Monsters of Television

“I think that bailiff from Night Court is spot on.”

Hmm. Something smells of herring.

The one thing I learned from this episode: despite my film degree, I have not seen a whole lot of Hitchcock. You would think after spending four years of taking film classes of every kind that I would be sick of Hitchcock, up to my ears in the bald man. But no. Even today, my familiarity with his oeuvre is limited to Psycho, most of Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest and brief clips I’ve seen in passing. Now, base an episode on the Odessa Steps sequence or mimes playing tennis and I’m a freaking expert. But my education on Hitchcock was somewhat lacking.

Like House, season finales on Psych are usually formula-breaking, stylized events. Season 4’s ending brings back the Yin-Yang Killer from last season’s finale, a psychopath obsessed with Shawn that leaves clues around town for him to pick up on like a game only he can play. But, since Yang (the name by which she goes) is locked up in a high-security mental institution, this new string of murders can’t be her. In a twist that should really be no surprise to anyone familiar with the Yin-Yang symbol, Yang admits to having a partner that’s still at large. He goes by Yin.

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“Into the fire.”

Mozzie, tugging at the heart strings. Don’t cry, buddy.

It’s all come down to this. Neal, after working for the feds all season, and doing a good job (sometimes so good I wonder how Burke even caught him in the first place), is ready to possibly throw it all away for the dream of a girl he fetishizes and the proverbial “one last job.” Aided by the decidedly hotter Alex and the always faithful Mozzie, the team prepares a plan to steal the music box from the Italian consulate during a conveniently-planned gala. Peter knows Neal is up to something and crashes their planning party. Peter tries to talk Neal out of doing anything illegal but the smarmy look Neal always wears tells Burke that it’s going to happen anyway. Peter’s parting words: “Do the right thing, Neal.”

Central to this series is what Neal thinks is the right thing. He is a principled man, a cultured man, a man both polite and courteous, not even prone to jackassery. By all outward appearances, a gentleman. But then again, he’ll also rob people blind for motives that aren’t entirely clear. Does he only defraud those he feels can afford it? Does he rob just because he likes the nice things? Or does he buck society for some other deep-seated reason? In a binary world, he appears to ride the fence of good and evil, leaning toward one side or the other whenever it suits his purposes. For Neal, though, the world is not binary. It’s all gray. The right thing here is to save Kate. That is his responsibility. And, despite the woman right there that obviously still holds a torch for him, he has an obligation to see this through and chase the dream. The only way to do that is to skirt the law.

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“Be not afraid.”

Yeah, I’m not going to feel sorry for you people.

Am I the only one that misses Laura Prepon with red hair? Every time I see her blonde it upsets me.

After a series of House episodes with a bit of gravity (including the very good “Wilson” and “5 to 9”), we get a mostly light-hearted episode. The threads of the season (Cuddy and House, Lucas and House, House’s recovery, etc) are left alone for a week so that we can, instead, focus on more antics between men of a certain age, namely the secrets they keep from each other even over the long course of their friendship and, more recently, constant proximity to one another.

The overall theme to this particular episode is the concept that “no man is an island.” House (natch) feels that anyone can be an island, that even while living among thousands of people, one can maintain solitude. As you might guess, Wilson feels the opposite. Ms Prepon plays a blogger who sees recording her life as a commitment to honesty, even to the detriment of her relationship and her decision-making abilities (“Dear strangers/readers, what kind of heart valve should I get?”). We would call her an “oversharer.” Her presence updates the “no man is an island” concept by bringing it into digital world where anyone can offer as much of themselves as they want. “Privacy is a modern invention,” Talb insists, supporting his statement with the fact that people used to live in small, far-flung towns where no one could keep secrets. The internet has made the world small again, the difference being people can choose which tiny village to create or inhabit. Our blogger friend, of course, is eventually stricken with some serious effects of a disease, which of course leads her to PPTH. The most disappointing thing: not even one Eric Foreskin joke.

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“It was on this island that everything changed.”

This may be the best, most compelling episode (yet) of the final season of Lost, for many reasons.

"You were larger than life, you came and you conquered..."

It’s an episode that provides even more nuance to Benjamin Linus, a character that’s been going strong for seasons now, and who knew that there was much nuance left to be mined (obviously Michael Emerson, thus proving, yet again, his acting ability).

It’s an episode that gave even more weight to the flash-sideways structure than any previous one, one that navigates ideas about destiny and choice, and manages to provide redemption for a character who has done horrible things (never mind that fans had long since forgiven Ben Linus anything based on the sheer amount of charisma the character has).

But the episode also begins to map out the season’s most compelling new character, Richard, while still providing a bit of meta commentary, though this time significantly more subtle than in “Lighthouse.”  After last week’s episode that emphasized the big picture narrative of Smocke’s goals to leave the Island, to see what the Island means to a man who who wanted to protect it, and himself, it made for damn fine television. Read more »

“You can be the best!”

Now that everyone is introduced, the show can settle into a groove that allows characters and stories the chance to breathe, maybe not focus on everyone very closely, while developing the stories laid out in the pilot. And by and large the show does that. The upside of the multiple storyline aspect is that it makes it easier to see which ones are and aren’t working, and then I can pretend like the latter ones don’t exist, making my job hobby a lot easier.

