start to evaluate these claims with a critical eye and a little bit of reason.

TV Review: Crisis on Earth X

TV Review: Crisis on Earth X

There is no more understandable or predictable sin than going back to the well once too often.  If something succeeds, then you do it again, only bigger.  And if THAT succeeds, then wash, rinse, repeat.  If the first Star Wars trilogy was innovative, then another one will be better; if the second trilogy makes a lot of money, then do some more until the people stop buying tickets.

 It’s amazing when someone dodges this bullet and does a sequel or follow up that is better than the original.  The third Mad Max film, Beyond Thunderdome, was better than the second one, which itself was better than the low-budget original (and most critics think the fourth installment, Fury Road, was the best of them all).  But it is hard to come up with other examples where someone tried to do “the same, but better” and actually succeeded.

As of this week there is another example—CW’s second “crossover event,” Crisis on Earth X, is head and shoulders above last year’s Heroes vs. Aliens event.  It’s almost like they learned what mistakes to avoid last year, and then . . . avoided them.  It is a great four hours of television that is greater than the sum of its parts, which are estimable.

There were a couple of obvious problems with Heroes vs. Aliens.  First, the threat was some new species of alien called Dominators that had not been introduced into the CWverse beforehand, meaning that the stakes were not immediately understood as cataclysmic.  Second, the episode of Supergirl dedicated to the event was completely irrelevant, until the crossover aspect was introduced in the last two minutes.  Third, the plan the good guys had seemed sort of lame; if I remember correctly, The Flash wanted Supergirl to do mock attacks, so they could test battle strategies on her because she, like the Dominators, was an alien.

The biggest problem was that each show—Supergirl, The Flash, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow—held true to their own casts and production style, which made the overall arc inconsistent and difficult to follow for those who didn’t watch all of them (I follow three of them but gave up on Arrow very quickly).  The plot jerked all over the place as each show tended to their own story arcs and characters and only provisionally attended to the quality of the event.

That is NOT the case with Crisis on Earth X.  It is essentially a 4-part mini-series, with every scene directed to serving the overarching plot and not the characters of whatever series bears the title of the episode.  The episode of Supergirl that started it off was about Barry Allen and Iris West’s wedding; Supergirl (and her sister Alex) were attending, but the opening scene is all about The Flash.  Some of the Legends don’t show up until the Legends’ episode, but the cast is so full that frankly it’s a relief.  The character of Win Schott is not in the Supergirl segment, but does an impressive bit during The Flash episode.

There was truly a lot of “crossover” interaction among the cast, most notably Alex Danvers getting drunk at the rehearsal dinner and hooking up with Legends’ Sara Lance.  The friendship between Barry Allen and Kara Danvers aka Supergirl had already been established, but Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoit have a wonderful chemistry.  Likewise, Barry’s friendship with Oliver Queen had been establish, but their scenes are true interactions and not just Steven Amell “guest starring” on The Flash (well, technically they were on Supergirl, but as I said, it is best to forget the individual show titles and just think of the shows as episodes 1-4 of a mini-series). 

The choice of antagonist was well-considered, as Nazis from another planet are new to the CWverse (I think I should refer to it as the “Arrowverse” but like I said, I don’t watch Arrow) yet familiar.  Any fan of sci-fi (which I am assuming takes up most of the audience for these shows) would have no trouble believing in an alternate universe where Nazis rule Earth, and Nazis as an enemy is a known quantity (just ask Indiana Jones).  It also works as a meta-concept, given that a certain highly placed public figure has said that he thinks Nazis are nice people too, so they can attack Nazis but can claim not to be making any political statement even when the sub-text has become text.

You can quibble with some of the plotting, but on a tale of this magnitude some slack is deserved.  Gaining access to the Nazi facility by having this universe’s Arrow impersonate Earth-X’s Arrow, when they know there is a doppelganger, is just lazy writing.  The sheer number of superheroes demanded crowd control at some point, and the Nazi guards were as accurate with machine guns as Imperial Stormtroopers are with blasters (that is to say, they can’t hit the side of a barn if they were inside the barn).

But the result was a four-hour mini-series that was easily the equal of the Netflix series Jessica Jones or Daredevil season one.  It is also nice to have a science fiction show that has epic CGI battles, but also takes time to develop characters and invests in emotional payoffs (spoiler: someone dies).  The series featured not one but two same sex couples kissing, and definitively staked out a position that Nazis are not good at a time when that message, sadly, needs to be refreshed with a lot of people.

Crisis on Earth X is a sprawling, epic, masterful use of the mini-series format to tell a story that no individual series could tell episodically. The writing, acting and directing were all of the highest order, which is impressive given the logistics of having to produce the mini-series while the four series were simultaneously in production (Supergirl did the most obvious cheat by featuring an episode that was entirely a flashback with teen actors standing in for the regulars).  Crisis on Earth X is as much a sign that we live in the Platinum Age of Television as The Sopranos, Breaking Bad or Mad Men; just a lot more fun.

Marvel vs. DC, movies vs. television

The weekend grosses for DC’s major release Justice League are in, and the results are not good for DC.  Justice League may be the worst DC opening ever, and the first to open below $100 million domestically.  This follows on the heels of the successful opening of the latest Thor movie, Ragnarok.  The primary explanation for Justice League’s failing is that despite some major script doctoring and reshooting by Joss Whedon, Justice League still share the DNA of such dour fare as Superman vs. Batman and Man of Steel, neither of which were laugh fests like Whedon’s The Avengers or its far less superior sequel.

Of course, the whole “Marvel vs. DC” thing goes way back and is bigger than one film.  What I find interesting is that the images of the two comic universes are completely reversed if you switch from the TV universe and the movie franchises.

On TV, DC has The Flash, which was great in its early days precisely because it was a breath of fresh air after the gloomy Batman trilogy and all its angst and gloom.  The series stumbled last season by getting a little too dark, but seems committed to going back to more light-hearted fare this season.  Arrow, despite being pretty angsty, has consistently embraced its inner silliness.  Legends of Tomorrow started off as deadly earnest and was a bore its first season; then the show decided to just go with the silly and has been a rejuvenated show ever since.

Marvel’s TV image is far more glum.  Agents of Shield started out light and breezy, but once it started taking its plot points from the movies (see below) a lot of the humor went away.  Marvel’s newer offering, The Gifted, is nothing but perpetual angst as the forces of the US Government torment and harass mutants on a weekly basis, with the government agents all but cackling with glee. I tried to watch The Gifted mostly out of loyalty to Amy Acker, but I gave up after six episodes.  Another recent Marvel offering, Inhumans, was described by the LA Times as, “tr[ying] for a joke now and again, but it is overall somnolent and solemn.”  I haven’t been watching Inhumans as the first episode was described in one review as the worst thing Marvel ever produced, and other reviews have produced a Metascore of 27.

