The Wire, Season 2, Episode 8: "Duck and Cover" (Newbies edition)

Vacation's done with, so let's get back to revisiting season two of "The Wire" in two versions: one for people who have watched the entire series and want to be able to discuss it from beginning to end, and those who aren't all the way there yet and don't want to be spoiled about later developments. This is the newbie post (click here for the veteran version).

Spoilers for episode eight, "Duck and Cover," coming up just as soon as I get some scrapple with that...

"But on a good case, running front of the pack? That's as close as the men comes to being right." -The Bunk

If we accept, as we should, that Baltimore is the true star of "The Wire," then Jimmy McNulty was the city's leading co-star in season one, which is why it was so jarring to see him be sidelined for so much of this season. Oh, he set some things in motion by sticking Rawls with the Jane Doe murders, but mostly he's been directionless, and drunk, and irrelevant. In the episode before "Duck and Cover," he was virtually absent, and it was only when he appeared near the end that I realized he was missing.

But McNulty returns to the center of the narrative in a big way in "Duck and Cover," an hour that showcases the many negatives and positives of our favorite drunken Irish bimbo.

I've been accused in past "Wire" reviews of being too hard on McNulty, so I should say upfront that I don't dislike the guy. As impeccably played by Dominic West -- one of those actors with a gift for becoming more appealing, not less, the worse his behavior gets -- how could you not find Jimmy likable on some level? And in the grand scheme of "The Wire," Jimmy's sins are far lighter than those committed by an Avon Barksdale, or even an Ervin Burrell.

But fairly or not, I find myself holding McNulty to a higher standard than almost any other character on the show. Part of that comes from the way that he is, in fact, held out as the closest thing "The Wire" has to a true lead, but more of it comes from Jimmy's position in the show's universe, from his awareness of that position, from his abundant intelligence and talent, and from the way he presents himself to the world versus the way he actually is. While there's hypocrisy throughout the show's characters, I guess I expect more from McNulty than I do from the likes of Avon or Burrell -- and, like all the characters on the show who continually give him second and third chances because he's so smart, and so damned charming, I feel far more disappointed when he fails to meet those expectations(*).

(*)Now, some of this is obviously being considered with 20-20 hindsight over what Jimmy will do, and what other characters around him will do under similar circumstances, over the course of the series, which we'll save for discussion in the veterans comments if you like. My recollection is that, the first time through the series, I was completely on McNulty's side in all his early disputes with Lt. Daniels, where going back over that first season, I found myself sympathizing with Daniels more often than not.

"Duck and Cover" presents McNulty at his worst, and at close to his best, all in the course of an hour that manages to be more character-driven than usual even as it's significantly moving the plot forward. The pre-credits sequence is astonishing, horrifying, and hilarious: "The Lost Weekend" in four minutes, as we see just how low Jimmy can sink without either work or family to ground him. Exiled by Rawls, rejected by Elena, he is staggeringly drunk, even by standards of past Jimmy/Bunk alcoholic escapades. He can compose himself enough to convincingly lie to his favorite bartender about calling a cab, but is so sloshed that he gets into a hellacious car wreck -- and so stubborn, drunk or sober, in his belief in his own abilities, that he then recreates the car wreck in an attempt to prove he could have avoided it(**) -- then passes out in an all-night diner and is lucky enough to find a waitress desperate/dumb enough to take him home for a quickie.

(**) Jimmy's pantomiming of the angles required to hit/miss the bridge supports was like a parody of any scene -- notably the legendary all-F-word sequence from "Old Cases" -- where Jimmy or Bunk or another cop will silently recreate a crime scene, try to figure out the bullet trajectory, etc.

McNulty in those circumstances is no good to himself or anyone around him (I still try to fill in the blanks on how the waitress reacted when she got a look at Jimmy's car), and even The Bunk admits he's not always much better when entrenched in a case. But it's a step in the right direction, and from the moment Lt. Daniels liberates him from the boat, we see a Jimmy who's making an effort, and who's particularly self-aware (if, at times, self-loathing).

Yes, it's funny that he happens to enter the detail office at the exact moment when they're trying to pick the ideal undercover operative to infiltrate the condo/whorehouse. But as his comments to Kima in the surveillance car about the marital status of the aptly-named Robert Johnson make clear, it's funny because Jimmy's so very much like these pathetic jerks. He knows about lying to yourself, and your wife, and your kids -- about pursuing your own selfish needs at the expense of the people you care about -- and in his behavior at Beadie Russell's house, he suggests he's not a total lost cause.

Beadie and Jimmy both go back to her place fully aware that they're going to have sex, but when Jimmy gets a look at her place -- with the abundant evidence of Beadie's role as a single mom doing what she can for her kids -- he backs out. In many circumstances, a man bailing over kid-related imagery would seem cowardly, but it's the most morally upright thing Jimmy does all episode. He knows he's bad news -- as Bunk told him last season, "You're no good for people, man" -- and that even vaguely sober, he'll bring Beadie and her kids nothing but pain, so he backs out before it can go anywhere serious. When he's on the phone with the whorehouse madame, she asks him what kind of girl he wants, and we see him looking at the exact kind of girl he wants: Beadie Russell. But he knows, deep down, that he's not the kind of guy she would want if she got to know the real him -- at least, the real him at this moment.

Because the rest of the ensemble is so rich, the other actors so talented in their own right, I can't say I was disappointed to have McNulty out of action for so much of this season, but it's still nice to have him back, and at a relatively high-functioning level.

Some other thoughts on "Duck and Cover":

• As Jimmy's putting himself together, Ziggy is falling apart. He's humiliated by Maui and all the stevedores who goaded him into the fight -- And how funny is James Ransone as he stands on top of the can and spews "BAD ADVICE!" like it's the toughest insult he can think of at the moment? -- and now Nick is trying to turn him into a glorified mascot in the drug operation that Ziggy wanted so desperately to run. Everyone in Ziggy's world, it seems, is better than Ziggy at just about everything -- except, that is, clowning himself. Because Ziggy is one of the few characters on the show able to recognize that the game he's been asked to play is rigged -- that he and all the guys he knows have had their wings clipped like the pigeons -- he reaches a point in "Duck and Cover" where he understands that the guys all view him as comic relief, so the only way to survive is to take control of the joke, which he does with his bizarre bit with the diamond necklace-wearing, beer-sipping duck.

• This episode introduces McNulty's deep and abiding love for the music of The Pogues, which the series shares. Jimmy's rocking out to "Transmetropolitan" as he gets into his fender re-bender.

• After writing season one's brilliant "Cleaning Up," George Pelecanos became a full-time "Wire" producer in the second season, and "Duck and Cover" is the first of his two scripts for this year. (He also, as he does every season, whether a producer or just a writer, handles the penultimate episode.)

• Because the writers spent so much time in season one explaining how the detail goes about its business, season two can pick up the pace and assume we understand how things work. Case in point: the discussion with Ronnie about needing to meet the legal standard of exhaustion before a judge will authorize a wiretap.

• And that judge offers one of those great small moments that you know was drawn from real life, as we discover the guy is much more amenable to authorizing a warrant if he can get some free housework -- done, of course, by low men on the totem pole Herc and Carver, who get some early karmic punishment for their ongoing Fuzzy Dunlop scam -- in exchange.

• As with the Barksdale case, where a simple drug assignment eventually involved real estate, state senators, etc., the detail is finding that this new assignment goes a lot deeper than Stan Valchek's grudge against Frank Sobotka. It's a really interesting contrast to see them go against a non-street target, and to see that Vondas and The Greek have weaknesses that Avon didn't (they don't expect to be wiretapped), but also strengths he doesn't (they can afford to waste lots of time and money dumping clean cans to try to shake the detail loose).

• One of the things "The Wire" does so well, and that's so rare in the rest of popular entertainment, is spending time simply showing characters thinking. Here, we dwell for a long time on Frank as he starts to put the pieces together about the police surveillance -- aided, in large part, by the fact that the port police and the phone company are both large bureaucracies where the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing and therefore secrets aren't properly kept. It's also cool to see both sides of the case think they're outwitting each other, when in fact it's about 50-50 (the detail doesn't know Frank is on to them and dumped a clean can on purpose, while Vondas and Double-G don't know that the detail has a tap on Sergei's phone).

• Where was Jay Landsman to offer up a fashion critique when Bunk traded in his usual pinstriped lawyerly affectations for his Edmonson Lacrosse sweats?

• Getting back to last week's discussion of Sobotka's blind spots, note that he'll grease a job for his brother (albeit one that would give the guy walking-around money at best), but not for his son.

• Note that the dolls Double-G winds up with are Bobbie, not Barbie, as I suspect the Mattel people wouldn't want their product associated with this show.

• The Bodie/Poot subplot about a neighboring drug crew stealing all their business with a superior product not only reinforces Prop Joe's argument from the previous episode about product trumping real estate, it features more comedy of traditional business thinking being applied to the drug world, as the two slingers whom Bodie fires (and who wind up working for the rival crew) demand "separation pay."

• The Emmy voters ignored her for her brilliant work as Holly on "The Office," so I want to briefly sing the praises of the wonderful Amy Ryan in her role as Beadie. Just check out how many emotions wash over her face as she realizes Jimmy is about to walk out the door: disappointment that she's not going to have sex with this man she's very attracted to, guilt that perhaps getting a look at her cluttered, kid-friendly house was a turn-off (even though he knows Jimmy has kids), but also a bit of relief that her new job isn't going to be complicated by an office romance, as well as the stiff upper lip attitude that's carried her as far as it has raising two kids on her own. Great, great actress.

