My Week in TV Part I: LA to Vegas, 9-11, Shut Eye

 My week in TV is a more casually-phrased column I do over at a Disqus channel called the Ice Box

Credit: Vulture.com

9-1-1: The Pilot
The hype underlying this show is based on two equally baffling premises: A) That a procedural like this can be touted as high drama B) That there’s room on TV for more Ryan Murphy/Brad Falchuck shows. With the cachet of the Murphy/Falchuck brand, however, this isn’t surprising. The question is can this creative team turn a genre that’s become shorthand for unremarkable-yet-dependable into must-see TV, while avoiding the pratfalls of camp and sensationalism that started to overtake “ Glee ” in later seasons? Based on the pilot, it looks like the worse elements of the Murphy/Falchuck lore are avoided. The appearance of a baby in a sewer pipe is a bit gross but the relevant scenes exercise an admirable level of restraint towards the macabre, and hey, it’s evidently based in real life .

What the TV show does have is strong characters with potential for arcs. They’re not extremely far removed from the kinds of stock characters that pop up on whatever iteration of "CSI" or "NCIS" we’re currently on, but I trust that in the hands of these producers, big things can happen. With the show’s lead pretty boy (Oliver Stark) having two on-screen hook-ups in the first hour (and I gotta say, red-headed snake lady was H-O-T, although I’m not sure how much of it has to do with her snakes) we get the message that things have the potential to get steamy. Hell, even the (East) Asian guy (Kenneth Choi, Last Man on Earth , one of my favorite shows of 2015 ) has an active sex life. Ordinarily, those guys are cast as technical nerds. When has that been known to happen? Like many a procedural show, the pilot episode is unfortunately quite long on TV shows about, well, procedure. Ugh. Josh Krause’s relationship to Private Pretty Boy is taken straight from Ice Man’s lectures of wrecklessness towards Maverick in Top Gun. "You're Dangerous Man!"

Connie Britton, epitomizing the steely resolve needed to handle the dispatch when these bizarre things are first phoned in, is the best character in terms of most interesting POV. Hopefully, they don’t overmilk her role.

All I can say at this point is: Worth an episode 2.

LA to Vegas-The Fellowship of the Bear (Episode 3)
Despite a decent cast and a relatively novel premise, I can’t see this show reaching beyond a certain ceiling nor can I figure out why Peter Stromare is voluntarily reducing himself to a recurring TV role as a cheap Balki impression from “Perfect Strangers.” Ed Weeks’s “Mindy Project” fares a little better as he has some genuine chemistry with leading lady Kim Matula (a very charismatic lead who looks natural in high heels) as the two genuinely have some fun this week looking for his lost doll. It’s not a quest to be particularly invested in but the twist at the end made for a meaningful gesture and a comic punch. Peter Stromare’s character (Artem) gets some interaction this week with stripper Nichole (Olivia Macklin) and while the plot isn’t amazing, It helps to give them color. It’s also fun in a guilty pleasure kind of way that Nichole the stripper character is politically incorrect.

Shut Eye-First eight episodes of Second Season
One of my top shows of 2016 (see the whole list here ), it took me a while to get on board Season 2 but it’s been just as worthwhile. The show is set where the world of shady fortune telling partners intersect with the ethnic Mafioso of the Romanian-American community (AKA gypsies). I have no idea the degree with which these crime and family traditions are based in any actual research but it seems properly idiosyncratic and grounded in a sense of place to pass even if it were invented out of thin air. This show admirably juggles a lot of genres from everything from acute family drama (“Ozarks” or “The Americans”) to a mafia thriller from the POV of a man trying to get out from under their thumb, to the thrill of seeing a conman in his element (something that Jeffrey Donovan mastered in “Burn Notice”).

Season two sidesteps the climactic twist of season one (that Eduardo and Fonso are in cahoots) and gives Donovan’s character of Charlie the ability to continue his thin margin of life as if he didn’t majorly screw up. The season has a lot more pairing of Fonso (Angus Sampson) and the more impulsive Eduardo (David Zaya) and they make for an interesting due of rabble rousers. The series also features an arranged marriage through a rightfully archaic lens that’s made even more uncomfortable by the forced bride being a closeted lesbian. The only thing that doesn’t work is the plot involving Aasif Mandvi and Charlie’s supernatural abilities. If you watched the trailers for this, you’ll notice it’s one of the things used to sell the show.

Spring 2015 TV Report Part I: Last Man on Earth, Glee, Togetherness, Archer

Last Man on Earth (FOX)-Sponsored by the Tuscon Chamber of Commerce, this comedy isn't so much high-concept as a hard sell considering no one wants to watch "Cast Away" (or "All is Lost" for those of you who weren't coming of age in 2000) as a comedy.

Credit: TVline.com

Will Forte, who co-created the series with "Clone High" cohorts Phil Lord and Chris Miller, believes himself to be the soul survivor of some biological epidemic until he meets Kristen Schaal, and the two deal with the realities of an Adam-and-Eve type situation in which Eve is a shrewish nag and Adam is the kind of adult slacker who sees the end of days as a prime opportunity to go bowling with cars and create a sweet margarita pool.

She's not quite "Flight of the Conchords" Kristen Schaal crazy, but crazy enough to think there's a reason to stop at a traffic light when there are no other moving vehicles on the planet. Schaal wants Forte to "marry" her and then do some hard-core repopulation to save the human race and Forte eventually relents because he's just plain horny.  But we have ourselves a love triangle when a third survivor turns up who turns out to be Forte's dream girl (a very down-to-earth January Jones) and he can't do anything because he's a "married man."

This isn't a show that has an interest in fleshing out any view of the apocalypse. Not even at a comedic level. How these people hijack cars at will, why there aren't dead bodies, or what the hell they're all doing in Tucson (where summer daytime temperatures average over 100 degrees) are questions the show isn't interested in answering. The show can best be described as a Twilight Zone episode wrapped up into the sensibilities of an SNL sketch. Forte finding himself locked out of his dream girls' pants because he quite reasonably married who he thought was the last girl on Earth is the sophomoric comedic equivalent of Meredith Burgess's bookworm character having access to all the books on Earth as its last survivor only to have his glasses broken.

