Love Stinks in Pop Culture

What are the best love stories in pop culture, today?

New Year’s Eve? Gack.
Crazy, Stupid, Love? About cheating and divorce.
Just Go With It? Adam Sandler. It’s a love of childish humor.
Breaking Dawn? There we have it.

And before you start going on about, “This is a Twilight bashing post” I’m going to stop you right there.

Yes, it is.

But it’s much more than that.

The concept of love in a movie has been whittled down into this poor excuse for a relationship that is the Twilight saga. And before that, it was a Nicholas Sparks book adapted into a film.

Step 1: Two pretty white people fall in love.
Step 2: One dies.
Step 3: Advertise with a stupid reused poster of two people kissing with the guy holding the cheeks of the girl. (Rain optional)
Step 4: Profit

So, my coworker, who is 10 years younger than I am (damn kids, kidding), asked me, “What was the love story of your day?” Meaning “What did girls and adult females consider the pinnacle of romance back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and phones had mangled fifty foot long cords.”

I thought about it and here’s what I came up with, looking at it generationally (20 year period) from 1978 through 1998. I would have been between the ages of three and 23 during this period.

General Hospital (1978) Luke and Laura
As a kid, I remember two big romantic to dos in the world. Luke and Laura being married and Charles and Diana. Since we are talking about impacting television, readers, or movie goers, I think Luke and Laura win out in that category. However, like Twilight, the beginning of this supercouple involves a bad relationship… including a drunken Luke raping Laura. While Twilight never moves toward sexual assault, there is a case for an abusive relationship.

Empire Strikes Back (1980) Geeks in love?
Well, every preteen in 1983 made the jump to hyper-puberty when Carrie Fisher showed up in the gold bikini on Jabba the Hutt’s party barge, but three years before, romance filled the galaxy as Han and Leia pouted. The already sexual tension filled storyline between the two characters, which kicked off in the first movie, mixed with Irvin Kershner’s direction pretty much set the stage for romance among the stars as Han and Leia smooched in the bowels of a space slug aboard the Millennium Falcon and led to one of the greatest improved lines of all, “I know.”

Why does that work? It seems kind of cocky and prick worthy, which IS Han Solo, but watch that scene directly after the scenes in the Falcon, and in the corridors of Echo Base on Hoth. Han is pretty much saying, “You love me. Why won’t you admit that I am an OK guy and that we could be good together?”

When Leia says, “I love you,” Han could easily say to her, “I love you, too.” He doesn’t. Why? Because he acknowledges that she has taken that step into the abyss and torn down the wall between their feelings. She’s confirming his statement to her back on Hoth about, “…because of the way you feel about me.” This isn’t goodbye. He gets that she gets it and let’s her know that he understands and welcomes what she is saying, not just because of the circumstance they are in at the moment.

Brat Pack Invasion (1984-89) The combination of John Huges and Cameron Crowe
This one spans almost five years, five films, two directors, and 20 plus actors. Probably the biggest comparison can make to teen love and angst comes in the form of Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful and Say Anything. Even though some people often think Say Anything is a John Hughes movie, because of the cast and subject matter, it has nothing to do with Hughes. It’s actually a bit darker in tone because of the plotline involving John Mahoney going to jail. It still follows some of the formula that John Hughes mined for 80s movie gold and it’s still awesome 23 years later.

Whether it be Claire and Bender, Duckie and Andie and Blaine, Samantha and Jake, Watts and Keith and Amanda, or Diane and Lloyd, the history of love and heartbreak is as universal as Shakespeare or even the triangle of Jacob and Bella and Edward. (gack.)

But teen girls everywhere hearted Jake Ryan and Lloyd Dobler. They wanted to be with bad boy John Bender and even sort of pulled for Keith to stop going after Amanda Jones and choose the tomboyish drummer, Watts, who may have resembled them in a way.

John Hughes and Cameron Crowe wrote dialogue that normal teenagers didn’t use out loud but their thoughts mirrored what the characters said on film. It would be another ten years before that kind of sentiment was expressed through scripts spoken by high school kids.

Then there’s this: The ultimate expression of love for millions of guys hurt by the girl they love.

Phantom of the Opera (1986) She chose wrong!
My own wife thinks that Christine should have gone with the Phantom. Of course, she loves Twilight, too.  Well, a lot of women and girls loved the Andrew Lloyd Webber adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel. Though anyone with any kind of theatrical training loathes how this became the standard for musical theater) High School and College Freshman drama geeks who dedicated their lives, or at least an entire wall in their bedrooms, to POTO were worse than Hipsters or Gleeks are today.