Coming up next: "Stray Rounds," in which Bodie's feud reaches another level, The Greek gets careful, and Jimmy has problems remembering a magic word. Can't promise when I'll be able to do the review, but it'll get done sooner or later.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Wire, Season 2, Episode 8: "Duck and Cover" (Veterans edition)

Vacation's done with, so let's get back to revisiting season two of "The Wire" in two versions: one for people who have watched the entire series and want to be able to discuss it from beginning to end, and those who aren't all the way there yet and don't want to be spoiled about later developments. This is the veteran post (click here for the newbie version).

Spoilers for episode eight, "Duck and Cover," coming up just as soon as I get some scrapple with that...

"But on a good case, running front of the pack? That's as close as the men comes to being right." -The Bunk

If we accept, as we should, that Baltimore is the true star of "The Wire," then Jimmy McNulty was the city's leading co-star in season one, which is why it was so jarring to see him be sidelined for so much of this season. Oh, he set some things in motion by sticking Rawls with the Jane Doe murders, but mostly he's been directionless, and drunk, and irrelevant. In the episode before "Duck and Cover," he was virtually absent, and it was only when he appeared near the end that I realized he was missing.

But McNulty returns to the center of the narrative in a big way in "Duck and Cover," an hour that showcases the many negatives and positives of our favorite drunken Irish bimbo.

I've been accused in past "Wire" reviews of being too hard on McNulty, so I should say upfront that I don't dislike the guy. As impeccably played by Dominic West -- one of those actors with a gift for becoming more appealing, not less, the worse his behavior gets -- how could you not find Jimmy likable on some level? And in the grand scheme of "The Wire," Jimmy's sins are far lighter than those committed by an Avon Barksdale, or even an Ervin Burrell.

But fairly or not, I find myself holding McNulty to a higher standard than almost any other character on the show. Part of that comes from the way that he is, in fact, held out as the closest thing "The Wire" has to a true lead, but more of it comes from Jimmy's position in the show's universe, from his awareness of that position, from his abundant intelligence and talent, and from the way he presents himself to the world versus the way he actually is. While there's hypocrisy throughout the show's characters, I guess I expect more from McNulty than I do from the likes of Avon or Burrell -- and, like all the characters on the show who continually give him second and third chances because he's so smart, and so damned charming, I feel far more disappointed when he fails to meet those expectations(*).

(*)Now, some of this is obviously being considered with 20-20 hindsight over what Jimmy will do, and what other characters around him will do under similar circumstances, over the course of the series, which we'll save for discussion in the veterans comments if you like. My recollection is that, the first time through the series, I was completely on McNulty's side in all his early disputes with Lt. Daniels, where going back over that first season, I found myself sympathizing with Daniels more often than not.

"Duck and Cover" presents McNulty at his worst, and at close to his best, all in the course of an hour that manages to be more character-driven than usual even as it's significantly moving the plot forward. The pre-credits sequence is astonishing, horrifying, and hilarious: "The Lost Weekend" in four minutes, as we see just how low Jimmy can sink without either work or family to ground him. Exiled by Rawls, rejected by Elena, he is staggeringly drunk, even by standards of past Jimmy/Bunk alcoholic escapades. He can compose himself enough to convincingly lie to his favorite bartender about calling a cab, but is so sloshed that he gets into a hellacious car wreck -- and so stubborn, drunk or sober, in his belief in his own abilities, that he then recreates the car wreck in an attempt to prove he could have avoided it(**) -- then passes out in an all-night diner and is lucky enough to find a waitress desperate/dumb enough to take him home for a quickie.

(**) Jimmy's pantomiming of the angles required to hit/miss the bridge supports was like a parody of any scene -- notably the legendary all-F-word sequence from "Old Cases" -- where Jimmy or Bunk or another cop will silently recreate a crime scene, try to figure out the bullet trajectory, etc.

McNulty in those circumstances is no good to himself or anyone around him (I still try to fill in the blanks on how the waitress reacted when she got a look at Jimmy's car), and even The Bunk admits he's not always much better when entrenched in a case. But it's a step in the right direction, and from the moment Lt. Daniels liberates him from the boat, we see a Jimmy who's making an effort, and who's particularly self-aware (if, at times, self-loathing).

Yes, it's funny that he happens to enter the detail office at the exact moment when they're trying to pick the ideal undercover operative to infiltrate the condo/whorehouse. But as his comments to Kima in the surveillance car about the marital status of the aptly-named Robert Johnson make clear, it's funny because Jimmy's so very much like these pathetic jerks. He knows about lying to yourself, and your wife, and your kids -- about pursuing your own selfish needs at the expense of the people you care about -- and in his behavior at Beadie Russell's house, he suggests he's not a total lost cause.

Beadie and Jimmy both go back to her place fully aware that they're going to have sex, but when Jimmy gets a look at her place -- with the abundant evidence of Beadie's role as a single mom doing what she can for her kids -- he backs out. In many circumstances, a man bailing over kid-related imagery would seem cowardly, but it's the most morally upright thing Jimmy does all episode. He knows he's bad news -- as Bunk told him last season, "You're no good for people, man" -- and that even vaguely sober, he'll bring Beadie and her kids nothing but pain, so he backs out before it can go anywhere serious. When he's on the phone with the whorehouse madame, she asks him what kind of girl he wants, and we see him looking at the exact kind of girl he wants: Beadie Russell. But he knows, deep down, that he's not the kind of guy she would want if she got to know the real him -- at least, the real him at this moment.

Because the rest of the ensemble is so rich, the other actors so talented in their own right, I can't say I was disappointed to have McNulty out of action for so much of this season, but it's still nice to have him back, and at a relatively high-functioning level.

Some other thoughts on "Duck and Cover":

• As Jimmy's putting himself together, Ziggy is falling apart. He's humiliated by Maui and all the stevedores who goaded him into the fight -- And how funny is James Ransone as he stands on top of the can and spews "BAD ADVICE!" like it's the toughest insult he can think of at the moment? -- and now Nick is trying to turn him into a glorified mascot in the drug operation that Ziggy wanted so desperately to run. Everyone in Ziggy's world, it seems, is better than Ziggy at just about everything -- except, that is, clowning himself. Because Ziggy is one of the few characters on the show able to recognize that the game he's been asked to play is rigged -- that he and all the guys he knows have had their wings clipped like the pigeons -- he reaches a point in "Duck and Cover" where he understands that the guys all view him as comic relief, so the only way to survive is to take control of the joke, which he does with his bizarre bit with the diamond necklace-wearing, beer-sipping duck.

• This episode introduces McNulty's deep and abiding love for the music of The Pogues, which the series shares. Jimmy's rocking out to "Transmetropolitan" as he gets into his fender re-bender.

• After writing season one's brilliant "Cleaning Up," George Pelecanos became a full-time "Wire" producer in the second season, and "Duck and Cover" is the first of his two scripts for this year. (He also, as he does every season, whether a producer or just a writer, handles the penultimate episode.)

• Because the writers spent so much time in season one explaining how the detail goes about its business, season two can pick up the pace and assume we understand how things work. Case in point: the discussion with Ronnie about needing to meet the legal standard of exhaustion before a judge will authorize a wiretap.

• And that judge offers one of those great small moments that you know was drawn from real life, as we discover the guy is much more amenable to authorizing a warrant if he can get some free housework -- done, of course, by low men on the totem pole Herc and Carver, who get some early karmic punishment for their ongoing Fuzzy Dunlop scam -- in exchange.

• As with the Barksdale case, where a simple drug assignment eventually involved real estate, state senators, etc., the detail is finding that this new assignment goes a lot deeper than Stan Valchek's grudge against Frank Sobotka. It's a really interesting contrast to see them go against a non-street target, and to see that Vondas and The Greek have weaknesses that Avon didn't (they don't expect to be wiretapped), but also strengths he doesn't (they can afford to waste lots of time and money dumping clean cans to try to shake the detail loose).

• One of the things "The Wire" does so well, and that's so rare in the rest of popular entertainment, is spending time simply showing characters thinking. Here, we dwell for a long time on Frank as he starts to put the pieces together about the police surveillance -- aided, in large part, by the fact that the port police and the phone company are both large bureaucracies where the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing and therefore secrets aren't properly kept. It's also cool to see both sides of the case think they're outwitting each other, when in fact it's about 50-50 (the detail doesn't know Frank is on to them and dumped a clean can on purpose, while Vondas and Double-G don't know that the detail has a tap on Sergei's phone).

• Where was Jay Landsman to offer up a fashion critique when Bunk traded in his usual pinstriped lawyerly affectations for his Edmonson Lacrosse sweats?

• Getting back to last week's discussion of Sobotka's blind spots, note that he'll grease a job for his brother (albeit one that would give the guy walking-around money at best), but not for his son.

• Note that the dolls Double-G winds up with are Bobbie, not Barbie, as I suspect the Mattel people wouldn't want their product associated with this show.

• The Bodie/Poot subplot about a neighboring drug crew stealing all their business with a superior product not only reinforces Prop Joe's argument from the previous episode about product trumping real estate, it features more comedy of traditional business thinking being applied to the drug world, as the two slingers whom Bodie fires (and who wind up working for the rival crew) demand "separation pay."

• The Emmy voters ignored her for her brilliant work as Holly on "The Office," so I want to briefly sing the praises of the wonderful Amy Ryan in her role as Beadie. Just check out how many emotions wash over her face as she realizes Jimmy is about to walk out the door: disappointment that she's not going to have sex with this man she's very attracted to, guilt that perhaps getting a look at her cluttered, kid-friendly house was a turn-off (even though she knows Jimmy has kids), but also a bit of relief that her new job isn't going to be complicated by an office romance, as well as the stiff upper lip attitude that's carried her as far as it has raising two kids on her own. Great, great actress.