Glee (FOX)-With the pressure of telling the story of a Glee club out of the way (it was supposedly dissolved and the writing room covered their bases by having all the underclassmen mysteriously transferred out), Season 6 had the potential to hone in on tighter stories. It was highly possible for the show to have a decent swan song, but instead Glee devolved massively. Why does everyone end up back in Lima coaching glee clubs when the overarching theme of the first few seasons was the first couple of seasons were primarily about high schoolers harnessing the power of song and dance to avoid being "Lima Losers"?

In the fifth season, the show's infrastructure fell apart as so many of the original characters were graduating and scattering in different directions. To hold the show together, "Glee" has employed every artificial coincidence imaginable. The show has gone beyond jumping the shark: It's almost as if Glee's writing room had determined that their last chance at cultural relevancy would be to jump the shark in such a memorably absurd way that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's "Nuke the Fridge" might be supplanted with "Hypnotize the  Chord Overstreet character" or "sex-change the football coach."

Nostalgic folks who look at the disaster of Season 6 and long for the days when Glee wasn't so erratic are forgetting that this show has always had a problem with burning through plot too quickly. If you remember, Finn and Rachel would quit or rejoin the show every other episode, and it was only a matter of weeks before big bully Puck was part of the gang and dating Rachel.

The show succeeded in stretches where the brand of crazy managed to be contained towards amusingly out there as opposed to batshit insane.This was one of show's few sensible long-term decisions Murphy and his crew consciously made. It was also the show's last good decision. 

Togetherness (HBO)-Although I suspect that the half-hour length will place this show-- about a couple of thirty-something lost souls simultaneously crashing on the couch of a couple undergoing marital decay-- squarely in the comedy category. who are we kidding here? The Duplass brothers' style has strains of what I believe is referred to as neorealism (think Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio de Sica, Noah Baumbauch, or Alexander Payne) where the story line is paced at the speed of life. Two of my favorite films in this mold that coincidentally came out in the same year are "Lost in Translation" and "Master and Commander." The former tracks a chance platonic relationship in a foreign country and the latter tracks a war ship in the Napoleonic Era. Neither film moves faster than the speed of life and that adds value to the storytelling. In reality, a ship in that era would go long stretches of time without seeing any significant action and by setting the story mostly during those lulls in action, the viewer feels an appreciation for the vast distances in time and space in the 19th Century.

Similarly, this show feels like watching an extremely lifelike view of a marriage as its dissolving. Up until the seventh episode when Brett (Mark Duplass) gets high on mushrooms and crashes his child's birthday party, very little happens on the show that's more eventful than, for example, my own life. When the characters I'm watching on TV are less interesting than me, I would say that's problematic but I'm willing to chalk it up to a curious phenomenon.

This is all well within the mold of the Duplass style but at the same time, previous efforts such as "Jeff Who Live at Home" and "Cyrus" had hooky scenarios. This show's scenario seems to have potential as two adults are navigating a weird situation but many of the episodes focus on low-key activities. The episode where Michelle (Melanie Lynskey) tries to spice up her sex life with Brett was even tame by the standards of today's television landscape.

This isn't to say that the show isn't watchable. Melanie Lynskey and Amanda Peete are excellent actresses who truly elevate the material and the chemistry between Steve Zissis and Duplass as two lifelong friends has a lot going for it. Similarly, there's nothing emotionally unfulfilling about the main storyline of this marriage on the rocks. There's just a little bit of energy lacking at times.

Archer (FX)-I analyzed this show to death over at TV Fanatic this past season so it's best to read my reviews there. To give a brief summary on my views of this season, Archer Vice was a bold experiment that paid off tremendously, but this season took us back into the old groove of Archer. I know going into the season that unless something drastic happened to Adam Reed's brain chemistry (I learned over the course of this season that Adam Reed writes nearly every episode of the show himself), that the writing would be as steady as it had always been. The difference is that without the overarching through lines, each episode had to sink or swim on its own merits.

The season was largely one of regrouping as the gang welcomed Slater into the fold as a sort of surrogate Mallory (leaving Jessica Walter with less airtime). Slater has spent quite a bit of time with the gang at this point and has managed the remarkable feat of spending time with the gang and not getting a little bit batty himself. As we've seen with Cyril and Lana, the descent from sensible human being to can amusing miscreant is inevitable when you spend enough time with Archer and company.

The bottle episode and the mansion listing episodes were the season's strongest outings and demonstrated that when the gang gets together in one place and all of their various ineptitudes are combined in pursuit of an outlandish goal, the possibilities for humor are endless.

Too often, however, the show broke off the main group into an action-oriented A-plot and highly forgettable B-plots which carried out their designated function of breaking up the action and that was about it. Most of the B-plots revolved around Baby AJ who was a pretty questionable addition considering Archer and Lana were already on a collision course anyway and we already had the wee baby Seamus (a definite fan favorite, ok, not really, but...). It's also worth noting that this is a baby Lana had using Archer's man juice (I spent a while thinking up a good word there) without his permission which is a pretty bizarre thing for anyone to do who isn't a psychotic stalker. That's pretty far away from what Lana is.

