Welcome to a feature called "Writing Blind." In this series, I will be writing about seasons of television that I watched in the past year or so, but failed to write about at the time. I call it writing blind, because I will be sharing my thoughts months after I have already finished the season. This is both because I want to write about these seasons, but don't have the time to re-watch them and because it is a challenge to hopefully improve my writing.
Oz is probably the best show in existence with characters who have flexible characteristics and motivations. That's not really a compliment. Oz is primarily focused on plot more than character. The strength of the actors add character to places where there isn't. The show seems a little less concerned with getting inside the head space of individual characters than it does in making sure the plot is interesting. If it does attempt to do that, it does so bluntly.
The reason why I think this is the case is in its introduction to new inmates. It shows them in present day, and through a different camera filter, shows what they did to get in prison. This isn't a show particularly interested in delving into the complexities of man. These people are defined by what they did. This strategy helps with creator Tom Fontana's impatience with storytelling. He can consistently shift character motivations in order to do what he wants to do.
In this season, Nazi supporter Vernon Schillinger and formerly sane and normal person Tobias Beecher continue their feud. The smartest thing the show ever did was making Beecher crazy, in my opinion. It's more entertaining, it's different than what you'd expect, and there's not a lot of places to go by placing a normal person in Oz. So you get a cat-and-mouse game between the two that might not ever end.
The casting on this show is sometimes so goddamn good it's unbelievable. Schillinger has tried the direct approach, but being a good villain that he is, he decides he wants to hurt Beecher in the most painful way imaginable. So he sets Chris Keller in Oz to make Beecher fall in love with him. And it works. And it only works because Christopher Meloni is fantastic. Seriously, he makes the entire thing believable. It's cruel at the end when they break Beecher's arms and legs, and while that is the show's pulpy side, it's still affecting because Beecher was starting to gain some of his humanity back.
The other extremely disturbing storyline is undoubtedly Ryan O'Reilly, who begins the season in a power struggle for control of Oz with Adebisi. That changes quickly when he has cancer, which Dean Winters of course excels at playing. This is right up his wheelhouse. Acting tough while showing you are actually vulnerable on the inside because you are scared to death. Blink and that's sort of Dennis Duffy on 30 Rock. But then it takes a very dark turn.
Like I said, this show has no interest in making its characters in any way redeemable. You get the sense that they pretty much all deserve to be in prison for the rest of their lives and it's kind of a bold decision. The fact that the show was able to pull that off while still condemning the prison system successfully is something I'm not sure how they did. Because in theory, seeing that these are all evil sons of bitches would in some way prove the prison system works. These are bad guys. They are getting what they deserve. And yet, the show doesn't hold punches in the flaws of the system. Somehow it doesn't come across as hypocritical. This is actually the first time I'm noticing the contradictory nature of it in fact.
Anyway, O'Reilly ends up falling in love with Dr. Gloria Nathan. This seems innocent at first although he very quickly starts showing stalker tendencies. Stalker tendencies is one thing, but nothing prepared for me for when he has his mentally disabled brother Cyrus, kill her husband. (I have LOADS of problems with that character, but I'll get into that in season 3 when he's more prominent.) He does end up sacrificing himself for his brother so that his brother will get sent to Oz, which well that's like the bare minimum of having human decency. I mean he had his own brother, incapable of making decisions for himself or at the very least not in a position to say no to his brother, kill someone. So yeah he deserves it.
Said continues to be a compelling character, but looking over the season, he doesn't get a lot to do. That's a strange thing to say where I'm pretty sure he had something to do in each of the episodes, but he's still seeing what his purpose is after he orchestrated the riots. He provides legal counsel to multiple inmates, including Schillinger, and helps Poet get out of prison. The one false note to me was that Poet immediately got sent back to prison. As we've known him, I just don't really buy how quickly he got sent back.
Miguel Alvarez at first is clearly the leader of his gang, but he's threatened when Raoul Hernandez comes to prison and immediately takes control. Hernandez, played by the great Luis Guzman, challenges Alvarez and doesn't think he's tough enough for the gang. So he basically gives him an ultimatum where he has to rip out the eyes of a former gang member to guard or he himself will be out of the gang. So he does it. The ramifications of this are explored in the third season, but needless to say between that and when he withholds information about who raped Glynn's daughter, he was a pretty shitty person. (Side bar: Don't really like how they handled the rape. It's not shown, but it's clearly used as a plot device and it feels icky throughout)
Lastly, Oz's least interesting character, Scott McManus, who the show unfortunately finds interesting apparently has a bunch of "White Male Problems." God I hate McManus. Am I supposed to hate him? Terry Kinney is just a really shitty actor so I feel like that's where most of my hate is directed, but he just comes across as whiny and entitled. I think I was supposed to care when he lied for Diane, but yeah I didn't give a shit. He's such a boring character, no doubt to Kinney's performance.
In all, I don't think the quality diverged greatly from the first season and it managed to still remain mostly original. The storylines aren't stale and that remains true of just about every character. None of the characters feel the same and they haven't repeated anything yet. The only recurring elements of the first season - the Beecher-Schillinger feud and the power struggle for the prison - still don't feel repetitive or boring.
Still it's a bit of a case of diminishing returns. The show isn't exactly predictable, but you know what to expect at this point. I think originality and wow factor of the first season is lessened here. So while I don't think I liked the first a ton more than the second season, for whatever reason, I do think this season is marginally worse.
Grade - B
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Rewind: The X-Files S5
Season five is a weird season and it's one that's weird almost by necessity. In the summer after the fifth season, The X-Files movie came out in theaters, which means that either before or concurrent with the shooting of the fifth season, they shot the movie. So Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and the writers weren't exactly available for your regular full TV schedule.
Hamstrung by time constraints, the show was forced to get creative with how to make a season of television while also making a movie for theaters. This led to inventive and exciting new episodes while also having the most duds of any season since the first season. Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny are both either missing or barely present in multiple episodes. One of the show's two primary directors, Rob Bowman, only directed two episodes in this season because he was also directing the movie. He had directed 23 episodes in the first four seasons. (I find it interesting he was chosen for the movie. Kim Manners directed more episodes of the show and also directed the finale. Despite his obvious talent, he didn't seem all that interested in movies so maybe that was the reason?)
So the fifth season ends up becoming uneven and unfocused (especially contrasted with the extremely cohesive fourth season.) But that's not a huge problem with a show as creative as this one got. In "Unusual Suspects," The X-Files had a spotlight episode on its tertiary characters, the lone gunmen. These weren't exactly characters I would have guessed could carry an episode on their own, even knowing they eventually got their own (failed) TV show. But by focusing on the most normal one of the group, John Fitzgerald Byers, it ended up being similar to a typical noir story where the everyman is duped by a woman. Predictable maybe, but still entertaining.
"Post-Modern Prometheus" evokes an old-fashioned type of horror by being shot in black-and-white where we are dropped into a small town. The X-Files episodes that focus on small towns are at the very least always interesting and tend to seem like real places. But this is definitely considerably different than most X-Files episodes. "Bad Blood" is one of the best episodes they've ever done with a "Rashomon" like story where we get two skewed perspectives and no sense of the truth. "The Pine Bluff Variant" puts Mulder in a position where he robs a bank! "Foile a Deux" is one of the creepier monster of the weeks they've ever done. Just the idea that you can see a huge insect-looking thing coming towards you and nobody else can is one of the most terrifying things imaginable.
With the excellent come the very bad episodes as well though. "Schizogeny" is confusing, not scary, and doesn't have a compelling monster of the week. It's a slog to actually watch. "Chinga," the Stephen King-penned episode, is quite awful. Those two at least have good reasons for being bad. Stephen King works haven't really tended to work that well either on television or in movies unless someone takes his idea and goes in a different direction. The other one was a spec script that they accepted because they needed another episode. "The End" has no such excuses with a child prodigy who can read minds and a forced love triangle from a completely new character. That was the last episode of the series so even if the movie was on your minds, you'd think you'd actually put your best foot forward.
The fifth season, as I look at all the episodes I talked about, wasn't quite as uneven as I thought. It has a rough middle stretch and the mythology episode at the end is probably the worst one thus far, but most of these episodes are good. In fact, I'm not sure there've been so many off-the-wall ideas in any season thus far and nearly all of those ideas work. The fifth season is rarely in its typical format which lends an unpredictability to the season. While previous seasons have been better, when you click on the next episode, you usually know what you're getting. That is definitely not the case in this season, for better and for worse.
So I'm pretty intrigued going forward to say the least. I have seen from a number of people that Duchovny at some point stops giving a shit. I can't help but speculate that the heavy workload this season could have been a factor, if true of course. But this season, while somewhat of a letdown from previous seasons, in no way indicates a drop in the show's quality. The top episodes are as good as the show has ever been and the weaknesses can simply be explained by the tough schedule they put themselves in.
Grade - B+
As an added note, I plan to watch The X-Files movie and the sixth season before the special six episode season coming out in January. Since most people have recommended I stop after seven seasons, I'll probably end up recording the newest season, watching the seventh season and then finally watching the new episodes. So it might be fair to say I won't get to the new episodes until March.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Reviewing the Netflix Comedies
Netflix released two comedies in back-to-back weeks recently, Master of None and W/ Bob & David. Coincidentally, I just finished the first season of Bojack Horseman and not too long ago finally was able to finish Wet Hot American Summer television show. So since I have trouble reviewing comedies, I'd thought I'd combine all four of these comedies into one post.
Master of None
Aziz Ansari's Master of None is brilliant. This is the lone comedy that has a near one-hundred percent chance of making my top ten at the end of the year. (To be fair, possibly unjustifiably angry readers, I have quite a bit of 2015 comedy still to watch.) It feels natural in a way that most comedies don't. It tackles issues that most comedies don't. It's also funnier than most comedies.
Each of his ten episodes are singularly focused on one thing whether that's parents, the idea of having kids, or getting into a relationship with somebody who is married (or in a committed relationship.) And yet it somehow never feels forced and maintains its naturalistic setting.
Aziz Ansari is playing a character who I'm fairly certain is essentially Aziz Ansari in real life. The other major character in this season is played by former and seldom-used Saturday Night Live cast member Noel Wells. The two of them together make a believable couple. Ansari casts a few friends who he talks about his problems with throughout the show, the standout of which is Eric Wareheim, a big hulking giant. A notable recurring guest star is H. Jon Benjamin (Bob's Burger's, Archers), a welcome person for Ansari to spill his relationship troubles.
