Other Areas in My Padded Cell

Monday, July 18, 2011

That Was Zen, This Is Now

As some of you may know, I love watching Masterpiece Mystery!
This year, a new detective, Aurelio Zen, was introduced into a group that can boast of Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Inspector Lewis, Sherlock Holmes, and many others. I was looking forward to meeting this new detective, but unfortunately, I feel that perhaps my anticipation was a bit unwarranted.
The premier of Zen left me, to be truthfully honest, confused and unsettled. The story starts out with a judge being murdered. The man claimed that the judge ruled unfairly at his trial. He had not committed the crime, he was not a murderer yada yada yada. So, after his little monologue about taking revenge on the people that had anything to do with his conviction (Zen was among those people, big surprise) he shoots the judge. I'm sure it was much to the judge's relief after such a cliche speech.
Enter Zen.
Here, for me, is where the story began to go down hill. Zen is supposed to be working on a murder that happened a while back. Ah, I thought, this probably has something to do with our judge-killing blackguard at the beginning. Turns out I was wrong, the man had nothing to do with this case. Okay, I figured that perhaps the cases will be tied together later on in the show. Nope, never was. They were completely separate. I suppose the writers just wanted to make it exciting so they had a random psycho running around killing people.
Or, perhaps they wanted to stress the fact that the Italian police were corrupt and planting evidence at the whim of the government? I think they pretty much covered that with the case that Zen was working on.
I could forgive the fact that there was a random lunatic running around, knocking off people. I seriously could, although it was a little odd.
The thing that I couldn't forgive about this episode was the case that Zen was busy investigating. Well, he was busy with it when he wasn't running from blood-thirsty crazies or making goo-goo eyes at a married woman in the elevator.
What perturbed me about it was the fact that the killer (I will not say who it is, I do have scruples.) really didn't have a motive, and they said as much at the end. At that point, I was about ready to go into the television screen and slap them. In my opinion, a mystery should always have a person out for blood and a reason to kill. People don't kill people just because they're bored and there's nothing on TV; well, they don't in fiction anyway.
To deem it a good mystery, I expect an observant little Belgian man to waltz into a room full of people and take you through the murderer's every thought. If you can't have that, because it sort of borders on plagiarism, you at least have to have motive! Come on people!
Overall, I thought Zen was all right. There was nothing really 'special' about him as far as I can see. Am I going to watch the next episode? I haven't really decided yet. I'm not sure if he deserves a second chance.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Asprins Please!

Want a fantastic migraine? Just try market research! It's slow, painful, and is similar to having your brain pulled out through your eye sockets, plus it's easy to do!
To start, just write up a quick article. Have you got it done? Excellent! Now it's time for some fun, fun, fun!
Now, pull out your market research book and select a genre you think your article will possibly fit. Have you got a genre? Great! Now find the name of a magazine that you think might like your article. Have you got one picked out? Terrific! Flip to the page number as fast as you can; now read the description. Do we have a match? No? Aw shucks! Well, let's try another one. Still not a match? Oh well, let's look on the bright side, you're on your way to that fantastic migraine we mentioned at the first of this post. All you have to do is repeat these simple steps until your head explodes. Have fun!

Bet you can't guess what I've been doing this afternoon, can you?