Tribal People Watch Bob Ross

 

Diet Soda

 
In college I was made aware of a study that had one group drink regular soda for a certain amount of time and another group drink diet soda. At the end of the study they had found that the people drinking the regular soda had lost more weight (or gained less weight, I don't remember) than the people drinking diet soda. I remember thinking it was an interesting example of experiment proving counter-intuitive results.

One of the ways the apparent paradox could be explained is psychologically - yes, the diet soda is technically better but people are prone to thinking "I'm drinking the diet soda so I might as well have two slices of pizza" etc. and in the end they ruin the gainz.

Aside from thinking it was a fascinating experiment, it never had much effect on my life because I just don't see the point in drinking diet soda. 

Fast forward to today.

Recently I ordered caffeine-free coke and what actually got delivered was caffeine-free diet coke. As someone who drinks caffeine-free coke this is an annoyingly common occurrence. I don't know what it is but for some reason people confuse the two with reckless abandon. To me, diet coke is cheap swill but I didn't want to be wasteful and also figured I'd re-check my assumptions.

To my surprise, I've found it to be a tastier beverage than I had anticipated but here's the thing... Switching to diet soda and keeping everything else constant, I've found that I'm eating more and the reason I'm eating more is not because I'm lying to myself. I don't count calories and I don't make bargains about what I can eat and what I can't. No, I'm eating because I'm insanely hungry almost all the time now and it's a pretty clear direct relationship to the soda itself.

So, I don't have a scale and haven't measured my weight and so maybe I'm hungrier and eating more but have some how lost more weight than I would have otherwise. I'm not suggesting anything about this experience is purely scientific and, in case you're wondering, some studies have shown diet soda increases appetite though there are conflicting studies. Still, the contrast has been so stark and so surprising, at least in terms of subjective experience, that the conclusion is clear - sugar tastes better than artificial sweetener and I don't enjoy being hungry so it's regular soda or water and that's it.

Late Night - Ghost of Christmas Past

 Sure it's not Christmas but... uh..... I don't know.

Late Night - Where's My Kayak?

 Or: "There's no reason to live!"

T and T - Season 3

 

It's Part 3 of my full review and synopsis of the series "T and T" and while you might recall that I proclaimed Season 2 to be the lowest point of the series, this post is the lowest point of my life. Enjoy.

WikiPedia Sucks

About Season 3, Wikipedia has this to say: 

"Season three saw a return to action-based stories."

 Well to that I can only say "citation needed" because that's a lie. In Season 3, "T and T" was bought by the Family Channel after running in syndication for the first two (according to Wikipedia) and, being a family show, the action was almost completely removed (you can't say completely removed because nothing about this show is consistent). You can definitively say that Season 3 has the least amount of action.... and it's not even close.  Action was originally part of the formula of the show - each and every episode you knew you were going to see at least a car chase or a fist fight or a person holding a gun but not shooting as someone tackled them from behind. Even when Season 2 got "serious", there was still something action-oriented. But not only does Season 3 emerge with no-action episodes, it even tries to generate and focus on "comedy." Oof. More on that later.

The Theme (Updated)

I noted in Part 2/Season 2 the show eliminated most of the supporting characters but were too lazy to update the opening theme which introduced them. The result was a weird "ghost town" opening.  Well they right this wrong for the Season 3 opening - no superfluous actors. Also eliminated from the theme is the voiceover at the beginning that explains the show's premise. But they didn't want to make the opening any shorter timewise so what do they do with the empty space? They add more song! Not only that, they tack on a whole new section to the beginning of the song that was already disjointed and inconsistent. Check out the results. It all seems to go together but none of it goes together.

A New T

If you watch that new opening you'll see why they were absolutely forced to change it. One of the Ts has been replaced. Amy Taler was fired or left the show or something (can't find any info on what happend) and replaced by Terri Taler, played by another actress. I don't know why. It seems like the ultimate lateral move.

Remember when I complained that Amanda/Amy's character was bland and generic? Well nothing changes in Season 3. It was like they replaced my regular bowl of oatmeal with another brand of oatmeal. I did not notice a difference. This is not to say anything about the actresses, they're fine, just the character(s) as written.