It's also very well-directed. It adds to the naturalism and they take full advantage of the high definition. It makes New York seem to pop off in the screen as if you could simply walk your way into New York through your computer. (Don't do that, stupid people). I absolutely recommend this show to everyone who can watch it.
Grade - A
W/ Bob and David
I didn't watch Mr. Show with Bob and David so I was unaware of their type of comedy. This is a sketch comedy where all of the sketches are related in some way. So that's an interesting twist on your usual sketch comedy show. This show definitely made me intrigued to go back and watch Mr. Show with Bob and David. Unfortunately, I don't want to go back and watch it because W/ Bob and David was amazing.
W/ Bob and David largely failed for me. I'm assuming they have basically the same format in the original show, which is a weird live audience monologue followed by weird sketches that connect in some way. My main problem with this show is that I didn't find it that funny. The only consistently funny part for me was John Ennis. He's part of why I want to watch the original. But it's also because it's really easy imagine me loving this show if the performers involved are just a little better at writing and a little better at performing.
It just felt very amateurish to me. I think that's part of the joke, but that doesn't mean it feels any less amateurish. One jarring scene for me was when Bob Odenkirk plays all of the characters on "What if Seinfeld cast played Star Wars characters?" The joke was that it was a stupid skit that David hates. But at the end of the episode, he's getting huge laughs from a presumably "fake" audience because nothing he was doing was funny. I think it was supposed to be funny because of how bad it was. And... that's usually not a great source of comedy. Basically that entire scene made me suspect the live audience was nothing more than a laugh track sitcom disguised as a live audience because they seemed to be laughing on cue more than at jokes. (I feel like a lot of my complaints could be responded to with "That's the joke" but it's not a funny joke!)
Grade - C+
Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp
What also made me interested in the idea of revisiting the old show was that a lot of the humor in W/ Bob and David seems similar to Wet Hot American Summer. Since the show precede the movie and since original ideas almost always look better even after you've seen the copiers, I think my impression of the original would be improved.
That's a long-winded way of saying that I think the television series Wet Hot American Summer did the type of humor W/ Bob and David tried doing much better. (It's not a perfect comparison since one is a sketch comedy) Part of that undoubtedly is the actors involved. As much as I love Bob Odenkirk (I'm mostly indifferent on David Cross), Paul Rudd and company are just so much better on delivering the weird than those two. This is a cast so good it'd be worth watching no matter how bad it was. It just simply seems impossible for the caliber of this cast to be anything other than above average.
Watching the series, it seems written with that in mind. Like I don't want to disparage Michael Showalter or David Wain, but I can't imagine this was that funny purely on paper. Just look at every scene with Paul Rudd in it. Try and tell me that's funny with anybody but Paul Rudd doing it. Or every scene with Josh Charles being as close to a perfect parody of a frat boy as possible. Or Elizabeth Banks being a self-important reporter. Or Ken Marino macho posturing in a way where he is clearly doing it because he's insecure (how does he do that so well?) And yes the writers realize it so I'm not saying it's bad writing. It's just writing for the medium. Anyway, watch this for the performances.
Grade - B+
Bojack Horseman Season 1
Last year, when Bojack Horseman started, my roommates had it on. I watched a couple of the early episodes, out of context, and wasn't impressed. I returned to it about two weeks ago and the first episodes still didn't impress me, but I soldiered on and kept watching because I heard it would get better. And it did.
It also started to be clear what the show was about more than anything. The main appeal of this show is its portrayal of a man in a deep spiral of depression. He has fucked up in his life and he isn't happy about it. He doesn't think the spiral will end. The fact that this is happening while a pretty funny television show is happening is an added bonus. A large amount of credit goes to Will Arnett for making him a multidimensional character, who is talented, a goofball, an asshole, and depressed. (It's not all that different from his character on Arrested Development, Gob actually.)
The show is particularly adept at small little moments of animal humor and its recurring Hollywoo subplot. Also, I have to commend the show for making a gag out of Princess Carolyn dating three boys in a trench coat AND have it go on for three episodes AND somehow making it funnier and funnier the longer it goes on. The Todd storylines mostly fell flat to me - not necessarily because of Aaron Paul - but because they were extremely broad. Anyway, I'll be watching season two for sure.
Grade - B
Master of None
Aziz Ansari's Master of None is brilliant. This is the lone comedy that has a near one-hundred percent chance of making my top ten at the end of the year. (To be fair, possibly unjustifiably angry readers, I have quite a bit of 2015 comedy still to watch.) It feels natural in a way that most comedies don't. It tackles issues that most comedies don't. It's also funnier than most comedies.
Each of his ten episodes are singularly focused on one thing whether that's parents, the idea of having kids, or getting into a relationship with somebody who is married (or in a committed relationship.) And yet it somehow never feels forced and maintains its naturalistic setting.
Aziz Ansari is playing a character who I'm fairly certain is essentially Aziz Ansari in real life. The other major character in this season is played by former and seldom-used Saturday Night Live cast member Noel Wells. The two of them together make a believable couple. Ansari casts a few friends who he talks about his problems with throughout the show, the standout of which is Eric Wareheim, a big hulking giant. A notable recurring guest star is H. Jon Benjamin (Bob's Burger's, Archers), a welcome person for Ansari to spill his relationship troubles.
It's also very well-directed. It adds to the naturalism and they take full advantage of the high definition. It makes New York seem to pop off in the screen as if you could simply walk your way into New York through your computer. (Don't do that, stupid people). I absolutely recommend this show to everyone who can watch it.
Grade - A
W/ Bob and David
I didn't watch Mr. Show with Bob and David so I was unaware of their type of comedy. This is a sketch comedy where all of the sketches are related in some way. So that's an interesting twist on your usual sketch comedy show. This show definitely made me intrigued to go back and watch Mr. Show with Bob and David. Unfortunately, I don't want to go back and watch it because W/ Bob and David was amazing.
W/ Bob and David largely failed for me. I'm assuming they have basically the same format in the original show, which is a weird live audience monologue followed by weird sketches that connect in some way. My main problem with this show is that I didn't find it that funny. The only consistently funny part for me was John Ennis. He's part of why I want to watch the original. But it's also because it's really easy imagine me loving this show if the performers involved are just a little better at writing and a little better at performing.
It just felt very amateurish to me. I think that's part of the joke, but that doesn't mean it feels any less amateurish. One jarring scene for me was when Bob Odenkirk plays all of the characters on "What if Seinfeld cast played Star Wars characters?" The joke was that it was a stupid skit that David hates. But at the end of the episode, he's getting huge laughs from a presumably "fake" audience because nothing he was doing was funny. I think it was supposed to be funny because of how bad it was. And... that's usually not a great source of comedy. Basically that entire scene made me suspect the live audience was nothing more than a laugh track sitcom disguised as a live audience because they seemed to be laughing on cue more than at jokes. (I feel like a lot of my complaints could be responded to with "That's the joke" but it's not a funny joke!)
Grade - C+
Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp
What also made me interested in the idea of revisiting the old show was that a lot of the humor in W/ Bob and David seems similar to Wet Hot American Summer. Since the show precede the movie and since original ideas almost always look better even after you've seen the copiers, I think my impression of the original would be improved.
That's a long-winded way of saying that I think the television series Wet Hot American Summer did the type of humor W/ Bob and David tried doing much better. (It's not a perfect comparison since one is a sketch comedy) Part of that undoubtedly is the actors involved. As much as I love Bob Odenkirk (I'm mostly indifferent on David Cross), Paul Rudd and company are just so much better on delivering the weird than those two. This is a cast so good it'd be worth watching no matter how bad it was. It just simply seems impossible for the caliber of this cast to be anything other than above average.
Watching the series, it seems written with that in mind. Like I don't want to disparage Michael Showalter or David Wain, but I can't imagine this was that funny purely on paper. Just look at every scene with Paul Rudd in it. Try and tell me that's funny with anybody but Paul Rudd doing it. Or every scene with Josh Charles being as close to a perfect parody of a frat boy as possible. Or Elizabeth Banks being a self-important reporter. Or Ken Marino macho posturing in a way where he is clearly doing it because he's insecure (how does he do that so well?) And yes the writers realize it so I'm not saying it's bad writing. It's just writing for the medium. Anyway, watch this for the performances.
Grade - B+
Bojack Horseman Season 1
Last year, when Bojack Horseman started, my roommates had it on. I watched a couple of the early episodes, out of context, and wasn't impressed. I returned to it about two weeks ago and the first episodes still didn't impress me, but I soldiered on and kept watching because I heard it would get better. And it did.
It also started to be clear what the show was about more than anything. The main appeal of this show is its portrayal of a man in a deep spiral of depression. He has fucked up in his life and he isn't happy about it. He doesn't think the spiral will end. The fact that this is happening while a pretty funny television show is happening is an added bonus. A large amount of credit goes to Will Arnett for making him a multidimensional character, who is talented, a goofball, an asshole, and depressed. (It's not all that different from his character on Arrested Development, Gob actually.)
The show is particularly adept at small little moments of animal humor and its recurring Hollywoo subplot. Also, I have to commend the show for making a gag out of Princess Carolyn dating three boys in a trench coat AND have it go on for three episodes AND somehow making it funnier and funnier the longer it goes on. The Todd storylines mostly fell flat to me - not necessarily because of Aaron Paul - but because they were extremely broad. Anyway, I'll be watching season two for sure.
Grade - B
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Writing Blind: Oz S1
Welcome to a feature called "Writing Blind." In this series, I will be writing about seasons of television that I watched in the past year or so, but failed to write about at the time. I call it writing blind, because I will be sharing my thoughts months after I have already finished the season. This is both because I want to write about these seasons, but don't have the time to re-watch them and because it is a challenge to hopefully improve my writing.
Oz was created by Tom Fontana. Fontana more than earned his chance in his nearly two decade career writing for other television shows previous to Oz. He earned his bonafides writing for St. Elsewhere and later Homicide: Life on the Street. Though I've seen neither, both are considered among the very best among their time. He didn't only write for them though. He was prolific. For St. Elswhere he was the credited writer in 27 episodes, credited for the story in 61 episodes, and wrote the teleplay in 9 episodes in six seasons. For Homicide, he was credited with the story for 57 episodes and wrote 10 episodes. I don't know how generous either show was with crediting their writers, but he helped write the series finales for both shows so he was obviously important.
Oz is his baby. Barely anybody else writes for that show. In fact, he's the only writer in the first season. I can't think of an example of a show that sustained quality over multiple seasons with only one person writing it (Downton Abbey quickly became awful, True Detective's second season wasn't good, and Vikings is a pretty mediocre show though consistent).
