Monthly Archives: October 2009

October 24, 2009 · 12:35 am

Dollhouse – “Belonging”

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“Belonging”

October 23rd, 2009

“People kill for that – to be unaffected.”

At the heart of Dollhouse is a state of mental being where what you experience is transient, memories non-existent as they walk like zombies through their daily lives at the Dollhouse, unaware of what is going on around them. At the heart of “Belonging” is the idea that, for some of them, this is a state of being that is actually desirable: Victor, we know, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and in this episode we learn that Sierra (originally Priya) was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic before she came into the employ of Adelle and Co. The quote above, purposefully placed in Victor’s mouth as he works a unique engagement, embodies the idea that there is something about this state which would actually be desirable, so long as what was happening on the outside world was tragic enough to justify it.

It’s an argument that, as a fan of this show, I can’t help but empathize with. Dollhouse has been on life support before it even aired, and while a miraculous second season was a welcome surprise the ratings have been even worse than last year. The result is the show is going on a month and a half-long hiatus in order to make room for repeats of more highly-rated shows, a move which makes sense with Fox’s bottom line but which feels far from ideal as someone who loves this show.

And with an episode like “Belonging,” which was definitely one of the best the series has done, you kind of want to be able to enter into a place of being unaffected by the scheduling drama that has all but signalled the end of the series sometime in early 2010. It’s not that we’re surprised at this, or that it hasn’t been around since the show began, but an episode featuring such a great performance from Dichen Lachman and that so effortlessly straddles that line between mythology-driven serial and backstory-filled procedural is the kind of thing you want to view in a vacuum, pretending we’re in a universe where the show isn’t already dead in the water.

So, consider this review my own personal unaffected time, as we wax poetic on how great this episode was.

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October 23, 2009 · 12:19 am

30 Rock – “Into the Crevasse”

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“Into the Crevasse”

October 22nd, 2009

When the critics’ reviews started coming out about 30 Rock’s fourth season, there were quite a few skeptical ones that seemed to indicate the show wasn’t quite up to its earlier standard, to the point where some where effectively questioning its standards. I thought “Season 4” was a bit of a weak opener, but nothing offensive, so I was a bit perplexed where people felt that the show was really off its game. And, well, then I saw “Into the Crevasse.”

It isn’t that “Into the Crevasse” is worse than “Season 4” that’s the problem: yes, this is a far less successful episode that feels more like a string of Saturday Night Live skits strung together than it does an actual hour hour of comedy, but the real problem is that it manages to achieve this while in theory sounding like something the show has always been doing. It divides evenly into “Tracy is mad at Liz,” “Jenna is rebellious towards Liz,” and “Will Arnett guest stars to terrorize Jack,” all storylines that the show has done in the past with far more success. As such, it sets off alarm bells: it’s not that the episode is without humour, but rather that it fails despite sounding like it should be right in the show’s wheelhouse.

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Tagged as Big Sister, Book, Devon Banks, Episode 2, Iceland, Into the Crevasse, It's a Dealbreaker, Jack Donaghy, Jenna, Michael Jackson, Microwaves, NBC, Porn, Retainer, Review, Season 4, Tina Fey, Tracy, Volunteerism, Werewolves

October 22, 2009 · 11:19 pm

The Office – “The Lover”

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“The Lover”

October 22nd, 2009

This review is going to seem somewhat hypocritical, as I have always been a known supporter of serialized sitcoms. However, there are times when there are elements in previous episodes that I don’t necessarily want to see continue, left to remain as an enjoyable aside that is left to the audience’s imagination. Even heavily serialized shows like The Wire would often introduce small elements that aren’t part of some broader serialized storyline but rather sit under the surface and add to our understanding of these characters.

I know that I was being more than a bit idealistic, but I had really hoped that The Office would resist the temptation to take Michael’s rendezvous with Pam’s mother and follow it through to this logical but blown up conclusion. That small moment in “Niagara” was a shocking moment for the coda, but for it to turn into an entire episode played out like melodrama more than an episode of comedy. The episode succeeds in finding some comedy in the setup to the situation, with Pam’s realization proving to be an absolute highlight, but once things become about yelling things begin to fall off the rails a little.

It isn’t that this is a failure, as I thought the episode did a few interesting things on the dramatic side of things, but in its desire to be both comic hijinks related to the scenario and a depiction of Michael Scott’s eternal sadness it never quite connected on either front.

