Tag Archives: Episode 4

Life Unexpected – “Bong Intercepted”

“Bong Intercepted”

February 8th, 2010

Ahead of the show’s premiere, Liz Tigelaar warned that Life Unexpected was going to suffer from “Pilot-itis,” in that most of its early episodes would play as restatements of the show’s premise in order to appeal to potential new viewers who might be tuning in for the first time. Her argument was that, while it’s a bit frustrating in that some viewers could get impatient, it at least makes creative sense in this instance: considering the complexity of the premise, and the emotions tangled up between these characters, the “plot” would continue to have an impact beyond a single hour. In fact, it might have been more problematic if the show had moved on too quickly without first plumbing the depths of the complications at play here.

The problem is that, with “Bong Intercepted,” we’re reaching that point where the show is staging some engaging scenes but keeps coming to the same conclusion, and the premise is starting to wear extremely thin. It’s job has been done: the show has some engaging characters, and I want to be able to see them grow and move on. Instead, the show is hitting the same beats over and over again, proving itself capable of creating some interesting dynamics but wasting them on stories that are doing little to help the show moving forward.

There’s a couple of things here that signal some momentum, but for the most part things are pretty darn predictable rather than unexpected around these here parts.

Filed under Life Unexpected

Tagged as Baze, Bong Intercepted, Bong Lamp, Cate, Episode 4, Erin Karpluk, Foster Care, Liz Tigelaar, Lux, Open Bar, Radio Show, Review, Season 1, The CW

February 1, 2010 · 2:36 am

Big Love – “The Mighty and Strong”

“The Mighty and Strong”

January 31st, 2010

Big Love has always dealt with, by design, the trials and tribulations of Bill Henrickson and his extended family, reaching back into the depths of Juniper Creek and into the three houses that sit side-by-side in a Utah suburb. But over time, we’ve come to meet people who are connected to this extended family in different ways than the “family,” people who are part of this world without necessarily being part of Bill’s drama.

“The Mighty and Strong” certainly doesn’t refer to Bill Henrickson, bully, with its title, nor does it refer to his three wives who are all struggling to come to terms with their current situations. Rather, it seems to refer to the people who are on the periphery, the people who are there for these characters when their worlds start to unravel or who are there to offer a critical gaze on the actions being undertaken. They are, in a sense, what we imagine ourselves to be in this world: someone who will cut through the politics, but through the sensationalism, and just treat these people like human beings rather than pieces in a elaborate puzzle.

And, unfortunately, they’re people that the show’s central characters don’t always appreciate as much as they should.

Filed under Big Love

Tagged as Aaron Paul, Adaleen, Alby, Amanda Seyfried, Barb, Ben, Bill Henrickson, Bill Paxton, Build with Bill, Douglas Smith, Entertainment, Episode 4, Ginnifer Goodwin, HBO, J.J., Jodene, Juniper Creek, Margene, Nicki, Review, Roman Grant, Sarah, Scott, Season 4, State Senate, Television, TV

January 18, 2010 · 9:57 pm

Chuck – “Chuck vs. Operation Awesome”

“Chuck vs. Operation Awesome”

January 18th, 2010

Chuck, like any person with a secret identity or someone who lives a double life, is constantly forced to balance his friends and family from his normal life with his work for the CIA. And early in the show’s third season, the show has made this point especially clear with the integration of his brother-in-law Devon into the show’s espionage, which really highlighted how much more effective Chuck is because of the fact that he has a personal connection with particular missions. When he’s saving himself he overthinks and gets flustered, but when he’s saving someone he loves he is focused and capable of accessing the intersect and saving the day.

“Chuck vs. Operation Awesome” is positioned as the second part of last week’s investigation of these types of questions, and while there’s some leaps taken by the show’s writing staff in terms of getting the action rolling, the episode confirms how important those themes are going to be for the remainder of the season. Showing a tight narrative drive inspired, one presumes, by the initial short episode order (which was extended from 13 to 19 after these episodes were already finished and the season had been plotted out), the show intelligently positions a new character as a mediation on the same themes that matter most to its regular characters, and uses an exciting episode to introduce him into the fold.

