"Earth 2"

1994-1995
In a future when Earth is barely habitable, much of humanity lives on orbiting stations. A maverick billionaire builds a ship to explore a planet 22 light years away, hoping to colonize. The flight is sabotaged by the government, and the survivors must make their way on an unforgiving world.
For a while, the show lives up to this promising premise. You're rooting for it, because it stars a woman (Debrah Farentino) on the cusp of middle age, and a number of the creators are female as well. But eventually the other shoe drops, and the lack of any real vision or intelligence relegates it to second-rate.
The performances and visuals are wonderful. Clancy Brown (HIGHLANDER) and Rebecca Gayheart (JAWBREAKER) are a delight. Tim Curry and Terry O'Quinn (LOST) make lovely appearances. For Clancy in particular, one wished the series would have been smarter and longer. But unfortunate, simple-minded dips into ghosts, religion, and mawkish marital monogamy are leaden albatrosses around the show's neck. Poor Rebecca is saddled with a marriage that simply doesn't work, because her husband (John Gegenhuber) does so many stupid, utterly selfish things that it breaks the bonds of credibility to think that the group would have allowed him to remain (to say nothing of her loving him). On this, and in other ways, the potential for gritty, realistic humans teetering on the edge of survival, is glossed over and made "nice".

...But Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGGwVsvseGw
(if you can find it, the version by Debra Hampton is just the teensiest bit better...)

Star Trek guest stars

GREATEST GUEST STAR TURNS IN STAR TREK HISTORY
-mark lenard: romulan commander, "Balance of Terror"
-william campbell: trelane, "The Squire of Gothos"
-ricardo montalban: khan noonian singh, "Space Seed"
-joan collins: edith keeler, "The City on the Edge of Forever"
-roger c. carmel: harry mudd, "I, Mudd"
-ricardo montalban: khan noonian singh, THE WRATH OF KHAN
-ray walston: boothby, "The First Duty" TNG
-david warner: gul madred, "Chain of Command" TNG
-brian keith: mullibok, "Progress" DS9
-gerritt graham: q, "Death Wish" VOY
-alice krige: borg queen, FIRST CONTACT
-john rhys-davies: leonardo da vinci, "Scorpion" VOY
-donna murphy: anij, INSURRECTION
-andy dick: EMH mark 2, "Message in a Bottle" VOY

not-ends 16

Most people call their human nature "shortcomings", and their shortcomings "human nature".

A wise person cannot give right answers, only right questions.

Almost all mammals are born ready to roll. Only humans and kangaroos have a prolonged stage of fetal development outside the womb. Does this not suggest a possible modification to our attitudes on abortion?

Women are so well and thoroughly objectified, they never learn how to not objectify themselves. Look at their romance ads. Before you know ANYTHING about them, they insist you know their skin color and age. How fucked up is that?

I love visiting cat owners. I always sneak off to poop in their litter box. I cover it up real nice, too.

Being intelligent doesn't mean you're right, it just means that your wrongness sounds better.

America. The fattest country in the world. EVER. Our five-fingered fist of flab? Industrial food, restaurant serving sizes, child molestation, poverty, and technology-enabled sloth. The first two are easily fixed, and only the last may prove unsolvable.

Okay, there's actually a sixth-reason that's equally compelling, the use of food as a substitute for love. But "six-toed tennis shoe of tubbiness" doesn't have quite the same ring. Six-toed slipper of super-size me?

The best hope for a happy life in America lies in having enough money to buy friendship and sex (or as it's known professionally, therapy and prostitutes).

The greatest dysfunction of this dysfunctional society is that lovers become memories, not friends.

Most people call their human nature "shortcomings", and their shortcomings "human nature". I know i said it twice, but you didn't think about it enough the first time.

