Patriot S1 Review

Patriot did something remarkable that I did not expect when watching the last scene of the last episode.  It made me want to keep watching through season two.  This is somewhat frustrating to me.  I had become at peace with stopping Patriot after one season.  It is a perfectly average show, with some rather glaring flaws that were hard for me to ignore.  These flaws were too much for me to continue.  But that last scene ended on a cliffhanger, and it's a cliffhanger that does intrigue me.  Weirdly, I do not expect to like or be satisfied by the conclusion of this cliffhanger, but nonetheless curiosity killed the cat as they say.

Patriot is a show about John Tavner, an absolutely miserable human being and I do not mean miserable in the sense that he is a terrible human being, I mean he is legitimately miserable.  He is one of the saddest characters I've ever seen in a television show.  He is a spy who has been forced to do terrible, awful things that eat at his soul.  I watched the 10 episodes over a period of a couple months, but there may have been one or two times total that this guy was even remotely happy.  You can probably sense that I had a problem with this and I kind of do, but not necessarily in concept.  He was just so sad sack ALL OF THE TIME.

My solution to this problem would be one of two things.  You have to make him charming or clever or good with people.  Something.  He does not hide his depression.  He is not good with people.  He's not really even that good at his job since absolutely nothing goes right for him.  Characters being excellent at their job is like the easiest way to get the audience on their side (Side note: that's pretty weird right?  I mean it's absolutely true, but weird.) . I mean it's certainly implied that he's good at his job.  I think we're meant to think it.  I just saw no evidence of it throughout the season.  He didn't even do fucking paperwork for the job.  My second idea is to do flashbacks of him being normal and happy.  I need something to compare his miserable self to in order to see how far he's fallen.

I'm going to be unfair here and I'm doing this to illustrate my points.  I'm going to compare this show to what I consider the best show on television.  The Americans is also about spies who are undercover, pretending to be someone they are not, who are constantly forced to do things they don't want to do, things that cause them to be miserable.  Phillip, in particular, is probably as miserable as Tavner is.  But he starts the show relatively normal.  He's good with his kids, he's good interacting with people, and he's also really fucking good at his job.  When he kills people or kidnaps them, the show makes it clear that's he forced into this situation.  He wasn't prepared for this to happen and there wasn't anything he could have done (usually).

Tavner, on the other hand, doesn't really seem like he tries... like at all.  He has a running tally of problems that accumulate over the course of the season, but he barely tries to address them or fix it.  He's just constantly putting it off so that all of them can converge in the penultimate episode.  For example, the easiest fucking problem he has, is paperwork.  I swear the HR guy asks him to do paperwork so that he can, you know, legally fucking work there for like five episodes.  Just do the god damn paperwork John.  He keeps getting on the bad side of Leslie (well-played by Kurtwood Smith), but that's because Leslie is the type of character who appreciates hard work.  Tavner wants to get on Leslie's good side.  I think anyway.  He sort of half-heartedly tries at it, but it's clear he couldn't give less of a shit.

This is not a particularly well-plotted show.  I honestly don't care about that, for the most part.  But things don't really feel natural to how things would go in these situations.  It's clear Steven Conrad, the creator, wanted all of John's problems to accumulate at the same time in the final episodes.  But it was just an overly absurd amount of coincidences for that to happen.  For instance, John murders a guy, so the police are on his tail.  That's a natural conclusion.  I can accept that.  The paperwork is just contrived though.  That could be solved in a hour.  Why did he not do it for so long?!  Because that was just another problem he needed to have.

One of the best parts of the season though is something that snuck up on me and when I noticed it, I felt dumb for not noticing it sooner.  Tavner's dad, as played by Terry O'Quinn, is a very good character.  He's very manipulative.  He's kind of painted as the villain.  I appreciate that.  He's not a mustache twirling villain either.  Just a guy who's willing to let his son deteriorate his soul, because he's willing to do literally anything for his country.  He's that type of guy.  He'll justify any decision if he thinks it's good for his country.  He's one of those stubborn guys who probably will never be convinced he did anything wrong.  When I realized this, it painted John in a whole new light.  He was manipulated into this life.  I still wish he showed anything other than outright depression for more than two seconds, but it shaped his character more than anything else for me.

The actors in general are all pretty good.  I don't really fault Michael Dorman for his character because I'm fairly certain that's how he's intended.  Michael Chernus provides some much needed levity to this program.  Kathleen Munroe is... fine I guess.  She is given literally nothing to do so I have no way to know if she's a good actress or not.  She gets like five minutes of screen time per episode and in that time, pines for his husband and doesn't really do anything else.

Patriot is listed as a comedy drama and I think that sums up a large part of my issues with this show.  It's not a hilarious show.  It has a dark humor to it, which produced few laugh out loud moments.  But the comedy to a certain extent undercuts the drama of the situation.  It may not for everyone, but it did for me.  I never really felt tension when watching the show.  It's a spy show.  I feel like I should feel nervous about what might happen, but I didn't.  I'm not saying the show should lose the comedy, but it's toeing a very difficult line, one I don't think it quite achieves.

(Sorry James.  I didn't mean for this review to sound as harsh as it came out, but when the words start flowing, I can't stop myself)

Grade - C+

Santa Clarita Diet Review

I haven't written a review in a while, and to be honest, I'm going try to write this one in 17 minutes so this might not be that great of a review.  But I like time limits and I just finished the latest Netflix original television show, so let's give a shot.

Santa Clarita Diet is a wacky dark comedy, occasionally achieving moments of brilliance.  At worst, you get to see Timothy Olyphant be generally hilarious and Drew Barrymore isn't far behind him.  The premise of this show is somewhat insane.  Sheila becomes undead - the how is never explained and that's probably for the better honestly - and quickly comes to rely on eating people for her main source of food.  

Before she became a zombie, she lived a fairly boring life with her husband Joel.  They love her each other and sell houses.  Given their personalities, they didn't seem unhappy with their life, but there was certainly not a lot going on with their life.  When she becomes undead, she reverts to her id.  She gets what she wants when she wants it without much regard for the consequences.  She's happier the way she is a zombie than she was as a suburban mom.

If there's one thing I wish this show did, it was to show us more of what Sheila was like when she was alive.  She gets sick fairly early on and we don't see much sense of her personality beforehand.  It would have been interesting to see the contrast.  While Barrymore is charming and it's not that difficult to empathize with her, I feel I as an audience member would feel more of connection with her if I got a better sense of who she was before.  As it stands, she has little self-regard for others in getting what she wants and I can certainly see how that may be an issue for some.

Of course, the standout is Olyphant.  He's the reason I watched the show in the first place.  He plays Joel quite a bit different than any of his other characters than I've seen.  I feel like masters the intended tone of the series better than any of the other cast members.  If you go into this series because of Olyphant, I don't think you'll be disappointed with the results.

