Tag Archives: Alters

March 28, 2011 · 9:59 pm

Season Premiere: United States of Tara – “…youwillnotwin…”

“…youwillnotwin…”

March 28th, 2011

When United States of Tara entered its second season, the Gregson family thought that everything had changed: Tara had defeated her alters through the use of medication, and the entire family was ready to move forward with something approaching a normal life. Of course, normalcy proved unattainable: the old alters returned, new alters emerged, and turmoil between family members left Max, Kate and Marshall confronting their own identities in light of their mother’s struggle.

What is immediately clear in the show’s third season premiere is that there is no such false normalcy. For better or for worse, the Gregson family has embraced (or will be forced to embrace) that they are in no way, shape, or form normal, and it shows in “…youwillnotwin…” It is a confident premiere on a number of levels, but primarily because it embraces the stabilizing influence of instability. By embracing the cyclical nature of life, and by placing the characters in positions to be impacted – but not defined by – those cycles, United States of Tara is in a position to continue to evolve without having to introduce dramatic new elements into the equation.

All it takes, it appears, is a bit of a push in the right direction and a willingness to ride the wave.

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United States of Tara – “To Have and To Hold”

“To Have and To Hold”

May 31st, 2010

“Is every single thing just lurking beneath the surface?”

United States of Tara isn’t a mystery show, per se, but there is a central search for answers at its core which we seem to be returning to once a season. After reaching out to her college rapist in an effort to discover the truth behind her condition only to discover that it went far deeper than that particular trauma, Tara stepped away from trying to find the source of her problems and instead tried to medicate and try to continue living life without that knowledge. However, as the second season has progressed, it’s clear that her condition is creating more strain in her life now than ever before, and through the help of a new alter (Shoshannah) and whatever it is that the Hubbard house brings out in her.

I recently caught up with the past three episodes of Tara (the end of the season turned out to be too busy to get to it live), and I’m on record as suggesting that Tara’s second season is perhaps the most confident on TV this year outside of Parks and Recreation and perhaps Sons of Anarchy. “To Have and to Hold” is another strong episode which speaks to both the mysteries of Tara’s past (which I think we have enough information to sort out, if not entirely comprehend) and the damage of Tara’s present, emphasizing the long-term ramifications of the former while reminding us that the gravity of the latter has yet to be determined.

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Tagged as Alters, Analysis, Charmaine, Chicken, Episode 11, Foster Home, Kate, Keir Gilchrist, Lionel, Marshall, Max, Mimi, Neil, Palmeter, Patton Oswalt, Review, Rosemarie Dewitt, Season 2, Showtime, Tara, Television, Toni Colette, TV, Wedding, Zack

May 4, 2010 · 10:32 am

United States of Tara – “The Department of F*cked Up Family Services”

“The Department of F*cked Up Family Services”

May 3rd, 2010

The challenge of the half-hour series intent on eroding the boundaries between comedy and drama is that a half-hour is not a lot of time. While hour-long series have the benefit of 40-50 minutes in which to draw out key themes or lay the groundwork for exciting climaxes, a show like United States of Tara has roughly 23-26 minutes in which to effectively accomplish the same thing.

In some cases, shows settle with telling less story, accepting that they can’t deal with issues as complicated as series with longer running times, but what’s struck me about Tara this year is that they’re not holding back. Not unlike the second season of Sons of Anarchy, it doesn’t feel like the show is saving stories for future seasons, or drawing things out. They know they don’t have time to waste, and they know the stories they want to tell, so Diablo Cody and Co. are just barreling on through with some pretty substantial success.

In the process, though, the show hasn’t been entirely transformed: the show has a much faster pace than last season, with more sources of conflict and a less predictable central protagonist, but the stories still come from someplace honest, and there are still scenes which feel like quiet ruminations amidst the chaos of it all. “The Department of F*cked Up Family Services” deals with a lot of pent up frustration from previous episodes, but it does so within a structure which manages to tell its own story at the same time – it’s not rocket science, really, but the show has a really strong hold on it this season.

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United States of Tara – “Doin’ Time”

“Doin’ Time”

April 19th, 2010

Last season, I managed to watch and enjoy an entire season of United States of Tara without writing about it beyond a preview, which seems like the sort of oversight which shouldn’t happen: sure, I don’t get paid to do this, and there are plenty of shows that I watch but don’t blog about (for various reasons), but this is a compelling and intriguing show featuring some great performances that seems like it would lend itself to the sort of analysis I like to do. And yet, here I am again this season – after writing about the premiere, I’ve fallen off the wagon for the past three weeks, and I still don’t really know why.

