Monsters of Television

“It has been a while since my bottom half smiled.”

I haven’t seen this much dread in critics’ reviews of a show since Whitney was telling us about marriages and sweatpants

And rightfully so. Much like the maligned Whitney, Are You There, Chelsea?, one of several female-led series this cycle to have a ridiculous name change to save our children (usually from bad words they probably already know), offered very little content for me to look forward to. In fact, it offered more fodder to fuel the flames of war. Nerdy TV war. Where using a gambit like “quality TV” will derail a conversation faster than saying “relative” to philosophy student climbing up the walls to use his degree for something.

I’ll admit upfront that I’ve never read the book or paid much attention to the life of Chelsea Handler beyond the occasional episode of Chelsea Lately and whatever vitriol Ralph Garman erupted during his tirades on Hollywood Babble-On before Kevin Smith self-promoted himself into a full network unsubscribe (if interested, I committed my thoughts on finally abandoning Kevin Smith to the interweb). So anything outside of Handler hosting a show on E! and considering the rumors of her sleeping her way onto the airwaves is news to me. Oh, and I think she dated 50 Cent.

What this means is that I come to a show presumably based on Chelsea Handler’s life relatively fresh. I know her style of comedy and I know this show can’t possibly be worse than Whitney. Ha. Right? … right? Read more »

“I didn’t fly halfway across the world to be debriefed. That’s your job, John.”

Watching this show is to continuously realize that the series made a decision in the third season of who it wanted to be: Chuck is always going to sacrifice any real intrigue for everything saccharine and foolish. Since then the show has had its moments (Orion’s exit, for example) but, overall, I find that I spend each episode reminding myself that I have to come to terms with their decision. It favors slapstick jokes and nerd references over deep storytelling.

And I’m not saying the show is wrong in making that decision. Season 2 made promises the show could never keep (especially when short-sighted fans made themselves heard on what they think of storylines) and a series that’s more episodic with shorter arcs makes sense for syndication (although I’m not sure who’d want to pick up this series with those ratings). Just as I’ve said this to myself through every episode, I’ve mentioned it a couple of times in reviews. Sometimes you have to just let the hilarity ensue.

With the final season of Chuck about to be written in the books, taking a little air out of the Casey’s cold demeanor is the dark corner of fun the show hasn’t explored nearly as much as it could/should have. Keeping in mind what this show is trying to be, this was a pretty solid episode. Especially if this show wants to make the viewing public want to beat Chuck senseless. Read more »

“You keep saying things to me like you hope it means something.”

I don’t have a dog or cat but I play with them often. The laser pointer thing seems too dangerous so I stick mostly with ropes and strings, leading the animals around while they snap at the toy, wagging their tails or peering at the offensive tentacle with piercing looks of the hunt. They swat, they bite, they leap up. But it’s important that they hit the thing that’s dangling. Animals that hunt also realize when the game is fixed and they need a taste of victory in order to keep going. Or else they wander away and watch Who’s Left Standing? instead. I’m just kidding. No one’s going to watch that crap.

Now that I’ve written that, I’m sure I’ve made this analogy before but I’m going to make it again: you need to give an audience a taste of the mystery so that they don’t think it’s fixed against them. It’s hard to engage with a story that is constantly being held four feet over their heads, which is just what Pretty Little Liars did to their viewers early in the summer season. But they came through in the end, gave us a pretty winning (and pretty creepy) mid-season finale. Note to everyone: dolls are always the scariest things ever when they’re the focal point of a plot. Always.

I don’t want to pontificate too much on the winter season premiere of Pretty Little Liars, which, I’m going to say, is the best show you’re not watching right now. Until you don’t watch the new season of Being Human. Let’s hit the highlights. Read more »

“Bruno’s World sounds like a good mid-season show.”

Sorry about the delay, everyone. I was just crying so much over the result of Week 9 that I couldn’t bear to recount it for you. I had to take to my bed in mournful repose. O Dancing with the Stars, you awaken the Victorian heroine in me and inspire me to use the vocative!

