Thanks to digital cable, DVR and some downtime I've watched Poseiden and The Day After Tomorrow recently. Both movies are similar in many ways: directed by native Germans, have Emmy Rossum as the female lead and feature a shocking amount of death in the opening act. We're then expected to care about six or so of the survivors and their quest to outlast the horrors that have claimed thousands or millions of lives already. Quite honestly, after having an entire cruise ship or half of the northern hemisphere of the planet wiped out, I could care less about a few hangers-on. Are their lives supposed to be that much more important than all of the others who perished? Now, "The Day After Tomorrow" was interesting in how global warming played out, Poseiden was just kind of stupid, but at least the effects were believable. These movies are not alone in this scenario where we are asked to ignore the many and worry about the few, but they're pretty good examples of the reverse thinking we're usually asked to take (such as sacrificing a small number of innocents to protect that larger masses).
Of course, at the same time, I do watch "Jericho" which is about the survivors of a massive series of nuclear strikes in some random town in Kansas. However, I couldn't care less about the people in the town, but rather the larger arc of who set off the bombs and how the country reacts to the anarchy that ensues. THAT is interesting. What happens to a couple thousand people in Kansas after 20 major cities were nuked? Not so much.
Andy Barker, P.I., had more laugh-out loud moments in its first four episodes than an entire season of most sitcoms, yet it somehow didn't manage to crack NBC's otherwise solid Thursday night line-up. I thought it was right up there with "My Name is Earl" in the wacky characters being driven by the well-meaning namesake of the show. It's a shame the networks don't give these gems a chance to build a following, and it can't have been that expensive to produce.
