Monsters of Television

“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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“I am currently having a drinking problem.”

How mad do you think this guy was when Phillip Seymour Hoffman made it big?

I seriously just about gave up on this series.

I’ve already talked about how confused it is, hiring comedic actors to play dramatic roles on a series sold as a dramedy leaning more toward the “edy” than the “dram.” One week it’s all about the city being important as setting and the next week we switch to Mayberry instead of a unique metropolitan area. “Love Me Tender” starts off Dwight’s intuition running rampant as he observes a jumper (yes, apparently detectives get called on the scene for negotiation scenes, too) and, from his mismatched socks and still wearing a ring, calls that the guy wants to kill himself over a woman. I mean, the dude’s socks might as well have lit up non-diegetically after a quick push-in. So on top of this mess, we’re going to throw a little bit of Psych and The Mentalist (the Psychalist?), too? The episode goes on to half-assedly imitate a police procedural (specifically SVU without the charisma) and, somehow, make Southerners looks soft on crime (I’ll get into the details after the jump).

What’s more frustrating is that my hypothesis from my review of “Baby, Let’s Play House” doesn’t really pan out here since the lyrics of “Love Me Tender” don’t apply. There is a couple and, possibly, they might like the song. That’s about all the nuance this episode could muster.

I watched this with someone that hadn’t seen an episode before and felt compelled to apologize for that mess.

But then “Polk Salad Annie” showed me a glimmer of hope. A faint glimmer but some shiny bit of possibility all the same. It was like a show that finally coalesced, the puzzle pieces fitting together from all angles. It felt like they might actually be in Memphis. The detectives were investigating a case they belonged on. And it had comedy. And not just comedy but comedy that utilized the peculiarities of the comedic actors properly (for the most part). It wasn’t perfect but it was something. I’m looking for anything now.

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“I am very offended.”

The little girl in the front might soon regret being a part of this contribution to stereotype and tired chicanery.

When I first watched this episode, I had very little to say about it.  I knew the concept of “rules” and “breaking them” would be the subject of my post but I had very little else to discuss.  And that disturbed me a little.

I love Psych.  If there was any team I would like to support/hang out with/get paid to work with, they would be at the top (maybe tied with Chuck).  So, like many of us, I looked forward to the return of the USA summer season (a subject receiving quite a bit of media and academic buzz recently) and watching Shawn and Gus quickly put to bed the dramatic ending of last season.  And they do.  The effects of the Yin-Yang plotline appear thinly in this episode and are resolved at the end (more or less), predictably in a way that we don’t have to worry about them again until, oh, let’s say the fall hiatus.  Not that that’s necessarily a bad or good thing.  But, if you watch the show, you know that’s just what they do.  Psych is not a soap opera and emotional crises don’t last long.  This is a show that pops in the summer.  Who wants heavy emotional intrigue in June-July-August?  This is beach reading, my friend.

That being said, the show has also matured over the last few years (now being the veteran series in USA’s stable) and has introduced new elements into the dynamic between characters (namely Henry becoming officially responsible for Shawn’s actions rather than working pro bono and making Shawn free to officially woo Julliet).  Although, with so many things trying to happen in the opening episode (sweeping the old under the rug while establishing the new), the season premiere didn’t have the pop that Psych is known for.  Instead, we get thinly-veiled stereotypes (with a dash of minor racism) and a lot of set-up.

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“Do your thing, Dirty Harry.”

Peter: “How can I be cool again?” Mozzie: “First, I’d have to disabuse you of the notion that you were ever cool before.”

USA keeps reminding me their programming focus is on character. And that might be the only reason I’m coming back to White Collar.

The kinks in the partnership between Neal and Peter have been worked out from a chemistry perspective if not narratively. The glimmers of hope for a great buddy cop show (with federal-agent-procedural stakes) have been more or less fulfilled, demonstrated by Neal and Peter’s first conversation. Neal is no longer the criminal Peter feels he has to be skeptical of. They’re partners now and, while the cop in him is still skeptical, Peter is willing to accept the sketchier parts of Neal’s life (i.e. Mozzie) in order to maintain the friendship.