But here's yet another entry in the never-ending list of mysteries. You can see the name of the character changed, right? So you expect the new character is a different person - perhaps Amy's sister or something... You figure they'll start the season and make a quick comment about how Terri is handling things while Amy is exploring the Amazon and after that quick one line, they'll move on as if nothing is changed. Perhaps, even, Amy Taler will be seen talking to them on the phone and saying how much she's enjoying her round-the-world yacht race. But that never happens.  Instead, what they say is nothing. I assume the implication is that they're the same character... except why change the name of the character if it's the same;? Just change the actress. Nothing about this show makes sense.

The Plots

So eliminating the action and focusing on drama or "comedy", the show gets really boring in Season 3. The show still yields a few wacky highlights that I'll tell you about later but, if I can make a generalization about a show that's never consistent, it's just mostly dull going through-the-motions filling out 30 minutes of air time to sell commercials stuff.

In Season 3 Episode 11 a man comes into the gym and claims to be Luck O'Mara, a famous gangster who is presumed dead. In Season 3 Episode 20 a man comes into the gym and claims to be Wild Willy Ryder a famous rock guitarist who is supposedly dead. Uh oh. And incidentally both of these aired in 1990 - the Season 1 Episode 12 episode of "Cheers" where a man walks into the bar claiming to be a famous poet was 1982.

In Episode 6, a stand-up comic is threatened by the mob because he tells mob jokes. Why do they care especially when the jokes are so weak? Season 3 Episode 19, the entire episode is Turner telling a fairy tale to a little kid. That's it. Remember: Wikipedia says this is the season that focuses on action. Season 3 Episode 8 focuses on Professional Wrestling. Season 3 Episode 12 Terri's ex comes back and wants to sell people into Ponzi schemes or bad investments or something. The twist here is that the investments turn out to be good. The other twist here is that the investments turn out to be bad. I have no idea what the end of the episode means except I know that investment opportunities are not action.

So all of this sounds goofy and stupid so maybe you think it sounds fun. But by now you should know that nothing can nothing is consistent, nothing is predictable. In between these episodes is an episode where an ex-cop shoots a kid and as we try to get to the heart of his motives he sweats, yells, drinks, possibly has PTSD flashbacks and the whole thing feels like a fever dream. There's another episode where common citizens try to get rid of a crack den in their neighborhood. And there's an episode where a deaf boy witnesses a robbery so the mob is after him. And this sounds stupid, but it's genuinely uncomfortable to watch.

No doubt, Season 3 lacks action but none of these episodes are technically the worst episodes. Let's get to that now...

The "Comedy"

So, like I said, the third Season has its wacky episodes and its dead serious episodes and each has their problems. But if I had to summarize what Season 3's focus IS (at least compared to the other seasons), I would say it seems to be "comedy."

And I've put "comedy" in quotes, and will continue to do so, for a reason. Because when "T and T" does "comedy" it's unbearable. In fact, I might cut this segment short because I don't even have the strength to get into it. We'll see.

In Season 2, the show introduced two small time, bumbling, stupid criminals - one is the smart one and one is the stupid one and they are, of course, both stupid. I never learned their names, I don't care about their names. But in Season 3 they are made to be recurring characters. Recurring villains? How? Well, you know how at the end of every episode they're caught and put in prison? Yeah well the show doesn't know anything about that so here they are walking around in another episode. Just as if nothing ever happened - it's almost like what happens in the show doesn't matter at all. Say what you want about "T and T" (and I have) but it was always at least taking place somewhere in the real world. With this, it takes up the logic of Adam West's "Batman".

Here's the worst episode with them: Season 3 Episode 9. The two crooks see that a gym (Turner's gym) is next to a jewelry store so they concoct a plan to pretend to be movie producers making a movie in the gym while they're "secretly" breaking through the wall into the other store. When people ask suspicious questions, they promise to put them in the movie and the questioning stops. The characters are so delusional, so eager to see their name in lights, that all logic and reason leave them immediately. This is "funny." And the group of stupid people includes Terri Taler who has already prosecuted them multiple times and has gone through law school and passed the bar. When really loud drilling sounds blast from another room, nobody seems to question it except for T.S. Turner who only shows up in the last 5 minutes of the show. It's a "T and T" almost completely devoid of T.

