Monsters of Television

MLS MatchDay Live showing what amounted to watching a Benny Hill sketch about soccer.

So I’m watching the MLS MatchDay Live free preview weekend, bored to tears by the Chicago Fire taking on a fledgling Vancouver Whitecaps (in NFL terms, like if the Vikings took on Carolina — yeah, that messy) while missing a blacked out Galaxy/Red Bulls game and can’t help to pay attention to Silverlight-based application I’m using. You see, I’m watching the game on my computer, as I’ve done for many a sports broadcast over the past year or so. Along with this I’ve also enjoyed some Premier League and Serie A soccer on ESPN3 and the NFL on NBC’s Sunday Night Football application.

ESPN has been on the front lines for the industry in terms of technology, first pushing high-definition along with The Discovery Channel (and, arguably, selling the nation on its value) and, now, being on of the first cable networks to offer 3D (no matter how completely ridiculous you think it is for entertainment to sink its money into that pit). Naturally, their ESPN3 nee ESPN360 was one of the first serious internet-based sports viewing applications. As other networks pick up on the trend, and internet-enabled televisions pick up some steam in the marketplace (makes more sense than having to put on battery-powered glasses everytime you want to watch TV), I can see how this could be a testing ground for the grand assimilation of internet and old(er) media. It’s like TV is giving internet a drawer, maybe a key, that could lead to moving in together before eventual marriage.

Other TV streaming options like Hulu or Netflix are great for recorded television but live television is a different animal, especially since it’s a goldmine for data. Gauging audience participation during a live (or first-run) event using the power of the internet? Being able to create your own application for your channel to offer audiences extras and options and your advertisers real-time data and interactivity for promotions? Why wouldn’t you want to do this?

Sports, as a genre with ample live value and strong audiences, is a natural fit for testing the waters in a new manipulation of the medium and the applications are getting stronger. But what’s good and bad about them so far?

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“You’re lucky you’re hot and smart because — well, you’re just lucky you’re hot and smart.”

I’m so glad House is back to catching up on his stories.

Donal Logue guest-starred this week. Obviously, that means House has to be cancelled. Them’s the rules.

It’s always a pleasure (for me) to see Jimmy the Cabbie pop up wherever he can. I also can see that he wants to stretch out his dramatic wings a little bit (something you could see in Terriers, too) but I was a little disappointed Logue had a part that didn’t use his sense of comic timing. Instead, his sad-sack romantic was just a mirror for House and Thirteen to observe their own wistful existentialism, particularly Thirteen since she’s taken the mantle to prove love wrong while House just busies himself with pills.

Usually I don’t like to give away the punch of a story so early in the review but, as has been the case for much of this season, the patient stories were fairly uninteresting compared to everything else that’s going on. Not only did they give House and Thirteen something to talk about but the other ducklings had something to do this week. Except Taub. I suppose with so many spotlights someone’s going to get left in the dark. And if it’s going to be someone, it’s going to be the squatty one.

But some stuff with Foreman and Chase! That’s exciting! Isn’t it?

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“I love this woman.”

A new way for Sarah to be naked and/or wet every week. Who says this show can’t innovate?

I was kind of hoping Dave Thomas and Charlize Theron would be surprise guest stars. And then I realized that was “Mr F” and there was a distinct reason why my search for “Mr X” was coming up with bupkis.

So here we are, into the final three episodes of the season and we’re ready to escalate into the end. This is where Chuck is Chuck, the part of the season that helps us fall right back in love with the show, at its most endearing when no one is watching. It’s also why, when Chuck hurts us so bad later and people start to ask we we’re still in this relationship, we tell them they don’t understand and they don’t really know Chuck the way we do. “You don’t understand OUR LOVE!”

From the title, you can tell we’re being plated with this “Agent X” thing, the condensation of the vapors of a storyline we’ve been sniffing in the latter half of this season as it’s been mentioned by Ellie and the Volkoffs in passing. The search for “Agent X” finally brings about some storylines they’ve been desperately staving off for weeks and weeks. I mean, really, how long could we have Ellie sitting in front of the computer, whining about her dad’s research? This is the episode that sets the table for the rest of the season (kinda) but how the table is set isn’t really as shocking to me as how early the table is set.

And it’s all contained in a little picture of cottage in the English countryside.

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“I’ll see you guys on the flippity-flop.”

I feel like they should’ve hugged it out bitch.

I waited a good long while to watch this episode of The Office. Not from any sentimentality or trying to put off the inevitable. Let me assure you, my feelings for this series very much resemble marriage in a Bronte or Austen novel: I’m only in it for duty. No, my feelings for characters subsided ages ago and I can only hope for the situations to assemble themselves to my sense of comedy. Seems like a low bar, I know (and it is), but you’d be surprised how often my expectations for a show I used to guffaw at no longer hit that shallow height.

