Favorite Characters: Victoria Waterfield (Doctor Who)

Actress Deborah Watling’s remarkable talent for screaming like the devil was chasing her causes some to dismiss Victoria as a woefully out-of-date companion – just a good-looking, mostly useless girl whose chief contributions are usually getting captured and maybe asking the occasional good question.  While I understand where that perception comes from (her screams really are many and mighty,) I don’t think it paints the whole picture of who Victoria is (a few spoilers for “The Evil of the Daleks.”)

We meet Victoria halfway through her first encounter with aliens – by the time we get our first glimpse of her, she’s already been a Dalek prisoner for quite some time.  As a prisoner of the universe’s shrillest genocidal maniacs, she’s understandably freaked, and as a 19^th-century young woman of at least moderate class, she really has no context in which to understand what’s happening to her.  Furthermore, it means she probably hasn’t been raised to be much more than decorative, so it’s likely that her education is lacking and her experiences of the world are limited.

All of which is to say, Victoria’s been through a lot without having much in the way of means to acquire the tools she needs to handle it.  Not to mention, she comes aboard the TARDIS under far sadder-than-average circumstances – her beloved father, her only family, has just been killed by Daleks.  Joining the Doctor and Jamie is more about survival than a lust for adventure.  So, her mindset going in is very different than what you usually see.

Despite all this, however, Victoria holds her own fairly well.  She regularly demonstrates curiosity and initiative, sometimes urging Jamie to go out with her and explore when he’s feeling much more wary.  She can pick a lock with a hairpin, she often resents being told to stay behind for her own safety, and when she sets her mind to something, almost no one can talk her out of it.

I’ll admit that Victoria’s characterization can feel fairly inconsistent at times.  While she’s usually quick to run into danger (intentionally or otherwise,) she can fall to pieces once she’s there, giving over to screaming and general helplessness.  I’m not sure what all this is about.  One might say it shows that Victoria often has brave intentions but underestimates her resolve, or it could mean that she continually chooses to do the brave thing even when she knows how frightening it is.  It doesn’t really feel as cohesive as that, though.  Unfortunately, it feels more like the writers just making her act as it suits their purpose, even if that means doing a complete 180 multiple times in the same serial.  (Although, I feel the need to point out that being scared isn’t a bad thing – given the typical companion lifestyle, all of them are bound to feel scared out of their wits at least sometimes.)

It doesn’t get a lot of attention, but Victoria also has a pretty lovely relationship with the Doctor.  One of my favorite moments from her entire run on the show comes in “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” when the two of them are keeping watch while the rest of the party is sleeping.  She’s so sweet, fussing over him because she’s recently learned that he’s 450 years old and figures he needs to take it a little easier.  Meanwhile, he empathizes with her just beautifully over the loss of her father, telling her about how he remembers his own loved ones.  Gorgeous – I love it.

New Satire Roundup: July 24th-July 29th

Sunday, July 24 – John opened on Tim Kaine, Clinton’s lackluster VP choice with “all the excitement of a rice cooker.”  Next was the UK’s new foreign secretary, Brexiter Boris Johson; John decided Johnson’s habit of barreling into other countries, insulting their culture, and refusing to apologize is actually the perfect symbol of Britain’s colonial history.  The main story, predictably, was the RNC.  More than any individual lie or scare tactic, John focused on the prevailing attitude that feelings are more important than facts.  If, for example, Americans don’t feel safer, then lower crime rates don’t matter – it’s very “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.”  Last was a piece on politicians coopting licensed songs.  The closing video was great, but I especially liked Trump’s ironic song choices, ending the RNC with “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and opening a rally with “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.”

Monday, July 25 – Another clip show, for the Democratic campaigns leading up to the convention this time.  Since I’d figured it was coming, I didn’t mind it quite as much as last week, although I still don’t think it’s all that necessary.  Especially since we’ll be getting an extra episode on Friday, it’s not like we’ll be short for the week.  This time around, the gimmick in the linking intro bits was that Clinton was going to “appear” on the show, but whenever there was a break in the clips, Trevor would inform us that we’d “just missed her,” because she’d stepped out for some reason or another.  Like the stuff with Trevor in the “Trump mansion” last week, kind of cheesy.  Some of the clips were fun to see again, especially Trevor’s jokes about the non-Clinton and Sanders “also-rans” and how long they remained in the race with the media barely acknowledging their existence.

