AS SEEN ON PEEP TV

They had the third annual Peep Show down in Washington DC, in which contestants had to build dioramas using those sickening marshmallow treats.

The winner was "NightPeeps", a recreation of Hopper's classic painting. But among the entries, this one caught my fancy, "As Seen On Peep TV": Apparently there are 16 "As Seen On TV" products in the picture. And I guess that's Bunny Mays on the TV itself!

Happy Easter!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

(Thanks to me brother Bill-O for clueing me in about this!)

AS SEEN ON TV: HOLY WEEK IN REVIEW

Here is a list of the actors we've seen this past week in the "As Seen On TV" feature, all of whom appeared in the mini-series 'Jesus Of Nazareth':

The Virgin Mary - Olivia Hussey

John the Baptist - Michael York

Caiaphas - Anthony Quinn

Nicodemus - Sir Laurence Olivier

Pontius Pilate - Rod Steiger

Judas Iscariot - Ian McShane

Mary Magdalene - Ann Bancroft

Jesus Christ - Robert Powell

BCnU!
Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV: JESUS OF NAZARETH

Matthew 28:1-10
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

Happy Easter!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

IT'S NOT ME. IT'S YOU.

Nothing is official yet, but 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' may have joined the following shows last night:

'Now & Again'
'Soap'
'Coronet Blue'
and maybe 'Kyle XY'. (I'm still five episodes back on that show. Saving them for a rainy day... a rainier day.)

That is, in the face of cancellation, they finished on a cliff-hanger in the hopes the network would have to bring them back to see it resolved.* But in each of those cases, it was not to be; and 'T:TSCC' may be joining their club.

On the other hand, there's the American version of 'Life On Mars', which was given the chance to resolve its mysteries before cancellation. And was the audience in general thankful?

Apparently not.

I have no faith in the general TV audience.

Just sayin', is all.....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

*Actually, in the case of 'Coronet Blue', by the time the network decided to bring back the summer hit, everyone involved had already signed contracts for new projects.

BLIPVERTS OF OZ II

Later this year we'll be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the movie version for "The Wizard Of Oz". And advertisers have been taking advantage of that since the beginning of the year.

So far, we've seen blipverts from GE, Chips Ahoy!, and Orange with "Wizard Of Oz" themes. And now Somerset Mortgage Lenders has jumped on that bandwagon, playing up the qualities to be found in Dorothy's friends: BCnU!
Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV: MARY MAGDALENE

For the penultimate spotlight in the "As Seen On TV" salute to the 1977 mini-series 'Jesus Of Nazareth', Mary Magdalene is featured - a woman who has come under renewed scrutiny in recent years by Biblical revisionists and theorists. I have to give credit to director Franco Zeffirelli for not casting a young beauty in the role as has happened before. (Claudia Cox, Simone Bendix, Debra Messing) This Mary Magdalene is still attractive in middle-age, but you can see the wear of the years upon her.

BCnU!
Toby O'B

EX'D OUT SKELTON

Every so often I come up with a theory for "Inner Toob" which I eventually have to discard. Usually this happens AFTER I post it and one of Toobworld's discerning disciples points out the errors of my ways.

And then there are those I have to toss aside before they even make it to post.

This is one of those, but even though I realize now that it cannot be, I still wanted to share it with you - especially if you were a fan of the US version of 'Life On Mars'.

Boiled down to a one sentence pitch: Detective Chris Skelton, played by Jonathan Murphy, was an android.

If 'Life On Mars' never jumped forward 27 years to 2035, I never would have entertained the idea, even though everything in Toobworld is connected and there are androids among us here in 2008. But once we found out that the entire series had been a dream for an astronaut in suspended animation, it became a true sci-fi series and that possibility could be considered.

Stepping outside the realm of Toobworld's inner "reality" for a moment, the producers brought actor Jonathan Murphy into the 'Life On Mars' fold after working with him on 'October Road'. I have to figure they could have promised him something to make the character worthwhile for him to play. And I think we got a glimpse of that when Sam got that phone call from the Aries Project. We saw the caller, but from the back of his head, and the call was coming from inside the 125th Precinct.

That caller looked a lot like Detective Chris Skelton.

With hindsight, we have to figure that Sam Tyler was working details of his real life in 2035 into his emergency dream world of 1973. So deep down, he knew Chris was connected to their Mars mission. But why single out Chris instead of Gene, Ray, or Annie? They were all on board the Hyde 1-2-5 spacecraft as well.

