Monthly Archives: July 2008

July 10, 2008 · 2:56 pm

Assessing the Contenders: Comedy Series Catchup (Family Guy, FotC, Office)

[As noted yesterday, I’m a bit behind on my pieces on the various episode submissions for the series prizes at the Emmy Awards. With the nominations an exciting week away, I want to try to get through these before the weekend so that my predictions can start on Sunday. So, some catchup is in order (Although I want to write a bit more about three of the remaining shows, all for different reasons).]

Family Guy (FOX)

Episode Submission: “Padre de Famile”

Synopsis: Peter discovers that he isn’t an American citizen, and after embracing his Mexican roots discovers the struggles of the illegal immigrant in modern America. And there’s fart jokes.

My Thoughts: I’ll admit right now that I am not a Family Guy fan – the show does nothing for me, and while I might watch it on occasion I never feel particularly content with what I watch.This episode is exactly the same for me. It has too much vomit, for one thing, and there are times when its jokes just go one step further than they need to.

But the thing is that Family Guy is also extremely funny, and there’s some great gags here. I particularly enjoyed the 25,000 Pyramid sidebar, and there was some great one-liners all over the place. The episode feels grounded in sitcom traditions with a dash of absurdity, and some of the pop culture stuff was more clever than I probably want to give it credit for.

Panel Potential: This is a bit of a wild card, but apparently it went over quite well in the panels. How well is an interesting question, as the episode features a lot of stuff that older viewers won’t get but also some things they will. It’s also a very “laugh-out-loud” kind of episode, taking a pointed social issue and just having a little bit of fun with it. It was more grounded than most Family Guy episodes, which should help it. Still, the animation issue could hold it back with some more traditional voters.

Flight of the Conchords (HBO)

Episode Submission: “Sally Returns”

Synopsis: After former flame Sally re-enters Jermaine and Bret’s life, tensions flare, apartments are rented, and glass butterflies are blown.

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July 9, 2008 · 5:07 pm

Assessing the Contenders: Lost – “The Constant”

Lost (ABC)

Episode: “The Constant”

During its resurgence in creative vision during the latter portion of its third season, Lost had a number of highpoints. “Flashes Before Your Eyes” was a complex journey into the series’ murky but fascinating science, “Greatest Hits” was a character piece capable of completely changing the audience’s view of Charlie, and “Through the Looking Glass” used the show’s own conventions against itself for one of the most effective season cliffhangers in a long time.

And yet I think “The Constant,” the fifth episode of Lost’s fourth season, is better than all of them.

Now, I don’t make this statement in spite of those other episodes, but rather out of appreciation: “The Constant” borrows all of their various elements but manages to weave them into a single, cohesive hour of television. It is an episode that, although capable of standing on its own outside the context of the series, also represents the various parts which define the series’ high quality. It is what everything was building towards, the kind of episode that a show can only earn with hard work and practice.

And the final product of all of that work is Lost’s Emmy Submission this year, and it might well be the deciding factor in getting the show it’s second nomination or win in the category.
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July 9, 2008 · 1:28 am

Assessing the Contenders: Drama Series Catchup (Dexter, FNL, Grey’s, House)

So, last week I was all set to really dig into all of the various submissions that the panels saw in both Comedy and Drama a few weeks ago now, but then life got in the way and I’ve been distracted. It also didn’t help that I had actually seen most of the episode, so I had already formulated opinions and therefore didn’t feel an urgency to write about them (Something I do have when I’m seeing something for the first time). So, I figure I’ll provide some short-form reviews of at least some of the remaining episodes over the next few days, and then offer a more comprehensive overview next week leading up to the nominations themselves. First, a view into the drama contenders.

Drama Series

Dexter – “The Dark Defender”

Synopsis: Dexter, with the help of his similarly crazy friend Lila, confronts his mother’s murderer in an emotional attempt to achieve closure.