And now it's time for the veterans-only section, where we talk about how events in this episode will reverberate later in the season, and the series:

• By the time Jimmy goes back after Beadie, at the end of season three, he's finally turned himself into a man who might be good enough for her. Of course, he has his backsliding moments -- as in, all of season five -- but it was really gratifying to watch this relationship simmer over time.

• Louis Sobotka's refusal to take the no-show job Frank arranged for him will echo in his reaction to finding out the extent of Frank's criminal enterprise, and in finding out what Nick's been up to selling drugs.

• Like Ziggy, Marlo Stanfield knows his way around a Baltimore pigeon coop.

• Rawls' homoerotic insults -- here with Daniels -- become all the funnier once you know what will be revealed about him late in season three.

• Bodie's feud with the rival crew will have fatal consequences -- and lead to the first appearance of Bunny Colvin -- but note that at no time does he go to Stringer or Shamrock or anyone else higher up the ladder to consult about the clash. So, should he have? Or is the guy running the towers supposed to take initiative in matters like this? If it was Wee-Bey or Stinkum, would we assume they had authority to act on their own?

• The Greek's speech to Frank at the end about buying something you can touch seems to fly against what little we know of the man and his sidekick. He and Vondas seem to live without flash -- making money without seeming to need the things that come with it. Of course, we really know nothing about either man -- including both of their real names, and The Greek's true nationality -- so this could be like when McNulty found Stringer's apartment and was stunned to realize who he'd been chasing all those years.

Coming up next: "Stray Rounds," in which Bodie's feud reaches another level, The Greek gets careful, and Jimmy has problems remembering a magic word. Can't promise when I'll be able to do the review, but it'll get done sooner or later.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Nurse Jackie, "Steak Knife": Talking to God

Quick spoilers for tonight's "Nurse Jackie" coming up just as soon as I give a baby some paperclips to play with...

"Too bad it's not made of Vicodin." -Eddie

If last week's wonderful episode felt like a breakthrough for this uneven series, then "Steak Knife" was a bit of a step back. There were still a number of extremely strong things in it -- notably Jackie's increasing doom spiral, reflected in her bad reaction to her one-year anniversary with Eddie, and in her struggling to be the shoulder for Dr. O'Hara to lean on rather than vice versa -- but there were also other parts that suggest a show that's still finding itself.

Specifically, I could do without the show hammering us over the head with the parallels between the patients and their caregivers (here with Jackie and the woman who can't let herself be with nice guys). If I want that, I'll watch "Grey's Anatomy" or "House," thank you very much. One of the advantages of cable dramas, in theory, is that because they're catering to a more select audience, they don't need to dumb things down as much as a broad-tent show like "Grey's." The "Jackie" writers would do well to keep that in mind and try for a little more subtlety on subplots like this.

Along similar lines, Mrs. Akalitus wandering around the hospital with an abandoned baby? Really? Last week's episode briefly turned her into someone resembling a human being, rather than the cartoonish authority figure she'd been previously. But this was right back to her being a buffoon.

But, geez, Edie Falco is so terrific, as was Paul Schulze in the scene where Eddie finally acknowledges that Jackie cares more about the pills than about him. I will forgive a lot for a great performance or three -- and I can never leave out praise of Merritt Wever, who may be the most endearingly funny character on my TV set at the moment -- so I'm hanging in with "Nurse Jackie" even as the growing pains resume.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Torchwood Children of Earth, part 1: Big science fiction super-mess

As I wrote this morning, I don't have time to give each episode of "Torchwood: Children of Earth" the proper review it deserves, so I'm going to offer up a few quick thoughts after the jump and then open it up to you. Spoilers for episode one coming up just as soon as I smell a hand...

"It's like the whole wide world is bigger. My life is bigger." -Gwen Cooper

I used that quote already in my "Torchwood" column, but Rupesh and Gwen's exchange neatly sums up the awesomeness of "Children of Earth." You can look at the BBC reducing the third season from 13 episodes to 5 as a demotion, or as an opportunity for Russell T. Davies and company to expand the boundaries of what they were doing before -- which is exactly what they've done here.

Some people have compared "Children of Earth" to Davies' annual end-of-season, end-of-the-world extravaganzas on "Doctor Who." While those were never my favorite parts of their respective "Who" seasons, the apocalyptic scope works here because "Torchwood" operates on a more human scale, even though its lead is a time-traveling immortal alien. When all the earth's children stop simultaneously, or when they start broadcasting a warning from The 4-5-6, or when the British government decides it's time to blow up Torchwood, it feels more ominous than if these events were occurring in The Doctor's more whimsical corner of this fictional universe.

The one point I want to dwell on with episode one was how completely suckered in I was by the introduction of Dr. Rupesh Patanjali. I just assumed -- as I was meant to -- that he was the producers means of coping with the unavailability of Freema Agyeman, and that Rupesh would either be a temporary or permanent addition to the team. So I was floored when he turned out to be working in cahoots with the black ops people, and then when he got killed by them to help preserve the story. Well-played, sirs.

Keep in mind, as always, that we're following the American broadcasting schedule of this show, so talk about episode one and only episode one, even if you've already seen the whole series because you live in England or are handy with illegal downloads. Any comment I consider the least bit over the line gets deleted, period.

Considering that, what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Glad to see me? I guess we're in the next life!

Howdy, folks. Had a fine time on vacation, including stops at Hershey Park (which, while fun, was sadly unlike The Land of Chocolate from Homer's dreams) and the Jersey shore, and randomly shared an elevator with the hilarious Ken Jeong (of "The Hangover" and "Party Down") at a remote Massachusetts hotel. (He couldn't have been more polite, by the way, even as the ride threatend to turn into an episode of The Chris Farley Show.)

I wasn't able to completely unplug, but for the most part, it was nice to be able to watch something like "Better Off Ted" without having to think about what to write about it, whether ABC had a photo or I'd need to make a screencap, etc.

Now I'm back, and after the jump we'll have a link to my latest column, and some other talk about how the next few weeks (involving Comic-Con and the TV critics press tour) will go.

The first order of business is to link to my review of "Torchwood: Children of Earth," which BBC America is running tonight through Friday at 9 p.m. As you can tell if you click through, I loved it, even though the ending was a bit rushed.

I'm aware that reaction to the final chapters was more mixed in the UK, where "Children of Earth" aired a couple of weeks ago, and it's at this point that I remind you of the U.S.-only codicil to the No Spoilers rule. I'm aware that this blog has some international readers, and/or readers who download shows that have aired in other countries rather than waiting for them to air here. And you're all welcome here -- just so long as you don't give away plot details about things that haven't aired here yet. Don't even try to cleverly hint at something; anything I see as over the line gets deleted.

I loved "Children of Earth" enough that I'm frustrated it's airing in a week that's being cleaved in two for me by travel (and was preceded by a vacation week). Ordinarily, I'd love to do in-depth reviews of each night, but that's not going to be possible here. Instead, look for a post to go live around 10:15 (when the eps are scheduled to finish airing) each night this week, possibly with a few thoughts from me, possibly just asking for your own thoughts. I'll try to do something slightly longer for the finale, but time will be a factor. And, again, I'm going to ask you to abide by the spoiler rule. If you've seen all five episodes but only one has aired here in America, talk only about things in that episode. Do not allude to stuff down the line. Got it?

Now, as for other stuff this week, it's up in the air. I have a lot of screeners to watch and other prep work to do before I head to California on Thursday. I've seen the next few "Nurse Jackie" eps, and I've watched the next episodes of "The Wire" season two and "Sports Night" for those reviews, but I don't know how much time I'll have to work on any of them. With ongoing shows like "Jackie," "Burn Notice" (which I watched last week but didn't write about because of vacation), etc., I may just wind up skipping episode reviews for the next few weeks, unless something's either really special or I have an unexpected pocket of free time. With projects like "The Wire" and "Sports Night," they'll get done when they get done, as I've been saying.

Gonna be a lot of playing by ear around here for a while, and that includes how I wind up covering Comic-Con (which I've never attended before) and press tour. I'm not sure what my technological capabilities are going to be at Comic-Con during the daytime, so the best I may be able to do is post a comment now and again on Twitter with my phone. (Though I imagine Schwartz and company will frown on that during the "Chuck" panel.)

And speaking of tweeting, this'll be my first press tour with an active Twitter account, but I'm not sure how much of it I'll be doing there. It's enough of a distraction as is to be blogging so much that if I was tweeting about every funny and/or newsworthy moment on top of that, I'd barely feel like I was present. A guy like Fienberg is wired to be tweeting, blogging and paying attention simultaneously; I'm not sure I am.

So, to wrap things up, I can't really give you a firm schedule for when posts will be up, how I'll be writing, etc. I just know I'll be writing things at various times. Wish I could be more clear, but I've never done Comic-Con before, Comic-Con has never been before press tour before (which means a lot of news may break at the con instead of the tour), etc.

Got all that? Click here to read the full post

Hung, "'Strange Friends' or 'The Truth Is, You're Sexy'": Public indecency

If I wasn't on vacation, I'd write about how I think "Hung" continues to get more fun -- highlighted in this episode by Tanya's loud defense of her pimping credentials -- but since I'm not back on the clock until tomorrow morning, I'll simply ask what you all thought of it. Click here to read the full post

RIP, Walter Cronkite

My Walter Cronkite appreciation is up at NJ.com. Click here to read the full post

The official Emmy grousing thread

I'm on vacation, and hopefully doing my best to avoid all manner of entertainment news, so I have no idea who got snubbed in the Emmy nominations, who was a pleasant surprise, etc. But those of you who want to praise or complain about the nominations (which, in theory, should be available by now at the official Emmy site), have at it.