Tuesday, July 26 – With the historic moment of the first woman being the official nominee of a major party, it seemed fitting that Trevor focused on Michelle Obama’s speech, with her remarks on history, change, and her daughters coming of age in a new America.  The DNC email scandal got lots of play.  Hasan and Jordan tried to save Democrats from themselves by “destroying” their phones, and Jordan, Roy, and Michelle looked at the bad, good, and ugly sides of the issue (some good lines there – I liked Roy celebrating because none of the leaked emails contained the N-word and Jordan being angry with Russia because interfering with foreign elections is our thing.)  The show also covered the “Bernie or Bust” set even boo Sanders himself when the subject of voting for Clinton comes up.  John Podesta, who heads Clinton’s campaign, was the guest.  So-so interview – to me, he seemed a little too beholden to his talking points.

Wednesday, July 27 – Amazing show; every segment was on fire.  They opened on Clinton’s official nomination, with Desi reporting from the convention floor about the important milestone and how long it took the U.S. to get to this point.  Trevor compared Clinton and Trump with the overall thesis of, “Seriously, people, it’s no comparison!”  The description of Trump as America’s prospective “racist landlord” is weirdly apt.  More Trump with his treasonous remarks to Russia, with Trevor’s anger and dumbfoundedness coming in equal parts.  I appreciate that the show keeps drawing the (frighteningly easy) lines between Trump and prominent dictators, because it’s long since become scary and I don’t understand how we got here.  New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand was the guest, talking about how Clinton helped bring her to politics and the importance of bipartisan cooperation on passing family leave legislation.

Thursday, July 28 – Another live show, to cover Clinton’s speech.  Like the Trump speech stuff last week, it felt a bit hurried but had some good lines.  I liked the quick recap of Wednesday’s speakers, featuring Obama’s edge-of-sanity nervous laughter at the idea of a Trump presidency, Tim Kaine being a Black person’s impression of a white person, and Michael Bloomberg’s billionaire roast of Trump.  Next was a parody of Clinton’s bio video, set up like an iPhone ad.  I found some of it uncomfortable, framing Clinton as a preferable alternative to Trump but not really acknowledging her qualities.  The best part was the bit about her have a port instead of a cable and the shots of phones, tablets, and computers with their ports blurred out.  Mark Leibovich from the New York Times was the guest.  I liked his comments about the wild-card aspect of having a less partisan election, with both candidates polarizing in their own way.

Friday, July 29 – There’s something lovely about the idea of “balloon strikes” on enemy targets.  Thanks for that image, Trevor!  We recapped Michael Bloomberg’s Trump roast so we could see Trump’s thin-skinned response, proving once again that he shouldn’t have nuclear codes.  What the Actual Fact was a bit weak, I thought, mostly going for light targets; my favorite part was Desi arguing that Chelsea Clinton’s baby is not the cutest on earth.  Jordan, Hasan, and Adam gave a convention breakdown, deciding which Rocky movie best matches Clinton’s journey (yep, totally Rocky IV.)  A couple quick field pieces, one from Roy on last call being extended in Philly for delegates, and one from Ronny trying out water ice (the audience loved this piece.)  Senator Cory Booker was the show’s first repeat guest.  He talked about the convention and had some moving remarks on the importance of criminal justice reform.

Original: Your Pages (2009)

 Old poem this month.  I've been planning for a while to go through some of my old stuff and clean it up a bit.  I don't know that I'm quite satisfied with "Your Pages" yet, but I've always kind of liked it, so I thought I might as well take it out for a spin.  (Note:  I wrote this long before I knew I was aro and ace, but it was never an attempt to be about me - it was always meant to be an unnamed persona.)

*          *          *

Your Pages

Tear your pages from my book

So I don’t have to read you anymore,

Because every time I catch

A whisper of you in the corner of my eye,

The story writes itself anew.

