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Listen: Firewall & Iceberg Podcast No. 78

Dan and Alan talk 'Falling Skies,' 'Chloe King,' Tracy Morgan and 'Twin Peaks'

By Daniel Fienberg Monday, Jun 13, 2011 4:05 PM

The

Happy Monday, Boys & Girls. Time for another installment of the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast.
 
Lots of Skype issues with this week's podcast, not that you need to worry about that. Lots to discuss this week. We've got reviews of "The Nine Lives of Chloe King," "John Benjamin Has a Van" and "Falling Skies." We've got this week's discussion of "Twin Peaks." And we answered a few pieces of Listener Mail, including a little discussion of the idiotic words of Mr. Tracy Morgan. 
 
Here's the breakdown:
"The Nine Lives of Chloe King" -- 01:00 - 11:25
"John Benjamin Has a Van" -- 11:30 - 17:30
"Falling Skies" -- 17:30 - 27:40
Listener Mail: Tracy Morgan -- 27:45 - 34:40
Listener Mail: Statutory Romance in genre fiction -- 34:40 - 39:50
Listener Mail: Second-position casting -- 39:55 - 43:20
"Twin Peaks" "Traces to Nowhere" -- 43:30 - 01:01:00

 

Inside Analysis

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As always, you can subscribe to The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast over at the iTunes Store, where you can also rate us and comment on us. [Or you can always follow our RSS Feed.]

 

 
And here's the podcast...

 

Firewall & Iceberg - Podcast 78

Dan-feinberg-sm
Daniel Fienberg
Executive Editor
A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.
Related Searches: Firewall & Iceberg, Podcast, daniel fienberg, Alan Sepinwall, Twin Peaks, Falling Skies, The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Tracy Morgan

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  • S602160292_2076173_4167_talkback_profile

    studioplant

    "This week we are going to start an episode with a racial joke and then talk about Tracy Morgan's bad homophobic behaviour." Awkward.

    June 13, 2011 at 5:24PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Gizmo_bigger_talkback_profile

      dan StudioPlant - Hmmm... I made a joke about a strange piece of phrasing on Alan's part. I guess if you want to call that "a racial joke," that's your call. But if you think *that* somehow equates in *ANY* way to Tracy Morgan's behavior, you have a bafflingly strange sense of proportion and tone.

      -Daniel

      June 13, 2011 at 5:41PM EST
    • S602160292_2076173_4167_talkback_profile

      studioplant Dan - That was my own poor attempt to make a joke. Me trying to be funny on the interweb has rarely been sucessful. At least my track record remains in place. - Studioplant As a post script, I do have a baffingly strange sense of proportion and tone and it has rarely served me well.

      June 14, 2011 at 4:22PM EST
    • Gizmo_bigger_talkback_profile

      dan StudioPlant - Whew. I just didn't want anybody to have REALLY been offended by anything we said. Well, anything *Alan* said. I was totally fine. This time.

      And I also have a bafflingly strange sense of proportion and tone. I rant about TV on the Internet after all.

      -Daniel

      June 14, 2011 at 6:57PM EST
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    rob

    i tried to watch these first two episodes of twin peaks without having slept for 72 hours. needless to say i'm saving the podcast rewatches as a result!

    June 13, 2011 at 7:37PM EST Reply to Comment
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    Craig Ranapia

    Re: Statutory Romance in genre fiction

    I don't think it's spoiler-y to say in Doctor Who there's a nine century age gap between The Doctor and his girlfriend. OK, I've seen some "OMFG, The Doc's a paedophile!" weirdness on-line but, hell, 1) Time Lords don't exist and child molesters do and 2) it's pretty hard to miss the RW factoid that Alex Kingston is twenty years older than Matt Smith. (It's a whole other issue why some folks ick-factor is significantly higher if the junior partner in a May-December romance is male. Or vice versa.)

    I'm also not sure if genre shows make taboos less so. YMMV, but the abuse plotline in the Pegasus/Resurrection Ship arc in season two of BSG was no more - or less - horrible than (say) Gemma's rape in 'Sons of Anarchy'. The issue for me is whether the subject is handled in a sensitive, non-exploitative manner that is respectful of both viewers and the actors involved instead of being torture porn.

