South Park spoofs George Zimmerman

Token and Eric "Zimmerman" Cartman

On Wednesday, October 9, South Park will air episode #1703, "World War Zimmerman," about a vigilante-minded Eric Cartman who runs amok amid the town of South Park in search of Token, the sole African American male resident, who he sees as a threat to all humanity. The story is a parody of the George Zimmernan trial, with Eric Cartman apparently portraying a Zimmerman-like character. 

George Zimmerman, as you recall, was a 28-year old Hispanic white man who was charged with murdering 17-year old African American Trayvon Martin after he spotted him walking through his condo complex one rainy night on February 26, 2012 in Sanford, FL, just north of Orlando. Zimmerman mistook Martin for one of the teenagers who had burglarized the neighborhood. Martin was wearing a hoodie (a hooded sweatshirt) and carrying only a pack of Skittles and an Arizona Watermelon Tea. The trial took place this summer. Zimmerman plead self defense and was found not-guilty on June 14, 2013, much to the dismay of those who felt he panicked and should have at least been charged with manslaughter. 

Here in Central Florida, we have a uniquely personal relationship with the Martin/Zimmerman case. We joke about the "Stand Your Ground" (SYG) Florida law which was not utilized in this trial, but was considered by the defense as a possible way to defend Zimmerman.  "Stand Your Ground" allows a person to injure or kill someone who they view to be a threat. In many states, prior violence must be clearly proven, and unless someone is inside your house or car, you can be charged with murder. Locals joke about murdering unpopular politicians who they find to be particularly offensive and wondering if the SYG law would stick. Criminals have been successful using the law as an excuse to shoot and kill someone, even when they are the aggressors and went looking for a fight. (interesting chart on SYG law cases) The law is very controversial since the victim, now deceased, cannot tell their side of the story. 

Since Zimmerman has been released, he has managed to stay in the media spotlight. On July 31, 2013, Zimmerman was pulled over for speeding on U.S. 80 near Dallas, TX. Displaying a gun to the officer, he got off with only a warning after letting the police officer know who he was. On September 9, police were called to the Zimmerman home over a domestic dispute between George, his estranged wife Shellie (who had just filed for divorce), and Shellie's father.  Shellie had said in an ABC interview a few days earlier that her husband "believes he is 'invincible' after being found not guilty." 

Locals joke about watching out for Zimmerman while visiting Sanford, since he seems to be able to shoot random innocent people at will. There are even "Zimmerman" sightings, like Big Foot. 

I'm sure that South Park will reveal a moral lesson in this episode, that people cannot be judged as evil merely based on the color of their skin. Perhaps the show will take a poke at Florida's inane laws.

One local TV critic, Hal Boedeker of the Orlando Sentinel, has theorized that Zimmerman himself will make a guest appearance on the show (Article dated Oct. 7, 2013). Since South Park is animated, only Zimmerman's voice would be used.

The episode will debut at 10:00 p.m. on the Comedy Channel (66 or 1292HD on Brighthouse Cable in Orlando). The half hour show will replay several times this week:

Wednesday October 9 -- 10:00 p.m.

Thursday October 10 -- 12:01 a.m.

Thursday October 10 -- 3:45 a.m.

Thursday October 10 -- 10:30 p.m.

Friday October 11 -- 11:30 p.m.

Monday October 14 -- 2:00 a.m.

Wednesday October 9 -- 9:30 p.m.

Time Warner Under the Dome of CBS

Under the Dome on CBS is no longer viewable on demand, online, or on TV in certain markets due to an airing fee dispute.

Like many viewers out there, I have become a big fan of Under the Dome, the shiny new sparkling TV series airing on Monday nights at 10 p.m. on CBS. The show debuted on June 24, 2013, during the off summer season, a brilliant move. It is now rated the number one show nearly each week and boasts viewership from 10 to 14 million each episode. (according to Zap2it)

Under the Dome is a really exciting, unique, and original thriller conceived by popular horror novelist Stephen King about the community of Chester’s Mill, Maine which is mysteriously cut off from the rest of the world when it is encompassed by a 10-mile diameter transparent dome one beautiful sunny morning. The dome allows nothing in, nor out, save for for a little air and moisture. People are trapped inside without extra food or medicine. The doctor was out of town “when the dome came down.” The fire department had left for a parade in a neighboring city. And a few unfortunate visitors happened to be driving through and are now trapped inside, away from their homes and separated from their families, friends, and all their own personal belongings. 

With no cell phones, email, or television signal, Chester’s Mill residents are reduced to scrawling hand written messages and holding them up to show to others outside the transparent sound-proof dome. Lip reading sisters act as interpreters, revealing that the U.S. military is just as in-the-dark as to the cause of the dome as are the residents, and so is the rest of the world. 

