Monthly Archives: January 2010

January 25, 2010 · 9:57 pm

Chuck – “Chuck vs. First Class”

“Chuck vs. First Class”

January 25th, 2009

One of the things that Chuck has always been good at is effectively telling the same stories without actually, you know, telling the same stories.

The show has always been about a hapless spy who oscillates between, to quote Daniel Shaw, “Bond and a Jerry Lewis Movie,” and whether or not Chuck is capable of handling himself has always been a point of tension. And yet after slightly more than two seasons, I still enjoy that dynamic, and feel as if the show has maintained the charm of Chuck’s incompetence without feeling as if he has made no progress. While Chuck has grown progressively more competent with time, including with his recent developments made possibly via the Intersect 2.0, his response has more or less been the same, and it’s allowed the character to grow without fundamentally changing.

So when “Chuck vs. First Class” starts with Shaw announcing that Chuck would be going on his first solo mission, I had to wonder whether the show was interested in upending the balance of these efforts, and whether Chuck’s success (since we knew he’d be successful) would lead to a newfound self-confidence or even cockiness.

However, the episode manages to offer a series of events that are absolutely familiar and yet which surround emotions and responses that reflect a growing emotional complexity in Chuck that shows maturity without taking away what makes the show work so well.

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January 25, 2010 · 1:32 am

Big Love – “Strange Bedfellows”

“Strange Bedfellows”

January 24th, 2010

When a show gets into its fourth season, and when that show has in some ways come to the end of its initial storyline, they begin to branch off into new directions that producers will sell as exciting or intriguing and which are…often not.

The problem I think Big Love is running into is that they have chosen to expand its world as opposed to (for the most part) exploring nuances within that world. While the third season was perhaps the most successful yet in terms of turning its attention onto the family and their interactions with one another, this season has that family more scattered than ever before; while it’s opening up new story opportunities that have their moments, it feels as if the show is splintering in a way which doesn’t feel like a metaphor for the family falling apart or anything similar.

Instead, it feels like a show that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself, and that is just going with the flow when it should be stopping and considering an alternate route in a few instances. However, with only nine episodes in the season (yes, we’re a third of the way there), they seem reluctant to reconsider, and “Strange Bedfellows” reflects that tension.

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January 24, 2010 · 2:57 pm

Spartacus: Blood and Shrug

After reader David Sigurani asked what I thought about Starz’ Spartacus: Blood and Sand, I realized that I hadn’t really even considered watching it. This week, both Spartacus and The Deep End were eviscerated by critics to the point where watching them seemed kind of unnecessary. However, since David asked, and since critical impressions indicated that Spartacus was so obnoxiously bad that it would prove interesting if not fulfilling, I decided to sit down with the pilot.

What surprised me is not that the pilot is terrible, but rather that the pilot’s terribleness does not necessarily feel like some sort of tragedy. The show has absolutely no sense of subtlety, no character nuances, and a twisted depiction of both how human resolve conflict and express their love for one another, and yet there is so little actual content beyond those factors that I don’t feel as if there is some television travesty on display. Sure, I’d like to see the enjoyable Lucy Lawless on a better show, and I do wish Rome would have gotten a longer run, but I can honestly say that I check out of Spartacus: Blood and Sand with a shrug, and well wishes for those who stick with the show to see how it builds towards a second season that’s already been ordered, and that’s already stocking up on departing Dollhouse staffers.

More on why I’m checking out despite thinking the show could actually grow into something better, after the jump.

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January 23, 2010 · 2:48 am

Last Night with Conan O’Brien: Goodbye to the Tonight Show

I’m sorry, Conan.

I didn’t watch your Tonight Show. At 11:35, I’m more likely to be writing about television than watching it, and for that I truly have to apologize. I was part of the problem, part of the group of people who celebrated Conan O’Brien’s rise to the Tonight Show but who never bothered to keep tuning in. I watched a few episodes early on, and enjoyed the feeling of pride that “my” host pushing out Jay Leno, but then when push came to shove I was content with knowing Conan was there.

I know it’s not my fault: even if Conan’s ratings had been incrementally better, chances are that NBC still would have made the decision to push his show back, and this whole mess would still be happening. And considering that Conan is walking away with an enormous severance package and will likely be back on our televisions within a year, it’s not as if the man himself is truly losing his job and left without a chance of success.