Write-ups to come on: Fresh off the Boat, Modern Family, Empire, 12 Monkeys, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It's Always Sunny, The Librarians, Schitt's Creek, Daredevil
  
[Ed. Update: Part II is here http://sophomorecritic.blogspot.com/2015/04/spring-2015-roundup-part-ii-schitts.html]

  

2014 Review Sans Fall Season

A moderately exhaustive catch-up of pretty much everything I've seen this year before the Fall Season rolls around and I cover those shows. Some reviews will be very brief or I'll link you elsewhere. The shows are broken into categories:

Top tier: Shows that are firing on all cylinders

1. Archer, FX-Even by today’s standards, Archer did something pretty bold by flipping the entire premise of its show. The ragtag spy agency previously known as ISIS (they allegedly sold the naming rights to a real-life band of Jihadists in Iraq or something like that) got disbanded and the characters became criminals for a full season. Comic possibilities quadrupled. (longer review)
2. The Bridge, FX-The Bridge-Last season, "The Bridge" was a suspenseful ride, but the two aimless episodes between the conclusion of the first season and the actual season finale had me wondering where the show would go once the bad guy was put away. What I didn’t anticipate was that the show’s rich characters and sense of place were more than enough to carry the show regardless of the villain. What’s more, the second season nicely wove the aftermath of the David Tate plot along with the disparate side plots into a larger picture. The show continues to have a lot going for it: A well-paced plot, a touch on topical issues, and some of the most underrated characters on TV (Daniel Frye is who I now want to model myself after as a journalist. I even plan on going to the nearest bar and developing my own drinking problem after I finish writing this)
3. Orange is the New Black, Netflix-As Piper became more comfortable with her environment and even began to take command of her surroundings, the show took on a more self-assured tone that could even be called optimistic. In the first season, pretty much everyone Piper bumped into at Litchfield was some version of your worst nightmare. The second season got interesting in the way it kept redirecting audience hatred towards a number of temporary villains (Mendez, Fig, Healy, Alex, Crazy Eyes all did despicable things at some point or another) before making themselves sympathetic once more and eventually redirecting us to one big bad. This show has also written and rewritten the textbook on ensemble pieces, both from the narrative (balancing focus on several characters) and the acting sides. (longer review)
4.  Review, Comedy Central- Starring straight-man extraordinaire Andy Daly, the premise posits the show as a distant cousin of the "Truman Show" in the way that presenting a man's life choices being driven entirely by the demands of a media audience leads to some very deep satire. In this case, Daly is TV show host Forrest MacNeil who will review any life experience anyone tells him to without question. The cleverest thing about "Review" is how it drops clues towards the genesis to the show-within-a-show and the larger storyline about a somewhat overeager broadcaster being manipulated by a ruthless producer. Viewers are challenged to decipher these clues and it's not until the end of the season that some of the blanks are filled in a season finale, which makes for **SPOILER** a cathartic ending.  (longer review)
5. The Knick, HBO-Every medical procedural (from Grey's Anatomy to E.R.) should just be set back 100 years in time where medicine was more like alchemy than an exact science. "Patient is not responding! I want some leaches and epoxy salts under his nose stat!" That Clive Owen only got nominated for one Oscar astounds me.
6. Quick Draw, Hulu-It’s understandable that this TV show would be underappreciated considering: 1) It is on a network that really hasn’t had any visible hits, and 2) the creator’s last show was on TBS during an era when they proved just how little they know about comedy with those annoying “very funny” commercials. It’s worth believing in second chances because while John Lehr’s previous show “10 Items or Less” was a mixture of slightly inventive and bland, “Quick Draw” is in that sublime zone of comedy where the comic climate is so well-established that as long as the characters stay reasonably in character, every attempt at humor is a joke that hits and every joke that hits is a home run.

Second Tier: Shows that are getting it done in style:

1. House of Cards Season 1, Netflix-Lots of interesting tension and great characters. I soured on this show on Season 2 so I'll cover that more there (longer review)
2. John Oliver-When he took over as host of the Daily Show last summer, it was a breath of fresh air that led me to believe he should take over the show. The second best thing happened: Oliver's carved out a niche for his comedy on HBO. Due to the novelty factor, John Oliver is my favorite late night comedian to watch at the moment.
3. Manhattan, WGN-The show isn’t groundbreaking but is certainly watchable. It’s an intelligent historical drama that has a firm grasp of what makes its designated period of history interesting and utilizes that for some good juicy drama. The show manages to touch on social issues from a bygone era from an ironic distance without coming across as overly preachy. The show’s ensemble has mostly unknowns outside of Rushmore/Dollhouse’s Olivia Williams but there are a lot of interesting characters and the ensemble has enough tension so that there’s enough inter-group conflict for a tense World War II pic without a single Nazi. 
4. Legit, FX-The aimless life of an Australian comedian with too much free time on his hands could rival Seinfeld in terms of low-impact storylines (or as Seinfeld called it “nothing”). with  The second season has Jim becoming no worse or better than before, but relatively succeeding at growing up by virtue of the fact that his two roommates have become far more depraved by comparison.
5. Bojack Horseman, Netflix-"BoJack Horseman" isn't particularly easy to get into, but a few episodes in, the show's pathos and interesting character dynamics shines through. Like Will Arnett's previous work, "Arrested Development," the show features characters who aim to be dynamic and get out of their ruts in life. Unlike "Arrested Development" however, the show dares to give them, and us, hope at actual improvement. Either way, there's a definite investment to the characters by season's end that gives the show life. The satire also starts getting sharper once the hidden jokes and the parallels to ABC's TGIF line-up of the 1990's start to reveal themselves. People might not notice on first viewing how spot-on "Horsing Around" gets (longer review)
6.   Royal Pains, USA-I have always maintained that even if “Royal Pains” isn’t the most ambitious show on television, Hank Lawson is one of TV’s most relevant heroes considering the healthcare crisis that’s only intensified since this show premiered in 2009. As medical procedurals go, few are more uplifting than this one. There are no McSteamys and McDreamys here: Just a desperado concierge doctor, a scalpel, lightning-quick diagnosing abilities and the mysterious ability to constantly be around some of the rarest medical emergencies ever recorded (OK, maybe it’s a little more than a scalpel he has). This season’s main thru-lines—The discovery of the Lawson clan’s long-lost sister, the navigation of newlyweds Evan and Paige through a rocky first year, the desire for Jeremiah to step out of his comfort zone—all gibe well and pleasantly focuses on underrepresented dynamics (i.e. siblings, adult-father-and-son) in television. It should also be noted that the series is total scenery/lifestyle porn: People might be falling into comas and strokes in Hank’s presence but they’re having near-death experiences in style. 