But this episode was important and I wanted to give it my full attention, not the divided approach I give Traffic Light or Breaking In where I watch and work on non-TV-related things at the same time. Michael Scott leaving Scranton is a big deal. And with the escalation of emotional intensity up to this point in the season, I was ready for a tearjerker, even from my jaded, cynical, robot eyes.

Consider the exit of John Dorian from Scrubs. I say “exit” despite the fact that he stuck around for a few episodes in that abominable ninth season but, for intents and purposes, “My Finale” was supposed to be JD’s swan song and they went all out. The entire episode is a farewell tour of the hospital, peaking with Cox’s admission that he actually likes JD, followed by the Hallway of Guest Stars and Recurring Characters, and then, in case you were a soulless viewer and still weren’t weepy to that point, they threw in JD seeing his future projected on a screen. To that, even while watching it, I said, “Bill Lawerence, you manipulative bastard.”

Obviously, there’s a certain level of emotional manipulation allowed for these kinds of episodes, particularly when such a beloved or central character exits a series. They can go over the top and not necessarily destroy the tone of the show since it’s expected to be a bit schmaltzy. And with the way things have been going on The Office in the last few episodes, with the proposal and the reworked song from Rent, I was prepared for a doozy, hanky in hand.

Imagine my surprise.

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I wouldn’t leave the room either.

With the Season 2 premiere of Treme on HBO last night, NBC apparently wanted us to observe one of their own man-made disasters. Instead of using an off-night for the networks to catch people up on recent episodes of Chuck, we’re being subjected to a repeat of what I consider to be the worst episode of the series, one that I malign more often than I call for the dissolution of Huddy, more than I champion Peggy on Mad Men. We call that festering, weeping mess “vs The Honeymooners.”

The episode comes right after a high point of the season as the Shaw storyline comes to a close (or at least a temporary hiatus), Chuck defending Sarah by firing an actual gun as a live human being. “vs The Other Guy” was an inspired episode ending with the event even a non-shipper was happy to see: Chuck and Sarah getting together. A lot of complications were in front of them and they brought a lot of baggage into their relationship but, finally, we had some level of real consummation.

And then there was “vs The Honeymooners.”

Some might think I’ve been too hard on the episode, that it was a necessary romp to let the audience have a breather post-Shaw. Perhaps my expectations for the first episode of an official Chucknsarah were too high. I’m a man willing to learn. So I decided, in honor of NBC deeming this particular episode important enough to show you on a break, that I would take another look, enlightened as I am with the gift of hindsight.

And you know what …

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“How long you been playin’, man?”
“Two months. It’s hard.”
“It gets easier.”
“It’s supposed to.”

How could this guy not be evil?

Well. 10 years later and I guess it’s okay to make fun of New York again.

There’s no question from the first season that Treme is a love-letter to the city of New Orleans, at least to everything except its government. Music, food, culture are all mythologized and characters wax poetically about their city more often than Dan Rydell does during those twangy little moments on Sports Night. It’s like that whole “I didn’t know we could do that” schtick except everyone from New Orleans knows they can do it but are drowned by the wreckage of The Storm. The pride and swagger of this city believing itself to be the best place on Earth, in spite of it being smashed into rubble by nature and man’s follies, clashes with our idea that New York, in spite of its own older tragedy, is the jewel in the American crown.

We open up this season of Treme with two characters in New York having their experience colored by renewed and lingering roots in New Orleans combining with some doubts to the validity of New York as “greatest city.” Complicate that with things in New Orleans going swimmingly for some (and minorly less-swimmingly for others) and we essentially have the show presenting a case for why NOLA rules and NYC drools.

Let’s catch up with everyone, including our new resident douchebag character. Could he be more of a jackass than Davis or Sonny?

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“Then neither of us would be exceptional.”

“Omar, if you could step forward a little bit so we can get a clear separation between the pretty people and the frumpy ducklings — thanks!”

The bad news: they did manage to take the spotlight off of what could’ve been a grand re-entry into the fold for Thirteen. The good news: they replaced it with an episode that was good enough for a slow clap.

Last week I predicted that they would flatten Thirteen with the quickness into the pastiche of the other Flat Ducklings, making her a sad shadow (a pale imitation, if I may cull the other definition of pastiche) of her strength in “The Dig.” While the fanfare over her return and the struggle Thirteen might’ve had to go through to get her medical license back would’ve been a little indulgent for House, I was hoping they’d put off the flattening for an episode so we could see Dr Hadley as an “assistant.” Sadly, we don’t have time for that nonsense.

So in the same vein that we saw stellar episodes focusing solely on Cuddy and Wilson (aptly named “Cuddy” and “Wilson”), Masters gets her very own episode as she wrestles with the end of her being a student and, possibly, stepping into House’s world on more permanent terms. So, instead of mooning all over Olivia Wilde’s return to PPTH, we get to watch a lamb lost in the Dark Wood. And we witness it all through the lamb’s beady little eyes.