UPDATE: In a wi-fi/smart-phone world, it's hard to get completely disconnected, so I saw the full nominations list earlier today and have a few brief thoughts after the jump before I return to relaxing.

First of all, I never had any hope that "Battlestar Galactica" or "Friday Night Lights" had a prayer of any kind of serious nominations. The former is sci-fi, which the Emmys don't know what to do with. The latter is low-rated, films in a non-industry town (and therefore doesn't employ many Emmy voters) and features a cast that's terrific but too low-profile for anyone to notice. So their snubs, while irritating, weren't a surprise.

I probably shouldn't have gotten my hopes up for "The Shield," given that the Academy has for years acted like Michael Chiklis' win in the first season was the most embarrassing award they've given in the last 20 years. It's just a show they refuse to acknowledge the existence of, unfortunately, but the final season was so amazing that I briefly deluded myself into thinking Chiklis or Walton Goggins or CCH Pounder at least had an outside shot. Instead, bupkes. And that stinks.

Now, of the people/shows who I thought had a realistic chance at nominations but didn't, I'm disappointed about the lack of nods for Christina Hendricks, John Mahoney and "In Treatment" as a series. ("Big Love" and/or "Breaking Bad" appear to have taken its spot, and those shows are good enough that I can't complain too much. I'd take it easily over "House" or "Damages," on the other hand.)

On the pleasant surprise front, after I chose his picture as a sign of what I assumed would be a whole bunch of irritatingly predictable nominations, Jeremy Piven was snubbed. I'd like to think it was karma for me picking that photo (it'd be like a weatherman pre-taping a forecast for sunny skies and getting a torrential downpour instead), but I suspect Piven's abrupt departure from "Speed the Plow" (and the lame sushi excuse that went with it) had more to do with it. And his non-nomination hopefully clears the field for a long-overdue Neil Patrick Harris win. (Though, knowing the way the Emmy voters roll, it'll probably go to Jon Cryer or Kevin Dillon.)

Jemaine Clement getting a nomination for "Flight of the Conchords" was unexpectedly awesome, and while I still think it's fairer to nominate him and Bret as a team, if I had to pick one as even slightly funnier (or, at least, asked to carry more of the comedy on the show), it'd be Jemaine. And Aaron Paul is wonderful, and absolutely deserving of his nomination.

As for the people upset that "Family Guy" was nominated for best comedy when "The Simpsons" never has, keep in mind that "The Simpsons" annually submits itself only in the animation category, so it isn't eligible. (I'm on vacation and therefore don't want to take time looking it up, but I vaguely recall they submitted themselves for best comedy once or twice in the early years, were ignored, and went back to the animation categories for the rest of time. But it's entirely possible that they never bothered.)

Anyway, back to my book, then the swingset. Catch you all on Monday. Click here to read the full post

Dark Blue & Michael and Michael Have Issues: Thoughts?

If I weren't on vacation this week, I'd have written reviews of one or both of "Dark Blue" (TNT's cliche-ridden undercover cop drama with Dylan McDermott doing his usual Extremely Loud Or Incredibly Close, But Nothing In Between schtick) and "Michael and Michael Have Issues" (uneven but promising Comedy Central series featuring 2/11 of The State or 2/3 of Stella, depending on your point of view). But I'm on vacation, so I didn't.

Anybody watch? If so, what'd you think? Click here to read the full post

Leverage, "The Beantown Bailout Job": A thief, a con artist and a hacker walk into a bar...

I'm on vacation, but I did get a look at the "Leverage" season premiere before I left. The show still doesn't feel like it's living up to the potential of the premise and the cast, but I think it's found an equilibrium where I like the characters enough to enjoy it as a summer diversion, if nothing else.

That said, the new opening title sequence is very cool. What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Warehouse 13, "Resonance": Number Six with a bullet

I'm on vacation at the moment you're reading this, but I liked this week's "Warehouse 13" enough that I wanted to say a couple of things about it before I stepped away from the laptop. Quick spoilers coming up just as soon as I huff and puff...

My concerns with the "Warehouse 13" pilot had less to do with the characters and the concept than the story they chose to tell in the first episode. The business with Lucrezia Borgia's comb was too complicated, and really not that interesting, even with Saul Rubinek riding a zipline.

Pete and Myka having to deal with the world's most perfect pop song, on the other hand? A cool idea, well-executed, particularly in the assault on the federal building where we finally got a good long look at its effect. I don't know that a 45 rpm record quite qualifies as steampunk, but it fits into the retro-tech vibe the show has going, and I liked it.

A few issues: I wish they'd given Tricia Helfer more to do, Myka using the case to reconnect with her dad (who she earlier made sound like a total bastard) felt trite, and by showing this episode slightly out of order (it was the third produced, and the second after Jack Kenny took over as showrunner), it feels like we're moving too fast in the partners coming to accept each other's way of working. The whole "she looks, he leaps" thing felt trite in the pilot, but at the same time, it's jarring to hear her already telling him to trust his instincts in the face of other evidence.

But it's always a good sign to see a show get better after its pilot, rather than worse.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

'Mad Men' season two DVD review - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I look briefly at the season two DVD set for "Mad Men." As the warning at the top of the article says, though, if you didn't watch the season and were waiting to watch the DVD, you're not going to want to read, as I discuss a major plot development pretty early. Click here to read the full post

Nurse Jackie, "Tiny Bubbles": Toast up. Toasting.

I'm on vacation at the time you're reading this, but tonight's "Nurse Jackie" was so outstanding -- and was a big reason why I gave the show such a positive review at the start in spite of some unevenness in the other early episodes -- that I wanted to give it a quick write-up before I left. (In an ideal world, I'd write more, but I gots to go.) Spoilers coming up just as soon as I get you to walk with me...

"F--k you, and here's to me." -Paula

The comedy and drama sides of "Nurse Jackie" haven't yet learned how to co-exist, and an episode like "Tiny Bubbles" suggests that until they do, the writers should err on the side of drama. Because where some previous episodes felt interesting but slight, "Tiny Bubbles" felt solid and powerful throughout. Even the relatively lighter moments -- like the Coop Has Two Mommies subplot -- had more weight, and felt more satisfying.

Much of the credit for all of this goes to Tony-winning Judith Ivey, who was wonderful as Paula, turning a character who could very easily have been a cliche into a very real person whose life and death had an obvious impact on the rest of the cast. Hell, even Mrs. Akalitis seemed like a human being for most of this one.

Great work, also, by Blythe Danner and Swoosie Kurtz as Coop's aforementioned two mommies, who went a long way towards deepening a character who'd previously been there just as comic relief.

But the regular cast was great, too. I loved Eddie setting Zoey straight on the subject of how unusual this situation is, and O'Hara being mildly serious for once as she offered to help Jackie. And, of course, Edie Falco was outstanding throughout, especially during the moment where Jackie learned she isn't the first nurse to get pain pills from Eddie, and in the final sequence (wonderfully scored to Patty Griffin's "It Don't Come Easy") where Jackie went to pack up Paula's apartment and found that Paula beat her to the punch.

I have a DVD with episodes seven through twelve, and if I do anything vaguely work-related over this vacation, I suspect it'll involve watching those episodes to see if "Tiny Bubbles" was an aberration or the episode where the pieces all started clicking into place.

Keeping in mind that we are not going to discuss the seventh episode, which went up On Demand today, what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

"This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy..."

Okay, folks, as I mentioned a few times last week, today begins an extended period of blog disruption. I'm on vacation this week, and for the sake of both my psyche and my budding case of carpal tunnel, I'm hoping to stay far away from the computer.

That said, there will be several short, pre-written posts going live at various points while I'm gone. I've seen this week's "Nurse Jackie," "Warehouse 13" and "Leverage" (the season premiere is on Wednesday night at 9), and there will be some kind of post about each -- even if it's something as brief as "Hey, what did you think of it?" In addition, tomorrow's paper has a column on the release of "Mad Men" season two on DVD, and that'll be linked to here, and I've also set up a post to go up Thursday morning so anyone who wants to can discuss the Emmy nominations.

Behave while I'm gone, y'all. (And if you need help, just go read the commenting rules.) I'll be back next week, but that'll be a short (and likely light-posting week), as I'm heading out to California for Comic-Con and the TV critics press tour, and those two events will be dominating most of my writing time for the two-plus weeks I'll be there. But we'll cross that bridge when the Family Truckster comes to it. Click here to read the full post

Entourage: That's it for me!

"Entourage" has become a kind of no-win show for me. When I criticize it (as I've often done the last few seasons), its fans complain that I'm just watching to pick it apart. On the rare occasions when I praise it, the people who, like me, are still watching for reasons they don't really understand, complain that I'm going too easy on the show. And when I don't bother to write up an episode at all, both sides complain about that, usually by disrupting discussion of other shows.

Having seen the first two episodes of the new season (which begins this Sunday, after a new episode of "Hung"), I realized that I just don't care enough anymore to keep watching, let alone to keep blogging about it. I won't even rehash my usual complaints about the show (if you've been reading me long enough, you know what they are, and if you don't, click on the "Entourage" tag below for some hints).