M*A*S*H, season 6

FOUR-STAR
-Fade Out, Fade In
Hello, Charles Emerson Winchester. Is there any show in television history which replaced beloved characters as successfully? Certainly no show ever put together their replacements' debuts as fantastically. This two-parter absolutely roars in...so tight and so hysterical (without any idiotic laugh track). David Ogden Stiers' performance is seamless. We instantly get his character. The chemistry between Alda, Farrell, and Morgan can't be overstated. Add Swit, Burghoff, Farr, and Christopher pinging their energy perfectly...
-Fallen Idol
Radar gets wounded while driving to Seoul to have sex for the first time. Hawkeye had urged him to go, and gets so drunk from guilt he has to leave the O.R. the next day. Radar and Hawkeye explode at each other for the first time ever. Maudlin? A little. Brilliant? A lot.
-The Winchester Tapes
Charles records a long letter to his wealthy folks, imploring them to use their influence to get him reassigned in Tokyo or stateside. A great episode for BJ, who pranks Charles by continually changing the size of his uniform. Hawkeye is desperately trying to get to Seoul for a weekend with Nurse Gilmore. The dialogue is brilliant, and Stiers is perfect.
-Comrades in Arms
Hawkeye and Margaret are trapped behind enemy lines. They're holding on to each other through the night in a hut while being shelled, after she'd received a poisoned letter from Donald...you may fill in that ellipse in the most sexy way you like. As wonderfully planned and acted as this is, it does make you pause a moment to think about the movie. The inconceivability of anything like this ever happening within that paradigm...yet in the series, it's hard to argue that there wasn't a certain inevitability. The uncomfortable aftermath amounts to some of Loretta's best work and a writing staff that was at its deadly best, navigating what could have been the worst M*A*S*H episode of all time in lesser hands.
-Potter's Retirement
After negative reports from within the camp on Potter's efficiency prompt an I-Corps investigation, he decides to take early retirement. The snitch (George Wyner - SPACEBALLS, HILL STREET BLUES) turns out to be a plant, courtesy of a disgruntled ex-patient. Morgan is ferocious.
NOTEWORTHY
-Last Laugh ***
James Cromwell (SIX FEET UNDER, STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT) drops in as Leo Bardonero, BJ's college prankster buddy. Gotchas abound. Plus John Ashton (BEVERLY HILLS COP) as a dour MP.
-War of Nerves ***
Sydney drops in with a head wound suffered while making a foxhole housecall with Michael O'Keefe (CADDYSHACK, THE GREAT SANTINI). This episode almost takes the happy face off Sydney, and gives you a truer sense of the unsavory side of military psychiatrists, as you feel sympathy for a boy who loathes him for sending him back to the front. The overstressed camp lights a cathartic bonfire. Plus Pete Riegert (ANIMAL HOUSE)!
-The Light that Failed ***
A mystery novel gets torn apart and passed around chapter by chapter to a stir-crazy camp. Philip Baker Hall (MAGNOLIA) plays a cranky, jaded supply sergeant.
-In Love and War ***
A well-crafted, emotionally-resonant episode. Hawkeye falls for a Korean woman (a tender performance by Kieu Chinh, THE JOY LUCK CLUB) living in the remains of her once wealthy home, who cares for orphans. Margaret comes face to face with Donald's philandering, in the form of a new nurse who had her fingers licked. Despite this episode's excellence, this may be the moment when fans (and creators) of the movie turned off their sets for good. Any remnants of the original edginess are gone, gone...
-Images ***
Talk about high-voltage guest stars before they were famous...is that little doggie Jack from TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY!?
-The M*A*S*H Olympics ***
Set against a Helsinki backdrop, an out-of-shape camp holds its own Olympiad. Donald shows up. As fun and memorable as three stars gets.
-The Grim Reaper **
Ewwwwf. Col. Bloodworth, a casualty predictor, is strongly disliked by Capt. Niceguy, er, Pierce. The writing is so lacking in subtlety that a two year-old might look askance. The only thing that rescues this a bit is a sub-plot with Charles sharing canned, botulistic pheasant with Margaret.
-Your Hit Parade ***
Really quite sweet, with a semi-retro feel. Radar entertains the camp as a DJ, during a marathon O.R. stretch. This one makes the top-ten Radar list (without a bullet).
-Mail Call Three ***
All the necessaries for four stars...perhaps just an extra take or two away. Klinger's wife leaves him, BJ's wife becomes independent, Hawkeye receives torrid letters belonging to another Benjamin Pierce, and Radar's Mom is dating. Another Radar top-ten.
-Dr. Winchester and Mr. Hyde ***
The first sitcom to ever deal with amphetamine addiction? The first network prime time show, even?

