Monsters of Television

Don't let his mild-mannered career fool you--dude is Bad Ass.

I read some comments on Twitter that suggested this episode started slow and got bogged down in flashbacks. Allow me to disagree. Sure, the flashback stuff can distract from the always-more-interesting awesomeness of the present moment, but there was much goodness to be had this week.

Right at the top of my “goodness” list is Alaric Saltzman. Can I say enough about why this character rules me? Important to note: Alaric? Not undead. Yet he still manages to be quite the badass. As the show’s coolest humans, aka guys who don’t take guff from vampires, I kinda want Ric and Uncle John to form a bromance. Course, I haven’t actually seen Uncle John kill a vampire, have I? So maybe he isn’t good enough for Ric.

Elena and Stefan largely took a backseat this week. Sure, they talked about the past, and that final scene was pretty terrific, but largely, this episode was about Ric and Damon negotiating their friendship. Not sure if I was supposed to read a parallel between Stefan’s relationship with Lexi and Damon’s relationship with Ric, but I won’t mind if it goes that way. There’s a respect between Damon and Ric, solidified this week, that I hope the writers nurture.

There are some issues with this episode.  The rules surrounding the Originals seem awfully slippery–less for logic than for the writers to have an excuse to surprise us.  Trouble is, surprises work best when they are consistent with the world view developed by the show.  Without that, they are cheating and cheap.  But hey, this is a show about vampires so I won’t be too particular about realism.  More troubling is that Damon seemed to have a breakthrough (the bad kind) a few weeks ago–rediscovering his need to suppress all genuine emotion.  Other than feeding on Andie, though, we aren’t seeing much of that.  I hope the show is just taking its time, waiting for the darkness to explode in dramatic fashion.

As for my other favorite, literal bromance—there’s some signs the show is trying to create a divide between our Salvatore brothers. Was wondering when that whole “Damon killing Lexi” thing would come back up. Could be a good way to get Damon to rethink a few things. But more about that…after the jump.

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World's dumbest plans--Werewolves prove once and for all that they are less evolved than vampires.

I’m a bit torn about this week’s episode. Some of my complaints about last week—Are all werewolves naturally sadistic? What the heck does Jules want with Tyler? Does Tyler have any compassion at all for his so-called “friends”?—remained issues for much of the episode. Not that there wasn’t goodness—Damon and Ric bantered like buddies, Jeremy and Bonnie got hot and heavy, Stefan and Elena were crazy cute—but I remain a bit less than satisfied.

This show is repeatedly praised for its fast pacing.  Things happen on The Vampire Diaries.  People die, many people get shot, stabbed, tortured, and lots of couples fall in love.  But without character development, all of that feels empty.  The first half of this season did an admirable job putting Tyler on the path to redemption.  He became sympathetic in his fear and pain, and his friendship with Awesome Vampire Caroline brought out the best in Tyler.  But in the past weeks, Tyler’s story has been pushed to the sidelines.  Even though the wolves have been the primary actors–doing all kinds of stupid things with the goal of getting Tyler and getting revenge–Tyler has not been given a chance to process all these actions.  He has followed other people without much comment and without a true crisis of self-preservation versus a duty to others.  There is much more than could have done with Tyler in the last three episodes.  Sadly, this potential was not fulfilled.  A rare instance of The Vampire Diaries failing to deliver the one-two punch of adrenaline and emotion.

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Just as I was beginning to like you...

I should begin with an apology for the extreme lateness of this post. I was out of town, unable to watch on my usual schedule. And as all fans of The Vampire Diaries know, the CW takes its own sweet time getting new episodes loaded into their video player. Ah, well.  Today I’ll offer thoughts on “Daddy Issues,” and tomorrow I’ll catch up by describing “Crying Wolf.”

In addition to my trip last week, I have experienced another change in my life—my partner has caught up with The Vampire Diaries at long last. We have spent the last two months watching season 1, and in the last week during my absence, he blew through season 2. This means I now have a buddy when watching this pretty great show. But that also means I can’t pause to take notes as I had been doing.

I bring this up because my reviews have gotten longer and longer as I’ve tried to be more and more thorough. This may change as I focus more on the big picture rather than individual scenes.  If I have any regular readers, though, I’m happy to oblige your preferences, so let me know what you think of these monstrously long recaps.  Too much?  Just right? Better to focus on particular scenes of interest rather than detail every scene?  Happy to hear your thoughts in the comments.