Third Teir: Pretty Alright

1. Key and Peele, Comedy Central

2. Crossbones, NBC-Thoroughly enjoyed this pirate saga that has many of the elements of “Pirates of the Caribbean”: beautiful shots of exotic Caribbean locales, swordplay, and the kind of plot twists that come from a pair of mischievous Jack Sparrowish characters who both possess a near-endless capacity for on the fly.

In one ring, we have Blackbeard (John Malkovich), who in this alternate take on history, faked his death and is now living large as a semi-peaceful ruler of an off-the-grid pirate kingdom of his own making. His main foil is combination doctor/spy/ tactician/lover Tom Lowe (Richard Coyle) who is originally sent to expose/kill Blackbeard but ends up in an uneasy alliance with the semi-erratic despot.  There’s also a love triangle between Lowe, free-spirited quartermaster Kate Balfour (I could easily write another paragraph about how enchanting Claire Foy is here) and her handicapped husband (Peter Stebbings).

As for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” comparison (a compare/contrast angle is inevitable considering that is the only other pirate film I have seen), this isn’t the movies but an NBC show that’s relegated to the summer schedule (AKA low-key filler) so adjust your expectations accordingly. It is worth pointing out, however, that while Johnny Depp anchored the Pirates series with a meticulously crafted iconic comic character in Jack Sparrow Jon Malkovich’s humor is unintentional: His interpretation of Blackbeard’s accent is suspiciously Malkovich-like (worth mentioning other than the accent, Malkovich is fine here). But hey, written history can only tell us so much about the accents of 18^th Century pirates. Maybe Blackbeard did sound like John Malkovich?

3. Portlandia, IFC-A solid sketch show about the art and science of looking cool. Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein still find ways to reinvent themselves and refine their concept four seasons in. The show is also a great haven for guest stars whether Steve Buscemi, Bobby Moynihan, Kumail Nanjiani, Kyle MacLachlan, and the Portland Trailblazers. (longer review)

4. Colbert Report, Comedy Central-The announcement that he was going to take over for David Letterman alerted me to the fact that he's been on the air nearly ten years. That's a long time to stay in one character and I have full confidence that he could do another 10 if he wanted. 

Also the Third Tier: Shows That Took Me By Surprise (in a good way)

1. Suburgatory, ABC-After sporadically watching in Season Two, I caught onto the back end of the third season and found a more satisfying and complex entity than I had previously seen. When the show premiered, it had bite to it in its satirizations of suburbia in the form of city folk George and daughter Tessa, who had moved from Manhattan to the uber-suburban town of Chatswain. As sitcom characters are prone to do, Tessa and George found love interests, friends and frenemies which resulted in a dampening of the edge as George and Tessa were no longer outsiders and overly connected to the town they were supposed to be making fun of. I was highly pleased to find a happy medium between these two poles in Season 3 and all the more heartbroken that the show was cancelled.

2. About a Boy, NBC-The pilot episode and the difficulties of adapting a TV show gave me plenty of doubt, but the show was successfully stretched to a longer-term format. These characters are worth investing for in the long run and from an episode-to-episode perspective, it's  nice charming low-key comedy that offers the same thing the book and movie did: unique character dynamics. (Longer Review)

3. Playing House, TBS-The female-centered comedy initially seemed like chick flick territory, but the two leads are charming and have enough chemistry together to sell the show. (Longer Review)

4. Gravity Falls, Disney-It's difficult to put my finger on what makes the show work considering it defies categorization in this animated TV landscape. It's not really a show for kids (thematically too dark) which is especially bizarre considering its on the Disney Channel which is the new Nickelodeon. At the same time, "Gravity Falls" isn't a direct satire of kid's shows and is unironically steeped in the style of a classic kid's show itself. It will take me some thinking to figure out exactly why this show is working for me, but in the meantime, let me report: This show has hooked me and it's seeming to hook quite a few of my peers. Also, let me report: The spunky protagonist Mabel (Kristen Schaal AGAIN) Pines is one of my favorite characters on TV.

5. Glee, Fox-Its been a while since Glee's heyday when it was water cooler talk. That's understandable as the show cycles through characters, romances and plots at high velocities. In that sense, the show is more about style than substance and inevitably the novelty factor wears off without substance. This past season, some of the substance came back into the show as the character development decelerated. Sam, Tina, Artie and Blaine's senior year was split in two giving the cast a bigger chance to gel. (Longer Review)

To be covered in more detail:
I'll Watch It if It's On:
Bad Teacher, CBS; New Girl, Fox; Modern Family, ABC; The Awesomes, Hulu; Fugget About It, Hulu; Parks and Recreation, NBC; American Dad/Family Guy, Fox; Broad City, Comedy Central

What Was I Thinking??: Shows I've Soured On
Under the Dome, Fox; House of Cards (Season 2), Netflix; Deadbeat, Hulu; Halt and Catch Fire, AMC; Mindy Project, Fox

Shows I just never got into:
Hannibal, NBC; The Strain, FX; Turn, AMC; The Middle, ABC

State of my March II: Glee, Suburgatory, About a Boy

Part II of my update on what shows I'm watching this Fall
 

Glee-Glee was a show that felt the need to speed through situations, premises and plots. Characters become goths, quit the Glee club, rejoin it, make major life decisions and switch up romantic relationships every episode. It seems like half the episodes have Will and Emma are either getting married or cancelling aforementioned wedding plans. Ditto Rachel and Finn with their on-again off-again relationship.

Courtesy: The State Times.com

The problem with this is that it can kind of get tiring in the long-term. The partial reboot of the New Directions membership seemed to be doing the exact same thing with expies of the old characters. Jake going from a bad boy to a team player and Kitty acting as a kind of moral wild card make them Puck 2.0 and Quinn 2.0.

That was when I tuned out but the show has started to rehook me as of late. What I'm finding most refreshing about the show in Season 5 is the slower pace. The producers primarily accomplished this by splitting up the senior year of Blaine, Artie, Tina and Sam into two seasons. As a result, it feels like the story finally has a chance to breathe. The show that could previously be accused of being melodramatic is now just dramatic and that's a good thing. Characters have a chance to develop, relationships have a chance to form, there's less of a revolving door in terms of casting.