In movies, the opposite is the case.  DC has been slammed for bleak products like the aforementioned Zack Snyder offerings, while Marvel went with the master of mixing superpowers and humor, Joss Whedon, and reaped the biggest superhero film ever, The Avengers.  The Marvel X-Men franchise started out light and quippy as well, and the franchise tried to sell the heavier ideas it possessed with a spoonful of humor.

I don’t know why both studios should be so schizophrenic about the tone of their products.  There has been some blurring recently; as I said, once Agents of Shield started to incorporate plot points from Winter Soldier it started getting less fun, and DC has tried to lighten the image of its films by bringing Joss Whedon on board for rewrites and reshoots (I would love to bet that every punch line in the Justice League trailer was written by Whedon; each one sounds like something that was an outtake on Buffy).

The Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy demonstrated that comic books (excuse me, “graphic novels”) could be taken seriously; maybe a little too seriously.  I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to watch the first few episodes of The Flash and see a superhero who was happy and liked using his powers to help people.  But things change, and now it seems that audiences want a lighter touch when viewing the activities of their favorite metahuman, or X-man, or whatever.

The fact that Thor: Ragnarok has succeeded as a comedy is the best proof of this.  The first two Thor films were the least amusing of the Marvel entries, and the second one, The Dark World, was, well, dark (the one great moment in that film was a supposedly ad libbed moment by Chris Hemsworth when Thor entered Jane’s apartment and politely hung his hammer on an umbrella hook near the door). Ragnarok’s success, combined with Justice League’s unimpressive first weekend opening under $100 million, would seem to show the writing is on the wall.

It’s a narrow path to tread; be light and carefree, but don’t fail to take your material seriously.  Joss Whedon did this better than anyone for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the fact that he couldn’t quite rescue Justice League indicates to me that it must have been pretty far gone.  Both studios could learn from each other, with Marvel’s TV programs taking a cue from Legends of Tomorrow and the DC movie producers finding writers capable of finding the funny.

In the NFL, the inmates ARE running the asylum

So it’s come to this: I defend Roger Goodell.

A few weeks ago, Houston Texan’s owner Robert McNair made headlines when it was revealed that he said that the NFL should be tougher in dealing with protesters because they couldn’t have “inmates running the prison.”  There was some initial debate if he misspoke and meant to say “inmates running the asylum” because supposedly comparing NFL players to insane people was less insulting than comparing them to convicted criminals. 

I don’t think it really makes a difference, either sentiment displays the attitude of many owners that the team owners don’t just own the teams, they own the players just like slaveholders in the Old South owned their slaves.  The players and the owners are supposed to be partners, but some of the rich White men who own the teams have a contemptuous opinion of their supposed “partners.”

Then last week Dallas Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones threatened to individually sue any fellow owner who approved a contract extension for Roger Goodell, an obvious response to Goodell finally being allowed to impose a 6-game suspension of Cowboy’s star (pun not intended) running back Ezekiel Elliot.  Jones has been dismissive of the entre process, opining that the penalty was an excessive response to the allegations that Elliot merely physically assaulted his girlfriend.  I guess Jones’ opinion is that if a man can’t smack his girlfriend around, what is this country coming to?

Jones is now saying the NFL penalty mechanism is so unfair he will sue if it is enforced against his team.  Of course, he said nothing against the decision to suspend Patriot’s quarterback Tom Brady for four games, so his outrage is selective.

If the other owners are smart they will ignore his threats a go ahead and give Goodell the extension he probably doesn’t deserve.  Al Davis occasionally challenged the NFL, but that was about marketing his team, not on-the-field advantage.  If the owners cave, then Goodell will be loath to impose any future penalties on a Cowboys player, lest he face the wrath of Jerry Jones.

Of course, the other owners could take this as an opportunity to strip the Commissioner’s office of all authority to impose suspensions, but given the public outrage over many of Goodell’s decisions to impose mild penalties for perceived faults (most notably the Ray Rice case, lest Jerry Jones think that no one cares about domestic violence cases) I think the owners would recognize that having some sort of figurehead is a good idea.  Especially since Goodell has proven effective as being a punching bag for public outrage.

Can Jones make good on his threat to sue the other owners?  Sure, in America anyone can sue anybody for anything.  The deal to extend Goodell’s contract was approved unanimously, meaning Jones supported it.  And Jones agreed to participate in the NFL and abide by its rules, including the method of determining Goodell’s salary, so it is a little late in the game for him to decide the rules aren’t fair.  And as noted above, he never had any problem with the NFL’s suspension process until his star player was suspended. Given that he agreed to everything, and has never said anything about how the process has worked in the past, it is hard to see how a lawyer could make a case that Jones’ suit is anything but a self-serving attempt to give his team an on-field advantage by being allowed to play players despite their breaking NFL rules.

I think Goodell has been largely incompetent in the penalty aspect of his job, botching the Ray Rice investigation, the deflate-gate situation (Brady was guilty, but even I think a four-game suspension was too harsh), and also not responding quickly enough to concussion concerns, the anthem situation, and the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick.  The contrary argument is that he’s made a lot of money for the owners (including Jerry Jones), but I am in the camp that believes a trained bonobo as Commissioner could have overseen the economic boom of the NFL.  The American appetite for violence is insatiable, and the NFL is the country’s primary distributor.

By the way, this is why I dismiss any claim that people aren’t watching NFL games because of anthem protests.  The anthem is usually not telecast, and besides, where are these people going to get their weekly dose of violence?  Watch soccer?  NASCAR?  If people aren’t watching the NFL it is because overextension has diluted the product, and because major athletes are getting injured at an increasing level because safety concerns have been ignored for years.

Looking at the disarray among the NFL owners over Roger Goodell’s contract extension, one can only conclude that Robert McNair was correct; the inmates are running the asylum.

The first 2017 cancellation has occurred!

One of the evolving aspects of the new media culture is the reluctance of television networks to decisively “cancel” TV shows.  There used to be an annual deathwatch to identify the first series to be axed, with speculation based on quality, time slot, and the star power associated with the show.  But in recent years, the wait for the first cancellation of the TV season has been attenuated by networks refusing to make a firm irrevocable decision about the fate of all of its series in favor of the more flexible option of simply not ordering more episodes of a show and letting the series die a peaceful death.

The 2017 TV season has apparently claimed its first fatality, as CBS has pulled the plug on Me, Myself, & I, its high concept comedy about a man facing issues at three different stages of his life.  The show wasn’t “cancelled,” but its time slot will be given to another show; the fact that the other show is the critically reviled “Man With a Plan” (Metacritic rating 36; named one of the 10 worst shows of 2016) indicates that the network has lost faith in a show.  Of course, they say the show will return, but if so it is likely to have its episodes burned off during the wasteland of January.