I think the weak link of the cast member is Liv Hewson, the teenager daughter.  She's fine as an actress, but something just feels slightly off about her character.  She grows into the role as the season goes on.  I do think her rebellious nature is a bit at odds with how the family appeared to be before this whole zombie thing started.  I mean it didn't seem like they had any issues with her before - and I realize this a point of the show - but she very quickly embraces the rebellious nature in a way that should have indicated that the parents had problems with her about this before.  So I guess I don't have a problem with Hewson, just how her character is generally written.  That said, this wouldn't be the first TV show to have a comedy character in the pilot be different than how they end up writing her.

Skyler Gisondo, who fills out the remainder of the main cast, is very good as the geeky, awkward teenager boy who has a crush on Abby (the daughter).  He plays it well, but he's also a hugely cliche character.  I mean read that first sentence.  Also he seems way smart in a way that only teenagers in movies and TV shows are: impossibly smart.  I have never met anybody even remotely in the same league as this guy apparently is.

For It's Always Sunny fans, Mary Elizabeth Ellis has a fairly prominent recurring role as a neighbor and she's predictably hilarious.  Her husband is a cop and the show gains some comedy out of both of their neighbors being cops.  Portia de Rossi is also excellent later in the series that kind of shocked me.  I only know her from Arrested Development - and while she's obviously good in that - I hadn't realized how good of a comedic actress she is until this role.  

Well it's been 17 minutes and that means it's time to write my concluding paragraph.  I enjoyed Santa Clarita Diet.  I don't think it's a must-see comedy, but I found it really easy to binge so it seems well-suited to being on Netflix.  It's well-acted and in a few episodes - specifically the seventh episode - it is almost perfect black comedy.  (I was laughing at the seventh episode for nearly 30 straight minutes.  It was that good.)  I'd recommend this if you have nothing else to watch.

Grade - B+

Rectify S4 Review

More people have helped me than harmed me. The harm seems to leave the deeper mark

Rectify has ended.  The little-seen, but much-praised series came to an end last Wednesday after just four seasons and 30 episodes.  If only more shows knew how to make the mark that Rectify made on me in so little time.  The fourth season wasn't its best, but it was still Rectify, one of the best shows on television.

When we last left Daniel, he was leaving Paulie, Georgia as an excommunicated man.  He legally could not enter the state of Georgia or he would go back to prison.  Rectify and Paulie have been so interconnected throughout the series that it was natural to wonder if him leaving would affect the series' tone or quality.  It did, in both good ways and bad.  The season felt fractured, intentionally so I would guess.  The separation of the main characters was felt through this dynamic.  But at the same time, it still led to some episodes that didn't really connect its storylines.  The individual scenes were on par with what I recognize as Rectify, but the episode itself tended to be less than the sum of its parts.

At the New Canaan Project, Daniel gets a much-needed support group to help him succeed on "his own."  Technically with this project, he's not really on his own, but there's little question that when he begins this series, he is for all intents and purposes, on his own.  He refuses to open up to the other members, a natural consequence of distrusting strangers after 20 years in prison.

While I don't necessarily think she was an outright negative, Chloe was a bit of a misstep.  Caitlin Fitzgerald does her best.  I really wanted to embrace her as a character, but she seems like too much a cypher.  Her character seems pretty stereotypical to me - a flaky artist - who I'm still not sure why she gravitated towards Daniel.  Their relationship - such as it is - progresses way too fast for narrative purposes.  Fitzgerald is not to blame.  I've seen her in this and Masters of Sex and both times, she's vastly better than her material.

This season also further separates Ted and Tawney, which has been a long time coming.  Ted realizes that he's going to need to be the one to make the first step towards divorce or their life would remain in stasis.  Clayne Crawford's acting in that scene is incredible.  In season one, I would never have guessed I would be extremely invested in Ted, with my heart consistently breaking for him.  It's too late, but he seems to have genuinely changed.  As part of the relatively by Rectify's standards fast-paced timeline, he went from drinking away his breakup to entering AA to stop drinking over the span of one episode.

Really, if you've made it into the fourth season of Rectify then this next part should go without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway because it deserves to be mentioned: the acting is some of the best on television, whether it's Aden Young's sympathetic, yet slightly off-putting performance as Daniel, Adelaide Clemens as soft-spoken and kind-hearted Tawney, or the "good ole' boy" Ted Jr by Crawford.  That doesn't even mention the very underrated J. Smith-Cameron as Janet.  I don't mean she's just underrated normally, but she's underrated by the show's own standards because some of the other performances are more easily noticeable.

One of those noticeable performances had a lot less to do in season four.  Abigail Spencer as Amantha, Daniel's sister, has always been the standout performer from episode one.  But as she is no longer fighting for Daniel's cause, there's not really much for her to do.  I don't think her budding romance with her former classmate was a chore to watch or anything and it worked, but I just sort of missed the Amantha and Daniel interactions from seasons' past.  Her trademark wit was also less significant from the story.

Basically, an unavoidable "weakness" of this season by its very premise was the lack of interaction between Daniel and everyone in Paulie.  I think Amantha and Daniel had one phone conversation, Tawney talked to him for the first time since I think season two in the finale, and Ted Jr only had one phone conversation (it was very touching).  At least the two parents got to visit him for one episode (perhaps not coincidentally, maybe the best in this season?)

The New Canaan Project was a genuine success as a story.  When Pickle gets a job and they go out to dinner to celebrate, it's amazing how much meaning Rectify is able to put into a story like that.  Describe the impactful moments of this series and some of them will sound impactful, but some of them will just elicit "that's it?"  That's why I think this series is kind of a hard sell.  The most mundane things - things we maybe take for granted - can become beautiful in this series.  (He'd been searching for a job for seven episodes though and it's well-known how hard it is to get a good job once you get released from prison so I doubt this is a hard sell).

It's been a week since I watched the finale and it took me about this long to write that review because I didn't know what to say.  That's probably why this review is more negative than what my actual feelings are - it appears I remember more clearly things I wasn't necessarily sold on - rather than all the jubilant and emotional moments.

Rectify has three seasons on Netflix and I'm guessing the fourth season is going to get posted within the next year.  Convince everyone you know to watch it.  Somehow.  I have frequently failed.  But it's only 30 episodes!!  That's a piece of cake.  It is by far the most I've ever been affected by a show emotionally.  I once tweeted "Ready to be emotionally devastated by Rectify" and it comes through just about every episode of the series.  This season was no exception, minor complaints and all.  Expect to see it on my top ten dramas next week.

Grade: A-

Atlanta S1 Review

Donald Glover described Atlanta as "Twin Peaks with rappers," which lives up to that description in its willingness to go WEIRD.   I don't want the Twin Peaks label to get you to have unreasonable expectations.  It's a show about rappers that consistently operates in a slightly off universe, like having Justin Bieber being played by an even more obnoxious than the Biebs black guy.  That's the kind of thing that sort of makes that description make sense, but he probably just said that because it's a really great hook to get people to watch his show.

Glover is a known entity.  He has written on 30 Rock, acted on Community, and released rap songs under the pseudonym Childish Gambino.  Hell, I've probably seen him in things since 2006, when he was with Derrick Comedy on Youtube.  In Atlanta, he plays the straight man for the most part.  He is one of the best at that.  Something crazy happens, and he has the perfect reaction to make you laugh.

