Monthly Archives: August 2008

August 28, 2008 · 10:02 pm

Series Finale: Generation Kill – “Bomb in the Garden”

“Bomb in the Garden”

Series Finale

Saying goodbye to Generation Kill isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible.

I recently finished The Wire’s fifth season (partially why I was so late getting to this finale), and the show’s conclusion (like the conclusion of every season) is about reflection: about the journey of these characters we followed for five seasons, and about how their journeys are part of today’s modern American society. And yet, there is that necessary and welcome distance which we also experience: while this is something that does happen in our own society, it is still playing out with fictional characters (regardless of how much we may relate to them in various fashions).

So while I certainly have a new perspective on the drug trade, education, the media, or anything else that the show exposed to me during its run on HBO, I can honestly say that watching that finale gave me some hope: hope that the cyclical process that we follow could potentially be stopped, that the show and its message can serve as a guiding post for the future. It doesn’t paint an idealistic picture of the world Simon and Burns created, no, but its meaning in “reality” is still a bastion of hopefulness for those who choose to view it as such.

But there’s something far more infinite in the tragedy of Generation Kill, the tragedy of a “true story” as told through the eyes of someone who experienced it first hand. Watching this finale was not like saying goodbye to old friends and reflecting on what we can do as a society to change it, but watching with horror knowing what was going to happen over the next five years. Simon and Burns’ gut-wrenching reality check is far worse when it is actual reality, when they are framing our understanding of something ongoing within today’s society. It is downright scary that, five years after the fact, Simon and Burns still found this particular warning necessary, that the problems they outlined throughout the miniseries have certainly not been solved.

As a result, finishing Generation Kill was a process that took some time when we consider that, in the end, we’re not just accepting to end of Hitman 2’s mission with this finale, but the start of our own shattered reality; and while I have numerous kudos to wave in the series’ direction, I will have to say that finishing it certainly is not satisfying. Instead, it is simply scary, and it seems like this is what Wright (And Simon and Burns) intended.

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August 25, 2008 · 12:05 am

Mad Men – “The New Girl”

“The New Girl”

August 24th, 2008

Don Draper is not a man who likes things. This seems strange to say, but it’s true: our protagonist is a man who desires things, who thinks he deserves things, who certainly feels things, but he is the type who has totally disallowed himself from liking things in a normal sense. He is a man who avoids more than he gravitates – he defends against his past while indulging in desire, deciding what he doesn’t like before he ever decides the other way around.

So, while the episode spends a lot of time struggling to discern what Don likes, it’s really through his actions that we are able to understand what he likes, or respects. Of the thing he lists to Bobbie, only movies seems to be true, as we saw him use it a few weeks ago as his work escape unrelated to his affairs. What he really likes is people who are reliable, people who are there for him and to whom he can reveal parts of himself others don’t see. In this episode, he runs into one of them and it sends him into a downward spiral; when he needs to escape it, he turns to another, one who owes him a favour.

What it boils down to is a discovery of how, precisely, Don Draper decides to live his life – and, like all good Mad Men episodes, it says as a little about everyone else on the show too, although the episode was less interconnected than others. With a glimpse of the past and a look to the future, “The New Girl” does manage to say a lot…even if I still am not sure who the title refers to.

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August 21, 2008 · 1:03 am

Project Runway Season Five – “Episode Six”

“Life’s a Drag”

August 20th, 2008

You know, I’m starting to wonder if there’s some sort of psychological condition which takes the most obvious pieces of logic and totally twists them the second you enter the Parsons work room. I’m not saying that the intensive Project Runway schedule (where they’re constantly working, constantly not getting enough sleep, etc.) is not in some way going to be detrimental to their state of mind, but when they’re ignoring even the most obvious ways to succeed in the contest I do have to wonder what exactly is in the water.

When Project Runway gives you a drag competition, you do one of two things: you either go full-out into that fantasy drag outfit you’ve secretly always wanted to make or you adapt parts of your own aesthetic into a drag concept in order to show the best of both worlds. The former gets you into the Top 3, a fact shown as Korto, Terri and Joe all just throw caution to the wind in creating “fabulous” garments that their models seem to adore. And the middle of the pack all create dresses that seem like they are that mediation, of their own ideas with the ideas of drag, in a way that deems them inoffensive while competent enough to understand how this show works.

