Midseason TV Roundup: Part II

Or should I call it "Part 2"? Yes, I put my question mark outside of the quotation marks because the question mark did not appear in the original text that I am quoting. I'll save the issue of quotation punctuation for a later post, as the real tangent I want to fly off on right now is this: What if the NFL lasts for a thousand more years? Will Super Bowls still be numbered with Roman numerals? What is the longest possible Roman numeral under 1000? DCCCLXXXVIII? Am I asking you, or am I telling you? Telling? Super Bowl 888.

When will the NFL convert to Arabic numerals? As early as Super Bowl LXXXVIII (88)? That will be the next big one from a Roman numeral standpoint. The longest one thus far has been Super Bowl XXXVIII [38 (The final was New England 32, Carolina 29. The Pats are 1-0 in Super Bowls ending in VIII)]. I'm glad I wasn't in charge of the logo design for that one, although I must say it was pretty ingenious of the designer to incorporate the numerals as abstract ball stitching:


Sure, it wasn't the art deco masterpiece logo of Super Bowl XXXIII . . .

. . . or even the timeless logo of the local bowling alley/roller rink franchise down the street . . .

. . . but it solved the long Roman numeral problem quite nicely.

So, if you have The Holiday Blues, just imagine the teen-aged clerk from The Simpsons saying, "Don't kill yourself! You always have the logo of Super Bowl Eighty-eight to look forward to in 2054."



Alright, let's get back into orbit. Let's talk about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. First, let's refer to it by a less cumbersome handle. How 'bout, The Cameron Show, or TCS, for short, as Cameron is the only consistently interesting character on the progrum (sic).

Yes, that's Sarah Connor's dialogue bubble, and, you guessed it, that's Cameron on the right.

I'm not saying that TCS isn't consistently decent television. It's not consistently great television, but it has managed to take a priority spot on my DVR's "scheduled recordings."

The episodes "Goodbye To All That" and "Self Made Man" were excellent. The former gave insight into Derek's military experience, and indicated John's potential as a military leader. The latter, though, maximized the potential of the show as a sci-fi, time-travel, cybernetic organism-laden classic. While the B-plot wasn't anything of consequence, the A-plot reminded me of The Twilight Zone. It answered the question, "What does Cameron, a terminator, do at night if she never sleeps?"

Surprisingly, she's a total nerd, and geeks out on History at the local university library. And, her best "friend" is a disabled librarian. I love the detail that she relates best with a man in a wheelchair: a man merged with a technological device. Cameron's mission is to protect John at all costs, but her hobby is to become as human as possible. How possible is it for a technological entity encased in flesh to become human? Possibly as possible as it is for a human entity encased in technology to become technological . . . and we humans are getting more technologically advanced all the time.