Beauty and the Beast (1987-1990) Television Series with Linda Hamilton and Ron Pearlman.
RON FREAKING PERLMAN! Female audiences swooned over the prosthetic faced enhanced Perlman as Vincent. He looked like a cross between the lead singer for Europe and the transformed Michael Jackson at the beginning of Thriller. Of course, that’s understandable because the makeup for both was done by Rick Baker. The relationship between the two transcended looks and worlds and Vincent was probably better looking Fabio in most rights.

Sadly, the show suffered the loss of Linda Hamilton in season three, at her desire. Hey, she didn’t pull a David Caruso. The following year she went full throttle into stardom, reprising her role as Sarah Conner in T2.

Disney Strikes Back (1989-1993)  Four movies that made you fall in love all over again
The Classic era of Disney animated features is speckled with a rich lineup.  Snow White, Cinderella, The Lady and the Tramp, and Sleeping Beauty all had strong romantic themes to them.  We've all, at least, attempted to push a meatball across the plate with our nose or slurped up a single noodle between us and our significant other at one time or another.  But it would be 30 years before the notion of a strong romantic storyline would grace the cels of a Disney animated film.  The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King all had the same things in common; strong female characters, a love story, and Oscar winning songs by Alan Menken, collaborating first with Howard Ashmen then Tim Rice after Ashmen's death in 1991. 

The themes in those three movies resonated for adults as much as they did in children and made Disney the animation powerhouse to beat,until a little company called Pixar animated a few toys.  It also didn't hurt to have some of the top R&B Soul and Pop Music artists record your main theme song.  This was a trend that started with Beauty and the Beast and continued through Tarzan.  Each year becoming a little more ridiculous as they trotted out past their prime pop stars from the 80s like Phil Collins and Michael Bolton.  Sadly, Michael Bolton's best work since then was in an SNL Digital Short called "Jack Sparrow".  Regardless, love was in the air but the heavy handed love song from The Lion King, while extremely popular, its place in the film is a bit lost as the love story between Simba and Nala is a minor one.  That's probably why "The Circle of Life" was also a big hit from the soundtrack, unlike previous years which only had one song on Top 40 radio.

***UPDATE***
The Wonder Years (1988-1993) Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper
I can't believe I forgot this one.   I almost pulled an Entertainment Weekly.  The world of puberty told through the eyes of Kevin Arnold by one of the Sticky Bandits.  The first episode set all the groundwork you needed for romance history.  That one girl in the neighborhood.  The one that was always there, geeky and awkward.  She comes back after one summer and she's transformed into the goddess of your dreams.  Then, you know how it goes, you make plans to get some of that and you envision her dead Vietnam Vet brother protecting her from likes of you.

Kevin and Winnie's was one of those tv romances that worked because it was sweet and innocent.  The show worked because it was life for all of us who grew up with them. It was the romantic equivalent of A Christmas Story for me. 

Unfortunately, YouTube won't let me embed this but it's a great compendium of Kevin and Winnie moments.

My So-Called Life (1994) Angela and Jordan
My friend actually called me on this one.  How could I forget it?  Sad to say, a lot of people did miss this bright spot in the tv spectrum.   It was cancelled before it's time and while it was on par with the WB Explosion a few years later, in terms of pop culture impact, it was too dark for ABC and mainstream programming.

The relationship between Angela and Jordan was one of those troubled teen romances that was a great parallel for how kids acted in the real world.  The dialogue was smart and the angst was almost Shakespearean in nature.  While their relationship wasn't the main focus on the show, it was probably one of the most memorable aspects of it.

***END UPDATE***

Titanic (1997)  The biggest thing that went down wasn't the ship...
Unfortunately, this is probably the single biggest impact on romantic film or television of any age group during my cross section of life. In fact, the biggest thing in this film isn’t the historical account of the ship hitting the iceberg or its sinking, it’s the imagined love story between a lady of status and a third class passenger.

I say, “Unfortunately” because, for how big a film it was, the footprint is almost clichéd and tacky when you think back about it. I mean, no one thought skinny ties and ugly sweaters were enough to give kids the eyeroll treatment of us when we first wore them. But looking back you have to cringe at the notion that we left the house thinking we looked cool in pegged jeans and mullets. The emo generation probably think that loving Celine Dion’s song is the biggest crime against music since Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. And, if I didn’t agree with Kanye in some small way, I’d think it was too, even though I own the Titanic soundtrack.