But there is something tragic about seeing someone robbed of doing what he loved, and robbed of doing it on the stage he always dreamed of. He left this job because he felt as if NBC was disrespecting its legacy, and like the consummate professional he is Conan showed an enormous amount of respect for both the Tonight Show’s legacy and his time at NBC in the midst of his final goodbye to the network and the show he feels he is leaving a decade too early. While no one is crying for Coco, considering the severance he received, I don’t think any of us can deny him the right to cry: his tears felt genuine, a love letter to the people who brought him to where he is and a final curtain to a run at NBC that took him from comedy writer to national sensation.

His final episode (and mine) of The Tonight Show was one hundred percent Conan, one hundred percent heartfelt, and hopefully just a small percentage of what’s to come.

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January 22, 2010 · 8:49 pm

Burn Notice – “A Dark Road”

“A Dark Road”

January 21st, 2010

Did you remember what happened last year on Burn Notice? Because I didn’t. Luckily, the show offered a nice bit of catchup to remind us about the end of the Strickler arc, and even more importantly the show jumps onto its next story point with vigor so that what happened before is a nice bit of shading as opposed to something we have to remember.

“A Dark Road” is a really compelling hour of television in a lot of ways, but it’s also a lot of fun: the show is at its best when we’re just sort of hanging out in this universe, and I thought that this was a really enjoyable re-entry into that world with both a strong episodic story and some nice hints at the newest initially unseen antagonist to enter Michael Westen’s life, plus the best material that Sharon Gless has been given all season.

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January 22, 2010 · 7:19 pm

Friday Night Lights – “I Can’t”

“I Can’t”

January 20th, 2010

If you’re one of the people who are holding off watching Friday Night Lights until it debuts on NBC, you received good news this week: the show returns on April 30th. And I’m going to be really interested to see how viewers respond to “I Can’t” when it airs in early July, because the episode has the show headed in some potentially controversial directions in terms of both cultural and narrative taboos.

It’s perhaps no surprise that the latter are my only real concern, as the show continues to demonstrate a deft hand when dealing with sensitive subjects. However, I don’t know if the same kind of sensitivity could possibly rescue the show from itself in its other major storyline, which is creating some compelling television now but is creating far more concerns than I would like heading towards the end of the season.

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January 22, 2010 · 6:10 pm

Reminder: Caprica debuts tonight on SyFy and SPACE

“Pilot”

January 22nd, 2010

It’s been eight months since I reviewed the pilot, so I’m interested in whether anyone out there is really watching Caprica for the first time tonight as the two-hour pilot makes its television debut on SyFy and SPACE (In Canada) at 9 ET.

For those who are, or who want to get some idea of what to expect, Todd VanDerWerff and I had a spoiler-free chat over at Media Elites about the show and our thoughts on its unique position trapped between various preconceptions. It covers a lot of the ground I would have covered in a preview (such as how SyFy’s new brand identity feels almost hindered rather than aided by Caprica’s connections with Battlestar Galactica), so it’s a good reflection of my attitude towards next week’s “real” first episode.

So, feel free to click through to read more of my thoughts on the series, and I’ll see you here next week.

Review: Caprica – “Pilot” (May 2009)

Both as a singular piece of filmmaking and as a pilot, Caprica ultimately works: it has some strong performances (I was particularly impressed with the strength of work coming from the teens involved), a solid balance of callbacks to Galactica and newer material, and a central premise that captures the kind of power struggles which made BSG so captivating. That comparison is always going to hurt Caprica, as it isn’t aiming as high in terms of science fiction nor does it have the benefit of slowly revealing the complexity of this world (considering that we already know how this story ends), but by giving it a compelling human face they’ve convinced me the series should prove an intriguing extension of the BSG legacy.

thirtysomething with robots sound good? Watch Caprica (Media Elites)

As SyFy prepares to launch Caprica, a series which has always been considered a spin-off even though producers are now wary of the term, it is very quickly discovering that the show fits nearly into neither category. While the audience who enjoyed its parent show, Battlestar Galactica, may be anxious to see more content from that universe, the show doesn’t resemble Galactica as much as they might want it to, and they are also fairly small in number. However, because of the show’s connection to Galactica and its reputation, those with no experience with the franchise are convinced that they couldn’t possibly enjoy the show, despite producers’ claims that foreknowledge is not required.