So, barring something unusual, this will be my last post on the subject, and the only reason I'm doing it is to avoid more "Hey, where's the 'Entourage' post?" comments. For those looking forward to more posts, whether you like the show or hate it but can't stop watching, my apologies. File this under life being too short. Click here to read the full post

The Wire, Season 2, Episode 7: "Backwash" (Newbies edition)

We're now into the second half of our trip through season two of "The Wire." As always, we're doing this in two versions: one for people who have watched the entire series and want to be able to discuss it from beginning to end, and those who aren't all the way there yet and don't want to be spoiled about later developments. This is the newbie post (click here for the veteran version).

Spoilers for episode seven, "Backwash" -- including some thoughts from the episode's author, Rafael Alvarez -- coming up just as soon as I enter the modern urban crime environment...

"What do you think they grew up to be? Stevedores. What the f--k you think?" -Frank

The drug characters who were so important to season one of "The Wire" have mostly been sideshow players in season two. And even in "Backwash," they're only slightly more prominent than they were in the season's first half. But before we get to talking about the stevedores, and Daniels putting his career (and marriage) at risk, I have to start with Stringer Bell.

How cold is Stringer? He moves through this episode, visiting the loved ones of D'Angelo Barksdale, the man whose death he ordered, and he's as calm and smooth as if he were waiting on a customer at his copy shop. He puts into motion a deal with Prop Joe -- some of their superior real estate in exchange for the superior package Joe is getting from Vondas -- and even though Avon clearly wants no part of it, you can see that Stringer is going to go ahead with it, anyway. Hey, he killed off D'Angelo without anyone the wiser; what else can he get away with?

Because Stringer so rarely shows emotion -- and when he does, it's anger -- it would be very easy for him to come across every bit as robotic as the Rotterdam equipment Frank Sobotka is so afraid of. But Idris Elba shows Stringer always thinking, always calculating the angles in any encounter, whether he's seducing D's girl to get more information on him or offering a comforting hand to Brianna Barksdale while she suffers a tragedy that he knows he caused. Though Avon was technically the boss of the organization, there's a reason the first season focused more on Stringer, and it's the same reason I suspect Stringer was left free at the end of that season while Avon went to jail: he's the more original, compelling character, and Elba's is one of the show's most electrifying, if subtle, performances. (Which isn't a knock on the terrific Wood Harris, by the way.)

Great as Elba is, though, the episode still belongs to the stevedores -- particularly to Frank, whose motives begin to seem a bit less pure, and Nick, whose actions begin to seem a bit less clever.

While Frank's actions with The Greek have always been questionable, there wasn't previously much chance to argue with the goal he was trying to achieve with those actions. He wasn't buying anything for himself, was using Vondas's money either to pay for Bruce the lobbyist or to help out union men down on their luck. But two sequences in "Backwash" suggest that he's not only a criminal, but a tunnel-visioned one.

When Frank gets a look at the documentary about the robot-equipped Rotterdam port, it's like the worst horror movie he's ever seen. The speaker ducks his question about stevedore hours, because both men know that these robots will be putting men like Frank and Nick out of business. But at the same time, the man's comment about the increased safety of these machines is driven home at the episode's end, when New Charles loses a leg during a night off-load. Robots aren't at risk like that -- and, for that matter, they can't steal cans and aid smugglers the way that Frank and Horseface can.

As Frank notes, "Can't get hurt if you ain't working," and the robots would certainly put more of Frank's union brothers out of a job. But as we see in his argument with Bruce, what Frank should have been concerned about -- and a long time ago, at that -- wasn't the fate of himself and Horse, but that of younger guys like Nick and Ziggy and Johnny 50. As I've written before, these guys were raised in an environment where they were taught that this was the only possible lifestyle for them, when other men in similar situations made sure their kids were prepared to do something different, and better, than his old man. Maybe the kids with the stolen Tang couldn't have grown up to become astronauts, but they surely could have grown up to be something with more of a future than a stevedore. But Frank doesn't want to see that. He thinks his way is the only way, and he's become so obsessed with his plan that he's willing to violate the long-standing black/white turn-taking arrangement so he can run for a second term as union treasurer.

(Rafael Alvarez will have many more thoughts on the subject of Frank's goals in a bit.)

Whatever you think about Frank, there's no question Nick isn't thinking smart with his foray into the world of drug dealing. Sure, he's better-qualified and more competent than Ziggy -- frankly, I think I'd have a better chance of moving a package than Zig -- but there's too much risk for this reward. We see Nick already starting to develop a big head as he sits on the stoop lecturing Frog (even if he's briefly shamed by the disapproving look from the woman next door), and then he has to go and ignore Frank's advice -- not to mention the warnings Nick himself gave to Ziggy -- about not flashing around money. It's one thing to help Aimee get a nicer apartment, and another to be driving around in a brand-new truck for all the world -- including two knuckle-headed cops by the name of Herc and Carver -- to see.

And if Herc and Carver are going to have trouble explaining how they found out about Nick's business relationship with Frog, let alone how he connects with the murdered girls in the can, at least the detail has started to make enough progress that Daniels can let Lester guilt him into taking the 14 Jane Doe murders off of Rawls' hands.

The inner battle between Cedric Daniels, politically-ambitious ladder climber and Cedric Daniels, natural police, was a running theme in season one. From the moment Valchek rescued him from evidence room purgatory, it seemed like Daniels had struck some kind of balance between the two. He declined Burrell's offer of a district command post in favor of turning the detail into a Major Crimes Unit, but he also refused to make the murders part of the Sobotka case because he suspected it would ruin his MCU plan before it started.

But as we saw last season after Brandon's death, Daniels will, in the end, always choose the right path over the politically-expedient one, even if it hurts his career, and even if it puts a massive strain on his marriage to Marla, who loved that other Daniels more than this one.

Before we get to the bullet points, we're going to do something a little different this week. This episode was written by Rafael Alvarez, who was one of David Simon's old colleagues at the Baltimore Sun (and who has authored the short story collection "Orlo & Leini," and "A People's History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore," which you can read more about, along with Alvarez's own story, by clicking on his name). Alvarez also write "The Wire: Truth Be Told," the only official companion book the series ever got, and after some readers last week asked me about rumors that Alvarez would be doing an updated version covering all five seasons, I e-mailed him for confirmation. He explained that an updated "Truth Be Told" would, in fact, come out by Christmas -- albeit only in the UK, through Canongate Books, but there are easy ways to order that here through the series of tubes -- and then we got to talking about "Backwash."

Alvarez grew up in a family with connections to the Baltimore ports, and had worked there himself, which made his expertise invaluable to the writing of this season. I asked for his own take on the nobility of Frank's goals -- particularly in light of New Charles' injury and the argument with the lobbyist -- and if he had any other memories of the making of the episode. Here's what he wrote:

Frank Sobotka was a very smart man who often mistook his heart for his brain.

A problem with technology is that it now moves faster than the span of a single human lifetime.

One of my first assignments as a 19-year-old reporter in Baltimore was a longshoreman's strike (1977) over complete implementation of containerization on ports that had been worked by muscle for 200 years.

An old union man named Gilbert Lukowski (told me) that no matter how convenient and affordable new technology made life for management "you can't just take a man in the middle of his working life and throw him on the junk pile."

I never forgot that and I tried to instill as much of that philosophy as possible into Frank Sobotka as we built that character. Frank was prescient enough to know that the future was coming no matter what he did but soft-hearted (some might say soft-headed) enough to see a dependent family in the face of each of the men he was responsible for.

(The bigger irony to me is how much of a "dutch uncle" or father figure he was to the union men while his blood son went awry because - in part - frank was so distracted by union business.)

There were two main themes of my childhood as the grandson of a seafarer turned union shipyard worker and the son of a seafarer turned union tugboat engineer: hard work and education.

My own experience was much more Bruce the lobbyist than Frank the union man. My father always held education above everything because he knew it was the only way a man could respond to changes in the economy beyond your control. He never wanted my brothers or I to work on the waterfront with him. And when my one brother (a natural mechanic) truly desired that work, my old man made him get there through a respected maritime academy instead of just following him down to the waterfront the way Ziggy followed his father.

So my argument would be that if the waterfront (or any industry) is a pie, technology is going to change the way that pie is made, sold and distributed. If union men are willing to put some of their hard earned salaries and whatever influence a father can have with their children toward education, the next generation can have a piece of that pie even if it doesn't resemble anything the old man would recognize.

They may not be running the show, but at least they'll be able to get in the door.

It might be noted (by me if not Simon) that Frank Sobotka had a little bit of a Messiah complex, even to the point of laughing when the polish priest asked if he had been to confession lately.

The most memorable story I would tell about writing "Backwash" are two things that please me greatly.

No. 1 - I was able to get Robert Irsay's face in the middle of the union shack dartboard (it flashes on the screen for half a second when Bruce leaves Frank's office). Maybe six people in the country got that when it first aired and I promise you that all of them are scholars of pro football Baltimore.

No. 2 - The story that Bruce the lobbyist tells frank (I liked that the lobbyist was Italian-American and not a WASP because it proved my point about education serving a working class eager enough to get a degree any way they can) about his grandfather pushing the knife sharpening wheel, that was taken directly from a story Frank Zappa (born in Baltimore Dec. 21, 1940) told me in a 1986 interview about his early Baltimore roots.

When Zappa's grandfather (Charlie Colimore) died in 1941, Frank and his family moved to a rowhouse apartment in the 4600 block of Park Heights Avenue. Zappa remembered there was "an alley in the back and down the alley used to come the knife sharpener man-you know, a guy with the wheel. And everybody used to come down off their back porch to the alley to get their knives and scissors done."