The show still seems to have a little bit of relationship roulette. There's little sense that the writers  asked themselves "why are we doing this?" when deciding to pair up people like Artie and Kitty. Also, When Sam was complaining about being unlucky in love in the season's second episode, was I the only viewer who noticed that Sam has been with every girl he's ever had a crush on?

Courtesy: Tv.com

About A Boy-I reviewed this show a month ago and am pleased to know it's coming around nicely.  David Walton's take on the protagonist of Will is a much less interesting version than Hugh Grant's version or his source material. It remains to be seen whether the shallowness of David Walton's Will will wear the show thin, but so far, there have been enough interesting storylines to keep my momentum going. The premise is a genuinely sweet and interesting one and some of the changes from the source material have been benificial to the show. For one, Fiona (Minnie Driver takes over the role from Toni Collette) is a much stronger and well-defined character. Additionally, the inclusion of Dakota (Talladega Nights' Leslie Bibb) as Will's object of desire and Fiona's confidante is a smart one.

I originally stated that I enjoyed Will's lack of definition for his own life before Marcus came along. The TV show has shifted to a more definable problem for Will. With his friends settling down, he feels left behind and detached from his own peer group. This is a relatable problem and one that gives more impetus for his relationship with Marcus. I'm behind this!

Lastly, it's worth noting that Marcus doesn't sound like much of an 11-year old. He's supposed to be written as a kid burdened by having forced to have grown up too fast. Still, he's a bit too self-aware and his dialogue seems kind of stilted. Cracked columnist Robert Brockway once wrote that Hollywood needs to hire children to hang around writers rooms so writers can listen to what children actually sound like. This show seems like a good use for that idea.
 

Suburgatory-I'm still loyal to this show but it's with some definite hesitation that I continue to watch it.

Suburgatory was a revelation in its first year for it's wicked satirical bent. Unfortunately, the show's greatest strength has also limited its shelf-life. For its satire to hit the sharpest, the show was reliant on its two protagonists being fish out of water.

Unfortunately, this didn't last long. In the second season,  Tessa and George got more acclimated to Chatswain and entered into romantic relationships with the locals which took away their status as outsiders. Tessa couldn't snidely comment on the inanity of Chatswainians if she was dating one of them. Similarly, George had much less ground to be befuddled by Dallas if he actually committed to her as a life partner.

Now in the third season, we find Tessa and George out on the other end of those relationships but it's not the same. Most of the plots have been soapy. The biggest conflict surrounding Tessa is whether she gets over Ryan or not. When Tessa does start to get hypercritical of the environment around her again, it seems a little disjointed.

The issue of culture clash was brought up in the third season episode "About a Boy-Yoi-Yoing" wherein George and Fred decide to take a trip to the city to get out of the country club lifestyle. Unfortunately, this was relegated to a B-plot and much of the story line didn't take place in Chatswain.

Still, there have been a few highlights. The engagement between Lisa and Malik was a sweet moment and it was wise for George and Nora (the wonderful Natasha Leggero) not to pursue a relationship. The show also had a very strong outing in the episode where Tessa joined a cult.

Glee starts a new season

Glee is a show that invites the viewer to celebrate the here and now of the show without thinking too hard about how that specific episode ties coherently into any other episode. The list of "headscratchers" (or plot holes) listed under Glee on TVTropes.org is immense. One would figure that the majority of Glee viewers have decided that the best way to enjoy the show is not to take it at face value.

But to become invested enough into the show that you're at the "never want to miss an episode" level, you have to understand that the show does have an internal logic that simply doesn't exist in normal space or time.

The show's about the rush of school from the perspective of a student caught up in the whirlwind of it. When you're in high school, popularity often feels like the be-all-end-all goal of your experience.
 
You might go through high school without ever getting slushied, but the (admittedly, often exxagerated) fear that you'll get picked on for not being in the in-crowd is often very real and almost universal.

It's true that there might be a lot of colleges out there and viewers thought it was silly that Kurt and Rachel thought their life was over if they didn't get into NYADA and Finn didn't think he'd be able to go to college as if FAFSA didn't exist. But to a high school kid who doesn't know any better, getting into your first choice college choice seems like the most important thing in the world.

Glee's decision to continue the characters past high school could be seen as a cheap and easy way out. In fact, a quick glance at this past summer's entertainment news confirms that keeping Kurt and Rachel on the show was the cheap and easy way out. At the same time, the decision to keep Kurt and Rachel makes complete sense from the aforementioned point of view.  I'd even argue that there'd be less truth to a high school show that graduated its seniors and released them from the cast.

Again, high school experiences are highly varied but anyone who had a relatively good high school experience knows that high school doesn't end when you graduate. A part of you stays there for quite a while and there's often an internal struggle between how much to keep in touch with old friends verse making new ones. In that vein, everyone who goes back to homecoming freshman weekend feels like Kurt did when Sue Sylvester commented on how pathetic he was for sticking around.

So while there wasn't anything notably outside my expectations with this week's Rachel subplot -- which can be condensed to Rachel finds New York is tougher than she thought -- the general sentiment of her arc felt true to the show. Not to mention, the show hit these themes very nicely with Kurt.

As for Kate Hudson, it's kind of nice that the part of resident bitch/foil has shifted away from Sue Sylvester but because she doesn't have that tongue-in-cheek delivery or funny dialogue, its kind of a waste.

As for things back at McKinley, the Glee club lost Finn, Kurt, Quinn, Puck, Rachel, Sanatana, Chang, and Rory. Of the remainder, Artie and Tina have never been particularly interesting, Sam's "I'm secretly poor" angle has run its course; and Brittany and Blaine become less interesting with the loss of Santana and Kurt. In this sense, the episode's theme about who to replace Rachel is apt because it doesn't seem like a lot of star power is left.