Let’s face it, it’s a tacky love song and almost an overly melodramatic chick flick, 15 years later. Holy Crap?!?! My wife’s niece wasn’t even alive when this film came out. Gawd, I’m old. Shut the blinds, I don’t want to see the light!

The WB Years (1997, 1998) The second coming of John Hughes for television
As a little upstart network, far down the depth chart of the television dial, The WB cranked up the competition with the big four by populating its lineup with smarty-smart teeny bopper dialogue from maverick's like Joss Whedon and Kevin Williamson. Having a self deprecating and self aware outlook on teen life and romance, they wrote smart dialogue for shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek.

Much like John Hughes, 15 years before them, Joss’ and Kevin’s characters spoke differently than the average real life teen but their take on relationships were a lot more real and acceptable than Stephanie Meyer. Not saying they were any less abusive. It’s not every day that a girl loses her virginity to a hundred year old vampire who then wants to torture and kill her and her friends. But, it’s a better metaphor for giving into peer pressure and sexual urges only to find that what you’ve built up as the end all, be all of human existence turns out to be a monster who doesn’t share your sentiment after the deed is done. Whether or not you have to kill that boy in order to save the world is beside the point.

Dawson grew up with the Nick at Nite version (my generation’s version) of parents and his life was far from realistic but like John Hughes’ characters, everyone rooted for Joey Potter and sometimes Jen Lindley. After all, it was the typical Ginger and Mary Ann contrast of female characters. You want Ginger for sex, but you want to settle down with Mary Ann. Just like girls WANTED John Bender for sex, but wanted Brian Johnson for a loyal and dependable husband figure.

But there is still the eyeroll factor when you look back at the early WB teen romance shows and realize that “I’ll Be” was the “In Your Eyes” of the first season finale and the pinnacle of love songs in which to express your true feelings to.  It was also the soundtrack for episode promos with that raspy voice over that wasn't Don LaFontaine

I weep for the young today.  Why? 

This



LOST Theories For S6E9 Ab Aeterno March 23rd, 2010

I will attempt to tie the following pop culture themes together in summarizing last night’s episode of LOST. A Bar, Bugs Bunny, The Whedonverse, Pulp Fiction, Star Wars, Star Trek, Wargames, The Brady Bunch, Jim Croce, current events involving India and Bangladesh, and Myst.

Do not try this at home. Ok, give me lots of room.

First off, love the show. LOST continues to be a drug that I cannot kick. It’s also a lot like golf. I suck at it. It drives me nuts. However, all it takes is one good drive or putt, or one chip shot out of a bunker and onto green and I am willing to keep coming back. It is the junkie that promises me some real high quality stuff as a sample (Pilot) that hooks me deep only make me pay for more, which turns out to be crap (Nikki and Paulo) and then when I threaten to go somewhere else starts to give me some really quality stuff again (Season 5 and 6.)

Ok, now that the ridiculously thin analogous connections are out of the way, let’s hug it out.

RICHARD ALPERT
"Ab Aeterno" or “from the beginning” is the title and that conjures up all sorts of ideas about struggles that last an eternity. But more importantly, it is about the struggle for the audience to check off their Richard Alpert bingo cards for correct theories. “B-7: He’s a slave” “BINGO!”

So, that brings us to our first theory that gets partially blown out of the water. Back in Sundown, I proposed that Alpert was,

7. Richard Alpert on the black rock as an Egyptian Slave. Something causes the ship to wreck into the middle of the island and the MiB frees him. He was given long life by the MiB as a wish fulfillment but somehow caused MiB’s non corporeal state when he realizes that he’s on the wrong side and takes the role of PR man for Jacob. “It’s nice to see you out of those chains.”

Ok, it’s only slightly wrong. Richard is not Egyptian, he is Spanish or at least a resident of the Canary Islands. He rides home like he’s Hawkeye from The Last of the Mohicans to see his sick wife, Isabella. She needs medicine and gives him her cross as payment to the doctor who turns out to be a dick. If only healthcare reform would have existed in the 19th century. Anyway, Ricardo as he is called accidentally kills the doctor to get the medicine but is too late to save his wife who dies. He is then imprisoned and about to be executed. He asks for absolution of his sins but is told that he does not have the time to make up for it….. Yarrr, there be foreshadowing ahead. Because he can speak a little English he is sold to Magnus Hanso as a slave and bound for the New World, just not the one he thinks.

