Monsters of Television

Just as I was beginning to like you...

I should begin with an apology for the extreme lateness of this post. I was out of town, unable to watch on my usual schedule. And as all fans of The Vampire Diaries know, the CW takes its own sweet time getting new episodes loaded into their video player. Ah, well.  Today I’ll offer thoughts on “Daddy Issues,” and tomorrow I’ll catch up by describing “Crying Wolf.”

In addition to my trip last week, I have experienced another change in my life—my partner has caught up with The Vampire Diaries at long last. We have spent the last two months watching season 1, and in the last week during my absence, he blew through season 2. This means I now have a buddy when watching this pretty great show. But that also means I can’t pause to take notes as I had been doing.

I bring this up because my reviews have gotten longer and longer as I’ve tried to be more and more thorough. This may change as I focus more on the big picture rather than individual scenes.  If I have any regular readers, though, I’m happy to oblige your preferences, so let me know what you think of these monstrously long recaps.  Too much?  Just right? Better to focus on particular scenes of interest rather than detail every scene?  Happy to hear your thoughts in the comments.

It was virtually impossible for me to dislike this episode as it featured the return of Jonathan Gilbert. Uncle John pretty much rules me—not just because I loved Anders on Alias as Sark but also because his character on TVD is wonderfully ambiguous. Just as Damon continually intrigues with his battle between good and evil, Uncle John may also provide a similar satisfaction. I believe he does love Elena, but when someone commits as fully to duty as does Johnathan Gilbert, that commitment may become a mania. Bad for Gilbert, but great for viewers.

The episode also begins and ends with a naked, bathing Damon. Sure, this may seem like pandering, but I am not going to complain. Even better, Awesome Vampire Caroline got a lot of story this week—she became the centerpoint of this week’s central plot and I appreciate how capably Candice Accola portrayed Awesome Vampire Caroline’s torture, anger, and devastation.

Notwithstanding these highlights, the pacing this week seemed to move almost too quickly.  As I’ll describe more fully below, sometimes the characters need a moment to breathe in order to, you know, change and grow.  I’m becoming a big fan of the Tyler-Awesome Vampire Caroline friendship, but I think the show dropped the ball a bit this week.  These two characters made big decisions this week, but we saw little of their process in making those decisions.  In particular, Tyler seemed pretty clueless during the entire episode, and I don’t understand why.  Well, I do understand, but I wish the show would have showed his fear and confusion more clearly. If Tyler is going to become a better person, then show me how and why that is happening, including a more thorough depiction of the motivation behind the setbacks we see this week.

This episode also put Damon in a bit of holding pattern.  Though he makes a number of ironic comments this week that remind viewers of his bid admission last week that he missed being human, he doesn’t actually do much.  Here’s hoping we see bad boy Damon get a bit more to do in the coming weeks.

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Do I see a tear? God, I hope so, you sensitive beast.

The Vampire Diaries is back! The Vampire Diaries is back! Hey, did you hear, TVD is back!!  Okay, now that I have that out of my system, I can move on.

Hate to say it, though, not sure I loved this episode. I liked it. I mean, it featured the return of a character I really like and the departure of a character I really did not. There were two impulsive kisses, a sweet hug between Elena and Damon, and actual, sincere Damon tears! You’d think that would all add up to a truly excellent episode. So, let’s try to figure out why I’m not using as many exclamation marks for this particular episode as I would for the series as a whole.

I should also probably issue a small apology to poor, tortured Rose. I’ve been pretty mean to her, and I suppose I liked her character a teensy bit more this week. Sort of. Since she was dying from a werewolf bite, Rose was suddenly all philosophical and telling people to want to live and that kind of stuff. Not sure the character earned all the heartfelt conversation, but since Rose was basically used (and disposed) by the showrunners as a tool more than a character, I can appreciate her for the purpose she served with regard to Damon. Because Damon’s story is the only reason to celebrate this episode.  More about that after the jump.

