Tag Archives: Episode 6

October 16, 2009 · 1:48 am

The Office – “Mafia”

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“Mafia”

October 15th, 2009

The Office is a show that is going to have its share of filler episodes, moving between larger storylines (like last week’s wedding) and the next major storyline. Sometimes these focus on the day-to-day of the office environment, which is often quite fun for how it brings out the supporting characters more carefully. However, sometimes they’re episodes like “Mafia,” which play out very simple ideas in a way that is minimalist to a fault.

It’s not that the show doesn’t work when it slows down like this, but it needs for something to be particularly interesting or clever for me to buy it. This episode had the potential for Michael to go completely overboard, which isn’t my favourite character trait, but instead he just kind of sat there passively experiencing the whole episode. It makes sense that an episode that has both Jim and Pam (two huge parts of the office’s dynamic) missing, and in which Michael has nothing but creative space and free time scheduled for the day, is going to feel a bit lackadaisical, but at the same time it seemed like there was a pay-off that just never came in this one.

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October 14, 2009 · 3:38 pm

Sons of Anarchy – “Falx Celebri”

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“Falx Celebri”

October 13th, 2009

When I fall behind on a particular show, chances are that it’s not intentional. I don’t “decide” to not get around to watching the most recent episodes of Dexter before the DVR goes kaput, it just sort of happens in the midst of catching up with everything else I didn’t get to post-vacation. With Sons of Anarchy, this is equally true: after simply not getting around to the season’s fourth episode, the fifth was a casualty of the vacation and it was only last night that I caught up with the adventures of SAMCRO.

And they have been adventures this season, one that has been the very definition of rollicking. It’s the season where storylines never sleep: while it and Mad Men are at the top of the serialized drama food chain right now, their approaches this season could not be further apart. While Mad Men likes to isolate its stories on a particular set of characters, the very point of Sons of Anarchy’s second season is that you can’t escape the coming storm, and that no one (not Tara, not Gemma, not Hale) is capable of standing on the sidelines and avoiding the fray. Rather than trying to depict a slow and tragic fall, the season has never shied from the fact that Zobell is not kidding around, and that the Sons are in some serious trouble.

Some general thoughts on the last few episodes and more detailed thoughts on “Falx Celebri” after the jump.

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September 21, 2009 · 1:10 pm

Mad Men – “Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency”

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“Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency”

September 20th, 2009

If I had to suggest a single challenge in writing about Mad Men each week, it’s often where precisely to begin. Mad Men is a show defined by density, of layers of new and pre-existing storylines entwined around a theme central enough to be apparent but vague enough to be open to enormous amounts of interpretation. So when I sit down to add my thoughts to the chorus, illustrious and diverse as it is, my biggest challenge is finding the right angle at which to approach the material at hand.

But this week, “Guy Walks into an Advertising Agency” is so defined (perhaps justly, perhaps unjustly) by a single scene that not starting with it seems nigh impossible.

I’ve seen this episode be tweeted about on numerous occasion as being fantastic (which it was), but more interestingly as proof that things actually do happen on this slow-paced show. However, the episode on numerous occasions indicates that the world (if anything) is moving too quickly, and that the central drama facing its characters is that when the show’s pace is disrupted by something tragic or sudden the common response is like a turtle hiding in its shell rather than a bird spreading its wings.

Of course, how this is read entirely depends on where you sit on the Mad Men spectrum; and, as someone who firmly believes the show’s slow pace is ideal for the stories being told regarding that constant tension between these characters and the world revolving around them, I’d say that the handling of a shocking moment in the midst of this contemplative show demonstrates yet again just how good this two-time Emmy-winning show really is.

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August 11, 2009 · 11:32 am

Hung – “Doris is Dead; Are We Rich or Are We Poor?”

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“Doris is Dead; Are We Rich or Are We Poor?”

August 8th, 2009

When it comes to shows like Hung (and Showtime’s Nurse Jackie), I’ve begun to fall behind on my blogging – in fact, since the show’s pilot, this is the first time I’ve even written about Hung. I’ve likely dropped a few notes on Twitter, but at the end of the day there has been something about this show that has kept me from writing about it.

Part of it is that the two critics I respect the most, Alan Sepinwall and Todd VanDerWerff, are both reviewing the show on a regular basis – in most instances I like to add my own voice to the chorus, but when I’ve found myself quite busy I tend to only rush to get a review out if I have something to say that feels distinct and not just a general “here’s what happened, here’s how it fits into the show’s formula” post. They are both doing that and more each week, so if I don’t feel particularly inclined to post I’m far less likely to.