"Oh my God! You're a robot!"

If Chris turned out to be an android, it could be Sam singled him out because he was different from the rest of the crew.

What killed the idea for me was a second viewing of that last ten minutes of the show. Fixated as I was on the overall scenario, I had forgotten certain details - like seeing Annie, Ray, and Chris awaken from their slumber chambers as well. I only remembered Sam and his dad, Major Tom Tyler.

If Chris had been an android, why bother putting him into sleep stasis? He could have been overseeing the daily routine of ship maintenance and piloting during the mission which lasted 2 years, 3 months, and 22 days. During the week between viewings of the series' final scene, I thought we didn't see Chris in a sleep chamber. I was wrong about that, but we definitely didn't hear him say anything about what type of neural stim dream he requested as we did with Sam and Ray. (With Annie, there may have been some overlap between her dream and Sam's in some way. That's the inference I got from the looks they gave each other.)

Do androids dream of electric sheep and all of that.....
Two reasons the android theory came to me. There was an innocence about Chris Skelton, especially when he would consult with Sam about how to handle certain situations - like dating a woman. It reminded me of the ways Lt. Commander Data of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and John Henry of 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' would ask humans about the mysteries of simple human nature.
Then there was the fact that he got shot up pretty badly by Jimmy McManus and was touch-and-go on the operating table. True, Ray got shot as well, but he was up and about quickly - probably because his could have been just a flesh wound, or a neat in-and-out off to the side.

But Chris looked to be seriously wounded with a few direct hits. And yet miraculously, he too was up and out of the hospital within a day. Yeah, it was all a dream, but couldn't Sam's mind have been incorporating Chris' cybernetic innards into the equation?

Finally - and this is going out on a wild stretch of the imagination! - there was the focus put on Chris giving Sam a St. Christopher medal. We can look back on it now and see that it was Sam's brain factoring in the waking world reality of being on that trip to Mars. St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers, after all, and Sam's sub-conscious may have been grappling with doubts about their safety - especially after experiencing that meteor shower collision (which was interpreted by his neural stim dream as getting hit by a car).
But here's where I had the quantum leap of interpretation.... What if the St. Christopher medal was code for: "Say! Ain't Christopher metal?"

I know. It's a reach.
But if I'm not mistaken, "Metal" is a slang term for the androids/cyborgs from the Terminator mythos. And there's just something about that pose above that smacks of 'Holmes & Yoyo'.....

And like I said, 'Life On Mars' does take place in a TV dimension in which there are androids already in existence - Cameron and John Henry of 'The Sarah Connor Chronicles' currently; but also Hymie the Robot ('Get Smart'), Gregory Yoyonovich, ('Holmes & Yoyo'), Officer Haven ('Futurecop'), the Man ('Project: Tin Men'), and even Bigfoot ('The Six Million Dollar Man'). So it wouldn't be unlikely that one might show up in 'Life On Mars' - at least the American version.

Speaking of 'The Sarah Connor Chronicles', 'Life On Mars' - as well as 'Star Trek' and other future series - trumps the timeline for the TV version of 'Terminator'. But I haven't seen yet what happens Friday night in their season finale... which may be the series finale as well.

Anyhoo, this was the theory that got away from me (like this post!) and which I had to abandon. Still, I thought it might be of interest to Toobworldlies......

BCnU!
Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV: JUDAS ISCARIOT

It's Good Friday, one of the more somber days in the Church Calendar, marking the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. (It is believed this took place in the year 33 AD.)

One of the key figures in the events leading up to the Crucifixion was the apostle who betrayed him, Judas Iscariot - for thirty pieces of silver.

For the "As Seen On TV" feature on Good Friday, we have Judas Iscariot as depicted in the 1977 mini-series 'Jesus Of Nazareth':

The portrayal differs from tradition in that Judas is depicted as being of black hair. According to legend, Judas was red-haired. Ruth Mellinkoff wrote about the history of that legend and here's an excerpt:

There is nothing in the Christian Bible that indicates anything distinctive about the physical appearance of Judas. Yet at least as early as the ninth century, artists developed devices and motifs for pointing out the traitor.