Filed under Chuck

Tagged as Angie Harmon, Big Mike, Brandon Routh, Buy More, Captain Awesome, Casey, Chuck vs. Operation Awesome, Daniel Shaw, Devon, Entertainment, Episode 4, Fight Club, Guns, Intersect, Jeff, Lester, Morgan, NBC, Review, Sarah, Season 3, Sydney Prince, Television, The Ring, TV, Zachary Levi

November 24, 2009 · 10:46 pm

Fall Finale: V – “It’s Only the Beginning”

“It’s Only the Beginning”

November 24th, 2009

“Is this the real life / is this just fantasy … open your eyes / look up to the skies and see”

In addressing the fall finale of ABC’s science fiction series V, I quote Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody for two reasons. The first is an excuse to link to the gleeful and wondrous Muppets version of the song released to YouTube today (if you need a better justification, let’s go with corporate synergy). The second is that the opening lines of this classic song feel like they capture the basic condition of most of V’s characters when these spaceships descended upon them. The very nature of science fiction that is roughly set in our own world is the question of whether the supernatural elements are “for real” in the sense that they should be trusted, which is perhaps what V has been missing since it debuted a mere three weeks ago. For a show about a race of aliens descending on humanity, the show has jettisoned the period of reflection in favour of drawing a line in the sand between skeptics who form a resistance against them and believers who freely choose to walk among them.

The logic behind the relative speed at which this has been accomplished is found within “It’s Only the Beginning,” which lives up to its cheeky title by confirming that, yes, this four-episode premiere event of sorts hasn’t actually managed to accomplish much of anything. In the show’s haste to define the characters quickly in order to bring in enough plot to tide people over until March (when the show is most likely to return), they forgot to show these characters struggling to come to terms with the Vs and the promises they offer to the world, and as such this finale has nothing to fall back on. The plot twists we see are intriguing (as the premise has not been the show’s biggest problem) if we care about the characters, but by separating the interesting individuals from the interesting stories (outside of Morena Baccarin’s Anna) the show has never tapped into the binary between these two cultures and the potential that lies within this premise.

Accordingly, it’s a good thing for the show’s creative future that it is only the beginning, although whether the series’ ratings future will be able to survive a rocky start is yet to be determined.

Filed under V

Tagged as ABC, Anna, Bliss, Chyron, Cliffhanger, Elizabeth Mitchell, Episode 4, Erica Evans, Fall Finale, Father John, Finale, Flu Shot, Flying V, Georgie, It's Only the Beginning, Lisa, Lizard Baby, Morena Baccarin, R6, Ryan, Science Fiction, Season 1, Tyler, V, Vitamin Shot

November 14, 2009 · 3:52 pm

White Collar – “Flip of the Coin”

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“Flip of the Coin”

November 14th, 2009

Now four weeks into its run, White Collar is about where it was in its pilot: a solid entry in USA’s lineup. The show has yet to really transcend to the point where I would say it’s really growing into something new, or where it’s establishing a more complex identity, which isn’t problematic so much as it is perhaps a sign of the show being unwilling to go to that stage so quickly.

There are some growing pains, however, in terms of how the episode wants its stories to work and how they’re actually capable of working. “Flip of the Coin” has a couple of nice set pieces in it, along with some high quality guest stars to help bolster the episode, but it struggles to make all of that come together. There are some scenes where Neal’s suave nature feels perfectly at home in the context of these investigations, and other sequences where the believability is stripped away for the sake of convenience.

Still, there’s a lot of enjoyment within this episode, to the point where some of the shortcuts are ultimately overcome by one development in particular that could help the show going forward.

Dexter – “Dex Takes a Holiday”

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“Dex Takes a Holiday”

October 18th, 2009

After missing one episode while I was in New York, and having another one delayed by a DVR failure, I’ve finally caught up with Dexter’s fourth season. Ultimately, both episodes were an improvement over the premiere, although they suffered from similar problems. The show’s decision to place Dexter into the suburbs and into a family life has made for an odd shift in tone. In some ways, it’s a return to first season storylines, with Harry Morgan recurring to remind Dexter that he’s deranged and that he can’t truly have a family. However, the show spent two seasons largely ignoring that story, and something about the way the show played them in a comic light early on has robbed the show of some of its teeth. Just as we see a legitimately intriguing new serial killer who creeps us out, Dexter’s storylines have felt like bad thrillers (the vandal scenario) by comparison.

What “Dex Takes a Holiday” does better is to marry Dexter’s predicament with less of an awkward identity crisis and more of a profound identity crisis – whereas consequences before have been a teenage girl thinking Dexter is being lame, and for Dexter’s suburban dream to suddenly turn into something less than Cleaver-esque, this week posed a far more extreme question in a direct fashion which lacked in subtlety but connected thematically. The episode had its problems, but by literally shipping off Rita and letting Dexter act burdened by inner emotions and not halogen flood lights it really brings into stark contrast the potential of this character.

The problem is that it required sending the family away, a luxury that not every episode will have, and a factor which even an intriguing twist at episode’s end can’t exactly overcome.