Glover plays Earnest, or Earn, who is basically homeless.  He has a small child from a relationship with Van.  Their relationship is somewhat undefined, but they aren't really together.  Sometimes, he sleeps there when she lets him.  He's looking for a way to get money as he is dirt poor and his parents are unwilling to lend him any money.  He sees an opportunity in the form of his cousin, up-and-coming rapper named Paper Boi.  Thus, he ends up becoming his manager.

Paper Boi, or Alfred, is played by Brian Tyree Henry, a man who doesn't seem to enjoy his rising popularity.  He doesn't like that he gained his popularity from a shooting, he doesn't like fans too-earnestly reciting his lyrics to him, and he doesn't like having to look over his shoulder all the time.  He's also a drug dealer by the way.  He doesn't appear to enjoy any of this so much as feel like it's a requirement for him to survive in this world.  I'm making this series sound more foreboding than it is, though there is a runner throughout that suggests someone's out to get him.

But the real scene stealer of the season is Lakeith Stanfield, who I first saw back in 2014 on Short Term 12 (a fantastic movie that you, random reader, should watch.  It stars the always great Brie Larson and is on Netflix right now!)  He plays a vastly different character here.  He's a spacey, strange individual who will end up saying the most random shit possible.  It's impossible for me to describe exactly how he steals scenes, but I think it's all on his delivery (and the writing).

This is a deeply funny series.  It's thoughtful and makes smart comments about race (and other things), but perhaps the truest test of a comedy, is that it is fucking hilarious.  Whether it's Stanfield's delivery, Henry's consistent and constant state of aghast (I'm stealing this from another site, but he's in a league with John Krasinki at reacting "I can't believe this is happening right now" with just his face), or just weird things thrown in randomly that earn this series the "experimental comedy" genre.

And it's experimental make no mistake.  There's an entire episode dedicated to a talk show format designed to have the two guests argue (when they start agreeing, the host desperately tries to get them back to arguing) and a look at what commercials would be like if they explicitly appealed to black viewers.  The show mostly ignores Van (played by Zazie Beetz) for the first five episodes and then drops an episode completely from her point of view for the sixth.  Glover, the apparent star of the show, disappears for two straight episodes.  You really don't know what you're getting with this series.

It's inaccurate to call Atlanta an anthology show, because it's the same characters, but it's not clear that anything that happens has long-term consequences.  There's a shooting in the first episode and by all accounts it's clear that happened - it's consistently acknowledged throughout the show - and it's clear Paper Boi has a very ill-defined rise in popularity because of it, but he's at one point popular enough to be on a talk show and another time not popular enough to get any cheers when his name is shouted out at a club.  So they are very vague on things like that.  But Earn is always broke, always trying to make money, and always trying to find a place to live.  So they have continuity only when it makes sense to them.

The musical choices in this are some of the best in television.  Let's just say that the season ends on an Outkast song to give you an idea, although sometimes they throw you an unexpected choice that works just as well.  Needless to say, I may be looking around for a playlist of all the music that appeared on here.

Hiro Murai directs eight episodes of the show.  Previously a music video director - he came into orbit with Glover through rap - he certainly has a special touch.  There's not really anything specifically that would indicate he was a music video director.  I suppose the expert use and knowledge of music throughout is just about the only thing.  One of the episodes - an extremely experimental one - is directed by Glover himself.

Atlanta is a very good show - it will make my top ten comedies of the year when I get around to posting that.  The cast is excellent throughout, it's weird, it's funny, and I'm excited to see what the second season will bring.  It's a show I recommend not because I know you will like it, but because it's pretty different then most comedies and it's funny.  That alone should make this at the very least interesting.

Grade - A-

Writing Blind: The X-Files S7

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 rarely noticed it, but this is the season most commonly referenced as to when David Duchovny stopped giving a shit.  I didn't notice it most of the time, not because I'm not particularly enamored of his acting ability, but because he's always been kind of a sleepy, low-key performer.  With that said, after having watched season eight, I do appreciate Duchovny a lot more than I did because his absence is felt in the first part of the season so he's clearly doing something right.

The seventh season of The X-Files is a weird season.  It's a really weird season.  There are episodes of creativity, doing things that somehow hadn't been done before.  There are signs that the writers have run out of ideas, lacking enough good ideas to fill a 22-episode season.  To be fair, maybe one or two seasons have sustained 22 good ideas as most seasons will have a clunker or two.

Unfortunately, it's a sign of The X-Files exiting their golden age.  There's not a single episode in this season that is a classic.  If you want to quibble with that, I'll amend it a little: I don't think any of these episodes would make a top ten X-Files list.  I'm not saying there aren't good episodes.  "En Ami" pairs together Cigarette Smoking Man and Scully for a solo episode of sorts.  It works very well.  "Hollywood A.D." goes meta and I always enjoy a good meta episode that constantly pokes fun at itself.  "The Amazing Maleeni" is elevated by a strong guest performance by Ricky Jay (Deadwood alum).  I'm just saying none of these are your all-time greats.

In addition, season seven has some of the worst episodes of the entire series (Season 9 possibly excluded as I have not seen it and I plan to skip most of that season so I'll probably never really know).  These are episode titles I knew were bad before I even got to season seven.  "First Person Shooter" and "Fight Club" are legitimate competing candidates for worst episode of the series, or at the very least worst episode of the series when it was still good.  Duchovny has proved surprisingly adept at both writing and directing (He wrote and directed one of my favorites from this season "Hollywood A.D.")  Gillian Anderson... well let's just say there's a reason her only writing and directing credit on IMDB is her writer-director effort "all things."

It's pretty clear, at least until season eight comes along, that they are simply out of ideas.  They gave both Anderson and Duchovny their own episodes, they have an admittedly entertaining gimmick episode in "X-Cops," they have what I think is an afterword to the cancelled Millennium show, and they have the most clunkers since season one.  While I admitted that Duchovny's absence is felt in season eight, they did need a change and his lessened involvement provided the necessary excuse.

Plus, at this point, the mythology had been well past the point of being interesting.  I don't remember much about these mythology episodes except I remember them being a slog to get through.  I've always kind of had an issue with the mythology episodes though.  Part of it was knowing that it was going nowhere: the heroes almost discover something new, only for it be taken away at the last minute, probably because somebody gets killed.  In the back of my mind, I just can't really be invested in those episodes unfortunately.

As always though - for the most part, The X-Files remained mediocre to good for the whole season on the strength of its directing.  The directors never let down the script at this point in the show's run.  Kim Manners, Rob Bowman, and whoever copied them in the other episodes, had effectively nailed the show's tone.  There's a few episodes purposefully straying from that tone, but they tended to at the least direct it as well as it is written on the page and frequently elevating the story.  (I wonder if a more experienced director could have improved Anderson's episode; hard not to think so).

So season seven is a victim of a show being in its seventh season.  Nearly all shows either don't even make it to its seventh season or they no longer can be called a good show.  The X-Files could still be called a good show, it just probably wasn't a great show by this point.  Sometimes, making lots of consistently good episodes is enough though.  Despite the bad episodes, most of these episodes were solid.  That's how I would describe this season: solid.

