Least surprising news I’ve heard today: Super PAC supporting conspiracy theorist Ron Paul is operated by a Truther. (I’m even more concerned about the amount of support Paul gets from neo-Nazis and white supremacists who understand the most likely result of implementing Paul’s views.)
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SciFi Weekend: Matt Smith and Karen Gillan win National Television Awards; Fifty Years of Doctor Who in Ten Minutes; Eve Myles On The Future of Torchwood; Captain Jack and Captain Kirk; J.J. Abrams–Star Trek, Person of Interest, and Alcatraz; Big Bang Theory and Doctor Who
January 29, 2012 — Ron ChusidIt was a good night for Doctor Who at the National Television Awards, despite losing to Downton Abbey as best drama. Matt Smith won the award for best actor and Karen Gillan won for best actress. Merlin was also a contender for Best Drama.
David Tennant has also won as best actor at the inaugural BBC Audio Drama Awards. He won for his role as Kafka in Kafka: The Musical.
Does reading about awards for the last two Doctors make you nostalgic for their episodes, as well as all the episodes before them? The above video shows almost fifty years of Doctor Who in less than ten minutes.
Matt Smith and Karen Gillan beat nominees from Torchwood, John Barrowman and Eve Myles, in their respective categories in the National Television Awards. Cultbox interviewed Eve Myles about the future of Torchwood and the upcoming 50th anniversary of Doctor Who:
What’s the latest you’ve heard on the future of Torchwood?
“As far as I know at the moment, everything’s still very much on hold. Russell [T Davies] has things happening in his personal life.
“John [Barrowman] is very much on the same page as me, in that if and when they need us, they can just pick the phone up and we will be there before they’ve even put the phone down, because it’s something we love doing.
“Nothing’s going to happen in 2012, I know that much for sure. But who knows what will happen in 2013. Maybe a movie, to kinda draw a line under it.
“That’s the thing about Torchwood, every series we’ve changed our format. We’ve always had a gap in between, so fingers crossed, because we’ve got such an outstanding loyal fan base. They deserve Torchwood to go ahead with something else to draw a line under it, for the fans to have a bit of closure.
With the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who coming up next year, would you be up for returning as Gwen for that?
“Um, I said something at one of these conventions and the press kinda jumped on it: “EVE MYLES THINKS BEING INVOLVED IN THE 50TH ANNINVERSARY OF DOCTOR WHO IS INAPPROPRIATE.”
“Now, this has come across wrong and I want to get this out that I didn’t mean it like that! What I meant was that the direction we were taking with Torchwood was very violent kind of storylines. The characters were going through certain narratives that are pretty hefty and adult. What I meant was that it’s difficult for a character to do those kind of scenes then do Doctor Who, which my niece and my nephews watch. And I would never let them watch Torchwood!
“It’s a difficult crossover. It works with Captain Jack because John does it beautifully. If I was asked it would be an absolute honour to be involved with something as huge as Doctor Who again.
“We were born from Doctor Who and we will be eternally grateful to the mothership. And I always say that and that never gets printed! If I was involved, I’m sure it’d be a wonderful thing but there’s been no phone call or no talk about it so I doubt very much that I will be involved, but I’d be honoured.”
Topless Robot helped me transition from Torchwood to Star Trek by digging up the above video of John Barrowman interviewing William Shatner (Captain Jack and Captain Kirk) from 1994 about Star Trek: Generations.
Zoe Saldana has provided a hint as to what happens with her character in J.J. Abram’s second Star Trek movie in an interview with New York Magazine:
Might we see some more “close encounters” between you and Zachary Quinto in this movie?
If I’m elusive, will that spoil it for you?
You mean you can’t say anything, and that in itself might be indicating something?
I just don’t want to spoil it for you. All I’m going to say is, if you put all the time and energy and wit into setting these two characters together in the first movie and didn’t follow through, it would be a shame.Got it.
I hope I didn’t say too much!I don’t think you did.