elisabeth

WOMEN 64
I was part of a crew of three she hired to help do a one-mile move to her new home in Brooklyn. The energy was pleasant, and i liked her immediately. At one point she and i were getting ready to take apart her son's yellow plastic car-bed. She was way too big for it, but laid back with a sigh, smiling at me. Attraction literally jolted me. During lunch break, she and i ate alone at her old apartment. We sat on the kitchen floor, our extremities brushing. At the end of the move, one of the other guys asked her out. He was a bit of a jerk, so i let him have his failed moment. When the others were gone, i offered to help her get settled. After fifteen minutes or so, she wanted to walk to a park. It was a beautiful spring day, and the first two parks we found (neighborhood gardens, really) were locked. We decided to climb the ten-foot wall of the second one. Once inside, we explored and found a spot to lie down. My head was against her side, and for the next couple hours, lazing in the sun, we talked and let our hands absent-mindedly wander. So sweetly beautiful. When we were finally interrupted by a group who had a key, we strolled back to her place. With the setting sun streaming through the living room blinds, she lay down on her stomach on a bare mattress, her contented eyes closed. I undressed her and ran my long hair slowly up and down her, then gently blew on her skin everywhere, and placed lingering baby kisses all over her back and flanks. She had such soft skin, with one of the most kissable tuchuses i'd ever encountered. Darkness now around us, i took off my clothes and lay down. We slowly intertwined, gently kissing. She was slender, shorter than average, with thin, very fine hair and a beautiful non-athletic body. Her breasts had obviously gone through motherhood (i recalled a comedienne's joke about post-weaning breasts looking like empty socks). It was my first adult experience with such breasts. Would i have preferred the non-droopy version? Sure. But i quickly forgot about it. With her son at his dad's, she invited me to stay the night. I wanted to shower, but the water wasn’t connected. We had sweated together during the day, and our unwashed bodies clung together through the night. Looking over at one point, she asked me to stay perfectly still. She said i looked like an angel. In the morning as we awoke, i gently placed her hand on my erection. She grasped me and began kissing my chest, then lay her head on my stomach. I expected her to just look at me, but after one or two light kisses, her mouth started to envelop me. For a few microseconds as i realized things might be going too quickly (and also remembering how overdue for a shower i was), i thought of stopping her. But the beauty of our togetherness had me in its spell, and her exquisite mouth took me in. She lovingly pleasured me…i was confident i wouldn’t come, and after a few minutes she came up for some deep kissing. She was soon off to school (she was a therapist working on an advanced degree). At her place a couple nights later, i told her about Vanessa, and that it might be wise to slow things down. We spent a sweet night together, with underwear and just a little kissing. Over the next month, i realized that i hadn’t been fully aware of how in love with Vanessa i was. My affection and respect for Elisabeth grew. She had survived a lot. Not only a ridiculously malicious divorce, but a debilitating illness that had wasted away at her for a year. But i sensed that her affections weren’t about to displace Vanessa (sadly realizing that my awareness of how long a round trip to her took, faintly paralleled Vanessa's no longer wanting to deal with visiting me in JC). Eventually Elisabeth broke contact, saying that she didn’t want to be the newest link in a chain of unbalanced love. She reappeared a few months later. I told her that Vanessa and i had broken off our half-romance, but that i was still very much in love. Elisabeth and i began sharing romance again. After a month or so, she cut it off again when i told her i wasn’t thinking about a future with her. This couldn’t have been much of a revelation, but something in my frankness must have broken something in her, despite her earlier protests of only wanting whatever i had to offer. In that month, there was one night that captured the beauty of our first afternoon. The first and only time she came to visit me in Jersey, she arrived at the door uncharacteristically wearing makeup. I was a little turned off, but she was in such good spirits i didn’t mention it. We came together that night in slow, profound embraces. I was still careful to stop just short of penetration. So many moments i held my rigid self against her warm, yielding sex…it was so mind-blowing that i can’t be sure there wasn’t even a little shallow penetration. During one of these moments, i was above her and looked down…and words will fail to describe how intensely she radiated beauty and openness. In that moment, i knew that there had never been a more beautiful human being. She later told me that every minutest physical movement i made that night was profound and perfect. In the weeks and months to come, i faintly regretted not penetrating her that night. I don't doubt that she would have received me with mindless happiness. We stayed in contact after our second romantic break, and had some nice moments together, particularly one afternoon when we chatted as i bathed in her tub while eating Chinese. I greeted her that day with a long embrace, during which my lips brushed against the base of her neck, and my head swam. My desire for her had only grown with time, so i knew that we needed to take another break from each other, as i wasn’t going to stop wanting her anytime soon. We stayed in distant contact for about a year. During that time, she sent me a photo of herself one day, naked with a big red "A" painted on her stomach. She'd had an abortion. I felt miserable for her, and for myself, that she had been in the arms of some idiot when she should have been with me. A couple months later, i wrote to her in a moment of loneliness. She told me to come to her. We spent the night together. I intended no sexuality, but that intent didn't survive her soft kisses. On that sad, lonely night, her loving made me a little more human. But soon after, she complained about the inconsistency of my behavior. I retreated again. Months later we had another sexual encounter, unexpected and less inhibited, pleasuring each other orally on her kitchen counter, the first such contact since our very first night. That night, she probably pleasured me longer orally than any woman ever had. It was so wonderful, and i wanted more, but a part of me knew i probably could never be what she wanted, and i died inside at the thought of being destructive with her. I read with her a play i'd written, in which one of the characters was based on her. It was a beautiful experience, and we held each other afterward. I always had hope that she would figure out how to use my love in her life, but when she finally got engaged to be re-married, i offered to leave her life for good. I hadn't been able to bring myself to tell her that deep down, i felt that anything was possible…that even though it had been my intuition that we weren’t meant to be any kind of life partners, as time wore on i became less sure of that. Years later, she told me that on our first night she felt she had found her "ever-after", the man who would be all the things her husband had failed to be. I found her words both moving and heart-rending (cue Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe"?). Because she was a single mother, i was always less impulsive with her than i otherwise would have been (something she was aware of and didn't like). I wanted to be a loving part of her life forever, but we just couldn’t figure out how to make it work.