Grade - B

Westworld S1 Review

With undefined timelines, a question as to which characters are humans or "hosts," and constant withholding of information from the audience, Westworld forgot to create engaging characters.  I did not care about the fate of a single character on the show.  The more compelling or relatable characters were literally robots who could die without consequence.  Or, in the case of the Man in Black, they could do anything without any worry of getting killed.  So it was a little hard for me to care about what happened.

(Necessary disclaimer: this is all my opinion even if I don't present it as an opinion) Something Westworld frequently failed to do in all the build-up towards reveals and twists was make the build-up interesting.  Moody music and admittedly excellent acting don't make up for everything.  If characters aren't your #1 important thing when watching television shows, you probably enjoyed Westworld a hell of a lot more than I did.

That said, I don't think Westworld is like Game of Thrones.  Game of Thrones tends to have a lot of episodes where not a lot happens and then they have an explosive episode that makes you remember why you watch the show.  But Game of Thrones cares about characters.  They arguably have TOO many characters in fact.  The "not a lot happens" episodes aren't too bad because you care about the characters.  It's a basic facet of storytelling.  (If you think I'm a Game of Thrones fanboy, it didn't even make my top ten dramas last year.  It just reminds me of that show in that specific way)

Secondly, I feel like the internet kind of ruined Westworld a bit.  Part of the fun of watching Westworld is finding the easter eggs and figuring out the twists.  Except not for me.  I like being shocked.  I don't want to figure it out.  A good twist is hard.  You can't make it too obvious or it's not much of a twist.  You should also at least telegraph it a little or it will come out of nowhere.  The twist that William was the Man in Black had become obvious for a few episodes.  I'm not sure if I would have figured it out without the internet, but it just became blatantly obvious once I did.  So it wasn't a very good twist even if the finale very much treated it like it was.  (An example of a good twist actually is Bernard being a host.  But then I stopped caring about him.  You're just not going to make me care about the fate of a robot who can come back to life.)

What redeems Westworld as a show worth watching is the actors and the cinematography.  The actors suggested a better show than what I watched.  Evan Rachel Wood is pretty phenomenal as Dolores having to play two different versions of characters, channel genuine emotions, and be able to revert to the "robot" stage.  Ed Harris pretty much does his Ed Harris thing and I loved every minute of it.  Anthony Hopkins is Anthony Hopkins.

I mean seriously, the acting talent is so incredible I can forgive you if you thought you were watching a great show.  Jeffrey Wright is pretty much always good and there's Thandie Newton, whose storyline was linear, easy to figure out, and thus perhaps the most compelling - in no small part due to Newton.  Then again, finding out someone else created this storyline for her removes some of the appeal even if it makes more sense and makes her more tragic.  If she's not pulling the strings, she's just another robot being a puppet for someone else.  The escape is a good encapsulation of the show: visually interesting but since I don't care about any of the characters, there's no tension on if anyone will die.  I mean sure nameless redshirts getting gunned down in the process, but who really cares?  There's no stakes.

I don't want to spend too much time on this, but can I also say that the dumbness of Felix and Sylvester ruins that too if you think about it at all!  They have literally all the power.  They can control her.  They for some reason choose not to control her.  And apparently Felix, who seems like someone terrified of violence, is cool with the escape where tons of actual human beings died?  You kind of just need to forget all that for that to work.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll be tuning into season two.  I was bored or disengaged with the show more than actually enjoying it.  The actors do their best.  It's an acting ensemble that could easily fool you into thinking you were watching a great show.  I was fooled.  For the majority of the season, I thought I was the one missing something.  But I don't think I was.  I think this show was as exactly as good as I've always thought of it: a mediocre show propelled by the cinematography and actors.

Grade: B-

The Crown S1 Review

At first glance, The Crown would not appear to be a television series that would appeal to me.  I'm not particularly interested in the history of English monarchy nor do I hold any special reverence for the system itself.  I can get into historical dramas, but for the most part they are either too inaccurate to really get into or boring.  My fears were largely confirmed while watching the first episode as it was slow, slightly boring, and not a lot happened that interested me.

Thankfully, I kept watching.  It turns out the first episode was mostly just trying to get the expositional details out of the way - the marriage between Prince Philip and at the time Princess Elizabeth, the increasingly failing health of King George VI, and introducing all the major players.  Not that it wasn't compelling in its own right, but it was a little too workmanlike.  With the exception of Jared Harris, I didn't find a lot to love in that first episode.

But then again, there was Jared Harris.  He is pretty incredible in the short amount of screen time that he gets, which is mostly confined to the first two episodes.  In particular, there's a scene where he is singing with some carolers shortly after he found out that he had terminal cancer and it's just about the finest piece of acting possible. (Spoiler rules for a show like this are hard, but since this is a historical drama and it is clear from his first scene onward that he is going to die even if you don't know the history, this isn't much of a spoiler.)

As she has been restricted to only being in British television shows, this is my first exposure to Claire Foy, who plays Queen Elizabeth II.  She has a difficult job.  A necessary component of being queen - at least this series seems to argue - is to know when to be silent, be neutral, and not show any personality for the most part.  This naturally blends into her interactions with other characters so it's up to the performer to reveal personality and depth without showing... personality and depth.  Despite the difficulty, Foy manages the tricky balancing act where Queen Elizabeth II is understood, but still removed at a distance.

The reason I say the series seems to be arguing its necessary to not show much personality when being queen in public is because she is contrasted with Princess Margaret.  As played by Vanessa Kirby, she seems more naturally charismatic, less reserved, and more of a willingness to pepper speeches with jokes - jokes that could and did offend a few people.  She also has an illicit love affair with Peter Townsend that is scandalous to the crown.  It shows how effective the series was able to put me on Elizabeth's side that I found myself rooting against the two of those crazy kids to get together.  Part of that admittedly is me looking into it a little myself.  Though not shown by the series, he was an equerry to the family from 1944 to 1952.  Which means that he constantly was in close proximity to the family and probably got close to the family members themselves.  He was 30 and she was 14 when they probably first met.  (And actually, while he mostly ignored it in the series, she was shooting him glances when Elizabeth and Philip got married, when she was 17 and he was 33.)

A surprisingly less central role than I expected when I decided to watch the series was John Lithgow's performance as Winston Churchill.  Churchill is a legendary figure.  Lithgow is more than up to the task.  He leans right on the edge of caricature at times, but that makes sense.  Churchill was a bit of cartoon character in real life.  The physical transformation alone in becoming Churchill is impressively done.  Not just by the makeup team, but by Lithgow's physical movements as well, like how he is always hunched over.

Lastly, I would be remiss to not mention the sympathetic portrayal of Edward, formerly King Edward, by Alex Jennings.  If you know the history, it's peculiar that he and his wife's Nazi sensibilities go unmentioned, however he's also brilliantly played and that whole Nazi thing is the type of thing that makes you lose sympathy.  So it certainly makes sense.  Here is a man that truly wanted and respects the crown and you wonder if maybe he doesn't regret his choice, even though his relationship with his wife appears loving.