The same old lovers’ quarrel

With its joy and heartbreak

Rising and falling in time

To the turn of the plot,

Its contradictions in tone,

And its sloppy metaphor.

I just can’t read you anymore.

But every time your eyes

Cross their orbit with mine,

The bad sequel starts taking shape

In the triter parts of my head,

Complete with out-of-character leads

And half-baked plots

Recycled from any old dime-store romance.

Because we’re both so much better than that,

But that’s all we write

When we’re together.

That’s our hackneyed external conflict

Cycling through and through

The same tired literary beats

And thematic mishmash,

And that plot’s long since played out.

Surely there are other stories worth writing,

Other loves worth having,

Other joys worth fighting for.

So I can’t read you anymore.

It’s high time we turn the page

And find someone

Who makes us see the point of happiness

By the glow of their laugh;

Someone who makes us feel

We might be who and where

We want to be, or at least,

Hope we could be someday.

Let’s not even shake hands

But part and follow the line

Of our separate hero’s journeys,

So we can each write new stories

About someone whose songs

Aren’t forever going out of rhyme.

But if I read you one more time…

Ma vie en rose (1997, R)

This Belgian film has been in my “so many movies, so little time” pile for years, and I finally got around to it.  It hits a lot of the typical hallmarks of trans stories, but I think it mostly hits them well and does a nice job exploring its subject matter while also telling a compelling story.

The Fabres have just moved into town, and with their new neighbors peering in, parents Pierre and Hanna are still deciding what should be done about their youngest child, Ludovic.  Hanna insists that Ludovic’s penchant for wearing dresses and playing with dolls is “normal” until age seven and assures Pierre that “he’ll outgrow it” soon.  Pierre, meanwhile, either doesn’t trust that the “problem” will go away on its own or doesn’t want to wait for it to do so, and urges more proactive measures.  What neither of them realize, of course, is that Ludovic is transgender, and despite their worrying and speculating, her only real problem is people policing her gender and telling her she’s something she’s not.

Many of the story beats are what you’d expect.  We get dress-up sessions, arguments over Ludovic’s hair, bullying at school, child psychologists, neighbors making their disapproval clear, punishments over Ludovic being herself, tense dinner-table shouting matches, worried looks over Ludovic’s elegant dancing, and parents at school getting up in arms over Ludovic’s “unnatural tendencies.”  In spite of all that well-trod ground, however, there’s a good story here that feels specific to the characters at hand.

I really enjoy Ludovic, who’s daydreamy and a little shy, young enough that she really doesn’t get what all the drama is about.  She accepts that she may currently have the body of a boy but knows that that isn’t right and fully expects the situation to remedy itself soon.  While she waits to become a girl, she cheerfully plans her wedding to her schoolyard crush, and when her older sister explains biological gender to her, it doesn’t faze her in the slightest.  In fact, she sees it as an explanation to all the confusion, and she begins reassuring people that one of her X’s (as in XX, not XY) got lost when God was making her.  It’s not until kids at school make fun of her dolls and her parents start yelling at her for wearing dresses that she starts to get confused herself, not understanding how she’s expected to be a boy when she’s so obviously a girl.

I think that, overall, Ludovic’s parents and grandmother are handled fairly well.  Even though the spectrum of acceptance to resistance seems range generally from Hanna to Granny to Pierre, their positions aren’t fixed and there’s no clear “good guy” or “bad guy” here.  All three adults have their moments of understanding and gentleness, and all three give in at times to their own confusion and anger.  They try to “straighten Ludovic out” and take her to task for her gender expression in private, but they also rally protectively around her when people in the neighborhood sneer at her.  I’m especially interested in Hanna, whose caring empathy is built on a slightly unstable foundation, and whose acceptance of Ludovic is continually couched in excuses – as if she loves her “son” the way “he” is, but she’s simultaneously reassuring herself that it’s not what it looks like.  Really interesting dynamic there.

Warnings

Language, sexual references, drinking/smoking, brief violence, and thematic elements.

A Few Thoughts on Diversity in the MCU: TV Edition

Last Marvelous Wednesday, I talked about how the MCU films stack up in terms of representation for women and people of color.  Long story short, Marvel has notable, well-drawn female and PoC characters (though none who are both,) but everyone with their own solo property is a white male.  Movies starring a Black male and white female hero are in the works, but they’re still two to three years out.  Marvel’s TV shows, however, are a different story.

