Monsters of Television

“I don’t want you to get rickets in that haunted mansion.”

Mad Men will let things play out, no matter what the cost to the character, partially because they can incorporate it into a later storyline but usually because they can smooth it over by the next episode like it never happened. Think Joan’s in-office rape and Don’s entire existence.

With that in mind, we can be conditioned to believe almost anything can occur. Almost anything. They can resolve Don having his personal files reviewed by a security agency without much trouble outside of a couple panic attacks but this isn’t Being Human or Buffy or even House. There’s a limit to what can be done by a single character where the repercussions are scuttle-able.

So when a character does something beyond the realm of fixing, it throws you out of the episode. At least it threw me out so I have to decide whether the show thinks I’m an idiot or if this is supposed to mean something because they assume I’m smart enough to know what’s going on.

With that premise in mind, let’s talk about what Don didn’t do.

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“When is everything going to get back to normal?”

If there’s anything you can take from Mad Men, from life within the lower parts of the office to the world at large, it’s that the younger generation is a collection of jackasses.

But in this episode, it’s not just a reckless generation shattering the comfortable, widespread social repression but we also see that the olds are getting older and, occasionally, are threatened by the new class or just by age/experience itself. Heck, Bert Cooper isn’t even in this episode. But you don’t have to be Roger Sterling to feel that pinch. Peggy’s right there with them.

Obviously, this is one of the reasons for setting the series in the 1960s, to showcase this time of tumult when youth became praised above all others and elders were brought behind the proverbial shed, all from the perspective of the industry that handed society the shotgun shells. This isn’t the first time the topic has come up, and it isn’t the last, but who it affects has expanded.

Oh, and Betty’s faaaaaaaat.

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“Well, well, well. There’s my baby. Move that brat out of the way so I can see her.”

Maybe it was the artifact of this show that I created in its absence. Maybe it’s the pacing of my other favorite shows going full seasons in the vacuum of this one. Maybe I should’ve watched the fourth season leading up to the fifth season premiere.

But something felt — off.

Mad Men returned with a two hour premiere and I hoped that by the end of the episode I could say, “Yeah! Mad Men. Is. Back!” About half-way through, though, I wasn’t sure if this was what left me a year and a half ago. I felt slightly lost in time, characters weren’t acting like I expected them to, and the episode overall felt slower than usual. And slower for Mad Men is like going from a passeggiata with your grandparents to being a pallbearer. With a limp. Following other grandparents. Who have rickets.

But it was nice to see the band back together again. Don is still withholding. Roger is still snarky. Pete still has a bitchface. And Lane is still toeing that line between gentleman and pervert. So let’s get into this. Finally: season five is here.

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“You thought I was Kryptonian? Cool.”

Noel is still in Boston for SCMS so, in his stead, I’ll cover Young Justice this week. So, I guess what I’m saying is — I’m sorry?

Not as sorry as the grown-up Justice League, though. I understand that the Justice League is no joke, that there needs to be a governing body of an ever-expanding universe of terrestrial and comparatively near-terrestrial superhumans that Earth’s nations can contact in case of emergency (partially for the convenience of contacting all the greats at once and partially because Wonder Woman’s costume doesn’t really lend to pockets for a mobile). I mean, they have to protect the planet from things like the INjustice League. But does the induction of new members have to look like a bunch of catty country club moms considering the new single-mom in the cul-de-sac? Even Diana seemed like a baby.

Meanwhile, Superboy is on earth dealing with big boy problems like existential worth, raging against the machine, and tangling with Lex Luthor. ALL ON THANKSGIVING. So much for truth, justice, and the American way. Can’t Lex take a break and eat a turkey leg or something?

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“Guys, I don’t trust Melissa as far as I can throw her and Ian’s fetus.”

This episode is everything that is wrong with Pretty Little Liars and possibly everything that is wrong with America.

I don’t expect much from this show. I like it. I wouldn’t admit that to my dude friends (except this is on the internet — hi, dude friends) but I do watch this every week instead of catching up on Justified. It exists within a bubble of camp and camp is something that can only be enjoyed experientially. Have you ever tried to describe the plot of a B-movie to someone that doesn’t enjoy camp? It’s like explaining how to pierce your knuckles. Why would you do that to yourself? You watch a show about high school drama that’s already annoying then heightened to a hyperbolic level by a phantom, omniscient villain who always wears black gloves, even when eating, and terrorizes through text and shadowy secret-telling? Forget it, bring on the knuckle-piercers.

And, somehow, I’ve continued to watch, even enjoy, Pretty Little Liars because it knows what it is and even pokes fun at itself. Within this melodrama that moonlights as a thriller, there’s a thread of intelligence (not from the characters — they’re all nearly simple) in the storytelling.

Except for this season finale. But, lucky for them (and us), they padded their crappy tale-spinning with actual advancement and real information. By the end of the episode, you really feel like you got somewhere.

Let me warn you now before you move on that there will be spoilers. Because how can we talk about how foolish this all is if we don’t discuss the actual events we had to suffer through?