If you're looking for a critique of how the crown operates, you won't get much of one here.  The creator Peter Morgan and the writers clearly hold a reverence for it and that's probably for the best.  A disdain for the system would never work because it would be less about the characters, and more about a critique for the system.  If there's one criticism I have - and I don't know if this is true of real life - but it tends to remove the tough decisions of Elizabeth.  Because she usually doesn't have much of one.  The government tends to present the circumstances as so extreme that when she inevitably lets someone down, it's clear it's the government's fault more than her.  They are too ambiguous with how much power she has.  In one of the later episodes, something is presented as if it is her choice even though it's not clear that it actually is.  It seems as if the ambiguity was purely for dramatic reasons basically.

The Crown jumps through time quickly throughout the series.  Technically speaking, the series starts in 1947 and the first season ends sometime in 1955.  Given that the queen is currently still alive, I'm sure there are still a multitude of stories to tell as well.  The ones this season has chosen were excellent.  One episode focuses on Churchill being forced to face the fact that he's old, the next focuses on the Great Smog of 1952.  Despite each episode being an hour long, the series is episodic enough and different enough from episode to episode to hold your attention.  If you're remotely interested in history, I would give my recommendation to The Crown.

Grade - A-

Writing Blind: Supernatural 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.

The writer's strike could have not come at a worse time creatively for Supernatural.  Normally, I think Supernatural can get by and maybe even benefit from airing less than 22 episodes per season.  But the second season ended as quite the set-up for an amazing third season.  Dean had just sold his soul to bring Sam back to life and over 100 demons escaped from hell.

So a few natural developments occur as a result of this: Sam deals with the fact that he should be dead, Dean prepares for his life to end in one year, and they both try to find a way to get Dean out of his deal.  In addition, they need to try and kill the demons who escaped from hell.  This is a lot to deal with and I'm sure the writers wanted to space it out accordingly.  But then after 12 episodes, the writer's strike happened, interrupting their story.  They were able to finish four more episodes for the third season once the strike happened, but the end result makes this season feel rushed.

This season introduces several new characters, who unfortunately were limited by the budget in how the series could use them.  Sterling K Brown (making a name for himself currently on The People vs. OJ Simpson as Christopher Darden) was supposed to appear in more episodes, but due to another commitment, only appeared in two.  Nonetheless, he features a darker side of what Sam and Dean do.  He kills at any cost anything that is not human.  Thus, he is dedicated to killing Sam, because he is supposed to be dead.

I really liked Sterling K Brown in this role and am very much not surprised at how he's killing it for American Crime Story.  It's disappointing that he couldn't be in more episodes, as he provides a moral counterpart to what the two brothers do.  Ultimately, he's clearly set up as a season-long adversary in his first appearance, it just didn't work out.  It adds to the rushed feeling of this season when he dies in his second appearance.  He would have been an interesting villain and turning him into a vampire was sort of an easy out for the brothers to kill him.

It also introduces another character who I think the writers wanted to keep, but again budget reasons meant they needed to drop her character for the next season.  Lauren Cohen plays a thief who steals supernatural elements for a profit.  She's basically like a spy who will sell anything to the highest bidder, no matter what the bidder will do.  This presents a natural problem for the brothers, as the item in question is usually evil.  I guess the writers were really interested in making characters who present big problems for Sam and Dean, but who they couldn't really kill because they weren't demons or explicitly evil.

Apparently, the studio was interested in Supernatural making their stakes more epic for the third season, which creator Eric Kripke warned would mean they'd need a bigger budget.  The studio allowed it, but the first episode went way over budget, so the studio backed down.  Thus, they were forced to make an epic story, but were extremely limited on the budget.  This leads to the writers still figuring out what to do in the first few episodes as they needed to deal with those two conflicting things.

Nonetheless, Kripke believes that the season started hitting its stride on its eighth episode and I think I'd have to agree with him.  The eight episode is "A Very Supernatural Christmas" which is an unusually sweet episode as the brothers decide whether to celebrate Christmas, with Sam decorating the motel room at the end, wanting to celebrate it.  Of course, it also features a creepy demonic couple so it's not all sweet.

"Dream a Little Dream of Me" puts Bobby (the great Jim Beaver) in peril as he's in a dream that he can't get out of and will eventually kill him.  The dream puts you in your worst nightmare and makes you face your worst fear.  This leads to Dean confronting the fact that he is not ready to die yet, even as his time appears to approaching.  "Mystery Spot" is maybe one the greatest Supernatural episodes ever as Sam has to constantly watch Dean die in a Groundhog Day type episode.

The midseason finale - the last episode before the strike - "Jus in Bello" has the brothers searching for the Colt that Bela (Cohen) stole from them in the last episode.  But she tips off recurring character FBI agent Victor Henrikson, who is determined to catch them.  But they got bigger issues as they are locked in a cell, with a demon running around killing people and possessing them, and no weapons.  So they need to convince Henrikson they are really demon hunters and then try and save everyone in the police station.  It's a great setup for an episode.

This season also introduces the bumbling idiots who make "Ghostfacers," an endless source of comedy from Ben Edlund.   The last two episodes feature Sam and Dean trying to find the Colt that can kill anything and trying to save Dean before his time runs out.  Since this is a television show, we suspect Dean isn't going to hell, but woe and behold, the season ends with him in hell for a lifetime of misery.  It's a hell of a cliffhanger, one that the show would have to necessarily back down from.

I didn't find a way to add in Ruby, the demon who reveals that demons are simply humans who have lost their soul in hell.  But Ruby still remembers being a human so she's not quite the same as most demons - who you can kill free of conscience because they are pure evil.  She is wonderfully acted by Katie Cassidy.  I don't know why they couldn't get Cassidy back for the fourth season, but I sure wish they had because her replacement is dreadful.  Alas, a conversation for the next season.

Everything about this season felt rushed to me even though it didn't necessarily hamper my enjoyment of it.  I spent most of the first few episodes wondering how they were going to wrap up so much plot in less episodes and the later episodes thinking they could have done more with the premise they had set up.  But they were stuck by a limited budget, a grand idea, and a strike-shortened season, so they did the best they could.

Grade - B+

UnReal S1 Review

Does this show sound like it would be good?  A fictional behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of a reality dating show and the producers who manipulate people to get the results they want.  Reality dating shows are both an easy target and well-worn comedic territory at this point.  Making it a drama doesn't inherently seem that interesting either.  Did I mention it airs on the Lifetime network?

As unlikely as it sounds, UnReal is a good show.  It's not great, but it's much better than I anticipated and much better than it has any right to be.  I assume UnReal might be the type of show better enjoyed by people not into reality dating shows - or reality shows in general.  For one thing, the verisimilitude of the show is not too high.  It's not a huge issue in enjoying the show, but I strongly suspect it's not altogether close to how reality TV works in real life.  Some reality show TV watchers may care about that.  For another thing, well, it's clearly an indictment on reality dating shows (and basically any reality show that involves producers probably making a not unsubstantial impact on how characters act)

In that vein, UnReal is best understood as a character study.  The protagonist of the story, Rachel, is a highly effective and manipulative producer.  She is exceptionally good at her job, but she still has a thing called a conscience.  Being good at manipulating people to do what you want to make good television and having a conscience aren't things that go together that well.  The central mystery behind Rachel is she hates what her job makes her do, but she also she likes being really good at her job.

