Monsters of Television

Nick and I have become oddly addicted to these cross-talks (they’re less labor-intensive than full reviews), so expect more of these (but we promise to continue full reviews).

Below, we’ll discuss Revolution in terms of hopes, dreams, stupid teenagers, and why Giancarlo Esposito basically does no wrong. We’re both hopeful for it, and want it do well, but the pilot doesn’t instill confidence. -NK Read more »

“He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.”

Far too often, we as an audience come into a show with – or develop – very strict expectations of our favorite characters. Much in the way that we scrutinize celebrities, royalty, politicians, and other such limelight-plagued individuals, we tend to skew toward an idealistic view of characters. As much as we complain about characters who are too “perfect,” as much as we demand imperfections and all the realism they create, we tend to balk when characters “go too far,” even when the distance is warranted.

Being a character as old and beloved as he is, the Doctor is definitely subject to such a narrowed gaze. Everyone – based on when they first came to the show, what types of stories the show was telling at the time, and what Doctor they started with (you never forget your first Doctor) – everyone has a very specific and individual notion of who and what the Doctor is. That belief generally falls along a short scale containing such values as “good man,” “non-violence,” and, in the extremist case, “paragon of virtue.”

I missed last week’s Who episode because of a party (1920s costumes, murder mystery, and more delicious food than you could shake a flapper dress at), but I’m a bit glad of it. The past two episodes (and, in truth, even the first of the season) deserve to be viewed as a two-parter in theme, if not in plot.

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“Inertia.”

I’ve been covering Breaking Bad for most the season, but for the finale, Nick and I decided a conversation would be worthwhile since we had intended for us to alternate coverage. Below, we talk about devious characters, montages, and what could possibly happen next. -NK

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“Well this is new!”

Mummy and Daddy are fighting.

There’s an interesting discussion to be had with regard to Doctor Who‘s seventh season opener about the relevance of external stories to the main narrative of a show. So many shows today are utilizing the Internet as a tool to draw in new viewers and keep old viewers interested. From behind-the-scenes videos to website-exclusive mini-stories, shows use the Internet to create an extension of the worlds their audience loves, extensions that promise to fill in the gaps that 45-minute-long stories always leave behind.

Yesterday, I happened across BBC America’s Doctor Who marathon and was able to refresh my memory of season six in preparation for the seventh season opener. I also watched “Pond Life”, a five-part series of short webisodes focused on the life of the Ponds while away from the Doctor.

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“Hell hath no fury like the second-rate.”

I really hope “let’s do the news” is a euphemism.

It’s not unpopular to dislike The Newsroom. I struggle to find people that truly, honestly, uninronically enjoy it. I’m not alone in wishing Mac has a revelation that maybe while her newsroom is experiencing important current events that it’s not the time to pester Will into admitting he still has feelings for her. I’m certainly not alone in suffering the pageant of pedagogy pushed onto the audience once a week that wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t make me want to roll my eyes so far into the back of my head that they might actually get stuck. And I certainly am not alone in wishing Seal Team Six had taken out Maggie instead.

But, honestly, what is it about this show that raises the ire of so many people and why do they continue to watch it? I would understand if the people lifting pitchforks were those of a right-wing persuasion, particularly those that voted for the political figures that Sorkin often uses as emotional bait throughout the series. But they would just stop watching. Why aren’t we so smart? Why do we continue to endure the misogyny, the melodrama, the one-liners that would make a girl from Rosewood groan? What is it about The Newsroom that keeps getting us to come back for more?

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“This whole thing could’ve been avoided.”

I was a little underwhelmed by “Say My Name.”  It’s unlikely that Breaking Bad can be legitimately bad — it’s too well-oiled at this stage — so it just settles with tiny missteps, whether it be the train heist (for some, not for me) or the end of this particular episode. For me, there was just something lacking, even while internally, I can justify the actual act the episode ends with.

It’s one of the problems of writing about television, or even thinking fairly critically about it. You burrow into the series, understand its ins and outs, and while it may still has the ability to surprise you, as Breaking Bad does for me, you also may see a crack or something askew, but decide that, hey, it’s supposed to be that way. This could just be, in large part, because you want the series that you’ve invested time and effort and labor (and unpaid blogging is labor, in a sense) to still make sense, otherwise what’s the point?

So, yes, I could say that I don’t feel the episode completely earns its ending, even though intellectually I can argue for it, make it feel consistent within momentum of the series. But it sits there, in my gut, wanting to be validated, like Hank’s obsession with the Fring case.

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“You’re here to rock the boat.”

Nick and I had a conversation about Bunheads when it premiered. Now we’re having a conversation following its first season finale. (We like symmetry.) We talk about the finale, character psyches, messiness, dance-and-talks, and, of course, Constantinople.  -Noel

That one girl in the pink isn’t going to get up for anyone.

Nick:  That was like a half-season compressed into a single episode.

Noel: Which kind of makes sense given how AS-P doled out the narrative.

Nick:  Yeah. They didn’t even spread out the mention of Chekhov’s Pretty Mace and it going off into different acts.

Noel:  Hahaha. As soon as she said the word mace, I shouted at the TV, “Chekhov’s Mace!”

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“It’s like you’re eating a scab.”

“Buyout” is not an exciting episode, but you don’t always need excitement. I’ve long maintained, across many posts here, that pacing is important, and episodes don’t always need to be white-knuckled, everything and the kitchen sink of whatever a series’s particular genre is. Breaking Bad often plays that, setting up intricate chess games between Walter and antagonistic forces, but it also knows when to take a step back and breathe, and “Buyout” is all about breathing a bit. Once you use an electrical cord to burn through your restraints, I mean.

And when Breaking Bad breathes, you tend to get episodes like this, as characters try to deal with the fallout of a particularly harrowing experience. I like that the show does this on a regular basis, and after Todd kills a kid in an effort to make sure there are no witnesses and to try and break out of his hum-drum life of robbery and killing insects, it’s kind of needed. But “Buyout” also makes gestures to answer some lingering motivational questions as Walter’s desire to keep the operation going comes under a sort of scrutiny.

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“Give me a break. You guys were going to murder me. I thought you guys were professionals.”

After Lydia mentioned the train tanker of methylamine, my first thought was, “AMC must’ve wanted a train episode to coincide with the premiere of Hell On Wheels.”

My second thought was, “There was a train whistle at the end of the cold open. I wonder if that’s connected. Man, I really hope the kid stays away.”

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“Life is good, Skyler.“

It’s really not. But that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

I have to imagine that this week was flush with blog posts re-considering long held prejudices and grudges against Skyler and/or Anna Gunn. Or at least I hope they are. I admit that I’d be writing one myself, but I kind of want to interrogate why I’ve come around on Skyler, and the reason why frankly has me irritated with myself for being an asshole.

But we’ll get to that. I think “Fifty-One” may be one of my favorite episodes of the series so far because it shows the real threat that Breaking Bad‘s, as a friend of mine, Maria, called it on Facebook, “unchecked masculinity” has on the world. There are women trying to escape (not just get away from but actually escape), and the men simply will not let them. And if we weren’t sure about this, the cold open is Walter and his son pointlessly revving the engines of leased sports cars.

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