The pilot episode is bold. The majority of the running time is contributed to Dino Ortolani, played by the very capable Jon Seda (The Pacific, Homicide:, and Chicago Fire/P.D.) Well, majority of the time by Oz standards. Anyway, he's one of only two characters who gets any character development and they kill him off by the end of the episode. This is the show announcing it's different than any other show that came before. He and Ryan O'Reilly (played by the wonderful Dean Winters) are so at odds it's clear one of them will have to die before the episode is over. Well, most TV shows - probably ALL TV shows in 1997 - would find a way for both to live and if one of them had to die, it certainly wouldn't be the one whose perspective we've been watching for the whole episode. While Winters makes his impact, he still appears to be nothing better than your average great guest star. So having him kill off what is at this point basically the main character is incredibly bold.
The other character who gets development is Vernon Schillinger, played by the currently in-demand J.K. Simmons. He's a Neo Nazi who doesn't immediately reveal he is a Neo Nazi to the audience or the audience surrogate, Tobias Beecher. Beecher is so much of an audience surrogate, he isn't a character at this point. (That's not a complaint; most shows will introduce you to a setting through fresh eyes and the fresh eyes are basically there to observe.) Anyway, Simmons being cast is actually a benefit in 2015 since it's really hard to imagine him playing an awful character. So when Beecher falls under his command, it's not hard to imagine how. Simmons though is such a good actor that he portrays just enough menace to make you know he'll reveal his dark side.
Beecher gets abused in the most horrific ways imaginable. He's ostracized from his family, he feels enormous guilt over killing a little girl, and Schillinger gets off on humiliating him on every turn. This isn't just for shock value. It's revealing the atrocities of how hard living in life is in Oz. Most people are in gangs so when they get to Oz, they have a group of people protecting them, but Beecher has nobody and it was just a matter of time before someone took advantage.
Fontana is an impatient writer though. He wasn't content to just let Beecher get dominated. So with the blank space allotted to his character - since he was less a character than simply an everyman - his turn to crazy is unexpected. Watching him get tortured constantly would have been boring and awful. Beecher going crazy was much more entertaining. Before he goes crazy, he goes to drugs. Basically with Beecher, Fontana presented every possible avenue with how you adjust to life on Oz: get controlled, go to drugs, or go crazy.
Oh yeah and die, which Beecher doesn't do, but enough characters do in this season that we understand that's one of the possibilities. Ortaloni's death sparks a gang war in the prison, which leads to deaths from both gangs almost every episode in this season. By episode four, one of the other major characters, Jefferson Keane dies. Keane was played by Leon, and he's honestly not a good actor so his death both added the sense that anybody could die and removed a weak character.
One of the big weaknesses of Oz is that it churns up story so fast, we barely have any time to register why the characters are doing it. Most of the cast is strong so when they randomly change heart, they sell it. Leon does not and he's not the only weak actor on the show. A lot of the time, the show seems to skip past the part of where the character decides to do something. It never explains why, though usually that's not a problem as it's either self-evident (Beecher going to drugs) or it's easy to imagine happening (most of Said's plotlines)
Like I said before, this is one hell of a cast. Lee Tergesen is an effective audience surrogate, but he really shines when he's batshit insane. I already praised Dean Winters above and he kind of does the Dean Winters shtick (see: his Mayhem commercials) but it's hard not to love the Dean Winters shtick. He hasn't quite mastered it in this season and he looks surprisingly young, but he finds his character sometime in the middle of this season. Harold Perrineau (Lost) was apparently hired for his oratory skills, but he seems to love narrating the episodes and he's good enough to make me wish he was better used on Lost (WAAAAAAAALT!)
The biggest revelation from Oz though - because most of the good actors I've seen in other things ala Simmons or Winters - is Eamonn Walker as Kareem Said. He's pretty fantastic. He's good in a way where I imagine that this specific role is so perfectly cast to his talents that I imagine I won't find him that good of an actor in anything else he's in, but he's truly an amazing actor if I'm wrong. B.D Wong gets his audition for his long-running role in Law and Order: SVU and he's pretty much the same character, except that he's a priest. Rita Moreno is another actor who is really good in this role as Sister Peter Marie. It doesn't seem like she gets that much to do honestly - not like there's much to give her since she counsels the inmates - but she certainly makes the most of it.
There's also Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Adebisi and he's appropriately sick and twisted and enthralling. Edie Falco gets her audition for Sopranos (though she's nothing like Carmela, but it's hard to think this role didn't get her an audition at least), and J.D. Williams as Kenny Wrangler is literally his audition tape for his role on The Wire (essentially the same character, though oddly enough he's older in 1997 here than he is in the beginning of The Wire in 2002. The man didn't age). Lastly, Lauren Velez is effective here and is just straight up depressing if you've ever seen Dexter and what they gave her to do.
Oz's first season is not exactly an experiment, but a test. A test to see what viewers would watch and a test on the sensibilities of your average viewer. It turns out that viewers could stomach the painful, the hard-to-watch, and most importantly, could watch awful people doing awful things. This is certainly not the first show to have as horrific of people as Oz does, but it might be the first to feature as many of them on the same show. I can't possibly put myself back in 1997 when this first aired, but this aired two years before The Sopranos. Oz most likely let Sopranos happened, which arguably influenced nearly every great television show that came after it.
With that said, this is not an A show. I don't think I'll be giving any of the seasons an A. There's either too many weak actors, too many weak storylines, or too frenetic of pacing. This doesn't make it a bad show by any means, it just means it never can quite become a truly great show. It's mostly great for what it did for television more than as an actual show. That's ok. I'd still recommend people watch this show, but after first making sure they don't have any problems with violence of course.
Grade - B+
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Writing Blind: The X-Files S4
Welcome to a feature called "Writing Blind." In this series, I will be writing about seasons of television that I watched in the past year or so, but failed to write about at the time. I call it writing blind, because I will be sharing my thoughts months after I have already finished the season. This is both because I want to write about these seasons, but don't have the time to re-watch them and because it is a challenge to hopefully improve my writing.
I'm about to finish season five of The X-Files and I really hope I can write a review soon after finishing it, because I am tired of trying to recollect episodes I haven't seen in months. There is however one thing I am certain about with the fourth season of The X-Files: it's the best season. I guess a better way to put it is that it's the most cohesive one. Season four is the first season to really feel like continuity matters.
I appreciate that in the first three seasons, the show would have enough continuity to make it worth watching in order, but it's not really vital to watch it in order. (Except for mythology episodes I guess, but I've never been that invested in them, mostly due to the incredibly widespread reputation the show has for shitting the bed with the mythology. It's kind of hard to care when you know it's leading you nowhere. And really here's every mythology episode: you learn something, but nothing actually changes.)
That changes in this season, starting with the last five minutes of "Leonard Betts," when we find out Scully has cancer. It's a pretty bold move, a move the show would need to back out of one way or the other. The rest of the season either addresses it directly or knowing she has cancer changes how you might perceive certain scenes.
There's also the fact that Gillian Anderson is a fantastic actor and nailed every emotional beat. David Duchovny has grown on me the more I've watched the show, but I have zero doubt he would not be able to do what Anderson did in this season. In fact, I don't think I've praised her enough in these reviews. She makes this show. This is pretty impressive considering the writers frequently write her as a wet blanket who gets in they way of Mulder's theories or simply don't give her anything to do at all. So keep that in mind when I say that the smartest thing the writers ever did, besides maybe picking Vince Gilligan's spec script in season two, was giving Scully cancer so Anderson could finally play something up to her talent.
Duchovny isn't left hanging as this is the first time he's confronted with the possibility that the government is behind everything. The writers wrote themselves into a corner here. There are two possible scenarios on how to deal with the government conspiracy. One is that the aliens are real and the government is hiding it. It's implied that the world of The X-Files is essentially the same as our world where most people don't believe in aliens or supernatural things. Of course, presenting it as this version makes it hard to believe people aren't more accepting of things like aliens when there's been at least 100 or more instances (in other words, the episodes) where the impossible is real. You'd think that bleed into everyday life. But suspension of disbelief and what have you.
The other scenario is that the government wants you to believe in aliens so that you ignore the other shit they do. That's not what this season comes to because the show is far from being over so they can't make any conclusions yet. But it certainly makes it seem like that's a possibility. Which makes no sense in a world where we've seen so much evidence of crazy, impossible ghost shit happening. You can't really say aliens aren't real and then have an episode on this ancient demon who is totally real. (Relating to a previous point, it's frustrating to have Scully constantly reject Mulder's theories with common sense and science and then he's nearly always right. Seriously it's not hard to imagine someone not named Gillian Anderson playing Scully and Scully being TERRIBLE to watch.)
Anyway, the fourth season still has good mythology episodes, though much like last time, I couldn't recite to you any plot points. I read the episode descriptions and synopsis and still barely remember them. Mythology episodes are exciting at the time (well some of them), but they leave nearly no lasting impression on me. Am I alone on this?
This season has a ton of great episodes. There's a lot of episodes that I knew were great before I even watched a minute of it. "Home" is creepy and maybe one of the most fucked up things the show ever presented on screen, especially when you stop and think about it. "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" has CSM killing John F. Kennedy, which is awesome. "Paper Hearts" presents an alternative explanation for the disappearance of Samantha, Fox's long-missing sister. "Leonard Betts" through "Memento Mori" are great as we discover Scully has cancer (though it came at the end of Leonard Betts and is a great episode before that), she has her own adventure (where cancer isn't mentioned, but certainly colors his actions), and then "Memento Mori" has both Scully and Mulder deal with the news that Scully has cancer. There's also the awesome "Small Potatoes," meant by Vince Gilligan in the vein of Darin Morgan script, and "Zero Sum" where Walter Skinner gets framed for murder.
Combined, this season is a combination of long-form storytelling, season-long storytelling, and simply standalones. It succeeds at all three. Only the first season really has as clear of a season-long arc in my mind before this fourth season came along. I feel confident in saying that the fourth season of The X-Files will be my favorite and my pick for the best season.
Grade - A
Monday, November 23, 2015
Review: Jessica Jones S1
It's hard to write about Jessica Jones after you've spent one weekend watching all thirteen episodes. Hell it'd be hard to write about any show, ignoring the fact that I wouldn't be able to actually do that for most shows. There's not a lot of time for reflection, on how you feel about the show, and on how you feel about what the show accomplished.