Some other thoughts on "Backwash":

• Getting back to the idea of season one characters taking a backseat so far in season two, McNulty makes his first appearance of the episode at the 55-minute mark. And as much as we all love Dominic West in the role, and as crucial as he was to the first season, it's a testament to how strong the ensemble is -- and how well Simon and Burns and company have already established the city as the real star of "The Wire" -- that I didn't even notice his absence until he turned up in Elena's backyard.

• Herc and Carver provide particularly strong comic relief in this one with their misadventures in "the modern urban crime environment," and Carver's fake British accent as he declares Herc to be "Head. Dick Head." Also, Herc raving about the wonders of technology is nicely intercut with Frank's reaction to the Rotterdam film.

• Bodie's visit to the florist was more in the "so sad it's funny" category, but I have no doubt that there are many inner-city florists that have a back room featuring Uzi-shaped arrangements made up of flowers with "strong colors."

• Wee-Bey's line about how D'Angelo killed himself in a way he knew his loved ones would have to carry is very similar to a line from both "Homicide" book and show about cops who commit suicide knowing that colleagues will have to deal with the crime scene.

• Ziggy gets punked by Maui with the fake paternity suit papers, whose obsession with playing "Love Child" on the jukebox over and over and over should have been a bit of a tipoff, no?

• Joe says his philosophy is "Buy for a dollar, sell for two," which makes him an ideal business associate of Vondas and The Greek, who say it as "Buy for a nickel, sell for a dime."

Coming up next: "Duck and Cover," in which McNulty practices a new driving technique, Frank pays his bills, and Ziggy gets a lift.

As to when you'll see this review? That's an open question. Like I mentioned earlier in the week in the "Sports Night" review, I'm on vacation next week, and late the following week I'll be heading to California for Comic-Con and then the Television Critics Association summer press tour. So these reviews are going to be published on a very irregular schedule from now until at least early August, if not for the rest of the summer. You may not get any reviews in a given week (and I wouldn't be holding my breath next week), or you might get two in one week, at any day or time when they're done. It's unfortunately the best I can do given all the time I'll either be off or occupied with other business. But we'll get it done, fret not.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The Wire, Season 2, Episode 7: "Backwash" (Veterans edition)

We're now into the second half of our trip through season two of "The Wire." As always, we're doing this in two versions: one for people who have watched the entire series and want to be able to discuss it from beginning to end, and those who aren't all the way there yet and don't want to be spoiled about later developments. This is the veteran post (click here for the newbie version).

Spoilers for episode seven, "Backwash" -- including some thoughts from the episode's author, Rafael Alvarez -- coming up just as soon as I enter the modern urban crime environment...

"What do you think they grew up to be? Stevedores. What the f--k you think?" -Frank

The drug characters who were so important to season one of "The Wire" have mostly been sideshow players in season two. And even in "Backwash," they're only slightly more prominent than they were in the season's first half. But before we get to talking about the stevedores, and Daniels putting his career (and marriage) at risk, I have to start with Stringer Bell.

How cold is Stringer? He moves through this episode, visiting the loved ones of D'Angelo Barksdale, the man whose death he ordered, and he's as calm and smooth as if he were waiting on a customer at his copy shop. He puts into motion a deal with Prop Joe -- some of their superior real estate in exchange for the superior package Joe is getting from Vondas -- and even though Avon clearly wants no part of it, you can see that Stringer is going to go ahead with it, anyway. Hey, he killed off D'Angelo without anyone the wiser; what else can he get away with?

Because Stringer so rarely shows emotion -- and when he does, it's anger -- it would be very easy for him to come across every bit as robotic as the Rotterdam equipment Frank Sobotka is so afraid of. But Idris Elba shows Stringer always thinking, always calculating the angles in any encounter, whether he's seducing D's girl to get more information on him or offering a comforting hand to Brianna Barksdale while she suffers a tragedy that he knows he caused. Though Avon was technically the boss of the organization, there's a reason the first season focused more on Stringer, and it's the same reason I suspect Stringer was left free at the end of that season while Avon went to jail: he's the more original, compelling character, and Elba's is one of the show's most electrifying, if subtle, performances. (Which isn't a knock on the terrific Wood Harris, by the way.)

Great as Elba is, though, the episode still belongs to the stevedores -- particularly to Frank, whose motives begin to seem a bit less pure, and Nick, whose actions begin to seem a bit less clever.

While Frank's actions with The Greek have always been questionable, there wasn't previously much chance to argue with the goal he was trying to achieve with those actions. He wasn't buying anything for himself, was using Vondas's money either to pay for Bruce the lobbyist or to help out union men down on their luck. But two sequences in "Backwash" suggest that he's not only a criminal, but a tunnel-visioned one.

When Frank gets a look at the documentary about the robot-equipped Rotterdam port, it's like the worst horror movie he's ever seen. The speaker ducks his question about stevedore hours, because both men know that these robots will be putting men like Frank and Nick out of business. But at the same time, the man's comment about the increased safety of these machines is driven home at the episode's end, when New Charles loses a leg during a night off-load. Robots aren't at risk like that -- and, for that matter, they can't steal cans and aid smugglers the way that Frank and Horseface can.

As Frank notes, "Can't get hurt if you ain't working," and the robots would certainly put more of Frank's union brothers out of a job. But as we see in his argument with Bruce, what Frank should have been concerned about -- and a long time ago, at that -- wasn't the fate of himself and Horse, but that of younger guys like Nick and Ziggy and Johnny 50. As I've written before, these guys were raised in an environment where they were taught that this was the only possible lifestyle for them, when other men in similar situations made sure their kids were prepared to do something different, and better, than his old man. Maybe the kids with the stolen Tang couldn't have grown up to become astronauts, but they surely could have grown up to be something with more of a future than a stevedore. But Frank doesn't want to see that. He thinks his way is the only way, and he's become so obsessed with his plan that he's willing to violate the long-standing black/white turn-taking arrangement so he can run for a second term as union treasurer.

(Rafael Alvarez will have many more thoughts on the subject of Frank's goals in a bit.)

Whatever you think about Frank, there's no question Nick isn't thinking smart with his foray into the world of drug dealing. Sure, he's better-qualified and more competent than Ziggy -- frankly, I think I'd have a better chance of moving a package than Zig -- but there's too much risk for this reward. We see Nick already starting to develop a big head as he sits on the stoop lecturing Frog (even if he's briefly shamed by the disapproving look from the woman next door), and then he has to go and ignore Frank's advice -- not to mention the warnings Nick himself gave to Ziggy -- about not flashing around money. It's one thing to help Aimee get a nicer apartment, and another to be driving around in a brand-new truck for all the world -- including two knuckle-headed cops by the name of Herc and Carver -- to see.

And if Herc and Carver are going to have trouble explaining how they found out about Nick's business relationship with Frog, let alone how he connects with the murdered girls in the can, at least the detail has started to make enough progress that Daniels can let Lester guilt him into taking the 14 Jane Doe murders off of Rawls' hands.

The inner battle between Cedric Daniels, politically-ambitious ladder climber and Cedric Daniels, natural police, was a running theme in season one. From the moment Valchek rescued him from evidence room purgatory, it seemed like Daniels had struck some kind of balance between the two. He declined Burrell's offer of a district command post in favor of turning the detail into a Major Crimes Unit, but he also refused to make the murders part of the Sobotka case because he suspected it would ruin his MCU plan before it started.

But as we saw last season after Brandon's death, Daniels will, in the end, always choose the right path over the politically-expedient one, even if it hurts his career, and even if it puts a massive strain on his marriage to Marla, who loved that other Daniels more than this one.

Before we get to the bullet points, we're going to do something a little different this week. This episode was written by Rafael Alvarez, who was one of David Simon's old colleagues at the Baltimore Sun (and who has authored the short story collection "Orlo & Leini," and "A People's History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore," which you can read more about, along with Alvarez's own story, by clicking on his name). Alvarez also write "The Wire: Truth Be Told," the only official companion book the series ever got, and after some readers last week asked me about rumors that Alvarez would be doing an updated version covering all five seasons, I e-mailed him for confirmation. He explained that an updated "Truth Be Told" would, in fact, come out by Christmas -- albeit only in the UK, through Canongate Books, but there are easy ways to order that here through the series of tubes -- and then we got to talking about "Backwash."

Alvarez grew up in a family with connections to the Baltimore ports, and had worked there himself, which made his expertise invaluable to the writing of this season. I asked for his own take on the nobility of Frank's goals -- particularly in light of New Charles' injury and the argument with the lobbyist -- and if he had any other memories of the making of the episode. Here's what he wrote:

Frank Sobotka was a very smart man who often mistook his heart for his brain.

A problem with technology is that it now moves faster than the span of a single human lifetime.

One of my first assignments as a 19-year-old reporter in Baltimore was a longshoreman's strike (1977) over complete implementation of containerization on ports that had been worked by muscle for 200 years.

An old union man named Gilbert Lukowski (told me) that no matter how convenient and affordable new technology made life for management "you can't just take a man in the middle of his working life and throw him on the junk pile."

I never forgot that and I tried to instill as much of that philosophy as possible into Frank Sobotka as we built that character. Frank was prescient enough to know that the future was coming no matter what he did but soft-hearted (some might say soft-headed) enough to see a dependent family in the face of each of the men he was responsible for.

(The bigger irony to me is how much of a "dutch uncle" or father figure he was to the union men while his blood son went awry because - in part - frank was so distracted by union business.)

There were two main themes of my childhood as the grandson of a seafarer turned union shipyard worker and the son of a seafarer turned union tugboat engineer: hard work and education.

