Monsters of Television

“God said the doomed lose the right to be redeemed.”

Jacob looks way different.

Oh yes, we’re going to talk about Mercy.

TVByTheNumbers calls this show (along with Trauma) a ratings sinkhole. Even with NBC’s desperate need to fill the holes in its schedule, for all intents and purposes, it can’t in good conscience keep a show no one is watching. I watch a lot of TV and I count on one hand the times I’ve caught even a piece of an episode. In fact, the only two full episodes I’ve watched are the two most recent (though I’ve seen several episodes 30 minutes in). But I think I have a pretty decent snapshot of the show.

In the interest of full-disclosure, I had this series pegged for early cancellation from the beginning. Everything from the preview trailers showing Veronica shouting “I’m a nurse that knows more than all of your residents combined” to the cartoonish Dr Dan Harris (seriously, he belongs somewhere on Scrubs) made me believe no one would care. But the small glimmer of hope I held was that they would focus on Veronica’s PTSD. Every indication from advertising showed her struggle with the effects of war and her ravaged psyche and emotions. But I hadn’t seen anything that supported that hope outside of a few irrational moves (dropping a cinderblock on a Harris’s windshield) and her being overly emotional.

What I was expecting was the kind of hallucinations and erratic behavior demonstrated by Gregory House. I wanted a pain we could see and a woman wrestling with herself demonstrated creatively. Perhaps that was my error, taking the standards of one show and demanding it exist in another, despite different disorders and symptoms entirely. “I Have a Date” would show me something else.

Read more »

“You think you know me but you don’t.”

So I was wrong: the show is quite willing to give us two crazy main cast members.

Sayid is officially on the train to Crazy Town

But the crazy is tempered by the fact that crazy Claire and Sayid are still, in some way, regular Claire and Sayid. Both still have flashes of gentle smiles and I think we can all agree that both are still rather attractive (as Miles noted about Claire). What each is going through, as their infections sink in deeper and deeper into their hearts, is that their central motivations come to the forefront, for better or for worse (mostly for worse)

When “The Substitute” aired, I argued for the flash-sideways as a lens, using an analogy I stole from a professor of mine to explain to students how genre functions: when you look at something as one particular genre, those traits come forward while the other traits recede a bit (“Think of His Girl Friday as a screwball. Now think of it as a social problem film.”), leaving you with whatever you’re looking for. With the flash-sideways, the same principle is applied, just this time with character traits and motivation.

With “Sundown,” we perhaps the clearest deployment of that idea yet.

Read more »

“Beep beep beep”

First off, apologies on lack of post about the show last week. I just didn’t have much to say about it (even now the episode’s incredibly fuzzy) and I had things to grade. Such is the way of things. Secondly, apologies for this review taking a while to occur. Week before spring break with lots to do.

So, with the niceties out of the way, we can commence. The episode has found me firmly in the “This is a good show” camp. I’m not in the “No. 1 show on TV” camp, but that’s because I can’t possibly watch everything on television, so I just don’t know. But it is a good show, a smart show. An adult show.

Now if I can only change the strainer in my dish washer…

Read more »

“Instead of Alzheimer’s, Abed has … someone who likes him.”

With all due apologies to 30 Rock, but I’m afraid that Dan Harmon and his crackerjack cast may be usurping your place as my favorite comedy on NBC. (Don’t worry, Tina! You’re still funnier than Mercy! In different ways though.)

Community, as I’ve said, has been growing leaps and bounds since “Introduction to Statistics” (and if that episode didn’t do it for you, then try “Debate 109” or “Comparative Religion”), culminating in the past three episodes as the show as found itself in terms of format (i.e., the study table moment at the halfway point), characters, and tone. The show’s done this to enough of an extent that I found myself had pressed to take many notes because I laughing so much (a hard feat to do when you’re watching the episode on Hulu by yourself in a library group study room).

Read more »

“Bear my child.”

Behold, the Jam baby.

Surrounded by the maudlin quirks of their coworkers, Jim and Pam try to wrap their heads around bringing another life into the world. This episode was filled with all the things that put the series in such a distasteful state: flat jokes, half-finished stories, and a lack of excitement. One would think the urgency of an impending baby delivery would provide loads of excitement for an episode but, somehow, this one comes off dull.

That being said, John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer were great. Jim losing his cool, becoming “frazzled,” demonstrates a vulnerable side to him that creates more depth for his character (much like what falling on his face does for Shawn Spencer in Psych) and some great business for him. When people talk about the “little moments” that make this episode, a lot of them are from Jim. Pam as the stubborn and, at times, vicious mother-to-be was inspired, especially in the transition from killer to woman insecure about the event she has no control over. Although the scene where this occurs is a little thrown together and stilted, she sells it the best she can with the limited time allowed to her.

Read more »

“Time to get into character.”

I’m not even sure how Diane Neal has any hair left.

One can say there are many themes to this show. Maybe it’s to create a new kind of buddy cop/detective story, a “bromance” (even typing the word puts a foul taste in my mouth) of sorts between past enemies learning from one another. Or it’s about the true meaning of “thick as thieves” growing beyond the criminal aspect and into the bonds all people share. Or maybe it’s all just Matt Bomer starring in sartorial and haberdashery porn. It’s all of these things. But, at the very heart of the show, White Collar is about the morality of Neal Caffrey.

This is no surprise to anyone that’s seen an episode of this ending-too-soon first season but this is the episode that most deftly negotiated the different aspects of Neal’s life: the sharp criminal mind, the heart of gold, and the gray moral ground those two things occupy.