But the Bottom Three perplex me, and they’ve done it a lot this season: two of them, in particular, just don’t seem to understand that this isn’t just an opportunity to prove you have taste, or to prove you know how to cut out pieces of fabric and attach them to other pieces of fabric in a seemingly random pattern. Instead, this is an opportunity to prove that you’re capable of listening to a single word of the challenge put before you.

And when they can’t do that, why are they even still there?

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August 19, 2008 · 11:05 pm

Weeds – “The Love Circle Overflap”

“The Love Circle Overflap”

August 17th, 2008

Silas and Shane, as brothers, are an interesting pair. In the beginning, Silas was growing up too fast while Shane’s innocence was slowly being eroded. As time went on, Silas never truly matured, remaining mature in his actions but not quite in his mind. Shane, meanwhile, has emerged into his mother’s world and now into the world of a sexually charge middle school open to new experiences, ready to make the choices Silas had to make in the beginning.

Their relationship is emerging to the forefront of Weeds as we head further into the fourth season, as issues of family center this week on their brotherly bond and their shared experiences of sorts. Silas is at a turning point, feeling mildly aware of the consequences of his actions while actually wanting them to be more serious, wanting Lisa to be able to be with him in a way he knows she can’t – like he says to Lisa, he actually does for once want the truth, not some idealistic notion. Shane, meanwhile, feels pressure to live up to the reputation he created for himself, one that he doesn’t really understand and one that sends him into a situation that he can’t handle.

So while Nancy is off on a spiritual quest with hallucinogenic medicine of some sort, and Andy and Doug are finally finding his Flip Flop Cinderella, the Boys Botwin are left to find their own path. And, while neither solve their problems, they at least go to the edge of understanding in a way that proves they are advancing yet.

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August 19, 2008 · 7:40 pm

Forgive My Ambivalence: ‘90210’ and Network Screeners

During the summer months, it’s hard to get excited about television. Now, I don’t mean to say that I’m not enjoying the summer runs of shows like The Middleman, Burn Notice, Mad Men or Generation Kill – it’s the opposite actually, as I’ve enjoyed them immensely. The issue, however, is that this great medium we call television is just less interesting up until about this late August period.

And so, Cultural Learnings has been all about the reviews and not so much with grand statements evaluating the state of television as a whole; and while my more established colleagues (Read: actual TV critics) usually receive screeners that help them handicap the year ahead, my lack of such screeners means that I rely on their coverage in order to design my own. This year, of course, this is proving difficult: some shows are barely finishing their pilots, and the result is a lack of coverage of what Fall will truly have to offer.

I’ve dealt with this screener question before, arguing last year that the networks should do more to get pilots out to people other than TV critics in an effort to rustle up support and build a fan base that can support the show through tough times. So, the recent news that The CW is not sending out screener DVDs of its ‘90210’ reboot should be something that has me up in arms, ready to pounce on their ignorance of the power of these screeners to get people interested about their show.

But, at least for now, I can’t really say that I care either way – and that kind of ambivalence is, for the networks, probably their best case scenario heading into this pilot season.

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August 18, 2008 · 8:31 pm

Series Premiere: Skins – “Tony” and “Cassie”

“Tony” and “Cassie”

Season One, Episodes 1 & 2

It’s not abnormal for British series to be imported to the states these days: in fact, Showtime’s recently wrapped Secret Diary of a Call Girl was one example, having aired its entire first season in Britain before it started airing in North America. This presents the problem that the series is readily accessible to those who want to find it when it starts airing on a weekly basis here, and thus plenty of people who know how things turn out.

With Skins, two seasons are done before the series has stated airing, but BBC America intends on airing them back to back leading into this fall. I decided to give the show a shot since I figured there is always a place in my television rotation for a show about teenagers doing teenage things. I’m extremely excited that we’re only a week away from the return of ABC Family’s Greek, and this promised to be an edgier alternative.

And it certainly is edgy, putting Gossip Girl to shame in its frank depiction of this particular age segment. More importantly, though, it does something that neither Greek nor Gossip Girl has accomplished, viewing these characters through a lens that is actually unique and focused on character as opposed to sheer exploitation or, in Greek’s case, slightly sugar-coated ensemble plotting. The first two episodes of Skins’ first season feel almost entirely different because they are: they’re stories about two very different people, about two very different types of life which exist in this world.

