Monsters of Television

“No, but I always took you where you needed to go.“

A boy and his TARDIS

How friggin’ beautiful, nay (dare I say it?), sexy is this episode?

Pardon the squeeing, but it’s just such a glorious meditation on the Doctor and his only actual companion, the one that chose him (and that he chose), and that they’re the ones who go on jaunts around the universe and time, with a couple of “strays” tagging along. The show (at least since the re-launch) has never really addressed this issue, of the Doctor’s special bond to the TARDIS.

I mean, yes, there’s little bits that don’t exactly work (poor Amy and Rory), but the episode on the whole is kind of just entirely giddy at the prospect of having the TARDIS be personified (literally),  allowing the two to actually talk to each other, and have their dynamics, often only expressed with either frustration or little bleeps and blops and breaking down. But even through this all, the two have remained together for 700 years. Longer than any companion(s), just the two of them. The last of their kinds in the universe. Read more »

“Ah! My study group! How long has it been?“

“I’m done with whatever you call this.“

Look how happy he is!

Oh, where to start? How to start?

First: I do wish I had done an individual review of “A Fist Full of Paintballs.” The two episodes are different enough that they practically stand alone, if only because “For a Few Paintballs More” drops the full on Western theme for something a little more rote, and in line with “Modern Warfare” (despite the Star Wars call to arms, the episode never approached the space western all that seriously beyond Abed being Han Solo (and being awesome at it)).

Second: The conclusion to the “Pierce is a jerk” arc is actually satisfying, and largely earned. I do kind of wonder how long the show will commit to the dynamics change they’ve put on  for season 3, or if they’ll even commit at all.

Third: Despite quibbles, both episodes are pretty fun, aren’t they?

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“If you love someone, don’t you set them free?“

I’ve found myself struggling to write something about this episode. It’s not that there’s nothing to say, there is, but part of me is just not sure how to say any of it (this could be fatigue from due to coming up on the end of the television season and what has become a very long week). The episode is decidedly sticky, and I’ve enjoyed more an actual discussion of the episode than I feel I’d enjoy writing a review.

Some of this is simply that the episode does beg for a discussion, not a monologue, about how everything plays out. One woman I follow on Twitter finds the affair, assuming she means between Peter and Kalinda  and the fall out, to be “chick lit“, and a betrayal of the show’s complex characters and stories.

I’m not entirely convinced that this is the case (I’m not sure the “chick lit” even applies here). Because as Karen noted, “For me, cheating is most painful for how it makes you look foolish: wounded pride is dangerous.” And she’s right. Alicia is very dangerous right now (just ask Jackie), but she’s also in a very dangerous place as the season moves into its last episode. Read more »

“New York is never finished, Theodore.“

This actually worked for me. Too little too late, but it worked.

But I’m nearly there, show.

If “Landmarks” does anything, it just serves as a reminder of every single frustration I’ve had with the show this season. Which, really, when I’m considering abandoning the show entirely, is not a good thing to have happen. Next week’s finale has got to be, well, awesome, really, to keep me on board.

But one good thing did come out of “Landmarks”: The poorly plotted and emotionally dead Ted and Zoey relationship is finally over.  At last.

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“If this is just because I’m a captain, too, you know you shouldn’t feel threatened. Your ship is much bigger than mine and I don’t have the cool boots or a hat even.“

While technically the third episode of the season, “The Curse of the Black Spot” feels very much like a second episode in that I wasn’t particularly crazy about it. “The End of the World” was okay, prized only for the camp of a particular scene; “Tooth and Claw” has moments; “The Shakespeare Code” is pretty horrible; “The Fires of Pompeii” is dull; and I liked elements of “The Beast Below” more than the actual execution.

Some of this is just that the opening episode of any Doctor Who series is typically very strong (as was the case this series), and the follow-up is, understandably, a bit of a way for everyone to catch their breath before moving on the next big scary-scary. And while not as horrible as “The Shakespeare Code”, “The Curse of the Black Spot” is incredibly dull. The sense of fun I think they were aiming for (“It’s the Doctor! With actual pirates!”) never really came through for me, and I kind of have to blame the premise. Read more »

“A king should have scars.”

I'm in this show for this relationship, and this relationship only.

So this is better. It’s still not totally engaging, but there are signs of improvement as “Lord Snow” allows the series to take a breath, slow down, and, most importantly, begin to fill in some gaps about the mythology that pervades these characters, mythology about the winter.