I think it happened last season because the show is admittedly paced a little bit slowly, and it seemed to be in a largely contemplative mood in regards to Tara’s conditions: if the show is going to do all the contemplation for me, largely playing out the paces of the stories we’d expect to see given its premise, then why do I need to write a thousand words about it? However, this season the show has switched gears: the show’s pacing has completely gone off the rails, and yet the characters continue to want to try to live as if things are normal, to ignore the chaos and try to sort of power their way through.

“Doin’ Time” manages to debrief a fairly substantial, and potentially show-breaking, development with an ease which reminds us that this show is on some really strong creative footing this year: while it remains at times slow and contemplative, it is applying those traits to situations that we couldn’t have imagined a season ago and making some damn fine television in the process.

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Season Premiere: United States of Tara – “Yes”

“Yes”

March 22nd, 2010

Last week, Kelli Marshall noted that I had never reviewed a single episode of United States of Tara, Showtime’s comedy series which debuted last year and which won Toni Colette a much-deserved Emmy award in September. This seemed surprising to me, considering that I had quite enjoyed the series upon its debut and had found its first season pretty uniformly solid. I am still not entirely sure why I never took the time to review any individual episodes of the show, but I can at least confirm that it had nothing to do with the quality of the series.

What I’ve always liked about the show is that it isn’t afraid to take its protagonist to some dark and disturbing places: while the show is ostensibly labeled as a comedy, it knows that the same premise (Tara’s multiple personalities) which begets that comedy is just as capable of swinging to the side of dramatic, and so T’s promiscuity goes from humorous to tragic, and Buck can conversely swing from embarrassing to oddly comforting. The show does not have separate spheres of comedy and drama, but rather different circumstances wherein its premise shifts to meet the needs of the story.

Based on the season premiere, it’s clear that that Diablo Cody and company are very aware of the delicate balance the show requires, and so you have what is effectively a dramatic premiere where comedy and drama (mostly) come from the same place of uncertainty and insecurity, setting the show up for an intriguing sophomore season that will, hopefully, find more space in the blog rotation.

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Tagged as Alter, Alters, Brie Larson, Buck, Cable, Diablo Cody, Don Hubberd, Episode 1, Homosexuality, John Corbett, Kate, Marshall, Max, Premiere, Review, Rosemarie Dewitt, Season 2, Season Premiere, Showtime, Tara Gregson, Television, Toni Colette, TV, Yes

February 14, 2009 · 12:50 am

Series Premiere: Dollhouse – “Ghost”

dollhousetitle

“Ghost”

February 13th, 2009

According to logic, and the internal methodology given to Echo before an important mission, you can’t fight a Ghost. And, let’s be realistic, you can’t really pin one down either, trying to define it by regular rules of physics or biology ultimately proving a futile task.

In many ways, Dollhouse is a Ghost of Television, a show that is very tough to pin down and has almost no interest in trying to have this happen. The series, like the actives who are part of the Dollhouse roster, can be wiped clean after every episode, so it is very difficult to judge the pilot as we would normally judge a pilot. The point here is not to actually pin anything down, but to demonstrate for the viewer the types of things they might see and, most importantly, the types of things that we should keep an eye out for in the future.

And, as such, there’s something difficult about passing judgment on this as an actual series. All we can really do is take the parts that we’re given here that we know will remain constant and begin to judge them, but even then the show is going to be meandering all over the place and those parts might be able to rise to the occasion better than we currently realize. It makes all of this, well, a little bit inconsequential; I have a feeling that week by week I’ll be chiming in with another opinion that’s been altered from the week previous, something that with time could get a little old.

For now, though, I’m along for the ride, for two main reasons: because I think the show has some potential as a serialized procedural, and because I’m mildly afraid that the Whedon fans will hunt me down and break my legs if I don’t.

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Tagged as Alters, Amy Acker, Can't Fight a Ghost, Eleanor Penn, Eliza Dushku, Entertainment, Episode 1, FOX, Fridays, Ghost, Harry Lennix, Joss Whedon, Morality, Mythology, Philosophy, Premiere, Procedural, Review, Season 1, Serial, Series Premiere, Tahmoh Penikett, Television, Whedonverse