And that’s what this first episode is all about: the further establishment of the trust bond between these two former rivals, the progression of their mutual respect. Neal continues his track of warming to rule of law and Peter finds deeper sympathy for the devil. Every step of this episode is to further demonstrate how good a team they’ve become, from Peter’s restrained desperation to get Neal back on the force to their non-verbal (or monosyllabic) communication to Peter’s desire to find ways into Neal’s probably grief-stricken head. The stuff with Mozzie is very telling of the esteem in which they hold each other (because Mozzie wouldn’t trust Suit if Neal didn’t trust him). Other characters fall to the wayside in pursuit of this establishment but, let’s face it, even though Neal’s realtionship with her is funny and Peter’s sweet, no one is watching this show for Elizabeth Burke (who makes a single, superfluous, green-screen appearance).

Here’s the thing: as nuanced and developed as the characters are, I’m not sure I could care less about the story.

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Lyrics: “Baby, Let’s Play House” (Elvis Presley version)

“Oh, that’s where we buried this show’s nuance. I knew it was around here somewhere.”

My mother is a huge Elvis fan, not in the worst psychotic “He’s Alive and He Sings to Me in My Dreams” way. He’s like a member of our family, some long-lost relative that passed before I was born that my mother loved dearly and can only remark, “If only you’d known him you would understand.” His name is often delivered in the dimunitive (the “l” is dropped to accomodate the cute tone she takes), his picture is on the wall next to her children, and her Facebook wall is a constant feed of black and white videos of the man in his prime.

The fandom, however, has only presented itself this heavily in the last few years (she was a superfan as a kid though, probably a big reason as to why my similar-looking father could tie her down) as her kids get older and she is able to follow her own pursuits. Unfortunately for her, she had three snarky boys and she’s made of mercilessly with such cleverness and dry wit she can only laugh.

So, what does this have to do with Memphis Beat? My brothers and I have so much fun at her expense that we never really care to much about the validity of Elvis’s music; it’s one of those foregone conclusions that his impact on music and celebrity was monumental but not our cup of tea. I’m not big into rhinestone jumpsuits or large-scale Vegas acts. But this show hints at caring very deeply about Elvis, possibly (and I’m just assuming here) basing episodes on song titles. With that perspective, this show gains some cool points because, with the songs coloring the plot of the show, the characters gain nuance and depth, something the pilot lacked for me. There are still hurdles to leap but here’s my case for this program.

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“There are women that work around here that do not want their papers illuminated by nipples.”

“What the hell am I doing here?”

Have mercy, indeed.

Pilots are a tricky sort, what with having to establish characters and tone all within the same amount of time that, from then on, you can tell a cohesive story. It’s why pilots often lean on archetypes in order to get the ball rolling. This is the no-nonsense Mother Hen. This is the Damaged Yet Intuitive Detective. This is DJ Qualls. The point is to give people the basic equipment they need to inderstand the show and then throw in the curveballs when they’re on board.

The hope is that your marketing department doesn’t screw you.

The thing about this show is that it’s kind of like In the Heat of the Night except with Jason Lee and DJ Qualls, meaning they are similar in that they are cops and they are in the South. Jason Lee, whose most dramatic role to date is the skateboarding eccentric in Mumford and DJ Qualls, the guy who looks like he was touched by the Cocoon aliens a little too early in life (because he never grows old and he’ll never die) bring a certain stigma with them, especially when Jason Lee speaks in the same Southern drawl he used in his last series, My Name is Earl. They are comedic actors and TNT sold that to me by putting all the “funny” parts in the trailer, including parts where Lee is an Elvis impersonator. Lee and Qualls hijinks as cops in Memphis while Lee moonlights as Elvis in his off-time? Let the hilarity ensue!

So why am I not laughing?