Ultimately, I think Jessica Jones was a little more ambitious than the quality of the writing. Make no mistake: Jessica Jones is a good show. If you're reading this and you haven't seen it, I recommend it. There weren't really any bad episodes, except one of them that strained credulity (which I hesitate to call bad - more on this episode later) And as far as superhero properties, this has more than a few "Fuck yeah" moments, which really isn't that why we all watch them and continue watching them even when we are bludgeoned to death with the 50th iteration of a superhero.
The star of this vehicle and no doubt the reason it's as good as it is is Krysten Ritter, a pitch perfect casting choice. If you've seen here in other things, you already knew this. If you've read a review of this before, someone has already told you this. But it's true. She's an antagonistic, sarcastic alcoholic who nonetheless very much cares about what happens to other people despite her best wishes. She's pretty much the ideal person to play a "don't give a fuck hardass who clearly gives a fuck."
Her casting also presents one of the necessary components of a good show, at least in my opinion: a sense of humor. This show isn't all darkness, all of the time. There are some funny moments sprinkled in and most of them come from Ritter's sarcasm. But the show is very dark. A brutal murder takes place at the end of the pilot that is hard to fathom.
The majority of Jessica Jones is Jones trying to prove the innocence of a young girl who was mind-controlled into doing something awful. The only way to do this is to capture - and not kill - Killgrave, the aptly named season-long villain. And after you capture him, you somehow have to get evidence of his powers or an admittance of guilt. Making matters more interesting and removing the question of why the villain doesn't just kill her, he wants to torture her through the people around her. There's more depth to him, but that would be a spoiler I will not spoil.
Pretty much the whole season revolves around Killgrave. This is one of the examples of it being a "bit much." The premise of this show - a hard-drinking private detective set in a noir setting - was barely utilized because of the intense focus on Killgrave. That's kind of what sold me on the show, so it was a bit disappointing in that respect. I hope in season two that there are more "case of the weeks" because I just want some good ole' private detective work, Veronica Mars or Magnum P.I. style. I'm definitely not asking for it to become a procedural, although this is certainly the first time I understand the artistic reasoning for why it's useful to have a case of the week at times. I think the show could benefit from that.
This show has a strong supporting cast, and my favorites aren't the obvious choices. The heart of the show is the relationship between Jones and Trish Walker. This isn't made evident for a little bit as they start off the series on somewhat rocky terms, but by the end, they are the heart. Another stealthy heart of the show is Malcolm, the drug addict neighbor. I am certain Walker will be there for season two, assuming there's a season two. I'm more hopeful than certain about Malcolm.
Killgrave, as I'm certain anyone mildly interested in watching this show already knows, is played by David Tennant. He plays him as an annoyed brat more than an overpowering supervillain. He definitely succeeds at that. You feel for him at times, and then he goes and tries to make someone kill themselves (I say tries like he isn't successful at it, but he very much is). I could go into more depth, but again I'm trying to avoid spoilers.
Lastly - and lastly because I don't want to individually talk about every important character - there's Luke Cage, who I can't possibly go without mentioning. Have no fears for his future TV show - he'll be up to the task. I was probably least impressed with Mike Colter out of the leads, but he was charming and he was menacing. I think he was less successful at playing righteous anger, but I appear to be mostly alone in that opinion.
Grade - B+
SPOILERS BELOW FOR EPISODES 9 AND 10
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SERIOUSLY STOP READING IF YOU PLAN TO WATCH THIS SHOW
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Ok I think that was a big enough warning
I had major problems with the tenth episode of the series, because it involved a ton of contrivances that basically seemed to exist so the writers could maneuver their characters from where they were to where they wanted them to be.
The first one, which I could forgive if it was on its own, is Simpson, the rogue cop. So in this episode, he decides to kill Lester Freamon (Let's face it; that's basically who his character is. Might as well just call him what he was hired to play.) and burn down the building. The show handwaved this away with the fact that he was on drugs and was willing to kill anybody who didn't want to kill Killgrave. Lester in no way impeded his ability to kill Killgrave in the way Jessica did. Killing him was stupid and so was burning the evidence. It made no sense. His further character detonation in the later episodes somewhat justifies this though.
Secondly, the support group is maybe the biggest contrivance of them all. So Malcolm decides to confess about Ruben's murder. Wouldn't happen. For some reason, Robin follows him to his support group even though he's been on her side this whole time. Ok fine she's crazy I guess. Then this crazy lady somehow convinces this group of otherwise reasonable people to go to Jessica's house and turn violent basically out of nowhere. Confront her? Sure. Start attacking her? Why? Then she gets taken down by Robin with a weapon she must have pulled out of her pocket because I sure as hell don't know how she got it. It's kind of bullshit that she's so hard to take down and then fucking Robin gets to take her down so easily.
Lastly, WHY THE FUCK DID HOPE KILL HERSELF? Ostensibly she kills herself to motivate Jessica to kill Killgrave, but that doesn't make any fucking sense. She didn't kill Killgrave because she wanted Hope out of prison. Mission accomplished. Hope is no longer a reason not to kill Killgrave. She kills herself because the writers went for shock value.
Oh yeah and there was that whole violent Jeri Hogarth subplot that seemed violent for violence's sake. I mean here's an episode where a guy kills a cop, a scorned ex-lover cuts her ex with a knife multiple times, the "other woman" knocks her dead on a table, four people try to commit suicide by hanging, and a woman slits her own throat. Seems excessive.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Rewind: Alias S3
I forgot what made me start Alias. Looking at it now, I'm not sure I would currently pick to watch the show off the available information I have. It doesn't have a great rating on IMDB. It's not exactly well-known for being a great show. I don't think anybody recommended me the show before I started. In any case, I certainly don't regret my decision to watch the show.
At the beginning of the season, Alias was coming off a fantastic second season. I have a hard time imagining it wasn't one of the best shows on television at the time (The Wire just began and The Sopranos was in the middle of its run so not THE best). It ended on a hell of a cliffhanger, with Sydney waking up two years later in a foreign country.
The crazy thing is that I didn't immediately watch the next episode. In fact, when I watched the first episode of season three, a year and a half had passed. What is really interesting about the third season is that it has a lot of great ideas. On a storyboard, how they ended up responding to the cliffhanger - which I'm sure they wrote without actually knowing the next step - is strong. She lost her memory because she was abducted by the Covenant, became a double agent (again), and then when she held valuable information, wanted to make sure nobody would be able to learn it by volunteering to erase her memory.
All strong ideas and it led to a few great, gripping episodes. Just like the second season, they set up a season-long arc only to dismantle it halfway through the season. Granted, it wasn't the same, but I wasn't expecting to get concrete answers on what happened to Sydney so soon. Then they made Lauren Reed a secret agent and emphasized the love story between Vaughn and Sydney.
Look, Michael Vartan is a perfectly capable fourth supporting character who gets his one episode to shine in a 22 episode season, but the man has no range. There used to be a time when television actor was an insult. Vartan is the epitome of that. He's just so out of his depth in this season. He needs to navigate so many emotions between finding his original love back from the dead, his current love, and then finding out his current love is actually a traitor. And he pretty much acts the same way for all of these situations. This is some MEATY material for an actor. Why the fuck did they think he was a better option than Bradley Cooper for this part?
Worse yet, Cooper, who asked to be written out of the show he was so unhappy with where his character went despite having no job offers at the time, gets an episode feature and it's probably the best episode of the season. WHAT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY. I'm not even a person who thinks Cooper is a fantastic actor or anything. I have no idea how the hell he has three best actor nominations to be honest. But he brought a lot to Will and I missed him in this season.
There was one episode which was the perfect distillation of the worst parts of Alias, combining three awful elements that made it the worst episode of the series so far and the only episode I outright hated. "Crossings," which ruins what is an otherwise perfectly good Isabella Rosselini appearance, is just bad television. First off, the episode ruins any tension by showing the ending first. Vaughn and Sydney kiss in a prison, get taken outside, are set up to be put down by a firing squad, and the camera focuses on one gun which starts firing bullets. *72 hours earlier* WOW I WONDER IF ANYONE FELL FOR THAT. The worst part is that it turns out it was a gun from an inside man who works as a guard. It was literally a random person. That's legitimately the worst deus ex machina I've ever seen. It was just lazy writing and the forced romance of Sydney and Michael made it worse.
Funny enough, the next episode almost made me quit the show, but I didn't hate it. The problem was that it repeated like six minutes of the same footage over a 42 minute episode. It was showing it from different perspectives, which is an interesting idea. But when they went back in time and repeated it, they showed far too much of the same exact scene before going to something original. It might cut to the point of view of the character we are supposed to be watching more, but otherwise it seems like we rewinded the episode.
This season created all the interesting dynamics that season two did. Arvine Sloane, who is now a humanitarian, could be good or bad now. Ron Rifkin is so damn good that he just makes the show ten times better when he's on screen. While I appreciate the way they kept him in the show and how they made him thematically interesting, he just wasn't on screen enough. I'm not even complaining, because they wrote him in as best as they could after he was the clear villain last year, but he was the most consistent part of the season. The revelation that he could be Sydney's father makes sense. He's always seem to have a fatherly instinct for her to an unhealthy degree and the only way that makes sense is if he thinks he's the father - which he does.
What I didn't love about this season was Lauren Reed. She was fine. I liked her a lot more before she turned out to be evil though. I don't think Melissa George could quite pull off what the show needed her to in order to make her character work. She's just too many different things at once, playing whatever character the plot needs her to be. She plays a character who is no way morally conflicted, which is fine, but she doesn't project any menace (perhaps because she's not capable of it as an actress). She works for an evil organization. You kind of need to be able to be menacing. Plus she seems like Sark to me in that she's not necessarily beholden to any organization, but then before she attempts to kill her father, she says she really believes in what she is doing. So she really believes in... Rambaldi? Or was she just saying that to appease her father? She never comes across as a crazy Rambaldi fanatic in the way Arvin Sloane does. Or at all really. (At least the mother is also a double agent, which answers why she's a double agent.)
The third season of Alias was like a big dumb and fun summer blockbuster movie. Unfortunately, the things you can easily ignore in a 2 hour film tend to come to the surface in a season with 22 episodes. The writers took some shortcuts, the actors didn't quite work as well as they probably hoped when they wrote it down, and the end product was an entertaining season, but not much depth to it. Plus, the suspension of disbelief tends to get removed when every other episode Sydney and team member get bombarded by freaking machine guns and nobody ever dies. I feel like the show was more realistic before about that type of thing. This season? Machine guns all the time with minimal casualties to the good guys.
In essence, there was no Lena Olin and there was no Bradley Cooper. There was more for Michael Vartan to do, which he responded to by playing everything the same. Marshall seems to get more unbearable with his fumbling of words and annoying tendencies (which the characters do NOT have time for in this season. Holy shit they all look ready to punch him in every scene with him.)
