TVSquad

As a big fan of the X-Files and Reality TV, I love thinking about and reading conspiracy theories about eliminations. While re-watching the audition episodes of So You Think You Can Dance I noticed during Adam Shankman's fake audition, Katee Shean critiqued him. Below her it read "runner up."

Wait a second. She was second runner up. Shouldn't it just say "finalist" or "second runner up" instead?

I know I'm thinking too hard, but I created an interesting theory about Katee. Maybe the producers knew she was the actual runner up, but thought that wouldn't make good television. They placed her in third and gave her money to compensate. Here are some points of interest.

The X-Files was a one-of-a-kind, groundbreaking show. It took the typical FBI detective show and spun it, but good. Add some aliens and government conspiracy and you've done one better than a weekly FBI caper.

And the extraterrestrial and supernatural make for some good quotes, starting with the pilot, when Scully refers to Mulder by his nickname from the academy: "Spooky Mulder."

Or how about Mulder's understatement of the millennium: " ... in most of my work, the laws of physics rarely seems to apply."

If you wanted to get your conspiracy theory fix and are bummed out the upcoming HBO documentary on JFK will be free of such theories, than you might want to check out The Murder of Princess Diana, a TV movie that hits Lifetime this August, the ten-year anniversary of her death.

The TV movie, based on the book of the same name by Noel Botham, will focus on a supposed conspiracy that resulted in the princess' death in a car crash.

When I heard that HBO was close to finalizing a deal for a miniseries based on the John F. Kennedy assassination, I thought, 'oh great, another conspiratorial tale about JFK.'

As it turns out, the miniseries will be based on Vincent Bugliosi's hefty book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

The miniseries, which will be produced by Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Gary Goetzman, will follow Oswald throughout his life and to his infamous end at the hand of Jack Ruby after he himself kills Kennedy.

Like many of you, I always assumed that Rosie O'Donnell had a masters in physics. I mean, why else would she be spouting off on national television that the WTC 7 was probably destroyed by a controlled detonation?

I actually make it a point to refer to Rosie's wisdom on every question I have in life. Right now I have a cold cheese sandwich sitting in my kitchen, but I'm not going to grill it until I find out from Rosie for certain that heat will melt cheese. She seems to have an understanding of these things my simple mind can't quite grasp.

At any rate, Popular Mechanics, just as it had done previously, explains to Rosie, and to everyone else, why the towers fell the way they did.

Well, if anything was clear after tonight, it was that the girls this season have bigger, stronger and fatter cojones than the guys do. That probably won't stop one of the boys from sticking around long enough to see the top two or three, though. Idol voters have funny ways of making us cringe.

It's not rigged, though, I promise. At least, I don't think it is -- and I have some good reasons to believe so.

Message boards are always filled with scandal and accusations of foul play. I don't know why, but people are always so quick to cry conspiracy even when better judgment says otherwise. Probably for the same reasons we believed the world was flat for so long ...

(S01E06) I was almost spot-on with my predictions for this week's finale in last week's episode review of The State Within, but I'm happy to say I wasn't entirely correct.

And, now that the full conspiracy has laid all ts cards on the table, and I can start to fully understand the ins-and-outs of the whole sorry affair, I can take a more honest view of the series.

From the start, this joint-venture between the BBC and BBC America seemed ambitious, not alone for attempting to make a US-centric drama with a British hat on, but for tackling issues like global terrorism, shoddy politics and corrupt business practices in the United States.

I can't say it entirely succeeded, but it was a promising enough mini-series, filled with a few moments of political intrigue and enough complexity to maintain a decent level of interest. And it set the scene for potentially more like it, with a few provisos which might come in handy for future reference.

(S01E05) I'd be lying if I said I haven't been enjoying The State Within. With a little bit of tweaking in the script and acting department, it could have easily made for a reasonably good ongoing series, if only the complex premise didn't warrant so much preamble before the main event kicked in.