I feel like J.J. is going to pop up out of the corner and say, “Come with me, Zoe.”
J.J. Abrams also has two new genre television shows this season, Person of Interest and Alcatraz. Individual episodes of each give the impression of being essentially police procedural shows with a twist, and the question in my mind is whether there will be enough back story of interest to make them worth watching. I almost gave up on Fringe during its first season, seeing it as largely a monster of the week version of X-Files, but by the second season there was a tremendous pay off for sticking with the show. Therefore I paln to keep watching these two new Abrams shows.
There are hints that a story is developing beyond the weekly procedurals on Person of Interest. We have already seen a major change in Detective Carter. I am curious to see what develops now that Reese is having Finch followed. Meanwhile, Jonathan Nolan warns, “None of these characters are safe. You always have to be willing to [kill off characters]. Nothing is given.” I doubt that they would kill off Reese or Finch, but Carter and Fusco are definitely expendable.
Alcatraz combines a weekly police procedural with hunting down escaped prisoners from Alcatraz along with a continuing story about how they managed to be transported to the present. So far we’ve seen three stories (with two separate episodes being aired the first week). I got hooked with the second episode, which showed Lucy both in the past and present. It was not only the prisoners who disappeared from Alcatraz.
Perhaps because of being produced by Warner Brothers, The Big Bang Theory tends to concentrate heavily on DC comic characters. One rare past reference to Doctor Who which I can recall was from last year’s New Year’s Eve party when Stuart wore a Tom Baker costume at a party at his comic book store. Meanwhile, most of the characters came not as X-Men or Avengers but members of the Justice League of America:
Two years ago, Sheldon did combine watching Doctor Who with his fixation on his place on the couch:
On the other hand, last year Craig Ferguson teased Jim Parsons for being nothing like his character due to not watching Doctor Who.
This week’s episode of Big Bang Theory shows that Sheldon is no longer alone in watching Doctor Who every week:
The Big Bang Theory still remains far beyond Community in references to Doctor Who with their ongoing invention of episodes of Inspector Spacetime.
SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who; Interview with Karen Gillan; Torchwood: Once Upon A Time; Fringe
October 30, 2011 — Ron ChusidThe above video was recently posted featuring the cast and crew of Doctor Who from a video played at the wrap party at the end of the David Tennant era.
Above is the audio of an interview with Karen Gillan from Graham Norton’s Radio 2 show. Here’s some highlights:
Karen Gillan has said she will welcome the next Doctor Who companion “with open arms” when her time is up on the show.
Speaking on Graham Norton’s Radio 2 show yesterday, she said: “I know the time is going to come when Rory and Amy have to leave. It’s inevitable and that will make me really, really sad. But that’s the nature of the show and what’s so good about it. What keeps it exciting is the fact that it’s reinvented all the time with new people. I think that’s a really great part of the show, so I will welcome the new companion with open arms.
“I don’t know what type of companion [the Doctor] would have next.”
Gillan also said her future was still “up in the air,” adding “I know that I’m going to be coming back, but I’m not sure when.”
Mark Sheppard hints that Canton Delaware might return to Doctor Who:
Speaking in an interview with Stuff, Sheppard reflected on his involvement on Series 6 and teased “To emerge that Canton is in fact one of the friends that the Doctor deemed should be present at his death eludes to perhaps some further involvement…”
An interview with the cast of Torchwood: Miracle Day from London Comic Con/Memorabilia MCM Expo in the video above.
Kristen Bauer, who plays Pam on True Blood, will be playing Malificent on Once Upon A Time. A couple questions from a recent interview:
What can you tell us about Maleficent’s relationship with Lana Parrilla’s Evil Queen?
The most interesting thing about their relationship is that the writers decided to make them frenemies. It’s just a minefield of evil goodness. It was me, Lana Parrilla and a green screen and we just had so much fun. Two chicks who are loving playing bitches, who liked each other and went, let’s just play chess. The great thing about playing with another person who is a good player is that you don’t always have to play the obvious and hopefully, what we did is put in different colors that show a history. These two chicks have known each other a long time and they’ve been coveting each other, helping each other and probably backstabbing each other quite often. We tried to get all that in there and we’ll see on Sunday if we succeeded.How would you compare Maleficent to your other current role, that of Pam on TRUE BLOOD?