The episode starts with an offer. Neal has been tracking down this music box for a few episodes, mercifully giving another name to his mission of rescuing Kate. For a while, he was saying the name “Kate” so much, I was pretty sure Pee Wee Herman was right and he was actually going to wear it out. Alex, another pretty brunette (the producers just are not into blondes), his spurned ex-lover/partner, has the location of the music box but won’t work with a Fed. To prove himself, he has to get rid of the anklet by the next evening. If this were any other show you might wonder, “How the heck is he going to do that?” But this is Neal so, really, you just have to wonder how it’s just going to work out in his favor. Turns out the Feds are going to do it for him.

Read more »

“It’s my team.”

Being able to tell you why I enjoyed Parenthood is a tricky thing. I can’t really compare it to anything in particular, though it thankfully avoids stringing out the “reveal” that these people are all related (yes, I’m talking to you Modern Family). It could be that I’ve just been starved for something to watch on Tuesday nights. It could be that I hadn’t seen a Thomas Schlamme directed episode of television in a while and was enjoying his smart and considerate work.

But it probably has a lot more to do with the acting. With a cast led by Peter Krause and Lauren Graham, Parenthood‘s actors manages to easily shift between serious and funny without feeling like there’s a tonal whiplash issue that can plague other shows that attempt it. Read more »

“I think the show’s just starting.”

When Dollhouse got cancelled, and with USA shifting its schedule around, my Friday nights were going to be pretty dead (sorry, Caprica fans!). But Law & Order was on Fridays, so I decided to start tackling the old war horse when it came back from the Olympic break. When NBC said it would be moving to Mondays to cover for the widely mourned The Jay Leno Show, I wasn’t thrilled because it meant my Fridays would be really dead (resulting in me occasionally looking at Caprica).

I tuned in for both of Monday’s episodes in a mildly snarky mood. The promos drove home that Debra Winger was guest starring, to which I felt was a little silly since many in the post-Chuck audience wouldn’t know Debra Winger from a hole in the ground. As the episodes progressed, I realized that the show was still beholden to its 1990s heights. As Alisa and Max Dawson conversed with me over Twitter, we bandied about the rough idea of Law & Order as a ’90s period piece.

And I’m fairly certain that much of the time that’s exactly what the show is. Read more »

“I gotta stand up, beat my chest, and wreck his banana party.”

It’s a bed-head showdown!

Of all the episodes so far this season, this one felt the most like a late-90s, early-00s WB show. The stakes are unfair and immature, the lyrics of the background music intermingle at the same volume with dialogue. Lux even looks like the younger incarnation of Amy Abbot from Everwood this week. Same “I’m always on the brink of tears” face and everything.

And we see a lot of her this episode. Even though Cate and Ryan are off doing their morning show (which I assume is a Monday-Friday gig), Lux is chilling at home, mourning the loss of Bug. Apparently, a loser boyfriend skipping town is on the list of excusable absences from the school we never see this whole episode. But Cate indulges by providing Rocky Road ice cream when she gets home from work and they talk about how Cate will always be there for her. Aww. She’ll regret making that promise later.

Read more »

“I’m just a jerk!”

I can normally get behind the social/dating stuff that the show rolls out fairly easily. Slap Bet. The Hot/Crazy scale. The Bro Code. The Lemon Law. The Platinum Rule. The Naked Man.  But this season has been a bit blah. Like “The Sexless Innkeeper,”  “Hooked” feels like a neat idea, but the concept doesn’t get exploited for enough laughs.

Hooked refers to stringing along someone that you have no intention of being with, but you keep them near you with the “one day” or “just not right now” line. It’s a relatable concept, as I’m sure many people have done this and/or have had it done to them, but the show fails to latch onto how these situations are funny: seeing the past versions of the characters experience the social trope in play.

It’s frustrating because they show hints at it, as we see Marshall in his teenage years, swooning for some girl, only to being totally ignored and buried in snow, the potential past experiences that could be mined for comedy gold. Instead we get that one bit, Ted being cruel to a woman from the university’s library (who looks like Shelley Duvall’s much younger sister) in his attempt to hook up with Carrie Underwood, and the other bit of Lily attempting to finally break things off with Scooter (and Robin leading on Mike the Cameraman).

The episode is, frankly, prime idea for Seinfeld, with its cast of misanthropic characters, and in a show where all the jokes would end up converging at the end, the pay off could be impressive. But on HIMYM, the characters aren’t as vain or self-absorbed as the characters from Seinfeld (except maybe Robin). So while the show acknowledges Ted’s cruelty to library woman by having Future Ted pause the narrative and yell, it never fully works because the show hasn’t earned Ted as being this jerk-like (he can be a bit of a jerk though).

Lily’s attempts to finally let Scooter off the hook is simply weird due to the presence of the teacup pig (is that a thing?), whose adorable stare parallels that of Scooter’s. Eventually the Lily is able to say no to the pig, and thus to Scooter, but the journey to get there is frankly a bit off the mark.

As the episode finished, I realized that the show has its audience on a hook. “We’re not going to show you the mother. But maybe one day…” And thus we keep giving the show foot massages, baking it cakes, and cuddling with it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Barney’s discussion of pharmaceutical girls would be funny if Scrubs hadn’t done a similar idea back with Heather Locklear back in the day.
• To that end, I’m sure Barney is a pro at hooking women. I would’ve loved to have seen some of that.
• The show just loves having awkward and pudgy Jason Segel become his teenage self. And I love it, too.
• I flipped over to NBC thinking that Law & Order was about to start, and caught the half-hour break of Chuck. I watched long enough to realize that poor Shaw is on Sarah’s hook (at least up to the point that I watched).
• Scooter remains awesomely creepy.