The Office

I am so excited for The Office. On Thursday, March 4th, Pam and Jim have their baby! According to the intertubes,

Mark your calendars
for a big delivery on its way to NBC Thursdays: A special one-hour edition of The Office titled "The Delivery part 1 and 2" will air on March 4 (9- 10 PM ET) as newlyweds Jim and Pam welcome their new baby! The episode sees the expectant parents determined to wait out the bundle of joy’s arrival for as long as possible. In the meantime, their co-workers try to distract a frustrated Pam with food and entertainment.

In the second half hour, Michael anxiously waits for Pam and Jim's baby to be born. Back at the office, Erin makes Andy jealous when she has lunch with Kevin.

Now, the office has a pretty tried and true formula that means I can predict what's going to happen pretty frequently. However, they also manage to inject just enough uncertainty so that even my predictions get turned on their heads (eg, the Prince paper episode, I knew Michael was going to realize he was helping to shut down a nice little family business, but I didn't see it actually happening due to Dwight's persistence and Michael's eventual acceptance of defeat). With that said, I would like to make some predictions for BABY NIGHT!

Pam's water breaks while at the office. Michael is disgusted, Kelly and/or Erin start to rethink wanting a cute little baby, Dwight does/wants to do something gross with it. This could also go for placenta, afterbirth, or umbilical chord, come to think of it.

Members of the office show up at the hospital to cause mayhem, even though they probably shouldn't be there. Probably a side story takes place in another ward of the hospital, or in the nursery or somewhere like that.

Michael walks in on Pam giving birth and is horrified. Dwight compares it to the birthing of a cow or something. Kelly and/or Erin start to rethink wanting a cute little baby (I think I'm seeing a pattern here).

Pam and Jim have a relationship moment. Their relationship has been feeling sort of empty lately, and I think the reason the writers chose to have this baby come before Pam and Jim were happily married for a while is to keep their relationship fresh for as long as possible without becoming clichéd. I'm seeing something similar to what happened with Pam and Michael at the beginning of Michael Scott paper company, when they took turns, one freaking out and the other taking charge. This will probably happen while they are apparently waiting it out at the office, plus an "awwwwww" moment after the birth.

Pam doesn't want the camera crew filming the birth, so we get the "through-the-door" treatment. This means the biggest part of the story will be largely told through Jim and the others, and I'm also predicting Jim won't be very interesting once the birth gets started, so the others in the hospital will have to carry us through.

The birth takes a ridiculously, unrealistically, TV-tacularly short time to happen.

That's all for now! I can't wait to see what happens!

The Parting of the Ways

Oh my goodness! I didn't know Doctor Who could be so intense! The doctor is changing? The first new doctor didn't last a whole season!

Also, what's torchwood? It showed up in the last episode of the 1st season. And then in one of the first episodes of the 2nd season, Queen Victoria establishes the Torchwood Institute to ... do something.

Boom Town

I'm watching this episode of Dr Who, and I have no clue what's going on! "Bad wolf" and something, some phrase going on between the doctor and Rose. For some reason the TARDIS is unable to fly, so they have to wait with the last remaining Slitheen before they can deliver her to her home planet, where she will face the death penalty. This being Britain, that's a troublesome outcome. Actually, I have seen this sort of plot device before, in Star Trek.

You know, I didn't expect we'd be seeing much of Rose's boyfriend, Micky, again. But here we are, watching them have relationship troubles. He makes silly faces when he's emotional. Apparently Micky is breaking it off with Rose. Probably not forever, but if it is, it's probably for the best. He doesn't deserve to be in a relationship that isn't official, where the other half of the relationship keeps going away for who knows how long to who knows where.

One intersting thing about this episode is the criticism the Slitheen gives the Doctor for meddling in other people's lives. And we also learn that the TARDIS is alive and has a soul, apparently. A bright soul that regresses people to eggs?

Doctor Who season 4

I'm already liking this much better. I wonder what defines a good television series for me. I see a reappearance of the psychic paper. This episode appears to be with a different companion? I wonder what happened to Rose? Unfortunately I can't stream all the episodes. I happened to watch an early episode from the 60s with the Dalek robot monsters in it, and the 6th episode of the 1st new season has them in it! It's exciting to see these connections between episodes; it makes it much more interesting. Apparently the Dalek are responsible for destroying the Time Lord race, of which the doctor is a part. The really hilarious thing about this episode is how the Americans talk like the English. English writers didn't quite get the dialogue right. I also wonder if the actors are English doing American accents? Some of the accents sound very... American. Ha! The Dalek just absorbed the entire internet and apparently now knows everything. I wonder how it knows which parts of it are true? There's a lot of crazy stuff on the internet. I also enjoy how the Dalek haven't gotten any less annoying in the last 45 or so years. Oh my gosh, am I watching the last of the Dalek happen? The end of the Time War? Huh!

To Kill a Terrorist

I was watching the February 4 episode of the Colbert Report this morning.

In his "A Formidable Opponent" segment, Stephen argues with himself about whether to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a jury trial in New York.

I actually don't know much about the trial or what exactly the deal is, but before the episode of the Colbert Report I was of the opinion that he should be tried before a jury because that's what was supposed to happen and the only reason he may not be is because people are so angry and frightened that they wanted to punish him in the worst way possible and make sure he didn't escape or bring any additional security threats to New York by having the trial there. I figured that wasn't enough of a reason to continue to abandon our principles as well as flaunt the law just because we were afraid of a terrorist.

After watching the show, I realised that it is possible some people don't want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be given a jury trial in New York because there is a possibility that he will be determined innocent, and to them that is an unacceptable alternative. I have to admit, based on what I know, I find it to be a frightening outcome as well. As Stephen pointed out in his segment, insisting that it is okay to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a jury trial because we need to uphold our principles of justice--everyone is innocent until proven guilty--but then insisting that the outcome must be guilty is a false definition of justice.

At first when Stephen articulated the broken logic behind the view that we must give a jury trial even when the defendant has been already decided as guilty before the trial starts, I began thinking of what the other alternatives are for him, wondering what the legal options are, and wondering what would be the most fair for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Stephen made several points that could be used to determine his innocence, such as confession after torture being inadmissible. But then Stephen unbuttoned his jacket to reveal some suspenders and adopted a southern accent and the mannerisms of Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, insisting that it is dishonorable to hang a man before he has been tried and asking the jurors to do their duty.

Stephen's defense convinced himself that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is innocent. But I'm not so sure. The allusion to To Kill a Mockingbird made me think. In that book, the jury convicted a wrongfully accused man anyway, just because he was black. I guess there's probably little chance that an American jury would acquit a man as demonized as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And even if he really did mastermind September 11, that's still a discouraging thought.

Update!
The lovely and talented rob mason has let me know about this interview Jon Stewart did with Bill O'reilly.