Tuesday, October 9, 2007

NERD HERD, RESCUE ME: I spent most of the late afternoon and evening last night in pitched battle with a virus/malware program known as WinAntivirus, or Winfix, with a secondary infection from Web Buying. These are the kinds of viruses that disable the uninstall feature, burrow into running processes, embed themselves in startup routines, and hide in registries. As a result, the only thing that seems to work well on my computer is the heavy metal music (the bad kind) that I can't turn off since I can't identify any running program or process that is causing it. I'm about *this close* to throwing in the towel.

Coincidentally, the only television for which I had time last night involved our favorite big-box tech support guru, Chuck. I'll confess that I liked this episode less than the first two. The actors seemed to be phoning it in, the novelty of Sarah in her Wienerlicious uniform is wearing off, and Yvonne Strzechowski is distractingly unable to fight (worse than Season 1 Sarah Michelle Gellar), but the worst thing is this spy-of-the-week rhythm that we're already in. I lived in LA for almost 9 years, and as far as I could tell, other than Ahmad Ressam getting stopped 1600 miles away on his way to LAX, the type of political intrigue particular to LA involves whispered allegations of neck-wrinkles; the incendiary devices of choice are venti drips and cell phones. The odds of an assassination plot, government-security data theft, and arms deal all being planned for a three-week period during pilot season are slim and none, and slim just got pulled for retooling during sweeps. I've always been partial to the X-Files model, which tries to balance both long-term plot ("mythology") episodes with single-episode ("monsters-of-the-week") plots ( a model used well in Buffy and Alias, among others). I suspect Chuck will get there soon -- clearly, the mysteries about Bryce, Sarah, the NSA goons, and Stanford are being prepped for mining, so I'll try not to complain too much, but I fear that waiting too long will start to try the audience's (my) patience.

On the credit side of the ledger, though: Casey is increasingly creepy, with his abruptness and his "spy humor," and Schwartz keeps doling out the pop-culture throwaways (last week: the "state secret" that "Oceanic Flight 815 was shot down by ..."; this week: Bob Ross, potshots at Monet, the "Canzonetta sull'Aria" allusion to Shawshank Redemption).

Oh, and by the way, I haven't seen last night's Prison Break, but I am aware that a certain act about which I am very squeamish was performed on a certain character about whom I am fond. I understand why it was done, but nonetheless I am forced to say: Boo.

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