TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

Well, here we are. After 155 games, the Mets have managed themselves in to a situation where they are 2.5 games out of the NL East and one game up on the National League Wildcard. The Brewers and the Mets are in a race to see who can collapse harder. The Mets face the NL-best record Cubs and crushed-their-spirit-last-year Marlins. The Brewers face Pittsburgh (against whom they’ve gone 11-1 on the season) and the Cubs. The Phillies face the only-play-the-Mets-hard Braves and the NL East toilet Nationals. The Metropolitans control their own destiny. Win out and they at least get the Wildcard. Lose any and they risk another September collapse.

The Board Room did an excellent job here. It really couldn’t be scripted any better.

The Mets could have gone up by 2 games in the Wildcard tonight. They didn’t. Instead they had the lights blown out in 4th inning when they, for the second time this season, gave up a grand slam to the opposing pitcher. I’ll repeat that. For the second time this season — the first being Felix Hernandez hitting off Johan Santana — a Met pitcher gave up a grand slam to an opposing pitcher. In the fourth inning, Jon Niese delivered a pitch to Jason Marquis that landed in front of the scoreboard. The bullpen came in to stop the bleeding and promptly gave up another home run to Derrek Lee to send the game into a 7-2 blowout. The bullpen continued to bleed runs to a 9-4 laugher that was never really close.

Slowly but surely, the toxic environment at Shea Stadium is becoming more and more a problem. The fans are still on edge. Everyone in the bullpen can expect to be booed when they enter, on every walk, and on every hit. Half the line-up can expect to be booed when they do anything but get on base. The fans are doing the opposite of helping. I can’t even imagine what the final game at Shea ceremony will be like if the team doesn’t make the playoffs. I might not even watch.

The bright side to this loss is it was the one game they could lose without being crippled. Jon Niese is a September call-up who probably isn’t ready for primetime. He’s had 3 starts. One was an 8-inning shutout against the Braves. The other two have been a combined 6 innings with a combined 11 runs. If there was one game they had to pencil in as a loss, it was this one. A guy making this third start against the best team in the National League.

Here’s the problem: after tonight there really isn’t any more wiggle room and there really aren’t any more excuses. The team is throwing Santana, Perez, Martinez, and Pelfrey in its next four starts. On Saturday, if the team doesn’t have something locked up, they’ll have some tough decisions to make. Throw guys on short rest? Throw Santana on Saturday or Sunday and effectively keep him out of the playoffs until Game 3?

Second problem: The Brewers have been having a terrible run of luck lately, going 5-15 in September and dropping 8 of their last 10. There’s got to be some sort of feeling in the Brewers’ clubhouse that it’s gotten as bad as it’s going to get and they’re still only 1 game out with 6 to play. On top of that, they get the benefit of playing a team who they can officially claim ownership of while the Mets are apparently playing against both The Script and Destiny.

Third problem: Even if by some miracle the Mets limp in to the Wild Card, they still have to go to the playoffs with this bullpen. One issue I’ve had with Jerry Manuel is his dogged insistence that this pen will work through their problems. They obviously are not going to. At this point, throw three rookies and John Maine on your post-season roster and see what happens. At least with those guys we can go with the devil we don’t know — which, in this case, is better than the devil we do.

I’ve gone from cautiously optimistic to completely resigned. This bullpen is either going to end this season this week against the Cubs or next week against the Cubs. It’s very symmetrical, really. All that said, the Shea fans deserve a heaping-helping of “F*ck You” for helping to make the team tighter and worse. Have you ever seen an abused dog cower in the corner when it knows it’s done something wrong and is waiting to get beaten? That’s the entire Mets team. It can’t fail in peace and, in a game of failure, that’s a problem. They are treating every pitch and every at-bat as the end of the world because of the completely unsupportive home crowd. Way to go, guys. Glad you bought your tickets and feel justified in booing. It makes it awesome for the rest of us.

If the season ends with the Mets out of the playoffs, I’m relatively certain I’ll lay about a third of the blame on the home crowd. The Shea crowd, somehow, is a spoiled child. They went in to this season mad about last year. They’ve thrown tantrums and booed and expected this team to make the playoffs as a foregone conclusion. What these idiots don’t realize is that they’re in the midst of one of the more awesome pennant races in baseball right now. There are three teams slugging it out for two playoff slots. All three teams are separated by two games. If not for last season, Shea would be rocking and rolling and the fans would be supportive and having a great time. Because last season gave the Met fan some sort of entitlement complex about getting to the post-season this year, they’ve decided to be as assy as humanly possible. It’s not helping, dummies.

