Friday, 30 of July of 2010
Queen of Mediocrity--and winner?
Okay, I have finally figured it out. You see, Top Chef sucks this year on purpose. It is part of their master plot to issue a gigantic commentary on politics. No really, I mean it. This is the only explanation for all the nonsense this season. You know you want to hear more.
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“I know what texting is. Also iTunes and color television.”
A very relevant Twitter conversation took place between Nick, Noel and myself yesterday on the troubles of fandom and criticism. Analyzing a popular text as anything but godly is often met with harsh opposition from said text’s fan community. That makes this review of last night’s Warehouse 13 somewhat difficult for me. I love Warehouse 13, it’s probably my favorite new addition to my television roster as of late, but “Age Before Beauty” has some points that should be addressed. And they’re not pretty.
“Age Before Beauty” is a very Myka and Claudia (hooray!) centric episode. While Myka and Pete track down an artifact that is sapping the youth from fashion models, Claudia prepares for her date with Todd, the hardware store kid from last week’s “Beyond Our Control”. This episode was poised to be a great girl-power sort of story but that is not what unfurled. Instead we get a (what I will deem as accidentally) misogynistic view of our lead female characters running to their male counter parts with their problems and insecurities. I sure hope no one from the Syfy message boards is reading this…
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“You have a nice little practice going?”
“I do all right.”
“How do you expect to fool them into thinking it’s me?”
“By using another black man and the assumption that all black men look the same to the upper-middle class.”
“That’s dash cunning.”
“We know.
So White Collar is starting to remind me of Chuck and it’s not just the Bryce Larkin connection.
Chuck has been a spy for over three years now and, though he’s supposed to be a “secret” agent, he’s been implicating his friends and family into his web of subterfuge and awkwardness little by little since then. The very people he explicitly stated that he never wanted to affect with the job that fell in his lap are now either knowledgeable of what Chuck does or actively participate in missions, exposed to danger exacted by enemy agents and even Chuck himself.
While I don’t think Neal is carelessly exposing his loved ones to danger, he does implicate his criminal friends into FBI cases and missions in exchange for immunity, passes, and what I can only assume is healthy compensation from Uncle Sam. Mozzie doesn’t seem like the type to work pro bono for the Suits. And now even Alex is involved.
Who’s next? June? Dead Kate Who Is Not Really Dead? Is there anyone Neal has left in his life that is still a criminal? And, if not, with his solving crime and everyone he knows being in cahoots with the Law, what gray area is left for him to raise the stakes?
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“Please don’t kill me, I’m pregnant. That probably just makes you want to eat me even more.”
True Blood has always been a show about character. First and foremost. Set in a mostly realistic world, the season storylines have always been more about how it paints parallels to the real world and the way it affects the characters. While this season overall is about power struggles between vampire kingdoms and between races of supernatural beings, it really comes down to character which in essence means it’s about people. As the stakes are being raised, both literally and figuratively, “I Got a Right to Sing the Blues” showed us that emotions run high even when you’re dead and vampires aren’t necessarily the epitome of perfection.
Greed, love and jealousy aren’t just emotions reserved for humans. It seems that even in living forever these feelings do as well. With every week we learn more and more how crazy Franklin is but it’s also apparent why he is the way he is. He’s said his work is his life, he doesn’t have much time for himself or relationships. Is that not something a lot of us can relate to? Sure, it doesn’t excuse kidnapping Tara and riding her every word and action as obsessively as he does, but he gets what’s coming to him as Tara puts an escape plan into action which involves drinking Franklin’s blood and bashing his skull in with a mace.
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“That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”
Let’s just give up the pretense and call it the Peter and Mozzie Show.
For a show that likes for Neal to operate in such a moral gray area they really don’t like their good guys to be bad, do they?
After yet another false cliffhanger from last episode (Diana having the music box locked away), I’m not sure if the show is just going to constantly pitch me on their good guys going rogue (even if they never do) or if it’s setting me up, crying “villain” until I don’t believe it then flipping the script when Peter takes off his mask and reveals that he’s really Kate or something. For now, however, the good guy characters are very much good guy characters, no matter how much they try to fake me out.
In fact, everyone in the series is pretty much a white hat right now. Neal operating in his gray area of the law has almost evaporated with the “death” of Kate. There is no seasonal villain now that Fowler has gone underground, just a mystery left from the detritus of last season’s botched music box hand-off. Neal has stopped his search for what happened and just works for the FBI now, nothing extracurricular. The only connection he has to his past life is Mozzie, and even Mozzie is warming to the suits.
So even this show, once upon a time steeped with the story-world-consuming (if completely annoying) seasonal search for Kate, is kind of becoming the thinly-plotted but character-heavy fare summer USA is known to do and do well.
