Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Reality Television

BrainDead 
In BrainDead—a satirical B-movie of a TV show from Robert and Michelle King, the creators of The Good Wife—space bugs (the show’s term) are taking over politicians’ minds. “Taking over” is perhaps too polite. These little critters, who arrived on Earth in the meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013 and are related to the indigenous (to Earth) screw-worm, crawl into their victims’ ears. Soon thereafter, the person’s head either explodes like a water balloon full of spaghetti sauce or their brain comes scooting out the other ear, glistening and intact, as easily as a drop of pesky swimming pool water. In the latter case, the bugs perform a personality overhaul. The possessed come to hate alcohol, love wheatgrass smoothies and the Cars “You Might Think,” and turn into inflexible political extremists.
BrainDead’s premise is a dark joke. “In 2016,” the show begins, “there was a growing sense that people were losing their minds and no one knew why, until now.” The only way to explain what’s going on in Washington, D.C., is idiotic alien possession in which our elected officials haven’t just metaphorically lost their minds, they have really lost their minds: Like, someone could find said minds and turn them in to Capitol security. The space bugs eat brains, but the infected act more like they have been body-snatched than like they’ve been zombified. They don’t lurch but become uptight and narrow-minded, stuck on their talking points, implacable in their dopey, damaging, dronelike opinions, insensible to compromise.
Thisclose.