"Excursions in Catastrophe" explores the works of Steve Fagin, specifically The Machine That Killed Bad People , which addresses the political and cultural power struggle in the Philippines, U.S. neoclassicism, and commercial television conventions.

Mellencamp states, "Throughout Fagin's important work, video, unlike network TV, reveals rather than represses or contains cultural, political, and economic differences. High-tech electronics lash with a low-tech, colonized culture; the West collides with the East, revealing a time warp" (8).