Monsters of Television

“Muah ha ha.”

Where does one buy villainous trenchcoats?

The spy procedural is based on the “unreliable witness.” Espionage, as a genre, involves a number of “agents” that can turn coat on a dime or, at the whim of the show’s authors, reveal themselves to have always been a double agent without precedent. No character can be trusted with anything. In fact, not even what the audience sees can be trusted since, often, what they see is a biased version of what is actually transpiring. Nothing is reliable, not even what the viewer can testify to seeing. The abilities of spies have risen to superhuman in order to either (a) cover up narrative holes or (b) make an audience believe that this network of subterfuge, obfuscation, and coolness is believable. Spies are the new superheroes because, with a gadget or some sleight of hand, maybe even the opportunity to slip off a dress at a moment’s notices, anything is possible. For reference, see Alias, Burn Notice, or Dollhouse (though the latter has its own complications with the supernatural/extraordinary).

Chuck started like a children’s version of the spy procedural: many of the tricks of the spy trade but with this elementary element that even a goofball can do the job, if a bit clumsily. Chuck as a character is proof that spies have been elevated to something that has normally needed a cape and underwear-on-the-outside-of-the-pants to designate its superiority. We have been led to believe that he is a normal guy given extraordinary power and that is the only way he could possibly compete on the same level as his fellow agents (Walker and Casey) that received “ordinary” spy training. The thread of Chuck’s normal life kept it grounded and almost made it a parody of all those spy procedurals that take themselves so seriously.

But Chuck has been growing up over the past season and a half and has reached a sort of awkward adolescence. While the ending to Season 3 packed a few punches, it is constantly wrestling with the spy procedural genre and that which kept it grounded, a thread that was spinning out of control, the two halves of the show diverging intensely. At the end of this episode, the show seems to have made a choice. And I can’t say it made the right one. Especially since it goes into next season with what might be some heavy intra-network competition.

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“There is no now here.”

Aside from Noel’s review, each of the writers for Monsters of Television will provide their takes on Lost, from their own perspectives. Below are some brief thoughts about why the ending wasn’t responsible for tying it all up in a pretty bow by Nick.

Half past eleven last night was met with a flurry of questions sent into the ether from the viewing party I attended. They weren’t directed at anyone in particular but they weren’t rhetorical either. And though they weren’t necessarily asking me specifically, I, as keeper of the Island for my small community of friends, felt obligated to come up with answers and felt a little like Jacob trying address loose ends, trying to explain the forest when people only really wanted to know about the trees.

That’s been a running theme for this season, trying to convince an eagle-eye audience, trained to pick up on small clues that have enriched its viewing of the series, to dull their visual sense because it was obfuscating the message, to look through the painting and not at the individual brush strokes. That metaphor of “the house was not built for the murder but tbe clues are in the house” was especially apt. Besides, this was the showrunners’ bus and we were just on it. How many ways am I going to figuratively explain this thing before I get to the point? Just enough for me to get to the jump.

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“Of course he’s still alive. Haven’t you ever seen a John Carpenter movie?”

They can see you. And they’re totally grossed out.

So on Tuesday I watched the penultimate episode of Lost, a show with so many plot points and mysteries and characters and secret organizations/alliances/double-crosses/betrayals/dimensions/timelines that no one is certain how they can contain it all in a single series, let alone how to hit on everything from episode to episode. So many loose ends to attack and so many characters to mug. And yet, their episodes never feel like they’re short-changing anyone. Chuck, while having a moderately-sized cast and a certain level of mystery, does not have the ever-expanding intrigue Lost has built in six years but failed tonight with an overpacked episode before the finale.

Now, it’s a little unfair to compare Chuck to Lost since the latter is one of the most narratively complex series since Grey’s Anatomy (I still don’t get that show) and Chuck leans barely enough into drama that it doesn’t have a laugh track. But they are both serialized dramas and Chuck allowed itself to drain the emotion out of an episode to make room for more story, more setup, more threads to continue into the end of this mini-season. And I get that these last few episodes are, in fact, a mini-season, extras tagged onto the end of what the producers felt would be the end of Season 3. But too much was stuffed in here, to the detriment of what could have been.