Efforts to penetrate the dome with ordinary construction equipment are futile and it's discovered that metal objects touching the dome become electrically charged as if in a microwave, causing them to burn up. The government perceives the dome as a potential threat created by an unknown entity (possibly extraterrestrial) and in episode 5, Blue on Blue, aims a missile at it, exploding a M.O.A.B. (mother of all bombs) in an effort to destroy it. 

Anticipating the complete annihilation of the town of Chester’s Mill and it's inhabitants, the bomb only manages to destroy the surrounding landscape of homes and farmlands into oblivion. (These are miraculously restored in the next episode -- whoops! ) 

Nothing can crack it. Life goes on as best as possible inside the dome.

The CBS dome over Time Warner Cable

I try to watch Under the Dome via on demand each week due to my busy schedule, but was sadly dismayed to discover that CBS has pulled it's on demand viewing menu and blocked online viewing on it's own website due to a failed airing fee negotiation with Time Warner Cable. In an effort to rally support from viewers to call Time Warner at 1-888-TW-Cable and “tell them you want your CBS shows back!,” CBS has initiated its own blackout. 

CBS has created a website explaining their position and attempting to rally support here: KeepCBS.com

Time Warner has created a far more detailed explanation and offered solutions on their website here: Time Warner Conversations.

It's a wee bit complicated. You pay for cable. Your cable company (Time Warner in this instance) pays CBS to air their shows. But, CBS wants more money and claims they are underpaid. Time Warner says essentially: No, you're getting your fair share. So, CBS has cut the feed and Time Warner customers are now experiencing a blackout of sorts. 

Obviously, if you just hook up a good antennae to your TV, you can still watch CBS shows free of charge, which is what many of the 3.5 million paying Time Warner customers in the blackout cities of Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, and Pittsburgh are doing. These are the major metropolitan markets where CBS owns and operates the local CBS stations, thereby enabling them the control needed to create the blackout. 

Several channels are affected. In addition to CBS, Time Warner Cable customers can no longer view Flix, The Movie Channel (TCM), Showtime, and the Smithsonian Channel. To appease customers, Time Warner has replaced TCM with Encore, and Showtime with Starz.

I live in Orlando and I don't have Time Warner Cable. I have Bright House Cable. However, Time Warner is leading the negotiations with CBS for both Bright House and Time Warner, so I am also blocked from not only viewing my favorite CBS shows on demand on channel 304, but also from viewing them online via my Bright House internet connection. Fortunately, I can still view shows during their regularly scheduled viewing time slots since WKMG, our local CBS affiliate station, is owned by the Post/Newsweek Corp and will not block out the shows.

While I don't want to harp on this issue, I do feel that as a consumer, it's difficult to take sides in this matter without knowing all the facts. I would love to know what the fees are that Time Warner pays ABC, FOX, and NBC.  Is CBS asking for more money? And if so, why? CBS airs several major sporting events – do they feel that's their big bargaining chip? NBC airs the Olympics every two years and you can't get much bigger than that.

Hit shows come and hit shows go, and I'm all for equality in democracy. All four major networks who air their own original primetime shows from 8 to 11 each night: ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC should get paid the same fee. HBO and Showtime are also equal to each other in my eyes, and should get the same fee as well. If CBS wants more than what NBC is getting, then shame on CBS. If Time Warner wants to pay CBS less than what they are paying NBC, then shame on Time Warner. Just make it equal. Problem solved. If CBS feels they deserve more since they have a few hit shows, can't they simply make up the difference in advertising revenue? Leave us innocent cable customers out of the fight.

But, this blog is supposed to be about Under the Dome, not about a ridiculous behind-the-scenes spat which has affected viewers of all CBS shows, including many of my favorites: the popular Big Bang Theory, Two Broke Girls, and How I Met Your Mother, just to name a few.

Life Under the Dome

Fortunately, I was able to watch the latest episode 7, Imperfect Circles, when it aired this Monday at 10 p.m. on Bright House Cable. However, I've missed the previous episode 6, The Endless Thirst and had to resort to watching an action-figure collecting, computer-repair geek’s online critique on youtube to find out what happened. Apparently, the town’s water tower was knocked down, it rained inside the dome, and the character Rose, who ran the diner, was gunned down and killed by two hooligans, a sad, sad day in Chester’s Mill.

I love the premise of the show. The concept of “what would you do?” if you were suddenly cut off from the rest of society, unable to ship goods inside or out, with limited communication, power, water, food, medicine, and other resources? Especially with no hope in sight, no promise of future interaction, and no promise of anything ever returning to normal. I imagine it must feel a wee bit like those on the U.S.S. Minnow felt after being stranded on Gilligan’s island. At first, you hope for a quick rescue and end to your misery, drinking up all the wine which floats your way. As time passes, you adjust, take inventory, and create new ways to accomplish simple tasks.