I’m one voice in the midst of 100,000 but I think they can do it. I’m continuing to think positively.

We can do this.

W/W - Falcons -4 over Chiefs, 38-14, Falcons cover. No real surprises here. I wonder what the record is for points given up in a season and whether or not the Chiefs can challenge it.

W/L - Bills -9.5 over Raiders, 24-23, Raiders +9.5 (* - last minute change to Bills cover). Because some fan made a totally convincing argument about why this spread made sense, I changed my pick in my spread pools to Bills cover. I will, in fairness, take the win against the spread away from myself because I deserve it for changing my mind… which is never ever a good idea and I need to be reminded. The other lesson in this is to never take spread advice from a guy who’s as good against the spread as the Chiefs are against football teams.

W/W - Titans -5 over Texans, 31-12, Titans cover. I picked the Titans correctly. I’m just happy to be nominated.

W/L - Giants -13.5 over Bengals, 26-23, Giants cover. I enjoy that I wrote a whole paragraph about over-thinking picks and then proceeded to overthink this pick. The Giants don’t cover large spreads… they just don’t. I know this and went against it anyway. Stupid. They go in to the bye undefeated. The bye has been poison to the Giants in the last few years. I’m glad to get it out of the way early.

W/W - Redskins -3 over Cardinals, 24-17, Redskins cover. It looks like my new rule held up mightily. It could also be a Kurt Warner on the road rule. Not sure.

L/W - Dolphins +13.5 over Patriots, 38-13, Dolphins +13.5. Funny thing — I was in Boston this weekend and decided to stick around on Sunday to catch football on my buddy’s 52″ hi-def. This meant I had to watch the Patriots instead of the Giants so I got to actually see the Dolphins play. As it turns out, they decided this week to run pretty much the exact offense I assumed they would run when I picked them as the outta nowhere team for the season. Short passing routes to take advantage of Pennington’s close accuracy and grinding out near yardage with Ronnie Brown and Rickey Williams. Pennington didn’t try to make one pass over 20 yards and the quick, young offensive tools tired out a much, much older defense. Funny thing happened on the way to “the Pats will be fine”. Without an accurate passer, their receivers aren’t much use. Since they’ve specifically built a passing offense at the expense of their running game, they don’t have a running game to really fall back on. Oh yeah, and their defense is still really old. The Dolphins used the Giants’ blueprint against the Patriots’ defense — grind out drives and tucker out the old dudes.

L/L - Bucs +3 over Bears, 27-24, Chicago covers. Griese passed 67 times in this game. The fact the Bears couldn’t stop this doesn’t reflect well on the Bears. The fact he didn’t doesn’t reflect well on the Bucs chances for continuing success.

W/W - Vikings -3 over Panthers, 20-10, Vikings cover. Somehow, I still haven’t seen one second of a Vikings or a Panthers game.

W/L - Seahawks -10.5 over Rams, 37-13, Rams +10.5. The Rams officially enter “no spread is too big” and “official pick against in knockout pools” all in the same week.

L/L - Niners -3 over Lions, 31-13, Lions outright. And thus ends the fabulous and awesome run of the Jesus-wagon. If the Lions can’t score, and give up 30 to the Niners, turn out the lights in Detroit early.

L/W - Broncos -4 over Saints, 34-32, Saints outright. The Broncos might be the most fortunate team in the league right now. After being handed a victory by the officials in San Diego, the Saints insisted on handing them a second one. This game saw New Orleans fail to score on 1st and 5, 2nd and 1, 3rd and 1, and 4th and 1 forgoing a field goal to bring the game within 3 at the end of the first half. Then, in one of the more bizarre decisions in football history, instead of QB sneaking from the one, Cutler drops eight yards deep in the end zone to hand the Saints a safety with 27 seconds left in the first half. Martin Grammatica misses two field goals (33, 47) that would have swung the game. Unreal. I’d also like to thank the Saints for taking Jeremy Shockey’s official month or two off away from the Giants this year.

