Monsters of Television

“Blow it up on his face.”

Usually the opening quote of these reviews are telling, well-crafted lines that either encapsulate the episode on the whole or it’s just a gem I want to share. This line is neither. Sometimes I’m just 14 and it makes me laugh.

That line comes from the mouth of Peter Burke and will probably be featured in a new incarnation of the “Let’s Enhance” video. He’s talking about some surveillance video he gains through a hacker in his employ, from a bank that must have HD cameras installed at all exits since “blowing it up on his face” didn’t degrade the image quality at all. But I suppose I shouldn’t be nitpicky.

My eyes roll when shows do episodes revolving around technology and hacker culture. The scripts tend to become a list of keywords and misused terminology and it’s so transparent that the writers don’t necessarily understand the solution to their story problem and just type in what the consultant tells them to write. I imagine hospital shows sound the same to an doctors. Unless sarcoidosis actually does come up in every differential ever.

However, I don’t blame White Collar for sounding like every procedural that tackles technology. Sure, they make their computer nerds gorgeous (generally not the case) and their apartments ridiculously well-outfitted (the wall of expenive 25-inch monitors in a hacker’s pad is probably way more rare than you think) but you have to expect that kind of thing with the “blue skies” look. This isn’t The Wire; gritty reality has no place here. No, my issue with the show of late comes more from it falling into tropy pitfalls. The season started off with a bang and it’s been stalling, things like Worried Wife and Syrupy Character Development (I wish I had the time to review the Mozzie-focused episode — what a cheesey/saccharine miscue that was) flooding the choke. And even that wouldn’t bother me so much if Myles McNutt hadn’t said that would be the case when I was filling my glass half-full.

I hate it when that smug, Canadian bastard is right.

What I can say, though, is that this particular episode brought a little more development and a little more drama. I would say it’s moving in the right direction. But, sadly, I know better now.

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“You know what, man? If I get out of this job without upper respiratory issues it’ll be a miracle.”

An interesting episode. The heist was just a catalyst for our heroes to be placed in a WWII mixed race love story narrated by guest star Danny Glover. Some definitely rose to the occasion, taking advantage of the different material and showing some acting chops. Others may want to stick to the character acting. I won’t name names, but they’re still beautiful blondes and I love their usual character.

Leverage is an odd show to review. Unless you’re talking about the heist itself, which in the grand scheme of the show is mostly inconsequential, there isn’t always much to go on. So I’m going to try something new. The following “review” is going to be a list of pros and cons from the episode. Because the team is comprised of professional con men. Damn I’m good.

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“Well? Get back to work.“

I did season one of Breaking Bad a while back, and then did seasons two and three over the course of June and just a bit of July so I would be all caught up in time for premiere.

How did you all wait an entire year for this show to come back? (“Meth” was a common answer. Oddly, no one took up chemistry or dressing entirely in purple.) I mean, I only had to wait two weeks for this episode, and while I kept my now very bad addiction to suspense fed by watching the Women’s World Cup, I still found myself jonesing (seeing Walt and Jesse on every other Web site I visited this month certainly didn’t help maters). I can only imagine what people who have been watching the show for longer than I have have been going through.

But it’s here now, so we can all exhale slowly. If only so we can suck all the air back in and hold our breath again. Read more »

“It’s a dangerous mountain. There could be some polar bears or ill tempered Eskimos.”

Leverage‘s return left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. Sometimes the cons are just silly. Or boring. But it’s that oh so lovable ragtag group of liars, cheats and thieves turned do-gooders that keep us coming back. “The Long Way Down Job” was a prime example of why those who are fans of the show love it and why its naysayers are so adamantly against it.

A mountaintop is just not a place for the team to be. It’s a very challenging terrain. A hacker is almost no good because, as evidenced, signals are lost all the time and communication is hard to maintain. Sure Parker climbs buildings, but a mountain is a totally different story. Eliot is just good at everything so he should be fine.

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“Why don’t you pull out your smartphone and tweet about your newfound love of social justice.”

The title of this episode is somewhat misleading. Yes, the search for Bay’s father is a plot point but it’s a very B, maybe C plot point. And John is such a terrible father/person that I refuse to believe this title is about him as well. But we’ll get into all of that.

My reviews of Switched at Birth should just be running counts and commentary on the uncomfortable, arrogant, racist things Kathryn says or does. After an awkward run-in with a neighbor, she feels the need to define the relationship between the two families to save face. Chicks, man. Why can’t they just let stuff be what it is?

She continues her reign of terror by expressing her discomfort with Regina having clients from her old neighborhood coming to the house so she can do their hair. Cause I’m sure when crime broke out in Regina’s old neighborhood it was the short, gray-haired old ladies who were mugging people and holding up the liquor store at gunpoint. Read more »

“I’ll not sit meekly by and wait for the snows.”

This was pretty standard for a season finale. Admittedly, the season reached a climax at the end of last week so it’s only to be expected that the finale essentially ties up its one big loose end (Daenerys) and then spends the rest of the episode putting the pieces where they need to be when the next season starts. It’s essentially season 2, episode 00.

And there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Indeed, this first season really feels more like prologue to whatever is to come after, and probably should be treated as such. But it’s not very good, even as a prologue. The first half failed  to make connections between sexposition sequences and the larger narrative world, leaving me feeling talked at and without a sense of what was at stake here. The second half tried to pay off some of that, and while I enjoyed the last five hours more then the first five, I didn’t know why I needed to care who was on the Iron Throne.

