One of the best things about Project Runway is that each week gives each designer a clean slate, so that they can make up for past mistakes through sheer hard work and determination.
One of the worst things about Project Runway is that each week gives each designer a clean slate, so that they can screw up completely to the point that any good will they’ve gathered will be almost entirely eradicated.
That’s really the story of Project Runway this early in the competition, as with so many contestants they’re not getting enough of a sense of each designer to really give them time to grow. So while it is possible for some people, like Leanne, to regain their footing, it’s entirely possible for a landslide to wipe out a few others in the process.
I’m a bit late in getting to Generation Kill, but as I stated last week it’s kind of hard to find things to talk about each week. This time around, with Screwby, Alan Sepinwall concurs:
I’m running out of things to discuss in these weekly reviews, not because I’m losing interest in “Generation Kill,” but because each episode is very much of a piece with the whole miniseries, and there are only so many ways I can analyze the dysfunctional relationship between command and the troops.
And that’s really want differentiates this show from, say, The Wire. While I wasn’t able to write individually about that series either, mainly because of how quickly I wanted to burn through each season, it tended to provide a wider spectrum of such relationships: within each command structure, whether police or drug in nature, there was various different levels to the various relationships and more time to spend with each of them.
For Generation Kill, there’s a far more strict line between command and the troops, between those who know what they’re doing and those who don’t; perhaps a symptom of the “message” of the miniseries, if you will, everything seems to be going towards proving a point as opposed to necessarily allowing these characters to just plain grow. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but rather that it’s different, and makes discussing each episode individually more challenging.
The title of “Yes I Can” refers to both Sammy Davis Jr. famous autobiography and the drive of Nancy Botwin to remain independent within the existing operation. This storyline drives most of the episode, and while it suffers from some stretches of logic (including the entire purpose of a “front,” but never mind that) it does give Mary-Louise Parker plenty to do and has some potential.
But, really, this episode is about the moments when Silas and Shane Botwin, officially speaking, stopped being the characters they once were. In the beginning, Silas was a teenager of innocence, certainly sexually promiscuous but certainly still finding his footing so to speak. Shane, literally, was a child, someone whose naive world view was tempered with an intense knowledge of its inner workings – he was always smart, but he was still removed from the reality of it all.
This week, though, it’s officially over: these two are not kids anymore, not in the way they once were anyways. Silas’ conquest of Mrs. Rad, Lisa, is forceful and mature: his newfound confidence is almost beyond belief, but the show seems intent on turning him into a sexual animal even weeks before the character’s eighteenth birthday (nudity and all). And Shane, who has had his bouts with insanity in the past, has officially transcended to a whole new realm with his choice of jerk-off material.
Both transitions aren’t beyond the stretch of the imagination, but I’m not quite sure I’m on board enough to trot out Sammy’s answer to the question of “Can you tolerate this?”
If you want Mole-like behaviour, there’s an easy solution: give people goggles that display the video feed from a camera being controlled by another contestant, and then let them loose in a variety of simple tasks that are both easy to finish and, of course, easy to sabotage. That seems to be the nature of the game this time around: tasks where every second talking head is “I think that could have been Mole behaviour.”
It’s getting to the point where I really want to see everything just come to an end, because this has been an obsessive season of The Mole. Mark may be the most prominent example, but everyone seems fixated on getting exemptions, on seeing various clues, etc. The game has become a constant search for ways to cheat the game, as opposed to ways to play it: the final four challenges were both strong and unique examples, but when it’s possible for one person to just leapfrog into the Final Three? It just doesn’t feel as natural.
So as we match towards the finale, I’m glad to see that the tricks are out the window (I hope), and it’s time to settle into answering the central question and enjoying what else the show has to offer.
We’re running Carla free this time around on Burn Notice, which means that the scent of normalcy is in the air. This is, really, the prototypical Burn Notice episode: it’s got your client of the week, it has Michael looking for answers in dangerous places to discover who burned him, and it has a storyline that integrates Michael’s mother into the story in a way that’s still heavy-handed but certainly not overly intrusive.
I won’t have too much to say about this one, because it just worked: there wasn’t any shocking twists or new characters introduced, but it was just solid television that deserves some attention.
While I’m genuinely addicted to Twitter most of the time, being away over the weekend and thus mostly away from my Twitter account was a good thing. Many of the people I follow, most of which I’ve met through some great times at the /Filmcast, were lucky enough to be out in San Diego, California for the biggest event in geekdom: Comic Con. My jealousy knows no bounds, as it sounds like an extremely exciting event that covers the gamut of entertainment.
Once mostly a haven for comic book adaptations and the like, the convention has taken on new life as pretty much “Any show that has fans on the internet or any kind of fantastical elements” when it comes to television presence. So this includes a show like The Big Bang Theory, which embraces its geek sensibilities on a regular basis, and a show like Prison Break that is really just there treating it as a fan convention in general terms. I won’t attempt to make an argument for the exclusion of such shows, though, because for the most part the convention has taken on a life of its own…and that life has brought a lot of new TV news to our attention.