L/L - Eagles over Saints, 15-6, Steelers. I guess my rule didn’t need a caveat. If the Eagles line was able to molest Roethlisberger this much, the Giants and Cowboys pass rush is going to kill him.

L/L - Jaguars +5.5 over Colts, 23-21, Colts cover. It appears that picking the Colts against any team with good running backs is back to being an awful, awful idea. I should also keep in mind two things here. First, the Jags and Colts always seem to play to 3 points or less regardless of how good or bad the other team is. Second, the Lucas Oil Dome with all their rules, policies, and family-friendliness has essentially sucked all the fun and advantage out of the Colts home field. The crowd for that entire game was dead and you could barely hear them. I look forward to this happening at Giants Stadium next year.

L/L - Ravens -2 over Browns, 28-10, Browns outright. I think we can declare the Browns and Derek Anderson a fluke. The Courageous Brady Quinn Era should be starting relatively soon. Week six or so.

W/W - Cowboys -3 over Packers, 27-16, Cowboys cover. God, how I hate this team.

W/L - Chargers -9.5 over Jets, 48-29, Jets +9.5. So, here’s a question. Is LDT actually hurt or is he just using his toe in case they lose? Also, how is this guy not getting skewered in San Diego media? The New York media would be all but questioning his manhood at this point.

5 points: Indy -5.5 over Jacksonville - L
4 points: Lions +3 over Niners - L
3 points: Redskins -3 over Cardinals - W
2 points: Browns +2 over Ravens - L
1 point: Chicago -3 over Tampa - L

And I guess we can declare that I don’t like funky new pool and am happy I decided to test it out for a year before taking the leap.

Standings
Straight Up: 9-7 (26-21)
Spread: 7-9 (22-24-1)
Point Pool: 3/15 (17/45 - .378)

Also deserves mentioning: all the spreads I thought were wacky I picked correctly. The ones I lost I generally thought were normal. Gambling rules.

Last week was terrible, featuring only 6 wins against the spread and falling behind 8 games in both the cheap league and the expensive league. On top of that, I call out Cam and Joe and promptly fall in to last. Looking at this week, the spreads have gotten even more bizarre. I don’t know who is gambling on these games this year. The Giants as a 2 touchdown favorite? The Dolphins as a 2 touchdown underdog to the backup Pats? The Jets are a 9.5-point dog to the Cowboys with the Favre-on-Monday-Night factor. I’d like to think that everyone is doing crappy this year, but that’s just not true. Also to note: the only road favorite this week is Dallas… in Lambeau. Oy.

Sunday
Kansas City Chiefs +4 at Atlanta Falcons: This is the first of many point spreads this week that confused me. I know the Falcons aren’t good but the Chiefs get got crushed by Oakland and apparently has NO ONE on offense. Falcons cover.

Oakland Raiders +9.5 at Buffalo Bills: This was the first spread I looked at this week and was dumbfounded. Like, I understand that the Bills have been good the last two weeks and the Raiders have been questionable… but 9.5? Really? I’ll hate myself in the morning but I have to take them. Raiders +9.5.

Houston Texans +5 at Tennessee Titans: I recall that the team I could never pick correctly last year was the Titans. I’m happy to see this is carrying over in to this year. Titans cover.

Cincinnatti Bengals +13.5 at New York Giants: I find there to be something telling about my team when they are coming the reigning Super Bowl champions, won their first two games handily, are playing at home against a team who has put up a collective 17 points over two weeks against the Titans and Ravens, and I’m STILL really not all that keen on ever picking them to cover a spread this large. The worst part about this is that I KNOW they’re getting taxed because of the abuse they gave to the Rams last week. But I can’t take the Bengals. They are down a bunch of weapons, are on the road, and have no defense to speak of. Eli is getting the backup nod again in the Ms. L Superstar’s league and is staring down the barrel of being the most valuable Super Bowl MVP to ever be taken in the 10th round of a fantasy draft. Giants (ugh) cover.

Arizona Cardinals +3 at Washington Redskins: I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m only picking against NFC East teams with reasonable spreads when they play against other NFC East Teams. Redskins cover.

