I've been creeping through Babylon 5, of which I'd only seen the first couple of seasons when it originally aired, and last night watched 4x06, "Into the Fire." And, wow, the last fifteen or twenty minutes made me cringe with embarrassment for everyone involved. Please tell me this is not an unusual reaction? And -- while there's still plenty I love about the show (Peter Jurasik, you're so fantastic!) -- my resolve to make it through the remaining episodes is seriously weakened. Should I go on?

Returning to professional wrestling is making me realize how much of media fandom's interpretive lenses I've absorbed in the last few years. I can't say that I'm a slasher, but watching the Randy Orton-John Cena feud has finally made me "get" the dynamics of enemy!slash. They despise each other! They're obsessed with each other! They can't quit each other! Their matches involve handcuffs, and bondage-via-ring-ropes, and being locked in a steel cage together! Cena has a certain dorky Boy Scout air about him, kind of like Clark Kent on Smallville, and Orton -- well, he's closer in psychopathology to a Batman villain than Lex Luthor, but he does have a shaved head!

A few random links:

Notes on Going Under: A DEVO Primer (Rhizome) -- a fascinating look at the band, including their video art, and the surrounding cultural milieu in the '70s and early '80s.

Bound to Blog: Wonder Woman #9 (The Hooded Utilitarian), via the DEVO article -- a look at an issue of the 1940s comic: gorilla bondage! the reversal of evolution! William Moulton Marston's fetishistic feminism! And pages and pages of gorgeous art.

Terminology page at POPSEOUL! -- the most interesting ones are those that don't have a direct English equivalent:

So it's only two episodes in to the new seasons, but I've seen enough: MTV's The City (watch online!) is now officially better than the show it spun off from, The Hills. How often does that happen?

The pared down structure of The City is surprisingly effective: they're telling two parallel stories about young women working their way up in the fashion industry.

Good girl Whitney works for Kelly Cutrone at her fashion/PR firm People's Revolution; she helps her old high school friend, ambitious semi-bad girl Roxy, get a job there, and drama ensues. Meanwhile spoiled rich girl Olivia Palermo gets a job at Elle Magazine thanks to Elle's creative director Joe Zee; she quickly clashes with Elle's career girl PR director Erin, with Joe Zee caught in the middle.

It's The Devil Wears Prada lite, with a dash of All About Eve for good measure. The thing about The Hills was always that, despite the workplace settings, it was hard to figure out what the jobs of the characters actually were, aside from occasional episodes that tasked them to a fashion shoot or club opening. Which maybe works for LA, but doesn't translate as well to the East Coast. This new careerist incarnation of The City gives the show its own identity, bringing it out of the shadow of The Hills, and feels much more true to New York in spirit than the first season, which focused more on the ups and downs of dating models.

Perhaps the biggest breakthrough is that on the show, Whitney's aspirations as a designer are openly acknowledged and woven into the narrative. In contrast, The Hills never acknowledged on screen Lauren Conrad's fashion line, or for that matter any of the characters' various outside ventures.

Congratulations, Whitney -- you're going to make it after all.*

* Glib allusions aside, I could totally see Kelly Cutrone saying, Lou Grant-style, "You've got spunk. I hate spunk!" In its own way, I could even argue (well, after a couple of drinks) that The City is the closest direct ancestor to the working woman motif of The Mary Tyler Moore Show currently airing on US television.