The God Buffet

THEATER 58
-summer 2001
I was ready to act and direct again. It was becoming apparent that Donna was the likely candidate to carry the Orpheus torch after i left, so i included her in all creative decisions from this point on. She talked about projects she wanted to do, and one of them, GOD’S SPIES by Don Nigro, became the starting point of our next project. She wanted to do just a monologue, but i suggested we do the whole short play as part of an evening of theater with a holy theme. We called it THE GOD BUFFET. I performed "The Law", from DRINKING IN AMERICA. Donna added a character named Cammy Faye, who riled up the crowd with an extemporaneous intro for my character, the Rev. Blackwater. Our second piece was another Donna find called "Rosary", by Jean-Claude Van Itallie. It was a monologue of a nun on a solitary subway train, confessing to God her lustful feelings for a woman. Zendyn Duellman auditioned, and she was perfect. We found two filmmakers, Evan Munro and Jason Padilla, who shot a film that accompanied Zendyn's performance. We filmed at the Catholic church down the beach, inside and out. A collage of holy images, Zendyn in nature, close-up body shots, and a rosary falling apart. Zendyn sat in front of the screen, and the effect was quite beautiful and disturbing (the first time i viewed it, i joked that i felt dirty). I spent extra time working with her, as the monologue was ridiculously tough. She was a Zoroastrian from India, newly married to an American named Greg. Her company was as delightful as her talent. She would be out of town our final weekend, so we cast Nancy DeFonzo as her understudy. Nancy had provided costumes for earlier shows, and i was glad to give her this opportunity. Our third piece was one of my Monty Python favorites, "St. Victor". It's a scripture reading by a vicar, played by me. I'm the soul of piety, but when i start droning on about how Victor is beset by Oriental maidens who nibble his ears, and an angel of the Lord escorts him into the jacuzzi, we know that we're no longer in Leviticus, Toto. Our fourth piece got Shane back onstage, doing another Python piece with me called "Protestantism". I play a perpetually-repressed housewife listening to my husband drone on about the bloody Catholics, and how advanced we protestants are with our contraceptive ways. I ask whether we can try some of these condoms, but he just keeps grousing. I'm in full-blown housewife drag, and Shane was wonderful. We added extra bits of dialogue. Very funny. Our final piece was GOD'S SPIES. The setting was a Christian talk show, hosted by the perpetually perky Dale Clabby, played by Zendyn. I played the first guest, Calvin Stringer, a religious researcher railing about the devil in music and tarot cards. I got a buzz cut, a bow tie, and white bucks. Donna was the second guest, young Wendy Trumpy, telling about how she found God in a belfry. An amazing monologue about a pedophile priest and an escaped convict. We added a non-speaking character, having Shane play Wendy's little brother, Lumpy. He sat by her chair in a blonde Beatle wig, dozing off and being just incredibly funny. At the start, Dale's pushing Bible sales, but Wendy has her being more giving by the end. Donna and i co-directed. She took charge of "Rosary", we shared on GOD'S SPIES, and i did most of the work on the other three. There was a sixth piece i wrote, an autobiographical monologue about a young person's cathartic realization that there is no God. But i couldn't convince the others or myself that it was good enough, so we dropped it. Having Nancy as understudy proved a challenge, as she was in the midst of an extended mental breakdown. I tried to help, but just brought her wrath on my head, and she was institutionalized by the time the run was over. It wasn't until the final week that we knew she wouldn't perform. We called on Amanda, who stepped right in. We decided that there was no way Amanda could have "Rosary" ready in only a few days (Donna didn't want to attempt it, either). We did the piece as just the film, with Zendyn's recorded voice, which made for a powerful experience in and of itself. This left Amanda to work on Dale Clabby. She and i had long joked about Amanda's slight Wisconsin accent, and i told her to try the part as a full-blown Wisconsinite. I was already playing Calvin as a Wisconsinite, and our back and forth turned out to be comedic gold. That last weekend was so much fun. The entire run was a delight. Our crowds were small, but happy. We decided that a lot of religious folk stayed away because they rightly suspected there was irreverence going on, and non-believers stayed away because they thought it was some sort of revival.