What I find a little odd about this is that Me, Myself & I didn’t look like a candidate for the first cancellation of the year.  The show had an unspectacular but decent Metacritic score of 57, with a respectable User Score of 6.3.  The show starred Bobby Moynihan, a popular alumnus of Saturday Night Live, and John Larroquette, a TV acting legend who won four consecutive Emmies as a Supporting Actor in a Comedy for Night Court.  The first casualty is usually a low brow comedy critics hated (2008’s Do Not Disturb, Metacritic score of 21), or possibly a high concept drama with expensive production values (The Playboy Club, 2011).  This season, for example, ABC’s Ten Days in the Valley hasn’t been cancelled, but being moved to Saturdays is not a sign of support by the network.

I watched the first three episodes of Me, Myself and I, and I enjoyed it while being aware of its limitations.  While the show could have the pilot episode, and first few regular episodes, deal with plots that would engage the main character as a youth, a middle-aged man, and a retiree, I couldn’t see how the show could develop its characters moving forward.  I also felt the show did a bad job of handling the main character’s occupation as an inventor, which seemed to revolve around him coming up with “wacky” props that all seemed silly.

I did stop watching the show, but only because my DVR only permits me to watch one show and record another, and once Supergirl and Lucifer were going head to head during the same time slot, I had no choice.  I could have watched the show on demand, but quite frankly I didn’t care. 

In looking over the list of each season's first show to be cancelled, one stands out.  In 2002 ABC ran a show created by Ben Affleck called Push, Nevada.  The show was reminiscent of Twin Peaks, but with a gimmick; every week there would be a clue, and once all the clues were revealed the first person to figure out the puzzle would win a cash prize.  The show was critically well received, with a Metacritic score of 70, way higher than any other first-to-be-cancelled show since 2000.  I enjoyed it, but for whatever reason ABC pulled the plug after 7 episodes.  However, under federal rules they had to complete the contest, so the actor who played the lead character appeared during a break on Monday Night Football and dumped the rest of the clues all at once.  I liked it.

For reasons that escape my understanding, Me, Myself, and I’s partner in the early Monday time slot for CBS, the incredibly lame-looking 9JKL (Metacritic score 36, User Score of 1.8), has not been relegated to a January burn-off.  In fact, it will take over Me, Myself, and I’s time slot while Man With a Plan will take over its slot.  Me, Myself & I had an initial rating of 1.6 which fell to 0.7 (among viewers between 18-49).  Last week the Monday lineup lost Big Bang Theory as a lead-in as it moved back to Thursdays, which caused the following CBS line-0up to fall in viewership.  9JKL had a rating of 0.8 on October 30, the same week Me, Myself, & I was 0.7, so I guess that extra 0.1 was enough to keep it on the air.

While I wasn’t a fan of Me, Myself, & I, I am sad it was the first casualty of the 2017 TV season.  Larroquette was a joy as always, and the premise was not the usual cookie-cutter product most TV series are (for example, 9JKL is about a son moving in next door to his parents; wasn’t that Everybody Loves Raymond’s plot?).  Buck up, all you unemployed actors; the new TV pilot season is only a few months away!

Divisiveness and Star Trek Discovery

I don’t need to tell you that America is a divided place right now.  Red states vs. blue states; anthem standers vs. kneelers; smooth peanut butter vs. chunky.  But it used to be there was something most of us could agree on, and that is that Star Trek is awesome.

But the Star Trek concept of IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) is being strained by the response of fans to the latest incarnation in the Trek oeuvre, Star Trek Discovery.  CBS just announced that it was renewing the show for a second season, so the experiment of only making it available on a streaming platform instead of broadcast television must have worked.  But there is a civil war brewing about the show and the direction of Star Trek into the future.

I cannot comment on the quality of the show because I won’t sign up for CBS All Access just to watch a new Star Trek series.  I can go back and re-watch The Original Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine on Netflix if I want my Trek fix (sorry, Voyager was never my cup of tea), not to mention the movies (at least the good, even numbered ones).  I did watch the first episode that was broadcast, and I thought it was terrible.  Of course, it’s hard for me to make an informed decision because what they showed on CBS was not the first episode, but only the first half of the first two-part episode.  Note to CBS—if you say you are going to show the first episode on broadcast TV, then show the ENTIRE episode and don’t end on a cliffhanger and say, “to be continued” on part 2.

Metacritic gives Star Trek Discovery a respectable critical rating of 72 out of 100.  But then I checked the User Rating and saw it was a measly 4.5 out of 10, worse than mediocre.  Looking at the summary, it was what we in the statistics biz like to call a bimodal distribution—163 negative reviews vs. 82 positive reviews, with all the 10’s and 1’s averaging out to just under 5.  Very few people are on the fence.

I got the sense of the controversy looking at the comments on the AV Club review of the most recent episode.  In my history of reading reviews at AV Club I had never seen so many comments taking issue with the position taken by the reviewer, which pointed out the inconsistencies with the Star Trek universe and questioned the purpose of setting the series in the Star Trek universe then feeling the need to rebrand certain aspects (like largely rebooting the Klingons).  Comments on AV Club reviews sometimes have commenters pose slight disagreements with what other commenters have posted, but rarely have commenters taken the offensive to unilaterally disagree with the approach the reviewer took in critiquing the show itself.

The major reason for the split of opinion could be because we are now into the third generation of Star Trek fandom.  The First Age of Star Trek was the original show and the big screen movie version of Star Trek and its immediate sequels.  These stories were about Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and the rest, and were based on a unifyied concept.

The Second Age of Star Trek was the re-birth and rise of the television franchise, from The Next Generation through Enterprise.  These projects were one step removed from Gene Rodenberry’s original vision, but close enough to avoid any major issues with continuity.  Yes, Klingons now had forehead ridges, but the best explanation for that was contained in the Deep Space Nine episode Trials and Tribble-ations (as Worf explained, Klingons did not discuss the change with outsiders). 

The Third Age began with the movie franchise reboot, where Chris Pine reinterpreted the role of Kirk.  One of the clever things done to avoid the whole consistency “tar baby” was to make everything due to a temporal anomaly, so that the events that followed would NOT be consistent with the events of the original TV series.  This was taken to a somewhat tedious extreme by Star Trek Into Darkness, which (spoilers!) was essentially a remake of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan but with events slightly altered due to changes in the timeline.

So now there are two, maybe three, groups of fans: those loyal to the original Star Trek series and its characters (these people are pretty old at this point); those raised on The Next Generation and the subsequent TV series which tried hard to toe the corporate line; and those who came aboard with the recent movie reboot who see no reason to drag a 50 year old TV series into imposing limits on a new science fiction TV franchise.  Thus the split in opinion over how dedicated any new incarnation of Star Trek has to be to the details of what has come before.