Fortunately, the newcomers look promising on the whole. I'm disappointed to see the poor angle played again with Marlee but the lunch lady plot was fairly effective and the actress plays the part in a very eager and genuine way which works for me.

Several aspects of Wade's plot were troublesome to me. First off, his desire to be a drag queen seems incompatible with transferring to a public high school: Wasn't Dalton the paragon of tolerance and McKinley its antithesis? It's also worth pointing out that cross-dressing is not allowed in most school dress codes. More to the point, the transformation of Wade to Unique was more ideal to a multi-episode arc. His desire to dress as a woman was insignificant and just plain weird because the why of it wasn't explained and (admittedly, I did likely miss the episode(s) where Wade debuted) and its hard to get invested in the struggle if it is surmounted within the first episode. It also does a great disservice to the LGBT movement because it's a missed opportunity to explain why someone his age would cross-dress.

The character of Jake Puckerman (Jacob Artist) is a little different than his half-brother Noah: Although they both had difficulty with authority, one's an underachiever, the other's an overachiever, and I appreciate that distinction. I also should note that I read no preview of any kind for the episode and did not see that plot twist coming.

Elsewhere, there's a new bitchier version of Quinn that will pick up the venom as Sue softens up. Although Kitty seems like a flat character and will probably remain so, her addition could be the show's saving grace.

Personally, I stopped watching Glee somewhere in the back 9 of last season. I started cringing as Quinn and Rachel became besties, Sue resolved to help the Glee Club, and Karofsky revealed his crush on Kurt. It was essentially the equivalent of the group high five at the end of a Saved by the Bell episode where the kids all learned a lesson and everyone's friends again. To give the closing episodes of a three year arc a joyous tone wasn't necessarily a bad idea, but this tone was stretched out over several episodes which took away from the drama.

In short, throwing in a new foil and having the Glee club fall from grace is what the show needed. Sue was getting too soft and even this show should have a limit over how many times they can revert Sue to her original grouchy form before believability is strained. I'm not sure if this new cast of characters can provide the necessary character drama to make Glee work this season, but it's a welcome change and a good start.

American Horror Story from a cultural vacuum

There’s nothing like watching a TV show in a vacuum, by which I mean not having read a single review, critical analysis or piece of press before digging into a program so you’re free to form your own opinions. I suspect that there would be a lot less groupthink (deemed by myself to be measured by critical agreement) on shows if critics didn’t spend good chunks of their time philosophizing together about what makes shows like Community or Parks and Recreation (I like one of those two) so great.

Catching up on the series several months after the fact, I had little choice but to watch American Horror Story in a vacuum in order to avoid spoilers. It was precisely because of that solitude that the experience was so exhilarating. I couldn’t afford the luxury of complaining about maladjusted plot twists or nonsensical plots because I was too distracted trying to piece together what I was seeing. Other critics, in the meantime, enjoyed a think-tank effect: Comments on the A.V. Club message boards, reading of press material, or talking about the show on the twittersphere allow for the combined efforts of hundreds of people to decipher together clues. The experience of deciphering what you’re seeing becomes so much easier that you don’t get the full experience.

The end result is this jaded review from the highly-respected (and not necessarily wrong) critic James Poniewozik of Time Magazine. Poniewozik is a self-admitted heavy twitter user as well:

“A silly assault of whatever crazy ideas Murphy and Falchuk wanted to throw in there (Ghosts in gimp suits! Naked Dylan McDermott! Shape-changing maids!) mixed in with some performances that at least got the joke (Jessica Lange, mostly) and others that unfortunately didn't (Connie Britton), all of it so fast and relentless and loud that little of it had the intended impact on me.”

I don’t disagree with Poniewozik’s “fast and relentless” assessment. I found the experience of watching the show’s first couple episodes jarring, but it was a disorientation that grabbed my attention. Sticking with the show paid off primarily because of the rather artful way in which the pieces of the puzzle fit together. It’s not unusual for a show these days to follow in the footsteps of "Lost" and arc its episodes in complex ways, but for a Ryan Murphy show, I found a surprising amount of internal consistency in all the plot threads. Combined with Murphy’s strengths (yes, he has them, or why else would we be watching Glee?), particularly his ability to juggle a large number of eye-popping flashy characters within a 42-minute frame, I’d call this show novel in a unique way. Equally good is that the show’s episodes work very well as stand-alone episodes. I particularly was fascinated by all the faux mythology that the 2^nd episode, “Home Invasion”, was built around. In a vaccum, I’m restricting myself from looking up if it was based on anything historical, but that’s certainly more than enough to spark curiosity.

I will, however, concede to the haters that Ben and Vivian don’t make an engaging center for the story and that the show deserved better leads for its inaugural season. In my admittedly limited experience with Connie Britton and Dylan McDermott, neither has ever worked for me. Britton is most closely linked in TV land with Friday Night Lights which I have not seen. I remember her more for her role in the erosion of the character of Mike Flaherty by playing the transformation of Nikki from pining subordinate to demanding girlfriend so poorly.

I also strongly question why some of the characters are so nonchalantly evil. Echoing the growing sentiment that Murphy (and his two co- execs) didn’t always have a handle on how dislikeable characters like Kurt or Mr. Schu could be on Glee, I found Tate to be a more disturbing, dark, and unpleasant personality and I get the sense that he was written more sympathetically. Ghost or not, Tate is the equivalent of a serial killer and has done some awful things: Deflowering Ben’s daughter, tormenting Ben, sleeping with Ben’s wife under false pretenses, and killing the gay couple. He should have inspired Sylar-like levels of in-universe dread and had his own Vaderish evil theme by episode six. Instead, the daughter hangs around him and the dad just has a casual attitude of “I can’t treat you anymore here, but maybe around the corner in the coffee shop.”

Similarly, the character of Larry Harvey (Dennis O’Hare) added to the mix as a sometimes useful juxtaposition with the rest of the gang who all sport faces that aren’t disgusting. Of all the puzzle pieces that came together, Harvey’s story never had me invested to figure out the truth to his story and, somehow, he didn’t feel satisfying. Logistically, I also question why he would nonchalantly kill Hayden.