The weather started getting rough, the Black Rock ship was tossed… right through the head of the statue of Taweret, smashing it into pieces save a foot. It comes to rest in the middle of the island where it is today. That answers one of the fundamental head scratchers since Season One. How the Eff did that ship get so far inland? Now, we have Jonas Whitfield taking out slaves in order to keep himself from a prisoner uprising but he gets yanked through the hold by Smokey the Bad Guy. After attempts to escape, a boar visit, and a wife visit, Ricardo is visited on by one of the residents of Fantasy Island who lo and behold is Smokey, maybe.

The MiB gives him some water and food and tells him he is dead and in hell but there is a way to escape, kill the devil aka Jacob who oddly enough plays Satan in another kick ass show, Supernatural. MiB gives him a knife and tells him to seek out the statue and kill him but remember, earmuffs.

Ricardo heads to the foot and gets disarmed by Jacob who says, “What, me, the devil? Pfft.” Soon we have a reversal of the truth and Jacob tells Ricardo and the audience exactly what is going on. This island is a cork in a bottle. “If I could save time in a bottle…” Inside the bottle is pure evil and the island is the only thing keeping the evil from getting out. The MiB believes that humanity is inherently evil because of their nature meanwhile Jacob wants to prove him wrong. In order to do that he has to keep bring more and more people to the island to put on plays of morality without the influence of himself, which sets the stage for one of the most elaborate barguments in the history of the world. He’s done it before and that’s why Ricardo’s ship crashed on the island. Apparently, Peter Brady, here, didn’t get the lecture about playing ball in the house and broke his mom’s favorite vase. In order to help Jacob stay clear of the game, Ricardo is appointed the advisor or intermediary of the island. That brings us full circle to How Richard got on the island, why he doesn’t age, and what his purpose is. But…… as much as I want to breathe easy and relax now that one huge mystery has been solved I have to cry foul a bit.

One day soon, I will sit my daughter down and have her watch all six Star Wars movies. But I will make her watch them in the order that I had seen them, starting with A New Hope. Why? Because if you start at Episode I, you ruin the “snake in the mailbox” reveal of Empire Strikes Back. Finding out that Vader is Luke’s father makes the scene all the more awesome. But if you go into A New Hope already knowing that Anakin Skywalker IS Darth Vader then you ruin the last three movies. And because George Lucas started in the middle of the story with A New Hope, he sets himself up for a big problem by using the first three movies to explain the origins of how Anakin becomes Vader. He literally wastes so much time in Episode I setting up the chess board that he is forced to cram too much information and back story into Episode II and III and ultimately truncates the best parts of what makes up the given circumstances of Episode IV. The Clone Wars. The Betrayal of The Republic. The Rise of Palpatine as Emperor of The Empire. The same thing happens with Richard Alpert, here.

Since Season 3 we have been given this mystery of who is Richard Alpert and why does he never age. We’ve theorized and speculated for three years as to the reasons behind such a great character and finally we get the brass ring, an Alpertcentric storyline including flash backs and there is so much to say and figure out that the development of that character gets truncated to this, Alpert is a tragic man who committed murder by accident and is now on the island to atone for his sin. He loves and misses his wife and wants to live forever to absolve himself of his guilt. He is simply task man for Jacob bringing people to the island like Juliet and may or may not know how to proceed from here on out. He was shortchanged in the character development because we have less than ten episodes to wrap this all up. If not for Nestor Carbonell’s heartbreaking performance this Everlasting Gobstopper from the Carlton and Cuse Chocolate Factory would have tasted pretty sour.

THE ISLAND
Now, that was the big draw for millions of LOST fans for this episode, but ah, not everything is as it seems. Richards story was merely a backdrop for a bigger mystery to be solved and that mystery was solved a few weeks ago. The Lockeness Monster told Sawyer the island is “Just a damn island.” But it’s more than that. It is the black box stage for the play within a play. It is the sandbox. It is a blank canvas on which the continual struggle to show the true nature of humanity as it is played out over centuries with different actors. Each one is a complex game of tic-tac-toe being played by Jacob and the MiB in order to prove a point. Nobody ever wins. Frankly, it is a mere distraction to pass the time with as a jailer and his prisoner sit upon an island and discuss the meaning of life and the nature of good and evil. What happens on the island is merely a product of what people want to happen. It is basically, the contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. Whoever opens the case sees what they want to see, something valuable. Locke wanted to be able to do the things he could never do again, poof arise and walk. Jack wanted to resolve the issues he has with his father and leadership, poof lead the Losties and somehow, hopefully soon, resolve those daddy issues. Sawyer wanted to find the man responsible for the death of his parents, poof here is Anthony Cooper bound and waiting for you to kill. It is as Ben put it, “The island is a magic box. Inside that box is everything you want or need to fulfill your wishes at a price. It’s the holodeck.