I could list every problem I have with this season and yet I enjoyed this way more than this post would probably make you think. It just went from a critically sound, engaging show to a basically 24. It does it better than 24 in most seasons actually. I just think I had higher expectations because this was attempting to be something else, while 24 is not.
Grade - B-
The third season of Alias was like a big dumb and fun summer blockbuster movie. Unfortunately, the things you can easily ignore in a 2 hour film tend to come to the surface in a season with 22 episodes. The writers took some shortcuts, the actors didn't quite work as well as they probably hoped when they wrote it down, and the end product was an entertaining season, but not much depth to it. Plus, the suspension of disbelief tends to get removed when every other episode Sydney and team member get bombarded by freaking machine guns and nobody ever dies. I feel like the show was more realistic before about that type of thing. This season? Machine guns all the time with minimal casualties to the good guys.
In essence, there was no Lena Olin and there was no Bradley Cooper. There was more for Michael Vartan to do, which he responded to by playing everything the same. Marshall seems to get more unbearable with his fumbling of words and annoying tendencies (which the characters do NOT have time for in this season. Holy shit they all look ready to punch him in every scene with him.)
I could list every problem I have with this season and yet I enjoyed this way more than this post would probably make you think. It just went from a critically sound, engaging show to a basically 24. It does it better than 24 in most seasons actually. I just think I had higher expectations because this was attempting to be something else, while 24 is not.
Grade - B-
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Writing Blind: The X-Files S3
Welcome to a feature called "Writing Blind." In this series, I will be writing about seasons of television that I watched in the past year or so, but failed to write about at the time. I call it writing blind, because I will be sharing my thoughts months after I have already finished the season. This is both because I want to write about these seasons, but don't have the time to re-watch them and because it is a challenge to hopefully improve my writing.
Back in the day - you know as early as 20 years ago - TV shows necessarily created a safe haven for viewers. You can watch this Thursday, skip next week's, and be none the wiser when you turned back in for the next episode. They needed to not alienate new viewers in order to gain viewership. So talking about full seasons of any show that was mostly procedural and you could mostly just drop in on an episode without much issue is difficult. Because the quality varies week-to-week.
Even on a season as consistent as the third season of The X-Files, they still have possibly one of the worst episodes in the series that I've seen in "Hell Money." To be honest, I don't remember much about that episode except that it was dreadfully boring and terrible. (It's either that or "Teso dos Bichos" - I don't remember which, but both were just terrible.) But that just serves to strengthen my point. How the hell am I supposed to grade a whole season of a show that is designed to allow you to skip episodes.
Now The X-Files is one of the rare shows that rewards people who watch it in order. It doesn't reward you THAT much. But it's clear the writers want to maintain some continuity even if it's just in the subtext. You can only notice that if you watch it in order and probably only if you watch episodes over the course of days and not say the normal TV schedule of a network show.
If there's anything I take away from this season, it's that this is the season where I will re-watch the most episodes. If I'm being honest, right now at this date, I'm probably watching the entirety of The X-Files and then not returning to it after I finish watching it. I'll sometimes come back and re-watch maybe 10-20 episodes that I really, really liked. More than a few will come from this season.
Because this is the season of Darin Morgan. I read X-File episode reviews/recaps after I watch each episode and the comments always list their favorite writers of the series. Morgan is almost unanimously the first name that is mentioned. Sometimes he's listed second, because his episodes comment on the show itself in a mocking tone and none of them are the essence of X-Files.
I'm not in a position to pick a side of the debate on that yet, but I will tell you I will return to every one of his episodes in this season. "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," "War of the Coprophages," and "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" are all classic X-File episodes. As a Scully fan first and a Mulder fan second, I like how these episodes usually good-naturedly mock Mulder. (As a side note: Am I the only one totally not shipping Mulder/Scully. She's too good for him) They're also cleverly written, entertaining as hell, and they bring the best out of the two leads.'
This season also features Vince Gilligan's first great script. Remember when I said Morgan was the first name mentioned on top writers. Gilligan is the second name. Sometimes, he's first because his episodes represented the typical X-Files while still being original and spooky. "Pusher" is that episode.
Another challenging thing about writing about a season for a show like the The X-Files months after I've seen it is that I can't really go into detail about specific episodes. I'll try to write the fourth season soon, because it's relatively fresh in my mind, but most of these episodes I don't remember from just the title. Anyway, I think that could work to my advantage because I don't want to go just describing each good or bad episode anyway.
I've seen written that the third season is the best mix of the Mythology and the standalone. The fourth season comes close, so close I'm not willing to make that determination. But the third season certainly has the best standalones of any season so far, and probably of the whole series judging by what I've heard about the later seasons. I mean the four episodes I mention are all standalones and not at all required for the mythology. (The Morgan episodes somewhat need you to be familar with the standard tropes of X-Files and the Mulder/Scully dynamic so they aren't typical)
I'm going to go by memory that I enjoyed the mythology episodes, because wow do I don't remember any details about any of the mythology episodes in this season. Like the Indian saying mystical stuff in the first episode and... Mulder and Scully on a boat in one of the best scenes.. and uhhhh.... Yeah, in ten years, I won't remember anything about the mythology probably. Doesn't matter. I liked them when I watched them.
In conclusion, The X-Files third season is a model of consistency with only one or two duds in it. The usual price for consistency is that the show will just re-hash the same formula over and over. The X-Files changes it up enough to keep it interesting. Not to mention, it's not only consistent, but has some of the best episodes of the entire series. I'm not sure if I think season three or season four is better, but I can feel reasonably confident that this season is a solid lock for at least the second best season of the entire series.
Grade - A
Grade - A
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Rewind: 24 S7
I watch 24 in a way I don't watch other shows. I'm never going to think it's a great show so my expectations are simply that it be entertaining. For it to be entertaining, it needs to keep the show moving, limit filler, and avoid unbearable storylines. In that sense, season seven was an undeniable success in my eyes.
Most 24 seasons feel basically the same to me. So I'm curious at what makes the seasons that I didn't like (2 and 6; and to a lesser extent, season 3) different from the ones I did like (every other season). I think the answer lies in the show simply having as few clear space-filling plotlines as possible and when they do have a clear space-filling plotline, keep it short and entertaining. I hated season 2 because literally every Kim scene was completely pointless, which meant 24 episodes of clear space-filling plots. Season 3 was simply repetitive. I was bored of the show by the end. And Season 6 was terrible in every way as clearly all the writers just forgot how to make the show any good.
Season 7 doesn't fall trap to this. Sure, you have a few plots that clearly are there just to fill space, which is really all of the presidential stuff. More specifically though, I didn't really care if Henry Taylor found his son's killer. But it was short and entertaining at times. I didn't care about Olivia wanting John Hodges dead and later on, whether she was caught. Actually that kind of sucked, but it was still only a plot for about five episodes. (Sprague Grayden, who plays Olivia, is actually quite terrible in this season. I don't remember her being bad in Sons of Anarchy, but she is awful here. And I was kind of excited to see her in this!)
Now, this season is different because it actually analyzes Jack's actions and looks at torture. Now granted, the show ultimately ended up pro-torture most of the time, mostly because 24 is a television drama which presents hypothetical situations that don't happen in real life. And because everyone he tortures is definitely guilty and never gives him false info. (Last point on this: Torture is ineffective and obviously inhumane)
Anyway, Jack has never looked like more of an asshole than he does here and it actually seems like the writers did this on purpose. It actually gives weight to the things he's done, which the show usually brushes off as nothing. It culminates in the final scene where Jack confesses to Muhtadi Gohar about the things he has done. He knows he's not a good person. (which he isn't - I'm sorry you can't be a good person with the things he's done, for the good of the country or not)
Interestingly enough, the mirror of Jack is Tony Almeida, whose motives are more bent on revenge than Jack, but ultimately similar. He goes undercover to kill the man responsible for killing Michelle and many more people for years. He does despicable things. He does it for revenge. But in his mind he had rationalized it as things he needed to do for justice. How does that sound different than Jack? Jack is just on the edge of being a bad guy, something Tony has crossed, but it's really easy to imagine Jack following him sometime.
Lastly, his protege of sorts, Renee Walker - previously a cop who followed the rules - ends up following in his footsteps. Obviously, she didn't completely fall victim to Jack Bauer, but she did need a push. She was willing to get his advice even though that probably was a bad idea (you know in real world logic, not Jack Bauer is a superhero 24 logic). By the end of the season, 24 ended on a surprisingly dour note as she clearly intends to torture Will Patton's character. (He doesn't get much screentime, but he's so effectively smarmy that you it's hard to blame her)
Then there's Senator Blaine Mayer, played by the awesome Kurtwood Smith. Initially presented as a person just out to get Bauer, he turns out to be extremely sincere in his intentions. He and Bauer reach an argument to do this right and... he gets killed. That was one of the darkest moments of the show. In hindsight, I should have expected it because Bauer going through files and legally catching the bad guys just isn't that interesting. (It could be in theory in the right hands, but the writers definitely aren't good enough for that to work at all). However, it surprised the hell out of me and devastated me.
So while this season went through the usual beats (nothing really original was written except for the torture conversation), the Jack Bauer and Tony stories REALLY worked. The presidential stuff didn't at all. President Allison Taylor basically exists to be dumbfounded and to get expositional info thrown at her (and the audience). But I have a higher tolerance for this when it is new characters. Season 8 could be rough. As awesome as President Palmer was, I was bored by his predictable character by Season 3. Allison Taylor isn't really a character yet, much as Cherry Jones tries. (She's like a less interesting President Palmer who doesn't know anything)
Other Notes
- I think this is Kiefer Sutherland's most impressive season, acting-wise. His scene at the end of the season in the hospital when he breaks down crying saying "You don't the things that I've done" is extremely impressive acting.
- How could I forget Bill Buchanan, who has an appropriately patriotic death, and never did sacrifice his values, refusing to torture someone when Jack wanted him to do it
Grade - B+
Most 24 seasons feel basically the same to me. So I'm curious at what makes the seasons that I didn't like (2 and 6; and to a lesser extent, season 3) different from the ones I did like (every other season). I think the answer lies in the show simply having as few clear space-filling plotlines as possible and when they do have a clear space-filling plotline, keep it short and entertaining. I hated season 2 because literally every Kim scene was completely pointless, which meant 24 episodes of clear space-filling plots. Season 3 was simply repetitive. I was bored of the show by the end. And Season 6 was terrible in every way as clearly all the writers just forgot how to make the show any good.