On the whole, though, I think story dominated over any weak links in the characters, and except for the leads, no one was unengaging.

Playing GM of television: 2010-2011 Season

I saw this post by Andy Daglas the other day, in which he plays out a hypothetical scenario wherein he can trade TV characters from show to show as if he were a sports GM.
http://www.chicagonow.com/the-vast-wasteland/2011/12/hot-stove-tv/

1.    Sheila Shay (Ana Gasteyer) from Suburgatory to Revenge in exchange for Nolan Ross

Ana Gasteyer will fit right into the Hamptons and imbue the melodrama with a little bit of humor. Nolan Ross will move across the street in Sheila's place and give Tessa a more competent partner-in-crime than the overly affable Malick. Against the monotoned Dahlia and the Dahlia-like girls at her new school, Tessa needs all the help she can get.

2.      Tate (Evan Peters) from American Horror Story gets sent to In Treatment in exchange for Adele (Amy Ryan). Constance (Jessica Lange) gets loaned out.

Tate needs someone effective to help cure his problems. Ben (Dylan McDermott) clearly can’t do the trick and is secretly enabling Tate’s ghost-murdering ways. On Dr. Paul’s (Gabriel Bryne's) turf, Tate will finally get fixed and if you throw Constance in for a few guest spots, it’ll be a fun family session. 

In the meantime, Dr. Ben needs some help himself. The striking Adele will jump in and fix the damage and, yes, the two will probably either bang or have an emotional affair, but that's the best thing that can happen to him. His marriage to his wife is clearly in trouble. His first thought when his wife wanted to move because of possible ghost sightings was to throw her in an institutionalize her. 

 3.      Annie, Senor Chang, and Pierce get sent from Community to Glee in exchange for Sue Sylvester and Quinn Fabray (pre-wheelchair)

Abed and Troy need a more superficial and acerbic girl (possibly one who they might have more sexual tension with) to pal around with. With the temptation of Annie out of the way, Jeff doesn’t get the scarlett letter for bedding a barely legal coed, and Annie, as a peppy student assistant to Mr. Schu, gets better storylines to people closer her age. Plus, most of the guys will have crushes on her and the potential shipping combinations will be mind-boggling.

Meanwhile, Sue is getting tiring with her redundancy in trying to destroy the Glee club. As a pregnant P.E. teacher, she becomes the gang’s new nemesis, while Pierce boasts an attribute even deadlier than what Sue had: Crankiness. He won't even let Mr. Schu get through half a song without telling him to shut up, throwing some old-timey racist insult at one of his students, and boring them with stories. 

Lastly, Sr. Chang will be Michael’s crazy uncle who will have a Holly-Holliday-like 3-episode arc as Mr. Schu’s substitute upon a bad case of food poisoning. Chang gets fired once it’s discovered that he doesn’t have substitute teacher credentials but it will have been a fun ride.

4. 3-Way Trade: Jonothan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) of Bored to Death goes to Community, the rights to  John Goodman go to The Office, and Ryan Howard and Kevin Malone go to Bored to Death

Community needs a nerdy intellectual guy like Ames for a foil. A professor a few years younger then Jeff Winger who thinks he's six times smarter than him will irk Jeff. He'll also majorly crush on Britta and never ever get anywhere close to winning over her affections.

I don't want whatever character John Goodman plays to go over to The Office but just John Goodman and his comedic gifts and allow the Office writing staff the opportunity to mold a good character for him. I've never been in love with Goodman but I think with his bellowing, hefty frame, he could be a tough guy akin to Idris Elba's character and I could trust him to restrain the manic unpredictable energy that the writers have tried to infuse every manager with post-Michael Scott (Will Ferrell is an unusually bad example).

Lastly, maybe the only guy in the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin with a master's degree needs to figure out what to do with himself since he can't be a temp forever and still is too fearful of going to Thailand. So he moves to this hipster enclave of Brooklyn where people get him and works on writing a tell-all novel about his rise and fall from temp to CEO to temp again of the world's zaniest paper company. And the show goes all meta- because he will meet Steve Carell and Greg Daniels and try to persuade them to star in a TV show based on his book. Kevin Malone will also, by some coincidence too crazy for me to even come up with a plausible explanation for (although the Office writer's room will know how to handle this perfectly, transitions of power that make no sense seem to be their specialty lately), end up in Brooklyn too where he will reunite with long-lost brother Zach Galifianakis.

5. Twofer from 30 Rock gets traded to New Girl in exchange for Winston, Frank from 30 Rock gets traded to Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23 in exchange for Eli

I'd hate to see Winston leave the gang, but realistically, the chemistry between the other three is strongest, and the fussy Twofer might bring in a little more of a clash with the other roommates. Can you imagine the hidden resentment a law school dropout like Nick would have for a guy with the command of the English language that Twofer has? Winston wouldn't be the complete antithesis of Tracy Jordan that Twofer was designed to be. He wouldn't be the polar opposite of Tracy, but he'd add a lot of life and personality to the 30 Rock writers room

Meanwhile, Frank was born to play the combination  tambourine-playing health-inspecting simultaneously-creepy-and-non-threatening guy next door that Eli currently inhabits and Eli is the perfect compliment to Jenna who needs a stalker on top of his game.

6. Free agent Josh (Lonny Ross) from 30 Rock gets picked up by Up All Night

I've only seen two episodes of Up All Night, but it's a show about a TV show and Josh and his sex addict of an agent need another crack at a television show, so Josh becomes faux-Oprah's sidekick

7. Howard and Raj get traded from Big Bang Theory to 2 Broke Girls in exchange for Oleg and Han Lee. Stuart will be signed to a full-season contract.