The MCU’s first show, Agents of SHIELD, is an ensemble series, but Daisy (née Skye) is one of its most prominent characters, and she’s a woman, a PoC, and an Inhuman (plus we’ve had Bobbi, May, Simmons, and Mac being awesome all over the place.)  Agent Carter came next, and while Peggy isn’t a superhero, she’s the first woman in the Marvelverse to have her name in the title.  Jessica Jones is the first solo vehicle for a female superhero (and gives us the fabulous Trish and wonderful Malcolm to boot!), beating out Captain Marvel by more than three years, and Luke Cage, the first series starring a superhero of color, is coming out a year-and-a-half before Black Panther.  Not to mention, Daredevil technically stars the MCU’s first disabled superhero (even though Matt’s powers more than negate his blindness) and features also Karen, Claire, and Elektra.

Plus, Marvel’s TV has given us the MCU’s first openly LGBTQ characters, with minor recurring character Joey in this season of Agents of SHIELD (also an Inhuman, so he has powers,) quickly followed by Jeri, Wendy, and Pam in Jessica Jones.  The four Marvel shows to date have also featured a variety of villains, including women and PoC (some of whom are WoC.)  Not that “Where’s my villain representation?!” is a typical rallying cry, but the MCU is letting their non-white and/or non-male characters run the full gamut as well – heroes, villains, and everything in between.  Who doesn’t love Dottie, right?

Not that inclusion on these shows is perfect.  I like Daisy, but I get where people are coming from when they complain about her being a Mary Sue, and Coulson’s blatant favoritism of her definitely feels Special Snowflake-ish.  The Hand on Daredevil is problematic, what with its legion of interchangeable Asian ninjas with no personalities.  And while Agent Carter does a splendid job of exploring gender discrimination in the 1940s, any consideration of race is conspicuously absent in its first season.  There’s certainly still room for improvement.

Since both the film and TV works are part of the same universe, I find it an interesting comparison of where the two industries at at in terms of diversity.  Yes, it’s a fair point that, even though Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are only the fourth and fifth Marvel TV shows (as opposed to the 18^th and 22^nd Marvel films for Black Panther and Captain Marvel,) they’re still benefiting from the same groundwork the white male superhero movies have been laying since 2008.  But that doesn’t change the fact that both of these milestone solo properties are coming out on TV years before they come out on film.  I think that’s because, as far as TV still has to go where diversity is concerned (just ask Sleepy Hollow,) the television industry has come farther than the film industry, where a movie starring a woman and/or a PoC is still considered a much bigger inherent “risk” and producers still fall over themselves in shock when a female- or PoC-led film is successful.  Much like comparing this year’s so-white Oscars with the more diverse Emmys, it serves as a handy microcosm for the differences between the film and TV landscape.

Favorite Characters: Finn (Star Wars)

The second lynchpin in our new Star Wars trio.  Finn is a definite “unlikely hero” type, but even as some of the nuts and bolts of his character feel trope-ish, he himself manages to stay grounded and relatable.  I really enjoy seeing him begin to come into his own in The Force Awakens (Finn-related spoilers.)

As I said in my Rey write-up, all three new trio characters have some similarities with members of the original trio.  While Rey (obviously) leans heavily on the Luke vibes, Finn has a little Han going on.  Now, from a character standpoint, I’d say Poe hits the Han resemblance a lot harder, but for Finn, it’s more in the setup of how the character is positioned within the story.  It ties into the “unlikely hero” description because, like Han, Finn doesn’t start out with any intention of helping the resistance, but it winds up happening, anyway.  Anyone in the story that knows who Finn is and where he’s come from assumes he’s not the hero type, and Finn wouldn’t be in any hurry to disagree with that sentiment.  I really don’t think he would buy that he has it in him, but because he has reason to like the way it looks on him, he thinks he has to fake it.