My Thoughts: I hate Lila with a fiery passion, and found the character ultimately disruptive, but her role as Dexter’s kindred spirit of sorts was strong. Michael C. Hall is great in the episode, and it displays the show’s usual great use of violence and gore to serve story purposes.

Panel Potential: Unfortunately, its use of blood and gore has been what has held it back, as pretty well all awards potential goes out the window when older voters can’t stomach the show’s bloody reality. So, all signs point to a rough panel performance.

Friday Night Lights – “Leave No Man Behind”

Synopsis: Tension between coach and quarterback reaches its climax, and love triangles and parental strife round out the episode.

My Thoughts: The best episode of the show’s second season, it is most importantly a view into where football and life intersect as opposed to simply the lives of these characters. For the scene where Eric Taylor throws Matt Saracen into a cold shower to wake him up from his depressive state alone, this one’s a winner.

Panel Potential: There’s a lot of strong elements here, from performance to relativity to the standard lives of panelists, so it should have a decent performance (but likely not enough to make up for its poor Popular vote showing).

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July 8, 2008 · 12:25 pm

The Top 12+ Snubs of the Emmy Top 10s

The Top 12 Snubs of the Emmy Top 10s

This post has been delayed a bit after getting captured between my new and old computers, but I think it’s for the best. When the Emmy Nominations are announced in just over a week’s time, more names will be added to this list, but what this list allows us to do is spread out the disappointment. That these contenders won’t even have a chance in front of a panel, though, is its own tragedy, and the more time I had to embrace this fact the more I realized how much this process hurts.

And it’s not that it’s not fair: while it may not always produce results I like, the current Emmy system is perhaps as close to democracy that they could possibly achieve. The reality of popular and patronage-dominated shows performing well at the Emmys will not go away anytime soon, so we should be thankful that there were some pleasant surprises as I discussed last week. But at the same time, we can’t help but feel it: that the people who were snubbed at this end of the process deserve recognition, no matter how they get it.

So, without further delay, and in no particular order, my Top 12 2008 Emmy Snubs…and let’s hope the list doesn’t grow too greatly next week.

1. Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights)

Category: Supporting Actress, Drama Series

What more does she need to do to get noticed? Britton moved herself to the supporting category to avoid juggernauts like Sally Field or Glenn Close, but at the end of the day the category proved to be even more difficult to break into unless you’re heavily featured in a popular show or an award show veteran. She gave a fantastic performance through an uneven season, the constant rock the show could lean on. She makes weak storylines solid and good storylines great, and if that’s not a great supporting actress I don’t know what is.

2. January Jones (Mad Men)

Category: Supporting Actress, Drama Series

January Jones is the victim of her series’ plot – the show’s pilot, the episode most voters would have seen, doesn’t actually feature the character of Betty Draper, revealing her existence only at episode’s end. While someone like John Slattery was able to ride his reputation to a nomination, Jones doesn’t have the name recognition and is unfairly snubbed here. She did some amazing work embodying the 60s housewife, especially in “Shoot,” and that this portrayal won’t be seen by the judges is a disservice to the ensemble nature of the series. While I’m happy for Christina Hendricks, that was Jones’ spot.

3. Chi McBride (Pushing Daisies)

Category: Supporting Actor, Comedy Series

With all three of his primary co-stars breaking into their respective Top 10 lists, forgive me for being upset that my favourite was left off. Not known for his comic work, McBride’s Emerson Cod has been a delight. He’s a knitting private detective, for cripes sake, and he has adapted maybe best of all to the witicisms and whimsy that this world entails (albeit it through cynicism and sarcasm). The shortened season robbed him of a showcase episode (We got hints of a baity fatherhood episode), something that the other actors by comparison had, but that doesn’t mean that the show’s most consistently hilarious character should get snubbed. Here’s hoping the voters smarten up for the show’s second season.

For more snubs including performers from House, Lost and Battlestar Galactica, click on through.