However, with the most recent -- and penultimate - episode, I feel it's changed tack from a complex political conspiracy theory thriller, to a relatively straightforward and middle-of-the-road potboiler, replete with a hand-in-hand male/female pursuit sequence and the suspected bad guy turning out to be a good guy after all, just as I predicted in last week's review.

(S01E04) The complexity and confusion which characterised earlier episodes of this conspiracy theory drama are all but gone as it heads for the home straight, but I still have a few nagging doubts over some of the actors and a few questions over dialogue.

However, the show really turned a corner this week, with a significant plot element revealing itself, thereby helping to spell out the real motives behind the terrorist plane bomb in episode one, the mysterious mercenaries in episode two, the execution of Luke Gardener last week -- and where Sir Mark Brydon and secretary of defense Lynne Warner fit in to the whole affair.

(S01E02) Well folks, if I was confused last week, I'm positively perplexed this week -- but I still can't say I'm not enjoying this political conspiracy drama from the BBC.

It simply wouldn't be entertaining enough to have a basic hit-and-run plot where X marks the spot and some Tricky Dicky figure is behind the cryptic series of messages being delivered by a guy in an underground car park.

Complex is good, especially when it's well-executed and ticked down at a rapid pace like this is.

(S01E01) When BBC America and the BBC in the UK team up on a project, they rarely do things by halves, but I'm not certain The State Within will be the type of show that American viewers will be drawn to.

For a start, it pretty much opens with a trans-Atlantic flight being brought down by a terrorist bomb over Washington, with the finger of blame quickly pointing at a British muslim.

The British Ambassador to the USA, Sir Mark Brydon (Jason Issacs), quickly finds himself embroiled in a complex political conspiracy, at the heart of which is a plot to destabilize western government.

Chuck in a fiery Sharon Gless (yes, Detective Christine Cagney from Cagney & Lacey) as the US Secretary of Defense, along with a dozen other plot distractions, and you've potentially got a pot-polling political thriller on your hands.

(S10E09) Almost immediately after the events of 9/11, conspiracy theories began to crop up, and probably faster than ever before now that we had the internet and a way to instantaneously transmit gross misinformation and conclusions rife with logical fallacies. I think Cartman best summed up this episode with a line from his song about finding the truth behind 9/11: "I can't base my logic on proof."

While Mr. Macke tries to find out which boy took a crap in one of the urinals, Cartman decides to finally get to the bottom of 9/11. He presents his finding in class, and by using tortured logic, doctored photos and actually 9/11 conspiracy theories that are easily debunked by anyone with the ability to think rationally, he proves to the class that it was in fact Kyle who was behind it all along. What's especially funny about this is that Cartman hates Kyle, and obviously began his research wanting to prove Kyle's involvement. The same bass-ackward approach is exactly what causes anti-Semites to blame 9/11 on a Jewish plot, and every kid from a liberal arts college with a DSL connection and a gravity bong to blame the event on a government plot meant to increase public favor for invading the Middle East. When Cartman points out that one fourth of the population believe there was a conspiracy behind 9/11, Stan wisely points out that one fourth of the population is probably retarded.

(S01E10) Although the "landlords" at the Village have thwarted Number 6's numerous attempts to escape, they still haven't broken him down psychologically enough to make him reveal the reasons why he resigned. This episode centers around assassination, espionage, conspiracy, and "the truth", in whatever form it turns out to be in the Village.

What does this mean? During last week's episode, Hunting Party, one of Jack's flashbacks shows him looking at an X-ray of his patient's back. The date on that X-ray: November 16, 2005. Huh??? The detail-oriented folks over at Lost-Media caught the date, which can only been seen if you have HDTV.

Was this an oversight on the part of the directors? It's entirely possible that the x-ray was made in November for a January airing. But, nothing ever seems accidental on Lost. We don't actually know when Lost happens and this X-ray suggests that it's in the future. How far into the future? Well, far enough for Jack to get himself quite a collection of tattoos.

Thoughts?

[Thanks to Scott F., who listens to my podcast!]