I’ve experienced such an event myself on a short-term basis after a two-week power outage here in Orlando back in 2004 after Hurricane Charley swept through Florida, wrecking havoc. We neighbors met on the street, pooled our resources, and formed a cooking-and-entertainment brigade of sorts. One neighbor had a freezer full of thawing meat, so he made us dinner each night. I had a large screened in porch that offered a nice breeze and bug free environment. Another neighbor brought over their furniture, and another their candles. We read books and played canasta. Down the street, we charged our phones and computers at the gas station. We raided the next door neighbors’ orange trees and juiced the oranges to make mimosas.

If we had gone far longer without power and resources and been cut off with no hope in sight, we would have done more, entering unoccupied homes looking for canned goods and toilet paper stashes. 

Even longer, and I imagine creating a co-op exchange of goods and services: hand-me-down clothes in exchange for roof repair, mending in exchange for canned tomatoes. I'm sure we would have scrounged up some seeds and planted some new crops of vegetables. 

The show is based on the book of the same name, Under the Dome by Stephen King, and in it, just as in the adapted TV show, anarchy results, disasters occur, and people are killed. In the book, after a little over a week, the dome is lifted and it is discovered that only 26 people still remain alive. However, this is a television series, and the hope is that it will last a few years as we explore the sociological impacts and scenarios that would develop over the course of several months. Though King wrote the first episode, Producer Brian K. Vaughan has been hired to adapt and modify some characters and scenarios to accommodate the longer timeline.

My largest complaint, as a nerdy geek sci-fi fan are that the fallout from the disasters are magically erased each episode. Giant fires and explosions should be creating great clouds of unbreathable pollution, but are magically dissipated. The fields and homes destroyed by the M.O.A.B. have magically reappeared in the next episode. The dome edge seems to move. 

Before I read the book’s synopsis online (I don't recommend it -– it’s a spoiler), I was intrigued with what on earth could have caused the dome to form. I wondered if it were Eden, and mankind was being given a protective barrier against the rest of humanity in an effort to preserve them from some future cataclysm which would erase mankind from the surface of the earth, leaving only the dome occupants to repopulate the world.  The latest episode, with a black egg-shaped stone at the center emanating the force field, led me to theorize that this is perhaps a giant alien egg, and the people of town of Chester’s Mill have invariably been caught in the wasp’s nest, perhaps to be living food for whatever creature will be hatching from within. 

The true cause of the dome revealed in King’s book is just as exciting. Let’s hope that the dome on CBS and Time Warner and Bright House subscribers is lifted so that the rest of the world can see the show for themselves. Until then, you can watch this nerdy guy Trevor here on youtube for show updates: Trevschan2

Casey Anthony trial hottest thing on TV right now

R.I.P. Caylee Marie Anthony.

For those of us living in central Florida, Casey Anthony has been a hot topic of many a conversation over the past three years since her daughter, cute little 2-year-old Caylee Marie Anthony, disappeared. From the first word she was reported missing on July 17, 2008, we in Central Florida posted flyers around the neighborhood looking for a purported babysitter abductor and volunteered to search in the woods for the missing child. Our area churches held candlelight vigils. On December 12, 2008, a utility worker found the body of a child close to the Anthony home not far from the street, which sadly proved to be Caylee’s remains.

Her mother, Casey Anthony, has been accused by the Florida State prosecutors of killing her daughter and disposing of her body in the woods near the Anthony family home. She is now being tried for the crime and the trial is being broadcast live on TV. After three years of unending news coverage, speculation, and opinions, most of us living in the Orlando area feel as if we are a part of the drama ourselves. Real life is indeed more bizarre than fiction.

Now, due to the magic of cable TV, the rest of the world gets a chance to peer into the fish bowl of our lives, as the trial of Casey Anthony is suddenly broadcast live across the airwaves. People who were a part of the Anthony family’s lives during the ordeal: friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, and others in the community – some of whom we Florida residents ourselves know personally, are now becoming a part of the historical worldwide TV broadcast as they are put on the witness stand and questioned by both sides of the legal system.

I imagine that the makers of headache medicine as well as the local bars are doing a steady business around the courthouse. I’ve been on a witness stand myself and feeling shaky and distraught is an understatement. You want to tell the truth, but you’re afraid of accidentally leaving out crucial information, being led down a path of deception by clever legal strategists, and leaving not feeling you had the chance to fully represent the facts. I feel badly for those who are forced to live through this ordeal under the microscope of live TV.