I’m not exactly sure yet. But so far there are a couple of difference in how I played it. Pam is very sarcastic and what you see is what you get. Pam to me is one of the only people who always tells the truth at this point, doesn’t suffer fools and doesn’t worry about being liked at all. When we get into the fairytale world with Maleficent it feels like we could have a bit more game playing and a bit more things are not as they appear.
More on the back story and sneak peaks about Once Upon A Time can be found here.
Fringe was preempted by some baseball game on Friday. They commented on this in the video above.
And, finally, here is a Happy Halloween card for our readers:
SciFi Weekend: Torchwood’s Immortal Sins; Doctor Who, Let’s Kill Hitler; The Doctor and Other Time Travelers Win Hugo Awards, The Hour (A Great Show To Watch While Waiting For Mad Men To Return)
August 21, 2011 — Ron ChusidThis week’s episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day, Immortal Sins, is more Jack-centric, showing how his back story plays into the events of the Miracle, and presumably why there was a signal for Torchwood on the day that the Miracle began. The series has seemed to take a long time to move towards a conclusion at times, but I suspect that the pace will pick up in the final three episodes now that we have a better idea of where it is headed.
The episode even has two references to the Doctor in the scenes above. Those who complained to the BBC about the explicit gay sex won’t like this episode either. My only complaint is that there wasn’t a matching sex scene with a female as occurred earlier this season. Captain Jack gets the best line of the episode: “Forgive me father for I have sinned… so many times… and that’s just today!”
Season six of Doctor Who resumes next week. Above is a preview of the episode from BBC America. Karen Gillan also introduces Let’s Kill Hitler plus two clips from Doctor Who Confidential have also been released:
The Daily Mirror, which is not the most reliable of sources, claims that Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman and Catherine Tate will all return in the episode. Consider how the Doctor left both Billie Piper (Rose) and Catherine Tate (Donna), this would seem difficult. Perhaps he meets them before his final encounters with them, or perhaps the actresses are there but they aren’t what they seem.
A prequel scene to Let’s Kill Hitler was released last week. The scene is posted here.
While nothing has been officially confirmed, based upon interviews with both Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill it appears like Amy and Rory will leave as regular companions at the end of the season, most likely to raise their newly-rescued baby, and a new companion will be introduced. Both have also said they will be returning in the future, and it is assumed they mean as recurring characters similar to how River Song has appeared intermittently.
Doctor Who, as well as other time-travel stories, did well in this year’s Hugo Award ceremony at the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno last night. Black Out/All Clear, a pair of novels dealing with time travel to England during World War II by Connie Willis, won best novel.
The season five Doctor Who two-part story, The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang, won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Two other episodes of Doctor Who, A Christmas Carol and Vincent and the Doctor, were also nominated this year.
The winning episodes were written by Steven Moffat, who previously won the Hugo Award for these episodes of Doctor Who: Blink in 2008, The Girl In The Fireplace in 2007 and The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances in 2006. An episode by Russel T. Davies, The Waters of Mars won in 2010 when there were only specials and no regular episodes written by Moffat.
Doctor Who was also responsible for a non-fiction award. Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea, won for Best Related Work.
Inception won for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form. My interpretation of the movie was previously posted here.
Here’s something to watch if you can’t wait until next year for Mad Men to return. The Hour premiered on BBC America last week–trailer above. The DVD set of the series will be released in September. After watching the first episode I quickly obtained episodes two through five, in preparation for the sixth and final episode of the season which airs Tuesday in the U.K.