She's not completely irredeemable.  She broke down on the last season of "Everlasting" (the name of the show within the show) which led to her being broke, about to be kicked out of her rent-sharing apartment, and with nowhere to go.  With no money, she is incentivized by cash bonuses to produce results such as pushing some of the girls - unknowingly - into being villains for the sake of the show.  "The know what they signed up for" is a common refrain of the producers of the show - it must have been said about 10 times throughout the season - but it is pretty clear they don't.  They are cut off from the world, fed lines by a producer that may or may not be true (and said producers tend to be clever about it - in ideal circumstances, the girls have no idea they are being manipulated), and they kind of just have to hope that they aren't portrayed badly.

Rachel's boss, Quinn, is a walking contradiction of sorts.  She is very cynical about love and seems willing to do just about anything to get ratings.  She's ruthless and cold.  But she also clearly believes in the idea of love, because of her relationship with Chet.  She also seems to look out for her own.  She gives Rachel a second chance, although she basically blackmails her, but she truly believes she knows what's best for her.

Among the contestants, only a few stand out.  In fact, the competition isn't even the point for most of the episodes.  There is no suspense as to who will be cut until the very later episodes, not because we know who will be cut, but because the show doesn't even pretend to care about cutting the nameless women who exit every episode.  Anna, played by Johanna Brady (Quantico), is pretty clearly going to be one of the last ones standing early on in the show.  The Everlasting producers aim to make her a villain - and villains as I understand reality dating shows are guaranteed a certain number of weeks - despite the fact that she is extremely sweet and one of the nicest characters on the show.

There's also Faith, who is at first a stereotypical country bumpkin, who is frankly great for television.  One of the false notes of the show is that the producers constantly wanted to get her off the show, because... they thought she acted like a man and was "unattractive."  (The characters are despicable enough that I'm going to give the show the benefit of the doubt here and assume this is a commentary on what TV considers unattractive)  It was a false note, because it seems like they would love her brand of awkwardness and country slang, which would probably lead to clips of them making fun of her (which they do.)

There's also Grace, played by Nathalie Kelly (best known for, um, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift before this), who quickly gets painted as a "slut." ("Sluts get cut" is another thing the producers say a few times, which I'm pretty sure is definitely not true.)  There's Mary, who plays the role of desperate single mother (God I hope that's not really a thing, but it seems like it would be a thing)  Lastly, they pay lip service to racism on the show that inspired this one, but then they don't give either of the two black characters on their show anything interesting to do.  One of them is happy to be the "Omarosa" of the season, because she's just in it for the attention, and the other is there to complain about the absurdity of how this is a waste of her time, all the while the show is wasting the actress' time giving her nothing to do.

They all vie for the attention, love, and hopeful marriage to Adam Cromwell.  Cromwell is English royalty, but he's on the show to rehabilitate his image.  He's also there to prove to his father that he doesn't need him.  So he pretty much matches the cynicism and fakeness of the producers as it's clear he isn't interested in finding true love

One of the main storylines of the first season is the "love triangle" of Adam, Rachel, and The Blandest (Jeremy).  The Adam-Rachel part works just fine, based off the chemistry of Freddie Stroma, and Shirri Appleby.  But Jeremy sucks so much as a character.  He's the blandest bland of bland that ever blanded.  He also doesn't seem like a nice guy at all and he's kind of portrayed as the "nice" safe choice for Rachel.  He and Rachel have the history and they sure aren't convincing.  Appleby is otherwise fantastic so I can only assume that it's Josh Kelly's fault.  He starts off the season with a fiancee, and I'll never see a more fitting term than Blonde Extra #1.

As I said before, this is a character study and with any character study, you watch it because the actors and the writers have crafted such well-realized characters.  (The best example is Mad Men.)  There are essentially three complex characters that make the show worth watching: Rachel, Quinn, and Adam.  I've never seen Appleby in anything before this, but she sure seems perfectly cast.  Similarly, Constance Zimmer is captivating every minute she's on screen as Quinn.  Those two immediately seem to get into their characters, whereas it takes longer to get accustomed to Stroma, but he sure grew on me as the season went on.

Like I said before, I don't think this show is great.  There are too many dead weights as characters.  It sometimes feels like the show is manipulating me like the producers are manipulating the contestants.  It tended to go a little too far at certain points in darkness.  There's also a fine line between sympathetic characters with serious flaws to characters who you have no interest in being invested in because their actions are too terrible - and they may have gone on the wrong side of that line in this season.  But overall, it's a strong first season with great performances.  Better yet, I am excited to see what they can do in season two, because the potential is there for it to become a great show.

Grade - B

Daredevil Season 2 Review

I have a confession to make: I remember very little about season one of Daredevil.  I don't know how quick that season jolted out of my memory, but it definitely was gone by November when I was considering my top ten dramas of the year.  I ended up writing about 20 shows and Daredevil didn't even get a mention.  Its Netflix counterpart, Jessica Jones, got a mention because I remembered it, although I couldn't honestly tell you which show was better because - again - I didn't remember the first season of Daredevil at all.

The second season is less a cohesive season and more a series of mini-arcs.  For example, the first four episodes are about the Punisher, the next four are about Elektra, the rest about The Hand and Black Sky.  It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the basic framework of the season.  I don't remember a lot about the first season, but I do know that the entire season was pretty focused on Wilson Fisk and Matt Murdock.

It's hard to make Charlie Cox unlikable.  He's an effortlessly charismatic performer.  With that said, I felt like Matt Murdock was pretty unlikable for most of this season.  Probably due to my fatigue at superheroes in general, I just find his moralizing tiring.  When you watch a superhero who has a code of not killing, one of the things you just have to accept is that they "know" how not to kill someone when they are literally bashing their skulls and kicking their ass.  That's not to mention the probable long-term brain damage more than a few of the guys he fights are facing going forward.  You just kind of have to put that part out of your brain or it will drive you nuts.

Still though man... he basically spends this whole season telling both the Punisher and Elektra not to kill and it's just not really a debate I'm interested in at all.  There's just certain moments where it stretches credulity.  There are scenes where both characters' lives are threatened by multiple people and instead of fighting the bad guys, Daredevil decides it is better to make sure the one helping him doesn't kill the bad guys.  It defuses the tension because the bad guys are so incompetent that they can't even beat two superheroes who are fighting each other.

Speaking of the Punisher and Elektra, both characters are unqualified successes.  Jon Berthal surprised the hell out of me with his portrayal - Shane on Walking Dead should not go on his acting resume though I don't think that was his fault.  Elodie Yung as Elektra is captivating whose chemistry with Cox allows for their mutual attraction and backstory to be believable.  (That said, I had a major problem with one of their last scenes of the season of which I will not talk about because most of you haven't finished.)

