White Collar – “Flip of the Coin”

“Flip of the Coin”

November 14th, 2009

Now four weeks into its run, White Collar is about where it was in its pilot: a solid entry in USA’s lineup. The show has yet to really transcend to the point where I would say it’s really growing into something new, or where it’s establishing a more complex identity, which isn’t problematic so much as it is perhaps a sign of the show being unwilling to go to that stage so quickly.

There are some growing pains, however, in terms of how the episode wants its stories to work and how they’re actually capable of working. “Flip of the Coin” has a couple of nice set pieces in it, along with some high quality guest stars to help bolster the episode, but it struggles to make all of that come together. There are some scenes where Neal’s suave nature feels perfectly at home in the context of these investigations, and other sequences where the believability is stripped away for the sake of convenience.

Still, there’s a lot of enjoyment within this episode, to the point where some of the shortcuts are ultimately overcome by one development in particular that could help the show going forward.

Mad Men Season Three Podcast: Observations and Ruminations

A Mad Men Season Three Podcast

November 14th, 2009

What’s really interesting about Mad Men’s third season is that, because of how strong the finale was, it makes criticizing the season as a whole somewhat difficult. It requires sort of forgetting about how great the finale was, and going back to consider just how everything came together. The finale, in some ways, rewrote some of our concerns about the season: we wanted more Sterling Cooper drama and we got more Sterling Cooper drama, and we complained about Joan’s marginalization and suddenly Joan was back front and centre.

So when I joined The House Next Door’s Luke De Smet and The A.V. Club/etc.’s Todd VanDerWerff for a special TV on the Internet/House Next Door Mad Men Season Three podcast, there was a definite sense that the strength of the finale has in some way coloured our opinions on the rest of the season. I’m not suggesting that the third season was bad, but rather that in our enjoyment of the finale (and a couple of other key episodes) we may have spent more time talking about what works than we did talking about what didn’t (although we do discuss some of the story elements that were perhaps underdeveloped). It’s a great conversation, discussing a number of key subjects and focusing on different areas of the show’s success, but there were a couple of more negative things I wanted to say about the season that almost didn’t fit into the podcast’s narrative thanks to how much goodwill the finale created for all of us.

As such, after the jump I’ll go into detail on the one major issue I have with the season that didn’t make it into the podcast, but do go have a listen before reading on.

The Office – “Murder”

“Murder”

November 12th, 2009

The best thing about The Office is that its silliest episodes can sometimes be its most effective. An episode like “Cafe Disco” last season was the perfect way to break through the tension of the Michael Scott Paper Company period, devolving into a dance party that helped to bring everyone back together albeit through a less than serious structure. While the show can go off the rails if things become too silly, there is something very honest about situations where the silliness is the result of a human response to a crisis, or to a period of tension. Michael Scott is not the only person in the world who doesn’t like tense situations, although he may be the only one who decides to turn his office into a dance party or, as we see in “Murder,” the scene of a vicious murder.

What makes the episode work is that it continues a couple of ongoing character trends (Jim slowly turning into Michael, Andy’s interest in Erin) in an episode that otherwise devolves into the office’s crazier characters overacting their way through a murder mystery in a box while the rest of the characters contemplate some major financial restructuring. It’s a good introduction to what seems like the next major arc for the series, and I think it’s an effective piece of television comedy in the process.

Community – “Debate 109″

“Debate 109″

November 12th, 2009

Community, effectively, operates on two levels. One of them is a broader investigation of the community college lifestyle, this week in the form of a debate competition. The other is a character-driven model where archetypes are either challenged or substantiated in an effort to create comic interest. The show doesn’t necessarily need for both to work in the same fashion, but it depends on both to be present in order for the show to seem moderately balanced.