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Tagged as Affair, Chicano Mural, Chills, Comedy, Dwight, Entertainment, Episode 7, Fedora, Honeymoon, Jenna Fischer, Jim, Listening Device, Love, Mallard, Meredith, Michael Scott, NBC, Pam, Pam's Mom, Ryan, Steve Carell, Television, The Lover, TV

October 22, 2009 · 1:19 am

Glee – “Mash-Up”

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“Mash-Up”

October 21st, 2009

Commenting on last week’s episode, Chris Becker noted that Glee has its share of problems, and one of them is (on occasion) actually calling attention to its own problems. By signalling out the minorities within Glee club, the show drew attention to the fact that it has largely ignored issues of diversity, so Sue’s strategy turned out more disturbing than funny. When you have a show that can be hot or cold like Glee can, and that tends to go in as many directions as Glee does, this is almost inevitable, but I would argue there’s a way to avoid it.

Ian Brennan, one of the show’s three creators and who was credited with the Chenoweth-infused “The Rhodes Not Taken,” uses this episode to actually call to our attention some of the show’s problems and actually treats them as problems. Folding them all under the theme of the mash-up, used here not as a drug-infused sideshow but a meditation on the process of bringing two people together in a potentially artificial process, Brennan depicts consequences in a way that the show often avoids, and continues to probe questions of high school popularity while not shying away from the darker side of teenage existence.

It may not be as eventful as “Preggers,” and its musical elements risked over-using Matthew Morrison, but by bringing all of its elements under one key theme that spoke to issues that have been plaguing the series for a while “Mash-Up” is perhaps the most complete episode of the show yet, struggling to balance its various elements only when it had a point to make about the trouble of balancing those elements.

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Tagged as Bust A Move, Dance, Dance Lessons, Entertainment, Episode 8, Facial, Finn, Football, FOX, I Could Have Danced All Night, Jane Lynch, Ken Tanaka, Kurt, Marriage, Mash-Up, Matthew Morrison, Music, My Fair Lady, Neil Diamon, Noah Puckerman, Popularity, Pregnancy, Puck, Quinn, Rachel Berry, Season 1, Slushie War, Slushies, Sue Sylvester, Sweet Caroline, Television, The Thong Song, TV, Wedding Dress, Will Schuester, Zoot Suit

October 21, 2009 · 11:07 pm

Modern Family – “Coal Digger”

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“Coal Digger”

October 21st, 2009

Modern Family has thus far proven itself to be an extremely well-executed sitcom, but one that isn’t really doing anything particularly innovative. Its pilot established a really fun integrated family setting, with three separate families having their own idiosyncrasies and then exploding into all-out chaos when they come together. Episodes like last week’s indicated that the show is strong enough to be able to bring in a guest star and not have it disrupt the show’s rhythms.

However, “Coal Digger” is the kind of episode that demonstrates one of the show’s key problems, in that the elements that make the show stand out (like Ty Burrell’s hilarious Phil, or Eric Stonestreet’s loveable Cam) are being used in the same fashion each and every week to the point of growing repetitive. It isn’t that the episode doesn’t try anything new, placing Gloria and Claire at each other’s throats over both recent and long-standing issues, but rather that the way the episode is structured feels too rote at this stage, and the characters that usually elevate that material are beginning to feel not so much tired as perhaps a bit overexposed.

I’m not suggesting that the show is falling apart of anything, but after a week where it really branched out into something new for it to return to the same old structure feels a bit out of place.

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Tagged as ABC, Ascots, Cam-on-Ball, Cameron, Claire, Coal Digger, Entertainment, Episode 5, Eric Stonestreet, Football, Gloria, Gold Digger, Jay, Manny, OSU, Phil, Pool, Television, TV, Ty Burrell, UI

October 21, 2009 · 8:53 pm

Sons of Anarchy – “Gilead”

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“Gilead”

October 20th, 2009

When critics have copies of episodes in advance (and, as a result, I don’t have them in advance), it means two things. The first is that they all have reviews ready to post the second the episode ends, meaning that I’m roughly 24 hours behind on posting my thoughts about the episode (considering that I’m not able to watch Sons when it airs). The second, though, is that I kind of already knew what this episode was like: the critics have been talking it up for a few days, and Kurt Sutter even posted last week that the episode was one of the best the show had other done.

As such, this review won’t be particularly long (I lied, it was that good): I, like other critics, really loved this hour of television, and I’ll agree with Sutter that it’s amongst the show’s best. What makes “Gilead” so interesting is that it takes an episode featuring a lengthy homage to HBO’s Oz and a very welcome return of guest star Ally Walker, and yet ultimately delivers an episode that draws out less sensationalist event television and more powerful pre-existing emotional arcs. It manages to both relish in the situation, putting SAMCRO behind bars and playing with prison tropes ranging from the sex trade to the jailyard shivving, and turn that storyline into something meaningful and powerful considered in the long-term.

It’s the kind of short term/long term combination that SAMCRO is painfully unable to accomplish in its current state, and results in a damn fine episode.