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January 22, 2010 · 2:32 pm

The Office’s Bait and Switch: The Irrelevant yet Attractive TV Clip Show

The Office’s Bait and Switch

January 22nd, 2010

Last night, many of you likely tuned into NBC at 9pm ET to enjoy what the network was billing as a “new” episode of The Office. And, sure enough, the episode began with a cold open that tied into ongoing continuity, as a banker (played by David Costible) stops by the branch to do some due diligence in the early stages of the company’s restructuring. We find Michael Scott up to his usual tricks trying to make the office seem more exciting, having Dwight play a sentient computer and riding a Segway for no discernible reason, and we have Pam there to help guide us through his insanity (fake accounts are okay, but Pam is not on board with Fake Stanley).

It sounds like a solid setup to an episode of The Office, but “The Banker” wasn’t actually an episode: as soon as the Banker went back to talk to Toby and asked a question about any potential liability issues, the spidey sense was tingling, and sure enough it was right. Toby began flashing back to previous events, and the episode revealed itself to be a clip show in disguise.

What I find so fascinating about the clip show as an episode structure is that it is becoming both increasingly irrelevant and increasingly attractive in this modern age. While television economics and concerns over lengthy delays between episodes results in a desire to have more “original” content to keep viewers engaged, the clip show seems less necessary when viewers can catch up with previous episodes on DVD or on Hulu, and where “clips” are a part of our everyday lives as opposed to some sort of novelty.

And yet it’s not going to go away entirely any time soon.

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January 22, 2010 · 2:53 am

30 Rock – “Winter Madness”

“Winter Madness”

January 21st, 2010

Jack Donaghy has had many relationships in his time on 30 Rock, and while some of them have been adventurous or novel (Isabella Rosellini as his ex-wife, Edie Falco as his congresswoman girlfriend) the rest have been remarkably dull. And while Alec Baldwin is technically capable of elevating any material, and the show has always hired potentially funny actresses to play the roles, his relationships can be a black hole for the show at times. While Emily Mortimer is a great actress, Phoebe the bird bone fiance was painful, and Salma Hayek’s nurse had one decent episode (“Generallisimo,” although I liked the McFlurry story) but never amounted to anything else. And yet, because they’re major guest stars and represent Jack’s main storyline, the characters stick around longer than any other character with such little potential ever would, and the show suffers for it.

I like Julianne Moore, but her character on 30 Rock was a one-joke one-off that should have never developed into anything more. While there was potential in the story for Jack to tap into parts of his past (the episode in which Moore didn’t actually appear but Jack and Kenneth broke into her house actually did this better), the story has spent too much time on her character’s divorce and not enough time on Jack himself. There are some fun bits in “Winter Madness,” and I’m sure the episode was quite enjoyable for Bostonians, but the stories felt as if they weren’t actually creating enough comedy to form anything close to a cohesive episode.

Although American Historian Tracy Jordan can hang out on my television anytime.

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January 21, 2010 · 11:41 pm

Parks and Recreation – “Leslie’s House”

“Leslie’s House”

January 21st, 2010

One of the things that I find so interesting about Parks and Recreation’s second season comeback is that the show hasn’t fundamentally changed its stories. I can very much see how the show, in its infancy, might have brainstormed an idea about Leslie’s house looking like a crazy person’s garage, and the idea of Leslie trying to host a dinner party and using her connections with a city program in order to pull it off feels like something that could have gone horribly wrong in the first season.

I didn’t think “Leslie’s House” was amongst the best episodes of the season, as it felt as if there were just a few too many things going on at once, but the fact that the core of the episode didn’t implode with all of those elements present is a testament to the control the writers have over the universe right now. Despite technically presenting only a single story, the episode started to weave in a lot of recurring stories to complicate things, and it resulted in quite a few fun gags and just enough resonance to keep things from seeming overwhelming.

It’s a funny episode, and an impressive one considering the degree of difficulty, but I almost feel like there’s an extra ten minutes here that could have given some of the storylines a bit more time to breathe that would have really made the episode click.

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