Miami Dolphins +13.5 at New England Patriots: Way, WAY too many points for what we know about these teams. There is not allowed to be a Patriot Tax when we still don’t know if the quarterbacks going to have random meltdown games. Dolphins +13.5.

Tampa Bay Bucs +3 at Chicago Bears: Back-up quarterback on the road, even if he’s Brian Griese, is not for me. Chicago covers.

Carolina Panthers +3 at Minnesota Vikings: The Vikings are better than a 0-2 team and I still have no idea what the Panthers are going to do. The Vikings are due for some good fortune here. Vikings cover.

St. Louis Rams +10.5 at Seattle Seahawks: Two bad teams in the Cheaterdome. I don’t even know if the Seahawks have enough guys on offense to SCORE more than 10.5 points, much less cover a 10.5 point spread. Rams +10.5.

Detroit Lions +3 at San Francisco 49ers: I’m gonna go ahead and assume the Lions are not quite as bad as they’ve been playing and will take the opportunity to beat one of the few inferior teams in the league. Lions outright.

New Orleans Saints +4 at Denver Broncos: I don’t understand this spread much at all. The Saints have not fallen so far after one loss to the Redskins that they’re a 4-point dog to a team that should be 1-1. Saints outright.

Pittsburgh Steelers (pk) at Philadelphia Eagles: I have no idea what to think about the Eagles at this point. There is no way they’re as good as they played last week. On the other hand, the Steelers only managed to put up 10 against the Brows. I’m almost immediately violating my own “Only pick against NFC East teams if they’re facing other NFC East teams” but I guess I’ll adapt it to “Only pick against NFC East teams if they’re facing other NFC teams.” This is also a good first look at how Pittsburgh is going to fare as one of the only difficult AFC challenges the NFC East teams are going to face other than each other. Steelers.

Jacksonville Jaguars +5.5 at Colts: The Colts lost their biggest asset on defense but the Jags appear to have no offense to speak of. Since I don’t expect Peyton to drop a 5 interception game in week three, there’s no reason the Colts should lose this. Colts cover.

Cleveland Browns +2 at Baltimore Ravens: The Browns SHOULD be able to bounce back this week. I though I learned my “always pick an 0-2 team playing a bad team in week 3″ lesson with the Dolphins last year, but apparently not. Browns outright.

Dallas Cowboys -3 at Green Bay Packers: I’m having a terrible time picking against the Cowboys in all situations this year. This also falls under my NFC East Rule. Cowboys cover.

Monday
New York Jets +9.5 at San Diego Chargers: I understand the spread. Vegas is banking on gamblers thinking “wow, the Chargers are going to be fired up after getting screwed last week.” They’re still dealing with LDT and Gates having some degree of injury and the Jets, honestly, aren’t that bad. I do know 9.5 is WAY too many points to have on this game. I guess I think the Chargers are going to come out and win this… finally… but the Jets will certainly be within 10. Jets +9.5.

5 points: Indy -5.5 over Jacksonville
4 points: Lions +3 over Niners
3 points: Redskins -3 over Cardinals
2 points: Browns +2 over Ravens
1 point: Chicago -3 over Tampa

—

I made a pact with myself last year that I wouldn’t take teams with points unless I thought there was some chance for them to win outright. I picked way too many underdogs and points this week so I would recommend this card to nobody. On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend picking exactly opposite of this card either.

I was watching the Monday Night game yesterday when Kornheiser issued his “100% apology” for…. something. I had no idea at the time what it was for. Most places are reporting it was because he goofed on himself for not understanding Spanish to the point where he said “He either said [something related to football] or ‘I forgot to pick up my dry cleaning’”. He promptly apologized for making fun of… himself… or the overly obvious stereotype of…….. Spanish-speaking dry cleaners?

Most commenters on sports blogs (specifically Deadspin and Awful Announcing) have made the horrifically obvious “OMG, THEY SHOULD FIRE HIM FOR THIS BECAUSE HE IS TEH SUXXORZ NOT BECAUSE OF THIS!!!!!” comment. We get it, guys. Everyone who’s ever announced any sporting event in the history of the universe is a terrible commentator. In fact, there has never been a good commentator. Everyone is terrible. Only you and your boys in the living room watching the game with you are funny — everyone else is lame. In fact, you break up an entire room of 8 guys with your biting wit. You are totally qualified and will do a much better job then everyone else.

