Hack, cough, etc.

I don't like laziness at work. Laziness, like whiskey or bubble baths, is great in its own right -- so long as they happen on your own time. I take my work time seriously and expect the same from others. I think that's fair, after all, when engineers slack off, things break. You wouldn't want your things to break, would you? (Doesn't that sound like a mafia threat?)

Television writers, though, don't live by the same credo. At least not all the time. Dr. Sighted and I have gotten into a few shows that like to take the lazy way out. I have mentioned the USA shows before, and White Collar is one of them. Leverage, however, is the biggest offender of the phenomenon I am keeping you in suspense over.

Does everyone remember when the second Matrix came out? Nerds do, because it was a time of huge let down even though they refused to admit that their precious Wachowskis could err; then the third one came out and then there were no followers left. A false prophet can only fail so many times. The second one, though, had a scene that got nerds all excited because it proved an accurate representation of a computer hack in a movie for the first time. Leverage has a character whose sole purpose is basically to use a computer to do magic and call it "hacking". It's like the Green Lantern's ring of power for plot points, except it is defeated by out of date technology instead of the color yellow.

The USA shows do this too: Burn Notice infrequently and typically it's electronic manipulation that is a little more credible; White Collar does it periodically, which is unfortunate because the whole premise is the glorification of the con and forgery as art, which this totally defies; and Suits, in the most recent episode, which used a hack as a plot point that didn't really make sense.

It is unfortunate, because the shows entertain me, and I don't want to be entertained by lazy things. ("Here kid, is a balloon animal." "But it's a circle." "Lots of animals are circles.") You should already know how I feel about lazy comics, (and good comics, too). So, I'm troubled; I'd hate for you to think I'm inconsistent.