Day 250: Whoa. 250 days in Sacramento!!
I've been watching a lot of serial television lately, and I wanted to take an aside and note the remarkable similarities between "Homeland" and "The Dukes of Hazzard."
NOTE: This is spoiler-free. For both shows.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: I am, obviously, talking about the beloved and wonderful television show about two honest, brave, and resourceful southern cousins, their hot cousin, their wise uncle, and their magic car. I am NOT talking about the movie, where every single character was dumb, up to and including Daisy, Bo, and Luke. Bo and Luke were made dumber than everyone else. It's like they never even watched the show!
Anyway, I know what you're probably thinking: "THAT WAS A TERRIBLE MOVIE! Jim, I completely agree with your analysis thus far, so I am willing to continue on, confident in the fact that you will not lead us astray!"
I thank you for your faith, and trust that you will not find it misplaced.
Homeland and The Dukes of Hazzard are basically the exact same show, though one does, admittedly, have a magic car.
To wit:
Both feature heroes who are so good at unraveling the carefully laid plans of the villains that it nearly strains credulity. Both shows feature protagonists who are almost always correct in their assumptions about what's really going on. In both shows, the alleged "authorities" are just as likely to be complicit (inadvertantly or... advertantly*, I guess...) in what the "bad guys" are doing. The authorities are completely incompetent, and would never get anywhere near any actual criminals if it wasn't for the actions of our heroes. In both shows, we are regularly treated to the POV of the main antagonist, and, gosh darnit, sometimes we even feel for the guy; he's mostly a pawn anyway, and we know that he performs his duties out of a genuine, if misguided, loyalty to his superior.
This superior, in both shows, acts as sort of a father figure, and speaks to his vaguely mentally-handicapped subordinate using small words, short sentences, and really quite a lot of patience. He is the mastermind, and he typically has out-thought both his underling and the forces that oppose him, and he is mildly successful.
But our heroes are always, always, always one step ahead of this evil man, and his minion, because they just have a sense of what he's going to do next. And how. And where. And what kind of car he'll be driving (okay, that last one is restricted to the magic car show).
And we love our heroes. We cheer for them, when they win. We agonize with them, when they suffer setbacks. We know that, in the end, they will win out, for the forces of goodness cannot be stopped by the stupid, baseless, evil criminal bad guys.
And in both shows, we have a mentor figure for our heroes, an older wiseman, complete with grey beard, who always believes that our heroes will do what is right. Despite massive, documented, overwhelming evidence to the contrary, these wise sages know, in their hearts, that our heroes can do no wrong, and that they will emerge victorious. The wisemen believe, and so WE believe. We WANT them to be right.
Of course, some of you are wondering how I'm going to get around the Daisy issue. There's no corollary to Daisy on the more recent show (some of you are probably thinking I'm going to lean towards Morena Baccarin, who is definitely the eye-candy on Homeland, but she doesn't really LOVE Brody, and we all know that Daisy really loves Enos...).
No, the secret here is that the creators of homeland put ALL THREE DUKE COUSINS into the body of one character. She's at turns playful, snarky, witty, brilliant, and, when it is called for, she can vamp it up with the best of them.
And when you think about it, this totally explains her schizophrenia.
See? Your faith in me was totally justified.
Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! :)
*Looked it up. Real word. Means the opposite of inadvertantly.
I've been watching a lot of serial television lately, and I wanted to take an aside and note the remarkable similarities between "Homeland" and "The Dukes of Hazzard."
NOTE: This is spoiler-free. For both shows.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: I am, obviously, talking about the beloved and wonderful television show about two honest, brave, and resourceful southern cousins, their hot cousin, their wise uncle, and their magic car. I am NOT talking about the movie, where every single character was dumb, up to and including Daisy, Bo, and Luke. Bo and Luke were made dumber than everyone else. It's like they never even watched the show!
Anyway, I know what you're probably thinking: "THAT WAS A TERRIBLE MOVIE! Jim, I completely agree with your analysis thus far, so I am willing to continue on, confident in the fact that you will not lead us astray!"
I thank you for your faith, and trust that you will not find it misplaced.
Homeland and The Dukes of Hazzard are basically the exact same show, though one does, admittedly, have a magic car.
To wit:
Both feature heroes who are so good at unraveling the carefully laid plans of the villains that it nearly strains credulity. Both shows feature protagonists who are almost always correct in their assumptions about what's really going on. In both shows, the alleged "authorities" are just as likely to be complicit (inadvertantly or... advertantly*, I guess...) in what the "bad guys" are doing. The authorities are completely incompetent, and would never get anywhere near any actual criminals if it wasn't for the actions of our heroes. In both shows, we are regularly treated to the POV of the main antagonist, and, gosh darnit, sometimes we even feel for the guy; he's mostly a pawn anyway, and we know that he performs his duties out of a genuine, if misguided, loyalty to his superior.
This superior, in both shows, acts as sort of a father figure, and speaks to his vaguely mentally-handicapped subordinate using small words, short sentences, and really quite a lot of patience. He is the mastermind, and he typically has out-thought both his underling and the forces that oppose him, and he is mildly successful.
But our heroes are always, always, always one step ahead of this evil man, and his minion, because they just have a sense of what he's going to do next. And how. And where. And what kind of car he'll be driving (okay, that last one is restricted to the magic car show).
And we love our heroes. We cheer for them, when they win. We agonize with them, when they suffer setbacks. We know that, in the end, they will win out, for the forces of goodness cannot be stopped by the stupid, baseless, evil criminal bad guys.
And in both shows, we have a mentor figure for our heroes, an older wiseman, complete with grey beard, who always believes that our heroes will do what is right. Despite massive, documented, overwhelming evidence to the contrary, these wise sages know, in their hearts, that our heroes can do no wrong, and that they will emerge victorious. The wisemen believe, and so WE believe. We WANT them to be right.
Of course, some of you are wondering how I'm going to get around the Daisy issue. There's no corollary to Daisy on the more recent show (some of you are probably thinking I'm going to lean towards Morena Baccarin, who is definitely the eye-candy on Homeland, but she doesn't really LOVE Brody, and we all know that Daisy really loves Enos...).
No, the secret here is that the creators of homeland put ALL THREE DUKE COUSINS into the body of one character. She's at turns playful, snarky, witty, brilliant, and, when it is called for, she can vamp it up with the best of them.
And when you think about it, this totally explains her schizophrenia.
See? Your faith in me was totally justified.
Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! :)
*Looked it up. Real word. Means the opposite of inadvertantly.
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