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“I’ll kill you when the time comes. We can do it now if you like. I think I got a baseball bat in the back.”

“Kneeing Damon Lindeloff in the pants felt really good.”

If the remaining episodes continue the way they have been since “Bombshells,” this might end up being my favorite season of House yet.

I know, I know. I’ve been bellyaching about this season all year, lamenting the impossible union that was Huddy, sniping about Thirteen’s replacement, predicting nothing but doom and destruction for our narrative sensibilities on an essentially bulletproof series. Well, unless they can’t strike a deal.

Now that Huddy is split and House has, more or less, fallen into full-on relapse, I don’t have anything to whine about. Instead, I’ve used my crying time to reflect on the season. Living through it sucked: House was distant from his diagnoses (his puzzles and reason to live) while maintaining an uncharacteristic level of patience with his girlfriend, Masters was a shade of Cameron with potential for complications that were never realized, the other ducklings became two-dimensional shadows of their former selves unless a spotlight shined on them. It was all about enough to turn me off entirely. But, on the whole, the season works in hindsight. If we forget the ridiculous way Cuddy and House got together at the end of last season, we can see Huddy for what it is: an escalation for House’s eventual valley-making crash. Thirteen would’ve been adjunct to this season since her misery would have no company as House experienced his version of bliss. The exploitation of Masters is a missed opportunity but might’ve felt forced anyway with the jaded goblins she works with turning her into one of them. Even though in the back of my mind I knew it all had to come crashing down at some point, I didn’t believe it. And now House as a mess again makes me feel like the season was almost worth going off course to sink him lower into misery than ever before.

And misery sure does love it some company.

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Would a smile kill you guys?

I’m completely over monster movie zeitgeists in our culture lately. The legends of undead villains and armies have been tampered with so much recently that people are running thin on ideas. What’s next? Unearthed mummies involved in romantic comedies? Finding a reason for Dr Frankenstein to make covens of monsters? Would they be covens? Gaggles? Maybe take after crows and be a murder? That might be a little too on the nose.

But it is getting a little silly. Zombies are showing up in remixes of classic literature and are being codified in fake survival guides. The Walking Dead has its heart in the right place (at least they carry on the tradition of zombies not actually being called zombies a la Night of the Living Dead) but is kind of ridiculous in every other aspect of its television being. How long until they go the path of the vampire, the story of whom has become so romanticized in the last decade that it’s almost centrist, somewhere between blood-curdling horror and wacky but lovable character. Do the people on Team Edward ever stop to think that the dude is a monster that drains to empty the blood out of things with teeth like a violent bestial killer while he’s amassed centuries of knowledge in stealth, slaughter, and being sparkly?

Such is the trouble with a lot of the yesteryear’s legends existing in our time of post-modernist reboot. We tire of these larger-than-life icons existing on a plane separate from us. We want to see their human-ish struggle. It’s even evident in superhero reboots, where Superman has a child, Iron Man is dying of the thing that saves him (to be fair, Marvel had a head start on the human hero thing), and Diana is riddled with neuroses as she tries to find a man (is anyone hopeful for the Wonder Woman reboot? I’ve already given up).

The problem with these things isn’t that we want to see these human sides of otherworldly characters. The issue is what we end up doing with them. Vampires have been taken to a treacly place that pop culture begs them to be in, at least a little while, until the backlash comes and they forget all about Sookie and their terrible Foghorn-Leghorn accents to become violent monsters again. No, showing a monster struggle isn’t a terrible thing but there needs to be a balance. Show the drama in a formerly human horror figure dealing with that which makes him or her other. Keep the humanity with the beast because that is the conflict. And Being Human does exactly that.

Didn’t think I’d get back to it, did you?

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“It is good-time-adjacent.”

Get ready.

There are three keys to identifying a “Very Special Episode” of House.

First is the absence of “Teardrop.” Now, I know what you might be thinking: “Teardrop” is absent on many of the syndicated episodes not airing on USA. And you’re right. And you’re being technical. “Teardrop” isn’t around on those episodes because no one wants to pay Massive Attack their blood money. When it’s not in the prime-time version, you can bet it’s because the show needed a truncated opening sequence to pack in all the deliverables for this week. And maybe so they wouldn’t have to pay Massive Attack their blood money.

The second has everything to do with the teaser/cold open. While we’ve dealt with a House distracted from and almost disinterested in medicine all season (much to my chagrin), the teaser here dovetails the height of that distraction into the patient-of-the-week, foreshadowing the rest of the episode. When Cuddy comes out of the bathroom, mentioning she has blood in her urine (and that goes right into our “Teardrop”-less non-credit sequence), we identify that if we know our patient-of-the-week (and it isn’t someone that can easily be killed off in a montage set to a slow ballad, preferably Damien Rice), something’s up.

And, my friends, something is definitely up this week. And I’m almost giddy to talk about it.

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