    June 13, 2011 at 8:13PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Park-recs-pyramid_1500_talkback_profile

    theholyavenger

    This is what I thought of during Alan's white power discussion of ebony and ivory as a theme song.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvgCvT9xX7A&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    June 14, 2011 at 4:04AM EST Reply to Comment
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    Jonathan

    The premise of Chloe King is one of the hokiest I can think of. Sounds more like a Saturday morning cartoon or something you'd find on Nickelodeon next to iCarly.

    June 14, 2011 at 5:15AM EST Reply to Comment
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    ln

    lucky you said that, i totally assumed it was Dr. Jakoby

    June 14, 2011 at 7:24AM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      Tausif Khan I completely missed that scene with the one armed man. I watched it right before I listened to the podcast and still have no idea what they are talking about.

      June 14, 2011 at 6:11PM EST
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    Andy

    Thanks for reading my email guys! Enjoyed your thoughts and love the podcast.

    Andy Black

    June 14, 2011 at 12:01PM EST Reply to Comment
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    JW

    A Point of Clarification: Dave Attell's travelogue of drunken, late-night America was called "Insomniac," "Up All Night" was Gilbert Gottfried's parade of women'r prison movies and 80's softcore prons.

    June 14, 2011 at 2:00PM EST Reply to Comment
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    Tausif Khan

    Is Graham Yost involved in "Falling Skies"?

    June 14, 2011 at 6:12PM EST Reply to Comment
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    Dax

    Twin Peaks didn't have episode titles... the ones you're using (just checked wikipedia) came from Germany, and CBS Video picked up on them for some odd reason... I know fan magazine also Wrapped In Plastic assigned titles as a lark once, but... I don't know, after all these years, hearing the second episode referred to as 'Traces To Nowhere' is... odd, to me. And glancing at the list, many of the titles are really, really terrible ('May the Giant Be With You') and if the episodes WERE to have been titled, I absolutely trust that the show's creators would have created better ones than these.

    June 14, 2011 at 10:52PM EST Reply to Comment
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    KarenL

    Statutory romance

    Just had a few thoughts about your discussion on statutory romance in the podcast. First, worth noting is that in the UK (where I live), the age of consent is 16. So the romance on PLL would be legal (from the age perspective – we’re not keen on teachers sleeping with students over here either), just still very cheesy. The idea of a 22 year old and 16 year old, while still not sounding like a great idea, isn’t ‘gross’ in the same way over here – cultural mores and whatnot being different, but my point is more that this isn’t a universal concept.

    Second, on the genre age question, I think it really depends on how a giant age gap is written. On Vampire Diaries, though there are moments of patronizing from Stefan, for the most part he treats Elana like an equal and she certainly views herself as one. I object to the PLL romance because, well first I object cuz it’s lame, but on principle I object because there is an obvious and problematic semi-patronizing attitude from Ezra of being the older/wiser/more mature part of the relationship, and the show doesn’t portray that dynamic as problematic. On Buffy, though at times there was a similar dynamic between Buffy and Angel (though Angel was not always presented as particularly mature/wise in S2, despite being more experienced), that was problematized by the show and of course made more complex and nuanced by the whole, turning evil and having to be killed thing.

    On Twilight, I find the relationship MUCH more disturbing and worrying as a model for young girls, because not only is that patronizing, protective attitude even stronger and Bella portrayed as not equal nor thinking herself equal to Edward, this type of relationship is portrayed as the ultimate in romance by the books, Edward as the perfect man. The disparity of respect/value between the characters is much more upsetting to me than their age difference, but it is certainly a function of that age difference.

    Generally, I really agree that you can challenge established beliefs and cultural mores in scifi/fantasy – it’s one of my favourite things about the genre. Magic = lesbianism in buffy is another good example. Battlestar asking questions about terrorists vs freedom fighter. Even Xena (may not have been the best quality, but it did this).

    June 15, 2011 at 5:10AM EST Reply to Comment

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