Lets just get this out of the way, yes, Superman renounces his U.S. citizenship in Action Comics #900. It has been all over the media for the past several days, but it sure would be nice if it wasn’t quite so obvious that the majority of those writing this up as news had so obviously not read the story.

Since this past week’s comic books hit shops, the media has been running the below panel over and over with no surrounding context.  They have written about how this is indicative of the left infiltrating the media, how it is another example of trying to advance the United Nations agenda and on and on and on.

Unlike other blogs about this one panel, lets actually tell you what happens in the story.  Superman is summoned to Camp David and speaks with the presidents National Security Advisor who wants to know what Superman was thinking.  Superman quickly notes the snipers in the woods with Kryptonite bullets in their guns and is less than pleased that they think he might cause trouble to the point that such a measure is needed.

Despite the threat from the woods, Superman tells the story of how he  headed to a protest in Iran and hovered in Azadi Square for 24 hours, not speaking, not doing anything, just hovering.  Some people throw things at him, others throw things at his feet in a sign of respect.  At the end of the 24 hours he leaves as silently as he arrived.  The ranks of the protesters had grwon from 120,000 to 1,000,000 while he was there, but he still felt it did no good as Iran’s president made no moves to change anything.  At that point the damage is done and international incident has begun because Iran believes he came there at the behest of the United States President.

The national Security Advisor asks if it was a wise move, and Superman says it wasn’t but that he now sees … cue the above panel.  He goes on to say the world is too small, too connected now.  ”I’m an alien, Mr. Wright.  Born on another world.  I can’t help but see the bigger picture.  I’ve been thinking too small.  I realize that now.”  As he leaves he tells Wright about seeing a policeman in Iran point a rifle at a protester and how the citizen reacted by handing him a flower, and how that was incredibly brave.

It’s a short story clocking in at a mere nine pages.  It’s written by David S. Goyer who has written such movies as Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, so it’s written by someone who knows the type of story to create. There is no guarantee that this decision will have any lasting impact on the character, and may just be a one-shot, “what if …” type of tale, we’ll have to see.

Beyond the obvious fact that next to no one that wrote this event up actually read the story, I was shocked by at least one author thinking it was appropriate to take a shot at the intellect of the readers. Cal Thomas at Fox News said, “Construed? Would comic book readers have heard of such a word?” Yes sir, we have heard of “construed”, have you heard of “incompetent reporting”?  Since you failed to contextualize the statement Superman made, I’m guessing you’re quite familiar with it.

Want another example of how people writing about this story had no clue what they were talking about?  I give you Hollie McKay, also of Fox News:

… he says in a cell in the issue.

Cell … okay, first off, could you have possibly meant “cel”, as in an animation cel?  Or, you could have, I don’t know, called it a “panel” as the boxes on a comic book page are called that.  Yes, according to Dictionary.com, cell can be defined as “any of various small compartments or bounded areas forming part of a whole,” however, there is a term in the industry for it, you could have at least taken a moment to look it up.

BoingBoing may have been the worst for putting this story into context as they only posted the one panel and, “Superman announced today in Action Comics #900 that he is renouncing his US citizenship.” There was a hyperlink to the ComicAlliance story on the event, but really, you post just the one panel?  Nah, that’s not just going to inflame some people.

Context, folks.  Context.

What really gets me is how everyone seems to be hung up on his mentioning he was going to the United Nations to renounce his citizenship.  Posts and comments alike were talking about how he would now be a “U.N. Stooge.”  Call me crazy if you must, but if you were a hero recognized as an American and you wanted to tell all of the countries of the world at once that your actions should never be “construed” as the policy of said country, wouldn’t that be the most convenient place to do so?  Yes, I realize a lot of people have a mistrust of the U.N., and that’s all fine and well, but again, you want to get the most bang for your buck in a situation such as this, that is where you go.  Superman never said, “I’m going to now take orders from the General Assembly of the United Nations.”

What saddened me even more than the poor journalism was a lot of the comments I saw flying.  The stereotype of comic book readers as maladjusted loners who live in dank basements still seems to be alive and well.

• Grown men and women don’t need “graphic novels”. If “we” stop reading them, they go away, as I said, because kids generally don’t read them at all any longer. Grow up men, stop acting like teens, let this monstrosity die a nice natural death. – The Blaze
• You must waste a lot your time in your mothers basement reading them … - The Blaze
• I think you are probably a little too old for this and should get out of your mother’s basement once in a while. – Fox News

Oh yes, the good old “basement” insult.  Pepper it with some maturity comments and you’ve got a classic.  Sure you don’t want to throw in some pimple and weight barbs while you’re at it?