It was virtually impossible for me to dislike this episode as it featured the return of Jonathan Gilbert. Uncle John pretty much rules me—not just because I loved Anders on Alias as Sark but also because his character on TVD is wonderfully ambiguous. Just as Damon continually intrigues with his battle between good and evil, Uncle John may also provide a similar satisfaction. I believe he does love Elena, but when someone commits as fully to duty as does Johnathan Gilbert, that commitment may become a mania. Bad for Gilbert, but great for viewers.

The episode also begins and ends with a naked, bathing Damon. Sure, this may seem like pandering, but I am not going to complain. Even better, Awesome Vampire Caroline got a lot of story this week—she became the centerpoint of this week’s central plot and I appreciate how capably Candice Accola portrayed Awesome Vampire Caroline’s torture, anger, and devastation.

Notwithstanding these highlights, the pacing this week seemed to move almost too quickly.  As I’ll describe more fully below, sometimes the characters need a moment to breathe in order to, you know, change and grow.  I’m becoming a big fan of the Tyler-Awesome Vampire Caroline friendship, but I think the show dropped the ball a bit this week.  These two characters made big decisions this week, but we saw little of their process in making those decisions.  In particular, Tyler seemed pretty clueless during the entire episode, and I don’t understand why.  Well, I do understand, but I wish the show would have showed his fear and confusion more clearly. If Tyler is going to become a better person, then show me how and why that is happening, including a more thorough depiction of the motivation behind the setbacks we see this week.

This episode also put Damon in a bit of holding pattern.  Though he makes a number of ironic comments this week that remind viewers of his bid admission last week that he missed being human, he doesn’t actually do much.  Here’s hoping we see bad boy Damon get a bit more to do in the coming weeks.

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Do I see a tear? God, I hope so, you sensitive beast.

The Vampire Diaries is back! The Vampire Diaries is back! Hey, did you hear, TVD is back!!  Okay, now that I have that out of my system, I can move on.

Hate to say it, though, not sure I loved this episode. I liked it. I mean, it featured the return of a character I really like and the departure of a character I really did not. There were two impulsive kisses, a sweet hug between Elena and Damon, and actual, sincere Damon tears! You’d think that would all add up to a truly excellent episode. So, let’s try to figure out why I’m not using as many exclamation marks for this particular episode as I would for the series as a whole.

I should also probably issue a small apology to poor, tortured Rose. I’ve been pretty mean to her, and I suppose I liked her character a teensy bit more this week. Sort of. Since she was dying from a werewolf bite, Rose was suddenly all philosophical and telling people to want to live and that kind of stuff. Not sure the character earned all the heartfelt conversation, but since Rose was basically used (and disposed) by the showrunners as a tool more than a character, I can appreciate her for the purpose she served with regard to Damon. Because Damon’s story is the only reason to celebrate this episode.  More about that after the jump.

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Quickly becoming TVD's most sympathetic character--who knew?

I cannot believe I am writing this, but here goes. Tyler is my new favorite character on The Vampire Diaries. I know, that is completely crazy, right? He’s a self-proclaimed dick. But among all the various happenings in the most recent episode, his storyline is the most effecting. The performance by Michael Trevino as Tyler is quite strong, and the character may give Damon a run for his money in the clever jackass department. If you read my posts about this show regularly, you know I am a big fan of Awesome Vampire Caroline. And now it seems I have found the best match for her greatness. Really hope the show continues to depict Tyler’s transformation with such honesty and rawness.

It isn’t possible for me to express how moving was Tyler’s transformation and Awesome Vampire Caroline’s refusal to leave him. He was terrified and experiencing shattering pain; all she could do was be with him, but you admire her compassion. I’m super nervous about how Tyler will react when he learns Awesome Vampire Caroline has lied to him (about Mason, about the Salvatores), but I am loving these two as a duo. I should also note that the visual and aural elements of his change were executed in impressive fashion by the program’s technical people—really good work for a show I don’t imagine has a huge budget.

As for the rest of our merry band of warriors, Elijah continues to improve upon his initial awful introduction—he’s becoming a real frightening bad guy. Elena got sidelined for the most part, but even trapped in her home, she proved herself a capable negotiator. And the best news? Someone I hate got bit by a werewolf. What excellent news!

