Monsters of Television

“The easiest person to hate right now is you.”

"This was my worst idea since those chops in the '70s. Maybe even that mustache in the '20s. I can't be trusted with facial hair."

The best times on this show are the morning roundtables. Aidan sucks down blood from a coffee mug like a cup of joe. Josh rifles through the paper and eats breakfast as the only patron of the house who eats his food with a fork or spoon. Sally kicks up on the counter or in one of the chairs, watching the corporeal exist. They laugh, they chide, they discuss the things in their lives as if those things only ever happened to them.

And this good humor between monsters was the point of Aidan and Josh moving into the house in the first place: to have a corner of the world away from the horror of their other-worldly existences where they can commune with their inner human. While last season included only minor intrusions on that happy home (Rebecca’s occasional appearances, Josh’s maker hanging out), the season one finale obliterated their home’s hide-and-seek base quality.

Bishop’s flaming charge into unwelcome turf shattered a window and shattered their beautiful dream. This season has marked several instances where their domestic pursuit has been tread upon, maimed, bled, and haunted. If the first season was about protecting their home from the truth of their natures, this second season has been about exposing the fantasy as impossible when the house is infested with repressed nightmares.

The house has become more nest than home. But, by the end of this season finale, we see the house as more happy than it has been in some time.

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Would a smile kill you guys?

I’m completely over monster movie zeitgeists in our culture lately. The legends of undead villains and armies have been tampered with so much recently that people are running thin on ideas. What’s next? Unearthed mummies involved in romantic comedies? Finding a reason for Dr Frankenstein to make covens of monsters? Would they be covens? Gaggles? Maybe take after crows and be a murder? That might be a little too on the nose.

But it is getting a little silly. Zombies are showing up in remixes of classic literature and are being codified in fake survival guides. The Walking Dead has its heart in the right place (at least they carry on the tradition of zombies not actually being called zombies a la Night of the Living Dead) but is kind of ridiculous in every other aspect of its television being. How long until they go the path of the vampire, the story of whom has become so romanticized in the last decade that it’s almost centrist, somewhere between blood-curdling horror and wacky but lovable character. Do the people on Team Edward ever stop to think that the dude is a monster that drains to empty the blood out of things with teeth like a violent bestial killer while he’s amassed centuries of knowledge in stealth, slaughter, and being sparkly?

Such is the trouble with a lot of the yesteryear’s legends existing in our time of post-modernist reboot. We tire of these larger-than-life icons existing on a plane separate from us. We want to see their human-ish struggle. It’s even evident in superhero reboots, where Superman has a child, Iron Man is dying of the thing that saves him (to be fair, Marvel had a head start on the human hero thing), and Diana is riddled with neuroses as she tries to find a man (is anyone hopeful for the Wonder Woman reboot? I’ve already given up).

The problem with these things isn’t that we want to see these human sides of otherworldly characters. The issue is what we end up doing with them. Vampires have been taken to a treacly place that pop culture begs them to be in, at least a little while, until the backlash comes and they forget all about Sookie and their terrible Foghorn-Leghorn accents to become violent monsters again. No, showing a monster struggle isn’t a terrible thing but there needs to be a balance. Show the drama in a formerly human horror figure dealing with that which makes him or her other. Keep the humanity with the beast because that is the conflict. And Being Human does exactly that.

Didn’t think I’d get back to it, did you?

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“You’re an OG Hater.”

Mark it down, folks. 3/4 of the Monsters of Television (sorry, Matt) kick off a podcast with sports. This week saw the most watched television broadcast of all time, Super Bowl XLV. Nick muses about his (World Champion) Green Bay Packers and they all discuss pre-game, half-time, and post-game Glee, as well as a number of other shows from this week, including Being Human and the pilot for Chicago Code. Check it out. And while you listen to that, I’m going to check out Sarah Walker bellydancing again.

Also, in case you’ve never seen the Cosby Show clip Noel references during the Community segment, you really should check it out.

Topic: Place in the podcast

Running time: 71 minutes

• Super Bowl XLV 0:00:51
• Glee: 0:19:10
• Chuck: 0:29:35
• The Office: 0:33:58
• Community: 0:40:16
• The Good Wife: 0:49:39
• Being Human: 0:58:28
• Chicago Code: 1:03:02

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