Season 7 doesn't fall trap to this. Sure, you have a few plots that clearly are there just to fill space, which is really all of the presidential stuff. More specifically though, I didn't really care if Henry Taylor found his son's killer. But it was short and entertaining at times. I didn't care about Olivia wanting John Hodges dead and later on, whether she was caught. Actually that kind of sucked, but it was still only a plot for about five episodes. (Sprague Grayden, who plays Olivia, is actually quite terrible in this season. I don't remember her being bad in Sons of Anarchy, but she is awful here. And I was kind of excited to see her in this!)
Now, this season is different because it actually analyzes Jack's actions and looks at torture. Now granted, the show ultimately ended up pro-torture most of the time, mostly because 24 is a television drama which presents hypothetical situations that don't happen in real life. And because everyone he tortures is definitely guilty and never gives him false info. (Last point on this: Torture is ineffective and obviously inhumane)
Anyway, Jack has never looked like more of an asshole than he does here and it actually seems like the writers did this on purpose. It actually gives weight to the things he's done, which the show usually brushes off as nothing. It culminates in the final scene where Jack confesses to Muhtadi Gohar about the things he has done. He knows he's not a good person. (which he isn't - I'm sorry you can't be a good person with the things he's done, for the good of the country or not)
Interestingly enough, the mirror of Jack is Tony Almeida, whose motives are more bent on revenge than Jack, but ultimately similar. He goes undercover to kill the man responsible for killing Michelle and many more people for years. He does despicable things. He does it for revenge. But in his mind he had rationalized it as things he needed to do for justice. How does that sound different than Jack? Jack is just on the edge of being a bad guy, something Tony has crossed, but it's really easy to imagine Jack following him sometime.
Lastly, his protege of sorts, Renee Walker - previously a cop who followed the rules - ends up following in his footsteps. Obviously, she didn't completely fall victim to Jack Bauer, but she did need a push. She was willing to get his advice even though that probably was a bad idea (you know in real world logic, not Jack Bauer is a superhero 24 logic). By the end of the season, 24 ended on a surprisingly dour note as she clearly intends to torture Will Patton's character. (He doesn't get much screentime, but he's so effectively smarmy that you it's hard to blame her)
Then there's Senator Blaine Mayer, played by the awesome Kurtwood Smith. Initially presented as a person just out to get Bauer, he turns out to be extremely sincere in his intentions. He and Bauer reach an argument to do this right and... he gets killed. That was one of the darkest moments of the show. In hindsight, I should have expected it because Bauer going through files and legally catching the bad guys just isn't that interesting. (It could be in theory in the right hands, but the writers definitely aren't good enough for that to work at all). However, it surprised the hell out of me and devastated me.
So while this season went through the usual beats (nothing really original was written except for the torture conversation), the Jack Bauer and Tony stories REALLY worked. The presidential stuff didn't at all. President Allison Taylor basically exists to be dumbfounded and to get expositional info thrown at her (and the audience). But I have a higher tolerance for this when it is new characters. Season 8 could be rough. As awesome as President Palmer was, I was bored by his predictable character by Season 3. Allison Taylor isn't really a character yet, much as Cherry Jones tries. (She's like a less interesting President Palmer who doesn't know anything)
Other Notes
- I think this is Kiefer Sutherland's most impressive season, acting-wise. His scene at the end of the season in the hospital when he breaks down crying saying "You don't the things that I've done" is extremely impressive acting.
- How could I forget Bill Buchanan, who has an appropriately patriotic death, and never did sacrifice his values, refusing to torture someone when Jack wanted him to do it
Grade - B+
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Quick Thoughts: True Detective S2
True Detective's second season is, in a lot of ways, similar to a sequel to a movie you liked as a kid. There are elements there that remind you why you liked the first movie, but there are much more elements that make you question if the original was even that good to begin with because enough of the same things happen that do not work at all in the sequel. It doesn't necessarily make the original a worse movie, but it stains it.
This is admittedly a weird thing to bring up in a season that, by design, starts from scratch. The actors are different, the setting is different, and even the director is different. But the writer is the same. I may be a little biased because I came to True Detective late. I saw the reviews and I saw all the praise it was getting. I didn't love it. I think my opinion of the show would be much different if I happened to watch it from the beginning with no expectations, but as it stood, I merely liked it.
The problem is that the things that worked in the first season weren't there for the second season. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrleson were off to other projects and the replacements couldn't match them. McConaughey somehow looks even better in retrospect because some of the dialogue he had to say could only work out of his mouth. Also, Cary Fukanaga, the director who set the mood and tone, had moved on as well.
There's not much I could say about this season that hasn't been said already. The plot was needlessly complicated and ridiculously hard to follow. The dialogue was cringe-worthy at times. The main characters weren't well-written. (It seems unfair to wonder this, but I wonder how Nic Pizzolatto's work would look without world-class actors. What I'm saying basically is that some writers can still make a good movie/TV show without good actors, but Pizzolatto definitely isn't one of them.)
There were some bright spots, most notably Colin Farrell. Farrell played an impossibly written role, where he was an violent, drug abusing, alcoholic who beat the father of his son's bully in front of the son. And he made him somewhat likeable, sympathetic, and while you maybe weren't rooting for him, you certainly hoped he would get better. I dare say few actors could pull off what he did. (In praise of Pizzolatto, this part seems written specifically for Farrell so he could have theoretically known ahead of time that he could make a sympathetic character that on page looks irredeemable).
Rachel McAdams is also very good and she has even less to work with than Farrell. She is a tough, knife-wielding, badass member of law enforcement. So she basically embodies all of the cliche male law enforcement officers except for the knife part. (Actually, her character is a well-worn trope itself right down to the tendency to use a knife.)
Taylor Kitsch is competent though he doesn't really elevate the material. The problem is the material. He seems like a useless character. With the exception of his final scene, which is well-staged and tragic, he could be removed from the show without the show actually losing anything. Do we need to see another homophobic self-hating homosexual? (I'm pretty sure that's a thing that is much more rare than fiction would lead us to believe. Most homophobic people are... just homophobic)
Lastly, Vince Vaugh is unfortunately one of the worst casting decisions possible. He actually does very well in the finale, proving he can actually act. But you shouldn't hire Vince Vaughn and make him a stiff, humorless character who says pretentious shit all the time. I don't know who thought that was a good idea.
Lastly, I think the ending fell flat with me. I don't mind a sad ending, but Ray not being able to send that message to his kid was all kinds of bullshit. He was on the highway and then decided it would be a good idea to go into the woods? Sure good luck with that. And Ani is pregnant? Why? Both men sacrifice themselves for their women? Haven't seen that before.
In all, I think I enjoyed this less than most. Some people, once they adjusted that the second season was not the first, ended up liking it. I wouldn't say I hated it, but some episodes were a slog to get through. I just have a lot of trouble enjoying a show with thin characters with a plot that is impossible to follow.
Grade - C
This is admittedly a weird thing to bring up in a season that, by design, starts from scratch. The actors are different, the setting is different, and even the director is different. But the writer is the same. I may be a little biased because I came to True Detective late. I saw the reviews and I saw all the praise it was getting. I didn't love it. I think my opinion of the show would be much different if I happened to watch it from the beginning with no expectations, but as it stood, I merely liked it.
The problem is that the things that worked in the first season weren't there for the second season. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrleson were off to other projects and the replacements couldn't match them. McConaughey somehow looks even better in retrospect because some of the dialogue he had to say could only work out of his mouth. Also, Cary Fukanaga, the director who set the mood and tone, had moved on as well.
There's not much I could say about this season that hasn't been said already. The plot was needlessly complicated and ridiculously hard to follow. The dialogue was cringe-worthy at times. The main characters weren't well-written. (It seems unfair to wonder this, but I wonder how Nic Pizzolatto's work would look without world-class actors. What I'm saying basically is that some writers can still make a good movie/TV show without good actors, but Pizzolatto definitely isn't one of them.)
There were some bright spots, most notably Colin Farrell. Farrell played an impossibly written role, where he was an violent, drug abusing, alcoholic who beat the father of his son's bully in front of the son. And he made him somewhat likeable, sympathetic, and while you maybe weren't rooting for him, you certainly hoped he would get better. I dare say few actors could pull off what he did. (In praise of Pizzolatto, this part seems written specifically for Farrell so he could have theoretically known ahead of time that he could make a sympathetic character that on page looks irredeemable).
Rachel McAdams is also very good and she has even less to work with than Farrell. She is a tough, knife-wielding, badass member of law enforcement. So she basically embodies all of the cliche male law enforcement officers except for the knife part. (Actually, her character is a well-worn trope itself right down to the tendency to use a knife.)
Taylor Kitsch is competent though he doesn't really elevate the material. The problem is the material. He seems like a useless character. With the exception of his final scene, which is well-staged and tragic, he could be removed from the show without the show actually losing anything. Do we need to see another homophobic self-hating homosexual? (I'm pretty sure that's a thing that is much more rare than fiction would lead us to believe. Most homophobic people are... just homophobic)
Lastly, Vince Vaugh is unfortunately one of the worst casting decisions possible. He actually does very well in the finale, proving he can actually act. But you shouldn't hire Vince Vaughn and make him a stiff, humorless character who says pretentious shit all the time. I don't know who thought that was a good idea.
Lastly, I think the ending fell flat with me. I don't mind a sad ending, but Ray not being able to send that message to his kid was all kinds of bullshit. He was on the highway and then decided it would be a good idea to go into the woods? Sure good luck with that. And Ani is pregnant? Why? Both men sacrifice themselves for their women? Haven't seen that before.
In all, I think I enjoyed this less than most. Some people, once they adjusted that the second season was not the first, ended up liking it. I wouldn't say I hated it, but some episodes were a slog to get through. I just have a lot of trouble enjoying a show with thin characters with a plot that is impossible to follow.
Grade - C
Monday, August 10, 2015
Writing Blind: Twin Peaks S1 (Rewind)
Welcome to a new feature called "Writing Blind." In this series, I will be writing about seasons of television that I watched in the past year or so, but failed to write about at the time. I call it writing blind, because I will be sharing my thoughts months after I have already finished the season. This is both because I want to write about these seasons, but don't have the time to re-watch them and because it is a challenge to hopefully improve my writing.
Twin Peaks' first season is a confusingly alluring season of television. It sticks in your brain. It really doesn't seem like it should be as good as it is. The show is juggling different tones: a murder mystery, a soap opera, a love story (which okay, yeah that's also under soap opera), a slice of small-town America, and what can only be described as psychedelic dreams laced with symbolism. By legacy alone, Twin Peaks should be watched for what it did for television. But it was also a pretty good show.
