Mass Distraction

Caught a couple of interesting themes last week. First, Star Trek: Enterprise, which I watch mostly because I feel like I need to tape more than just the one hour of Angel on Wednesday, and because Jolene Blalock is less gratuitous of a hottie than Jeri Ryan was. Last season, they took a fairly bold step, incorporating a plotline that obviously had it's roots in the 9/11 attacks. Earth was hit and hit hard by a hitherto unknown force, killing millions and forcing the not-yet-venerable Enterprise and her crew out into the unknown.

As the search for the interstellar Osama intensifies, it looks like the writers are taking a decidedly unconservative approach in working both 9/11 and Iraq into the story. On the one hand, there's the need for bringing the killers to justice, the visceral reaction that clearly goes back to the World Trade Center attacks. On the other, the guilty parties, a race called the Zindi, clearly see humanity as an imminent threat, and moved pre-emptively to protect themselves. I'd be willing to wager that these Zindi will eventually be exposed for grossly exaggerating the threat we posed, based on bad intelligence of our weapons capacity.

Elsewhere on the dial, the Justice League took a swipe at the Patriot Act, with an alternate universe episode where the heroes, in the name of stopping evildoers, ruled the world with an iron fist. People were arrested for complaining about restaurant service. Rights were clearly abridged, in the interest of fighting crime and keeping the peace. Interesting message, there, especially for a cartoon.

No interesting messages whatsoever on Fox's Arrested Development. Just a romantic subplot between Liza Minelli and Carl Weathers. If you're not watching this yet, what the hell are you waiting for?