That red hair or beard would be thought fitting for Judas is borne out by the ancient and continuous aversion to red hair and ruddy skin. The age-old dislike of red hair is testified to as early as ancient Egypt, associated with the evil god Seth, known to the Greeks as Typhon. A disdain for red hair in the Greco-Roman world is displayed in the red-headedness and red wigs designated for the figure of the slave in the comedies.

The red hair and red beard theme is scattered profusely through the literature of many periods and places. Many theories have been advanced to explain the dislike of red hair, or to promote that dislike:

1) Red hair was disliked because of its association with the color of foxes;

2) Red hair was disliked because of its connections with the red beard of the pagan god Thor whose attributes were transferred to the Christian devil;

3) Red hair was disliked by the English and Irish because it was attributed to the conquering Danes;

4) Red hair was disliked in non-Germanic places simply because it was less common;

5) Red hair has been disliked because it is a mutation or arrested development or degenerative characteristic.

I played Peter in a passion play once back in high school for the CYO. I probably should have been cast as Judas, since my hair was a deeper shade of red back in those days.....

Besides, the bad guy is always more fun to play!

BCnU!
Toby O'B

REFLECTIONS ON "LOST"

On April 2nd, Joe Oesterle in the Mania website wrote about something that's been bothering me this season:

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Here’s something I know; Way back in Season Three I remember thinking, during the season’s finale, “Through the Looking Glass,” how strange it was that a good Catholic boy like Charlie would make the sign of the cross with his left hand. Being a former Catholic school kid myself, I noticed this right away. My bet is had Charlie ever made a faux pas like that in school he would have experienced the swift and stinging fury of Sister Mary Castigation’s well-worn wooden ruler upon his tender knuckles. I even posted my findings on a number of LOST related message boards, and felt certain, based on the mirror-image title of the episode itself someone else would also find it suspicious, but most of the comments were along the lines of, “they probably flipped the picture, just a continuity flub.” I wasn’t assuaged then, and the shooting of Ben Linus has further convinced me the left-handed blessing wasn’t a production error.

When last we left Lil Ben, Sayid, a world-class assassin, just took aim at his trusting teenage heart, pulled the trigger, ran through the woods, leaving his young victim for dead. This is even recapped, with bullet hole very clearly to my eyes just below juvenile Linus’ ticker. When Jin turns the boy’s body over however, the same wound appears to have switched sides. There’s no way this is a blunder on the part of the continuity crew, as it’s more than possible these scenes were all shot during the same day. For some reason we are seeing mirror images at times. Now all we have to do is figure out why.

I had forgotten about the sign of the cross made by Charlie, but did notice it at the time (being an old altar boy m'self). And in the confusion and darkness of those scenes out in the woods, I didn't pick up on the shifting bullet wound at all.

These pictures back up what Joe Oesterle claims:
Later, during "Whatever Happened, Happened", we get further proof that bullet entered Ben's chest on the right side as Juliet operates on him:

One would think that a trained assassin like Sayid would have made sure he popped a cap in the little creep's heart. (He should have also delivered a coup de grace to the back of the head as he ran by. Having not done so, I would have to say that Sayid was sloppy at that point.)

Here's one last frame grab that shows the bullet wound was now on Ben's right side:

I have been noticing another series of reversed imagery during this season - that of the mystical "Numbers". Here are two examples:
First, from "He's Our You", Sayid is seen exiting a Russian building, #23. But as seen from inside the building, the glass shows it as the reverse: a badly written "32".

And then in "Whatever Happened, Happened", Kate is searching the supermarket for Aaron, who's wandered away. The aisles are all numbered but apparently only for those coming from one direction:
If we saw them from Kate's angle, they'd be "2-3-4"... or "23" & "4" from "the Numbers".

I don't even know if this will eventually mean anything or not in the grand scale of things for the show. But I'm thinking that somehow, it's a sign that alternate timelines are being created and we're seeing what happens in these "mirror" universes.

And then again, I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.....

BCnU!
Toby O'B

AS SEEN ON TV: PONTIUS PILATE

Since "As Seen On TV" is O'Bserving Holy Week, for Holy Thursday we present History's greatest "fence-sitter":

Pontius Pilate

"And I was around when Jesus Christ
had his moment of doubt and pain
made damn sure that Pilate
washed his hands, and sealed his fate."
The Devil
"Mary's Incredible Dream"
(But O'Bviously from the Rolling Stones song originally.)

BCnU!
Toby O'B