If Twin Peaks does not seem like your kind of show, don't let that scare. It doesn't seem like my kind of show. I'm not really into David Lynch. I didn't like Mullholland Drive (which, full disclousure, is the only movie I've watched of his. Yes I know I need to go see Blue Velvet immediately). I don't watch soap operas. I don't really like things that just continually throw weird shit at you just so you can say "Wow that was weird."
If there's one false step in the first season, and I know I diverge from a lot of Twin Peaks fans in this opinion, it's the first 30 or so minutes of the show. It's 100 percent because of the acting. The seriousness that the camera is treating the material is juxtaposed with soap opera acting - which is a shade off from the rest of the episodes to my eye. It's not a huge difference, but for some reason I just can't get past it. It's a little more expressive and over-the-top. It's acting to where you can always tell they are acting. That's not always a problem, but it just points me to the falseness of the characters. This is not only a 30 minutes problem, but the entire pilot problem for me. But the end of the episode ends up dropping plot bombs on you every 10 minutes so that's more entertaining.
I honestly think it's just because the situation - the instant reactions of a girl being murdered - is so serious and the acting is clearly ACTING that it blends less well when a new soap opera element is introduced. Almost none of the actors come out that well. The one who comes out best is Grace Zabiskie, playing Sarah Palmer, and I still am unmoved by her tears because she cries in the old movies style and not realistically. (Now that statement might actually get me in trouble here. It's still probably convincing enough for people with kids.) Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs) is never worse than he is in this episode. I came to love Jack Nance's odd delivery, but it still didn't even work for me in retrospect here. And James Marshall, well... never mind I always just kind of tolerated him throughout the series.
However, whatever happened in the first episode that prevented me from embracing the series is gone for the other seven episodes. I can't explain it. It just clicks for me the rest of the way on. Not only is the acting not a weakness past the first episode, it's a strength (for the most part). I don't even know if they do anything differently, but I sure as hell love it.
The glue to the series is unquestionably Special Agent Dale Cooper as played by Kyle MacLachlan. In fact, I don't think he shows up until halfway through the pilot and that could be the answer to my problems in the first 30 minutes. He's just not there and I need Agent Cooper there. He is possibly one of the most unique law enforcement officers in the medium of television, which is no small feat given the large swaths of time dedicated to law enforcement. He is endlessly optimistic, completely devoid of judgment, and incredibly competent. Where you usually expect a character to zig, he tended to zag. For instance, you just don't see an FBI agent go into a small town and seamlessly dictate how the investigation will be conducted. Sheriff Harry S. Truman (who just FITS in with this show really well and is one of my favorite characters despite not having all that much to actually do) understands he's just there to help and respects Cooper. Likewise, Cooper can tell Truman knows what he's doing and respects him equally.
One of the big indicators that Cooper is vital to the series is that he is a part of two of the most delightful and burgeoning relationships that happen as the first season progresses. There's the aforementioned Cooper and Truman relationship which is one of the more surprising and welcome friendships I've ever seen portrayed. The other, of course, is between him and Audrey Horne. There's just a magic between MacLachlan and Sherilyn Fenn in their scenes that enhances the episode. It's a shame off-screen developments caused the writers to abandon that for the second season because it was one of the better parts of the first season.
Leaving aside Maclachlan's performance, which honestly if i squint I could see on different shows, my favorite performance that is distinctly Twin Peaks is definitely from Richard Beymer. Beymer plays his character over-the-top yet somehow still containing a semblance of reality. When performances are generally grandiose and heightened, Beymer provides an example of someone who can pull that off while still seeming like an actual character. The other shining example is oddly enough Piper Laurie as Catherine Martell. I say that because she has one of the roles that somewhat disappears when you look back on the show. But she is certainly giving the most soap opera like performance with her devouring of scenery and she does it so well you don't even care. (Obviously this is under the assumption that a soap opera performance is a bad thing which is an opinion I hold, but if you do not share that opinion, boy you probably LOVE her performance.)
There are a lot of performances to get through and I probably hold an opinion of all of them, which you certainly can't say about every show. Ashbrook either gets better and sinks into his character as the show goes on or I just get used to him. It doesn't really matter to me either way because eventually I grow to like his performance. I always enjoy Ray Wise, who has guest starred in about a million shows. Warren Frost gives probably the most subdued performance of all the actors, but it works all the better for it. James Marshall is as awkward in his eighth episode as his first so I tend to think Ashbrook actually got better, because Marshall never does for me. Joan Chen makes the least impression on me and I didn't really like her performance or her character. Russ Tamblyn (Lawrence Jacoby) is great.
I really liked Everett McGill even though he for some reason seems like the character most likely to fit in on Days of Our Lives (of which I've seen maybe 10 hours total in my life due to haphazardly glancing at when my mom is watching it, which she has done as long as I've been living). It's a sin it took me until now to mention Mädchen Amick (Shelly Johnson) who unfortunately has to act alongside Eric da Re, who is in the running for the worst actor on this series with Marshall. I can't believe two things: that Sheryl Lee never acted before this and that she hasn't had more of a career post-Twin Peaks, because she makes such an impression in such little screen time that you wish you saw her alive. (Because I only have so much space - the rest: Michael Horse as Hawk is awesome, Harry Goaz as Andy is a fantastically terrible actor, and I actually have no opinion on Laura Flynn Boyle for better or worse.)
The interesting thing about this show, when researching it, is how much credit David Lynch gets and how little he actually had to do when the cameras started rolling. He co-wrote the first three episodes and directed the first and third, but other than that he didn't have any direct involvement in the rest. He obviously deserves credit for molding the directing style and helping to formulate what the show would be. But I think Frost wrote almost all of the characters except for Agent Cooper (which by my own admission is a rather important character) This is just an observation and honestly the non-Twin Peaks credits for Frost are so disappointing and just plain bad that it's weird he helmed most of the first season.
I will refrain from giving this a grade for two reasons: an A feels dishonest as I don't really know if my overall feelings would warrant that and the grade is flexible in this case. I think Twin Peaks' first season is a show that gets better every time I watch it. It is the rare show that, first 30 minutes of the pilot excepted, I will never get tired of watching. That is an extremely rare quality in a show and I can count on one hand the number of shows where that applies. Hopefully my words, rather than an inability to given an A, can convey my feelings towards this show.
Playlist
1. "Swimming Stone" - 20syl
2. "Be Above It"- Tame Impala
3. "Wesley's Theory" - Kendrick Lamar
4. "Lonely Soul" - UNKLE feat. Richard Ashcraft
5. "From Hate We Hope" - Steve Mason
One of the big indicators that Cooper is vital to the series is that he is a part of two of the most delightful and burgeoning relationships that happen as the first season progresses. There's the aforementioned Cooper and Truman relationship which is one of the more surprising and welcome friendships I've ever seen portrayed. The other, of course, is between him and Audrey Horne. There's just a magic between MacLachlan and Sherilyn Fenn in their scenes that enhances the episode. It's a shame off-screen developments caused the writers to abandon that for the second season because it was one of the better parts of the first season.
Leaving aside Maclachlan's performance, which honestly if i squint I could see on different shows, my favorite performance that is distinctly Twin Peaks is definitely from Richard Beymer. Beymer plays his character over-the-top yet somehow still containing a semblance of reality. When performances are generally grandiose and heightened, Beymer provides an example of someone who can pull that off while still seeming like an actual character. The other shining example is oddly enough Piper Laurie as Catherine Martell. I say that because she has one of the roles that somewhat disappears when you look back on the show. But she is certainly giving the most soap opera like performance with her devouring of scenery and she does it so well you don't even care. (Obviously this is under the assumption that a soap opera performance is a bad thing which is an opinion I hold, but if you do not share that opinion, boy you probably LOVE her performance.)
There are a lot of performances to get through and I probably hold an opinion of all of them, which you certainly can't say about every show. Ashbrook either gets better and sinks into his character as the show goes on or I just get used to him. It doesn't really matter to me either way because eventually I grow to like his performance. I always enjoy Ray Wise, who has guest starred in about a million shows. Warren Frost gives probably the most subdued performance of all the actors, but it works all the better for it. James Marshall is as awkward in his eighth episode as his first so I tend to think Ashbrook actually got better, because Marshall never does for me. Joan Chen makes the least impression on me and I didn't really like her performance or her character. Russ Tamblyn (Lawrence Jacoby) is great.
I really liked Everett McGill even though he for some reason seems like the character most likely to fit in on Days of Our Lives (of which I've seen maybe 10 hours total in my life due to haphazardly glancing at when my mom is watching it, which she has done as long as I've been living). It's a sin it took me until now to mention Mädchen Amick (Shelly Johnson) who unfortunately has to act alongside Eric da Re, who is in the running for the worst actor on this series with Marshall. I can't believe two things: that Sheryl Lee never acted before this and that she hasn't had more of a career post-Twin Peaks, because she makes such an impression in such little screen time that you wish you saw her alive. (Because I only have so much space - the rest: Michael Horse as Hawk is awesome, Harry Goaz as Andy is a fantastically terrible actor, and I actually have no opinion on Laura Flynn Boyle for better or worse.)
The interesting thing about this show, when researching it, is how much credit David Lynch gets and how little he actually had to do when the cameras started rolling. He co-wrote the first three episodes and directed the first and third, but other than that he didn't have any direct involvement in the rest. He obviously deserves credit for molding the directing style and helping to formulate what the show would be. But I think Frost wrote almost all of the characters except for Agent Cooper (which by my own admission is a rather important character) This is just an observation and honestly the non-Twin Peaks credits for Frost are so disappointing and just plain bad that it's weird he helmed most of the first season.
I will refrain from giving this a grade for two reasons: an A feels dishonest as I don't really know if my overall feelings would warrant that and the grade is flexible in this case. I think Twin Peaks' first season is a show that gets better every time I watch it. It is the rare show that, first 30 minutes of the pilot excepted, I will never get tired of watching. That is an extremely rare quality in a show and I can count on one hand the number of shows where that applies. Hopefully my words, rather than an inability to given an A, can convey my feelings towards this show.
Playlist
1. "Swimming Stone" - 20syl
2. "Be Above It"- Tame Impala
3. "Wesley's Theory" - Kendrick Lamar
4. "Lonely Soul" - UNKLE feat. Richard Ashcraft
5. "From Hate We Hope" - Steve Mason
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Rewind: 24 S6
Before I watched this season, a vast - VAST - majority of lists listed Season 6 as the worst season of 24. Some had Season 7, some had Season 8, but Season 6 was far and away as near of a consensus as possible the worst season the show had to offer. Too many of these lists preceded this post with "Even the worst season of 24 is good." Because no this season is awful. This is borderline unwatchable. It took me months to watch this season. Every time I was faced with the prospect of watching another episode, it was a struggle to watch.