I think what surprised me the most about this whole thing is … when did Superman gain U.S. citizenship? Yes, his alter ego of Clark Kent has it, but when did “Superman” receive it?  He is an alien that crash landed in Kansas, the persona of Superman is by definition an illegal alien … literally.  The world inside the comics knows he is from Krypton, I am not aware that Superman has ever taken the citizenship test.  Perhaps I missed the thrill packed issue “Superman Takes His Citizenship Test”, and it’s just panel after panel of him waiting for his number to be called.

Lastly, I have to wonder why this was even a story.  Isn’t there enough going on in the world that the actions of a comic book character shouldn’t even register on our radars at this point?  You know, I heard a rumor recently that Shaggy and Scooby may have actually been high all these years, anyone want to run a story on that?

Earthquakes, floods, unsafe nuclear reactors, massive tornado outbreaks and a host of other issues, and the media spends this week focused on a fictional character renouncing citizenship he never had and two people getting married in another country.

I love the media.

It’s episode #142 and the dogs return to co-host this week.

Updates on grandma.

Two and a Half Men re-imagined without Charlie Sheen.

The Avengers begins filming.

Did Apple buy iCloud.com?  What are they building?

Change your password if you’re a member of the PlayStation Network.

A whole bunch about changes coming to SeanPAune.com and Scatercast.

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The final trailer for Transformers Dark of the Moon has been released in lead up to its film’s July 1st release date.

Although the first two films were painful, and the third may be even more so due to being in 3D, it almost feels like a job now to finish this mess off.  While the first film was a trainwreck, at leas it was no Revenge of the Fallen.

The trailer does not show some of the characters we already know about such as the Wreckers (the three NASCAR cars spotted on the Chicago set), the red Ferrari, Megatron’s semi truck form, the firetruck we now know to be Sentinel Prime and so on.  You do get a good look at Shockwave (around the 1:29 mark) and Laserbeak (1:52 mark), but that’s about it for new characters.

This one is sure to suck as bad as the first two, but it somehow would feel wrong to not finish the series off.

Finally, the final Harry Potter film is on its way to theaters, and I for one couldn’t be happier this whole thing is coming to an end.

When I reviewed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows back in 2007, I was less than kind to the book.  I felt J.K. Rowling had shown herself to be an extremely weak writer that had lost her way in the story two volumes before.  While the overall story still has some charming aspects, the general arc of the story was very poorly thought out and constructed.  The final installment was just a giant mess, but yet there is still a part of me that wants to see it … I just won’t see it in the theater.

While the books had their issues, the movies have taken the worst parts of the and made them even more unbearable by trimming other portions, adding other scenes, changing locations for events and more.  I gave up caring about them several installments ago, but with the release of this final movie, i really does feel like the whole thing is coming to an end.  Supposedly no more books will be written, and the actors have all said they are moving on, so at last the world of Harry Potter seems to be coming to a close, and I for one welcome it.

In the meantime, enjoy the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 trailer

I very rarely talk about the music on this site any more, but when I do, you can be pretty sure it’s going to be about the greatest band on the planet, Flogging Molly.

No, I haven’t gone to see them in concert again (though I would love to), but it is about the fact you can now pre-order their new album, Speed of Darkness.  Due for release on May 31st, the new album is the first from their own record label that they have formed named Thirty Tigers.  Why is this exciting?  Because it means the band will make that much higher of a percentage from the sales.  Good for them, they deserve it.

While you can order it from your usual locations, I hope you’ll take a moment to consider ordering it from their own site at FloggingMolly.com.  You can get it on CD, vinyl, MP3 or FLAC format.  You can go as basic as you want or go for various “fan packages” with exclusive bonuses.  (yeah, I went for the $64.99 Super Deluxe CD pack … call me a sucker if you must)

Below is a live performance of the first single from the album, “Don’t Shut ‘Em Down” at this year’s Coachella concert.  While I actually didn’t thrill to this song the first time I heard it, once again Molly has proven you really have to hear their songs in a live performance setting to dig them, and this song immediately grew on me.

In the age of blogs being required to disclose everything, I can tell you I am making absolutely no money from this post, it’s not a paid placement or anything else, but if I can’t take a post to promote my favorite band, what’s the point of having a blog?

BBC America has once again shown that it has obviously completely abandoned its original mission statement of bringing British television to American shores.