The every-announcer-is-awful trend falls under my “Fix It” category of complaining. Who is a good announcer? Has there ever been one? Does anyone currently on television fit your high broadcast standard of excellence? Michaels and Madden have been doing commentary for a combined 200,000 years — they’re obviously terrible. Joe Buck has never had a good moment in his career. Ron Jaworski, though he’s one of the only guys on television who studies the 22-shot for every team he announces and breaks down beyond the degree that you can even conceive it is terrible. Troy Aikman is a filthy Cowboy and is worthless but… err… oh, that’s true.

I’m so over the “X announcer sucks” type of articles and accompanying comments that I can barely begin. Do me a favor — if you’re going to complain about announcers, at least tell me who qualifies as “servicable” in your grading scheme.

L/L - Raiders +2.5 over Chiefs, 23-8, Chiefs cover: This just in - the Chiefs are epically bad. Ain’t no one that can kill a franchise like Herm.

L/L - Bengals -3 over Titans, 24-7, Bengals cover: Have we reached the point where we can officially call the AFC powerhouses “dead”? I strenuously argued this pick with Hulse, convinced the Titans would be screwed playing through media scrutiny and the QB Trinity Of Suck. He argued that the Bengals are exactly the type of team that Tennessee destroys and they were playing without major offensive weapons. I lose.

W/W - Packers -1 over Lions, 48-25, Packers cover: Didn’t understand this spread when I saw it and it, unsurprisingly, was blown out. All that stuff I said about how Aaron Rodgers kinda sucks? I lied. I’m on board now.

L/L - Redskins -1 over Saints, 29-24, Saints outright. As it turns out, betting against the NFC East this year is done at your own peril. The NFC East will have the remarkable ability to make each other look foolish and will probably crush the rest of the NFC.

W/L - Colts -3.5 over Vikings, 18-15, Colts cover. Gods above I hate half-point lines. To note: The Colts didn’t play much at all with the 1st string squad over pre-season. Apparently, it takes about 8-12 quarters to sync up. The Colts will have a favorable line next week.

W/T - Panthers -3 over Bears, 20-17, Panthers cover: So, apparently the Panther’s alternating year rule still exists, which means pencil them in for 10 wins this year.

W/W - Giants -8 over Rams, 41-13, Giants cover: As I’ve mentioned in other places, the Giants’ schedule through the first six weeks is kind of easy. This made me nervous as someone who has followed the team for years. Blowing out the Rams, while not a big deal on the surface, kind of is a big deal for a team that tends to struggle to get by bad teams and elevating their game for good teams. With their upcoming schedule (Cincy, Bye, Seattle, @Cleveland, San Francisco) they can keep playing the “no one believes in us” card when they hit the tough part of their schedule (@Pittsburgh, Dallas, @Philly) as the “product of their schedule” stories start coming out. I, for one, look forward to this.

L/W - Bills +6 over Jags, 20-16, Bills +6. Whatever I thought about the Jags was apparently rendered moot when their runningback got arrested.

W/L - Bucs -9 over Falcons, 24-9, Falcons +9. The Falcons are going to be a really annoying team this year, likely joining the club with the Titans for “team I hate picking and lose every week.”

L/W - Niners +9.5 over Seahawks, 33-30, Niners +9.5: As it turns out, the Seahawks aren’t even good enough to WIN, much less cover the spread. The Seahawks have said their receivers are out until after the bye week. Expect spreads on them to come way down.

W/L - Cardinals -7.5 over Dolphins, 31-10, Dolphins +7.5: I’m still not taking the Cardinals with more than a touchdown, but the Dolphins are looking to frustrate me for another entire year by saying “they gotta win one here eventually, right?

W/W - Patriots +3 over Jets, 19-10, Patriots outright: If the Patriots can beat the Jets on the road, I’m pretty sure they’re still going to make the playoffs. It’s shaping up such that the AFC East is going to be as interesting as the NFC East.

PPD - Ravens/Texans - Best wishes to all those affected by Ike.

L/L - Broncos +3 over Chargers, 39-38, Chargers cover: Could have been a win… it’s not. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer group of guys. In other news, the Bradyless Ms. L Superstars survived their first week vs. Tomlinson on the backs of Eli Manning and Santana Moss. Who knew?

