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Friday, 15 of November of 2024

Archives from author » noel

Sherlock – “The Hounds of Baskerville”

Did we just break in to a military base to investigate a rabbit?

Sherlock titlecardThe Hound of Baskerville is probably the most well known Sherlock Holmes story. Even if they’ve never read it, people have heard of the title, maybe even seen one of the over twenty different adaptations of it in both film and television. I first read The Hound of Baskerville when I was kid in what was a (probably) heavily abridged version in the Great Illustrated Classics line, with an illustration opposite each page of text. It was among my favorites of those (I had a large chunk of the collection at the time), and Hound was for me, quintessential Holmes (never mind that I would never get around to another Holmes story for decades).

With the second season of Sherlock, there was a conscious effort to do the big, famous Holmes stories on the part of Moffat and Gatiss. As we saw last week, tackling those big stories is a daunting task, one rife with pitfalls of interpretation and faithfulness. And after the muddled result of “A Scandal in Belgravia”, I was a little worried about how Hound would survive the transition, not only because this is a story I have nostalgic attachment to (always a complicated issue to navigate) but because of the previous week’s efforts. Read more »


The Good Wife – “Alienation of Affection”

I like anything with bears!

The Good Wife Title Card s3“Alienation of Affection” is good, but light. It’s cotton candy-y. Which sounds dismissive, but I really enjoy cotton candy (despite having made bags upon bags of cotton candy at a previous job (it’s not a fun experience, by the way)). But a more eloquent way to express the episode came from Carrie Raisler, a write for the AV Club. She tweeted: “#GoodWife is so committed to being just slightly off center; enough to be amusing, but not so far as to slip into [David E.] Kelley nonsense. It’s fab.”

Now, putting aside that I generally enjoy Kelley’s brand of nonsense (Harry’s Law notwithstanding), Carrie’s completely correct, and “Alienation of Affection” demonstrates this to a tee. The stakes of the episode, that Lockhart-Gardner is on the hook for $44 million dollars, is pretty absurd. There’s no way they’re going to pay that amount of money because it would crush the firm, totally change the dynamics of the show (as it slyly tries to make us think it will (but may still)), and everyone — the writers and the audience — know it’s absurd.

So instead of playing straight and with its normal steady hand of drama, the episode decides to have a little fun and treat the suit lightly. I mean, none of the characters ever seem all that worried about it, except for a last-minute tense-up about the rider. And, really, if you thought the episode was going to be played straight after seeing David Lee in full costume for a Gilbert and Sullivan production, you need to adjust your expectations.

Read more »


House of Lies – “Gods of Dangerous Financial”

I would rather work at Arby’s.

I would say I have a complicated relationship with premium cable shows, but it’s generally not that complicated: I tend not to like them. A large part of this is just the rhetoric that surrounds shows, both before they premiere and as they air episodes. The albatross of their “quality” and “risky” content tends to weigh me down as much as it weighs down some shows that seem delighted just to be able show sex as often as they please instead of necessarily crafting interesting stories and characters.

So, as is often the case, I tend to avoid premium cable programming until after it’s on DVD (sometimes well after), or if the buzz is positive enough, I’ll dive in shortly after DVD (looking at you, Homeland). In any case, with a free preview of House of Lies (available here on YouTube; apologies if blocked in your region), I figured I would give it a go if only due to lack of options on my basic TV services.

House of Lies concerns itself with a group of management consultants, with the show being headlined by Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell (both of whom I thoroughly enjoy in other projects). Their presences would have been enough to get me to acquire the episode following its official premiere on Sunday.

Their presences are not nearly enough to make me sit through another episode of this obnoxious show.

Read more »


Sherlock – “A Scandal in Belgravia”

I dislike being outnumbered. It makes for too much stupid in the room.”

Sherlock titlecardEugh. Just…eugh.

There’s plenty to like in the return of Sherlock, the smart puzzlebox of a BBC show. Cumberbatch and Freeman (though the latter is underutilized here, I feel) remain immensely likeable and entertaining in their respective roles, and the show’s use of graphic overlays and audio accompaniments to demonstrate Holmes’ mental processes remains top notch. The twists and turns of the plot moves along briskly and assuredly, leaving me feeling fine with the episode from a structural standpoint.

But, oh someone’s god, what the hell is this mess of Irene Adler? And the resurfacing of the Arab stereotypes (does someone have a scimitar fetish?!) right at there at the end?

I mean, putting aside the rather blatant ripoff of CSI:, updating Adler was going to be necessary, and I was eager, based on their slight tweaking of Watson and Moriarty to fit the current times (I’ve decided that Sherlock‘s Moriarty, instead of being a professor, is actually a graduate student whose dissertation has driven him to criminal activity) to see how they reconfigured Adler, one of the few people (gender qualifications be damned) to outsmart the brilliant Sherlock Holmes.

