I had planned to take lunch at about 12:30 today, but I was working on a project and looked up and found that it was well past 2:00. I turned on Hardball. I am somewhere between amused and frustrated (but mostly amused) at watching the northeastern media elite try to parse the current, controversial statements from Sarah Palin. For better or worse, growing up in the south means that I generally understand what evangelicals mean when they open their mouths. The coded way in which they often speak means that you have to be precise in parsing their words.

Sarah Palin said, in reference to the folks at the McCain campaign that she couldn’t find anyone that she wanted to hold hands and pray with. Repeatedly, Chris Matthews and his guests have stated this as “she couldn’t find anyone to pray with” and then saying that she’s accusing the McCain staff of being godless or something. The operative word in this context is “want”. It’s a judgment that is as much about social attitudes and relationships as it is about religion. Where religion comes in on the thing isn’t “I’m a Christian and you’re not”. It’s something closer to “you’re not my kind of Christian”.

I just watched the series finale for Battlestar Galactica today. I had managed to avoid seeing any spoilers and any discussion of the finale so far. Though I don’t intend to disclose any detailed spoilers, you should stop reading now if you want pristine mind going into the thing.

I hated it. My strongest belief about humanity is that learning and creativity define us as a species. From the earliest bone tools onward, learning and creativity result in technology. We can debate whether specific technologies are used for good or ill. I do not endorse fully unrestricted use of any technology that we can come up with. To me, the BSG finale had a maddening luddite streak to it. It managed to be both nihilistic and naive at the same time. For a show that did such a grand job of examining what it means to be human, the finale was disgustingly anti-humanistic. I’d like to just forget it. I can think of few shows that I’ve really loved which have managed to disappoint me so thoroughly with a planned series finale. There have been plenty of times where I wished things had ended differently for specific characters, where their ultimate fate was counter to the tone of the show or the arc of a specific character. I’m still bothered by the way Wes died in the Angel finale. I’m not bothered that he died. I think, given the finale’s premise, that it made sense for Wes to die. The moment of death was a betrayal of the character. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like the end was a betrayal to an entire show.

I think I’ll just try to forget that final episode.

I had several comments about my last post. They were largely along a similar line. It’s a line I’ve heard before. Essentially, people are bothered by what they see as an anti-feminist message where women are portrayed as blank slates that can, or perhaps need to be, programmed to do various kinds of dangerous or skeevy things. This is precisely what I was talking about when I said that I see Joss Whedon doing things here that other people don’t seem to be seeing. I would say Dollhouse is every bit as subversive of those notions as Buffy was subversive of the notion of the helpless blonde cheerleader who either falls victim to the scary forces in the world or who needs a man to save her. Every bit as subversive. It’s not as over the top. It’s far more subtle. It should be. Thanks to Joss Whedon and a lot of other folks, the TV viewing audience (or at least the right segments of it) are a lot more sophisticated than it was a dozen years ago. The thing about Dollhouse–the problem with Dollhouse from a marketing perspective–is that it doesn’t give away its secrets in the first episode or two. We’re used to getting the hook for a show early and then seeing how it builds over time. I think it’ll take a full season to even get the hook for this thing, though I’m feeling out more and more bits of it over time. What you may have seen as the gimmick behind this show as revealed in the first episode or two isn’t the gimmick behind this show.

If you’ve only seen an episode or two of this show, decided that you knew what it was about, and then quit watching on the grounds listed above, you should reconsider. This is a darker show than what he’s done before. That’s for sure. Whedon himself has said that the premise makes him uncomfortable and, therefore, he’s not surprised when it makes other people uncomfortable.

After the first episode of Dollhouse, I wondered whether I was a moron or just too big of a Joss Whedon fan. The show was so roundly panned by most people I know that I doubted whether the wonderful potential complexity that I saw was really there. People whose opinions I respect on TV shows, on movies, on fiction generally were not very high. Since the days after the first episode, I have largely avoided reading anything anyone I know was saying about the show. I figured I would watch it for however long Fox was willing to keep it on the air and be sad and outraged when they eventually cancel it–probably just as it’s really hitting its stride.

I have been more and more impressed with the show each week. When I have read stuff in the media about the show, it has still mostly been not that positive. A lot of the specific story and plot objections have seemed completely unfounded to me, though. It really seemed to me that they didn’t understand what Whedon is doing with the show. Again, I was starting to wonder whether I was a moron or too much of a fan boy. If the media people (who generally appreciate Whedon’s style) weren’t big on the show, weren’t seeing the layers that I see, then maybe they aren’t there. Maybe the fan boy thing was clouding my judgment. Maybe I looked at the lengthy period of brainstorming and development between Whedon and Dushku prior to actual production as an indicator of quality that wasn’t there.

I feel pretty vindicated after last night.

This is the kind of shit that makes people think that liberals are idiots and people out here are the kings of the idiots. I get the reasons why the policy are in place, but you’ve got to wonder if the people who implement policies like this ever stop to think about whether the totality of consequences from implementing them might do more to harm their goals than help in the long run.