The BBC has announced that it plans to bring back Doctor Who. (This blog was named after a classic episode of that show.)

Steven Den Beste sometimes posts essays on his blog that began as comments on other people’s blogs, but got out of control. This occasionally happens to me, too. I realize that I’ve written a thousand words and still have more to say. At some point you have to admit that you’re writing an essay, and you should be posting it on your own blog.

This piece originated in that fashion. The GNO bulletin board site currently has a discussion thread about this fall’s crop of new TV shows (and who likes which ones). I initially posted a laconic response that just said I don’t have time to watch TV anymore. But then Ben posted his take on some History Channel shows (including Conquest) and I felt that I needed to amend my previous statement. Before I knew it, I was writing an essay. So here it is.

Like Ben, I’ve become addicted to Conquest. Fortunately for me, new episodes don’t seem to come out very often.

I should clarify my previous comments. It’s not that I don’t watch TV any more; it’s that I really don’t have time for much TV and I try not to watch very much, but I often succumb to temptation and watch when I really should be doing other things. For me, TV shows fall into four categories:

• Shows that I officially watch and that I’m keeping up with. I have Season Passes for these and I watch each new episode as soon as possible. Conquest and Teen Titans are in this category. (So is Futurama even though I don’t think many new episodes are being shown these days. I either managed to miss a number of episodes when they were new or have forgotten them, so I’m recording and watching most reruns of it because they are new to me.) All of these are half-hour shows, enabling me to watch them while eating and pretend I’m not really spending any time on TV.
• Shows that I officially watch, but have fallen behind on. I have Season Passes for these and I transfer them to videotape for later viewing, creating a horrific VHS backlog that I’ll probably never entirely deal with. Star Trek Voyager used to be in this category, but I finally made a herculean effort and finished watching all the episodes about a year and a half after the show ended. Several other shows that have ended their run are in this category for me: Dark Angel, Firefly, Buffy, Tremors: The Series. Enterprise is also one of these — I’m over a year behind on it. From time to time I recognize that some particular show is so far down my list of things to watch, and has such a large backlog, that I will never catch up with it. When this happens, I admit defeat and recycle the videotapes. Sliders, JAG, Andromeda, and Odyssey 5 all fell by the wayside in this fashion.
• Shows that I don’t officially watch, but I like them and sometimes end up sitting down to watch if someone else has them on. Guilty pleasures, in other words. State of Grace was one of these until we ran out of new episodes, and Gilmore Girls still is. So are Trading Spaces and several of its imitations. And yes, Ben, Mail Call is in this category.
• Shows that I officially don’t watch, have no interest in watching even furtively, and will actually leave the room to get away from if someone else turns them on. All “reality” shows fall into this category, including American Idol in all its forms (sorry, Jen). Sports, news, and game shows (except for Jeopardy, of course) are also in this category.

I am old enough to remember a time when there were only three or four TV channels — and no VCRs, so if you missed something when it was on, you had to wait for a rerun or just didn’t see it at all. Now we have hundreds of channels, and VCRs and TiVo to make sure than we never miss anything we really want to see. I cannot recall a time after about 1975 when there weren’t more good shows on TV than I had time to watch. (I still don’t know the ending of The Captains and the Kings. I watched most of it in 1976, but had to give it up because my high school homework didn’t leave me enough free time to watch a miniseries. Now that it’s available on home video, I could theoretically buy it and watch the whole thing at last. But I have even less spare time now than I did in high school.)

It’s a popular affectation in our society to exclaim that there’s nothing worth watching on TV. But when someone says that in my presence, I can’t help responding with an incredulous stare. Do these people have that much spare time? Are their standards so high that nothing satisfies them? Or are they just saying that in order to pretend that they’re that discriminating?
Sure, there’s a lot of worthless dreck on TV. So what? Theodore Sturgeon once observed that 90% of science fiction is crud. But, he added, 90% of everything is crud.

The moment I noticed today’s date, I immediately said to myself, “Hmm, it’s the twenty-third anniversary of the premiere of The Empire Strikes Back.” Now, how did I know that? Sure, I’m a world-class geek, but I don’t normally have information that obscure at my fingertips. In fact, I can’t tell you the exact premiere date of any other Star Wars movie, even the one that came out last year. So what’s the explanation?
It’s the result of a clever marketing ploy by Lucasfilm. Movie studios are keenly aware that to maximize interest in a soon-to-be-released movie, their promotional campaign should gradually reveal tidbits of information about it as the premiere date approaches. Nowadays, the most effective way to do that is with an official Web site, but that wasn’t an option back in 1980. So the studio made use of another network: the telephone system. Lucasfilm set up a toll-free phone number that fans could call to hear plot teasers about The Empire Strikes Back, delivered in character by the voices of the cast. The messages were rotated on (as I recall) a weekly basis, encouraging the fans to call the number repeatedly to make sure they heard each one. And in a stroke of marketing genius, the phone number was the release date of the movie: (800) 521-1980. This ensured that, having memorized the number, Star Wars fans were also committing the date to memory.
I still have that number memorized, even though the line was disconnected over two decades ago. I can’t dial my wife’s office number without looking it up first, but I’ll remember Darth Vader’s phone number until the day I die. Such is the power of fannish obsession.