The fate of the island in the sideways flashes is that it sank. Perhaps it sinks because no conclusion came to the argument between Jacob and the MiB and the island merely said, “I’m out of here.” Maybe the creators of LOST are able to turn their own donkey wheel and see the future because this actually happened just recently with New Moore Island. India and Bangladesh have argued for years over ownership of the island. Sounds just like Widmore and Ben.

JACOB AND MIB
I could on for length about the relationship of these two but I will sum it up in for words. Morning, Sam. Morning, Ralph. Ok, for those of you not old enough to remember Saturday Morning Cartoons or Bugs Bunny as a series of short films, let me ‘splain. Actually, let me sum up. Go here.

"Morning Jacob"
"Morning Man in Black"

This entire “experiment” is a bargument, as I said. A distraction to pass the eons as Jacob guards the whole from evil and in that role he keeps the MiB from escaping the island. If he were to be able to leave, the world would go to hell because he would influence that side of our human nature that is evil and we would do bad things. It sounds a lot like Christianity but I think this goes further than that. MiB is evil in the world. The island is a sort of Pandora’s box and Jacob is trying to keep people from opening it. Jacob thinks that if he can prove that humanity is more good than evil and that they can make the right decisions without influence then the MiB has no reason to escape. And he does that by crashing boats and planes into the island to prove his point. Until he does, his will keeps the MiB trapped. Also, he took his body so that he couldn’t just take a boat and leave. Think of the Season One episode of Angel called “That Vision Thing” Angel goes down into a dungeon of sorts and sees a man standing in a cage of fire. He meets Skip and the following dialogue takes place.

ANGEL: Hi.
SKIP: Hi. You know you're not supposed to be here, right?
ANGEL: Yeah. What about him?
SKIP: Oh, him? Oh, he's supposed to be here. Do you have any idea how monstrous a guy has to be before he gets sent to us? We're a *very* high-end institution.
ANGEL: And it's your job to keep him here.
SKIP: Yeah. (Offers his hand) I'm Skip.
(they shake hands)
ANGEL: Angel. So, ah, you live in here, Skip?
SKIP: No. I commute. It's not too bad - about twenty minutes.
ANGEL: Uh, what keeps him in the fire?
SKIP: My will.

That will and the fact that he’s still alive at this point. So, MiB takes measures to try and influence the visitors to the island to do the wrong thing and thereby proving not only his point but also helping MiB escape by killing Jacob. If you’ve ever played the computer game Myst you’ll recognize the struggle by visitors to discern who is good and who is evil. Two brothers are trapped in separate magical books that serve as a prison. The player retrieves pages of these books from magical locations on an island and by inserting them they get more of the story. If they choose to insert the last page in either they release one of the brothers... but it turns out that both brothers are evil and will trap you in their book after you release them. This is the core of the mystery in LOST as to who is good and who is evil and neither one gives you enough information at one time to make a decision. That’s how they recruit sides to their cause, being economical with the truth. In MiB’s case he needs to do multiple things to escape. One, kill Jacob as he keeps him trapped. Two, find a body to inhabit, so that he can leave. Three, kill or convert the remaining list of candidates to keep a new Jacob from stopping him from leaving.

In one of his earliest tries, MiB attempts to get Richard to be the loophole but fails. It took the elaborate “play” of the Oceanic 815 survivors visit to the island to give MiB his best shot, John Locke. Several times, MiB tried to recruit Locke into service. He attempted to suck Locke down into the tunnels in Season One but is thwarted by a stick of dynamite. Perhaps all of this is merely a play with a play within a play and both Jacob and MiB came to the island as part of some sort of playground or sandbox for them to argue in and they themselves are mere actors on a stage.

Ok, I’ve rambled enough. Theory time.

From Sundown the following are now moot.

