First it Was the New York Times, Now It’s Hollywood

Mon   3 Mar 2008   21:16 by Kevin McGehee 67° and mostly cloudy in Coweta County, GA 4 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Media Ochre]

Tonight’s episode of the NBC TV series “Medium” features a U.S. state senator with a terrible secret from his time in a POW camp in Vietnam. Did I mention “Medium” is set in Arizona? Not having seen the episode yet as I post this, I don’t know whether the fictional Senator is running for president… Update, Tuesday night: Finally watched the episode, through the magic of TiVo. He’s a state senator, not U.S. And the terrible secret was murder and cannibalism, followed by blackmail and another murder. A little far-fetched that it would be a shot at McCain. Still, it’s a little troubling they’d have this Arizona politician be covering up something terrible from his days as a POW in Vietnam, while an Arizona politician who was a POW in Vietnam is running for president. Maybe some Hollywood writer’s Republican-hating wet dream? Who knows.

 

MC said: Let me guess, he had an abortion? » Mon   3 Mar 2008   21:56 Kevin McGehee said: From what I could see in the promos from the previous episode (which I saw last night via TiVo) he apparently betrayed his fellow prisoners. You may have heard there are fringe claims McCain did something similar. There are also people who think he caused the explosions and fire aboard the U.S.S. Forrestal in (I believe) 1967; I am not one of them. » Mon   3 Mar 2008   22:15 Ann said: Personally, I thought the show was pretty tacky.  It seemed designed to make us question what horrible, unspeakable things people may have done as POWs, and whether they aren’t permanently flawed as a result.  In the show there were 4 ex-POWs that seemed to have led honorable lives since returning, but every single one of them in the end was willing to commit murder, in order to cover up their earlier crime.  But although all of the ex-POWs in the show were evil, the worst by far was the Arizona senator. If the writers and producers weren’t trying to send a message, they surely would have spotted the similarities and changed the plot a bit.  How can this be anything but deliberate?  It’s not worth a lot of attention, but it doesn’t hurt to note a sleazy trick like this.  As I said, tacky. » Wed   5 Mar 2008   9:17 Kevin McGehee said: I don’t think I’m willing to accuse the producers of conceiving this story as a deliberate shot at McCain, but it’s definitely sleazy of them to go ahead with a story like this during this election cycle. It’s not as if there weren’t other ways they could have depicted a politician with a dark secret that leads to murder—why cannibalism in a Vietnam POW camp? » Thu   6 Mar 2008   10:59 You must be registered and logged in to comment.