Film and Felt

Intense and gripping, if somewhat one-note: while skillfully put together, the first two seasons of Oz are too repetitive to reach the level of The Wire or The Shield. The characters tend to be pretty similar in their cold-blooded ways of life, whether they’re Nazis, alcoholics, or old-fashioned murderers, and after 17 episodes, I don’t find myself attached to many of them. Given that my limited experience with HBO shows is that they become more rewarding as they go along, though, I’m more than engaged enough to keep rolling through (and the opening to Season 3 has me glad that I am). The scope isn’t as broad as most of the other series’ I’ve been watching, but the sharp focus adds a unique edge. Apples and oranges, and lots of violence.

Hmm. Not the start I’d hoped for from my beloved Mets; after a crisp Game 1 win buoyed by a throwback outing by Tom Glavine and some Card-crushing heroics from Carlos Beltran, Willie Randolph’s crew blew a golden opportunity to take a 2-0 lead after knocking around St. Louis ace Chris Carpenter in Game 2 when the bullpen imploded a few times in a 9-6 misstep. Well, it’s not catastrophic, I thought: the Mets are a resilient bunch, as they’ve proven all year, and I expected us to give Jeff Suppan a thorough whooping in Game 3, while praying that Suck Trachsel would keep the damage to a minimum; say, 3-4 runs in 5-6 innings. Alas, Trachsel sunk to new lows ever for his sorry ass. He allowed a mind-boggling ten baserunners in one inning (!), and put the Mets in a 5-0 hole by the end of the second inning. Frankly, he’s lucky that the carnage wasn’t worse–a pickoff and a bases loaded strikeout kept things from unraveling entirely. Darren Oliver ably kept the hole from widening, as he’s done all year, but our bats were oddly sluggish. Only Jose Reyes seemed to come to play; everyone else seemed asleep, as if they expected St. Louis to be happy that they stole one game and roll over. Um, this team won the NL pennant in 2004 and were two games away last year…they may have stumbled into the playoffs, but as Detroit is gamely showing, momentum is all about the moment. So, now we find ourselves down 2-1 with Oliver Perez taking the hill tonight against Anthony Reyes.