This was not, exactly, what I had in mind. Read more »


The Good Wife – “What Went Wrong”

Only in Cook County.”

The Good Wife Title Card s3Pardon me while I eat some crow about nothing happening in the investigation storyline until February sweeps.

Well. Half a serving. Since nothing really happened, still, but dayum, show. That’s some crazy stuff you just cooked up there (though I have minor quibbles).

On the upside, this is how I like to go out before (way too long) winter hiatus. Something that nicely raises the stakes for the characters while still giving a strong and compelling procedural element. Indeed, it had all my favorite elements of an episode of The Good Wife (except, oddly, no Eli, but I didn’t notice that until I started thinking about the episode yesterday!). Read more »


The Good Wife – “Parenting Made Easy”

The Good Wife Title Card s3So, heh, been away for a long while. Combination of factors  over the past two months has made blogging a bit of challenge. I freely admit that it boiled down to personal issues, professional issues, writer’s block, and, really, being a burnt out on the week-to-week reviewing process. Sometimes you just run out of things to say, and it gets monotonous to write (not sure how it feels to read).  In any case, I’m back for at least this week (yes, of course, the week that lots of stuff hits winter hiatus, but there you go).

But I feel good about coming back to The Good Wife with this episode as it is one that seemingly acknowledges criticisms (“Eli feels like he’s not a part of the show now.” or “How the hell do LG win so many damn cases?” (am I right, Karen?)) while also shaking a few things up while providing us a couple of avenues for plot development.

That being said, how well does the episode do these things? While I’m overall fine with the outcome, the way the episode gets there is kind of, well, ham-fisted and wrapped in a chain of bad melodrama cliches that are are still (for the most part) effective, because that’s how good the show is.

Read more »


The Good Wife – “Marthas And Caitlins”

The world must be your oyster.”

The Good Wife Title Card s3As with the previous post, I open with an apology for no post about last week’s episode. But last week’s episode wasn’t all that great, so I don’t feel too bad about it. And I also did a podcast with Cory Barker that discusses the episode and the season thus far (it’s the second half the podcast, in case you don’t watch or like Community), so I feel that kind of makes up for not posting anything about it.

On the upside, the adorably named “Marthas And Caitlins” is a good enough episode that I’m willing to fight through my intense sinus headache I’m experiencing today to write up a few hundred words for you. I mean, if Dylan Baker can make the time to stop by, I can I at least tell you about all the fun I had watching him. Read more »


Young Justice – “Revelation”

Stop those delinquents.

Young Justice Title CardStill with the kind of boringly generic stuff, but this time coupled with head-scratching plotting. Young Justice continues to be an adventure show that does not terribly interested in being much more than that, and I suppose it’s just time I accepted that.

But it’s hard to move out of that mindset. I think my problem with Young Justice boils down to a lack of personality. Say what you will about Teen Titans or Batman: The Brave and the Bold (and you should say good things about both, by the way), but at least they had (using past tense since Brave and the Bold is on its way out to make room for the CGI-styled Beware the Batman) style, verve, and made an attempt to do more than just standard heroes versus villains (with occasional dashes of romance mixed into Teen Titans).

So, if I judge from just that perspective, then I suppose “Revelation” is a fun episode with lots of fighting. But, really, I was just bored and kind of cringed at the less-than-inspired writing for the Joker (and Brent Spiner’s painfully pitchy performance). Read more »


Community – “Remedial Chaos Theory”

This is the darkest, most terrible timeline.

Community Title CardI feel like I’ve written this review before, as my immediate thought was to discuss, once again, how the show can deploy genre homages/high concept episodes and do them well: a strong character core is needed for the episode to work, otherwise, while it can be entertaining, it just becomes some postmodern pastiche. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but when you have a group of characters such as these, and when you tell stories about how their actions impact one another, homages without the core result in hollowness.

“Remedial Chaos Theory”, like “Modern Warfare” in season 1, gets this. I think the show dodged this to some extent through season 2, resulting in probably why I wasn’t as in love with as much as others. But not only does “Remedial Chaos Theory” understand the need for those characters beats, but its character-driven nature of the episode (or, rather, its “character-less”-driven nature) actually blends the kooky ambition strength of “Modern Warfare” with the emotional elegance of “Mixology Certification” and the result is one of the show’s best episodes so far. Read more »


The Good Wife – “Get A Room”

It’s not polite but it’s fair.”

The Good Wife Title Card s3First my apologies for no review last week. Between covering the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad and various obstacles (including a dropped sandwich (it was a very long day)) and socializing, I didn’t get around to “The Death Zone” until Saturday afternoon, and by then I didn’t see much point in writing about the episode. I did enjoy that episode, found the case of the week interesting, and while it could’ve used more Eddie Izzard (what couldn’t?), I was overall pretty happy with it.

Second: Dallas Roberts!

Third: Lisa Edelstein!

Fourth: Isiah Whitlock, Jr.!

Swoon. Read more »