There are several new shows which are trying to capitalize on the nostalgia value of Mad Men (but most ignore the fact that it is quality which made Mad Men a success). Both have a feeling of a previous era but one which is not all that different from today. The creative type people on a news show in The Hour versus those in advertising on Mad Men, along with the drinking and smoking scenes, give the shows a similar feel. The third episode also reminded me of scenes from Brideshead Revisited.
American network shows trying to capitalize on the Mad Men feel such as Pan Am and one on the Playboy Club are also starting this fall, but I doubt they will show the same quality as either Mad Men or The Hour.
They are also very different shows too. Beyond its late 1950′s backdrop on a television news show, The Hour gets involved with a murder mystery and Cold War espionage. In some ways the show feels like a combination of the two AMC series, Mad Men and Rubicon. Being six hours has allowed it to develop the season-long arc without stretching it out too long. It is also reminiscent of Mad Men, which previously took place at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, by dealing with the Suez crisis and Soviet invasion of Hungary.
The Hour has a superb cast. Best known to American audiences is Dominic West from The Wire. Romola Garai (pictured above) and Ben Whishaw are also excellent in their lead roles. Burn Gorman, who previously played Owen Harper on Torchwood, has a significant role. Now I can’t wait for Mad Men to return, and I know that once the series conclude its U.K. run on Tuesday I will be anxiously awaiting a second season of The Hour.
SciFi Weekend: Doctor Who and Torchwood– News And Interviews On Their Upcoming Seasons
April 9, 2011 — Ron ChusidMatt Smith and Karen Gillan discuss the upcoming season of Doctor Who in the above video. More from Matt Smith here and Karen Gillan here. Here are some of Karen’s comments:
“There were clues planted in the last series that are going to become major storylines in this one,” divulges a conspiratorial Karen Gillan; a revelation which is bound to have all Whovians avidly watching Series 5 to spot what the Inverness born actress is referring to.
“There’s a really interesting arc in this series that involves all of the major characters and it’s evident from the first episode that everyone on the TARDIS is withholding secrets from one another,” continues Karen.“It makes for a fascinating dynamic between the characters and it’s incredibly important to the overall series.”
Karen also believes that Amy has more respect for her new husband Rory after his recent adventures.“I think Rory has perhaps developed the most out of all the characters,” explains Karen.“By the end of last series he became a Roman Centurion hero and he had changed a lot; it felt like he had earned his place in the TARDIS. In fact, it’s hard for me to imagine the TARDIS without him now!”
But has married life changed Amy Pond? Karen quickly sweeps that concern out of the way exclaiming “if anything she is even more Amy Pondish! I don’t think it would work for Amy to completely change now that she’s a married woman and I certainly don’t think she should become a subdued version of herself. However, I do think being married has helped to define the Doctor and Amy’s relationship and I can reveal thatsomething takes place this series which makes Amy see Rory in a new light…,” teases the actress.
More from Matt Smith and Karen Gillan here. Karen Gillan will also be a guest on Craig Ferguson’s show on April 13. Perhaps she will show him how to operate the TARDIS on his desk. The picture above is from the third episode.
Steven Moffat had these comments on the upcoming season:
How has this series evolved from last year?
Steven Moffat: Well we’ve moved through the funfair a bit – we’ve done the rollercoaster, now we’re on the ghost train. Last year, in a way, was all about saying, don’t worry, it’s still him, it’s still the same show, nothing’s really been lost. Losing a leading man like David Tennant is seismic – unless you gain a leading man like Matt Smith. It’s been the biggest joy to see him stride in and just claim that TARDIS for his own. But now he’s really here, and the part is his, and the bow tie is cool, he’s ready to lead us places we didn’t know existed. Last year we reassured you – this year, to hell with that, we’re going to worry the hell out of you. How well do we really know that man, or what he’s capable of? We’re putting the Who? back in the Doctor.
Is there a major story arc to look out for?
Oh, there’s a big story being told this year, and major mysteries from the very off. As ever, in this show, the stories all stand alone, and every episode is a perfect jumping-on point for a new viewer. But at the same time the over-arching plot will be a bigger player this year. More than hints and whispers – we’re barely ten minutes into episode one before our heroes face a dilemma that they’ll be staring at months from now. And there will be no easy answers.