That was all sarcasm. Really, the result of Week 9 is completely expected. Once Nancy Grace’s deal with the devil ran out, we knew who was going to be in the final three. Why? Let’s look at the contenders. This is JR’s tournament. He’s too good to fail, even when he does fail. Ricki is in the same boat if held up to a lesser standard. The only wild cards were Shemp Kardashian and Hope Solo and Shemp’s got the votes from the celebrity machine his mother and sisters have been working for years now in concert with Ryan Seacrest oiling the gears. Could one summer of media-darlingship and a small following of guys that looked up “hot girl athletes” on Google stand up to the Kardashian Kabal? Not to diminish Hope’s talent but, at the end of the day, there were a lot of forces working against her.

But let’s take a quick spin through last week’s dances anyway. They went three times. Read more »

“It’s midnight and it’s time to go home.”

Guys, we’re almost there. These are the last episodes before (I imagine) we’ll hear the word “finals” used so incessantly we won’t even know what it means anymore. The NBA will start calling their championship rounds “games for winners” and students will start calling the last week of the semester a time for “Bigtests.” That warehouse grocery store will start being called Smart&Something-Something. Finals. Finals. Finals. It’s lost all meaning.

Contestants will start to trade in their “It’s Week n” rhetoric and, much more emphatically, beat the “this is the semifinals/finals” rhetoric into the ground. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

Let’s face it: the lead up to the finals is a competition to see who’ll get that third spot in the last episode. Going into this results show this week (and probably next), we can already presume who’s certainly going to be in the final three despite Ricki’s sniveling about failure. Unless something cataclysmic happens, she’s not going anywhere. Then again, I was pretty certain about Kristin, too. And America seems to be really into watching Nancy Grace embarrass herself. It’s like when high school jocks and cheerleaders (the mean ones from the movies and TV, not actual people) vote for the special-ed kid to be prom king. You guys are just mean.

Furthermore, this week Double Dance Week, which means the performers do a dance and then pick a song at random to do another dance. So, basically, it’s a week that benefits people with natural ability and adaptability (JR) and punishes those that’ve just limped along on pity votes (Nancy Nancy Nancy Nancy Nancy Nancy Nancy).

Now, Nancy seems to have lost all meaning. Let’s talk about how the remaining five couples did. Read more »

“It’s going to be one of those nights. Fair warning.”

It’s Week 7 so there’s a noticeable uptick in contestants using that number to explain why they did what they did on the dance floor. A lot of “It’s Week 7 so I gotta bring it” rhetoric.

Adding to the obstacle of “Week 7-ness” was a song selection that was like someone went to their iPod and picked six songs that were vaguely about Halloween but not really because who has “Monster Mash” on their iPod all year long? No “Thriller.” No “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.” Yes to “Abracadabra.” Yes to a tango set to “The Addams Family” theme. I would say this is a remark on how the DWTS cachet has crumbled (since they’re not getting top flight songs to play) but, then again, Justin Bieber did two songs during the results show. So I don’t know what to think. Maybe he just needs to make some dough to support that kid after all.

But back to that “Addams Family” number. I’ve been making fun of Shemp Kardashian from the beginning of the show. I didn’t think he’d last three weeks (Noel put him at one). I put him at the bottom every time, ranking him with Nancy Grace and Chaz Bono, but that’s probably not fair. I can objectively see that he’s improving in the dance from his limp shuffling about in the early stages of the competition. I’m told that he’s a very likable person though I’m not sure I see it myself. Not that he’s a bad guy. I don’t want to like him. Call it a Kardashian stigma.

But maybe I should cut the guy some slack. Though doing the tango to “The Addams Family” wasn’t as difficult as doing it to, say, “Ghostbusters” (that’s not just raising the handicap for JR — that’s setting him up for failure), it’s still a hard song to do anything to that’s not call-and-response snapping. He tries hard and improves week to week. Though I still think he’s fighting a losing battle, maybe it’s time to give Rob Kardashian his due, let him rise above what made his family internationally famous (big butts, a sex tape, and being quintessential doofuses), and attain the highest level of integrity a dance competition comprised of acutely famous people can afford.

But Shemp Kardashian is such a good name!

Let’s take a spin through the six couples. Read more »

“Tell me why it would be better the other way. Please.”