This episode finds the Bravermans figuring out what to do next now that their family is reunited in one geographical space, each with conflicts to overcome (finding a job, coping with kids who have different and specific needs, and in Zeek’s case, chopping wood and being a busy-body) and how they can do it and still remain a family. Read more »

“Maybe the thing to do here is to keep letting him think he’s clever.”

Last week it was horrorcore and oversaturation of violent media that were destroying America. This week it was graduate students that represent a threat to America’s moral fiber (thankfully, it was one from the social sciences, not the humanities (we’re harmless! (it’s why no one fears cutting our budgets…))).

The graduate student, while much maligned, isn’t exactly the villain of a 1990s period piece (we’re not paid enough to be really dangerous in any decade), like I discussed last week with the show. Instead, “Brilliant Disguise” offers an example of an idea that would’ve probably been better served by being on Criminal Intent instead of on Law & Order. This boils down to the differences in the two show’s formulas, and what characters and stories feel more at home on which show. Read more »

“So unobservant.”

I, along with many others, have been pummeling How I Met Your Mother for the past 10 episodes due to their mishandling over the Barney/Robin break-up. No fall out, barely an acknowledgement of it. Barney went back to being Barney and Robin went back to thinking she was the prettiest girl in the room and being a bit oblivious.

It turns out that we, the audience, were the oblivious ones (along with Ted, Marshall, and Barney). Robin was going through a mourning period off-screen for months now (four to be exact), and it all came to a head after Barney compared a random hook-up as a “younger Robin” with bigger, shapelier breasts.

Now I have to get vomit stains out of the inside of my stormtrooper helmet (sadly that’s not the first time I’ve typed that sentence).

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Morgan: “Don’t freak out.”

The Ring fights dirty. Any gentleman knows that the appropriate weapon here is one of those giant forks. A gun is so uncouth.

Yes.

What I just watched was an episode tailor-made for fans. It’s like the writers sat in a room for three days and read every tweet of the rational fans (sorry, shippers) and dumped it all into a well-crafted episode. Don’t believe me? Big reveals? Check. Jeffster? Check. A whole lot of not-as-whiny Morgan? Check check.

In season 2, it was at about the four episodes before the end of the season (around “Chuck vs The Dream Job”) when the series started to open up a little more (Chuck finds his father, FULCRUM attempts to make intersect agents, lots of Chuck and Sarah going off-book) and that’s about what we’re getting now since the original order for Chuck eps was at 13 going in. Happily, we have more Chuck to look forward to (NBC ordered more) but their plans haven’t changed and we get what I consider one of the best episodes of this show we’ve seen yet. Top 5 material. Let’s get into it.

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“This seemed like a better idea in rehearsal.”

I feel I should be clear up front: There’ll be no discussion who won, who should’ve won, what people were wearing, etc. It’s outside the scope of this blog. Instead, I’ll be talking about how the Oscars worked as a television event (it didn’t), one that is regularly hyped as a major audience gatherer (don’t know yet if that worked), and whether or not ABC really needs to keep airing this monstrosity (it probably should ask to keep enough time to air an episode of Desperate Housewives right after so the evening isn’t a complete waste).

Things didn’t exactly get off to rollicking start, and indicated the muddled tone the telecast would invoke throughout the night. A song-and-dance number by Neil Patrick Harris done on the pseudo-MGM superspecial set was lacking in interest or fun. As a result, I hoped for Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin to come out and just knock my socks off.

Sadly, I had to remove the socks myself.

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“Do not invite me to shut it.”

Lassie is officially on the train to Crazy Town.

Dear Writer’s Room at The Office: did you see this past week’s episode of Psych? Pretty funny, right? I know. I had a lot of trouble choosing which quote to use as my lede. It was between this (from Juliet), “Dear God, what am I doing? This is half a man” (from the coroner), and “Fishing is one of my top 5 skills, right behind profiling and ski ball” (from Lassiter). Well-crafted dialogue, situations that were germane to the plot, and, in an episode that was pretty much filler (since it didn’t tackle any of the continuing threads like Shawn’s slump or the question of a relationship with Juliet), it didn’t feel like a cop out.

I mean, how cool was it that Lassiter was going to follow in Shawn’s example? An insane Lassie is gut-busting. The fact that Shawn didn’t really even put clues together until the second half of the show as we followed Lassie following his gut was pretty remarkable. Though weren’t you guys a little disappointed that they didn’t go all the way with that? They could’ve let Lassie finish out the case with the Tao of Shawn. But at the same time, that wouldn’t be true to Lassie’s character. So, and I think you’d have to agree, we have to applaud their restraint.

Speaking of which, Office writers, I think we should commend them on their dedication to character. That’s certainly something you can appreciate. Lassiter doing things like pulling his badge and shooting wildly into the water for the sharks to appear (information we gleaned anecdotally from Juliet) is priceless. Shawn wanting to egg Lassie on is also a great use of character since all Shawn’s ever wanted to do is pull the stick out of Lassie’s you know where. You know where, Office guys! Ha ha! Classic.

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