Filed under Dexter

Tagged as Batista, Christina Cox, Deb, Dex Takes a Holiday, Dexter Morgan, Entertainment, Episode 4, Frank Lundy, John Lithgow, Keith Carradine, LaGuerta, Michael C. Hall, Murder, Rita, Season 4, Shooting, Showtime, Television, Trinity Killer, TV, Vacation Killings, Zoey Kruger

October 15, 2009 · 10:49 pm

FlashForward – “Black Swan”

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“Black Swan”

October 15th, 2009

All I can hear is the clock ticking.

Yeah, well, all I can hear is the crickets, FlashForward.

“Black Swan” is yet another example of the ways in which FlashForward seems fundamentally unwilling to engage with its most interesting elements and choosing, instead, to continue to ponderously engage with small-scale stories that feel like note cards on a bulletin board rather than something that’s part of a mosaic.

What’s interesting is that, if the show had ignored the notions of global conspiracy and the worldwide destruction, I actually think this would be an interesting hour of television. If the show had ignored the chaos of the pilot, and had instead had everyone experience a vision of their future without any time passing, then “Black Swan” would be an interesting investigation into a patient whose flash forward is inexplicable, or a young babysitter who wonders how she can atone for a sin she has yet to commit. Those questions are on their own a decent structure for an almost procedural series, a world like our own but where alternate futures dominate everyday conversation.

The problem with the show hasn’t been sold as anything close to that, but rather as a show rife with conspiracy theories and exciting serialized elements. And in an episode like this one, we understand the show’s central dilemma: when the show spends time with the mundane, we’re left wondering what’s going on with the big picture, but when they do spend time with the big picture we wonder why we were spending time with the mundane at all. And as long as both sides of the show’s storylines have some pretty serious execution problems, I don’t know how long the dichotomy is going to hold.

Filed under Flashforward

Tagged as ABC, Addison's Disease, Black Swan, CIA, Cliffhanger, Crickets, Dominic Monaghan, Entertainment, Episode 4, Faith, FBI, Marijuana, Mark Bedford, Medicine, Mosaic, Religion, Review, Season 1, Television, TV, Weapons

October 14, 2009 · 11:24 pm

Modern Family – “The Incident”

“The Incident”

October 14th, 2009

This is going to see like a really weird connection, but one of the things that I found really interesting about The CW’s Privileged was how quickly it dealt with its built-in back story. The show was dealing with an estranged mother and a distant father in its central protagonist, and it got both out of the way quickly…in fact, perhaps too quickly. The show never quite felt as purposeful when it moved past those interesting dynamics, and while they were important parts of its early identity it seemed like they could have been burned off more slowly to heighten their impact.

However, Modern Family makes an enormously compelling argument for getting back story out of the way, or at the very least the value of back story in the early stages of a sitcom’s development in particular. While the show is essentially checking off a list of recurring character we’ve yet to see (Benjamin Bratt was just cast as Gloria’s ex, for example), the seamless integration of Long into the cast only brings out more of our characters, and the way the episode depicts a past “Incident” is a hilarious piece of back story that does nothing to diminish what could be introduced with time. On a drama, a character like Long evokes the same kind of emotions each time she returns, and the show can only go there so many times. On a sitcom, however, as long as things remain funny and as long as a diverse set of characters are involved, you can keep on bringing her back with minimal loss of comic value.

And considering where this episode starts off at on that front, DeDe could be a funny recurring player on the show for seasons to come.

Filed under Modern Family

Tagged as ABC, Boyfriend, Cameron, Chaz, Claire, Comedy, DeDe, Dylan, Entertainment, Episode 4, Exercise Machine, Gloria, Guest Star, Haley, In the Moonlight (Do Me), Mitchell, Mother, Review, Shelley Long, Television, The Incident, TV, Video, Wedding Video

October 13, 2009 · 9:51 pm

The Good Wife – “Fixed”

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“Fixed”

October 13th, 2009

The Good Wife is a solid show, and a lot of this has to do with a very solid premise. What works about the show is how versatile it can be, even within each of its various elements. As a legal workplace drama, the show covers an extensive range of potential cases, and because Alicia is a junior associate it means she could end up doing a variety of jobs (like digging through files, or second chairing a bigger case) whether they’re representing the plaintiff or the defendant.

The show is ultimately a procedural, but it’s managed to be quite the chameleon. This week’s episode follows the basic formula, presenting a legal case that dominates the episode while Alicia is similarly burdened by her husband’s indiscretions. However, they’ve done an impressive job of providing variety in both of these departments, to the point that the twists and turns in either storyline are still effective.

The show is never going to blow me away, per se, but it’s nonetheless impressed me so far.