Just last month I wrote about how BBC America has forgotten its roots, enough so that I was even prompted to write to the network to express my dismay at its changing ways.  While I certainly didn’t expect to have them email back saying they had realized the error of their ways and they would change immediately, I did at least receive an acknowledgement.  They said it would be passed on to the proper department yada yada yada.

Apparently it didn’t get passed on or just no one cares.

As has been common knowledge for several days now, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica series will be joining the network’s Saturday night sci fi lineup this summer.  The British connection?  Jamie Bamber that played Lee “Apollo” Adama, is British.

Well, good to know it really only takes one British actor for a series to qualify for BBC America now.  I mean, why in the world would they want to broadcast any more quality programming from their home country when they can just show us endless repeats of Top Gear and sci fi shows that happen to star one British actor?

It’s sad that I am getting the majority of my British programming now from watching Netflix of Amazon Prime Videos.  And if things continue the way they have been with the channel, my gu tells me that won’t be changing any time soon.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Battlestar Galactica, but does it really belong on BBC America?  Nope.  Will the network listen?  Nope.  Will I continue to complain about this?  More than likely.

Yesterday I started writing up what I think is wrong with American television.  To be honest, when I started I figured it would be one post, and all done.  As I continued to write I realized there is so much wrong with our system that there was no way it could be restricted to just one post without being insanely long.  So, here you are, part 2 of one man’s thoughts on what is going wrong on our television screens.

To briefly recap, in part 1 I discussed that endless renewals lead to writers not knowing how long to stretch out a story, and also how the length of our seasons are just too much to maintain quality.

Reality Television

Reality television seemed like an okay idea when it started, but then networks discovered that they can produce them for next to nothing and they started going wider and wider with their ideas of what would make a good show.  Now we can’t seem to escape them, and if you even bother to have your television on any more, you’re going to run of these highly questionable ideas.

While I can take things like Deadliest Catch or Ice Road Truckers as these are real jobs with potentially dire consequences, we now have things like Storage Wars.  If you haven’t caught this gem of a show as of yet, consider yourself blessed.  Where shows such as the aforementioned Deadliest Catch never seemed forced, Storage Wars is just an endless series of scenarios that feel scripted with “people,” although perhaps they would be better referred to as “characters,” that seem to amazingly have short stories that are always wrapped up in 30 minutes.

And that says nothing of the concept.  This is a show about people that travel from one storage facility auction to another, buying up lockers that people failed to pay their bills on.  I get that some people make a living this way, but who was the lunkhead sitting around at A&E (you know, the “Arts & Entertainment” network?) that thought this would somehow make engaging television?

This says nothing of the copycat shows that seem to follow a successful reality show.  Ace of Cakes begot Cake Boss, Ghost Hunters unleashed a slew of much lower quality paranormal shows, Bridezillas wrought a slew of wedding shows and on and on and on.  This says nothing of shows spun off of each other.  How many Real Housewives of … does the world really need?

“Reality television,” and I use the term very loosely, has turned into the cess pool people always thought it would become, if not worse.  How did anyone ever think Mounted in Alaska, a show about taxidermy in, you guessed it, Alaska, was a winning idea?

Sadly, so long as these shows are cheap to produce and bring in enough advertising dollars to turn a profit, they will continue to proliferate.  Course, if someone wanted to start a show about professional bloggers … Blogging Wars?

The Summer

Just like taking the summer off is an outdated concept for schools, so should it be for television in general.  While I stated in part 1 that seasons were too long, and some could see this as a contradiction, it isn’t.  Follow the HBO formula I mentioned yesterday of shorter seasons and launch some quality shows.  I know some have attempted this, but they always end up trying to launch risky shows that no one would watch no matter when they are on.  Look at Hell’s Kitchen, yes it’s a reality series, but yet it keeps coming back every summer to great ratings.  Big Brother is another summer staple that, while getting more horrific with each passing season, just goes to prove that people crave new content even in the summer months.

Instead of just filling the summer schedule with reruns, fluff and shows that shouldn’t get on the air at all, lets try some short, well thought out and, most importantly, not just reality seasons in these months.  Lets get something on the air that is actually worth watching and perhaps the networks would finally wake up to the fact that essentially taking three months off a year is just ridiculous.

No, I’m not holding my breath for this one to come to pass.

The System is Broken

There is no doubt that the television system is broken, but it isn’t hopeless.  It would simply take some people with brains and guts to change the system, but why would they want to do that and risk their jobs?  Sadly, I don’t see things changing in the American television landscape any time soon, and my gut tells me that is just going to lead to me dropping even more shows like I’ve done over the past few weeks.