Pretending his motivations are more heroic/admirable than they really are is a bit of a common thread with Finn.  When he’s sent out on his first hot mission as a stormtrooper and realizes just how completely he needs to get out of there, he frees the captured Poe as a prelude to his escape.  But although he talks a good game about releasing Poe because it’s the right thing to do, Poe twigs his actual reason right away:  he needs to run away, and to do that, he’s gonna need a pilot.  Similarly, Finn ends up spinning the whole story about being a member of the resistance after Rey infers a connection between him and BB-8 and figures he must be in on the action.  He wants to impress her, he doesn’t want to contradict the much more flattering image she’s just painted of him, and he really doesn’t want to admit to being an ex-stormtrooper on the run, so he goes along with the lie.

But that’s the thing.  Due to the intense, crazy, dangerous situation in which Rey makes this false assumption, Finn gets swept up in a daring-escape-turned-desperate-mission, crossing the galaxy in a stolen ship to get BB-8 (and the vital information he’s carrying) back to the resistance.  Any time Rey or someone else makes a reference to Finn being a resistance member, he acts shifty and doubles down on his story because he knows that’s not who he is, but in the midst of all this, he’s starting to become an actual hero, almost despite himself.  Maintaining his cover helps him become what he’s pretending to be:  braver, quicker, more strategic, a better fighter, and someone who puts the good of others before himself.  In a situation like this, at what point do you cease to be “playing a part” and just become the actual thing you’re masquerading as?

For me, I’d have to say it’s when things start getting way too real and Finn nearly talks himself into running.  He almost leaves, but ultimately, he can’t do it.  He stays with his new friends, and he stands his ground when everything hits the fan.  This, I think, is where the change really starts, what sends him down the path that ends with him sneaking way behind enemy lines to rescue Rey.  Not that she really needs rescuing, but I’m cool with that.  Rey being awesome works for me, and in terms of Finn’s characterization, heroic choices, like endangering himself to help a friend, say just as much as heroic actions, like kicking butt in a battle.  Most definitely excited to see how he continues to grow in the coming films.

Palooka from Paducah (1935)

Fair-to-middling Eduational short this week, I’d say.  It has its moments, and the Keaton family reunion makes me smile, but it’s nothing too special

A family of hillbillies has been getting along well enough for themselves, but they’ve hit a crisis:  it turns out, Prohibition was repealed over a year ago, which puts a damper on their moonshine business.  The family’s patriarch decides that wrestling matches are where the money’s at now and starts training the larger of his two sons to enter the ring.  Given Buster’s stature, he is not the larger of the two sons, but he does still get on the action, helping with the training and serving as the referee when the day of the big fight comes.

This short manages four out of five Keatons, with Buster’s parents (Joe and Myra) and sister (Louise) taking on the same familial roles in the film.  It’s fun to see them all onscreen together, and each Keaton gets a few nice comedic moments of their own.  When the family is settling into their bunks for the night, Joe carefully drops his boots on Buster’s head, Myra has an amusing bit featuring the fancy new teeth Joe has bought for her, and Louise has a couple of really great tumbles.

And Buster, of course, gets some good routines.  Like Allez-Oop, the heaviest physical comedy is in the second half, once the wrestling starts.  The whole setup feels reminiscent of Battling Butler, although there aren’t any bits directly lifted from there.  We have a fun training scene, a predictably disastrous match (in which Buster put himself in the line of fire way more than any ref needs to,) and a great shot of Buster brought to the dinner table by his brother.  In the latter, he has his legs wrapped around his brother’s waist but somehow keeps his rest of him all but perpendicular to the floor (that’s killer core strength – he clearly got his form back after the troubles at MGM.)

Most of the entertainment just comes from the family’s interactions with another; there’s a funny scene of them all around the table together that’s inspired by the dinner scene in My Wife’s Relations.  The short tends to succeed in the little moments, but what story there is isn’t much to write home about.  Besides the gags, tumbles, and hick jokes, not a whole lot there.

I don’t mind the enormous fake beards on Buster and the other hillbilly guys.  It looks as goofy as it does fake, but it only covers the chin and sides, so it doesn’t get in the way of Buster’s always surprisingly-expressive stone face, which is the main thing. 

Warnings

Slapstick violence and alcohol references.