I was hoping for a Halloween gag-reel under the closing credits where the high school walkers danced to “Thriller.” No such luck.

The rest of the episode keeps to this series’s hot streak, though. We’ve traded in a lot of the action for a lot of the talky-talky, which can be a little annoying at times (@ErinHill2 described it really well on Twitter: “As in [high school] Spanish, the minute anything productive happens, everyone has to split up for stilted conversations in small groups.”) but necessary to make up for the lack of character building last season. While I might enjoy it, I can see how some people not accustomed to the slow, agonizing burn of an AMC series might not appreciate so many trembling chats separated by short scenes of a fat dude running away from extras. I assure you, people, you’ll appreciate it when something huge happens. That cheesy dying speech will be more tearjerker than internet meme now that we know these people better.

Not that I know what’s going to happen on this show. I possess no clairvoyance but I have predictions and assumptions. Let’s unpack and wildly speculate! Read more »

“You mom is Coogan.”

I’ve missed Psych.

There are a few things that make a Psych episode: (1) Shawn and Gus banter, (2) a mystery with clues that Shawn can connect in the fourth act, (3) references that stoke the nostalgia of Generations X and Y. Everything else is bonus. The other characters like O’Hara, Lassiter, and Henry are great but these are the key elements.

The show always delivers on those points but has been comparatively lazy in its effort lately. It’s still one of the funniest shows on television (cable or broadcast) but its guffaw count has been sinking and its characters threaten to be bland in the formula. And then this episode came along.

I heard a lot of people tout last week’s episode to be one of the funniest in years. It has nothing on this episode. Not only does it hit all those points but it also expands a neglected character and opens up the horror homage playbook. I’m, like, giddy over here. And I’m usually not giddy. But, to be fair, it’s usually because I have to watch Dancing with the Stars.

Read more »

“She didn’t say he wasn’t Stalin.”

OMG TEH DRAMA!

So often Len reminds me of Simon Cowell’s reality game show persona that the animosity toward him is unsurprising. While Len is more prone to letting himself look a fool on camera (that was him doing the Twist a couple weeks ago), he holds an authority rooted in something more than experience or wisdom. His austerity lends to a moral authority. The reviews he plunks upon the dancers feels heavier and, as if his tacit sad or gleeful eyes weren’t enough reason for a dancer’s devastation or elation, then a turn of phrase in his matter-of-fact delivery is enough to either crush a person or send them soaring. I’m new to the show but I’m surprised an angry outburst from a celebrity or dancer hasn’t occurred sooner.

You may see my bias showing but, of the remaining couples, Hope Solo has certainly been the most put upon. Each week she may have a middling showing but is ripped apart by the judges (even if the scores are as middling as her dances). While Chaz and Nancy get pats on their shoulders while the judges say, “There, there — at least you’re trying!” to dry their tears, Hope has been called not sexy, not feminine, clumsy, too muscly, stiff (one week), willowy (another), all while each judge concludes that she’s a good dancer but isn’t putting in the effort or just isn’t showing on the floor. Last week, it broke the normally smarmy façade of the world’s number one goalkeeper and this week it broke her partner.

Read more »

“It’s nature correcting itself.”

Ah, now that’s the agonizing pace I’ve grown to love from an AMC drama.

A running theme to my entries on this show (that is no doubt starting to sound repetitive) includes how The Walking Dead should aim to strike a balance between meditating on the inherent drama of life in a post-apocalyptic world and the action of still trying to escape from the thing that caused it. Episodic storytelling gives the storyteller an opportunity to unpack a horror situation and build deeper, more meaningful connections which can lead to deeper, more meaningful traumatizing experiences for us as an audience. Whether they’re actually trying to strike this balance is unknown to me. I just want it real bad.

“Bloodletting” is a step in that direction, in that we have a couple of action beats but only one of them is a pure action sequence to drive suspense. The other is an action beat used to promote drama, insinuate character development, and possibly introduce a perspective on walker attacks for us to ponder.

Or maybe it’s a mish-mash story poorly told and I’m just layering my hopes and dreams on top of it. Allow me to present my case. Read more »