I’ve written before that my theory for the decline in quality in the Star Trek franchise, starting with Voyager and the later seasons of Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, was that they started hiring writers based on their knowledge of Star Trek trivia over having actual writing talent.  The first year of the original series featured scripts by noted science fiction authors like Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Frederic Brown and DC Fontana, mainly because in the mid-1960’s there were few science fiction writers working in television.  More recent writers developed episodes with major plot points based on nuances that were probably not-thought-out details about Klingon physiology or Ferengi psychology; namely, they were Star Trek insiders and not graduates of screenwriting classes.

So, we’ll have to agree to disagree.  I will continue to think that Star Trek Discovery is a major misfire, while I watch City on the Edge of Forever and Our Man Bashir on Netflix.  Trek fans younger than me will eat up Discovery and believe that Star Trek Beyond is the best Star Trek movie yet.  If the Federation and the Klingons can co-exist, I suppose the various schools of Trek fandom can learn to live together.

The GOP Tax Plan

In case you haven’t heard, Republicans want to pass a “tax reform” measure.  Of course, being Republicans, when they say, “tax reform” they mean “tax cuts” primarily for the rich (because cutting taxes for the poor doesn’t accomplish very much).  Since this would dramatically increase the federal deficit, and because a lot of Republicans don’t like that idea, they have to look for ways to raise tax revenues without increasing tax rates, which can be tricky.

 One idea that was reported by respectable news sources is a plan to cap employee contributions to 401(k) plans, which are used by employees to save money for retirement.  The current cap limits tax deductible contributions from $18,000 to $24,000 a year; Republicans want to lower that amount to an amount possibly as low as $2,400 per year.

 Before I discuss the implications of this proposal, a little history of 401(k) plans is in order.  When 401(k)s were created in the 1970’s, they were a way to give highly paid executives a higher retirement income without raising benefits for everyone in a company’s pension plan.  Contributions to a 401(k) were treated as non-taxable income; taxes were paid when the money was withdrawn during retirement, at which point most company executives would be in a lower tax bracket, thus creating an incentive for the executive to squirrel away money.

 However, the tax code has changed a lot since the 1970’s.  Upper brackets were eliminated by the Reagan tax reforms, and companies found ways to compensate executives with stock options and the like which reduced the incentive for highly paid executives to use 401(k)s.  As private pension plans were eliminated during the late 20^th century (for reasons that I will leave to be explained another day), most private companies made 401(k)s the principal method of retirement saving for rank and file employees.

 One consequence of this is that the tax-deferred advantage of investing in a 401(k) has largely gone away.  It used to be said that retirees could live on 70% of their final income, mainly because presumably their house was paid off, but now many people refinance their housing instead of paying it off.  Also, medical expenditures are increasing for people of retirement age, so now people are expected to need about 90% of their final income in retirement.  This means that people who retire are in the same tax bracket as when they were working.

 So, the tax-deferral aspect of 401(k)s is just that—deferral, not avoidance.  What that means is that the Republican plan to cap 401(k) contributions won’t raise more tax revenue; it merely shifts when the taxes are paid from the future to the present.  So, the Republican plan mortgages the future in order to write down the deficit-enhancing aspects of the tax cuts.

 Shifting the tax payments means that the economy will be stimulated now, creating more jobs and, as I said, reducing the deficit now.  But there is no free lunch—the economy will be depressed in 10, 20, 30, or 40 years in the future when retirees retire and find they don’t have enough income to live on.  So not only will tax revenues be lower in the future, but there will be an increase in demand for government services as an increasing number of older citizen find they need government assistance to make ends meet.

 Taking public sector employees off pensions and putting them into 401(k) plans has been a Republican mantra for decades.  Now Republicans essentially want to take 401(k)s away (a cap of $2,400 per year would not allow people to save enough to live on when an employee reaches retirement age).  This means that the Republican plan would essentially mean that most workers couldn’t afford to retire, they would have to keep working until they die.  This may not be an issue for people in white collar jobs (California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is 84, announced she is running for re-election, meaning she plans on working until she is 90), but people in blue-collar trades often can’t physically continue to work when they get older and can’t meet the physical demands of their job.

The concept of “retirement” is a relatively new one; before the Great Depression (the one in the 1930’s, not the one in the 2010’s) pretty much everyone expected to work until they keeled over at their work station.  Thanks to the 20^th century development of pensions, enough could be set aside for future costs so that people might enjoy a few years of rest between work and the grave.  Then businesses decided that pensions were too expensive, so switched to 401(k)s, and now Republicans think that 401(k)s defer too much spending. 

 In a perfect world, everyone would save enough for their golden years.  In case you haven’t noticed, the world is less than perfect.  According to the Federal Reserve, Americans have a credit card debt of a little over $5,000 per person with a credit card, or $9,600 per household with credit card debt.  In our consumer culture, saving for the future is not as exciting as buying a really neat boat (or renting a one-bedroom home in the San Francisco Bay Area).  401(k)s are one of the few resources that people have to make wise decisions about savings, but the Republicans want to take away people’s futures in order to give the wealthy a tax cut.

TV Review: Star Trek Discovery

TV Review—Star Trek: Discovery

One of the dangers of trying to revive a beloved but dormant franchise is that you’ve got several million viewers ready to jump on even the slightest error or misstep of interpretation.  You have to be true to what made the previous incarnation great, but be able to innovate in order to reach a new audience.  It is what the creators of Star Trek: The Next Generation succeeded at.  It was what the creators of the new Doctor Who succeeded at. 

It is what the creators of Star Trek: Discovery failed at.

I can’t write off the series based on one episode, but one episode is all that is being provided before the show goes into “access mode” on CBS’ streaming platform.  Based on what I saw, I won’t be signing up.

Where does the show go wrong?  First, there is the inherent problem of setting a series using today’s filming technology ten years before the Original Series was set.  The sets, costumes, and make-up have to look better than they did when the Original Series was filmed in the 1960’s.  The most glaring example—Star Trek: Discovery has characters communicate with people far away by using holographic imagery.  Did Kirk ever use holograms to communicate with Star Fleet?  No, of course not.  So how do you explain Star Fleet having hologram technology ten years before the Original Series but not then?  Of course, the answer is because now we can film scenes using simulated holograms and we couldn’t in 1966, but that’s a meta answer that takes the viewer out of the experience.

Speaking of make-up, the creators of Discovery have decided to give the Klingons yet ANOTHER makeover.  Next Gen famously gave the Klingons a forehead ridge, a development wonderfully mocked in the DS9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations when digital technology was used to insert Commander Worf into footage from the Original Series episode The Trouble With Tribbles (when asked who Klingons used to look more human, Worf replied that it was something Klingons didn’t discuss). 