The binge-nature of watching Daredevil comes at a curse at times.  The Matt-Karen romance suffers from this.  When a new episode airs every week and not all at once, it's not that atypical for a TV relationship to only last three episodes.  But here it's jarring how quickly they break up.  Plus, the show ended it in the worst way.  Karen has been shown to be a reasonable, thoughtful woman.  She walks in on Matt with a woman in his bed, but there was also an old blind man there and I feel like that's going to raise some questions.  Matt wasn't even in a compromising position.  But she assumes the worst, because the plot needed it to happen and that romance felt like filler and pointless.

While I was never a huge fan of Matt's constant sermonizing to the Punisher about how he shouldn't kill, it at least kind of worked in a way where I imagine I'm on a lonely island with that opinion.  But it came off worse when he did the same to Elektra.  It was like a rehash of his conversations with the Punisher except this time it's a man telling a woman he knows what's best for her.

If there was a rule that there can never be too many ninjas, Daredevil breaks that rule and then breaks it again.  It just lowered the stakes when he and Elektra could fight 10 ninjas at once.  Then they did again the next episode.  Then they did it again.  And again.  And about two more times.  And about five times in the last episode.  So many ninjas.

Another curse of the binge-watch?  Holy crap did Black Sky make absolutely no sense to me.  What is Black Sky?  Why is important?  Why does it matter?  What power do you hold?  The purposeful mystery of the Black Sky unfortunately was too much.  You need to answer some questions.  We need to know why it's a big deal.  Why were they trying to kill Elektra before, but then later in the season, they started not trying to kill her even though both times they presumably knew she was the Black Sky?  If she can just tell The Hand what to do, why doesn't she just become Black Sky and make them good?  Seriously I don't get it!  And Stick is so well-acted by Scott Glenn, that nobody notices how much a mess his character motivations are.  He wants her to make Daredevil kill for some reason, but then he wants to kill her because she's Black Sky but he's known that all his life, except later he doesn't want to kill her even though nothing has changed.

I'm being more negative on this review than I am on the season, but just bare with me for a little more negativity.  Foggy: he's another character where I feel like I'm supposed to be on his side, but he just comes across as so smug and superior.  Also I feel like the show wants me to think he's some fantastic lawyer, but here's the evidence this season: one decent opening statement and making Samantha Reyes look foolish on multiple occasions.  But Reyes does nothing smart at all this season and seems dumb so that latter part isn't really an accomplishment.  Also, I don't think Karen is a very good writer (lol at her getting a writing job for a reputable newspaper with presumably no degree, no experience and no material), although her investigative skills are great.

On to the bright sides of this season, there are a few fights that live up to the hallway fight of season one.  The staircase fight and the prison"fight" both shine and if you've seen both, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.  In fact, those fights are so good and so well-filmed, that the fights in the last climactic episode come as a bit of a letdown.

Also, and I've mentioned this already, but pretty much everyone seems perfectly cast.  Whatever my problems with this season, none of it is due to the actors.  I've already praised Cox, Bernthal, and Yung, but it's easy to forget how good Deborah Ann Woll is in this.  She doesn't have a showy part or get to kick ass like the others, but she consistently kills with her performance.  Also Vincent D'Onorfio comes in, dominates his scenes, and makes you wish he was in more episodes.  Maybe season 3?

Anyway, I feel like I'm just going to have to accept that these superhero series are going to have plot holes, questionable character decisions to further the plot, and things that make no damn sense if you think about it for too long.  With the exception of characters making decisions that seem out of character, I'm willing to accept most of these things.  Daredevil's second season is ultimately guilty of being too ambition.  It juggled 1) the central hero's moral conflict with killing due to his Catholic faith 2) two vigilantes who have no qualms with killing 3) an ancient, evil cult ninja organization 4) a conspiracy by the DA against the murder of Frank Castle's family (a good example of how dumb Reyes is) and 5) a law firm that is for people who have nowhere else to turn.  That's too much.

Grade (Man I have even less idea of what to grade this than normal so don't be mad at the grade): B

Writing Blind: Oz 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.

Oz was a revolutionary show for its time.  I'm not sure there's a better example of a show whose impact vastly exceeds its quality.  This was the first HBO drama.  This set the stage for every other prestige HBO drama.  I don't want to heap too much credit on Oz, because it's likely that the HBO brass were very dedicated to having a brand of making quality television early on in their process, but it's one thing for that to be a goal and it's another thing to make it happen. 

Oz is a show reliant on shocks.  It's not very character-based.  It's schizophrenic, impatient, constantly trying to keep your attention.  Season three is a case of diminishing returns.  It's essentially a soap opera, except people stay dead when they are killed.  It's an entertaining soap opera and about ten times more violent than any soap opera I've ever heard of, but the more I think about it, the more the comparison makes sense to me.

Oz must have been ridiculously well-praised at its time.  First off, there weren't many options for good television in 1997-1998.  There were some shows, but if you just compare it to now, well... it doesn't compare at all.  Anyway, I bring that up because I noticed three directors that piqued my interest: Chazz Palmenteri, Steve Buscemi, and Matt Dillon.  That's right, those three directed three of the eight episodes.  This show must have had some serious critical buzz for those three guys to want to work on the show.

Anyway, on to the meat of the season, I'm having trouble actually getting to the plot and the characters, because essentially, if you've seen season one, you've seen season three.  I don't know if I'd necessarily recommend for you to skip seasons two and three, but if you're interested in the history of television and don't really want to commit yourself to a bunch of episodes, you'll get the general vibe of Oz just from the first season.

Anyway, this season features Miguel Alvarez mostly locked up in solitary.  Long-term this wasn't a very good idea.  He's one of the more interesting and better acted people on the show (You've probably seen Kirk Acevedo in Band of Brothers).  And he is seemingly stuck in solitary forever.  You can't really do much with characters in solitary.  For season three, it's not as much of an issue.  He struggles with depression, not being fond of solitary, and this allows Oz to reveal that prisoners aren't really properly treated if they have depression.  I'm sure most people do not give a single shit if prisoners with mental illness aren't treated for it, but the theoretical goal of prison is rehabilitation so you'd think that'd be a top priority.  Gloria Nathan represents the best version of a doctor, fully committed to the patient's well-being, and her fight with cost-cutting measures is shown throughout the season.

Adebisi, while well-played by Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje, is a pretty good example of diminishing returns.  I don't know if its the writing or what, but it truly seems like they have nowhere else to go for this character.  He's manipulative, devious, and predictable at this point.  Same thing with the rivalry between Schillinger and Beecher.  At this point, it's implausible neither of these guys are dead yet.  So they start killing each other's family members and we don't know them, so we don't really feel the impact.  There's no real threat in these stories - which is an odd thing to say when family members of two of the most prominent characters are threatened - but since we do not care about them, we do not care when they are killed.

