Monsters of Television

“It’s a business of sadists and masochists. And you know which on you are.”

Christina Hendricks in thick-frame glasses and pajamas? It’s like they know what I think about before I go to sleep at night.

I feel like I’m biologically and socially unprepared to fully address the issues brought up in this week’s Mad Men but I’m going to try my hand at it anyway. Feel free to correct my misguided views in the comments.

The title of the episode would lead you to believe that it’s just another day at the office for SCDP which is filled with the extraordinarily beautiful every day (except for Ms Blankenship, who was chosen specifically for who she is). It is, instead, much like the movie Beautiful Girls, an inspection of women in their position but, unlike that movie, this episode focuses more on the position of our leading ladies in the light of their time, particularly during the civil rights movement that continued without them.

So we look deeper into the lives of Joan, Peggy, and Faye as well as, and maybe most importantly, Sally Draper as well as Ms Blankenship (in a way). It is their success and the assumptions made about their success that this episode wants us to scrutinize and, even if some of their actions are irrational or seem unmotivated and inorganic (namely the scene with Joan and Roger in the bad neighborhood), it all has direction, precedent, and, at the very least, a little bit of simple symbolism.

And it all starts with another clash between Peggy and the anti-establishment.

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“You’re lucky you weren’t on duty when he had his conjugal visit with a freaking shoe.”

This review will have to be quick and dirty, which is fitting since this episode was more or less the same way. While last week’s episode was a glorious romp, “Pomp & Circuitry” feels like a great deal of piece moving to (hopefully) gets things in place for the tail end of the season that leads to a big splashy event like Season 2’s “Showdown at Cremation Creek” 2-parter.

The continues to conspire against anyone being happy, as Dean doesn’t seem on going to State University (and why would he? Look at all the nuts that went there before him!) and Hank wants to head over to the army (when he really means S.P.H.I.N.X (Sphinx!)) instead of going to college, and Rusty learns that his name is essentially meaningless (again). The only one seems to have anything going for him is Phantom Limb, and he’s still in love with a high heel he stole from Dr. Mrs. The Monarch. Read more »

Your weekly dose of sexy. Careful, he'll glamor you.

Can’t say it was world’s most eventful episode, but it had many pleasures to offer. Here are some great lines to tempt you:

“What is that smell?”
“I can’t explain it. It’s creepy.  That’s all I’ve got.”
“Your silence is deafening, Stefan.”
“Whatever happens, it’s on you”

Oh, and Damon threatened to shove Jeremy’s ring up his you know what.  Picking on Jeremy is so much fun.

The spoilers, btw, begin….right now!

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“She’s a tech nerd, she’s one hundred and fifty and you’re…Myka. Not exactly relationship success stories.”

This penultimate (not including the standalone Christmas) episode had quite a bit of foreshadowing. And some less subtle hints at things to come in the finale and beyond. It also featured some universe building, character development and witty dialogue. Anyone who thinks Syfy can’t become a top notch original programming channel without the aid of Battlestar Galactica is sadly mistaken.

Was anyone else’s heart racing when Claudia was named caretaker of Warehouse 13? If not you may wanna check your pulse.

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“Why is nobody wearing shoes?”

After watching LUX all day, capping off the evening with an episode of Parenthood threatened to send me into a family-drama sugar coma, leaving me to ponder how affected I am from my childhood and why I have no paternal desire. But, instead, the season premiere left me less sentimental and more glad to see these characters again.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this episode since it was mostly lighter fare and set-up for drama later on down the road but there were some interesting additions and wrinkles to this season that make me look forward to future episodes.

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“What makes you think you can ever be normal?”

Said the man calling himself Bug.

My reviewing of this show fell off near the end of Season 1 out of a combination of interest in other shows and disinterest in what happened to this one. But, after watching all the episodes I missed today (five of them) and then the season premiere, I can honestly say the show improved at the end of last season. It’s not great but it found its place and, finally, I can see what others can see in this show. I’m just not sure the season premiere helped it at all.

For those of you who fell off the show like I did, let me help you get up to speed. What forced the show to improve was a dismantling of what established the beginning of the show. The formula was a plot set-up around Lux being a teenager while Cate and Baze flailed around like children, inevitably learning some lesson Lux probably should have learned. The series took the sit-com trope of the kids teaching the parents about themselves to another level where the child actively and knowingly imparted knowledge to her sophomoric wards. Lux does this at the tender age of 16 after a lifetime of foster care and, as she briefly mentions, some pretty hefty emotional trauma. Not unrealistic that she would have some sage knowledge after a hard-knock life but you had to wonder, “How could a judge so blindly attribute this small wonder to these insane overaged children?”

As the season wore on, Cate and Baze started to settle better into parental roles (making the ridiculous antics from earlier on look like growing pains in hindsight) and, after the Well-Adjusted Foster Child Trust crumbled into a far-flung group of “just teenagers,” the show revealed Lux to be just as messed up as she probably should be. She’s a bright girl and extra resilient but she also has a lot of baggage and a host of mommy and abandonment issues. The last three episodes of the season really explored these characters (especially Cate and Lux) in a way that made you care about them. Baze’s development was also around but was far more hackneyed. Although, what else do you need to know other than he’s a man-child trying not to be a man-child but constantly put in his place as being, you know, a man-child.

So we finally had some development which led to strong emotional connections which led to stronger stories. The almost-The-Graduate scene at the end of Season 1, where Baze has just as much of an idea of what to do after he breaks up the wedding as Dustin Hoffman did, demonstrated an impressive amount of strength for this show by making Baze bust in late but giving Cate the opportunity to decide between the two men — and choosing Ryan right there. It’s still stuck in that late-90s WB genre (if that can even be a genre) and still leans on old standards to invent cabin scenarios (where characters are all stuck together in a closed-off area and are, therefore, forced to air their grievances or confess their inner desires) but it’s building.

So Season 2 started. And I’m not sure I very much liked how they’re moving things around.

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“Cinderella did not Google Prince Charming.”

Oh la la. What a comeback.

Following the amazing finale of season 3, Gossip Girl managed to keep the momentum over the course of its summer hiatus. A lot has changed over the summer but in a way a lot has stayed the same. Old problems and relationships have come back with some very new and delicious complications.

After all they’ve been through you would think Blair and Serena would actually be best friends instead of that terrible overused term I refuse to say. The jealousy and the fighting and the cattiness should have disappeared. It did for a while. But did you really think that a summer in Paris would be drama free for these two?

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“I have never loved, nor will I ever love, as I have loved you”

With a show as cliffhanger heavy as True Blood it can be hard to obtain the usual shock value of hanging story lines that most season finales contain. This episode proved that. Actually this episode proved a lot of things that have become very apparent in the third season of the show. Some characters obviously don’t matter anymore. Some characters just cannot have good stories. The line between intriguing and absurdity in the supernatural world is very, very thin.

True Blood has changed a lot in three years. But in many ways it’s stayed the same. Both are problematic. Many of the events of the finale are able to be applied to the problems of the characters and the series as wholes. It’s awfully meta. And far more interesting to think about than the episode (and more and more the show) itself.

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“In your mind, you already have.”

“It’s an octopus.”

I’ve been a bad Rubicon cheerleader. I didn’t get to “The Truth Will Out” until today, and I skipped “Caught in the Suck” last night so I could watch the two episodes together. As a result, even though I’m caught up, I actually feel a little behind on the show now. Part of this is simply that I’m normally very good about watching shows I’m engaged with when they air, especially a serialized piece of work like Rubicon. Another part, however, is that these two episodes kind of left me out of breath, albeit in a good way. Read more »