Month: April 2002

Ladies and gentlemen, once again, the Friday Five.

1. What’s your favorite TV show and why?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are other shows I admire and enjoy — Alias, Angel, 24, The West Wing, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Six Feet Under, a whole crapload of Cartoon Network programs — but every time I watch Buffy I’m reminded why, after six years, it remains my favorite. Its stories are built on nuances, details. The writers are not afraid to hurt the characters, give them difficult choices and let them make the wrong decisions. Actions have consequences. These are characters who are all too often too human. These are characters who fail. Plus, there’s kick-ass action, women with really nice breasts, and funny dialogue, so you really can’t lose. My cable company doesn’t offer UPN, so I’ve been having episodes mailed to me three-at-a-time from an acquaintance in California…which should give you some sense of how much I like the show.

2. Who is your favorite television star?

I don’t know if I have a favorite, per se. Looking over my favorites, I notice they’re almost all ensemble pieces. Maybe Colin Mochrie, though. He’s exceptionally good at what he does. And he’s perfectly matched with co-star Ryan Stiles.

3. What was your favorite TV show as a child?

Maybe The A-Team. Before that, probably The Muppet Show. We had tapes and tapes of episodes — before, of course, my sister “accidentally” recorded over everything, including the video my father had shot of us at Christmases and birthdays — and Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear are lasting influences on my life. Wocka wocka wocka!

4. What show do you think should have been cancelled by now?

Hmm, let’s see…The O’Reilly Factor, Fox & Friends, Hannity & Colmes…heck, can’t I trade Fox News in for something else, like UPN? (God, did I actually just say that?)

5. What new show do you hope escapes the axe this season?

There are shows from this season which I like that have already been cancelled (The Tick) or which amuse me, but not enough to watch with any regularity (Andy Richter Controls the Universe). There are really only two shows I’ve watched this season to care if they come back — 24, to which I came late but have stuck with ever since, and Alias to which I am shamelessly addicted. The latter has already been renewed, and, while I love 24, I’m not sure a second season with the same cast and same basic premise could work.

Spring was here.

I know it was.

I have the calendar to prove it.

There were half-days and false starts

and light snow into the first week of April,

but it was here all the same.

The birds knew it,

even if the trees did not.

But the birds are, let’s face it, tourists —

half the year here, half the year there —

and they are conversant in the language of change.

They see it coming

and are not surprised to see it go.

They witness the world with very different eyes.

They are creatures of transition.

We who are knee-deep in change do not recognize it as it happens.

If you stand in a river and cannot see the shore,

will you know it is a river,

or only that there is water lapping at your legs?

We have seasons thrust upon us,

and if they only last a week,

we may never know they’ve come and gone.

Spring is such a simple word, so easily lost.

There’s no weight to it like winter,

like heavy blankets wrapped around your bones,

or the cold that creeps like ivy along your skin.

Spring is a farewell to winter’s ghosts, a rebirth,

that moment in between.

Perhaps it isn’t meant to last.

Perhaps it’s just an invocation against all that’s come before it,

and like all magic words, once spoken,

has no power except in memory.