Considering Herald TV critic Glenn Garvin now gets his own right-wing political column every other week, is it asking too much that he keeps pointed, half-baked political theory out of his television reviews? Because all too often the man's words come off seeming ridiculous.
After deciding to attack the National Park Service and nature itself a few weeks ago, Garvin sunk his teeth into the Obama administration while nominally reviewing ABC's new alien show V.
ABC's series takes aim not at a German dictator from the misty past but a sitting -- and popular -- U.S. president. From the fawning reaction of the news media (sample press-conference question to V [Ed: alien visitors who are actually evil space lizards or something] leader Anna: "Is there such a thing as an ugly visitor?") to the recruiting of human supporters into an alien front group that could easily be mistaken for "community organizing," the parallels to Obama are unmistakable.But what says actress Morena Baccarin who plays Anna?
"I don't think we're saying Anna is President Obama," she tells i09.
Well then.
It's definitely with in line, if not expected, to comment on any political subtext in a television show, but Garvin all too often crosses the line by making that subtext fit his own personal partisan political views, and attacks those programs that don't. Not only does it come off as a whack job, but also a hack job.
To be fair, there seems to be interesting political subtext in V, as actress Baccarin notes:
"She is coming down to Earth and offering healthcare, and offering cures for diseases, and things that sort of clean out and give people hope, and there are definite parallels to be drawn and our intentions are to create a show that people relate to. And I think this is something that's been on people's minds, even before Obama... finding hope again, and healthcare, and finding a leader, and someone who can save us from the hole we've gotten ourselves into."
But isn't the message here ultimately to come together to get ourselves out of the hole, even if that means sometimes supporting our own leaders who we may not always agree with, but we're at least 99.99 percent sure are not actually secret people-eating space lizards before we do start believing in a true false hope?