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“First things first: I will be starring in a brand new
Tyler Perry sci-fi epic called I Ain’t Gettin’ on No Rocket.”

I don’t know about you but I like my melodrama best when the women are catty, the problems are trivial, and the men are sensitive and subject to the whims of the chaotic women in their lives. So I don’t watch much WWE.

But I have been following Mike Mizanin since he was a young buck trying to play out his aggression fantasies and desperate need for human contact on men and women alike when he starred on The Real World: Back to New York. So many MTV competitions, so many opportunities to be in the spotlight and to show the world The Miz. As he’s grown up, his character has grown, too. He’s more defined. More confident. More — good lord, is he on steroids? What happened to my All-American Midwesterner?

I don’t know how The Miz was introduced into the WWE but he was credited in a particularly hilarious episode of Psych as “WWE Superstar The Miz.” And I can’t speak to whether John Cena plays his wrestling character when he stars in terrible action movies, but we definitely got The Miz and not Mike Mizanin as a contestant in kind of a crafty version of The Bachelorette. To be honest, this episode might be the jewel in the crown of what’s been a very solid season of Psych. It’s everything this show wants to be. And Shawn chases Gus around with another dude’s underpants.

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Most of my Sunday morning was dominated by conversation on one thing. Sure, I also talked about where to go for breakfast and whether the farmers market is worth bearing Hollywood, but it always circled back to how SNL terrorized America with the “Crab Legs” sketch.

Officially, it’s called “Patio Party” on Hulu but it’s such a general term that the horror is diluted. It’s like calling “2 Girls 1 Cup” “Bedroom Scene.” To spare you the trouble of watching the video: two excited women with big hair and a questionable relationship (roommates? lovers? hype women hired by the national crab board?) are overjoyed to feed their neighbors crab legs in their backyard until they realize there’s a misunderstanding and they have no crab legs to actually serve. So they turn out the lights. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. The more I ruminate on it, the more offended I am that this sketch made it through pitch, rehearsals, dress rehearsals, the early show audience, and then to live audience. So many chances for us to be saved. So many chances for us to be spared.

Do you think I’m being hyperbolic? Have you seen this sketch? I’m going to take you through this perfect storm of comedy abyss and show you why this abomination stole life from you, not only chronologically but maybe spiritually. The more one thinks about it, the more prone to ennui one becomes and, by God, if I’m going to spin into an existential crisis, you’re coming with me. It all starts with —

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“Tell me our story.”

I’m not sure I prepared enough. I knew that I was going to watch the final episode of Chuck live (because, basically, the windows deal for the final season, which left episodes off Hulu, NBC.com, and the WB site) made me. But I didn’t get enough of the essentials to celebrate the end of this series. Sizzling Shrimp and (even if it wasn’t for drinking) Rombauer Chardonnay made their absence felt. I didn’t even get a fast-food sausage or a PinkBerry knock-off.

Snacking through a wake aside, the one thing I did make sure of was to watch this finale alone. Watching it live meant that I wouldn’t be able to rewind, to pause, to walk away (no DVR). I was going to have to stare at this series finale until it was over, commercial breaks being my only respite. I was subject to the whims of this show’s authors, ones that have notoriously (if inconsistently) taken advantage of me emotionally. But I was of two minds approaching the final episode of Chuck.

One was recollecting all the times this show has manipulated my inside feelings with neo-folk soundtracks, a guy debating the same things I debate since we’re of the same age, and a hopelessly romantic (if far-fetched) storyline. The other part of me couldn’t trust this show, not just because of the manipulation but also I didn’t know what to expect because the last three seasons have been so inconsistent (at times, straight up betraying). Even in the episodes leading up to the two-hour finale, I really liked the third-to-last episode but rolled my eyes at the penultimate one. It’s not like I was worried about them tying up loose ends but I was worried that the ending would be so sickly sweet that my inherent cynicism would pile up in my throat and choke any sentimentality I could feel for the show.

So I sat down to watch it, gastronomically unprepared but maybe emotionally over-prepared. After knowing this would be the last season NBC/WB could, in good conscience, support, would this series come up big in the end or did they muster up just enough disappointment to say “screw you” to me one last time? Read more »

“Have you had any sneak peeks of your childhood crush’s boobies?”

Once you’ve come to terms with the fact that Chuck will never be the show of intrigue or subtlety that you predicted, you can learn to laugh at well-constructed episodes like this one. You let go and you can enjoy yourself.

This episode is the first of this season, now that we’re down to two weeks and three episodes of this show left, to really have fun with its characters. Sure, we’ve exhausted some outfits for Sarah (including full-on nudity) given the Intersect to Morgan and a love interest for Casey as we scrape out all the half-incubated ideas the series had left. But this episode really felt like it was having fun with being a lame-duck series. You don’t have to hold back anymore. Be as crazy as you want to be. Let your (broadcast-approved) freak flag fly!

Everything from the language being used to the major arcs of the episode (and particularly the turning point for the season at the end of this episode) was inspired. If only they could’ve done this kind of thing consistently.

Let’s talk about what happened. Read more »