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“Monday night can be a bit of a wasteland.”

This is a movie I would watch.

All they needed was a shot of Shaw sitting in a cave and telling Chuck to slide.

Though it hasn’t been made explicitly clear, I like to think what has expedited Chuck’s condition (if it was inevitable at all) is PTSD from actively shooting a person. Popping caps into Supes so his drugged-out crush object can push him off a bridge into a river can’t be easy to live with, especially for a pansy like Chuck. The fact that this was never addressed in the shiny, happy episode after (“vs The Honeymooners”) and, really, not until this very week, not only seems weird (Chuck in a de facto red test after an entire series of being afraid of guns would probably be something to talk about) but yet another missed opportunity. But it’s here now and they pull it off.

I’m a sucker for episodes of television where reality is distorted by the subconscious or some kind of cranial malady (drug scenes excluded because they are almost always exceptionally lame) in an effort to create surreal, symbolic visions of reality. Some might see it as a crutch but I see it as a chance to expand story. This belongs to the latter. As we press onward to further the connection between Chuck and his father, bolstered by a sub-A story discussing him, the Intersect co-mingling with Chuck’s deep, dark chemical responses adds a new wrinkle to their storytelling, especially if they tie this into the crushing stress Chuck has to feel with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Possibilities abound. Unfortunately, after “vs The Honeymooners,” I’m wary of what they’ll do with it.

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“Fine. But I’m not saying ‘unconditionally.'”

Oh, Amber.

Earlier in the series, and really throughout, Zeek has acted as the purveyor of the mighty name Braverman, making sure that Jabbar is going to take the name, bucking his children up with phrases akin to, “Hey, come on. You’re a Braverman!” The last name which, let’s face it, sounds a little made up (apologies to any readers surnamed Braverman but, come on, it sounds like a cartoon hero’s alter-ego), is a source of pride for ol’ Zeek. He believes himself the patriarch of nobility (but hard-workin’ nobility). He has two markedly successful children, one who is wildly talented, just trying to get out of her own way, and, you know, Crosby, who’s cool (he might be successful, too, though it doesn’t seem like he ever works). The Bravermans breed pride which makes failure so hard to swallow for them.

Failure is the theme for this episode and not just for the main cast but for the children as well. It was a dangerous and, at times, horribly awkward, time to be a Braverman. Good thing Jabbar hasn’t taken the name yet.

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“He can’t tell his fiancee he’s gay … how is he going to tell her he’s pregnant?”

Men of Team House singing karaoke. Taub doesn’t count.

After giving Taub such a hard time last week, several of my friends told me I should probably take it easy on the poor guy. It’s not his fault that he’s weak and tiny, desperate to validate his achievements through some coworker strange. My friend Ian reminded me he’s the only human left on the show. That’s a good point. Everyone else on the show has vaulted to a point where their once human quirks are now tragic flaws. I mean, Chase killed a dude and possibly saved a country in one episode. There is a legacy around the development of Foreman, Thirteen, and Chase, putting them on tall pedestals from which they can judge and orchestrate things below. Between them, there is almost a mythology. Taub, on the other hand, is human. His flaws are petty, almost pedestrian, by comparison to Thirteen’s self-destructive streak or Foreman’s denial of his past. Taub’s biggest trouble is keeping it in his pants and coping with being a bad liar. He also has to stand against the Greek gods and goddess aesthetically and there’s not much the poor guy can do. Which, of course, makes him a target.

It’s been a while since House took his “relentless torture” game on the road. He’s mostly kept it domestic this season what with his preoccupation in Wilson and Sam. Taub gets flustered easily and, despite his prediliction to this behavior, is not very good at it. So House rides the easy target like he rode everyone in the old days, with a mastery and cunning that almost seems sleepy when compared to his larger triumphs. It’s good to see House returning to the days when was addic– oh no.

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“How you get to sleep at night, man?”
“I drink.”

A star is born.