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July 8, 2008 · 3:36 am

Weeds – “The Three Coolers”

“The Three Coolers”

July 7th, 2008

A cooler can be many things, but the eponymous ones referred to by this week’s episode title are of two varieties: two literal coolers, the refrigeration equivalent of The Matrix’s red/blue pills, and one cooler that follows another definition.

From Urban Dictionary:

A hand in poker in which a person with a very strong hand (often the 2nd best possible hand) is beaten by the best possible hand (usually a very rare full house, four of a kind, or straight flush). The 2nd best hand is so strong that it is impossible to fold, usually resulting in the loss of a lot of money and sometimes, an existential crisis.

For Len Botwin, his Cooler was his mother, and while her departure leaves him with a house he can’t sell it also leaves him without that other hand there to beat him at every turn. Albert Brooks’ short stint on the show, spanning only this first set of episodes, has been a strong one largely because he hasn’t been a dominant hand. What made the character so strong is that he was a disruptive but not destructive element for all of these characters: he didn’t destroy anyone, but laid the seeds in all of them for a season’s worth of development.

And it looks like a good season: with everything now mostly settled, including how to bring Celia and Doug back into the fold and how to normalize Nancy’s drug work for Guillermo (All ruined by the previews, although maybe not in a bad way), it’s time to move on from Len and focus on how these characters will truly embrace their new habitat.

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July 7, 2008 · 3:53 am

Mad Men – “5G”

“5G”

Season One, Episode Five

To say that “5G” is uneventful or unrevelatory isn’t really doing it justice, but the point could probably be made. Of the episode’s major story points, none of them are all that surprising: yes, they fill in some blanks in Don Draper’s past and present, but elsewhere the episode plays much into the same things we already know. Pete is unwilling to share the spitlight, Draper has a lot of secrets, and Peggy is still just a little in the dark when it comes to how to handle her new position.

What “5G” does, though, is make these elements more starkly real: it displays the pettiness of Pete and the desperation of Draper. Pete’s attempt at being famous is a bit of a simple little plot point until you consider the implications on her marital relationship, but Draper’s actions take his character to a new level. The relationship between his old life and his current one is what paralyzes him, and here we see that seeing those two worlds collide creates a volatile situation.

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July 6, 2008 · 7:01 am

Mad Men – “New Amsterdam”

“New Amsterdam”

Season One, Episode Four

[I’m a week late on this one, but forgive me: I’ll have a piece on tonight’s episode done sometime tonight, probably]

By the time Mad Men got to its fourth episode, it had filled in a lot of its gaps: we are thoroughly compelled by Don Draper, interested in seeing more of this world from Betty’s perspective, intrigued at the inner workings of Sterling Cooper, and curious as to how all of these people intersect in the historical mediation the show presents.

All except Pete Campbell, that is. To be honest, Pete Campbell was pretty much a snake before this point: a spineless, ungrateful punk at his worst, and certainly not the kind of character that any of us relate with. His insistence on rising the corporate ladder could be passed off as mere capitalist determinism, a selfish attempt to take for himself and to leave others in his wake.

What “New Amsterdam” provides is a new perspective, a glimpse into the fact that Pete Campbell’s life is just as complicated as everyone else’s in terms of the series’ primary characters. Over time, the show reveals the truth behind other characters as well (Joan and Roger Sterling are next up), but the familial and spousal pressures facing this character are some of the most eye-opening. No, it isn’t exactly surprising that he has some serious family issues, but it does explain at least some of his past behaviour while leaving plenty of qualities on the table that we as viewers will take issue with.

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July 4, 2008 · 11:13 pm

My Boys – “Spit Take”

“Spit Take”

July 3rd, 2008

Sorry for being a bit missing in action these past few days (And for the weekend) – I’m home for the weekend celebrating a birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!) and associating with a new operating system on my shiny new MacBook, and as a result my television viewing (and writing) is taking a back seat.