A complete rundown of what’s happening is being well documented online via our wonderful local newspaper, The Orlando Sentinel. Here is the link to their trial coverage on their website: www.orlandosentinel.com . There is so much information here and elsewhere, if you haven’t been following it from day one as most of us in Orlando have been, it will take you a few days to wade through all the articles and posts.

After preempting regularly scheduled programming on all of the major local networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, AND NBC) during the first day of opening arguments, the trial is currently now being broadcast locally live on our Brighthouse TV cable news channel 13 here in Orlando. With few commercial breaks, and regular news reports during breaks, this local news channel is offering the best, uninterrupted broadcast in our area.

You can also see the case aired live on truTV, “In Session,” channel 60 on Brighthouse cable here in Central Florida. Friends of mine residing in other parts of the country are picking up the broadcast on this channel as well as on other court TV stations.

The trial is expected to last up to eight weeks and is already the talk of the town in the local coffee shops. Word yesterday was that no one was watching Oprah Winfrey’s 25-year show finalee. Instead, they were glued to the Casey Anthony trial. We haven’t had such an exciting court case air since the O.J.Simpson trial.

Remington Steele – A 1980’s snapshot in time

Before Pierce Brosnan played James Bond, before Doris Roberts played the nosy mother on Everybody Loves Raymond, there was Remington Steele,
a tantalizing and kitschy private investigator show full of glamour and romance.

The show is currently being re-run on American Life Television Network. I discovered it one day when I was home sick, and now the TiVo is programmed to pick it up every weekday. Here in Central Florida, it airs at 10 AM and again at 6 PM on Bright House cable channel 152. (For some odd reason, TV guide doesn't list the channel.)

The baseline story is complicated, but fortunately, the show’s writers repeatedly revisit the tale of how the Remington Steele detective agency was formed: Private investigator, Laura Holt (played by Stephanie Zimbalist), starts an agency and can’t get clients because she is a woman. She creates a “fake” male boss by stealing the name of her gun, a Remington, and adds the name “steel” with an “e” for flavor. After much success under her imaginary “boss,” a.k.a Remington Steele, she meets a con artist (Pierce Brosnan) who agrees to play the roll of Remington Steele to help her solve a case. The two work well together and the con artist permanently assumes the identity of Remington Steele. Season 2 brings in the colorful and delightful Doris Roberts as Mildred Krebs, a former IRS auditor, who acts as secretary, but eventually works her way into the roll of a private investigator herself. (See trailer)

What makes the show really work and gives it lasting quality is that each character, despite their good looks and poise, has a quirky personality of their very own. Over the course of the show, we wonder who Remington really is (does he even know, himself?). Remington frequently quotes and compares cases they are investigating to vintage movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s (What’s really cool, is you can now watch those movies on TCM, so you have an inkling what he’s talking about.) Mildred Krebs is always surprising us with her seemingly unending abilities and skills. Laura Holt, the “straight man,” constantly brings the team back to reality by discussing budgets and timelines, while holding back from throwing herself at a constantly beckoning Remington. She finally gives in to Remington in season 4.

I love watching the show and relishing all the 1980s kitsch. It’s not just the high necked silk blouses, shoulder pads, big hair, and giant earrings worn by Laura. Mildred uses an old IBM computer. The printer is a noisy dot matrix printer, complete with fan fold paper fed onto a roll (do you remember those?). Cell phones? Yeah, right, No. Old designer hand held models I would kill to have (but I don’t have a land line. Hmm.) Last week, Remington ordered a giant “top-of-the-line” new-technology disk movie player, a competitor to VCRs which came in a box bigger than a microwave, along with a giant TV, the kind that takes up half the living room.

The show also has a huge list of guest stars from a “who’s who” from the TV and soap opera world. In order of appearance: Annie Potts, Sharon Stone, Jenny O’Hara, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (Stephanie Zimbalist’s father), Delta Burke, Richard Backus, Michael Durrell, Judith Light, Barry Jenner, Susan Ruttan, John Larroquette, Billie Bird, Nancy Stafford, K Callan, Mary Beth Evans, Jean Smart, Geena Davis, Harry Groener, Peter Jurasik, Jennifer Tilly, Vincent Schiavelli, and Barbara Babcock, just to name a few.

Numerous actor careers were launched in part by Remington Steele, including: Paul Reiser, Randy Oglesby, Faith Prince, Miguel Sandoval, Patricia Wettig, and Joan McMurtrey.

You can see the entire list on IMDb.

Ah, my heart throbs for Pierce Brosnan – who is constantly gorgeous in designer suits and tuxedos. He is nearly always clean shaven, which makes me wonder: Why didn’t they let him shave as James Bond? Didn’t that hurt the leading ladies who kissed him?

Remington Steele originally ran for 5 seasons from 1982 to 1987. American Life is currently running season 4. (I hope they go back to season 1 when it runs out.)