Some Thoughts about the Twelfth Doctor in Series 9

It’s weird.  Even though I feel like I have a strong understanding of who Twelve is, the writing for him can be all over the place at times (maybe it’s Peter Capaldi’s splendid performance holding everything together when the writing gets funky?  That’s what I’m going with.)  In general, series 9 feels like something of a course correction for his character, like the show feared he was “too gruff,” “too dark,” or “too something” the previous season.  But even within that, the writing can be both inconsistent and weird.  So help me, though, I still love him to pieces.  Some Doctor-related spoilers for series 9.

First things first:  the sonic sunglasses and the electric guitar.  Personally, I love the idea of the guitar, but the execution doesn’t work that well for me.  I always like details about the Doctor’s hobbies/interests, like Eleven playing soccer, Two wanted to build sandcastles on the beach (aw,) or Nine being a huge Dickens fanboy, and rockin’ Doctor seemed like a fun “thing” for Twelve.  But aside from really not liking how the guitar is introduced in the premiere, I don’t like how it’s used throughout the season, mainly Twelve playing it alone in the TARDIS during establishing shots.  Done that way, it just doesn’t have much personality.  I’d have prefer one really well-placed instance to a rather staid recurring feature – my personal fantasy would have been the Doctor and Clara traveling to some classic rock scene and contriving a reason to have the Doctor pick up a guitar in a club or something and wail on it, shocking Clara to see a new side of him.

But really, both the electric guitar and sonic sunglasses (which have their moments but, for the most part, are annoying bordering on irritating) feel weird, sort of artificial.  Like they’re both efforts to go, “Hey, guys, check it out!  The Doctor’s a cool dude!”, which is, of course, one of the least-cool ways to go about it.  Not only do they feel cliché and forced, they seem to suggest that the show didn’t think Twelve was cool, like he needed props in order to gel.  If that’s the case, boo to them for not appreciating Twelve in all his mad-genius cantankerous glory.

These things dovetail into the Doctor’s change of costume for series 9, with the zip-up hoodie and assorted T-shirts under his coat.  This is a change I like – much like the Doctor’s hobbies, I love the thought of a dressed-down Doctor, and the hoodie works for me just fine.  What I don’t like is how, at the end of the season, the show ties it (and the sonic) to the Doctor not being “Doctory” anymore, giving us the final shot of Twelve in the more traditionally Doctor-ish velvet coat and trading in the sunglasses for a new, proper screwdriver, with Clara’s parting entreaty to “Run, you clever boy, and be a Doctor.”  I dunno.  By definition, the Doctor changes, and I don’t like the suggestion that he needs certain trappings in order to “be” the Doctor.

The way the season kicks off with Twelve’s (in my opinion, obnoxious) farewell party to himself when he thinks he’s going to die in “The Magician’s Apprentice,” combined with these “cooler” changes and the seeming back-to-“normal” pivot at the end of the season, gives off the weirdest vibe.  Even though I still see Twelve very much as the Doctor – especially in “Last Christmas,” the underwater-army-base two-parter, and “The Woman Who Lived” – I get the impression that the show was going almost for “midlife crisis Doctor” here, and I don’t get why.  What were they trying to do?  Do they not have faith in the character they’ve written?  Do they need a lot of manufactured drama and forced humor?  Why try and mess so much with a good thing?  Bless Peter Capaldi for taking whatever they give him and still making it feel true.

News Satire Roundup: July 18th-July 22nd

New Last Week Tonight coming up on Sunday – yes!  In the meantime, another favorite recurring comic bit on the show is John’s habit of directly addressing the fake people in his stock photos there to illustrate whatever point he’s presently making.  Every time he turns to the empty space over his shoulder where they superimpose his graphics, gives them names, and lays into them heartily, I crack up so hard.  It’s too much fun when he insults them and calls them the worst, but my favorite is when he throws in extra backstory, like the lesbian couple trying to get a bank loan for “Brenda’s stupid ‘cupcakes for dogs’” business venture, or Gerald, whose new gym membership is destined to be “learning Korean all over again.”  At times, he just talks to them frankly about their life choices, while at others, he takes on the part of someone else in the stock photo and inserts himself into the imaginary conversation – either way, it’s always good.