And I still don’t. Read more »

“Love is the death of duty.“

Last week, Noel Murray at the TV Club wrote an essay entitled “When spoilers help: The Game of Thrones defense.” (There are no spoilers in the essay, so you can click in safety.) Murray took an opposite approach from me when he settled in for Game of Thrones: he looked up stuff, consulted viewers’ guides, and felt it better equipped him to enjoy the series.

And when I say that he took the opposite approach from me, I mean it. I avoided any and all information about the series. I knew about the casting, sure, but I didn’t know anything about Westeros or what a Dothraki was, or how to spell Targareny Tagareynen Targaryen. I went in completely and utterly cold to a series, which is something of an abnormality for me. I like to do research because I do like to know if a series is worth 4 to 6 hours of my time (the minimum range I give hour-long dramas to grab me), even more so if I’m going to write about the damn thing.

(For what it’s worth, I part of me wish I had done what Murray had done, but I don’t think it would’ve helped many of my problems with the series.)

I’m not a complete spoilerphobe, though I’ve certainly come a long way from where I used to be. I used to purposefully spoil myself about Lost, but stopped after I thought I had figured out the twist in the season 3 finale, and then used spoilers to confirm (I was correct, by the way). After that experience, I stopped visiting SpoilerFix or frequenting sites that prided themselves on such scoops.

In the process of learning how to spell Targaryen, I spoiled myself in minor ways. For instance, I knew about the coup in advance while I looked up bits about Syrio, and was able to draw theories about what would instigate it (I was correct about the death, though not about the boar). Otherwise, I went to incredible lengths to avoid plot points about Game of Thrones.

Thanks to Twitter, I was able to avoid looking at information about ABC’s upfronts, as they provided a big old spoiler for a currently running cable program. Given that the only cable program running at the time where spoilers would matter was this one, I stayed away from stuff about the upfronts.

But then I stupidly read something on ABC’s Web site for its fall shows (I didn’t know which show had the spoiler in the press release/description/cast), and was spoiled for this episode. Read more »

“One sentence in and I already hate this conversation.”

So Myles and I were talking last week, you know, kicking around the old peanut, and we discussed the new seasonal problem established by “On Guard.” No, that seasonal problem isn’t Hilarie Burton being raised to season regular while Sharif Atkins still guest stars. That’s just something the troubles me. No, we’re talking about the new stakes that don’t involve Kate or the music box. This thing with the Nazi treasure and Peter cottoning to being on Neal’s tail. While I think we know that this will take a while to play out, he seems a little more pessimistic than I am, referring to the arc as being “dangled” in front of us while I felt it was going to be more integral to the plot.

I can’t say for sure that’s what Myles meant because (1) I only know him through Twitter and (2) when I say we were “kicking around the old peanut,” I meant that we exchanged about three tweets. An odd number because he didn’t answer me on the last one. Academic critics: always so high and mighty in their ivory towers.

Jury’s still out on how they’re going to use this arc against us especially since we’re so early in the season but I’m winning so far. Unlike the music box and the whole Kate fiasco, Mozzie and Neal conspiring to abscond with the Nazi treasure is figuring into a pretty heavy B-story. Neal seems to actually care what happens to this artwork (unlike the Neal-bot reacting to Kate’s death and the music box mysteries for most of Season 2) and Mozzie has a new focus. Sure, this kind of just rehashing what they did with these two in Season 2.5 but it’s better because this could actually threaten the relationship between Neal and Peter. But you know all that from last week.

This week is step 2 in raising those stakes: reestablish the Peter/Neal bond to make sure we still have something to lose. How’s the best way to do that? A treasure hunt, of course!

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“She’s pretty, she’s smart, she bakes. What doesn’t she do?”

Is that what Bay wears to school? Man high school got awesome since I graduated. This was only going to be a Final Thought but then I kept thinking about it so it’s a tangent worth discussing.

Because really, is no one going to comment on her attire? Does she go to school at Constance Billard? Her parents don’t find it inappropriate? Her brother doesn’t find it a tad risque? Or hot depending on how he feels now knowing that they aren’t related. Speaking of which, I wonder if incest (or a close likeness) is gonna be possible on this show. Probably not. The Family in ABC Family doesn’t really scream incest. Well actually…by definition I guess it does.

I mean come on, who wasn’t reading the incestuous undertones of that scene with Daphne and Toby and the brownie batter. I get that they are connecting as brother and sister but I cannot be the only one who sees incest there! Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system…

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“We got work to do.“

I really enjoyed season 2 of Supernatural, in case you couldn’t tell from the previous posts (for thoughts on earlier episodes, you can click here). It’s been a season that actually concludes (in a rewarding fashion) its on-going story arc without dragging it out too much. Its finale sets up new and interesting plot threads for future seasons in a subtle and elegant way while still telling strong episode-by-episode stories. It balances serialization without allowing the serialization to consume the series. Episodes remain both self-contained and able to provide forward momentum on seasonal plot arcs without feeling tacked on.

In short, season 2 of Supernatural is a remarkable well-rounded and well-executed season of television. Sure, they are some clunkers in the mix, but they don’t weigh down the season very much, or stand out as examples of what Supernatural shouldn’t do. I think that’s what impresses me the most about this season is that is very consistent in its quality, which is a claim that even the best of shows can’t necessarily make sometimes.

As promised, I have thoughts from both Charlotte Howell and Cory Barker after the jump. My thoughts are first since they come from a newbie’s perspective on the series (and without much knowledge of what’s to come; but damn do they hype up season four!). Charlotte’s thoughts will be after mine, and then Cory will bring us home.

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