Heroes
NBC’s highest rated drama series came to Comic Con with a devoted fan base to satisfy and a lot to prove to critical people like me who thought the second season was almost completely garbage. Perhaps realizing this task, they decided to placate both crowds and actually show the entire Season Three premiere. Now, some have commented that a show like Lost didn’t do anything similar (I’ll get to them in a minute), but Heroes has the added bonus of having started filming Season Three extremely early after NBC cut the second season short, so they’re in a unique position.
While I’m not reading the detailed recaps like Adam Quigley’s over at /Film or Dave3’s over at GeeksofDoom to avoid spoilers, there’s been positive word of mouth that this is, at least, better than last season’s entry (And perhaps better than the show’s pilot, which was kind of weak). I remain skeptical of Kring as a showrunner, though, and what I read of Adam’s review tends to indicate that the annoying dialogue and the tendency to delve into pointless subplots have not disappeared even as the quality elsewhere ramps up. Still, it’s a smart move to please both fans and critics alike, and once the pilot hits in September I’ll judge for myself whether they’ve got the quality to back it up.
Lost
While the lack of real Season Five footage (It doesn’t premiere for another 7 months, realistically) is certainly a bit of a downer, what Lost brings to the table is its usual blend of intrigue and mystery. While they weren’t there with new footage, they did have a new Orientation style video that seems a bit different. Although the YouTube link below is off a screen, it still seems to be higher quality than what we’ve used to. After the jump, I’ll go into some discussion on why this video has a LOT of ramifications (And is infinitely more interesting than an episode of Heroes).
Admittedly, I’ve been kind of hard on My Boys’ second season mainly because the show has been slow to really let characters transition into, well, storylines. I’m all for periods of transition for characters, something that often seems rare in television as things rush forward without a human period of self reflection; however, when that period just seems to keep going with no direction, it gets to the point where things need to settle down.
Capturing that opportunity, then, last week’s episode of My Boys did just that: it was all about settling into storylines, even if it is clear that all characters haven’t quite settled in terms of their own desires. While the show is nearly incessant in its drive towards the clear Wedding finale (Which I believe is in two weeks’ time), it is incessant with a purpose and with characters coming to a point of decision and conflict.
The writing this week was sharp and on point, tapping into the roles that characters play best while finding time for isolated storylines for Mike and Kenny’s sporting business and Andy’s marriage without seeming overworked. While the show will never quite be high art as far as television goes, it certainly found a sweet spot here, and one that it would be wise to keep for the rest of the season.
The breakout success of Mad Men has been a huge surprise – when I started watching the show last summer, it was a cable show from a network that didn’t do such shows. It had the pedigree of Matthew Weiner, and it had some positive kudos from the critics, but what person would have predicted sixteen Emmy nominations, two Golden Globes, and a cultural firestorm so powerful that it even compelled the Canadian networks with the rights to the series to air the second season premiere before the first season has even completed airing?
But the time for kudos, set visits, really fancy DVD sets and excessive hype is over: while last season’s finale seems like ages ago at this point, it’s time to see whether the emotional resonance of “The Wheel” can be rekindled as the show picks up fifteen months later and in a whole different critical context: once a show without expectation, it has become perhaps the most closely watched sophomore session of the year.
And the series is showing its age, to use the opening episode’s central theme: it is a show that allows its characters to feel all of their insecurities in a way that ages them. If we look back to each character’s trajectory, and the series’ central transportation back to another era, a lot of it is about time and the way it changes people: whether it’s Betty Draper looking back to her modeling days or Roger Sterling having an affair with Joan, the voluptuous secretary, it’s all inevitably about returning to a younger self, a younger identity.
As the show begins its second season, it strongly and intelligently hits on this note, framing a story of a Valentine’s Day where “Young” is in and where those feeling time slipping away from them are hoping to hang onto everything they can. With a large ensemble cast and a number of emotional cliffhangers to deal with, the jump forward in time brings new facial hair, new jobs, and new rumours; in the process, it’s a new season of one of television’s finest dramas.
I’m off to beautiful Kejimkujik National Park for the weekend, and as a result there’s going to be a lack of postings around these here parts. I promise to get to Project Runway, My Boys and Burn Notice when I return next week, but first and foremost I’ll be back on Monday with my thoughts on the Mad Men premiere on AMC (Sunday at 10). If you haven’t yet caught up with the show, immediately go out and buy the DVDs and gorge on a fantastic series.
Hope all have a fun weekend, and if I miss out on any big TV news from Comic Con feel free to be excited/apprehensive for me in my absence.
This week’s episode of The Mole was all about what people couldn’t do: they couldn’t help themselves from sabotaging the first challenge, they couldn’t possibly sabotage the challenge where contestants could potentially see their loved ones, and one contestant in particular just couldn’t throw the quiz even when they wanted to.
It was exactly what you want from this part of the competition – signs that all of our contestants are struggling to deal with the mental fatigue the game presents while, at the same time, having to stay on their game to discover the Mole’s identity. We got a really important glimpse into this, as we saw the various different (supposed) strategies that all players except for Craig and Paul were using. The question of their strategies, in particular Craig’s, will be very interesting to see in the weeks ahead.
Cultural Learnings 