1. MiB, UnLocke, Flocke, Lockeness, Esau, Nemesis, Not Lock, whatever you call him is a fallen angel, perhaps the devil.

I think the show transcends religion and iconography from religion. If you believe that all religions tell the same stories in different ways with different characters representing God or gods then you can say that the island is simply employing these because they are relatable to the people experiencing them. It draws on several myths and dogmas to create a singular mythology to tell the story. MiB and Jacob seem to predate Christianity. They seem to be flies in the primordial soup. It’s as if MiB is the First Evil from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Jacob is "The Powers That Be" unable to directly influence those champions who are trying to stop evil from getting out of the Hellmouth.

9. Hurley is the key to everything. The last episode is entitled Everybody Loves Hugo. (Highlight this with your mouse to see it.

This is not the last episode, it was just listed last in the available set of titles. The last one is still listed as “TBA” but Hurley may still be the key.

From Dr. Linus the following are now questionable.

1. The island sank after the Dharma Initiative left due to:
     a. The Incident minus the Jughead. Most DI non essential personal were off the island priorAmy, Horace, Roger, Ben)
     b. The building of The Swan by the DI which hit the pocket of energy and with no way to contain it (i.e. Jughead, button) the island sank but not before Dharma Initiative were able to escape.

I now am beginning to believe that the island sank because the MiB escaped. Everything that he has done to get off the island has created a paradox by which the Losties have not interacted with Jacob or the island and therefore the butterfly effect has resulted in MiB proving Jacob wrong and has escaped leaving the island with no purpose…. Alcatraz if you will. It’s a tourist spot for divers.

From Recon the following are now questionable.

4. Jacob and Locke Monster are actually brothers and the whole mother thing will play out a bit more in a final showdown. We already know that Alpert is the only character to have a flashback this season so it stands to reason that any explanations will be done through exposition between characters.
     a. Jacob was loved more than MiB
     b. MiB will be known as either Samuel or Esau

They may yet turn out to be brothers and in that fashion Jacob is his brother’s keeper or jailer in this case. The mommy issue might be a red herring to just get Kate to do what he wants. We know from production notes that Ab Aeterno is the only flash back we will see of these two so no back story will be shown. It will have to be done through exposition. I don’t see that happening.

New Theories

1. The season will end…
   
   
   1. With Jack and Locke sitting on the beach having the same conversation as Jacob and the MiB did with a ship off in the distance. Bringing everything full circle.
   2. The MiB will finally “get it” and Jacob/replacement will release him and the show will end like those Looney Tunes shorts where the time clock whistle blows and Jacob and MiB punch a clock and go home, “Night Sam. Night Ralph.”
   3. All of this is simply a Role Playing Game, Company Retreat type exercise for the sole purpose of a team building exercise for employees of Hurley’s businesses and he is taking part. The last scene will be them all leaving on an Oceanic jet, first class. Call it the “Snow Globe Dream Ending”

Deeb a deeb a deeb that’s all folks.

It's Not a Tumor

Oh, wait. it is!

The plot device. In the hands of a skilled writer it can be apparent in the story yet unnoticed until it is used to resolve the action. In the hands of a bad writer, it can bring the action to an abrupt halt or throw everything out of joint in a contrived revelation to the characters. An example that crosses both boundaries of good and bad is the Ruby Slippers in The Wizard of Oz. The Ruby Slippers are the main motivation behind the Wicked Witch of the West’s pursuit of Dorothy, even more so than the fact that she did a house drop off the top ropes onto her sister. However, after the witch is destroyed they serve no real purpose until we she misses the balloon ride to Kansas. Feeling distraught, she is then told by the Glinda that she could use the Ruby Slippers to River Dance her way back home. The whole time she had the method to get home but it was a little contrived that after all this, all she had to do was click her heels. It’s a bit of lazy writing in my opinion.

The same goes for television shows, primarily in the genre of a soap opera. Now before I get blasted here, you can classify a Soap Opera as something you watch during the daytime while eating bonbons or you can look at what it is derived from, the serial drama. In both cases, the storyline progressives across multiple episodes, sometimes seasons, and yet sometimes they are tidied up or ended with a bad plot device.

In one of my many white board sessions, trying to explain how LOST’s time travelling conundrums work, I felt a sharp pain in my head. I was getting frustrated because I get what’s going on due to my several years of watching these kinds of shows like Quantum Leap and Back to the Future. She can’t grasp the fact that both sets of characters are being shown on screen in the same episode but 33 years apart from each other. Maybe the lack of the “Whoosh” sound is the problem. Anyway, that sharp pain didn’t give me a lot of worry, but considering recent events like my Mother in Law having a brain tumor and one of my friends from high school dying from brain cancer, I thought that maybe this was more than just a headache. It’s not. Don’t worry. You have to have a brain before you can get cancer in it.