My own experience was much more Bruce the lobbyist than Frank the union man. My father always held education above everything because he knew it was the only way a man could respond to changes in the economy beyond your control. He never wanted my brothers or I to work on the waterfront with him. And when my one brother (a natural mechanic) truly desired that work, my old man made him get there through a respected maritime academy instead of just following him down to the waterfront the way Ziggy followed his father.

So my argument would be that if the waterfront (or any industry) is a pie, technology is going to change the way that pie is made, sold and distributed. If union men are willing to put some of their hard earned salaries and whatever influence a father can have with their children toward education, the next generation can have a piece of that pie even if it doesn't resemble anything the old man would recognize.

They may not be running the show, but at least they'll be able to get in the door.

It might be noted (by me if not Simon) that Frank Sobotka had a little bit of a Messiah complex, even to the point of laughing when the polish priest asked if he had been to confession lately.

The most memorable story I would tell about writing "Backwash" are two things that please me greatly.

No. 1 - I was able to get Robert Irsay's face in the middle of the union shack dartboard (it flashes on the screen for half a second when Bruce leaves Frank's office). Maybe six people in the country got that when it first aired and I promise you that all of them are scholars of pro football Baltimore.

No. 2 - The story that Bruce the lobbyist tells frank (I liked that the lobbyist was Italian-American and not a WASP because it proved my point about education serving a working class eager enough to get a degree any way they can) about his grandfather pushing the knife sharpening wheel, that was taken directly from a story Frank Zappa (born in Baltimore Dec. 21, 1940) told me in a 1986 interview about his early Baltimore roots.

When Zappa's grandfather (Charlie Colimore) died in 1941, Frank and his family moved to a rowhouse apartment in the 4600 block of Park Heights Avenue. Zappa remembered there was "an alley in the back and down the alley used to come the knife sharpener man-you know, a guy with the wheel. And everybody used to come down off their back porch to the alley to get their knives and scissors done."

Some other thoughts on "Backwash":

• Getting back to the idea of season one characters taking a backseat so far in season two, McNulty makes his first appearance of the episode at the 55-minute mark. And as much as we all love Dominic West in the role, and as crucial as he was to the first season, it's a testament to how strong the ensemble is -- and how well Simon and Burns and company have already established the city as the real star of "The Wire" -- that I didn't even notice his absence until he turned up in Elena's backyard.

• Herc and Carver provide particularly strong comic relief in this one with their misadventures in "the modern urban crime environment," and Carver's fake British accent as he declares Herc to be "Head. Dick Head." Also, Herc raving about the wonders of technology is nicely intercut with Frank's reaction to the Rotterdam film.

• Bodie's visit to the florist was more in the "so sad it's funny" category, but I have no doubt that there are many inner-city florists that have a back room featuring Uzi-shaped arrangements made up of flowers with "strong colors."

• Wee-Bey's line about how D'Angelo killed himself in a way he knew his loved ones would have to carry is very similar to a line from both "Homicide" book and show about cops who commit suicide knowing that colleagues will have to deal with the crime scene.

• Ziggy gets punked by Maui with the fake paternity suit papers, whose obsession with playing "Love Child" on the jukebox over and over and over should have been a bit of a tipoff, no?

• Joe says his philosophy is "Buy for a dollar, sell for two," which makes him an ideal business associate of Vondas and The Greek, who say it as "Buy for a nickel, sell for a dime."

And now we're up to the veterans-only section, where we talk about how developments in this episode will echo over the rest of this season, and the series:

• The florist Bodie visits is the same one Prop Joe will use when arranging Blind Butchie's funeral in season five.

• That light going out in Marla's bedroom more or less signals the end of the Daniels marriage. I'm not all the way through the episodes yet, but as I recall, we don't even see her again until we find out Cedric's sleeping on the couch, right?

• As one marriage ends, another is born, with Prop Joe planting the seeds with Stringer that will grow into the New Day Co-Op.

• Based on the way the rest of the season plays out, how necessary is Fuzzy Dunlop, anyway? It's not like they actually hear anything valuable on the mic before Frog throws it away. I suppose an argument could be made that Herc and Carver wouldn't have bothered watching Frog at the moment when Nick drove up if they weren't listening in on the mic. Either way, ol' Fuzzy will not only provide additional comedy, he'll serve as the template for Jimmy and Lester's homeless killer scam in season five.

• Here we see the first bits of bad advice that Ziggy will complain about after he fights Maui in the next episode. And speaking of which...

Coming up next: "Duck and Cover," in which McNulty practices a new driving technique, Frank pays his bills, and Ziggy gets a lift.

As to when you'll see this review? That's an open question. Like I mentioned earlier in the week in the "Sports Night" review, I'm on vacation next week, and late the following week I'll be heading to California for Comic-Con and then the Television Critics Association summer press tour. So these reviews are going to be published on a very irregular schedule from now until at least early August, if not for the rest of the summer. You may not get any reviews in a given week (and I wouldn't be holding my breath next week), or you might get two in one week, at any day or time when they're done. It's unfortunately the best I can do given all the time I'll either be off or occupied with other business. But we'll get it done, fret not.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Royal Pains, "No Man Is An Island": Drill bit

After being ready to dismiss "Royal Pains" a couple of weeks ago, tonight's was surprisingly entertaining, with a high concentration of Macgyver medicine, and even some comic relief moments for the brother that didn't completely annoy me. Still probably not enough to merit a full post, but I thought the uptick in quality worth mentioning. Anybody else still watching? (Based on the ratings, which are higher than "Burn Notice," and among the most popular things on cable this summer, somebody is.) If so, what did you think? Click here to read the full post

Burn Notice, "Signals and Codes": Michael Westen vs. Michael Weston

Some quick thoughts on tonight's "Burn Notice" coming up just as soon as I lie about ice cream cake...

The meta-joke aside, Michael Weston the actor fit in very well with the world of Michael Westen the character, and it was fun to watch our usually super-cool, ultra-rational Michael struggle to keep his temper under control while dealing with a client who's anything but rational -- and, for that matter, to see a situation where Fiona gets to be the one keeping a cool head.

I'm still taking a wait-and-see approach on Michael's quest to get back in with the CIA, but swapping out Detective Paxson for Michael's reluctant new government contact seems like an upgrade so far.

All that, and Sam Axe leading a team-building seminar. How can you not like that?

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

The State on DVD: David Wain Q&A

No, David Wain isn't either of the men pictured above (they would be Michael Ian Black and Kevin Allison), but he did help write my favorite "The State" sketch of all time, and he talked to me about "Taco Man," and many other things "State"-related, in a Q&A about Tuesday's long-awaited release of the series on DVD. (You can read my review here.)

Many thoughts from Wain -- including some surprising news about the music rights issues -- coming up just as soon as I travel to a horrific world where all the words that should start with H's instead start with M's. Ma ma ma ma ma!....

So what's taken so long?

I wish there was a more fun, interesting answer. But the truth is that we started trying to make a DVD of "The State" maybe 10 years ago, and it's been caught in this nameless bureuacratic molasses labyrinth of Viacom. Everything took, like, four months. Every step. And it just took this long.

How much of it was the music rights, and how much was other things?

I would say none of it was the music rights. When they finally greenlit the making of the DVD, we went in to deal with the music. We knew that would be a problem because the music world has changed so much. So we just set about to figure out what we could license and what we had to replace, and we did that. That wasn't really part of the delay. As was true when we were on the air on MTV, we never quite got their attention or their respect the way we wanted to.

How much of the show was a learning experience for you guys?

It was total boot camp in every way. We did a lot of our own everything. We didn't have much of a support group -- we had some, but we did our own shooting and a lot of of our own editing and costumes and everything. It was a great, great training ground.

I don't want to dwell on the music too much, but you said that you were able to get one or two songs, and I have yet to hear anything in the sketches so far that is the original music. Are there some sketches that still use the old songs?

I think there is one or two, honestly. But you are basically right. We were unable to secure the rights to almost any music. And the truth is, it wasn't that it was too expensive. Almost everyone we went to, they were, like, "Not available to you." They allocated quite a generous music licensing budget for this DVD project, and the powers that be that owned the rights to this music were just like, "No. We don't care how much you want to offer us." And it was kind of shocking. There were certain ones where we were like, "Let's really make sure we get this one, because the sketch is so designed around the piece of music." And we went to the people and they said no.

So, like, The Breeders' management, all these years later, is being that tough?

I knew you'd pick that one. I don't know if it was the management or the publisher or the label, but I do know that that didn't work out.

That's a real shame. Because that's one ("Pants") where it's built entirely around that song.

You are correct.

And there's a couple of others, like in one of the Barry and Levon sketches, they talk about how they're dancing to Marvin Gaye, and it's not Marvin.

I'm not going to try to pretend that we're thrilled about it, but I will say, we worked with Craig (Wedren), who did the original music for the show, and for everything we've done since, and we did our very best to maintain the feel of the sketches.

The truth is, at the time, we hated doing that. We hated that we had to use MTV music in a sketch comedy show and all this current stuff that would date the show. Of course, now, it's become in retrospective an element of what it was, and the DVDs should have it, and it's a shame that it doesn't.

It's funny: when "Pants" comes up in the DVD commentary, Ken (Marino) immediately points out that the music is different, and Tom (Lennon) jumps down his throat and is, like, "Shut up, Grandpa! Nobody wants to hear that!"

I'll agree with both.

Other than stripping out and then replacing the music, what else had to be done to put the DVD together?