Will there be new monsters?
They’re … scary. Very scary. And, ohh, I don’t want to say more – there’s the Silence in 1 & 2, the Siren, in episode 3, the Gangers in 5 & 6, all these are more than just freaky costumes and masks; there are SCARY ideas here. And just wait till you meet Idris in episode 4.
Is this series scarier than the last one?
See above. Yes, I think so. But it’s not JUST scary – it’s funny and moving and revelling in its own insanity too.
How have the characters evolved?
The big difference, I suppose, is how long the Doctor is hanging around in the lives of his Companions. His normal MO is get them while they’re young, and leave them while they’re young too. He’s careful to put them back where he found them, before he screws up their lives. But here he is, married couple on board – and much as he loves them both, he does wonder if it isn’t time he got out of the way. Before something really BAD happens.
What can you tell us about the cliff-hanger at the end of episode 7?
Normally our cliff-hangers are lives being threatened. With this one, three live are changed FOREVER.
The poster for The Impossible Astronaut (above) is available for pre-order. Here’s the synopses of the first two episodes:
Episode 1: The Impossible Astronaut
Four envelopes, numbered 2, 3 and 4, each containing a date, time and map reference, unsigned, but TARDIS blue. Who sent them? And who received the missing number one? This strange summons reunites the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River Song in the middle of the Utah desert and unveils a terrible secret the Doctor’s friends must never reveal to him.
Placing his life entirely in their hands, the Doctor agrees to search for the recipient of the fourth envelope – just who is Canton Everett Delaware the Third? And what is the relevance of their only other clue: ‘Space 1969′? Their quest lands them – quite literally – in the Oval Office, where they are enlisted by President Nixon himself to assist enigmatic former-FBI agent Canton, in saving a terrified little girl from a mysterious spaceman.
Episode 2: Day of the Moon
The Doctor is locked in the perfect prison. Amy, Rory and River Song are being hunted down across America by the FBI. With the help of new friend and FBI-insider, Canton Everett Delaware the Third, our heroes are reunited to share their discoveries, if not their memories. For the world is occupied by an alien force who control humanity through post-hypnotic suggestion and no one can be trusted. Aided by President Nixon and Neil Armstrong’s foot, the Doctor must mount a revolution to drive out the enemy and rescue the missing little girl. No-one knows why they took her. Or why they have kidnapped Amy Pond..
Beyond the two-part story opening the season in the United States, an episode written by Neil Gaiman entitled The Doctor’s Wife is attracting considerable attention. Newsarama interviewed Gaiman:
“Getting to write a Doctor Who episode, for me anyway, was probably the nearest to being God that I have ever been or will ever get,” Gaiman told Newsarama. “I remember a similar feeling of megalomaniac power for about fifteen minutes in 1988 when I got to write my first Batman line. I got to bring on Batman and write dialogue for Batman and, I’m making Batman talk. But making Batman talk does not actually compare to the feeling of glorious power you get the moment you type, ‘Interior TARDIS.’”
…Gaiman isn’t exactly sure why Doctor Who is making such a big splash in the U.S. finally, but he did venture a guess. “I think partly, it’s probably broken at the States because there isn’t anything like it and I think it probably took it five years to break in because nobody was really promoting it. It was something that has been driven by fans,” he said. “If I can say this without being taken outside and beaten up by the BBC, it was probably in many ways, driven by people downloading it and torrenting it. It was being driven by people falling in love with it one person at a time and then telling somebody else, ‘Look, you have to watch this. Here’s ‘Blink,’ watch this. Here’s ‘The Girl In The Fireplace,’ watch this. Here’s ‘Dalek,’ watch this,’ and I think that’s what drove it.”