Monday, July 18 – Pretty wasted episode here.  With the show gearing up for its three-day convention special filmed in Cleveland, having a new episode on Monday evidently wasn’t in the cards.  Instead, we got “The Road to the Road,” a clip show covering the lowlights of the GOP race this election season; the only new bits were a few introductory snippets from Trevor, allegedly shot in the gold-encrusted Trump mansion.  Now, while this election cycle had plenty of craziness worth remembering and the show gave a number of excellent stories on it, I didn’t really need to see them played again piecemeal.  If there’s an old segment I want to watch again, I’ll watch the whole story on the website, not a 20-second clip interspersed with a bunch of other 20-second clips.  I get why they didn’t have a new episode tonight, but for me, there wasn’t much point to this one. 

Tuesday, July 19 –The correspondents kicked things off with their fears stirred up by thoughts of the future, the combative atmosphere, the Islamophobia, and the xenophobic rhetoric.  Trevor discussed the Melania-Michelle speech situation, bringing us the “truth” with an assist from Kim Kardashian.  Fine story on the first night’s theme, “Make America Safe Again,” which translated to fearmongering, mainly against foreigners, and I loved Trevor’s response to the Black speakers brought in to make “All Lives Matter” statements.  From bringing up the systemic racism and cyclical poverty their speeches ignored to wondering why Black people are “so susceptible to dying” at the hands of police if no one is guilty of killing them, he was perfect.  Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele was the guest.  He and Trevor discussed the convention, how a Black Republican can vote for Trump, and whether Republicans can admit Clinton’s merits.

Wednesday, July 20 – After an amusing clip of Ted Cruz being upstaged by Trump’s plane, Trevor launched into Tuesday’s convention highlights.  Looking for actual support for Trump in Paul Ryan’s speech made for a disappointing drinking game, and with Chris Christie’s speech, Trevor wondered how the day’s theme of economic policy became a farcical “trial” of Clinton.  I really liked Trevor’s comments about the mob mentality atmosphere and how easy it is to get people on your side by chanting slogans instead of making measured arguments.  Great field piece from Jordan on evangelicals who support Trump despite his less-than-Christian behavior – his interview with a pastor, whose claims of Trump’s devoutness Jordan roundly challenged, was the highlight.  I liked guest Christiane Amanpour, especially her remarks about how journalists can conflate neutrality with creating false equivalences that aren’t there.

Thursday, July 21 – Live show tonight, so Trevor could react to Trump’s speech, mainly apocalyptic fear based on untrue “facts.”  For being live, I thought the piece was decent, if a little rushed.  Trevor’s glee at Cruz’s non-endorsement from Wednesday, though, was great.  I loved the Daenerys comparisons to Cruz walking into the establishment and burning the place down.  A parody “Who is Donald Trump?” video was fun, featuring Trump’s numerous bankruptcies and businessman-to-politician strategy of turning his flaws into selling points.  (They had to cut to commercial the first time because the video froze – Trevor’s, “They’re telling me to go to an ad break, but I could rule the world right now!” cracked me up.)  Really enjoyed the guest, Alex Wagner from The Atlantic.  She and Trevor talked about the convention’s coliseum feel, Mike Pence’s apparent buyer’s remorse, and who will do the actual duties of president if Trump wins.

Friday, July 22 – Rather than spend the whole night on Trump, Trevor opened on Charles Kinsey, non-fatally shot by police while lying on the sidewalk with his hands up helping an autistic man.  No words for that craziness, but Trevor’s commentary was great.  The guy correspondents played fearmongering telephone, in which each was so stirred up up by Trump’s speech that they needed to arm themselves, a desire that only increased when they heard how the others were arming themselves.  Desi fact-checked both Trump and other speakers from the convention; I liked that she mentioned Trump’s vow to protect LGBTQ people from “a hateful foreign ideology” but not domestic violence/oppression.  Hasan had an excellent field piece asking convention-goers about Trump’s proposed Muslim ban.  It was bizarre how many simply dismissed it, or expressed acceptance of Muslims and then endorsed Trump in the same breath.