But that sparked a longer debate between me and the misses. It seems that a lot of top notch television shows are using brain tumors to further their storyline or resolve them. If your DVR is at 98% because you’re behind on shows like I am, you may want to skip the next paragraphs.

ER – Dr. Mark Green
In the series 15 year history, it’s not hard to believe that a main character would develop a brain tumor. In this case, the actor wanted to move on to other opportunities and his character was written out after dying from a brain tumor.

HOUSE – Dr. Gregory House
OK, this is a false positive. House only faked a brain tumor but still, I’m seeing a pattern.

Grey’s Anatomy – Izzie Stevens
There it is. The tri-fecta of television doctor’s “suffering” (I know...see HOUSE) from a brain tumor. In one of the most bizarre turns on the tube, Izzie’s skin cancer metastasizes into a brain tumor. The first clue may have been her hoping in bed with dead Denny Duquette. The real clue for those with forensic television plot line backgrounds would have been the clinical trials that Derek and Meredith had been conducting. Bad bad bad.

Bones – Seeley Booth
At least by giving Booth a brain tumor, we get some hysterical hallucinations. I don’t mean dead soldiers helping him out of a ship that is rigged to explode. I mean seeing and talking to Stewie Griffin, an animated character from the Family Guy. It also drives the plot to make Booth the Baby Daddy to Bones’ Bundle.

All My Children – Jonathan Lavery
Of course, a Soap Opera is the brain tumor’s playground or at least the devilish writer’s playground. Although, it happened three years ago, I point out this instance because the discovery of a brain tumor in this character lead to a Deus ex machine type resolution to his storyline. Lavery came onto the scene, physically abused his girlfriend, killed his brother, and tried to blow up his other brother’s wife and friend, killed yet two more people (one a prominent character on the show), and then supposedly blew up in an explosion. After awhile it was discovered that his sister was taking care of him and he was admitted to a hospital and operated on to remove the evil tumor that caused all his mayhem, leaving him with the mental state of a child.

Eli Stone – Eli Stone
Not a brain tumor, but an aneurysm drives the entire plot of this prophetic show about a Lawyer with a conscience. Yeah, it got cancelled. Too unbelievable. Not, the fact that he had visions of George Michael dancing in his living room but that he had a conscience.

Desperate Housewives – Noah Taylor
Before zipping ahead five years into the future….yeah OK, Hello? LOST much? The show had a character named Zach whose mother not only killed herself in the pilot but provides narration from beyond the grave. Turns out Zach was adopted and his maternal grandfather, dying of a…you guessed it, brain tumor, was willing to leave everything to him if he proved himself a man. He did by unplugging grandpa’s life support, killing him.

Life on Mars – Det. Sam Tyler
Being an import of the BBC version of the show, it was hard to believe that the reason behind the problems with Sam Tyler’s grasp of reality would be a brain tumor. Yet, fans speculated on message boards and forums that the series would end with him having one. Nope, turns out he’s an astronaut with a garbled simulation running in his head….probably on Vista.

The Unusuals – Eric Delahoy
Trying hard to be like M*A*S*H and actually scoring well in some areas, this comedy drama has one of its characters dying of brain cancer. This leads to his over the top attempts to either be a hero or kill himself.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Joyce Summers
Ok, it was 10 years ago, but come on, but one of the best uses of a brain tumor in a show was the fifth season of Buffy. Although, the brain tumor was successfully removed, an aneurysm ultimately killed off Joyce Summers and leaving Buffy to not only save the world from the Hellmouth, but also run a household and help raise her teenage sister, Dawn. One of the best episodes of the series, The Body, featured no soundtrack and delves into the human nature of its lead character, a strong heroic figure that can kill demons, vampires, and all other sort of supernatural beings yet cannot save her own mother from death by natural means.

Well, that’s all I got but I’m sure I’ve missed a few and hopefully, you all will feel free to point them out. It is sweeps after all. There’s bound to be a few more shows out there with characters who have brain tumors. In fact, I think Fox just greenlit a show this fall about a brain tumor living in New York City, trying to make it as an actor. Is he kidding? Good night, everyone.