W/L - Steelers -5.5 over Browns, 10-6, Steelers cover: I really wish I could see even a clip of a Steelers game so I had some concept of how they’re playing.

W/W - Cowboys -7 over Eagles, 41-37, Eagles +7: Could someone explain to me how Donovan McNabb can manage to flub not one, but two handoffs in crunch-time? Could that same person also explain to me why on three consecutive downs under two minutes, McNabb scampered around the backfield and ran toward the sideline and, rather than running toward the 10 open yards of field between him and the sideline, instead chose to take sacks? Someone could. His name is Rush Limbaugh.

5 point: Saints +1 over Redskins - L
4 point: Packers -1 over Lions - W
3 point: Colts -3.5 over Vikings - L
2 point: Chargers -3 over Broncos - L
1 point: Dolphins +7.5 over Chargers - L

Yikes.

Standings:

Straight Up: 9-6 (17-14)
Spread: 6-8-1 (!) (15-15-1)
Point Pool: 4/15 (14/30 - .467)

You may have heard of Buster Olney as a frequent “contributor” to Fire Joe Morgan. Olney is a writer deeply entrenched in classical baseball stuff — Wins are important, OBP is dumb, VORP is something evil dreamed up by people who hate the sport. In fact, the only reason I read this book is because my buddy Hulse told me it was very good. The Last Night Of The Yankee Dynasty tells the story of Game 7 of the World Series… only if it was dramatized with Lost style flashbacks giving you history on all the Yankee players. Olney takes the game, describes it inning by inning, and describes the players in building the dynasty and, ultimately, how it ended.

If anything, I was pleasantlly surprised at how engaging it was. I’m not a huge fan of Olney and I’m not a huge fan of the Yankees, but Olney describes the game in a way that anyone who is a baseball fan can get into. Unlike most Met guys, I’m not an active Yankee hater — though frequent-commenter Doug tells me that I IMed him after this game to goof on him which I don’t recall, but I’ll take his word for it. I remember this game primarily because it was the first championship game of any sport that I watched in a bar. Previously, all World Series games were watched in a college dorm room. This was the only World Series that happened when I was at RPI and the school isn’t really known for its jocks. In fact, only one guy I knew there was a baseball fan of any kind. My friend Matt and I watched this game at Peabody’s, a bar known for (at the time) being the only actual sports bar in Saratoga Springs, having the best wings in town, and being the place where we went on an unprecedented 4-hour run at a pool table. The book describes the game in such a dramatized fashion that two things happen 1) You start thinking this might have been the greatest baseball game of all time and 2) I really, really wish I could watch it again. Oddly, I can’t find it in the Yankees Classics rotation on YES.

As someone who lived in New York outside the Yankee thing, it’s also a pretty good revisiting of just how good those Yankee teams were. Like, as he was describing the 1998 team, I had pretty much forgotten how absurdly awesome that team was. I had forgotten it had taken them until late May to lose their 10th game and that they’d run away with the division by mid-July. I’d also forgotten how agonizingly hard Mike Piazza crushed the ball that led to the last out of the 2000 World Series*.

I’d also kind of argue with Olney’s contention that this particular World Series was the end of the dynasty. The Yankees would go on to win the division every year until 2007. I think you could successfully make the argument that the dynasty ended with Josh Beckett and the Marlins in 2003 or, even worse, with The Comeback in 2004. For artistic reasons, I understand why he chose this game — neither of those elimination games were particularly dramatic. In 2003, Beckett just made them look bad in game 6. In 2004, the doors were blown off game 7 by the 3rd inning. Only in 2001 did you have the added drama of most of the dynasty guys (Scott Brosius, Paul O’Neill, David Cone, etc) still on the team and playing in their last game, a gem of a game from both Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling, a team full of guys who were not expected to do much against this juggernaut, and, most damning, the best closer of our era giving up a crap hit to sneak in the winning run.

Recommended if you’re not a Yankee fan.

—-

* - cheated

OK, I understand that the 20 or so people who read this and the 5 or so who actively comment aren’t all in to vampire shows… but let’s do a quick comparison and you can tell me if I’m crazy.