“But I also think the lovely thing about having a new Doctor is, it gave everybody a nice place to jump on. You didn’t have to feel that you were in this five episode…you know, Russel’s [T. Davies] arc was this five year run and now we’re into the new one,” continued Gaiman. “But also, I think the worst thing about Doctor Who is also the best thing about Doctor Who, which is you’ve got 47 years of mythos and it’s unfortunate, but people think that they need to know or understand that 47 years of mythos rather than the simplicity of Doctor Who which is, there’s this wonderful man, in this blue box, that can travel through space and time and it can turn up anywhere and it will turn up somewhere where there’s a problem and he will sort it out.”
Gaiman didn’t reveal too much about the episode, providing this summary:
Although he was reluctant to give too many details, Gaiman also mentioned a few actors he was excited to write for in his episode, “The Doctor’s Wife,” and what we can expect. “It stars Suranne Jones playing a character named Idris who may turn out to be an old acquaintance of the Doctor’s with a new face. It co-stars Michael Sheen as a mysterious baddie called The House,” he revealed to Newsarama. “It begins on a junkyard planet out on the very edge of the universe and I thought it would be fun to start in a junkyard just because Doctor Who started in a junkyard, so this does.”
Thirteen minutes were cut from the final version (which hopefully will be included on the DVD) and Gaiman had to settle with less CGI than he initially wrote into the story:
The other thing Gaiman had to get used to, was writing for a show that doesn’t necessarily have the biggest budget in television. “There’s a lot of CGI. I remember handing in the first draft to them and having a dinner afterwards at Steven Moffat’s place where they said, ‘Look Neil, we love the first draft. It’s brilliant, it’s funny, it’s clever, it’s wonderful. Just so you know, each episode of Doctor Who has,’ I forget what the exact numbers were, I think they basically said 100 man-hours of CGI, ‘You have 640.’ So there was a level on which lots of things went away,” he said, “They still wound up essentially taking other episodes out around the back of the bike sheds, beating them up and taking their lunch money and giving it to me. All I know is the finished episode looks beautiful and it has, like I say, it has everything I would have wanted and it takes you places you’ve never been before.”
Interview with John Borrowman and Bill Pullman on Torchwood: Miracle Day at Cannes in the video above.
Keith Olbermann Nominated For Emmy Award
July 16, 2010 — Ron ChusidKeith Olbermann was nominated for an Emmy Award for the above tribute to his mother following her death. A transcript was also posted by Diogenes2008 at Daily Kos:
And finally, how does one tell this story? My mother passed away Saturday night. Our number one story on the COUNTDOWN, Marie Katherine Charbonier Olbermann, 1929-2009. This remembrance is not going to be a medical story, although lord knows mom was the foremost authority on her own health. Nor is it going to consist of me telling you that she was the proverbial saint, although I can hear her saying, go ahead. I‘m not going to disagree with you. Who is going to disagree with you?
It is not going to be a full biography. Suffice to say, she was a gifted preschool teacher and a legendary authority on opera. Somewhere, she is going to be genuinely disappointed that I did not get Placido Domingo to sing at the memorial service. I thought instead it would be best to focus on something for which she became and remained pretty famous, literally until the day she died.
My mother was one of the best-known baseball fans in this country. She attended games of the New York Yankees from 1934 to 2004, and she watched or listened to every one she didn‘t go to up until last month. My guess is she went to at least 1,500 of them, most of them in that seat right there, where the Fox cameras captured her late in the season of 2000.
As recently as the 13th of last month, Jerry Manual, the manager of the New York Mets, came over to me on a field in Lakeland, Florida before an exhibition game and asked me how she was. He was the fifth or sixth active baseball figure to have done so this year alone. They have averaged at least one or two a month for nearly a decade now. Saturday afternoon, not six hours before mom died, a New York Yankees executive made reference to that which had made mom famous in the ballparks, and trust me, mom loved being famous in the ballparks. Even if it had to have been attained this way on June 17th, 2000.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And these are the problems that have become well documented over the last few days. Throwing it into the stands and ironically enough, the ball hit Keith Olbermann‘s mother right between the eyes. She was all right. The glasses were broken.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Four days after her birthday, mom had found herself in the middle of one of the great melt downs in sports history, a sudden and growing inability of the ill-fortuned second baseman Chuck Knoblauch of the Yankees to make any kind of throw, easy or hard, to first base. Chuck was in the middle of losing his beloved father at that time. Though I thought I got what that meant to him then, I didn‘t really understand it at all until this afternoon as I wrote this, and I struggled to find the right keys, let alone the right words.