Klingons have been revamped, and so help me they look like Vogons from the BBC Production of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  They had a domed, turtle-like head and don’t look the least bit menacing, at least to me.  Their ship, which used to be the height of sparse, utilitarian design, has so many ornate carvings and elaborate moldings that it looks like a Orion brothel (or at least what I assume an Orion brothel looks like, since I don’t believe Trek has ever shown one).

There is also the age-old problem in Star Trek that they have to find ways for there to be problems despite futuristic technology.  The opening scenes show the Captain (Michelle Yeoh) and her First officer Michael Burnham (series lead actress Sonequa Martin-Green) trudging through a desert, and the Captain complains they are lost.  Lost?  My car has a GPS system, you’re telling me that a couple of hundred years in the future Star Fleet doesn’t?  Okay, maybe there is some “magnetic resonance” preventing GPS from working; the fact remains that they could have transported directly to where they were headed instead of risking getting lost in the desert.

What is the most important criterion upon which I will judge a TV show, or movie, or book?  How well does it solve the problems that it sets up?  The Original Series set up problems quickly, then let Kirk, Spock and McCoy wander around for 45 minutes before they reasoned out a solution.  The Next Gen usually had Picard, Riker, et al wonder what the problem was for 45 minutes, then when they realized what it was all Picard had to do was order Geordi to modulate the framistan to create a cascade effect on the whatzitz.  Not as interesting.

Unfortunately, I can’t evaluate how well Discovery solves the problems it presents because the first episode is a freakin’ cliffhanger!  Of all the cheap, manipulative ways to suck people in to signing up for CBS All Access, that’s the only way to find out how the plot of the pilot episode is resolved. 

Since that’s not possible, let me see how they resolve a smaller plot point.  Burnham flies off in an EVA suit to investigate a ship that sensors can’t discern.  Why the first officer and not a more, ahem, expendable crew member (*cough red shirt cough*)?  No idea.  She’s told that the radiation will kill her in 20 minutes, so she only has 19 minutes before she must be back.  She encounters a problem, the ship loses contact with her, and after the deadline her EVA suit reappears but the ship cannot establish remote control.  How is she saved?

We don’t know; they cut to commercial and then pick up with Burnham in sick bay being treated for radiation burns.  There is some hand waiving about how she was brought back on to the ship, but it is a deus ex machina conclusion to a relatively simple problem.  If she can’t be out for more than 20 minutes, then her suit’s computer should be giving her warnings when she needs to start heading back. 

There is also the problem that the ship’s third in command is an alien whose race is, apparently, cowardly by nature and is always recommending retreat.  I am all for affirmative action, but isn’t it a liability to have a command officer who will never engage in hostilities and will probably surrender to any ship they encounter that goes, “Boo!”?

I had low expectations for Discovery and they were NOT met.  The last two movies have been mediocre, and now an all-star assemblage of notables (Nicholas Meyer from The Wrath of Khan, Alex Kurtzman from the Star Trek movie, Bryan Fuller who wrote for Voyager and created the wonderful Pushing Daisies) has created this mess.  I am not subscribing to CBS All-Access; I think my time would be better spent re-watching Deep Space Nine on Netflix.

2017 US Open--the most unpredictable tennis in decades

The 2017 US Open was one of the most entertaining US Opens that I can remember.  The tone of the two weeks was set on the first night when unseeded Maria Sharapova, coming off a 15-month suspension for PED use, defeated the number two seed Simona Halep in the opening round.  Even granted that Maria Sharapova is a former Grand Slam winner, that match confirmed what we knew going in—it would be a wide-open tournament.

That was certainly true on the women’s side, due to the absence of Serena Williams who was otherwise engaged.  One can sum up the situation with the observation that the number one ranked player, Karolina Pliskova, had never won a major.  There are relatively few women players who have won majors, because Serena has won so many lately, and those who have won majors have fallen off after their victory (a surprising lot have trouble dealing with the “pressures of success”).  There were a number of potential favorites (mostly Eastern European women whose last names end in “a”), but the field felt wide open.

The situation was not quite as extreme with the men.  Several possible champions were missing the tournament, namely Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Stan Warwrinka.  Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were the heavy favorites, but both were older players with a history of injuries, so anything could happen.  In the end, in the quarter-finals only 2 of the 8 players would be seeded in the top 10, and only 3 would be in the top 16.

The past 13 years have been incredibly stable for men’s tennis.  If you look at any 5-year period from the start of the Open Era (1968) you’ll find somewhere between 8 to 12 men won the 20 major titles in that period.  Doing some random sampling the smallest number I found in the 20^th century was 7, between the years 1978-1982 (Vilas, Borg, Connors, McEnroe, Teacher, Kriek, and Wilander).  However, between 2006-2010 and 2007-2011, only 4 men won a major title (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Del Potro).  The number went up to 5 when Andy Murray started winning majors in 2012, and from 2010-2014 until 2013-2017 each 5-year span has had only 6 major winners (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, Warwrinka, and Cilic). 

The opportunity to win a major seemed to energize a lot of the players who otherwise might have just gone through the motions before being eliminated by Serena or Roger.  The Sharapova/Halep match featured inspired tennis on both ends.  Subsequent matches featured a number of upsets, with an unlikely quartet of US women sweeping into the semi-finals.  Venus Williams, seeded ninth, was not quite a surprise, but Madison Keys (15 seed), Coco Vandeweghe (20 seed), and Sloane Stephens (unseeded) were not projected to get that far.

But in the quarter-finals Vandeweghe got past number one seed Pliskova, Williams beat 13 seed (and two-time Wimbledon winner) Petra Kvitova, Keys beat an unseeded player named Kaia Kenepi, and Stephens won a three setter over 16 seed Ana Sevastova.  Pliskova was the only top-8 seed to make it to the quarter-final, a sign of all the upsets that occurred on the way there.

Sloane Stephens, who had been ranked in the low 900’s earlier in the year, decisively beat Madison Keys in the final to win her first major title.

The men’s side was also filled with upsets, with only two top ten seeds (Nadal and Federer) making it to the quarter-finals.  The biggest disappointment was when Juan Martin Del Potro thwarted the chances of the first ever meeting of Nadal and Federer at the US Open by beating Federer in the quarter-finals.  Del Potro won the 2009 US Open title by beating Federer, making him the only player outside the “Big Three” to win a major from 2006-2011, so this was the second time he blocked Federer’s path to the Open title.

It was almost an anti-climax when Nadal beat some guy named Kevin Anderson, the 28 seed at the tournament.  Nadal managed to win his 16^th major, but to do so he needed a field so weak that he never faced anyone in the top 20.  He faced only two seeded players, Del Potro (24) and Anderson (28), which was a lot easier than having to beat Djokovic, Federer and Murray all at the same tournament.