So while the show is certainly not perfect, there is a definite sense that there is something to be offered here, and that this diverse group of young students exists not to offer a picture of diversity but rather to guarantee an actual diversity in narrative perspectives in the episodes to come.

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August 18, 2008 · 8:05 pm

Generation Kill – “Stay Frosty”

“Stay Frosty”

August 17th, 2008

We’ve hit the penultimate segment of HBO’s miniseries, but when “Stay Frosty” begins there is a definite sense that it might as well already be over: our central company is no longer part of the main conflict, and a majority of the group has more or less checked out in one way or another. Whether it’s an actual manifestation of post-traumatic stress syndrome (For Walt) or just a growing disenchantment with the whole process, this is a group of young men who are done even before they get the shits. And at that point, they aren’t going to get anything done at all.

It’s impossible not to find one’s self reminded of The Wire: in each of its seasons, a growing sense of finality always coincides with a bittersweet reminder that the struggle never ends. Just as the Baltimore drug trade won’t end through the efforts of one crime unit, this war did not end after what seemed like some type of victory at this moment. But, as Nate says, they need to stay prepared, or “Frosty” – the war isn’t over yet, not by a long shot, and no bout of the shits will change that. This inevitability is a Simon/Burns staple, and it is played well here (although perhaps in a bit more of a heavy-handed fashion than on their previous series).

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August 17, 2008 · 11:37 pm

Mad Men – “Three Sundays”

“Three Sundays”

August 17th, 2008

When Father Gil (Guest star Colin Hanks) stops by to the Olsen household for a dinner party, he is asked to say grace. He gives a short little moment of reflection on the meal in front of them, and Peggy’s Mother commends him on the fine words and asks if he’s going to say grace now. He quickly breaks into the traditional verse.

Roger’s daughter, meanwhile, is engaged. Her mother wants a wedding, a big gala where all of their friends can come and enjoy, but she isn’t on the same page: the young Ms. Sterling does want to feel like she needs to prove her love to anyone in some grand ceremony after only two months of engagement. Eventually, it seems settled: like it or not, a big wedding is simply unavoidable.

We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this: as my brother (who just finished the first season) noted, the 60s is a decade of change and Mad Men is a show about people of an older era. While this is not yet the time when there is an active war between these two generations, the battlegrounds are being drawn: as Don himself says, “We have a lot of bricks, but we don’t know what the building looks like.”

But, slowly but surely, the bricks are falling into place; and over these “Three Sundays,” a lot happens to lay a foundation.

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August 14, 2008 · 2:06 pm

Project Runway Season Five – “Episode Five”

“Lipstick Jungle”

August 14th, 2008

After last week was spent pimping out NBC’s Olympics coverage, which has clearly benefitted from the attention (I’m equating its success with Project Runway, as unlikely as that is), so now NBC Universal is turning their attention into my universe: the surprise Sophomore pickup of NBC’s Lipstick Jungle, Brooke Shields’ drama series that is searching for an audience it never quite found.

The result is our first episode to separate our groups into pairs, and one of the most prevalent examples of the producers clearly influencing the celebrity client to select some designers who clearly don’t understand the aesthetic that is required. Kelli and Blayne end up in the Bottom Two for taste more than their execution (Although that was also poor), and chances are that if she had selected a few more appropriate designers we would have seen a far better challenge; but, I’m not convinced that’s what the show is really after.

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August 12, 2008 · 11:43 pm

Weeds – “Little Boats”

“Little Boats”

August 11th, 2008

There have been many episodes of Weeds more eventful than Monday night’s ninth episode of the show’s fourth season; in a show that in later seasons has really delved into the more sensational elements of Nancy Botwin’s career choice, episodes have featured action and comedy that tends to feel like something out of a movie versus something out of, well, “reality,” as trite as that may seem.

So it is with pleasure that I say that “Little Boats” may be my favourite episode of the season so far primarily because it owes all of its drama to character, to a very human reaction from the show’s central character as it pertains to her family as opposed to her employers. This is the side of Weeds that we have, perhaps, lost in recent years: this was a show about a family first and foremost in the beginning, and this is one of the strongest examples of that in the past few seasons.

Faced with the behaviour of the people of both her own children and her extended family, and disconnected from Esteban, Nancy turns into someone who isn’t defined by drug trafficking or anything else – she’s just another Mother struggling to care for those she loves. And the result is definitely one of the season’s strongest episodes.

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