And that’s been the problem with Hung, really – I’ve never watched an episode that’s made me absolutely want to sit down and blog about it, which isn’t to say that I haven’t been enjoying the show. Rather, it seems like it took a while to really find itself, and to find the kind of storylines that felt less like Ray and the show searching out their identity and more like the show questioning both Ray and our own preconceptions about the premise. And while I think there were some solid episodes over the past few weeks, “Doris is Dead…” really hits home in terms of presenting a legitimately compelling (if expedient) scenario wherein Ray’s new employment is complicated in a way that feels both dangerous and complex.

Beginning with Jemma’s arrival last week, played for Comedy as Ray was forced to repeat the same experience over and over again, we got that scenario, and here we saw the show delve into equal parts sports cliche and complex sexual relationships in an effort to further emphasize just how problematic this new role could become for all involved.

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August 5, 2009 · 3:08 am

Warehouse 13 – “Elements”

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“Elements”

August 4th, 2009

Warehouse 13 is a show about some really complex supernatural events, there’s no question about that. However, really, the show wants nothing to actually do with any of them. When a pop song is used to rob banks, the story quickly shifts to the quite humanitarian and kindly reason for the thefts, and the show wants us to empathize with them and let them get off scot free. When the mystery of an evil chair is solved, it’s not due to some evil mastermind plot but rather a crazy scientific explanation and some unfortunate circumstances. Everything needs to right itself in the end, which makes the show’s complexity somewhat quickly resolved by episode’s end.

Last week’s “Claudia,” a compelling tale of Artie’s past encounters with a young scientist and his sister coming back into his life, was another example of this: in the episode, Claudia and Artie manage to bring her brother back from some sort of between world existence, the same age as he was 12 years previous and ready to re-enter the world. The show never stops to question the implications of this, and this week they even shipped him off to Switzerland to work as if the 12 years was just a bunch of facts he needs to learn and Springsteen records to catch up on. The show doesn’t feel the need to stop and consider any of this, and that’s something that really stands out for me.

I’m not suggesting that the storylines should be less complex or more realistic, thus justifying this approach a bit more, but rather that they need to be careful about what kind of shortcuts they pull to achieve their goals. “Elements” is an episode where the mythical meets the realistic, Native American creation mashing up with an epic battle between high-powered businessmen, but in attempting to resolve the storyline there’s a few missing pieces, links that rob the storyline of any real impact in an effort to cleanly move onto the next week without asking the difficult questions.

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July 14, 2009 · 7:27 am

Weeds – “A Modest Proposal”

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“A Modest Proposal”

July 13th, 2009

Weeds is often a show that tends to drag things out, so I think there were more than a few collective jaw drops at the sight of a “Six Months Later” chyron early in “A Modest Proposal.” It isn’t that last week’s episode, which was quite good in its depiction of Nancy deciding for the tenuous safety of Esteban over Andy’s promise of safety, didn’t lend itself to skipping over the less interesting months of Nancy’s pregnancy, but rather that the show has never made this leap before and to do so seemed quite sudden.

In the end, it’s one of those decisions that allows them to skip ahead to where you could tell the storylines were going rather than having to build there gradually. It’s a narratological shortcut, and for a show that often tends to drag along I’d argue it’s probably a smart idea. I have some concerns over how things don’t appear to have actually changed, and how in some instances the eventuality of storylines were not nearly as interesting as the buildup would have been, but the show is in a better position to be more interesting with the current setting.

It’s added a healthy level of mystery and intrigue to the proceedings at the end of the day, and no one is really going to argue with that development.

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May 15, 2009 · 2:35 am

Season Finale: Parks and Recreation – “Rock Show”

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“Rock Show”

May 14th, 2009

When The Office ended its six-episode first season, it really didn’t have anything to wrap up or even celebrate: “Hot Girl,” the season finale, was noteworthy for its first real sense of Pam’s jealousy of Jim dating anyone, but it was just another episode of the series in a lot of ways. Since Parks and Recreation is not only from the same creative minds but is also getting exactly the same six-episode first season leading into a normal second one, it’s hard not to compare “Rock Show” to the finale that came before it.

I’d say that Greg Daniels and Michael Schur have learned some lessons since then, as this is without question a more suitable finale, but intelligently not one that pretends this was a normal season or that we really know these characters. While the party at the center of the episode was successful in its efforts to display some humorous sides to the show’s funniest characters, and the various musical interludes let us enjoy the hilarity of Chris Pratt’s Andy, for the most part the episode shed some light on the three people who are probably the closest to being real characters, giving them each an added touch of humanity that will serve the series really well as it moves forward.