The Most 80s Episode - Season 3

I don't think Season 3, has a definitive 80s episode; there are moments but they're more distributed. In Episode 20 there's a terrible Robert Palmer style music video, Episode 6 is about stand-up comedy (already mentioned), Episode 8 is about professional wrestling (already mentioned) and my personal favorite: Episode 5 where a floppy disk is held up as the cutting edge in technology. Those were the days.

Random Actors

The guy from "Clear and Present Danger" plays a cop in Episode 10, one of the way serious episodes. And "Whose Line Is It Anyway" star Colin Mochrie shows up as a spoiled rich kid in Episode 15, one of the horrendous "comedy" episodes. In fact, this episode is one of the few that reaches "Scooby-Doo" territory.

The Mr. T Cinematic Universe

I started researching this section and it's taking longer than I had hoped. I think this may deserve a separate post all its own. Possibly look for that sometime in the future.

Conclusion

You can read my thoughts about the series overall in Part 1. Now I'll only add that it seems someone was always tinkering with the show and so it perhaps never found an identity. Season 1 was a "casual action" show (which was the best incarnation), Season 2 was more drama, Season 3 was more comedy. While it was never amazing, it was, for the most part, watchable. Though that generalization comes with the warning that many episodes are basically torture. Still a huge fan of Mr. T but there's no way to get around the fact that the show around him was not strong.

So, now what? Well if there was one Mr. T show that I had completely never heard about, could there be others out there waiting to be discovered? Well, I found that he was a cast member of an animated show in 2001 (12 episodes) but animation doesn't seem to count. I may check it out and, if there's anything there, I'll talk about it. Other than that, according to imdb, there aren't any others - it's pretty much just cameos in movies and TV shows from then on. I'm thinking I may keep this going by watching some of them and I'll post something if there's anything worth talking about.

T and T - Season 2

 

There is yet more to say about this stupid show! This is a continuation from Part 1.

Season 2 - The Movie!

Searching on imdb for "T and T" yields "Craig T. Nelson" as its first result. But if you make it past that, you'll find there's an entry for a TV show AND a movie called "Straight Line" with its own thumbnail and plot, etc. but with a cast that's eerily similar to "T and T."

The reason is that "T and T" Season 2 starts out with a 4-part episode that apparently originally aired as a made-for-TV movie. And the name of the 4-parter is "Straight Line." I have to say right off the bat that I have never heard of a 4-part episode of television anywhere else in my life. I could be wrong but I can't think of one. Can you?

You might recall from Part 1 that one of my main complaints about the show is how it took itself too seriously to be the fun series I was hoping for. Well, starting out with this made-for-TV movie, the series reaches the grittiest, darkest and most depressing point of the show's history.

You see, a black man is running for Mayor of "the city" and, if elected, he will be the first black mayor in the history of "the city." Meanwhile there is a gang of leather-clad white supremacists who are stoking racial division. During a rally, a bomb goes off and kills a woman. The woman happens to be the mother of one of the troubled teens in the gang. So the boy, out of shame, doesn't even bother to check whether his mother is alive but instead runs to the nearest bridge to commit suicide. Having fun yet? And his mother IS dead so good guess! Turner talks him down off the ledge and gets on the case to fight the charge that the boy killed his own mother with a bomb. Oh yeah, and the black candidate is later killed by an assassin's bullet while giving a speech at his church.

There's actually way more to the plot than that, it goes into other areas but it's all depressing and the less said the better. From my notes, I caught a couple highlights to convey the extremes: a white supremacist actually calls Turner the N-word and Turner chokes a man with a pool cue. At the end, the main villain is (inadvertently) hanged by a chain around his neck.

Needless to say, this is the absolute lowest point of the series for me. It's dark, it's depressing, it's completely unpleasant to watch. If they were really tackling hard issues, I could be interested but I don't think they're even doing that. And it's such a jarring shift from anything that's happened before in the series, it just seems like a huge misstep.

The Formulas

Despite the fact that nothing before or since will be like the first 4 episodes of Season 2, it does seem like the creators of the show attempted to make Season 2 darker and more serious that Season 1. The clothes-changing montages are gone, in fact Turner's suits are gone, the courthouse scenes are minimized. In this Season, Turner has an office at the gym and people come to his office looking for a detective (private investigator) like it's a 40s style film noir.

