Fringe: Candide Americana: Optimism

Nothing ages so badly as satire. The original Candide, ou l'Optimisme was a philosophical comic novel written by Voltaire in 1759, which mocked the Leibnizian idea that we live in "The best of all possible worlds". Candide goes through progressively worsening situations while holding to the optimistic teachings of his tutor Pangloss. The original, though still amusing, has lost some of the power it must have originally possessed for those who experienced firsthand the events and places satirized. Stanton Wood restores that vitality for modern audiences in his adaptation Candide Americana, by transplanting Our Hero from a stereotyped Europe into modern America, with all the peripeteia of the plot finding modern analogues, including New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and New York City on September 11th. It's a genius idea, executed wonderfully and hilariously.