Having a period dominated by possibly the two greatest men’s tennis players ever (Federer and Nadal), along with another all-time great (Djokovic) has produced some incredible tennis.  And having a period of women’s tennis dominated by arguably the best female tennis player of all time (I'd still give that crown to Steffi Graf) has been entertaining.  Predictability is nice, but unpredictability is more interesting.

But after the excitement of the 2017 US Open, I am looking forward to a period where there is a little more variety in the number of winners at Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

TV Review--The Defenders

TV Review—The Defenders

Marvel’s had a good run lately, churning out one successful super-hero property after another.  Their one mis-step was Iron Fist, which got such poor reviews I took a pass on it even though it was technically free for streaming on Netflix.  It may be free, but as the saying goes, time is money.

So I wasn’t very enthusiastic to tackle the Marvel mash-up of The Defenders, which combines crusading blind lawyer Matt Murdock aka Daredevil (Charlie Cox), super-strong PI Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) and Luke Cage (Mike Colter) with the protagonist of Iron Fist, Danny Rand (Finn Jones).  I had also skipped Daredevil season 2, because as much as I admired the first season of Daredevil, a lot of that was due to the contribution of Vincent D’Onofrio as Kingpin, and without him in season 2 I thought it would be disappointing.

Of the Marvel/Netflix properties I thought Jessica Jones was the best, with a damaged hero, an intriguing villain who couldn’t be beaten by simply pummeling him and whose threat to the protagonist was more psychological than physical. Luke Cage started out promising, but then killed its antagonist off mid-way through the series and replaced him with a much less interesting villain (the first villain was played by subsequent Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, who was more captivating playing evil slightly understated than the second villain who chewed the scenery; sometimes less IS more).

So, I had not watched two of the five series that were prequels to The Defenders, but I decided to give it a try anyway.  At a trim eight episodes, the series accomplishes what it needs to and then does not overstay its welcome.  The same genius alchemy Joss Whedon used to create the super-team The Avengers is on display here, as a highly disparate group of heroes finds enough common ground to work together.

The most interesting aspect to me was the technique employed when the four of them fought together.  There are two distinct fighting styles at play; Daredevil and Iron Fist are straight out of every chop-socky film ever made, with lots of kicks, flips, leaps, and leg sweeps.  On the other hand, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones just stand around and wait for the opportunity to punch someone really hard.  The combination is effective, mostly because the evil ninjas don’t realize that Luke Cage’s skin is impervious to blades, or that Jessica Jones can hit a lot harder than the typical 115-pound woman.

A second dynamic that the show didn’t seem interested in pursuing was the fact that Luke Cage had slept with three of the woman in the series, namely Jessica Jones, police detective Misty Knight (Simone Missick), and nurse Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), who presence in each series knitted the various series together before the protagonists met.  His affairs with Jessica and Misty were sincere but casual, but supposedly Claire is something more special (it is clear when he gets out of prison at the start of The Defenders that Luke is REALLY happy to see Claire again).  Luke and Jessica have some casual flirtation towards the end, but by and large they act like they’ve barely met before, and romantic overtones are fairly muted in order to focus on the real threat.

That threat is The Hand, an evil organization that dates back centuries that is really, really evil and led by a woman named Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver).  They live forever thanks to some substance, but they used up that substance to resurrect Daredevil’s deceased girlfriend from season 2, Electra Natchios (Elodie Yung, mostly driving away all memories of Jennifer Gardner from the movie).  They plan to get more of the substance, but their plan to do so would result in untold destruction in New York City.

The Defenders does a good job of setting the pieces in place at the beginning, giving each of the four heroes (one can almost hear Jessica Jones’ eyes rolling at the word) a different path to get to the bad guys.  The four protagonists share one trait—they are all relentless when working on a problem, and this drives them to overcome major obstacles to arrive, almost together, at an executive board meeting of The Hand in episode three.

From then they form an uneasy alliance.  The show’s timeline is compressed; only a couple of days transpire over the eight episodes (or was it only one?).  Even though there are times for conversations and one Chinese dinner, most of the time the pressure on them from The Hand is relentless and the plot moves at a pace that seldom flags.  They get along despite their differences; ex-con and ex-cop Luke Cage finds he likes billionaire Danny Rand, while Daredevil, mostly operating as lawyer Matt Murdock, wears his heart on his sleeve while Jessica Jones sets a record for eye-rolling.

The acting is mostly first rate.  You expect that from pros like Weaver, but Charlie Cox struck me as much more affecting as Daredevil than I recall from season one, and Krysten Ritter inhabits Jessica Jones like a glove.  Mike Colter is not a great actor but projects a needed sincerity, and has the physical presence required to play Luke Cage.  Finn Jones does a nice job of portraying Danny Rand and basically a well-meaning dodo.  The one performance I thought was wasted was Scott Glenn as Daredevil’s blind sensei known as Stick; he seemed to sleepwalk through his line readings, although he might have been trying to show resignation or nonchalance. 

My biggest criticism of the entire project is their choice of the final shot of the series, which undercut a great deal of the drama that transpired at the end. But to say any more would be a spoiler. 

The Defenders not only lives up to expectations, but deserves a place alongside The Avengers in the pantheon of Marvel properties.  The melding of four Marvel heroes into one story could have been awkward or forced, but it was done with intelligence by creators Douglas Petrie and Marcos Ramirez.  I guess before we get a Defenders 2 we’ll have to wait until Jessica Jones 2 and Luke Cage 2; for some reason, I haven’t heard a clamor for Iron Fist 2.

The X-files: Savior or Curse?

“I got a hundred stories, and tabloid lies

I got witnesses to what the government denies

So I headed down to Roswell to wait and see…”

            Sheryl Crow, Maybe Angels

One of the more depressing bits of news about the upcoming television season was the announcement by FOX that, based on the success of the 6-episode mini-series last season, they would be bringing back The X-Files.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved The X-Files during its original run, although I did give up on it sometime before the final episode.  It is easily the single greatest science-fiction TV show ever, running longer than any other show (well, Stargate outlived it by one episode, but who cares?) and winning more prominent Emmys than any other ten science fiction TV series combined. Unlike every other science fiction show, including the Star Trek franchise and even the Doctor Who series, The X-Files was taken seriously, winning Emmys in prestigious categories like Best Actress, Best Writing for a Drama, and Best Guest Actor and being nominated annually in the directing and writing categories along with Best Drama.

So why do I find this news of The X-files’ resurrection sad?  Because it is based on last year’s six episode run, which consisted of 3 bad episodes, 2 mediocre episodes, and one that was . . . sort of good.  The brilliant thing about the early seasons of The X-files was a sense of urgency, a demand that a show about alien abductions, secret government projects, prognostication, fat-eating mutants, and killer cockroaches be taken very, very seriously.  The six episodes from last year missed this mark entirely.

