Monsters of Television

“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.”

That tree never did anything to you, Robb.

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.“

This was just like my first night of college. No, really. It was.

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.”

Watch out, Neal! You're gonna get killed by beeeeees!

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.“

Certainly appears to be better security than the Hell Mouth in Sunnydale.

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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“All those stories you’ve heard about him: they’re not stories, they’re true.“

As you may have already guessed, I wasn’t crazy about the episode. There’s stuff I like it, but that’s the stuff I’m assuming, hoping, they’re going to expand on in part two (I do love the episode title for part two). The rest of it remained kind of all over the place, and the big reveal really wasn’t all that big.

Which leaves me kind of unexcited about having to wait until September to see how it all finishes. I mean, I’ll be tuning in, of course, but the thrill of it is gone. The (nearly) all-consuming concerns about this child I think has become something of an weight the on show for me, but this could simply be because I don’t really care now.

And it also didn’t have nearly enough of the Cybermen. So it was already in the hole for me after that.

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“It’s not fair, and…you know, it hurts like hell, but…it’s worth it.”

I really believed that this was the best sandwich Dean's ever eaten.

I didn’t cry while watching this episode on the bus. Really. I didn’t. It was allergies.

Okay.

I totally cried. When Dean sees Mary. When he talks to John’s grave. When Sam’s all “Dude, we’ve never been friends. We see each other at holidays. What are you doing right now?”

No. I’m not crying just thinking about it. I have allergies. Pollen’s been really bad this year. No rain and all. You know how it is.

Sniffle.

All kidding aside, I enjoyed the episode (although I’m not kidding about the crying. I totally did). It’s a nice button on Dean’s arc this season, and I couldn’t ask for a better episode going into the finale.

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“I know he must be punished, but all I ask is mercy.”

"The madness of mercy."

Have I mentioned how exhausting I find this show? Not recently? Well, it’s exhausting.

This week my exhaustion stems from the fact that this episode throws the show’s normal narrative pacing to the wind and packs in what was about a month, month and a half worth of in-story events into a single episode. Never have ravens flown faster or people covered more ground than in this episode. And since the episode doesn’t make clear how much time is passing, the episode feels like all of this is happening in a matter of days instead of weeks.

Certainly there’s value to this compression of the narrative as it ratchets up the tension and suspense in a show where both have been largely absent (a sense of gloom and doom (“Winter is coming.”) does not equal tension or suspense) as we move into the final hours of the season, but in a show that relishes expository talk, would it have killed someone to say “It took us a month to get here!” or “Ned’s been in a cell for weeks!”?

Such dialog does not even require the use of women having sex with another! …Or is that why it wasn’t included? Read more »

“Think of it like a Kardashian: what it lacks in refinement it makes up for in cargo space.”

One step closer to the Money Bin.

It has to be a difficult task to keep blue skies in a world of ethical gray.

When it has to make the choice, White Collar tends to shift more toward “blue skies” than toward the darkness that should lie in Neal’s gray heart. The heroes and villains are clear cut, the “criminals” are more than willing to help the Feds (sometimes only needing a minor amount of arm-twisting), and Neal seems to be all but reformed. Outside of a few sideglances and the occasional twinkle in his eye when he’s impressed by a heist, Neal is the model of turning away from the dark side.

And it doesn’t feel unnatural for him to do so. He and Peter have been getting along (Bomer and DeKay’s chemistry is pretty solid) and Neal clearly loves being able to use his criminal mind without having to make an escape plan. But the show blunts its edge by making it less about “once a con-man, always a con-man” serving a the man who caught him (and enjoys the spoils) in what is essentially a glorified indentured servitude and making it more of a buddy cop show where one has the police brain while the other has the street smarts. Besides hints from Neal’s thieving buddies like Alex or Mozzie, it was starting to feel like Neal had turned his back on his past, particularly with the painful music box plot out of the way.

That’s why I’m glad season 3 looks to bring more of that edge back to the show without all that “Kate” pretense. And we don’t have to hear more about the music box. And that there is (or at least should be) more opportunities for Alex to come back, especially with Hilarie Burton being raised to season regular on the show. What a nothing character she plays.

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