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“Was it good? Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

According to IMDb, this is actually the ninth episode of Perfect Couples. Is the pilot that horrible that NBC needed to show the ninth episode instead? That cannot bode well. And, in fact, it did not bode well.

Perfect Couples is perfectly horrible in every horrible way. I mean it. If the ninth episode is this bad, I do not even want to think about how bad the pilot must be. Consider yourselves warned.

I mean, do you need to be warned? It’s not like you were going to watch it anyway. I mean, American Idol is on at the same time. And you know I think something is bad when I would rather watch American Idol. Read more »

Quickly becoming TVD's most sympathetic character--who knew?

I cannot believe I am writing this, but here goes. Tyler is my new favorite character on The Vampire Diaries. I know, that is completely crazy, right? He’s a self-proclaimed dick. But among all the various happenings in the most recent episode, his storyline is the most effecting. The performance by Michael Trevino as Tyler is quite strong, and the character may give Damon a run for his money in the clever jackass department. If you read my posts about this show regularly, you know I am a big fan of Awesome Vampire Caroline. And now it seems I have found the best match for her greatness. Really hope the show continues to depict Tyler’s transformation with such honesty and rawness.

It isn’t possible for me to express how moving was Tyler’s transformation and Awesome Vampire Caroline’s refusal to leave him. He was terrified and experiencing shattering pain; all she could do was be with him, but you admire her compassion. I’m super nervous about how Tyler will react when he learns Awesome Vampire Caroline has lied to him (about Mason, about the Salvatores), but I am loving these two as a duo. I should also note that the visual and aural elements of his change were executed in impressive fashion by the program’s technical people—really good work for a show I don’t imagine has a huge budget.

As for the rest of our merry band of warriors, Elijah continues to improve upon his initial awful introduction—he’s becoming a real frightening bad guy. Elena got sidelined for the most part, but even trapped in her home, she proved herself a capable negotiator. And the best news? Someone I hate got bit by a werewolf. What excellent news!

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“The Sacrifice”

Still pretty, but getting way scarier.

Lots of people were doing dumb things to save people they love on this week’s The Vampire Diaries.  Even Damon, who was trying to preach wisdom to Elena about her kamikaze mission, did his own dumb thing.  But when Damon does anything, somehow it seems less dumb, only sexy.  And there was much Damon sexiness to be had.  Perhaps they are trying to make amends for that wretched incident with Rose last week (yep, still hate this character). Maybe they just can’t let go of the tension between Elena and Damon.  Or maybe they know that Damon is why this show sizzles.  Case in point—the first half of this episode was rather lame—and I can only explain it by noting a decided dearth of Damon dash (the alliteration took over—apologies).

Reviewing each episode of a series is a problematic business because it can force a person to make too-firm pronouncements: i.e. episode A was excellent, episode B was crap, and episode C was passable.  When we start debating whether an individual episode was weak, I worry we lose the forest for the trees—after all, I wouldn’t be writing about this show if I didn’t enjoy it with some consistency.  Also, I haven’t yet seen a crap episode of The Vampire Diaries, so when I complain about weaknesses, I’m quibbling.  That said, this episode may be worth exploring a bit deeper to see where the show tends to be weakest in order to highlight why it succeeds as often as it does.

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“We don’t share information any more?”

It’s like the Kings decided to reward me for mainling The Wire this summer with this episode. Between listening to wiretaps, dealing with drug dealers, sifting through corrupt politicians, and a J.D. Williams cameo, “On Tap” is indeed a big splashy acknowledgment of the HBO drama.

I don’t have all that much to say about this particular episode, so this will not only be brief, but more recappy than my normal pieces. But sometimes a recap is simply more fitting of an episode than an in-depth navigation of it. In my opinion. Read more »

“In lock-up, they won’t let you tweet.”

This is the best episode of The Good Wife so far this season.

Part of this is because it had pretty much everything I’ve come to love in the show. But the other part was that the episode  didn’t have any of the stuff I hate. (Read: There were no Blake and Kalinda shenanigans in this episode. None. Zero. Zilch. So glorious.) But yes, “Bad Girls” had everything in it that marks an episode of The Good Wife: political maneuvering,  law firm maneuvering, a solid case, reasonable Kalinda investigating, good family beats.