But not so much enough to avoid a series I’ve gotten a bit hooked on. After last week’s episode kind of didn’t click for me, this week is a chance for the series to re-engage with its recurring storylines and fall at least somewhat back into its old routine: allow the secondary characters who are one-dimensional to act as such, while the ones with depth are given more material to work with.

“Spit Take” is that type of episode, where Jim Gaffigan’s Andy is given a new side (Albeit a somewhat sketchy one), and where Bobby’s next step with Elsa returns to the idea of PJ inviting Bobby along to Italy for some sort of romantic connection. If last week felt like a sitcom, this feels right: an episode about the live of a whole host of individuals, and not just those contrived moments they intersect.

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July 2, 2008 · 3:14 pm

Assessing the Contenders: Damages – “Pilot”

[As the Top 10 Comedy and Drama series contenders have been released, and since Gold Derby has been kind enough to grab us the episode titles, I’m going through each submission judging its quality and its potential on the panel. Today, it’s time to delve into one of last summer’s most high profile series, and one with a lot of Emmy buzz.]

Damages (FX)

Episode: “Pilot”

Synopsis: Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) is a high-powered attorney who is known for her cutthroat behaviour and her cruel tactics; Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) is a young attorney right out of law school who finds herself becoming tangled in her web. Opening with a bloody Ellen walking the streets, the episode flashes between that terrifying future and the start of it all as Ellen and Patty both get caught up in a civil case with Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson).

My Thoughts: Damages is not a perfect series – it ends up with serious narrative problems that shouldn’t have happened in a short thirteen episode season, and while it ends with a flourish it never quite lives up to the pilot’s potential.

But this pilot is full of potential, and is pretty close to perfect.

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July 2, 2008 · 12:21 pm

The Top 10+ Pleasant Surprises of the 2008 Emmy Top 10s

The Top 10 Pleasant Surprises of the Top 10s

[If I was currently wearing a hat, I would take it off in honour of Tom O’Neill’s continued amazing work gathering up leaks in regards to the Top 10 lists of semi-finalists for the Emmy Awards panels taking place over the next few weeks. While he doesn’t have the complete list, I’m willing to go out and indicate the 10 choices (In no particular order, but the top 2 probably are) that actually make me optimistic about the show’s relevancy (Before, admittedly, taking a look tomorrow at the ones that give me no hope at all).]

1. Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica)

Category: Lead Actress, Drama Series

Last year when writing up my For Your Consideration posts, I said the following about Mary McDonnell’s work as President Laura Roslin on my favourite Sci-Fi series:

“What I love about Mary McDonnell’s portrayal of the character is that, without fail, you are always rooting for Laura Roslin to succeed except for those moments where she is clearly wrong. In those cases, McDonnell makes you want to see Roslin get let down as easily as possible, in order to ensure that she isn’t too damaged in the process.”

This is even more true this season, where her character finds her cancer back and where a whole new perspective is reached. Her performance in “Faith” is heart-wrenching, and that panels will finally get to see an episode of this fantastic series in the Top 10 warms my frakking heart. This is one of those surprises that gives you faith that the Emmys are willing to recognize performances off the beaten path, if you will, and they don’t get much better than this.

2. Zeljko Ivanek (Damages)

Category: Supporting Actor, Drama Series

When previewing this category, I lamented the likely lack of recognition for Damages other supporting actor contender:

“While he seemed fairly minimal in most instance, sparring with Patty or reasoning with Frobisher, Ivanek burst into the main narrative with “I Hate These People.” Without falling into total spoiler territory, the character took a sudden turn to the tragic, a dramatic fall that was more compelling than anything the other supporting characters went through.”

That he broke through was a highlight for me, a sign that people were watching all of Damages and not just the show’s pilot. Ivanek may have had accent issues, and certainly the show wasn’t near perfect, but his performance in his submission is simply stunning, and I can only hope voters enjoy the time they have with this amazing piece of work.

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