For three days in 2000, mom was on one or both of the covers of the “New York Post” and the “New York Daily News” and “New York News Day.” She was somewhere in every newspaper in America. And all this happened while I was the host of the baseball game of the week for Fox. Needless to say, I managed to get an interview with her for the pregame show the following Saturday, an exclusive interview. Although don‘t think I didn‘t have to work for it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: Joining us now for her first interview since the Knoblauch incident, my mom. Are you OK?
MARIE OLBERMANN, MOTHER OF KEITH OLBERMANN: I‘m pretty good. A little bruised, but OK.
OLBERMANN: Mom, you‘ve been going to games since—so long that you met Babe Ruth when you were a toddler. Have you ever been near a foul ball or thrown ball before?
M. OLBERMANN: Not that close. No, not really. No.
OLBERMANN: And this was close enough?
M. OLBERMANN: Too close.
OLBERMANN: A lot of the pitchers are saying this year that the hitters are doing better because the ball is harder than it has been in the past. Would you agree that it‘s harder than it has been in the past?
M. OLBERMANN: It‘s the hardest one I‘ve ever been hit with.
OLBERMANN: You went back to Yankee Stadium the next day. Why?
M. OLBERMANN: To see the game.
OLBERMANN: Do you have any worry about Chuck, either as a Yankee fan or for your own safety?
M. OLBERMANN: Not really. I sympathize with him.
OLBERMANN: Why do you sympathize with him?
M. OLBERMANN: Because I‘m a little awkward at times too.
OLBERMANN: But you‘re not playing second base with the Yankees, are you?
M. OLBERMANN: Not yet.
OLBERMANN: Have you been surprised by all the newspaper attention?
M. OLBERMANN: A little bit, but I want to know why they keep mentioning you.
OLBERMANN: Uh, OK. What matters most, obviously, mom, is that you‘re all right. But I‘ve got to ask you, in closing, it‘s no secret that I collect memorabilia. Like I‘m telling you something you don‘t know. You had to clean most of it up. But can have the ball?
M. OLBERMANN: You can bid on it when I auction it off, just like everyone else.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four million. Thank you, sir.
OLBERMANN: My mother, everybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: My great thanks to my old boss, David Hill, at Fox Sports, for his kindness in letting us run that tonight.
Anyway, for the rest of the year, any time Fox broadcast a game from Yankee Stadium, mom got on TV again. We even talked about her during the World Series broadcast that fall, during which began this ritual that continues to this day, players, players who were at the game, players who only heard about the game, players asked me about my mom.
Since the day it happened, I‘ve been told Chuck Knoblauch has been mortified by it. Chuck, give yourself a break. You made her famous. She loved it. She could not have been happier if they let her pinch-hit for you.
A full circle that is. It was mother who was the fan in our family. My dad likes the game enough, but the Yankees traded his favorite player away, and he‘s still mad at them. This happened late in 1948. So it was mom who introduced me to the game. In my teenage years, when we went nearly every day, it was she who trundled me and my sister to the ballpark. It was on her TV that I came to love the sport and by her side that I began to understand it. And sitting next to her that I began to understand that I was not going to be any damn good playing it, and if I wanted in, maybe I‘d better try talking about it.
Thus was born a career, the results of which you see now. At least half of the ham comes from her. She was an aspiring ballerina. And when I keep talking and talking and talking, for good or for ill, that‘s pretty much all her. What I don‘t have pictures of are the thousands of hours she spent driving me to and from school so I could work on the newspaper or announce the hockey game.