Not all of these breaths are worthwhile (Robert swapping first kill stories is the stand out example of this), but, on the whole, the episode held my attention far more than the previous episodes have. A big part of this is that I’ve managed to identify stories and characters I’m interested in beyond the adorably fierce Arya (seriously, how great is this character?), which was needed since one character does not an engaging show make. Read more »

“We don’t lie here. We…don’t lie to each other. But when people want to hurt us, it’s sometimes all right not to tell them the truth.”

This is the kitchen of conflict and resolution. Mostly conflict. Resolution that one time.

Slight calm before the storm, eh?

This is a tricky episode to dig into because, well, the case of the week kind of gets in the way a little bit narratively but works really excellently thematically. All I really wanted was a close examination of Alicia’s grief and sense of betrayal. A more obvious episode to present, yes, with more emotional confrontations between her and Peter, but that’s not how this show really works.

That it didn’t hit my expectation doesn’t mean the episode is a wash, as both tracks of the show actually work well on their own, and Alicia’s personal life directly plays into her boost in confidence in court, so there’s isn’t a total sense of separation between the two stories. And there’s really stellar acting the entire hour from Margulies as she hits pretty much every excellent note, and the script gives her space to do that.

But the big showdown (as it were), the big emotional scene, I guess, is next week. And I am so primed for that.

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“He reaches a kind of sad clarity.”

I’m trying to be more optimistic as opposed to angry and ranty about HIMYM. I mean, I have to pace myself for the last two episodes of the season, otherwise I’ll have no more negative words left to write. But it’s really hard when, well, the show doesn’t try and endear itself to me.

I mean, certainly, there are things I should have liked and things I did like in the episode. But, as a whole, “The Perfect Cocktail” was nothing close to perfect. In fact, I feel like the show poured gin and whisky down my throat, but didn’t bother with the daiquiris to make me feel better about myself. Nor did it give me a martini to inappropriately hit on a friend. Read more »

“Oh, hello, sorry. Were in you in the middle of something?  Just had to say though, have you seen what’s on the telly? Oh, hello, Amy!  You all right, want to watch some television?  Ah! Now, stay where you are.  ‘Cause look at me. I’m confident. You want to watch out for me when I’m confident.“

I see you.

It’s kind of hard not just to squee. Really. It’s very difficult.

Doctor Who is one of those shows that can be deliriously fun, and this two-parter (particularly “Day of the Moon”) is just that. And it’s not only that it’s fun, but it’s clever and smart, and you’re never able to predict what’ll happen next because, well, who can predict Doctor Who (I mean, aside from River. But she cheats.)

After watching “Day of the Moon,” I feel like I could have reviewed both as individual episodes instead of as a pair, but previous experience with Moffat’s two-parters made me more inclined to review them as a unit. I’m going to focus more on “Day of the Moon” here since that’s where a lot of the meat is and where it seems like Moffat is starting to draw some very tight strings around his narrative.

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“We all came so close to having one class that wasn’t about them.“

I kind of stopped writing about Community this season, after “Advance Dungeons & Dragons.” Part of this was a time constraint that developed on Thursday nights and into Fridays, and the other part was that I found myself with very little to say after each episode. Having this time to take a step back was useful in the long run as I’m finding myself a teensy bit frustrated with the program.

It became crystallized for me last week during the clip show episode. I enjoyed the episode, and laughed at large portions of it, but was left a little cold by it. Two things generally brought this about for me: the reveal and quick disavowal of the Jeff and Britta hook-ups and then the acknowledgement by the characters that Jeff’s speeches, while well-written and delivered, don’t have any point since the group is never going to break up.

What both of these examples point is the show’s unwillingness to create stakes for the characters. It’s been a problem for much of the season, as the potential of Chang going to jail or Troy’s lying about being abused or Pierce’s general arc this season have all be woefully side-stepped quickly, despite the potential for something darkly dramatic to come from each of these plots.

By ‘dramatic’ I don’t mean the high drama of tragedy or the melodramatic turns of a regular TV drama, but I mean having the characters push themselves, for beats to have a meaning both within the episode and, in some cases, beyond that. The reveal of Britta and Jeff having naked sexy fun times all season means nothing since the two decide to dispense with it so quickly. It’s not even a return to the status quo since the status quo never really changed.

All of this leads us to Shirley’s stakes this season, which started with the zombie episode and have continued to influence events around the series, but have never, to me, really made Shirley the focus of these struggles. And that this is her child presents a  real is a problem.

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