If I was to really analyze all of the problems in TV at this time, it wouldn’t probably turn into a week long series, but I imagine both the readers and myself would get bored to the tears before we got to the end.  I do, however, encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments below, and perhaps it will spark further ramblings from me on where this American institution has gone so badly off the rails.

Only 20 this week, blame sick relatives.

FunJug.com

• The T-Mobile Royal Wedding
• How to Bugs Bunny Your Kid
• Puppy Is Soooooo Tired
• Leaking Roof Surprise
• Real Madrid Player Drops Copa del Rey Trophy Under a Bus
• Little Thor
• Saturday Shorts: Attitudes And Health

SeanPAune.com

• New Tsunami Video Shows Just How Fast it Came
• Hoover Vacuums Pulls Advertising From ABC Over Soap Cancellations
• Sony Agrees to Help Finance James Bond 23 & 24
• Why I Quit How I Met Your Mother
• Why I Quit The Celebrity Apprentice
• Scattercast Episode #141: You’ve been … THUNDERSTRUCK!
• What’s Wrong With American Television – Part 1

TechnoBuffalo.com

• Toshiba Regza AT300 Android 3.0 Honeycomb Tablet Unveiled
• Tablet Comparison: Which Tablet is Right for You? (Infographic)
• HTC Sensation to Launch June 8th?
• BlackBerry PlayBook Coming to Sprint on May 8th?
• Flashback Friday: The Age of PDAs
• The Lack of LTE in the iPhone 5 Just Won’t Matter

I’ve been discussing this week why I’ve quit various shows such as How I Met Your Mother and The Celebrity Apprentice.  While I had specific reasons for quitting this two shows in particular, in general I am becoming very disenchanted with the current offerings on television, and I think there are some very specific trends that are contributing to it.

The Endless Renewals

In general, when you’re writing a story, you have a beginning, a middle and an end plotted out in your mind.  When you are dealing with a show such as the afore mentioned How I Met Your Mother, they do have an ending planned, but the problem is that they don’t know how long the middle will be.  CBS will continue to renew the series for as long as the show makes them money, but the issue is that this concept does not serve the story in any way.  By never knowing when they will end, the creators have to keep drawing things out to the point that it bores the audience and destroys any good will you may have once felt towards the series.

You look at a show like LOST, which I never really cared for, the producers at least went to ABC and worked out a firm end date so that they would know how long they needed to structure the story for.  What a concept.  Despite the fact the series still brought in ratings and income, the producers knew they needed an end date so they could better serve the story, and even more amazing is the fact the network agreed to it.

Now turn your attention towards other countries and they have no problem with the idea of making a series for a limited time no matter how popular it may be.  A good case study is the British version of The Office.  Even though the series was a huge success, series creator Ricky Gervais knew he only felt comfortable taking the story so far, and he ended it.  Yes, he came back to do two special episodes, but they served to wrap up story lines and did not feel overly factitious.  All told the story was played out over 14 episodes, contrast this with the American version that will hit 152 episodes by the end of this current seventh season.  Yes, seven seasons and over ten times as many episodes.  Does no one else see an issue with this idea?  I walked away from the British version of the show feeling satisfied, not like I had been beaten over the head with a story concept.  (Congrats to Mr. Gervais, however, as he is still collecting royalties on the series)

The Structure of Our Seasons

The average length of an American television season is 22 to 24 episodes in length, and it usually runs from Sept. to May of the following year.  While there are breaks built into the filming season, that is still an awful lot of content to create in a nine month period.  Yes, there is a team of people to work on any series, the pace of creation is an intense one, and you can quite often see a lull in the creativity around the middle of the season.  The beginning is a high note as everyone is fresh and energetic, and the ending is again on a high as everyone is ready for their break, and they know they have to end on an upbeat to get people to come back the following season.

Again, look to other parts of the world and you will find most seasons are around six to 13 episodes in length.  This allows the creators to work in shorter bursts, keep themselves from burning out and it makes for higher quality.  Even look to cable channels here in the United States such as HBO, Showtime and Starz.  Ever wondered why seasons of their shows tend to be 13 episodes long or shorter?  It just makes sense, and it works.  Yes, they do run for several seasons at times, but keeping the seasons short allows them to more time to draw their storylines, to take breaks between runs and just be able to keep things more fresh in general.

Come Back for Part 2

While I originally thought I would be able to hit on all my points in one post, it is just going to take far longer than I expected (translation: There is just way too much wrong with our television to cover it in one post).  Check back tomorrow for part two.

