Monsters of Television

“I love our little give-and-take. Classic Ross and Rachel.”

Nothing can be scary anymore unless it’s a technique developed in Asia.

Dear Chuck, pick a tone. Stick with it. Love, Nick

The highs and lows in this episode have been good (for this season anyway) but, when they start robbing effect from each other, that’s when you know your tone is off. With some of the episodes of late, I was just getting used to conceding that Chuck was going to become the Big Bang Theory of hour-long dramas: broad, broad comedy with a hot girl to anchor it. The spy stuff was going to be the buzzing bee that gave it separation from the rest of its broad comedy brethren, maybe even a bit of heart.

But then some of the Chuck’s mom stuff was good, if eye-rolling material at times. The stakes were raised, the deception and double-crosses created tension, and we had yet another time where the B-story fed into the A-story. People, this had the makings of continuing the good they did last week.

And then it went goofy. The stakes were blunted. And I think it was because they didn’t want to have to decide between their slapstick idea and their real drama. “We can do both, right?”

As I see it, no.

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“We sold ourselves to vampires!“

This is not the way to go into a month-long hiatus, The Venture Bros.

It isn’t that “The Silent Partners” is a bad episode, but it’s just not particularly good. It’s the kind of flabby, aimless storytelling that has marked the show for much of this season, and some of last. I don’t object to the in media res storytelling (Billy’s working at a hospital? He and Pete suddenly have tons of cash?) since the episode does explain it, but I do object to the lack of throughline in the episode’s purpose. Read more »

“No, I will not make out with you.”

Pants!

One can’t really be a closeted Emma Stone fan if one keeps telling everyone about it. There’s some sort of shame in me for being attracted to Emma Stone, not for her level of talent or aesthetic or charismatic presence but, almost solely, for her age. She’s drinking age and almost a full four years above jailbait but, for some reason, I reflect on the fact that, when I turned drinking age, she was dropping out as a freshman in high school and convincing her parents to move to Hollywood. And while she started to get down to the work that eventually brought her to the SNL stage, I spent it putzing around Atlanta, squandering my youth.

The point is the girl was 14 and probably more mature than I was in 2002 and it’s this duality, maturity in youth (aided by a deep husk in her voice), I think, that I detect when I hear the sheepish admissions of men my age and later of a crush on the chick from Superbad. But this SNL sadly reminded me of another popular crushed upon female celebrity (one that people more emphatically admit to): Megan Fox.

Though the two figures don’t share much outside relative age range (Fox is only two years older) and being obsessions of GQ editors, their SNL stints were equally lackluster. My issue with Megan Fox’s run were the skits primarily based on her being either a prostitute, male fantasy character, or herself, and her roles were generally uninspired (she only speaks gibberish Russian-sound-alike in one). While Emma Stone was allowed to play more varied roles, the skits themselves were relatively uninspired and failed to use her ability, save two where she was stepped all over.

So here are some quick reviews of last night’s SNL, ranked good (“Easy A”), bad (“Easy C”), or ugly (“Easy Fail”). You’ll see the list is a bit lopsided.

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Hard to find a male mentor around here, huh?

Quick Take: Whoa!  The Vampire Diaries has yet again proven it has some guts.  “Plan B” featured reversals of fortune, shocking twists, and a good deal of heartbreak.

In his review of TVD for The A.V. Club at the beginning of the season, Todd VanDerWerff compared TVD to Smallville, stating both are the kind of program he could watch at the beginning and end of the season only, yet still manage to keep up. I have never watched Smallville, so I can’t speak to that issue, but for TVD, I have to disagree. Sure, the “previously on” features may provide a cliff’s notes guide to the main plot points, but experiencing them in this form would remove all their shock, their impact, and their resonance. I know what some of you may be thinking…resonance?  Don’t worry–I know TVD ain’t all that deep, but it does excel at surprises—as this episode demonstrates.  TVD may not be world’s deepest show, but it is seriously competing for world’s most entertaining.

