The Post Mortem

Apologies for the tardiness of the Post Mortem; spent the weekend celebrating with the surviving members of the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers who uncorked many bottles of champagne as the last winless team finally won. The Cardinals would be making a push to be the first-ever 0-16 team if they had not won the season-opener against San Francisco. What a horrible, horrible team the Cardinals are.

So it figures that the Raiders would beat them.

But give the Raiders credit for finding a team that is bad as they are. And yes, there are certain sects of Raiders fans who are now planning to make it down to the Super Bowl because the Raiders are back baby. Nobody beats the Raiders six times in a row. Nobody!

Congratulations Raiders. But nobody is going to be impressed until you beat, you know, an actual NFL team.

CHEATERS

What's with all the cheating?

Sunday was a day for cheating as the Tigers Kenny Rogers and the Chargers Shawne Merriman were involved in cheating scandals. Rogers was beaten up on sports radio today (in particular Dan Patrick�s radio show) for allegedly having pine tar on his palm. Yeah, what a moral outrage. But what do you expect Tony LaRussa to do? He turned his back when Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco were injecting each other with steroids when he was the manager of the A�s. You think he is going to make any noise when Rodgers is using a little bit of pine tar? If anybody is going to be cool with a little cheating, it has to be LaRussa. He did the right thing. If he raised a fuss, Jim Leyland could have ran out of the dugout and demanded Albert Pujols to submit a urine sample.

Did anybody note that the controversy occurred in the first inning and Rogers still pitched seven scoreless after he washed his hands?

Merriman�s situation is disturbing. Remember, this is Merriman�s second failed drug test. Players do not receive a four-game suspension until you fail a drug test for a second time. Needless to say, if Merriman had gone to the Giants, Tiki Barber would have found a way for him to circumvent the NFL�s drug test. The most surprising thing is that a 270-pound guy can�t naturally run a 4.2 40-yard dash. Yeah, that is shocking. Really, why is everybody surprised by this? But leave it to the Chargers to get their best guy suspended while the entire league is juicing. Well, except for Randy Moss, of course.

• The Chargers are 0-9 in games decided by four points over less over the past two seasons. That�s a bang-up job that Marty Schottenheimer is doing in San Diego. Art Shell is a horrible coach, but at least he isn�t squandering the career of LaDainian Tomlinson. Is is almost criminal.
  

• Donovan McNabb is a loser. Seriously. Who else but McNabb and the Eagles would lose to a team on a 62-yard field goal? Alright, other than the Mannings? It would be McNabb. They always talk about people being snake-bit, but you create your own luck. Like when you are golfing and you always seem to be stuck behind a tree. You think that you are the victim of bad luck. But in actuality you are just a bad golfer. Same deal with McNabb here. Three losses in the NFC Championship Game, a loss in the Super Bowl and now this. McNabb puts up good numbers and the Eagles win games, but he is not the ultimate winner.
  

• Props to the guys at the Wynn who started a B-U-C-S, Bucs! Bucs! Bucs! chant after Matt Bryant�s game-winning field goal in response to the loud-mouth Eagles fans who cheered each first down like it was the Super Bowl. It must have seemed like the Super Bowl to Eagles fans because they lost.
  

• Ben Roethlisberger has had so much bad luck this year, it is like he is playing against Kimo von Oelhoffen each week. Or maybe it is like Carson Daly said, it is karma. The Steelers look like a better team with Charlie Batch, though. And hey, Mike Vick can throw a little bit.
  

• (Expletive) the Panthers.
  

• Nice game, UCLA on a great team effort to come from ahead to lose. The offense pulled a Schottenheimer/Shanahan to give Notre Dame one last chance to win the game. Why doesn�t the team bootleg when Notre Dame was expecting run? The quarterback can fall to the ground if his receiver is covered to keep the clock running. That was bad, but going to a three-man rush on defense might have been worse. Notre Dame switched to a max-protect in that final drive, but the Bruins did not make an adjustment for that. Not like they had a chance, seeing that the game-winning drive was, what, three plays?
  

• Aztecs, baby! San Diego State notched the first win of the Chuck Long era with a depleted roster, to beat Air Force 19-12. Nobody beats the Aztecs six consecutive times! Nobody! You could really feel that the crowd at the Iron Maiden show was excited about the news, too. Boise State had another mad cover. And what about Washington State over Oregon? It just goes to show just how good the Pac-10 is.
  

AND FINALLY
�Here is something from our new album.� Nothing inspires a mad-dash to the beer line than that phrase. But if you would have spent the entire night in the beer line if you went to the Iron Maiden show on Saturday. The heavy-metal legends played their entire new album during their show, bypassing hits such as "Number of the Beast", "The Trooper" and "Run to the Hills." It would be like reading a Steve Bisheff column that wasn�t condescending or said, �You really needed to be there�� Just awful.

At least Elton John played his hits on Sunday night, after NFL Jennifer kidnapped your host following the Maiden show. She was a trooper. You know, like the song Maiden didn't play.

Doctor. Doctor. Glad I'm not sick.

Spoilers for the latest episode of "Doctor Who," plus some brief heretical thoughts on a bit of vintage "Who" coming right up...


So, on the recommendation of people here and elsewhere, I Netflix'ed the Tom Baker-era "City of Death" to see an example of the original series at its height. But what it mostly accomplished was to remind me of how terrific the modern series is.

Don't get me wrong: Tom Baker is a riot as The Doctor, and an obvious inspiration for David Tennant's performance, and with a pseudonymous Douglas Adams on the script, the dialogue is absurd and absurdly witty. (My favorite moment: when the dumb lug of a private eye smashes the sonic screwdriver into functionality, and The Doctor asks if the guy wants to be his scientific advisor.)

But I had a hell of a time trying to get past just how cheap the old show looked, not even the special effects, but the low-quality videotape, the minimalist sets and, most of all, the clumsy blocking. The modern show may not have the slickest production values, but it moves, you know?

Now, I understand that the old show had to operate on a shoestring budget, and in the context of both that and the era in which it was produced, I understand why the whole endeavor resembles a cross between a live TV show from the '50s, public access, and a Saturday morning puppet show. But having seen the Eccleston/Tennant version, I've been spoiled. And if I got so frustrated sitting through what many have claimed is the height of classic "Who," I don't know that I'll have the patience to go back and watch more. And I say that as someone with a healthy appreciation for old movies and TV shows that are even stagier than this. Sorry.

For me, "City of Death" stood in especially awkward contrast to Friday night's "The Girl in the Fireplace," which also had The Doctor dealing with historical figures, paradoxes and malevolent aliens. Even though I don't believe The Doctor would be dumb enough to not remember the different rates time passes on each side of the fireplace, his unconsummated love story with Madame de Pompadour moved me at least as much as last week's reunion with Sarah Jane.

I know it's not fair to compare an emotionally heavy episode to a four-part light romp, but I'm more engaged on every level -- including the comic -- by the newer series. If I had started watching the original as a kid, I would no doubt feel differently, would let nostalgia allow me to ignore the clumsiness of it all the same way I like to go back and re-read fairly primitive superhero comics from the early '80s. But like The Doctor and Reinette, I can't go back and rewrite my own past. It is what it is.

Wire week 7 talk for the On Demand'ers

After taking last night off to avoid competing with Game 2 of the World Series, "The Wire" is back this week with the mid-point episode, "Unto Others." Have at it.