I found myself a little forlorn this past Sunday, with no more episodes of the Sopranos to help ease me through the dreaded depression of those Sunday night, the-weekend’s-over-beeyotch blues. I tuned into HBO’s new series, "Flight of the Conchords," figuring it was maybe going to be good since I’d just seen its star, the dorkily sexy Jemaine Clement, in a preview of the film Eagle vs. Shark. I was expecting to be mildly entertained, but instead, I fell in L-O-V-E. Like some kind of genius mash-up of The Young Ones, Weird Al Yankovic, Dmitri Martin, and Napoleon Dynomite, these young ironic New Zealand hipsters (who, it turns out, are suprisingly similar to young ironic New York hipsters, except with much cuter accents) had me at "g’day." I just cannot get enough of their funky stuff, and even watched their HBO comedy special from 2005 on HBO on Demand. I really dig their corny sense of humor and spot-on musical genre parodies, and I can’t wait till the next episode. My only complaint is that, as in just about every nerd narrative, the dorky boy always seems to get a girl way out of his league (in this case, a Heather Graham-clone playing a way-too-pretty hipster-type) rather than being paired romantically with someone more appropriate– such as the ubergeek fangirl character, Mel, who is instead presented as goofy and unappealing.
Aside from these Kiwi geeks, I have a penchant for PBS nerds as well, and especially the ones behind the show Frontline. These guys never fail to blow my mind with their fact-packed documentaries that really reveal the true complexity behind various issues. Sure, I love to laugh at the political antics of our fearless leader along with Jon & Co., but I actually prefer to get a truer picture of the situation, and nobody does it better than Frontline (makes me feel bad for the rest). Last night’s special, Endgame, can be viewed online, and lemme tell you, it will really open up your eyes to what’s been going on over in Iraqistan. Not only that, you may come away with newfound appreciation for Condoleeza Rice (and on an entirely frivolous side note: am I the only one to have noticed that she has the exact same hair style as this woman?). Frontline also aired a special a number of years ago that laid out the back-office reasons the US went to war with Iraq, and to this day, it is the only theory that makes any sense to me. Watch the special, then tell me you don’t feel like one of the few folks on the planet who finally understands why we actually went to war. Frontline, baby, you’re the best.