I have been reconsidering The X-files since reading an article in a recent Atlantic magazine cover story examining the explosion in people believing strange things, impossible things.  I don’t mean alien abductions; I mean claims that President Obama caused the Great Recession (which started several months before his election) or that he played golf during Hurricane Katrina (which also happened on George W. Bush’s watch). 

The basic thesis of the article was that starting around the 1960’s, we, as a society, started empowering people who believed in UFOs, or Bigfoot, or whatever you call what hippies believed in.  We sort of used to insist that young people believe in things that made sense, like US Steel, fighting Nazis, and baseball.  But then we started letting people believe that UFOs were alien visitors, or that angels watched over people (one can only assume if this is true that they are really crappy at their job, given all the bad things that happen).  We allowed people to embrace their irrational beliefs, and now several decades later people are demanding that not only must they be allowed to believe, but everyone else must believe too.

Did The X-files contribute to this?  The show threw out all these weird theories about the government conspiring with aliens to create alien/human hybrids to facilitate the colonization of Earth (note—even showrunner Chris Carter admits the show’s mythology got away from him after season 5 or 6).  While the show’s denouements were notoriously open-ended, the general message was that you are insane if you didn’t believe in every headline run by the National Enquirer or Breitbart “News.”

On the other hand, there was something refreshing in the relationship between skeptical FBI Agent Dana Scully and believer FBI Agent Fox Mulder, mainly how they actually respected the other person’s beliefs and tried to win the other over through reason and evidence instead of decibels. Okay, I’d love to re-watch the entire series and keep a running total of every time Scully said the equivalent of, “Mulder, that’s nuts!” but overall they respected each other’s beliefs and tried to engage rationally.  People who think Obama was President when Katrina hit cannot be engaged rationally.

Yes, The X-files perpetuated the belief in strange things, but that’s because in the universe of The X-files, strange things occurred.  How could Scully maintain her skepticism after seeing all the bizarre stuff she witnessed as Mulder’s partner?  Frankly, half way through season 2 she should have joined Hare Krishna or the Moonies.

One of the brilliant things Chris Carter did with The X-files was to build in conflict by establishing the skeptic/believer dichotomy at the outset.  One of the problems with the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation was that creator Gene Roddenberry insisted that in the future humans will have eliminated all conflict, and the writers tried in vain to create interesting plots featuring characters who all agreed with each other.  It wasn’t until Roddenberry left as the hands-on producer that the show dropped the idea that there was no conflict among the crew and the show improved in quality immensely.

Was The X-files a harbinger of the fake-news-believing America we live in today, or is it a model of rationality and civility?  I lean towards the latter.  People who believe in conspiracy theories don’t need a TV show to feed their paranoia, but a program with rational people talking rationally can only help make the conversation about climate change more civil.

Unless of course one side embraces irrationality, in which case all bets are off.  I believe The X-files had a positive message of rationality; but then, I’m rational.

The 2017 Fall TV Season!

Okay, boys and girls, it is September and that can mean only one thing to anyone over 35—it’s almost time for the new TV season!  Of course, millennials will have no idea what I am talking about, as they only know a universe where TV shows come out on Netflix whenever the hell they get released.  But there used to be a glorious tradition of new shows starting in September, right after summer vacation, and then running straight through to the following May, without hardly any interruptions!  That’s right, they used to produce almost 40 episodes per season, then take 12 weeks off while people spent the summers outside, playing and having barbeques. 

Kids had summers off because schools let them out to work on their parent’s farms, so the whole idea of summer vacation is a tad anachronistic (unless you live in a Jeffersonian reality where the majority of America’s population works on a family farm).

Over time the networks went down to producing 28 episodes a season, then 22, until now when 8 episodes is considered a year’s work for some shows.  Slackers.

So what is out there worth watching?  I’m not as tapped in as I was when I would get the TV Guide edition with the FALL TV SEASON PREVIEW, but I’ve heard some things.  Of course, some of the new shows I’ve heard about are on the Audience Channel, and what the heck is that?

Probably the most prestigious new show is the re-launch of the Star Trek Franchise with Discovery.  Early trailers seem to indicate the show has a decent budget, and I am a huge fan of star Michelle Yeoh.  The problem?  CBS doesn’t want to clutter its dominant schedule with this science fiction stuff, so in order to watch Discovery you will have to subscribe to a streaming platform for $9.99 a month.  Memo to CBS: I am Star Trek fan going back to my first convention in 1975, but if you want me to watch a TV show either broadcast it on your network or sell it to Netflix or Hulu.  I am not going to subscribe to a brand-new platform that has nothing to recommend it other than the first Star Trek TV series in 12 years.  Oh yeah, the last two series (Voyager and Enterprise) weren’t that good, and neither was the last movie, Beyond.  Given this track record, I’d be leery about watching a new Star Trek series if it was on free TV.

Incredibly, the new show I am the most optimistic about is a Star Trek parody called The Orville, starring Family Guy creator Seth McFarland in a live-action role.  McFarland’s non-animated track record is spotty (A Million Ways to Die in the West, anyone?), but he is a talented performer (okay, I’m talking about his vocal work; as a voice actor, he really is astonishingly good) and heaven knows the Star Trek franchise is ripe for satire.  This was attempted before with a short-lived sitcom called Quark (not to be confused with the Ferrengi on Deep Space Nine), but that was before special effects became cheap enough for a sitcom to use.  The show co-stars Adrienne Palicki as McFarland’s second in command and ex-wife; her departure from Agents of Shield was one reason for my dropping that show, so I am happy to see her again.

A lot of what is coming can euphemistically be called “recycled.”  CBS is trotting out Young Sheldon, because the character of Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory would be MUCH funnier as a ten-year-old (note—that was sarcasm).  The Good Doctor features a brilliant doctor who is autistic, meaning he’s basically House with even bigger socialization problems (lest you think I am being unfair, this show is created by the creator of House).  There are a bevy of series vying to pick up the mantle of most patriotic supporter of our men and women in uniform (The Brave, Seal Team, Valor).  And, duplicating the success of last year’s APB (more sarcasm) there is Wisdom of the Crowd, where yet another white billionaire uses technology to fight crime.

Speaking of recycled, there are also a bunch of fantasy series vying to cash in on the strength of the Marvel franchise, but none look that compelling (possibly because I am not as versed in the graphic novel genre as the target audience for these shows).  Inhuman is taking the unusual strategy of being released to IMAX theaters before going to the small screen, which I can’t help but think will make the small screen seem even smaller.  The Gifted boasts Bryan Singer as a producer so it should be true to its origins; it also features Amy Acker, late of Angel, Alias, and Person of Interest, so I’ll tune in.  There is another show called Marvel’s Runaways, but since it is on Hulu and I don’t subscribe, I’m not going to get invested.