“Debate 109″ is intriguing because of how it brings to the surface the question of how unique these characters really are, and as Jeff and Annie debate about human nature everyone else discovers that in the eyes of Abed they are as predictable as they are quirky. The former storyline offers some fun interactions and more opportunities for Alison Brie to outright steal this show out from under the rest of the cast, while the latter manages to give the episode the sort of manic connectivity that made the show’s Halloween episode so effective.

It was just a really well balanced half hour, something that I’m not sure the show had a handle on during early episodes.

Friday Night Lights – “In the Skin of a Lion”

“In the Skin of a Lion”

November 11th, 2009

It isn’t precisely a dud, but “In the Skin of a Lion” is certainly the weakest episode of the fourth season thus far. It’s really an issue of premise more than it is of execution: every scene and storyline that they ask these actors to portray is effective and hitting the right notes, but there are some underlying imbalances to be found within them.

It’s a problem that the show had, to some degree in its third season, but which felt overcome by an intense emotional centre that kept the show balanced. Part of what the episode is about is how that emotional core is absent in East Dillon, and while the episode works to bring it back the vacuum at the centre of the East Dillon Lions makes this episode distinctly less enjoyable or empowering than the episodes which came before it.

Glee – “Wheels”

“Wheels”

November 11th, 2009

There’s a moment in “Wheels” where we fear the worst of Sue Sylvester, testing our ability to see past what we expect her character to do (something offensive and mean-spirited) to what she could potentially do (something transformative). And, in some ways, “Wheels” is very much the same sort of proposition. Ever since I learned ahead of time that “Wheels” was written by Ryan Murphy (as the writers appear to be cycling the scripts between the three of them), I have been fearful of when his worst habits (like his penchant for Terri and the more outlandish storylines) would emerge.

So, I spent most of the episode waiting for the episode to take some sort of turn, to go from being charming and funny and resonant to become outlandish and overbearing. I kept thinking that any scene which felt the least bit emotional would suddenly become undercut by something mean or cruel, and that this was all some sort of Sue Sylvester-like trick.

However, it appears that Murphy has been inspired by his fellow writers, because “Wheels” works in ways that Murphy’s previous episodes simply have not. The episode isn’t perfect, trying to do a few too many things at once, but each and every one of those elements manage to connect at som level. It is an episode that more than any other thus far feels as if it works because of, rather than in spite of, the show’s recurring storylines.

This isn’t to say that everything’s rosy, but it is to say that “Wheels” was certainly a watermark for Murphy’s work on the series, and easily the most starkly dramatic hour yet.

Sons of Anarchy – “Balm”

“Balm”

November 10th, 2009

I don’t need to tell you that “Balm” was an exceptional hour plus of television: for about two weeks, critics have been waxing poetic about how this could be the show’s defining moment, and how this is the episode that raises Sons of Anarchy from the upper echelon of television drama to the upper upper echelon of television drama. The result is that Sepinwall, Fienberg, Ryan, Poniewozik and every other critic under the sun have already made their position extremely clear, to the point where I don’t really have much to add in terms of singing its praises.

However, that’s never particularly stopped me before, so I still want to talk about how great this episode is, or, more accurately, why this episode manages to be great despite some significant challenges. This is an episode which builds its tension around an action that before last week was almost entirely foreign to its audience (at least those with no deeper knowledge of MCs than what the show offers) and that creates an emotional climax you can see coming by the time the episode gets going, and yet manages to pull it off so brilliantly that it’s as if we as viewers have always known what ”going Nomad” refers to and that we could never have expected the kind of emotion the episode’s final moments bring.

It’s an episode that turns the viewer into an active participant in the lives of each and every single character, to the point where we are sitting at the dinner table with the characters in that final scene and responding as they are to the news being delivered.

And that’s some damn fine television.

Why I Wouldn’t Save Dollhouse from Cancellation

November 11th, 2009

Today, the news came that many expected. Already shelved for November Sweeps in favour of reruns, and with FOX having confirmed that it would be burning off six episodes on Fridays in December, the chances of Dollhouse living to see a third season were always slim. And, to no one’s surprise, the show was officially cancelled today, according to the Hollywood Reporter, thus ending a strange journey for Joss Whedon’s newest series.