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Tagged as Agent Stahl, Ally Walker, Clay, Episode 7, FX, Gemma, Gilead, Jail, Jax, Lyla, Opie, Prison, Ryan Hurst, SAMCRO, Season 2, Tara

October 20, 2009 · 11:55 pm

The Good Wife – “Crash”

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“Crash”

October 20th, 2009

One of the things which makes any legal show somewhat interesting is when it largely evades the law. At the heart of The Good Wife is less a question of what is legal or moral, but rather what is just. The central premise is such that Alicia is forced to consider whether or not her husband committed a crime, and whether or not that even matters to a broader question of justice. It’s one thing to say whether Peter broke any rules, but it’s another to say whether he was unjust to his family.

And because “Crash” focuses on a story where the goal is to actually avoid the legal system, where the crime being committed is a moving target while the injustice is staring everyone right in the face, it really brings this type of story to the forefront. Mixing that case, which on its own was interesting, with a couple of interesting sidenotes, some more work on the ongoing storyline with Peter, and even some acknowledgement of the tension between Will and Alicia, and you have yet another solid hour for the series.

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The Big Bang Theory – “The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary”

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“The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary”

October 19th, 2009

In the cold open to this week’s episode, we get an interesting display of the show’s comic sensibilities. When the scene starts, Wolowitz and Raj are playing a game of Mystic Warlords of Ka’ah, a Magic the Gathering-like card game. The transition of jokes is like a crescendo. We start at the bottom with the audience laughing at a funny card name that wasn’t actually funny, but is funny because “they’re nerds, doing nerdy things!” Then, we find Penny playing the game and not knowing what to do, something that’s a bit more legitimate but still a bit straightforward. And then, we have Sheldon’s eidetic memory ruining the game for everyone by (simply through listening to the game) analyzing what’s left in the deck like a card counter. It’s only then that the humour feels particularly interesting, and that I’m finally really paying attention.

As the cold open, and the remainder of the episode, move on, it’s basically an instance of Sheldon driving the comedy, his eidetic memory rescuing uninteresting storylines revolving around Leonard, Penny and Wolowitz and serving as the foundation for a storyline of his own with Raj and Wil Wheaton. I actually thought the episode did a better job with one setup than I had expected, and not as much as it could have with the other, which made for an interesting if uneven episode that didn’t rile me up but didn’t really impress me either.

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Tagged as Card Game, Double Date, Eidetic Memory, Emmys, Enemies, Entertainment, Episode 5, Grandmother, Jim Parsons, Leonard, Mother, Mystic Warlords of Ka'ah, Penny, Raj, Season 3, Sheldon, Sweater Vest, The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary, TV, Wil Wheaton, Wolowitz

October 19, 2009 · 10:14 pm

How I Met Your Mother – “Duel Citizenship”

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“Duel Citizenship”

October 19th, 2009

So, this was pretty awesome, eh?

I don’t know if there’s many episodes of an American comedy series that likely work far better for Canadians than Americans, but I think this is probably one of those examples. Much of “Duel Citizenship” took the form of a pretty standard episode of the show, with Ted turning into an unwilling third wheel on a trip with Lily and Marshall, but the story of Robin’s need to consider becoming an American citizen turned into a love letter to Tim Hortons (which is a famous Canadian coffee chain, in case you weren’t aware) and in many ways another sign that this Robin’s character (and the show) has more of an appreciation for Canada than the jokes might initially indicate.

The result is a solid episode of How I Met Your Mother from the perspective of someone who finds the jokes to be at Canada’s expense, and a kind of fantastic episode for those of us who “get” the Canadian side of the storyline in a way that others cannot. All in all, it’s an episode I had a lot of fun with, albeit for the love of my country more than my love of the rest of the episode.

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Mad Men – “The Color Blue”

“The Color Blue”

October 18th, 2009

“The faintest ink is better than the best memory.”

Mad Men is many things, but I think the attribute most apparent in “The Color Blue” is its meticulous attention to thematics. One of the things that has been missing in some of the recent episodes, as great as they are, is that sense that everything is adding up, that Sterling Cooper campaigns and character interactions will all add up to something, or more accurately multiple things that have ramifications to both past, present and future in the show’s universe.

What’s interesting about this week’s episode is how they manage to juggle multiple different storylines, weaving characters like Lane and Kinsey back into our storyline while nonetheless providing some substantial character work for both Don and Betty. I like when the show really focuses on a single character, but there is something that much more impressive about a small Kinsey story turning into a theme that has meaning beyond the walls of Sterling Cooper. After a season where some felt things were moving too slowly, things are moving at an enormously fast pace, and the show is actually opening up its world rather than narrowing it in response.

The result is a really intriguing hour of television, changing the game by taking hidden feelings and putting them on paper.

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Tagged as Affair, AMC, Betty Draper, Dick Whitman, Don Draper, Entertainment, Episode 10, Phone, Review, Season 3, Secrets, Telegram, Television, The Color Blue, TV