And we’re kind of fine with that.
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Way to take a step back, Food Network Star.
After a very solid two weeks, the show backslid with Sunday’s episode, an episode that misses the mark for a whole slew of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the Star Challenge had no business being on this show. What the star challenge, an underground supper club for LA foodies (“The first rule of supper club is that you do not talk about supper club. The second rule of supper club is that you do not use saffron. It is so 2005.”), tells me is that Food Network wants to extend its brand to foodies. Too bad Food Network doesn’t really scream foodie to me. Or anyone. Read more »
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“He is Michael Westen! There are only four of us!“
This week’s episodes of Covert Affairs (“Walter’s Walk”) and Burn Notice (“Past & Future Tense”) were both very good. Covert Affairs is still having to do legwork, fleshing out the characters and the world, but it’s doing an admirable job of that. Meanwhile Burn Notice has the luxury of being an established show, with its format and characters firmly in place and ready to go for anything.
What both shows touched on this week, however, was about something more than just how a new show develops or how an established one keeps itself fresh. This week, Covert Affairs and Burn Notice tackled the notion of spyhood in their own specific ways. Unsurprisingly, both shows dealt with the issue of spyhood from their particular vantage points: new spy and old spies. Read more »
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“Oh, good. I got you while you’re vulnerable.”
I don’t like to read the advance reviews of a show, not necessarily for the spoilers but because I don’t like things to skew my perspective, making me pay attention to things that are within the bias of a reviewer that gets paid to consume. That’s not to say anything bad about professional reviewers. It might end up that I become one someday for all I know. This is mostly a warning for you, the reader. I did not receive an advance copy of this episode like so many did weeks ago, as evidenced by some hub-bub over a reviewer’s responsibility with spoilers, so my thoughts on the episode might be rudimentary and not as thoughtful as those who have been able to ruminate on content of season premiere.
Did that come off spiteful? I didn’t mean for it to come off spiteful.
Although there is a lot of spite in this episode so maybe it’s rubbing off on me. With the divorce and Betty and Don sniping at each other plus everyone in the office being angry with Don for a botched PR opportunity compounded with Don getting angry with clients for being prudes, and we can even say the new agency itself is in spite of their former corporate owners, this is an episode based in spite. Even the actresses Peggy and Pete hire for a publicity stunt are spiteful toward each other.
Oh, did I mention that, with all the hype going on about and around Mad Men that I assume you don’t mind a spoiler or two if you’re reading this review? I didn’t? Oh well. You should be watching it live anyway since it probably is the best show on television never to get above a 1.0 in Male 18-49. Let that be your lesson.
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“Dude, all your permanent teeth are in, okay? You’re playing for keeps now.”
Smooth criminal detective.
Ah, much better.
Last week’s pooch was rectified by this week’s return to form, or at least the form we recognize. Our characters are back in the slots we recognize (Juliet, of course, is totally over her touch of PTSD) and, even though they switch the dynamics a little in the first half-hour, the comedy and timing seems to be back.
Troubling, however, is Henry’s reduced role to a “nose to the grindstone” boss as opposed to his more involved auxillary role in the Psych agency. My hope was to see him more involved with cases rather than just barking for the detectives and sleuths to get back on track. Instead he’s kind of like Lou Grant but wears a suit better.
But the season is young, yes?
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“With you or without you I’m moving on. And I don’t know if I can do it alone. Will you help me?“
I ignore my epiphanies for the sake of dramatic conflict
This, for those who want to manage their reading, will be significantly shorter than my season 1 recap. Part of this stems from the fact that I just have very little to say, on the whole, about both seasons. A large part of this lack of thought goes back to the issue of quality I discussed during season 1, and seem little need to recover that ground.
Of the two, I’d rather watch season 3 than season 2. As Jeremy Mongeau pointed out, season 3 at least remembers to be entertaining, whereas season 2 is very much about how much QUALITY and IMPORTANT MESSAGES and SYMBOLIC WALKING INTO THE BEACH TO CLEANSE AND BE REBORN can be squeezed into 13 hours of television. Season 3 has some of this (could Betty’s couch have been any more symbolic?), but it also has a guy’s foot getting lopped off by a riding lawn mower, complete with excellent blood splatter reaction shot, so it balances out.
There were things I did like about season 3, including Sally Draper (the only truly interesting character on the show), “My name is Peggy Olson and I’m here to smoke some marijuana.”, and all the scenes of “Shut the Door, Have a Seat” that didn’t involve Don and Betty’s relationship. But, all in all, I’m kind of glad I’m not reviewing Mad Men for the site. Read more »
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