This season marks the introduction of Claire Howell, one of my least favorite characters on this show.  She's poorly acted, she's abrasive, she coerces inmates into sex, and she's just not redeemable in any way.  There's a way to make this character work, but I just don't think the actress is good enough to pull it off.  Edie Falco is much better as the representative C.O. character.  Speaking of guards, the new head of the C.O.s is Sean Murphy, which is a welcome addition if for nothing else than for the fact I like Robert Clohessy as an actor.  He doesn't really get much to do, but again Clohessy does good work.

Also introduced in this season is Clayton Hughes, played by future Wire regular Seth Gillam.  Gillam is great in The Wire.  He's not great in this.  He didn't stand a chance as his character SUCKS.  He gives Adebisi a gun at the end of the season and this is completely at odds with how his character originally acted in the first episode.  That's nothing new to Oz though.

As for the last two characters I'll talk about, Kareem Said goes through a crisis of faith this season.  He "falls in love" with Patricia Ross, a defendant in his case against the state.  As you can see, I am not buying that they fell in love, but Eamonn Walker tries to sell the hell out of it.  It also features the unusual partnership of Said and Beecher by the end of the season.  It's pretty natural too for this show, although I wish it last longer.  (That's a complaint for next season).  Lastly, I still don't really like Tim McManus, and I think the show wants me to like him.  He has a sexual harassment thing against him and I kind of rooted for him to get fired so he could leave the show.

I could break down every character and every stupid storyline, but I overall enjoyed this season. JK Simmons, Lee Tergesen, Christopher Meloni and Dean Winters are just plain fun to watch.  Oh yeah I forgot to mention that Sister Peter Marie questions her faith based off her attraction and the manipulation by Keller.  This shouldn't work but the two actors are Meloni and Rita Moreno and the could successfully make a drama about paint drying entertaining.  

This show has the oddest mix of great actors and godawful actors that it's jarring.  It's basically a show designed to be judged on a scene by scene basis, not on an episode basis or even a season basis.  Oz is still pretty good in season three, something that clearly changes by the next season so obviously they did something better and different in this season.  I couldn't tell you what though.  So if you have the time, I'd still give this season a watch.

Grade - B

Rewind: The X-Files S6

When I started this series, I expected to immediately like it.  I had high expectations for the show and I thought I would have no trouble getting into the show.  I also weirdly expected a small peak that the show would only reach for a couple seasons, and gradually declining years until it became unwatchable.  As you've probably gathered, this is not at all what happened to me.  The high expectations made the first season a disappointment - it has one of the better season-long storylines and a few good episodes, but that's pretty much it.  That initial disappointment kept me at arm's length from loving the show for longer than it otherwise would have - although I'm only now seeing this in hindsight.

Anyway, my other "problem" with truly getting into The X-Files is that I was fully aware of the mythology before I started.  By that I mean, I knew it wasn't really going anywhere and would ultimately stop making sense or just start getting stupid.  While this did lead to not being frustrated at all when the mythology got that way, it also meant I pretty much never got invested in any early season mythology.  Welcome to the only show where I infinitely prefer the standalone episodes to their serialization.

So here I am in season six and the show's been mostly churning out 20 or so quality episodes each year for the past five years (with the exception of the fifth season, which had less episodes due to the movie).  So I didn't really expect to gain an appreciation for the show in its supposed decline years.  But my opinion of the show is much higher than it was in the second season or third season, perhaps because there are very few shows that remain good in its sixth season.  It's clear the show is starting to run out of ideas, but they are responding to this by being creative and experimenting with ideas.

The mythology is never less important than the sixth season, which I certainly am not going to complain about.  The show also took some backlash for two developments and I'm not sure how related they are to each other: season six tries to be funny for like six episodes in a row (it seems that long at least) and the production moved to California because David Duchovny didn't like Vancouver (this is at least what I've read so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

Despite the brighter colors and the shift in tone at points, you can't really say the show is that much worse than before.  It's probably not better than the 2-4 seasons, but during the fifth season, they were so clearly focused on the movie that it led to an inconsistent season with some rather high points.  The sixth season, whatever flaws you may give it, is a fairly consistent season at the very least.  "Milagro" is about the only really bad episode in the season, but to be fair wow did I hate that episode.  Thanks for wasting John Hawkes guys!

However, the best episodes of the sixth season tend to have one or two flaws preventing it from really matching the best episodes of the previous years.  "Triangle" is a lot of fun, but it makes no damn sense.  "Tithonus" is basically Vince Gilligan's attempt at writing Darin Morgan, and while he's a great writer, it's no "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose."  Not many things are, but it kind of invites the comparison and can't help but pale in comparison.  "Arcadia" is another fun episode, but the monster is fairly bland, dragging it down a bit.  "The Unnatural" is mostly a great episode because Jesse L. Martin is fantastic and it's kind of pointless to write down the flaws since those are also what makes it kind of endearing.

There's also "Drive," the episode that brought Bryan Cranston to Vince Gilligan.  Cranston is pretty much as good as advertised and you can definitely see how he convinced Gilligan to cast him in Breaking Bad.  "Monday" is the X-Files Groundhog Day episode (does every long-running genre series eventually have this type of episode?  I saw a Star Trek: Next Generation episode like this, but it aired before Groundhog Day.  It's basically the perfect format for TV).  I don't think I have ever not liked a Groundhog Day episode before, but I'm sure a bad one exists somewhere.

"Field Trip" is maybe my favorite episode of the season (oh look Vince Gilligan had a hand in that.  Shocker).  "Three of Kind" is a perhaps unexpected an dunnecessary sequel to the Lone Gunmen episode from the fifth season and probably falls apart if you think about it, but I had a lot of fun watching it.  Lastly, "Dreamland" has no business being a two-parter, but its got Michael McKean and he's always great.  I keep naming episodes I liked, but there's a lot of them.  (Last one: "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" is great if nothing else for the performances by Lily Tomlin and Edward Asner.)

Are there X-Files fans who are mythology-driven and those who only want the standalone episodes?  The mythology probably sheds more light on the character of the two leads than the other episodes so they had their use in the beginning seasons.  But still...  I think I can count on one hand the number of mythology episodes that seemed useful.  (My impression is that I didn't really love those episodes even in the early seasons, but that could be just because I don't remember them at all.  Seriously these episodes do not stick in my brain like other episodes do for some reason.)

The sixth season was much better than I ever expected.  Besides season three, it might even feature the most good to great episodes.  (Though looking at my past grades, season four might have something to say about that.)  If I decide to rewatch the series and limit it to my most enjoyable or favorite episodes, this very well might have the most episodes on that list.  You'd think five seasons and a movie would diminish the writers' capacity for new ideas, but you can't really tell by the quality of these episodes.

Grade - A-

Writing Blind: Oz S2

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

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.

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.

Did you know there was a television show called Oz?  You might have, but you probably didn't know it was the first scripted HBO drama television series.  Here's a show that set the stage to allow The Sopranos to happen and become a hit.  If Oz wasn't successful, critically speaking and to a lesser extent in viewership, who knows what HBO becomes?  But because Oz was a critical favorite - if not necessarily raking in the viewers - HBO continued its strategy to making amazing television.  It worked out well.

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+