My nominee for new show with the most interesting premise that can’t possibly last more than a season is Me, Myself, & I, a show about a central character at three points in his life—early teens, mid-life, and senior years.  The fact that the elder version is played by John Larroquette provides at least the promise of inspired acting for one of the segments.  High concept shows like this really have a difficult time surviving once the novelty wears off, but I’ll check it out just in case.

This is not an exhaustive rundown of new shows—given the fluid nature of TV that is almost impossible (does Stranger Things 2 count as a new series, or an old one?).  I’m ignoring shows on platforms I can’t access like HBO or Hulu, I’m ignoring things that just sound too dull to describe, and as I said there are channels I don’t even know about out there. 

I’ll end on a final note—CBS’ Seal Team stars David Boreanaz, coming off of 12 years on Bones, five years on Angel, and three seasons on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  So this makes his 21^st year in a row starring in a network TV series.  Not bad for a guy who was a professional dog walker when he got his big break (and someone whose career I said would be over 5 minutes after Angel was cancelled).

Reprise the Baseball Hall of Fame debate

One of the most fascinating things to debate is who deserves admission to a Hall of Fame, particularly the Baseball HoF in Cooperstown.  You don’t hear many debates over the football Hall in Canton, other than they elect too many quarterbacks and how long will they keep Terrell Owens out?  The Basketball Hal in Springfield, Massachusetts also doesn’t seem to generate the debates that arise every January when the Baseball Writers do their annual vote for Cooperstown.

The reason why entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame creates great discussions is that THERE ARE NO STANDARDS.  It’s like debating which film deserves the Best Picture Oscar, or who was hotter, Mary Ann or Ginger (Okay, that last one is clearly Mary Ann, but as the kids say, YMMV)?  It’s not like the system in place for the LPGA, where you get into their Hall of Fame based on reaching certain numerical career milestones.  Derek Jeter will be a slam dunk, but for anyone else it is debatable.

With the rise of Sabermetrics there has been more emphasis on quantitative evaluations of player careers, and while I do appreciate this I worry when it becomes close to the LPGA model where anyone with, say, a lifetime WAR of 60 gets in.  I’ve written elsewhere about my dismissal of Raphael Palmiero’s HoF resume, even before he failed a drug test after wagging his finger at Congress.  Yeah, he has 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, but what did he ever DO?  He made the post season three times and lost in the first round each time (and was never instrumental in his team getting there); he only led the league in a significant offensive category twice, and that was most hits in 1990 and most doubles in 1991; he never came close to winning an MVP award, and he only made 6 all-star teams in a 19 year career, and only started one. 

To me that is not a Hall of Famer, it is a guy who had a long, injury-free career during a high-offense era, playing in hitter’s parks, who was never thought of as one of the 3 or 4 best players at his position while he was active.  But, had he not failed that drug test, 3,000 hits and 500 home runs would have gotten him in to Cooperstown, probably on the first ballot (I suspect in several years the Veteran’s Committee will start fixing some of the steroid era omission “mistakes” like Palmiero and Mark McGwire).

I like to stress that the institution is called the Hall of FAME, not the Hall of good players who put up good numbers for several years.  In addition to outstanding offensive (or defensive) numbers, I want to know that the player made a contribution other than just showing up to play every day.  The rules for induction (what rules there are) say that entry should be based on a player’s whole career and not on individual season achievements, but those achievements do bolster a player’s Hall cred.

One criterion posited by Bill James in his book Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame was, could you write the history of baseball during the player’s career and NOT mention him?  Some people have criticized the induction of Reggie Jackson, given his low batting average and high strikeout rate; fair enough, but could you talk about baseball in the 1970’s and not mention “the straw that stirs the drink” with the New York Yankees? 

Bill Mazerowski was a controversial inclusion in the Hall, given his frankly anemic batting statistics.  But he is considered the best defensive second baseman, a key defensive position, of all time.  But it helps that he hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history, a walk-off shot to win Game 7 of the 1960 World Series.  An exceptional career absent post-season heroics may make a player a marginal candidate, but memorable post-season theatrics lowers the bar on how exceptional a player’s career stats have to be.

On the flip side, Jack Morris got a lot of support for induction into Cooperstown (67.7% of ballots on his last year of eligibility, just short of the 75% needed) despite posting fairly mediocre numbers over his career.  But he had two factoids helping him; his 10-inning shutout in Game 7 to help the Twins win a World Series in 1991, and the fact that “he won more games than any other pitcher in the 1980’s.”  But pitcher wins are an overrated stat, the coincidence of the prime of his career coinciding with a decade is just that, a coincidence, and his World Series performance in one game should not be a ticket to Cooperstown absent exceptional performance elsewhere.

It matters a lot to me how players were thought of while they were playing.  How many All-Star games did they go to?  How often were they in the MVP, or Cy Young Award, top 5 or 10, or won a Silver Slugger?  While these things shouldn’t be over-valued (Roger Maris and Dale Murphy both have two MVP awards and deservedly are not in the HoF; Mike Piazza doesn’t have any MVP awards but should have been a first round inductee), but they give a better idea of who was FAMOUS while they were playing than looking over a player’s stats five years after retirement and saying, “Gee, I never realized he was that good.”

ESPN analyst Keith Law, in his book Smart Baseball, makes the point that, while he was playing, Detroit Tigers’ second baseman Lou Whittaker was frequently spoken of as a lock for the Hall of Fame, along with his double play partner Alan Trammel.  Law notes that his lifetime WAR of 74.9 is the highest of any player not in the Hall, and if that new-fangled stat is too new-fangled for you, Whitaker would be in the top 8 among Hall of Fame second basemen in virtually every important old-school offensive category.  Yet, in his one appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot he got only 15 votes, a figure so low it disqualified him from future consideration.

Law speculates on why Whitaker received such scant support, citing a crowded ballot (for many years there has been a backlog of qualified Hall candidates, and since voters are limited on how many votes that can give some players get lost in the crowd), the fact that Whitaker’s skills were atypical for second basemen, and the possibility that there was a hint of racism concerning his attitude toward the mostly white baseball writers.  Here is a case where I would value contemporaneous judgment about Whitaker over the retroactive evaluation after his career had ended and vote him in.

Two pitchers with marginal Hall credentials are Jim Kaat and Tommy John.  I think both should be in for contributions other than their pitching stats; Kaat won 14 consecutive Gold Gloves at pitcher and is considered one of the best fielding pitchers ever (Greg Maddux eventually won more Gold Gloves, but his pitching stats are impeccable), and Tommy John had a surgical procedure named after him that is nearly ubiquitous.  To me these elevate Kaat and John for enshrinement even if their career win totals are slightly less than 300.

I hope there will never be universal agreement on who deserves to get into the Hall of Fame.  Except, of course, when it comes to players like Willie Mays; whoever voted against admitting him should have had his voting privileges taken away.