OK, I took a nap after class today and didn’t get up in time for the French movie so I did watch The Office. It was a fair episode. The stuff with Michael and Jan was predictably awkward, but still funny, and the bits about Pam asserting herself were endearing even if she is becoming far more of a cartoon character than Dawn on the British version ever became. Dawn always maintained her mystique. But of course, comparisons to the British version are unfair . . . We must judge this Office on its own merits, right? The final scene with Roy and his brother in the bar I actually found pretty disturbing, but in a good way. When they started destroying stuff in the bar, it was hard to tell whether you were supposed to laugh at their barbarity and immaturity, or be impressed by their repressed anger. At this point, I feel like the season has gone too far with the back and forths between Jim and Pam. I mean, hasn’t their status changed about once an episode? It’s not even that annoying, just, like, bad writing.
I was generally OK with the Idol eliminations. The two girls were utterly forgettable and Rudy Cardenas was fucking annoying. As Paul Kim mentioned during his audition, I think that he was facing an uphill battle as an Asian-American contestant. There just haven’t been that many Asian-American male pop stars in the U.S., so I don’t think he had a strong archetype to fit in with. I mentioned a few posts back that I think that the show’s producers are largely open-minded when it comes to race, but this doesn’t say anything for the voting audience. I think that non-African-American minority candidates face a distinct disadvantage, which is troubling. But I also don’t think that the going barefoot thing helped at all.
As for LOST last night (spolier alert!), I really wasn’t all that impressed. The promos promised to solve 3 mysteries. I saw one, which wasn’t even a mystery. The kidnapped kids came back along with the stewardess tailie. I hadn’t been worrying about these characters since the tailies originally came on the scene. In fact, their return really seems to raise more questions than it solves. I guess the producers counted these appearances as two mysteries, right? The third was Jack’s tattoo, which I’ve admittedly been wondering about, but whatever was said and shown about it didn’t really tell us anything, did it? Certainly, patience will pay off here as I’m sure that more will come to light about the tattoo and Jack’s experience in Thailand, but I guess that I was also annoyed by the exoticism of the Thailand episode. I’ve been fairly well conditioned to be annoyed by Bai Ling by the girls over at gofugyourself, so I admit that that was a factor, too, but the stereotypes about the Orient into which the episode was playing are pretty obnoxious. But then again, who knows, Bai Ling could develop into a totally interesting, well rounded character.
Still, I’m looking forward to next week’s episode. I’ve been waiting for Sawyer and Kate to make it back to the survivors. Hopefully, sparks will fly.