Three episodes and I don’t think I’ve even mentioned my favorite character on the show yet: Jacques. He’s the sous-chef in the restaurant of my least favorite character, Janette. He is certainly that voice of reason character, the grounded, quiet tranquility behind Janette’s whirlwind disaster. Never has enough lines, never has enough screen time, but always wins the scenes he’s in, especially when it’s a competition between him and Kim Dickens. It’s not that I really don’t like Janette. But she’s like everyone else on the show: a little abrasive. And her storyline of “my bustling restaurant is failing” gets lost in the “I lost my brother in the Storm” and “struggling to survive” storylines. The only bit of drama she’s really had, other than missing bills and screwing around with Davis, is hitting her parents up for cash. She is the character that, if they had to drop for money, no one would miss her. She is what the Lizard Man was to Carnivàle except she’ll probably make it out of the first season.

Her spot as filler on this show really stood out to me in an episode that lacked the power the previous three have had. If this had some build behind it, I’d say this was a breather episode but, really, it’s just a “shuffling” episode. People do things, go on road trips, see who they are in different situations, show a different shade of themselves. And, for once, they didn’t put the episode’s theme in Davis’s mouth.

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“I just want my city back.”

Wake. Ruined.

Note: This post is for last week’s episode of Treme. The post for “At the Foot of Canal Street” is also available.

It took me a while to get into Mad Men. I was well behind (I’m still not totally current) when I someone finally gave me a copy of season 1 for Christmas. I watched an episode here and there, remarking to my friends that the show is very pretty but I was having a hard time getting into it. But then came “Babylon,” episode 6 of the first season. There is an extreme long shot at the end where Joan and Sterling are standing on the same street, waiting for different cabs, she with bird cage in hand and he with a fedora tipped forward to cover his face. It was that moment that I fell for the show. I’ve been hooked since then, even if I only get to watch it between all the other obligations in my life.

I had a moment like that with the end of this episode of Treme. Maybe not as strong as to convince me as that one moment in Mad Men since I still have trouble seeing how this show will sustain itself for a long period of time. But they do have something in common: character is why the audience keeps coming back. While Treme has storylines that may become repetitive and stale when played by ordinary archetypes, these characters are becoming developed enough to keep a viewer returning, especially if they catch the complexity of the writing.

I don’t want you to think I’m writing a love-letter to a show that’s barely started, one that has already garnered so much praise based on its producers and writers, but I am more impressed with the show, that feeling increasing with every week.

This particular episode dealt with the concept of the Other and the constant dance of repulsion and attraction. It isn’t as obvious at first, but stick with me and maybe I’ll make a convincing case for you.

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“I am not letting you shoot a tiger. They are endangered and majestic.”

This has nothing to do with the plot.

Better.

After an episode where Chuck and Sarah act like foolish children, it’s a relief to find them as just regular old romantic idealists. After three years of repression, the compression of their relationship makes sense and their reaction to being unburdened feels right. Last week, they were such idiots that not even a new relationship compounded by the romantic intoxication of Europe could explain how experienced spies could be such rubes. But, in Burbank, Sarah seems much more grounded and Chuck — well, Chuck has been waiting for this not only for the past three years but his enitre life so he’s footloose and fancy-free. Even if last week had some moments where the couple worked in-synch with each other to demonstrate how close they were, it seemed almost surreal, like some saccharine dream Chuck was having. Here, they work as a team and it doesn’t feel cheesy. It’s the coupling as I’d hoped it would be: a continuation of their previous relationship just more comfortable.

Maybe one day they can be as cool a couple as Morgan and Casey.

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“Second base is reading Tennyson.”

This is the shot that’s going in all of Peter Krause’s future press materials.

Daughters are nothing but trouble. If you have one, you’d better lock her up in a tower because all they do is lie, cheat, and break vases. Sons, on the other hand, are honest and endearing. They may be a little troublesome but, as you know, boys will be boys.

At least that is the general sentiment of this episode. “Perchance to Dream” focuses almost exclusively on relationships with the daughter: mother vs daughter (Julia/Sydney), father vs daughter (Adam/Haddie), mother and daughter vs The World (Sarah/Amber), and, the happiest couple of the group, the couple without a daughter (Crosby/Jasmine).

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