First, here is the entire first episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. Watch until the first break (about 2 minutes) via the awesome Hulu.com. At the very least, you’ll get Julie Benz in a schoolgirl outfit.

And compare it to this, this is the first scene of True Blood. The credits finish at about 1:40 which makes it about a 3 minute video. The first 20 seconds are kinda/sorta NSFW. No nudity but fully clothed simulated, uh, shenanigans. Being HBO, the language is more colorful.

I understand that True Blood isn’t going for the evil, killer vampire — but someone watched the first four minutes of this television show and said: “yeah… this is perfect” instead of “jeez, this looks fake and terrible.” I mean, these are the two scenes that are supposed to hook people in to thinking this show is worth watching, right?

I got caught up in the TrueBlood ad-campaign in New York City this summer. The posters for the show were actually posters for the central-to-the-plot Tru:Blood drink, goofing on energy-drink advertisements. The idea is that this synthetic blood serves all the vampire’s nutritional needs which means they no longer need to kill people.

Preceding the pilot, HBO ran two half-hour documentaries about the evolution of the vampire. The first half hour dealt with the evolution of the vampire in legend — going back through the origins of the creature throughout history and pointing how old the idea of a vampire actually is. The second deals with the evolution of the vampire in pop-culture and literature — pretty much starting with the original Dracula book and ending up through pretty current stuff. They made stops at Bela Lugosi’s civilized Dracula. The evolution to Dark Shadows’ Barnabas Collins who was the first vampire who was horrified by what he was and what he was doing. The evolution of the Dracula character to Christopher Lee’s horrifically evil version. They spent some time on Blade, The Lost Boys, Underworld, and the Anne Rice universe. Notable exception was any mention of the Whendonverse — which seems like a very strange call considering the fan base of the two shows is essentially the same. Non-notable exception was the lack of mention of Moonlight.

I was also happy to see HBO got the bat-shit crazy psychic vampire lady to appear and talk about how she has to eat other people’s energy to stay feeling well. Seriously. I’m not kidding. She wrote a book about it.

I presume they ignored the Whedon vampires for two reasons. First, the pilot episode is ridiculously close in plotline to the Buffy pilot. Blonde girl with special powers runs into a vampire and falls in love with him. He sets her life on a new course. Secondly, the Whedonverse ruins their idea that this show is a natural progression of how the vampires have kind of moved from evil to romantic to heroic over the course of the last few decades. Whedon’s vampires were unapologeticly evil. They killed without thought. In this incarnation, vampires are just like people. They no longer have to kill people because of Tru:Blood so they “come out of the coffin” and present themselves to society. The opening scene shows a “vampire rights advocate” on Politically Correct arguing for vampire rights.

The Good

• Best line: Would you be willing to give up all different flavors of food and only drink Slim-Fast the rest of your life?
• Anna Paquin as a blonde. I think I like it.

The Bad

• As a Buffy fan, the way vampires on this show “vamp out” is really lame — and the actor they used to show it off in the opening scene didn’t help. The first scene in Buffy was Julie Benz dressed up in a school-girl outfit flirting with a guy and bringing him on to the roof of Sunnydale High. When she turns, her whole face turns monstrous and she kills him rather violently. It’s a scene that sticks with you. On this show, the first image is a completely unintimidating redneck threatening two drunk high school kids and a store owner. With his not intimidating Louisiana accent, he has has two pretty fake looking fangs fall next two his front teeth and says “ah’ma eat ya”. It was not the greatest debut for the show’s vampires.
• As seems to be the problem occasionally with HBO shows, the debut episode was paced agonizingly slow. Nothing of interest really happened and it really felt like they were killing time in a lot of it — which seems like not a good idea for a pilot episode.
• If anyone else watched this, did anyone else notice that Sookie’s (yes, Anna Paquin’s name in the show is “Sookie Stackhouse”) bedroom was exactly Buffy’s bedroom — right down to the positioning of the bed, window, and wallpaper? As I watched this episode, I found the writer’s and director’s contentions that they “never watched that show” become increasingly hard to believe. Especially, as we previously mentioned, the plotline of the first episode being about a blonde with special powers falling in love with the vampire.