In retrospect, it‘s obvious she was, to adapt a phrase, a media mom. It was the proverbial sudden illness in the best of senses. She had no apparent symptoms until two weeks ago. She was not severely afflicted until ten days ago. The treatment lessened her pain, and she never awakened, thus never had to hear, nor did any of us have to say, you have terminal cancer.
I‘m not going to end with harangue about how you need to go see your doctor, because not feeling so bad does not mean you are not sick, though you should keep that in mind. But knowing those of you who watch this show and others I‘ve done, I‘m always overwhelmed by your support and how personally you take all this. If you are so inclined, instead of flowers or card or whatever, make a donation to Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation or St. Jude‘s hospital. They do such important work there too.
Marie Olbermann is survived by her husband, my dad, my sister Jen and her husband and their two kids, Jacob and Eve, mom‘s grandchildren. By her cousins Robert and Bill Shlombom (ph) and their families, by just about everybody in baseball, and by me. Good night, mom, and good luck.
Olbermann has already won the Edward R. Murrow award for this story. He has won multiple other awards for reporting, including a previous Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage of the events of 9/11.
David Weigel Leaves Washington Post Following Leaks Of Criticism Of Right Wing
June 25, 2010 — Ron ChusidDavid Weigel provides a demonstration of how nothing on the web is really private–even on closed lists where such privacy is assumed. Weigel is a left libertarian whose views of the right wing seem to be similar to my own. It is not so much their views which repel myself and I believe Weigel, but that their actual policy positions turn out to be quite different from their limited government rhetoric. On top of that, there is the anti-intellectualism, adherence to conspiracy theories and revisionist history, xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism which, while not true of everyone on the right, is far too common for comfort.
Weigel was hired to cover the right wing for The Washington Post to some degree I did question a major newspaper hiring him for such a position, suspecting from the start that his views might give conservatives more fuel for their attacks on the imaginary “liberal media.”
If this was the outcome, it wasn’t because of any unfair bias being displayed in Weigel’s work. Even some conservatives were supportive of Weigel, such as at The American Spectator:
To start with, it’s important to note that all of the comments at the center of the recent uproar were made on a private email list that was supposed to be off the record. Just for a moment, think of the things that you’d say if you were joking or venting anger among friends, and imagine if they became public with context removed. If everything we said privately were public, I wonder how many of us would be able to maintain jobs or friendships. Weigel is being attacked for writing that the world would be better if Matt Drudge could “set himself on fire.” But people make off hand remarks like that all the time without literally wishing bodily harm upon other humans.
This and other private comments by Weigel have contributed to the charge that he’s hostile toward conservatives and a standard issue liberal, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I could just as easily report on private conversations in which he’s revealed a fondness for Ronald Reagan, a willingness to vote for Bobby Jindal as president, and agreed that Van Jones should have been fired for his 9/11 trutherism. Plus, it should be noted that in the past, he’s even contributed to the American Spectator.
It should also be noted that he went on Keith Olbermann’s show and shot down a story about Sarah Palin committing perjury that had been lighting up the liberal blogs and defended Cato’s Michael Cannon against a “dishonest and unfair hit” by the Center for American Progress.
I’ve disagreed with Weigel on a number of occasions, and have called him out when I’ve felt he’s placed an inordinate amount of focus on fringe characters or extreme statements made by conservatives. But I also know that he isn’t some “drive by” journalist. He knows his subject matter well, reads constantly, goes to lots of conservative events, maintains friendships with conservatives, and talks to a lot of conservatives for his articles and quotes them accurately.
Weigel’s resignation came not as a result of any signs of bias in his work but because of comments written on Journolist, a private email list, which were leaked. Unfortunately Weigel probably saw his comments as being the equivalent of private conservation when in reality any comments made on line can wind up being as public as anything posted on a blog.
It is unfortunate that Weigel is no longer at The Washington Post, but I am confident that he will find other sources to write for. I certainly hope so as we certainly need voices like his to help counter all the ignorance, hatred, and misinformation being spread by the authoritarian right.
