Totally unfair advance review of FX's "Over There" based only on previews

[JackRiddler]

Appropriate to our accelerated times, TV has taken the unprecedented and absolutely shameless but altogether predictable step of producing a fiction series that exploits an ongoing war for ratings.

The previews for "Over There" do not look rah-rah. On the contrary, they convey an obvious formula. The straightforward evil and illegality of the invasion will be obscured in close-focus sensation and human-interest emotionalism.

Conscientious Americans will struggle with misgivings about whether their good intentions are causing bad outcomes. A few innocents from Kansas will discover that war is hellish and weird. Someone will have trouble kicking the bottle. Someone will accidentally kill the wrong Hadji and feel terrible about it. A couple of corrupt or nutso officers will hound the smart ones, a la MASH.

Therein will lie the main story conflict, strictly among the "fully rendered" American characters. No scene will last longer than four minutes.

The exotic aboriginals will serve as foils, helping us better understand the minds of the American protagonists, who will come in all shapes, creeds and sexual orientations.

Except for Freepers, people don't buy into rah-rah anymore. Nowadays, propaganda designed to collaborate with Nazi acts comes in humanist terms. It pretends to fairly balance different perspectives on a "complex" situation, avoiding "simple" answers or the idea of an objective truth. It serves inaction and the status quo.

What's my example of a simple answer that is objectively true? "We" have no business "over there," blowing up their country, blasting them to pieces, and encouraging them to kill each other. Period.

The real (commercial) goal of such a program is to leave the audience feeling touched, informed, and utterly supine on the couch. The effect is indistinguishable from the intent of a well-oiled propaganda ministry.

How about a series that shows the U.S. regime's war of aggression and crimes against humanity from the perspective of the Iraqis, who constitute 98 perccent of those dying in this war?

Now go ahead, object that I haven't even watched the thing. Pretend that you don't know what's coming, given your own lifetime of viewing American TV.

Or watch the show, and search for the critical/liberal subtext. I guarantee you it will be there, not far below the surface, as you are one of the key target audiences.

In fact, the ideal outcome from the producers' perspective would be if conservative pundits were to start howling against the show on FOXNEWS and The Drudge Report, creating just the buzz that Steven Bochco needs to harvest higher ratings and stand out as a defender of free speech and high art.

[Son of California]

1. Maybe it will have the opposite effect...

Maybe, it will help to bring home the horror and uncertaintly of war to a generation of lazy, pathetic coach potatoes. It may try to be rah rah. But maybe the rah rah will feel a little cheap and backfire and the show just become a well packaged reminder of the war for people who don't like watching the news.

[aquart]

2. Not a clue what you said. Not a clue.

[JackRiddler]

3. That's too bad

I guess one of us needs a remedial course, either in writing or in reading. ;)