There’s a delicate balance to crafting a show with so many things going on at once, and what often happens is that some things fall to the wayside (did Jackie break her hip?) while others gain prominence. Overall, I feel that The Good Wife does a good job of giving all things equal weight though, after sleeping on the episode, I do see the critiques the episode might perhaps try and overreach here.

I still think the episode is considerably stronger than the past few episodes have been, so don’t let my acknowledgment of the critique seem like I’m discounting how much I enjoyed the episode.

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“I mean — he was moving, right?”

What is happening here?!

Troubled kid, meet actual trouble.

For most of tonight’s episode, I felt pretty much the same as I do every week of watching this show. “Ew. Don’t do tha– ew. Lux, you’re a jackass. Tash, please don’t let her — ew. Adults don’t leave them in a room alone togeth– ew.” And, despite because extra crispy gross tonight, Eric “Minnesota” Daniels wasn’t the weirdest part of the evening. No, that easily goes to what Lux did with a car, what Tash did with a shovel, and what the new guy Sam put together all by himself.

Seriously, this is an episode that makes me almost sad that the show is almost certainly doomed. I really want to see where this is going, especially now that they’ve dug deep down into the WB archives for characters this season. Especially since they decided to bring in some of the stuff they plastered over earlier this season (quick! Get Tash away from Valerie! Wait — you called her mom? And don’t mention it again) and weave it into the new stuff they have going on here.

I’ll warn you now, I have no real important thoughts on this episode. I offer no real insight. All I can tell you is what I saw, how I saw it, and hope you watch the episode just to enjoy the spectacle with me. It’s a glorifying hour of witness.

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She's undead, naked with Damon, and still a crappy character. No fixin' that.

I feel like the writers for The Vampire Diaries have been reading my mind—so many small complaints that I have had in the past weeks were resolved or at least addressed in this week’s episode. Thanks, TVD!

This was another episode where we have more talking than action, but at least we got some good dish and a number of answers. Even better, Elena took matters into her own hands, so this week it was Stefan having to react instead of lead. I appreciate a feisty Elena, and Katherine seems to bring out the best in her. Let’s have these two gals go on a road trip next!

Still not in love with Rose, somewhat ambivalent about the direction Damon seems to be heading, and absolutely uninterested in Elijah (except for that cool trick with the coins!). But putting the spotlight on Elena was fitting, and the series has now erected some impressive obstacles for our newly empowered heroine to overcome. Obstacles = drama, and that’s a good thing.

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Come on--he's too pretty to be scary.

The Vampire Diaries took a bit of a break this week from its record-setting pacing. Instead, it allowed the characters to reflect on the many changes that have occurred in the past few weeks. At school, Tyler and Awesome Vampire Caroline are forced to stare at reminders that two girls died last week. Jeremy learns that there are limits to what Bonnie can do—and his subtle flirtation with her continues to develop intensity. Elena gets world’s chattiest vampire kidnappers to tell their their entire life history—a rather unrealistic series of conversations that provided the exposition needed to introduce new bad guys now that Katherine is out of the picture (for a brief moment).  Basically, a bunch of taking stock, reflecting, and conversing.  Little action.  Not necessarily a critique–more of an observation.

Meanwhile, in the episodes best subplot, Damon and Stefan take a little road trip to rescue Elena. I would have been perfectly content if this entire episode had focused on Damon and Stefan in that car. Amidst jokes about the requisite bonding that accompanies all road trips, our boys delve into the dangerous territory of Damon’s feelings for Elena and their own history of betrayal.

I’ve got some concerns about the direction the series seems to be taking, and I’ll discuss them below, but I loved the heck out of Stefan and Damon this week. Neither man has aged in 150 years, but they mature nevertheless. Their mutual recognition of their bond allowed them to move past so much nonsense—good acting and strong writing that deserve to be commended.

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