Also in this season, Turner wears informal 80s clothes. Like I said, the suits are gone. I don't know why I'm talking about this except that Season 1 made such a big deal about his clothes it seems that this must be important somehow; like some seismic shift has taken place right under us.

The Theme (Updated)

In Part 1, I noted the humorous aspect of the opening theme that it was a bit like "Too Many Cooks" in that it introduced a large cast of characters that would mostly never be seen in the episode. Well in Season 2 the theme remains unchanged even though all those characters are gone for good (with 1 exception). Whereas in Season 1 you would be introduced to characters rarely making an appearance, now in Season 2 you get introduce to characters who NEVER make an appearance. 

Thinking of the Children

Do you remember the kid who Turner rescued from the "gang" in the Season 2 "movie"? No, and you shouldn't. But he exists. And in Season 2 he becomes a new somewhat regular character who shows up in many episodes... but not all... nothing about this show is ever consistent. T becomes a mentor/father figure to him and his character is that of the plucky kid who always hangs around T and wants to be involved in the dangerous crime fighting. T tells him it's too dangerous and doesn't let him come but he comes anyway and does things.

 To me, the addition of his character looks like an obvious ploy to get more kids watching the show. With a kid in the show, there's someone kids can identify with, they vicariously get to hang around Mr. T. This is a natural connection - kids love T and so the show should naturally be aimed at kids.

There's only one problem with this of course - do you remember how the show is trying to be dark and gritty? Yeah, that kind of conflicts with trying to attract children, it even conflicts with having a kid in the cast. So it just becomes a mess - some episodes become light and innocent but then the next week they're dealing with something heavy and adult. Again, nothing about this show is consistent from season to season or even from episode to episode. If you ever think you understand it, you don't.

The Most 80s Episode - Season 2

Oh boy, speaking of "not for kids"...

The most 80s episode of Season 1 had The Fat Boys guesting, and funnily enough, in Season 2 we have Prince protege Vanity. In Season 2 Episode 6, Vanity guest stars as a reporter who goes undercover to work in a mud wrestling club.

When mud wrestling was a fad in the 80s I remember being aware of it but not really understanding it. Now that I'm an adult, I obviously understand more but I still don't think I really understand it. Suffice to say that it was a fad of that time and so Vanity + mud wrestling + Mr. T is pure 80s... They're not wrestling together, mind you, just saying that they're both in the episode.

And on the subject of the 80s, Season 2 is where Turner first uses a car phone. No explanation of it, no comment necessary, he has a car phone now, so what?

This Thumbnail

Here's imdb's thumbnail for Season 2 Episode "The Contender." Enjoy:

Soak it in, boys. See it in your dreams, see it in your nightmares. This character's name happens to be Kevin Hart. Not that anything can be very interesting after that picture.

Amy Taler

So far in this rambling, incoherent think piece, I've only talked about the Mr. T half of "T and T" but there is another T - Amy Taler played by Alexandra Amini. This is because there isn't much to say - the character is businesslike and efficient and cares about people. She's very bland and one-dimensional. She shows one quirk in Season 1 where she cares too much about her car but it's only for that episode.  Her and T have the slightest suggestion of a "will they, won't they?" relationship for brief moments but it's not really a big focus. 

One of the things they do in Season 2, however, is give her an antagonist to contrast against in the character of the hard Detective Hargrove. And, although it's inconsistent - like everything else about the show - it's occasionally funny. They have scenes where Hargrove will say "Of course he's guilty, he has tattoos!" and then in another episode it's "Of course he killed the guy, look at his long hair!". And that allows Amy to come back with "Just because people dress a certain way or listen to certain music, it doesn't mean they're bad people." And what a great life lesson it is for us all.

Conclusion - Season 2

Alright, that's it for Season 2. I didn't even get to Mr. T being a substitute teacher for an episode, or the flashback episode where we flashback to the sweet clothes-changing of Season 1 (do you remember the clothes changing?), but this "review" is already too long. In short, this season has the series' low point and it tends to emphasize everything I disliked about Season 1. And just as Season 2 made drastic changes from Season 1, Season 3 is about to make even more drastic changes. It's almost as if they're inconsistent or desperate or something! 

Continued in Part 3...