Characters were getting taken down all over the place here. Katherine is proving herself most dangerous in how she gets others to do her will—guess that shouldn’t be surprising considering her history with manipulating the Salvatore brothers. But seriously, I think she was in two scenes during this episode, yet she still managed to inflict quite a bit of damage through direct or indirect interference. By the end of the episode, Elena was crying, Stefan was crying, Jeremy was looking all determined, Caroline was crying, Mason was…well, if you want to know what all the fuss is about, come on in.

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“All of this is false.”

I am a sucker for dream episodes. I can’t tell you why because I have no idea. Some of it, I’m sure, it stems from the fact that it offers character insight through vague symbolism that then allows the audience to try and puts things to go, or it simply crystallizes character motivations or anxieties. And, since it’s a dream, it allows the show to go a little crazy without it feeling like tonal whiplash.

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed “Shaman of Fear.” After last’s week high octane episode (Get it? It was about cars, remember? Octane. Cars. Yeah.), this episode takes it nice and slow while still telling a fairly taunt story with creepy imagery and character backstory. Even the battle at the end is one of the show’s best so far. Read more »

“Found something to worry about.”

Well. Everyone has an off day.

“Cleaning House” is a creaky, kind of lazy little episode that suffers from a lack of focus and, frankly, anything really interesting happening until the last minute. The episode isn’t busy, and since nothing really pops in the episode, it feels like it’s taking a leisurely pace to get to conclusions that we all know are coming, or simply don’t expect because of red herrings.

Like last week’s Community, I’m okay with great shows having so-so episodes. They happen, and you can only roll with the punches, and hope next week will be better. Read more »

“It’s the only thing we’re actually allowed to do together.”

“Hi. My name is Eric. I like young girls.”

Is Eric not icky to anyone else?

Sorry to pull out such an advanced term but Eric is disgusting. Between dating the Lux surrogate and constantly finding himself in compromising positions with a 16-year old, the words he chokes out about things being inappropriate and how he has to steer clear from Lux’s wiles are empty to his actions. And I’m not sure what’s more disturbing: Eric being two shots away from going where only a kid named Bug has gone before or the Lux and Eric ‘shipper tweets I see on the #LUX hashtag. Don’t these people watch E! Investigates? Do they think “the man” is getting in the way the “true love” depicted in the “Hot for Teacher” special?

And seriously, why can’t Math help Lux out? It doesn’t make sense, people. HE LIVES IN THE SAME HOUSE. Math! Come on, man! Save your best friend’s daughter from being molested.

Beyond Mr Daniels being — icky — the rest of the episode is dedicated to one history-revisionist storyline and another painfully obvious one. Cate and Ryan whine about a non-issue and Baze actually treads on some icky territory of his own. All of which is contained in another convenient coincidence where all the adults, for different reasons, are “staycationing” at the same hotel. What are the odds?

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” — if you have the mana to battle the other plainswalkers.”

Special buddies.

This episode would have been way better if it incorporated a Sharktopus. SyFy bastards of science aside, though, I didn’t hate this episode as much as I’ve hated most of this season.

The same problems are still there. The false cliffhangers and the lack of stakes hang like a dark cloud over (however minor) character development and a couple callbacks for the true believers. And, let’s face it, it was a Casey episode so we had a lot of him to look forward to.

But of everything that happened in this episode (and there are a few key plot points), I think the most important revelation of all was the many times that Chuck finally admitted: “This is all my fault.” Yes, Chuck. And it always has been.

Now, I’m not blaming him for getting the Intersect stuck in his head (although putting v2.0 in back in is all on him) so the entire problematic of the series is not his fault but many of the screw-ups, the pain, the suffering, is on the back of one Charles Bartowski. I’ve made the case several times before, and I’ll say it here: Chuck is a jackass.

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“We were unable to stay ahead of the narrative.”

Not exactly a great title for what could potentially be your last episode, Rubicon (and I didn’t think being meta was something you were interested in). But, boy, what a great finale in either case.

As we move into a discussion of the finale, and the season as a whole, let’s remember that Rubicon let its characters fail. And now that they failed on a personal level, we expect them to fail and struggle on a personal level, but that they failed to do their jobs because they couldn’t find that one pattern, that one detail that would make the necessary links is all to ballsy of a show on the edge of cancellation. But as this episode demonstrates, despite the big explosion happening last week, the fallout is even more exciting and surprising. Read more »