It’s episode #141 and the dogs decide to co-host this week.

Updates on grandma.

So long to Elisabeth Sladen. She will be missed.

Thoughts on the future of Scattercast.

And it looks like I’m going off on another vacation … I hope.

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There is a certain point where reality shows run their course, and The Celebrity Apprentice has definitely reached that point.

As with my story of quitting How I Met Your Mother, I have just reached  point with the entire Apprentice franchise where I just can’t stomach it any more.  Having watched everything up to this 11th season, and including the Martha Stewart spinoff, I’ve watched everything that has aired for this series thus far.  However, when we got to the Sunday April 10th episode (which I didn’t watch for a few days), I finally had my suspicions confirmed that Trump doesn’t base his decisions on anything other than ratings potential, and that has made me finally just drop the show.

In this particular episode, Mark McGrath was fired despite the fact that the clients, Trump’s children/advisors and all the contestants called for the firing of Gary Busey.  The problem is, Busey is more marketable than McGrath, so Trump mysteriously decides that it’s actually McGrath that needs to go despite Busey’s horrible performance in the task.  Yeah, that makes total sense.  While I had always figured the more controversial person was kept for ratings chances, it had never been quite this obvious before.

It doesn’t really matter in the larger scheme of things, and I’ve since heard Busey was fired in the following episode, but I just can’t be bothered any more.  Perhaps I was slightly influenced by quitting How I Met Your Mother in the same week, and it feels like it’s time to cleanse myself of shows I am watching now more out of habit than any actual desire.  Perhaps it is my collector mentality from the days of comic books, but I always feel like if I start something than I should follow it through to completion, but I’m learning you can indeed drop a show without feeling guilty.  I’ve done it in the past, but it’s been rare, and now I plan to make it a bit more frequent of a habit as I actually find it rather liberating.

I have no delusions about just how realistic “reality shows” are, but when you’re this glaringly obvious with your manipulations, give your audience some credit for at least having two brain cells to rub together.

Be sure to come back Saturday when I discuss what I think has gone horribly wrong with American television in general.

As of Monday, April 11th, I officially became an ex-fan of How I Met Your Mother. I simply couldn’t take any more of this show.

Normally someone quitting their viewing habits of a show goes without mention, but considering this is a show I at one time loved, I almost felt an obligation to air my reasons.  What had started as a show with a cute concept has slowly morphed over six seasons into something akin to punching yourself in the face; yeah, you know you shouldn’t, but you keep doing it anyway.

The show began with the idea that Ted (Josh Radnor, but voiced by Bob Saget in the future scenes) was telling his two children in 2030 about how he met their mother.  What has followed is six seasons of the most long winded (and inappropriate) story ever told to children.  We have followed every detail of this man’s life without ever actually meeting the mother, and with the news that the series has been renewed through season 8, my hopes for this story ever reaching a satisfactory conclusion quickly dwindled.

The problem is that the creators painted themselves into a corner early on.  Once we meet the mother, would the audience really care what happened?  We obviously know the marriage is at least somewhat successful and produces two children, so they had to hide the mother from us.  We have been treated to an endless string of girlfriends that we know aren’t the mother because we’ve known since season 1 that a yellow umbrella is involved with her introduction, and we also know that Saget’s voiceovers keep telling us enough info to know we are watching another pointless relationship.

Add in the fact that Radnor is simply not a good actor, and you get a main character you just don’t care about.

I got to the point where I kept watching the series for Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan, but it got to a point where I couldn’t bring myself to keep coming back just for those two.  The writing had turned so formulaic that even those two couldn’t elevate it any more.  That is no slam on either of them, they aren’t miracle workers, and they do the best job they can.

During the April 11th episode, I did something that I’m not sure I’ve ever done with a series, and that was to not even complete the episode.  It was that bad.  I turned it off with about 10 minutes left and decided I was done.  Come the 18th, there was a new episode, and instead of telling my TiVo to record it, I just sailed on by.

I wrote a similar post back in Sept. when this season started, but I decided to stick it out, thinking that surely the mother would show up this year.  There has been some talk of “hints” by the end of the season, but I’m sorry, after six seasons, hints just aren’t going to cut it any more.    Either you give some sort of pay off, or the continually weakening writing, and the insufferable acting of Radnor will finally drive people away as it has with me.

Remember folks, I’m not alone in some of my feelings.

Be sure to come back tomorrow when I discuss when I’ve quit The Apprentice, and on Thursday when I discuss what I think has gone horribly wrong with American television in general.