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“The Sacrifice”

Still pretty, but getting way scarier.

Lots of people were doing dumb things to save people they love on this week’s The Vampire Diaries.  Even Damon, who was trying to preach wisdom to Elena about her kamikaze mission, did his own dumb thing.  But when Damon does anything, somehow it seems less dumb, only sexy.  And there was much Damon sexiness to be had.  Perhaps they are trying to make amends for that wretched incident with Rose last week (yep, still hate this character). Maybe they just can’t let go of the tension between Elena and Damon.  Or maybe they know that Damon is why this show sizzles.  Case in point—the first half of this episode was rather lame—and I can only explain it by noting a decided dearth of Damon dash (the alliteration took over—apologies).

Reviewing each episode of a series is a problematic business because it can force a person to make too-firm pronouncements: i.e. episode A was excellent, episode B was crap, and episode C was passable.  When we start debating whether an individual episode was weak, I worry we lose the forest for the trees—after all, I wouldn’t be writing about this show if I didn’t enjoy it with some consistency.  Also, I haven’t yet seen a crap episode of The Vampire Diaries, so when I complain about weaknesses, I’m quibbling.  That said, this episode may be worth exploring a bit deeper to see where the show tends to be weakest in order to highlight why it succeeds as often as it does.

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Danger! This woman believes she always knows "what is right." Proceed with caution.

There are two ways to evaluate this episode, the follow up episode to the brutal depiction of Charlotte King’s rape.

First, you can consider the representation of a social issue–rape and its impact upon a survivor and everyone around her.

Second, you can consider the program as a fictional narrative from the perspective of plot, character, theme, etc.

For me to evaluate this episode, I have to do both because I’m rather torn about this episode.

On the first scale, that of the social issue, the episode is problematic, even disturbing.

On the second scale, that of the fictional series, I will focus on character.  In this, the episode excels.

Quite the conundrum for the review, but here I go…

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She's undead, naked with Damon, and still a crappy character. No fixin' that.

I feel like the writers for The Vampire Diaries have been reading my mind—so many small complaints that I have had in the past weeks were resolved or at least addressed in this week’s episode. Thanks, TVD!

This was another episode where we have more talking than action, but at least we got some good dish and a number of answers. Even better, Elena took matters into her own hands, so this week it was Stefan having to react instead of lead. I appreciate a feisty Elena, and Katherine seems to bring out the best in her. Let’s have these two gals go on a road trip next!

Still not in love with Rose, somewhat ambivalent about the direction Damon seems to be heading, and absolutely uninterested in Elijah (except for that cool trick with the coins!). But putting the spotlight on Elena was fitting, and the series has now erected some impressive obstacles for our newly empowered heroine to overcome. Obstacles = drama, and that’s a good thing.

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The real stars of the CW's Hellcats

We did a series of reviews of new series at the beginning of the season, so I thought I’d check in on one of those series that has managed to hold my attention up to this point.  My attention, though held, could easily get distracted.  Here’s my intervention for the CW’s Hellcats.

If you had asked me at the beginning of the year whether I thought I’d be more likely to be watching Hellcats or Life Unexpected, I’d have said the latter. Turns out, I would have been completely wrong. While back eps of the latter continue to languish on my DVR (amidst news that it is likely to be canceled soon), each week I find myself enjoying Hellcats more and more (primary difference between the two shows?  Hellcats actually features some likeable, 3-dimensional characters, unlike Life Unexpected). Here are a few reasons why I like this show—along with a few frustrations.

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What does this image say to you? Can an image speak?

I have a cute little post about Hellcats ready to publish. It is kinda silly and kinda fun, but I think I’m gonna hold off on that for a moment. Instead, I’d like to offer a few words about Private Practice.

Rape storylines always get me going.  As a former rape victim advocate and all around self-proclaimed feminist, the issue of rape troubles me more than other crimes.  It isn’t that it is a “woman’s issue,” per se, because men are raped, too.  Rather, I am troubled because we, as a society, seem incapable of comprehending the full horror of this crime and its impact.  This week’s episode of Private Practice has invited questions about the limits of television, about its ability to exploit, and about its potential to expose something true.  I think it is an important one to talk about further. So, more about this after the jump.

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