And while I will always be a fan of elements of this particular series, and I will miss having it as part of my weekly lineup, I will not be making any effort to try to save the series from its fate. It is not out of a lack of love for the show and what it accomplished, but rather an acknowledgement that it accomplished more than it might have, and that for all that FOX will be getting flack for this decision it was given chances that very few other shows would have received. The show always felt like an experiment, constantly being tinkered with to find the right gear for Whedon’s vision and FOX’s view of the show to become one and the same, and like any good experiment there are some tangible results that can now be put to work by Whedon, the network, and the show’s viewers. Amongst those results:

1) Some great television. Say what you will about some of the show’s weaker episodes, but “Man on the Street,” “Spy in the House of Love,” “Omega,” and “Belonging” were great hours of television independent of the show’s struggles, and some other episodes (like both “Echoes” and “Needs”) managed to take premises that could be either gimmicky or potentially overwrought and showed how this cast and crew could make intelligent, philosophical, funny and sometimes brilliant television. And the unique narrative experiment known as “Epitaph One” will be confounding people for years, further contributing to the show’s legacy of sorts.

2) Being introduced to two really great acting talents. Enver Gjokaj and Dichen Lachman were playing second fiddle to Eliza Dushku in the show’s premise, but they stole nearly every episode they were featured in. On a show that values the ability to be a chameleon, these two managed to slip into the skin of entirely different characters for either extended periods (like Lachman as Priya) or in short scenes (like Gjokaj becoming Reed Diamond’s Dominic) in a way that made them a weekly highlight. While I’m sad they’ll no longer be playing these characters, I know these two will land on their feet, and I’m sure casting directors took notice of their work. The greatest compliment I can pay them is that I learned how to spell their names, which says how often I sang their praises.

V – “There is No Normal Anymore”

“There is No Normal Anymore”

November 10th, 2009

“You still don’t understand humanity.”

And neither does this show.

After a fairly solid pilot that did a good job of making this premise seem like it could be a good one for a television series if not actually demonstrating much in the way of examples of that potential, “There is No Normal Anymore” is the sort of failure that these types of genre shows (including FlashForward) tend to fall into. What goes wrong is nothing to do with the show’s premise and more to do with the fact that the writers seem unwilling to fully embrace that premise from the get go. There are interesting elements in these stories, but as a whole the writing and for that matter the performances just aren’t living up to that interest.

The episode tries to play up a sense of paranoia, but by ignoring the macro level paranoia in favour of the micro level paranoia the show becomes far less interesting than its premise. And, unfortunately for the show, nothing in the writing or in the episode’s forward momentum has me thinking this will change at any time in the near future.

The Big Bang Theory – “The Guitarist Amplification”

“The Guitarist Amplication”

November 9th, 2009

I want to play devil’s advocate and imagine, for a moment, what actually works about Leonard and Penny’s relationship. See, I don’t think that there is a fundamental incompatibility between these two characters so much as there is a fundamental inconsistency within both characters which often collides in ways that are less than entertaining. When Penny is intelligent and charming, and when Leonard is nervous but earnest, the couple is entirely inoffensive, within the realm of belief if not really setting the televisual world on fire.

However, when their worst character traits are amplified, their relationship is the worst sort of chemical reaction. “The Guitarist Amplification” decides to depict the couple’s first fight, and thus runs into two key problems. The first is that in order to create the fight the show exaggerates Leonard’s worst qualities, making him equal parts clueless and massively insecure. The second is that the show, by never quite dialing in on the relationship enough to make the audience care about it, wants us to root for something that we’re likely not rooting for. The result is a fight that is more annoying than it is funny, and an episode where the writers are almost entirely aware that the only value the show is getting out of this fight is how Sheldon responds to it.

Which isn’t a terrible strategy for the show, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not going to convince me this relationship is going to work.