Two Broke Girls has two strong leads with two appalling secondary characters while Big Bang Theory has...er, well, basically the same thing, but what if we could take Howard and Raj and exchange them for walking stereotypes Oleg and Han-Lee. As Daglas pointed out when he made an almost idential trade, said, we need a Lenny and Squiggy for this Laverne and Shirley. I don't think Oleg, Han Lee, Howard or Raj combined could equal one Squiggy in terms of mating desirability, but Raj and Howard would be a massive improvement over Oleg and Han Lee. Raj would keep his mouth shut a lot more than Oleg, and Howard would come onto the girls plenty, but at least Max will know how to handle him. She'll probably punch his lights out, which is what Howard would need. The caveat, Howard has to break up with Bernadette (maybe temporarily).

In the meantime, Han Lee will put a face on the restaurant that the guys and Penny order their Chinese food every other night, while Oleg will serve as the pervy landlord super.

Because you'll need to round out the gang, comic book geek Stuart will return to school to get a higher degree and become a lab assistant and fill out the three's lunch table conversations.




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Season Premiere Catch-Up: Random Thoughts on Glee's "Purple Piano Project"

Some random thoughts on Glee after waching the season opener:
-I did not expect Schuster or anyone in the New Directions to confront Santana's dual alleigance because it's already the white elephant in the room. In other words, it was already implausible that Santana would still be in the Glee club after sabatoging them at regionals the first season. Sue's 3-year long vendetta against the Glee club isn't really plausible either, so at this point, it probably would have been better to run with it rather than call attention to it.

-I thought the only real good part of the episode was the change to Quinn. Very interesting and intriguing things going on with her, although who knew such wierdos existed at that school. Weren't Tina and Mercedes the absolute biggest outliars in the school season 1? And if the "skanks" existed in the Glee Universe that early, they were the same kinds of people Tina and Mercedes (and Zicsees) would have befriended. Plus they looked like Zizes and Mercedes.

-Sam (Chord Overstreet) really balanced out the cast as the most normal kid. I hope that's not the last we see of him.

-I think the main problem is the reset button is going on too much, which is somewhat similar to complaints I've heard before. There's only so many times the resolve of the Glee club and Will's patience against Sue can be put to the test and have the drama hold up.

-Blaine transferring is really troubling to me. Does he even have parents? No person, gay or straight, would or should ever succeed in convincing their parents to let them go through the trouble of transferring schools just so they could be wth their significant other, given how volatile high school romances are. Or ESPECIALLY NOT to be in a different glee club, there are 7 periods a day of actual school, that parents would also base that decision on.

-As for the girl who wasn't good enough to sing, isn't there an entire music department with a choir class at the school to accomodate her? Just like any other school? I also don't think it's as morally interesting of a case as Mr. Schuster makes it out to be: If you have auditions and you're not cutting people, than what's the point of the auditions? That's what they call sign-ups and that means anyone can join. To have a program where anyone who meets a certain bar is admitted is already a pretty generous policy, anyways.

How to watch Glee: Two Parts Camp, One Part Reality

This past year as I've made connections with the TV critical community and have read a lot of TV criticism (as a byproduct of being considered for the AV Club's TV Club), I've found it very amusing to watch critics try to make sense of something like Glee. Co-produced by Ryan Murphy, known for his past successes with Nip/Tuck and the cult hit Popular, Glee is a show that's impossible to ignore. The show has high ratings, accolades, and drives water cooler talk among both the young and the not-so-young.

The show is, at times, undeniably original, bold, entertaining, and capable of being brilliant. At the same time, it's a melodramatic mess. There are great problems with continuity with characters blatantly changing to fit whatever the episode's theme of the week is.

To an extent, I watch Glee the same way I watched the 1960's Batman TV series. The show was universally defined by anyone writing about it as "Camp." "Camp" has always been one of those words that is difficult to define and it's equally puzzling to understand why I like watching it.

Let me take a shot at it:
I might have been laughing at the over-the-top nature of the content but that doesn't mean I'd classify the show as a comedy. Laughing at an awful movie like the robots from Mystery Science Theater 3000 doesn't make me want to applaud the filmmakers. The humor was unintentional because neither I nor the filmmakers intended for the film turn out so badly.

Batman fails completely as a crime drama, but it's creators also know that the show fails towards that end. But the key is that Batman isn't aimed at us. It's aimed at kids and as my 8-year-old self can attest, it succeeds at convincing kids that it is a convincing drama. Because the show's standards of good/bad aren't specifically aligned towards me, there's no point in judging the work and I am free to watch with detached amusement.

Likewise, Glee invites the more educated viewers to detach themselves from the inconsistencies of the show as well. This isn't uncommon. It's just like how we're supposed to ignore how entirely unlikely it is for so many murders to occur in a small seaside town of 8,000 in "Murder She Wrote" (let alone how the town could avoid not becoming hollowed out by plummeting property values) or how Adrian and friends are always finding themselves bumping into murderers outside of their line of work (i.e. Randy's dentist is a murder, Julie's class speaker is a murderer, Adrian goes to his college reunion and finds his good friend married a murderer, etc.) on "Monk."

Glee's lack of consistency falls somewhere between camp and parody. It's creators are certainly aware that these characters have flaws, so we should detach ourselves from the exercise of complaining every week of how inconsistent the characters are. That would be like complaining about "Friends" upon discovering that Joey Tribbiani is really an actor named Matt LeBlanc.

Glee also has one other element that we're supposed to realize is not to be taken at face value: The reasons that characters on Glee break out into song are thinly plausible at best. But when you think about it, since the musical genre evolved past the backstage dramas of the 1930's (i.e. 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933), characters have never had any valid reason to spontaneously break out into song. Audiences have just been conditioned to accept that as a convention of MGM musicals (I previously wrote a very good blog post about this). Glee is just not shy about exposing these same conventions. Much like Austin Powers overpiles the dry witticisms after he kills someone and makes the audience more aware of the convention's ridiculousness, Glee has fun with the conventions of musicals. It's half-parody. It's also a good excuse for some musical numbers.

So, to watch Glee take the continuity and the song transitions with a grain of salt. The rest is legitimately good, wholesome narrative. It might be confusing to sort out at first but try it.