What was on TV? Sat, April 9, 2005

20 years ago, Jimmy Fallon was supposed to be our next leading man. Let's see what was on TV!

This is an excellent on-the-ground documentary following a battalion in Iraq as they fight nasty battles in civilian territory, lose friends, and then try to build schools and build trust with the locals. It proved controversial at the time, as several PBS stations either chose not to air the documentary or to bleep out the numerous curse words uttered by the soldiers profiled. It was one of many skirmishes over non-PG content on television in aftermath of nipplegate and George Bush's reelection.

I'm sorry more people didn't get to see this. This is probably one of the earliest documentaries about the Iraq War, and it is very good. It shows the brutality of the fighting, and how punishing it is for the American soldiers as they lose comrades. Then they show what it's like to try and communicate with locals through translators and make them accept your help when you've just been killing people in the streets where they live. The frustration is palpable, everyone is just yelling, all the time. It's just as anxiety-inducing as the firefights. Those conversations are violent in their own way. Americans seem flabbergasted that these people aren't grateful, that they're uninterested in the help of these invaders. The entitlement and just good-old-fashioned rudeness is hard to watch. It shows why this war was impossible to win, why it was impossible to build trust with the people we were supposed to be freeing.

Later The West Wing (recorded)

6x22 "2162 votes"

God help me, but the big speech at the end of this episode got me. Jimmy Smits' tells us that we shouldn't look for saints or paragons or perfection in our candidates. We should instead look for people who share our vision of the future and have what it takes to achieve it.

We spend so much time looking for the perfect person who will make everything better. The West Wing did a lot to foster that attitude! And look where it's led us. Three years after this episode, America elected a candidate more extraordinary and charismatic than Matt Santos or even Josiah Bartlett. And what changed? Not as much as we imagined, that's for sure.

So I was receptive to Jimmy Smits' pragmatism. Give me someone with the charisma to make people listen and a vision worth listening to. Enough stubbornness to stick to their principles but also the flexibility and savvy required to get things done. This episode, for all its annoying centrism that terrible Toby sub-plot, articulates that vision, and I found it appealing.

11:30 SNL on NBC

30x16, Cameron Diaz w/ musical guest Green Day

This was a good episode! The opening "papal debate" parodying the conventions of American politics was better than most of the sketches aired during the 2004 presidential election. Cameron Diaz's monologue was the best one in ages. It started out with an anecdote about how she was actually an awkward nerd in high school, honest! Then Rachel, Maya, and Amy all interrupted and rejected this chiche. I found that very cathartic, since that "I used to be ugly and awkward!" rhetoric was so pervasive in the 2000s and I found it really tiresome.

And the sketch after the credits is great. It's a parody of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in which overenthusiastic and perpetually shirtless host Ty arrives to make over Cameron Diaz's house and in the process reveals that she has a horrible disease that merits said home makeover. A hilarious parody of this show, which was huge in 2005.

What Else Was On

This week's Sci-Fi channel movie was Snake King starring Stephen Baldwin.

TiVo Status

TV movies Sucker Free City and Their Eyes Were Watching God, the miniseries Fingersmith, and one episode each of American Dreams and The Starlet. 10 hours total.

Music, 20 years ago

Easily my favorite song from American Idiot.