We scoured through all of our basements and archives and attics and found all of these extra sketches that had never aired, and all these other extra random stuff. We also had to go back and find -- some of the sound wasn't quite right. It was like one of thsoe things where the show was finished before DVDs even existed. It was never archived properly for DVD distribution, and so we had to do some detective work. But then we did the design for it, and the commentary, etc., etc.

A friend of mine has the "Skits & Stickers" tape, which had a few of the unaired sketches on it, and I'd watch something like "Super XIII" (a horror movie parody about a killer movie camera) and wonder, "How did this not wind up on the show?"

Frankly, a lot of the stuff that we didn't put on the show, most of it was just not the best. But some of the pieces, we didn't have anyplace to put it. The show had to be exactly 22 minutes, 30 seconds long. We packed it with sketches, and we always shot more than we needed. That was part of our formula to have a good show. Sometimes, we just ran out of room.

I want to get back to the relationship between you and MTV, because that was an obvious source of tension even when I was watching it in college in the '90s. They wanted the show to be one thing, they wanted it to be something else. If you were to put it into simple terms, how would you describe the conflict?

I can only look at it through the lens of my current perspective, but I would say a lot of it was just a function of our own age at the time. We were in our early early 20s, just out of school, and pretty much anything anyone ever said to us, we took as fighting words. At the same time, as always is the case, they had some silly things they wanted us to do, in terms of trying to make it an MTV show and mix it in with popular culture. I don't think we appreciated at the time how much control we were given as a bunch of 20 year olds who had never done any work before. We played the role of the rebels, and we got yelled at a lot, but when the show did well, they kept asking us to come back. We left MTV in the face of an offer from them to stay with a big raise. We said, 'Screw you, we're going to make a jump to the networks,' we crashed and burned, and there you go.

Was it MTV pushing for recurring characters?

As would be the sort of obvious thing, they said, "You're doing a sketch show, you need to do memorable, sort of franchise-able characters." And we considered ourselves more in the vein of Monty Python, where it wasn't about pop culture references and specific spoofs, and we wanted to do more universal humor that wasn't about repeating the same characters over and over again. As our way of answering their note but doing it in our way, we decided to do the most blatantly obvious franchise recurring character, that's literally nothing more than a name and a catchphrase, and that ironically became our most popular character.

You'd say Louie was your most popular?

We only had a few. We had Louie and Doug and Barry and Levon, and a few others, like Inbred Brothers, but recurring for us means we did two or three of them. Whereas on Saturday Night Live it meant they did it every week for two seasons.

What were some of the other things they were pushing you for, that you either wound up doing or were able to fight off.

One of the most memorable ones was when they wanted us -- they had this set of criteria, that every sketch had to be in the first season. It had to be pop cultural, TV parody, MTV parody or "sick and twisted." Those were the four things, as I recall. We were like, "What?" So we tried to follow that the best we could. You'll see a lot more of that music/MTV spoofs in the first season. After that we stopped doing it so often. But one of the most famous stories, which you might have heard, we did a sketch about "90210," and we had some joke about Dylan and then making reference to Bob Dylan, and then the MTV people were like, "No. Nobody knows who Bob Dylan is. So that got under our claw, so we proceeded in the first season to make a Bob Dylan reference in nearly every sketch.

Like when Doug says, "You mean Uncle Robert?"

Yes, but if you look carefully, it's on the menus, on the walls, it's mentioned under the breath. It's kind of everywhere in the first season.

You watch something like Python or "Kids in the Hall," where it's five or six guys, after a while it becomes relatively easy to tell whose sketch this is, what everybody's sense of humor is. Because you were such a large group, I never was able to peg that with you guys. I guess it's become easier now that you've moved on to different projects, but what are some sketches that you would say typify your sense of humor and what you were trying to do on the show?

"Taco Man," the "Cannonball Run" credits, the dentist who goes not through the mouth, "The Jew, the Italian and the Red-Head Gay." But just to comment on your first part of it, I think more than those other troupes, we had such a long history of doing it together before we went on MTV, that the voice was a lot more unified by the time we got there. Much of the material was really very much a group product. Certainly, I can easily recognize the earmarks of every single guy in the writing. By the time we did it, everyone in the group put their stamp on every sketch.

"Taco Man" is possibly my favorite of them all.

Thank you very much. That was one where it was like, I don't think MTV approved of us to shoot it, but we just had a camera out and did it run and gun while we were filming another sketch nearby.

In listening to the commentaries, it seems like a lot of the ones that people were really fond of were filmed in that way.

The ones that I loved were the ones that we did second unit, just grab a camera and do it ourselves without the crew. There was a certain feel I try to maintain with my web series "Wainy Days," to maintain that spirit of keeping it really small run and gun.

Were you ever as satisfied with the sketches you did on the stage as you were with the ones you could shoot yourselves.

Yeah. Our history was as a live performing troupe. We were very cognizant of not wanting to give up the energy of sketches that are done with an audience... I'm so glad that we had that as an element of the show. We would hire a TV studio director to come in and direct those pieces. I liked the bounce, personally. Not everything needs to be a big visual feast. Not that we necessarily had big visual feasts on everything, but you know.

Well, every now and then you'd do something really visually impressive, like that black and white travel commercial with Kerri (Kenney) and Mike Jann.

Mike Jann in particular is such a visual encyclopedia. I pretty much learned a lot of what I know about directing from watching him. He really had an incredible feel, and still does, for creating those kinds of moods. We did do a lot of cool stuff. The State in college, we were half film majors and half theater majors, so it was in our DNA.

Was there ever any tension between the two factions?

We didn't forget who was who. But you'd be surprised by some of who were the film majors and who were the theater majors. Tom Lennon and Joe Lo Truglio and Kevin Allison were the film majors, and Michael Black and Ben Garant, both of whom have gone on to direct feature films, were theater majors. What's crazy is, of the 11 people of The State, I think 7 of us have directed feature films.

(NOTE: A quick perusal of IMDb finds feature directorial credits for Wain, Jann, Black, Garant, and Michael Showalter, though several others like Lennon and Lo Truglio have directed episodic television.)

What's nice is that sometimes a comedy troupe comes along, then splits up, and that's the last you see of anyone, and for the most part you guys are still out there working.

Part of the reason might be that we've continued to work together. We've all worked together a lot.

Was that something anyone was reluctant to do? To get it back to Python, the Pythons would wax and wane and want to do their own thing.

It was both. We were all very strong personalities, and strong of what we wanted to do. When the group split up, we took our opportunity to make our own voice, but at the same time we recognized that each other were some of the best collaborators and continued to work in various configurations. I love the fact that we're doing it, I still work with many people of the group every year in many things.

How would you describe the difference between what you and Showalter and Mike Black have done with Stella and those projects and what Tom and Ben have been doing?

They've supported themselves? They've made a beautiful livings for themselves and their families, and we've garnered cult fans. That's sort of a kidding way to say the true thing, which is they've done something really right. With "Reno 911," they've been able to keep a very specific and edgy voice and still appeal to a wide audience that has great longevity. And I really admire them. But Stella is something that has lasted in various forms for 12 years now and is still going, and I'm proud of what we did in our shorts and on Comedy Central and on tour. We have a DVD coming out in the fall of our more recent live show.

Is there any chance that the CBS special will be on DVD?

Yes. What's nice is that we actually own that. That's the one thing that we did sort of on our own. So whenever we get a chance to, or somebody gives us the money to do it, we'll release that.

In going over the sketches to make the DVD and do the commentary, how long had it been since you'd watched the show?

Oh, god. I don't think I'd really watched it, other than maybe a tiny snippet here or there, since we did it. So it was a trip. I think you can tell from the commentary that we all felt very old.

Did it all hold up?

I'm teased as the member of the group that's most in love with our own work, but I think it does. I think a lot of it is surprisingly good. I've watched a lot of the pieces and been pleased and kind of scared that we haven't gotten much better than that. Some of the stuff is really really good. And then some of it clearly isn't. Some of it is either just dated or doesn't hold up. I'd put it against any sketch show. I was very happy about "The State."

I'll tell you one thing: a lot of us came to New York City specifically with the goal of being on "Saturday Night Live," as many people do. We're here, the big goal is can we do that. And once we started doing The State, even before we were on MTV, there was this shift where we were, like, "This is cooler than that. We don't need to be on 'Saturday Night Live.'"

Could you give me a couple of examples of either sketches where you were surprised they were as good as they are, or that in retrospect didn't hold up as well?

To be honest, I haven't watched the whole thing through yet. We each took turns on some of the commentaries and I worked a lot on the music stuff. Ones I never really thought much about were some of the more filmic ones, like Mime Crash or International Signs. And some of the stuff that just cracks me up that are just stupid, like "H's and M's," or ones that I've seen a lot because people put them on YouTube, like "Taco Man." But I get a kick because I think they're funny and it's like seeing my old college videos.

And what about ones where you felt they were a product of their times?

I can't think of an example, but believe me, there are plenty.

A lot of you have worked together in things like "Wet Hot American Summer," and you all at least cameo'ed in "Reno 911" and "The Ten," but what are the chances that there might ever be a full-on State movie or TV project?

We did a full show of brand-new material in San Francisco in January. We decided if we were going to get the whole group together, we didn't want to look back on our pasts, but do what we do. We've had various pushes towards doing a movie or a special or a series, there's plenty of interest among ourselves for doing that, but it's certainly a logistical nightmare.

And how was it being together on stage again?

They were great, it was like going back in time. One of the saddest, most tragic things is that the show we did in San Francisco was in a 200-person theater, and the video didn't work. They didn't get the sound or something. Click here to read the full post