The Rest

I don’t quite know the rules for this world yet — which I don’t like. Silver appears to burn and paralyze them. The documentary let us know that vampires who hate God and garlic are just a stereotype. They appear to move with super speed. They may or may not be able to hypnotize people. Apparently, humans ingest vampire blood as an XTC-like drug which increases vitality and sex drive. This drug is harvested by paralyzing a vampire and draining their blood out of them — which indicates that vampires have blood in them — which is weird. Looking around the web a bit, this show is based on the “Southern Vampire Series” by Charlaine Harris. So, I guess if I cared to look for her rules I could find them… but I’m of the opinion that a vampire show needs to lay out their rules and mythology early on. I also call shenanigans on the vampire’s contention that “we don’t like our weaknesses to be made public.” Bull. We live in the Internet age. Two YEARS after the vampires were made public knowledge, the government and regular people would DEMAND to know how to kill them. As I’ve mentioned before — give me the mythology early. I want to know the rules early on.

On top of ALL that, I don’t really get it. I don’t see where they’re going yet. It doesn’t seem to be a drama, it’s not very funny, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. If I’m grading the series on the pilot alone, it gets pretty low marks. It’s unsurprising that they sent the first two episodes out for review. So, at the moment, I’m undecided. Fellow upstate boy and guy with contacts SMS told me that the 2nd episode is much better than the first. That being the case, it gets at least next week.

I got the Entourage bandwagon pretty late. It kind of lost me last season, though, and I had big hopes for the season premiere. Unfortunately, it was another installment of “Vince doesn’t want to do something, E and Ari give him a pep talk, Vince reluctantly does it.” On the plus side — hot naked chicks.

Here’s to hoping next week is better.

JJ Abrams has become quite the sci-fi sweetheart. Following the glorious success of LOST, Abrams has been given the reigns of the Star Trek franchise and was handpicked by Stephen King to bring The Dark Tower to the big screen for the low licensing fee of $1. Abrams’s latest television product is Fringe, a sci-fi drama on Fox starring Dawson’s Creek alum Joshua Jackson. Just in case we need to be reminded that it’s an Abrams’ show, the opening shot is of an airplane in turbulence. Sadly, it’s NOT an Oceanic Flight, which would have been an excellent callback.

The Good

• It’s definitely sci-fi. I like sci-fi. It looks like it’s going to broadly explore some of the things the X-Files only touched on in early season (telekinesis, mind powers, etc) and then eschewed entirely for their broad, overreaching government and alien conspiracy storylines.
• It looks like it will be an episodic show that has some season-long storylines. I like this format.
• Once you get over the moderate absurdity of the Dr. Bishop character, he’s pretty interesting and likable. Thus far, the most likable one on the show. He doesn’t care about what’s going on around him. See problem. Solve problem. I can appreciate that.

The Bad

• Let’s be clear… this is definitely NOT the X-Files. I mean, it’s Homeland Security instead of the FBI, the woman instead of the man is the lead, one of the two isn’t an agent, and it’s about Fringe science — NOT extraterrestrials.
• It’s a bit TOO Abrams-y. I understand that comparisons to LOST are unavoidable, but the music types, how they cut, the way things are shot — everything screams LOST. When they’re about to cut to commercial, they use the same panicky violin music. There was one particular shot going to commercial with the cutaway shot on Lance Reddick (Matthew Abbadon on LOST) with the shrieky violin music and it literally could have been a shot from LOST.
• I find it eminently amusing that Dr. Bishop has been institutionalized for 17 years, but is able to come out of the asylum and, not only is lab at Harvard still intact (they’ve been using it for storage), but they happily allow him to use it.
• Did Joshua Jackson always have a weirdly stilted delivery or is this new for this show?

The Rest
One of the characters early on makes reference to “The Pattern” without fleshing it out. At first, I thought it was going to be typical Abrams “make reference to something and then define it 10 episodes later” — but it wasn’t. Turns out, “The Pattern” is the point of the show. I kind of want to like this show, but I’m not sure whether or not I really want to get into another giant, cloying conspiracy show where someone’s going to be chasing after a mysterious pattern for N seasons.

That said, the last fifteen minutes of the pilot sold me. They drew closed the story for the current show and dropped hints of ongoing story lines. I’m OK with this, I think. If the gigantic, cloying conspiracy is a background issue to the week-to-week episode, I think I’ll enjoy it.