Before we get started, we want to remind you again, to check out the new PopPod. You can find this located on the right of the home page, or you can click here to either stream it live or download it to an Mp3 player of your choice.

We teamed up with Jeff Vrabel, the editor of The Guide, and Liz Farrell, who runs he Island Packet's InCrowd blog, for this half hour look at the absurdity of pop.

We hope you like it. We put in, literally, about a week of planning on this project. So, you know, that's about 200 times what we put on the average blog entry. So there's that.

Pop culture mistakes

We were thinking about movies or songs that we really would love more if there were just a couple of small changes. For instance, we love the TV show “The X-Files,” but when David Duchovny left two years before the show ended, the producers made the horrible mistake of casting Robert Patrick to replace him.

Patrick is an actor we LOVE, but he was not a good fit, because he is SOOO serious, and Duchovny lightened the mood of the show. With Patrick it became 60 minutes of angry blah. (Which is also the name of our autobiography)

Does this mean we hate “The X-Files” because we can’t watch the last two seasons without getting violently angry? No. But it does tarnish it a bit.

Here’s our list. Five off the top of our head. Feel free to add more in the comments below. Again, we’re not looking for the train wrecks. These are shows/movies/songs that are 90-95 percent great.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 6
If we’re ranking our favorite shows of the past 20 years, this makes the top five. We love it completely.

Well, not completely. After season five the show left the WB and went to UPN, killing Buffy in its final episode. When it returned the next year, they brought Buffy back, but she was tarnished, angry — dreary, really. Dreary Buffy is bad. Then she started an awkward affair with Spike, the vampire, which was kind of odd and creepy and heavy on the S&M. Then they ruined Xander by having him leave Anya at the alter. The season ended with Willow going evil and her girlfriend, Tara, one of the best pure characters on the show, getting killed. And, yes, we knew all of this from memory. And, yes, this is embarrassing.

Anyway, the show never really recovered from that one tainted season and left a year later. Was it completely horrible? No. The Buffy musical episode, “Once More With Feeling,” was also that year, and it ranks in the top 10 of greatest single episodes ever televised.



And we loved the nerds of doom. That season also had “Tabula Rasa” another great ep. But it never felt like Buffy, and the producers dug a hole early and had trouble getting out. We don’t watch a show called “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” because we’re looking for gravitas.

HOW WE WOULD HAVE FIXED IT: Don’t kill Buffy to end season 5. Don’t kill Tara to end season 6. Xander, man up, marry the demon. More smiles, all around.

Bohemian Rhapsody

We can’t say we’re the world’s biggest Queen fans. But we do have a healthy appreciation for the band. We like it a lot. Not love, maybe. But like. A lot.



And “Bohemian Rhapsody” is perhaps its best, most passionate song. It’s really sort of great. The group was obviously going for a rock opera vibe, complete with three distinct acts, a plot involving murder and even a prelude. We get that, and we love it, especially the final act, with its big rock sound.

With that established, and it clear we love the song, the middle part, the operatic interlude, wow, what’s that all about? It takes a deep, powerful song and turns it into a cartoon. With the high pitches and the Italian and the silly voices, and that horrible music video. Ugh. It completely doesn’t work for us, and we have to sort of tune out until it’s over and Brian May returns with that powerful guitar riff.



Plus, we’ll always think of Wayne’s World, which sort of ruins it.

HOW WE WOULD FIX IT: Can’t we just cut that out?

Dallas: Bobby back from the dead

We never watched Dallas, so this is a bit of a cheat. But aren’t there better ways to work a story out than to have one of the lead characters say it was all a dream? The show became a punchline for lazy hack comics the world around.



What are we, stupid? Do you hate your audience? Why else to explain insulting them with a lame twist like “You had the most vivid, most extensive dream ever.”

HOW WE WOULD HAVE FIXED IT: Keep Duffy dead. Maybe then he wouldn't have made that horrible Step By Step show.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom menace

OK, so we’re not breaking new ground here saying TPM would have been better without Jar Jar Binks. But, really, we hate Jake Lloyd, the kid who played Anakin, 1,000 times more than the animated stereotype.

So, you’re George Lucas, you can cast any kid on the planet in the most coveted role ever. You settle with Lloyd, a talentless imp with a mop of hair and the personality of paper. Horrible. Dreadful, even. We can’t even watch his scenes.



And there are things to love about the movie. Liam Neeson is really great. Ewan McGregor isn’t bad either. Darth Maul is a super bad guy. We’ll even live with Natalie Portman, who sleepwalks through the movie, and that horrible 30 minutes pod race and the wooden script. But, come on, THAT kid’s the future Vadar? You break out heart Lucas.

Oh, and while we’re complaining, really, you kill Darth Maul in the final scene? The best thing about the movie? The character that created the most buzz when the trailer hit the screens the year before!?!?? That says a lot about Lucas’ ability to read his audience and what they’re looking for. We have to stop now. We’re making ourselves angry.

HOW WE WOULD FIX IT: Cast Haley Joel Osment or, you know, a BRITISH KID since Vadar sounds more British than California surfer. Or how about casting a teenager as Anakin, have him be in his late 20s in part 2 and be in his early 40s in part 3? So that when his helmet is taken off in Return of the Jedi — 20 some years later – it makes sense why he looks like he's in his 70s.

The Matrix Revolutions — AWKWARD!

The first time we saw TMR we were a little disappointed, because we had SO wanted to see it and built it up in our heads. We saw it later on DVD and loved it a lot more.

There’s a lot to love. First, it LOOKS great. The colors. The clothes. The actors. It oozes cool. And there’s just enough of a confusing plot to make you scratch your head, but not too much to make you abandon it all together. And we loved the fight scenes and the new characters and those to albino twin dudes, and even though it looks like a Looney Tunes cartoon, you have to admite that ambitious mosh pit fight scene between Neo and the Agents.



But what happened between Keanu and Carrie Anne Moss between the first and second movie? They lost all chemistry. They became two wooden androids incapable of this thing we humans call love. And did we need a semi-graphic sex scene/orgy in the first 30 minutes? We were not comfortable. We still feel dirty.



It didn’t help that a critic pointed out, before we saw the movie, that Keanu and Carrie Ann look so similar they could be bro and sis. That sort of ruined it.

HOW WE WOULD FIX IT: Kill Trinity earlier. Like in the first two minutes. Or dye her hair blonde.

What would you add? Remember the rules, it has to be something you ALMOST loved, but with one fixable flaw.