So who is tougher, Jango Fett or Alton Brown? To answer this question, I watched several episodes of Brown’s show, Good Eats, and I think I’m hooked on it. Me, addicted to a cooking show? It seems impossible, but Good Eats isn’t just about recipes; it’s also about science.
For example, the latest episode (“The Fungal Gourmet”) focuses on mushrooms. This would appear to be a pretty dull topic: explain what the different kinds of mushrooms are, demonstrate how to cook a couple of dishes with them, and you’re done. Boring. But that’s not how Alton Brown operates. I learned all kinds of cool things from this show. For example, did you know that mushrooms will last longer in the refrigerator if you keep them in a paper bag? (They need to breathe, but in an open container they tend to dry out.) Also, I’ve been washing my mushrooms as soon as I open the package, but Alton suggests waiting until you’re ready to use them (so they don’t get soggy). And whole mushrooms last longer than presliced ones. Previously, I would have dismissed that idea because slicing them by hand is such a hassle. But thanks to Alton Brown, I now know the secret of cutting a mushroom into perfectly uniform slices in one second: an egg slicer.
The really cool thing about this show, however, is what you learn that has little or nothing to do with the actual topic. After watching “The Fungal Gourmet,” I know how to sauté properly, which isn’t something you just do with mushrooms. I also know how to clarify butter, and why I would want to. (Clarified butter has a higher smoke point than regular butter.) Alton doesn’t just tell you the best way to prepare foods; he also explains why — the physical and chemical processes that are going on while you’re mixing and cooking. Demonstrating how to thicken sautéd mushrooms into a paste, he explains that parmesan cheese aids this process because as it melts, “the proteins uncoil and reach out for other things.” And bread crumbs make a good binding agent, because (in addition to absorbing excess moisture), they have “an abrasive shape; they’ve got . . . pitons that go off in every direction, and that kind of sticks into the food and holds it together.” Fascinating stuff.
The show is funny, too. Discussing why it’s dangerous for anyone but a trained mycologist to forage for mushrooms, Alton ends his explanation by tossing a basket of wild mushrooms over his shoulder and beaning the Grim Reaper, who is standing behind him. He livens up the procedure for clarifying butter by reciting the whole thing in one breath (with only a little hyperventilation beforehand, and just a momentary loss of consciousness afterward). Even if you’re not planning to do any actual cooking, Good Eats works as pure entertainment, in the same sense that Bill Nye the Science Guy or Junkyard Wars does.
So I would have to say that Alton Brown is tougher than Jango Fett. Alton can explain how to clarify butter without inhaling, slice mushrooms at super-speed, and knock Death unconscious without even realizing it. Whereas Jango just lies there, because he’s a headless corpse. Not very impressive, really.

The buzz about Star Wars: Episode 2, The Attack of the Clones is gradually building. I only wish that professional critics and fans alike didn’t feel compelled to use this as an opportunity to bash Phantom Menace by saying that they hope Attack of the Clones is better. I have never understood why Phantom Menace is the target of so much derision; I was and still am delighted with it. I have had difficulty articulating what I think is so wonderful about it, however. Now I find that I don’t have to, because I can simply point people to this article by Dr. Kelley Ross.

I won’t post any spoilers about the Buffy season premiere, but I don’t think anyone will be surprised to hear that (a) it revolves around Buffy’s return from death, and (b) magic is involved. We all knew that ahead of time; the question was, how would this be handled? Bringing back dead characters is a very tricky business that can undermine the credibility of any show if it’s done wrong. Dallas ran afoul of this hazard back in the ’80s. The problem wasn’t that Bobby was resurrected, but the way he came back. Declaring an entire season of the show to have been a dream was a cop-out and a cliche, and Dallas never really recovered.
So I was curious to see how Buffy would avoid the pitfalls of raising its main character from the dead. Very well, it turns out. The spell that brought her back had so many conditions and qualifications that I’m sure we’ll never see it used again: it was only possible because Buffy had been killed by mystical forces, it was extremely dangerous for the caster, its material component was a rare and irreplaceable artifact, and it has severe consequences for everyone involved (which we’ll see next week). Nicely done.

Traffic on I-40 was exceptionally horrible this morning, leaving me with plenty of opportunities to read the messages on the back of other people’s vehicles. As usual, most of them made me say “huh?” For example, this one is my pick for Most Unnecessary Advice Ever: BE AS YOU ARE. And can someone explain to me what A COUNTRY BOY CAN SURVIVE is supposed to mean? But I liked the upside-down one that said IF YOU CAN READ THIS, PLEASE TURN ME OVER.
The most baffling bumper sticker I’ve seen recently was not on a car, but stuck to the inside of the sneeze shield at a food court serving line. It said “GOD” BLESS AMERICA. Apparently “God” is not His real name, just a pseudonym.

Who are those astronauts that appear in the titles of Enterprise? I’ve been having fun trying to identify them. The title sequence includes these shots:

• A test pilot in front of his plane, walking toward the camera. His face isn’t terribly clear, but it could be Gus Grissom. (On the other hand, this may not be an astronaut at all. Maybe it’s Chuck Yeager. Hard to tell.)
• A close-up of a smiling astronaut wearing the characteristic “Snoopy cap” of the Apollo program. I’m almost certain it’s Alan Shepard, suiting up for Apollo 14.
• An Apollo crew during launch. The helmets make faces hard to identify, but I believe the one closest to the camera is Jim Lovell. He flew on two Apollo missions, but in this shot he’s in the commander’s seat, and that means Apollo 13.
• A fully suited Apollo crew walking down a corridor on their way to the launch pad. It’s impossible to make out faces, but I’ll bet this is the crew of Apollo 11.

Update: At least one of these guesses turned out to be wrong.