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Why is it so?

[A] ground-breaking TV series with the enigmatic Professor Julius Sumner Miller - ran on the ABC from 1963 to 1986. Professor Miller’s infectious enthusiasm for physics delighted, educated and entertained generations of Australians, most of whom have at some point asked each other ‘Why is it so?’ in the characteristic Julius Sumner Miller voice.

I’ve watched 1 1/2 episodes. It’s sort of a drag because of it keeps freezing as it tries to buffer. I should be on a quick enough pipe to handle it. I can’t imagine what it would be like on dial-up.

The show rocks though. From the initial close-up on that freaky black & white eyeball to his Socratic grilling of the students, he’s like a cooler, crazier Mr. Wizard.

So, a while ago, I heard about a failed TV pilot starring Jack Black called Heat Vision and Jack Well, it turns out Andy has a copy, and he’s seeded a bittorrent of it.

I’ve been trying to download the 300+ MB file for over an hour now. I’m only 13% through. I hear it’s funny though, so come on everybody. Fire up your favorite client. I need more users so we can get faster throughput on this thing. My PowerBook is so hot right now it’s about to melt through my lap and down to the core of the earth. Nobody wants that. Help a guy out.

Why on earth did I ever like the show Electra Woman and Dyna Girl when I was a kid? I mean I know kids have something like zero taste in this kind of stuff, but WOW that show was bad. Seriously, seriously, seriously bad. TV Land was running episodes, so naturally I TiVo’d it in a fit of nostalgia.

It’s obviously supposed to be a female version of the old Adam West Batman series. Batman was campy and self-effacing, so it actually holds up pretty well. I mean, I liked it as a kid a whole bunch too, and I liked it for very different qualities than what I might see in it now. Still, on either level it works pretty well.

Electra Woman and Dyna Girl though feels like really bad fan fiction of Batman, like the star wars kid who was making the internet rounds last year only not as funny/good. It’s like what you might get if you taped a bunch of kids on the playground acting out super hero rolls — except here the writing is worse.

I do dig the secret door though. I always wanted my own secret door that led to my own secret lair.

Why did nobody tell me that TV Land was running episodes of Shazam!? I mean I told you all about my interest back in April of 2002. I tell you sometimes I think nobody but comment spammers really reads these pages.

Truthfully, I didn’t remember mentioning it myself. I knew I’d done an entry about yesterdayland, but I didn’t remember what the yesterdayland URL was, and I wanted to link to their entry for Shazam!. Unfortunately, it seems that yesterdayland has folded up shop. I find that very sad. That web site was awesome. I guess the good ones never last.

I’ve had Brian Green’s book, The Elegant Universe for about a year now. So far, I have not found time to read it. I very much want to read it, but I am lame. Enter TV, with a 3 Part Nova Special:

This would-be revolution goes by the name of string theory, the most musical explanation of creation ever invented. It describes the elementary particles that make up nature not as little points but as vibrating strings of energy, a different “note” for each different kind of particle. How it developed and what it might mean is the subject of “The Elegant Universe,” starring the Columbia University physicist Brian Greene, author of the best-selling book of the same name. The three-part rags-to-riches story, which starts on Tuesday night, is billed as the biggest project “Nova” has ever done, with a $3.5 million budget, gobs of animation and special effects, and appearances by many of the leading lights of modern physics and string theory.

Sounds really interesting. I have to remember to record this.

Is there anything worse than a show that used to be a shining beacon of light now reduced to a phlegm stain? I used to love the West Wing. From time to time, there would be moments that would give me chills, and every week, there was something that made the weeks wait worth while.

No more. I understand that Sorkin left this season. His loss is sorely felt. It was almost unwatchable tonight. I keep looking at it and expecting to see a glimmer of its former glory. You almost can. It’s like looking at somebody who was once beautiful now scarred by the worst kind of plastic surgery mistake imaginable.

Pretty much this entire season of TV sucks harder than it ever has. Is there a writers strike I didn’t hear about or something?

I was hoping I was going to like Rob Lowe’s new show, The Lyon’s Den. For entirely baseless reasons, I was hoping it would be as smartly written as West Wing. But, it’s just a silly soap opera.

Are there any good new shows this season?

Wow! The US version of Coupling is horrible.

H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E.!!!!!

I knew it would suck, but I had no idea it could possibly be so stilted and unfunny. The weird thing is, most of the script seems to be taken straight from the UK version. Same jokes, but really just way less funny than the original. I don’t understand how they did it. They sucked the funny right out of it.

There’s a crispness in the air (more or less) and new shows on TV (more or less). Yea!

I watched the series premier of Jake 2.0 tonight. Maybe it’s just that I’m a sucker for Nano Tech, but I have to say it didn’t suck. It wasn’t the greatest thing ever. The whole he loves the blonde who sees him as a sexless neuter while the brunette scientist (whose beauty is hidden behind a pair of glasses) secretly loves him is a theme that’s just beyond played out. And, let’s be honest it’s just an updated six million dollar man. Still, I think I’ll watch it again.

Why is MTV running a Spider-man cartoon? I know they stopped playing music videos a long time ago, but I thought their programming was at least about a particular life style. Spider-man doesn’t make any sense at all.

But then Five gay guys for a straight guy or whatever it’s called doesn’t seem like a good fit for Bravo either. I guess now that all the stations are owned by the same company they’ve decided to stop pretending that stations have any kind of distinction or cohesive programming any more.

It’s sad in a way.

Oh, and PS - as Spider-man cartoons go, this one kind of sucks. Bring back the ice dude and the girl who was on fire. I’m sure they were at least as sucky, but it’s hard to argue with nostalgia. Or, bring back the end of the Electric Company. Those spider-man skits where the only reason I ever sat through the Electric Company. Yeah, Spider-man and the Bloodhound Gang. Let’s have show that is nothing but the entertaining last few minutes of children’s programming. That would rock. Somebody should start a station or something.