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Since I hit the age that I could watch late-night without worrying about my bedtime, Conan has been my guy. Leno was always too pedestrian, Letterman wasn’t on NBC (I had brand-loyalty from an early age), and Conan spoke to my sense of humor, oddly-shaped as it was by Ren & Stimpy and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. As his show got glossier, more refined, intelligent even, it almost felt like it grew up with me. Hearing about his getting The Tonight Show was almost like hearing about my own triumph. That’s my guy, the shock of red hair that was on mainstream media yet still kept a low-profile. His success was only exciting to me and maybe a handful of others I knew but it was like a new age was coming and, for kids like me that wanted to be in the content-creation business, his arrival to a flagship program could only be a sign of great things.

Then six years passed and Conan got his show and, for some reason, I fell off. And I wasn’t alone. And NBC hemorrhaged viewers in all facets of the network. And Jay Leno’s 10 o’clock gig failed as miserably as everyone thought it would. And Conan was being pressured to build up the audience it took Jay years to scrounge up. And the network did some things that not only violated the scrap of brand-loyalty I had left but also cast my guy out. My guy! Conan was classy about it, made it about business but also about the tradition and history his silly little show got to be a part of.

This is all stuff you already know. What is important to this story is what happened after and why his eventual national tour (titled as a slap in the face to the network that spurned him) is the way it was. This wasn’t his late-night show taken for a ride. This wasn’t a chance for him to test new material for his new show on TBS. This, instead, was a celebration of years of branding and how Conan’s iconography swelled from being a recognizable figure to a cause. This is also the story of how this tour was not just a celebration of the cult of personality known as Team CoCo but also how this was a chance for us to say goodbye.

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“I’m sorry for needing you.”

Don’t cry, Hugh Laurie. Not every finale can be a homerun.

Seriously. If you liked this episode of House, I’m not sure we can be friends anymore.

Season finales on this show are events, the showrunners’ opportunity to fully utilize the talent they were blessed with in actors/characters, all the budget they can muster, and forward-thinking writers/producers. For instance, the big hullabaloo about this episode, from months ago, is that it was shot on a consumer-expensive DSLR, not a big honking HD camera. Interestingly, that was all anyone wanted to talk about when discussing the episode. Not the inevitable monkey wrench the finale would toss into the well-oiled machine that is the House formula, not what would happen to some of the characters. No, no. It was only about the Canon 5D. And I can imagine the reason was because no one wanted to talk about the actual content at all.

Because it stinks.

We’ve come to expect cliffhangers (a serious rarity on this show that we’ve come to expect) and heavy distortion of House’s vision of reality. Recall the episode where House was shot and he slipped in and out of subconsciousness or the one where he’s trying to figure out how he got on a bus with Amber (you know, the one with Fred Durst) or the one where drugs were making him hallucinate going through withdrawls with Cuddy by his side. I suppose now that he’s clean, we’re supposed to accept that these forays into the surreal would be obliterated by sober reality.

But who knew House’s actual life was so juvenile and miserably melodramatic?

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“I’m going to sing now.”

“Adam, stop doing your Taxi Driver impression. No one is talking to you.”

I had a hard time picking out an opening quote for this episode. There were so many choice lines from Max’s celebrations of Haddie’s new hair color (“You look like a panther. Or a vampire from Twilight.”) to characters asserting series theme-summations (“You be a man, dad” or “I consider myself too big to fail”). One of the goals when writing television/film is to temper realistic dialogue with dramatic substance. If it’s all “realistic,” it might come off “banter-y” (and, at times, robbing the emotion of a scene). If it’s all dramatic, it turns out to be a Nic Cage flick. A balance is necessary and has been a goal for this show from the beginning.

We’ve discussed the “Robert Altman scenes” between siblings in this series, scenes where the characters (typically the adult Braverman siblings) talk over each other, have natural cadence, and laugh at each other (a crime many shows commit, especially sit-coms, where people will say something funny but no one will laugh diegetically). The comfortable, conversational tone between them is often tempered by dramatic, sometimes poignant, scenes from the characters when they’re without the other siblings. This is a balance the series has been hoping to hone throughout this half-slate and this season finale is the culmination of that practice, an execution of character and narrative that shows real potential for next season. Although, I’m not sure where next season is going.

I think they might be writing Julia off.

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