24 is a weird show and I've probably said this in my other posts on it and will probably say it in future posts as well. It's good for weird reasons basically, reasons that aren't usually at all sustainable over multiple seasons. Is it well-acted? Well not really. Are the characters well-fleshed out? Again, not really. Is it well-plotted? Well, the more you think about it, usually the less sense it makes. Is it well-written? Eh no the dialogue isn't really a strong selling point here either. Well what the fuck makes this a good show? Excitement, twists, Jack Bauer, and good acting from key supporting characters. (I kind of cheated and said it wasn't well-acted, but sometimes it is like George Mason or Charles Logan. Generally speaking though, I don't think it's a reason to watch the show)
Now, excitement and twists are two things that tend to get less rewarding the longer you have a show, especially if you don't have interesting characters. 24 HAD interesting characters. They killed a lot of them off though. Wayne Palmer isn't one. Nadia Yassir isn't one. Milo Pressman isn't one. Neither is Sandra Palmer (do you have remember her?). Bless 24's soul, but how in the hell do you have James Cromwell and Regina King and make both of their characters absolute nothings. James Cromwell, as Jack's father, should have been great. Hell, Cromwell as Jack's evil father should have been a piece of cake. It's James freaking Cromwell. How did they mess that up so badly? Judging from the fact that King is a starring character and showed up in 9 episodes, they clearly had no idea what to do with her.
Then they kill off Curtis Manning in the stupidest way possible. Manning was an underrated character. I don't know how Roger Cross did it, because I can't imagine anything was on the page for him to work with, but I was invested in Curtis Manning. Then, all of a sudden, he becomes so unprofessional that he forces Jack to kill him. Congratulations on being extremely unsubtle about the difficulties with working with someone you hate, 24. (That's unfair; 24 has never been subtle)
I'm going to be honest here. There are many high points in this season that I can point to where I can say I enjoyed it. This was just an absolute trainwreck of a season. Powers Boothe is decent as Vice President Noah Daniels, but like his weirdly obsessive desire to go to war makes no sense. And I am tired of so many characters on this show going against the president for the good of the country. And that happens this entire season. I don't mean go up against in the sense of verbally, I mean like try to take him out.
Anyway, I'll keep watching, because from what I've read, Season 7 is a lot better. Yes, some say it is worse than Season 6, but a lot of other people claim it's a change of pace and that it's better than any of the last three seasons (which granted, so far is like being one of the best Big Bang Theory episodes). In any case, these lists have been generally trustworthy, outside of their inability to prepare me for just how truly bad this season is, and season seven and season eight both seem to have good and redeemable qualities and are far from hard to watch.
Grade - D
24 is a weird show and I've probably said this in my other posts on it and will probably say it in future posts as well. It's good for weird reasons basically, reasons that aren't usually at all sustainable over multiple seasons. Is it well-acted? Well not really. Are the characters well-fleshed out? Again, not really. Is it well-plotted? Well, the more you think about it, usually the less sense it makes. Is it well-written? Eh no the dialogue isn't really a strong selling point here either. Well what the fuck makes this a good show? Excitement, twists, Jack Bauer, and good acting from key supporting characters. (I kind of cheated and said it wasn't well-acted, but sometimes it is like George Mason or Charles Logan. Generally speaking though, I don't think it's a reason to watch the show)
Now, excitement and twists are two things that tend to get less rewarding the longer you have a show, especially if you don't have interesting characters. 24 HAD interesting characters. They killed a lot of them off though. Wayne Palmer isn't one. Nadia Yassir isn't one. Milo Pressman isn't one. Neither is Sandra Palmer (do you have remember her?). Bless 24's soul, but how in the hell do you have James Cromwell and Regina King and make both of their characters absolute nothings. James Cromwell, as Jack's father, should have been great. Hell, Cromwell as Jack's evil father should have been a piece of cake. It's James freaking Cromwell. How did they mess that up so badly? Judging from the fact that King is a starring character and showed up in 9 episodes, they clearly had no idea what to do with her.
Then they kill off Curtis Manning in the stupidest way possible. Manning was an underrated character. I don't know how Roger Cross did it, because I can't imagine anything was on the page for him to work with, but I was invested in Curtis Manning. Then, all of a sudden, he becomes so unprofessional that he forces Jack to kill him. Congratulations on being extremely unsubtle about the difficulties with working with someone you hate, 24. (That's unfair; 24 has never been subtle)
I'm going to be honest here. There are many high points in this season that I can point to where I can say I enjoyed it. This was just an absolute trainwreck of a season. Powers Boothe is decent as Vice President Noah Daniels, but like his weirdly obsessive desire to go to war makes no sense. And I am tired of so many characters on this show going against the president for the good of the country. And that happens this entire season. I don't mean go up against in the sense of verbally, I mean like try to take him out.
Anyway, I'll keep watching, because from what I've read, Season 7 is a lot better. Yes, some say it is worse than Season 6, but a lot of other people claim it's a change of pace and that it's better than any of the last three seasons (which granted, so far is like being one of the best Big Bang Theory episodes). In any case, these lists have been generally trustworthy, outside of their inability to prepare me for just how truly bad this season is, and season seven and season eight both seem to have good and redeemable qualities and are far from hard to watch.
Grade - D
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Rewind: The Simpsons S8
I'm a somewhat strange Simpsons viewer in two respects. The first is that I started watching a couple years ago, in 2013, and have somehow completely avoided watching any episodes - to my memory - good or bad ever before that first viewing. I think I haphazardly watched part of a Treehouse of Horrors episode in its later years, but I gave up on it pretty quickly - and really not sure a later years Treehouse of Horrors is the best introduction to The Simpsons.
On the other hand, season eight really feels like a series ending type of season, doesn't it? You get the sense that they are wringing every possible type of comedy that is left in their creative brain. This is everything that they have left and everything they've got for the rest of the series. Now that may or may not be true, but this season features changing the status quo more than once (Milhouse Divided, Grade School Confidential), off-the wall ideas (El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer, Spinoff Showcase), and unfortunately narrative shortcuts and some lazy ideas (The Springfield Files, Simpsoncalifragi. yeah not typing more of that).
The last three episodes, for my money, are some of the greatest episodes to end The Simpsons. I'm not saying they are the best episodes, but that it's a damn great way to stop watching. "Homer's Enemy" IS one of the greatest episodes of the season, features some extreme meta commentary on the show, and after watching it, it's kind of hard to continue forward. The show is pointing out how ridiculous it is and that seems like a thing you do when you end the show. "The Spin-off Showcase" is a creative and original idea, and while not all three segments are great, it helps, well, showcase both its originality and the vast crate of characters. The last one is a return to classic Simpsons: simple story, emotional, and funny. Seriously, I want my last memory of The Simpsons to be that so bad that it's going to be difficult to watch season nine, which I pretty much assume is worth watching if not essential.
(Short review, but I watched most of this season a while ago so you get what you get)
Playlist
1. "NWA" - Miguel feat. Kurupt
2. "Them Kids" - Sam Roberts Band
3. "Long Way Down" - Robert DeLong
4. "Endors Toi" - Tame Impala
5. "Hood Took Me Under" - Compton's Most Wanted
The second is that, amidst the discussion of what the "golden era" of The Simpsons is, I found myself extremely underwhelmed in some of the years considered "golden". Season 2 is by no means a season that is universally considered among peak Simpsons, but seasons 3 and 4 are on every list. It's not that I didn't like them, but I so clearly enjoy seasons five through seven over the previous two that I feel I'm missing something. Hell, I rewatched seasons three and four to make sure I didn't miss anything.. and pretty much the same feeling as before. I caught more jokes, but overall I didn't experience some sort of leap in quality or enjoyment that I was hoping I would get.
So I'm a little more amenable to the idea that season eight might not have been the decline people make it out to be. Or I was when I started the season. There's definitely a dip in quality. I wish I could explain it well, or even at all, because I watched the majority of this season a few months ago. Looking over the previous episodes, the episodes I remember or ones that stick out, are ones that are considered classics. But I distinctly remember at the time watching them - though not the specific episodes - that this is somewhat of a downgrade from before.
So I'm of two minds going forward at this point. On the one hand, I am clearly an unconventional Simpsons viewers with varying tastes from the consensus. As such, I shouldn't assume things that the consensus tells me are simply true. I should find out for myself. From that perspective, I absolutely need to watch season nine and possibly season 10 (as both are lumped together as similar in quality). I probably won't watch season 11 as of now, but I'm willing to amend that depending on how much I like or dislike the next two seasons. At most, I'm watching until season 12 and I've considered having sort of a "greatest hits" collection of episodes post season 10 on to the present day. Skip the bad ones while still getting a feel for modern Simpsons.
On the other hand, season eight really feels like a series ending type of season, doesn't it? You get the sense that they are wringing every possible type of comedy that is left in their creative brain. This is everything that they have left and everything they've got for the rest of the series. Now that may or may not be true, but this season features changing the status quo more than once (Milhouse Divided, Grade School Confidential), off-the wall ideas (El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer, Spinoff Showcase), and unfortunately narrative shortcuts and some lazy ideas (The Springfield Files, Simpsoncalifragi. yeah not typing more of that).
The last three episodes, for my money, are some of the greatest episodes to end The Simpsons. I'm not saying they are the best episodes, but that it's a damn great way to stop watching. "Homer's Enemy" IS one of the greatest episodes of the season, features some extreme meta commentary on the show, and after watching it, it's kind of hard to continue forward. The show is pointing out how ridiculous it is and that seems like a thing you do when you end the show. "The Spin-off Showcase" is a creative and original idea, and while not all three segments are great, it helps, well, showcase both its originality and the vast crate of characters. The last one is a return to classic Simpsons: simple story, emotional, and funny. Seriously, I want my last memory of The Simpsons to be that so bad that it's going to be difficult to watch season nine, which I pretty much assume is worth watching if not essential.
(Short review, but I watched most of this season a while ago so you get what you get)
Playlist
1. "NWA" - Miguel feat. Kurupt
2. "Them Kids" - Sam Roberts Band
3. "Long Way Down" - Robert DeLong
4. "Endors Toi" - Tame Impala
5. "Hood Took Me Under" - Compton's Most Wanted
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