It may have taken six episodes to get there, but I think we’re to the point where Parks and Recreation has put its cards on the table, and earned its spot in NBC’s fall schedule on its own merit as opposed to that of its big brother.

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March 22, 2009 · 5:16 pm

Dollhouse – “Man on the Street”

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“Man on the Street”

March 20th, 2009

Airing against the epic scale of the final episode of Battlestar Galactica and CBS NCAA coverage kept it from gaining any ratings momentum, but the much-hyped sixth episode of Dollhouse’s first season has come and gone with solid traction. Or, more accurately, it has come and stuck around in a way that no episode previous had really done. There is nothing procedural about “Man on the Street,” nothing that feels as if it will be wiped away and considered a drop in the bucket, nothing that makes us feel like we’re watching this show through a lens that is constantly changing.

What’s strange is that it’s not like it’s rocket science: the elements present in this episode missing from others were not found in some sort of secret potion, or a high-profile guest star (although I do love Patton Oswalt), or in some abstract framing structure that we’ve never seen before. The episode wasn’t even that surprising, its twists either fulfilling earlier speculation or rather deliberate staging mechanisms. Joss Whedon is a strong writer of television fiction, and the episode was littered with some strong humour amidst its plot development, but the strength of this episode wasn’t in its subtleties.

Rather, it was in the fact that the majority of its development was entirely independent of the actives themselves, and as such is development that has a profound effect on the actual universe of the show. By narrowing focus onto Paul Ballard, and by expanding our knowledge of the Dollhouse institution and how it operates, we are finally gaining information that can be logically tied to what we’re seeing on screen. While the philosophical morality of the Dollhouse has been a central point of contention in the series, it never really hit as well as it did with the street testimonials, real people reacting in real ways, or in the misuse of trust we saw displayed in the episode. The show, and its very premise, felt far more real in this instance, and as a result far closer to its original potential.

It makes one wonder why this wasn’t the show’s pilot, as any logic to keeping it this far back seems to be countered by a fairly logical argument that this foundational structure would have been even more rewarding.

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March 4, 2009 · 12:22 am

Project Runway Canada – “Episode Six”

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“Hope Springs Eternal”

March 3rd, 2009

So, I want to first off apologize that I was nowhere to be found for last week’s episode of Project Runway Canada – I wasn’t able to watch the episode live, had a heck of a time getting it to stream on Global’s website, and then once the decision became clear I just didn’t have the drive to write about it. I did, however, converse with a few people on Twitter about it, and the consensus seems clear: with Sunny running away with the competition, and the rest of the designers failing to bring anything to the table, there just isn’t anything that the show can do to convince us that we’re watching an honest to goodness contest. What we’re left with is, well, the Sunny show.

The thing is, though, other than Danio’s tragic early exit (followed in time by his tragic passing from Cancer), the people who have gone home all deserved to go home until we hit Baylor, who was unfairly punished for a mistake that, while certainly not minor, was not on the level of the episode’s other competitors. It’s not like the designers are just getting rid of all of the talent, it seems like it wasn’t there to begin with and that’s a problem that falls on the producers and not necessarily the contestants themselves.

But this doesn’t mean that this week’s hackjob, where only three contestants really get anything close to praise from the judges, is in the hands of the producers: this was quite honestly the most clear challenge that we’ve had in the show’s run so far. A spring dress, made for commercial outlets, that goes from day to night – they’re buzzwords that these people should be able to work with, and yet again people just go around ignoring them all over the place. And this is the kind of challenge where you show that you can do the most simple basic tasks…and if they’re failing here, what does it say about their future.

It’s all adding up to a lack of desire to really blog about this show when, in the end, it seems like a foregone conclusion, even though we saw a potential competitor emerge.

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February 23, 2009 · 4:24 am

Flight of the Conchords – “Love is a Weapon of Choice”

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“Love is a Weapon of Choice”

February 22nd, 2009

After last week was, without question, my favourite episode of Flight of the Conchords’ second season, “Love is a Weapon of Choice” has a lot to live up to. Not only did last week’s “Unnatural Love” give us two of the season’s better songs, but it also delved into the wonderful Australia/New Zealand feud that has often underscored the series. It was vintage Conchords, directed by Michel Gondry, so expecting another episode to compare to it is probably unfair.

As a result, it is with tempered expectations that “Love is a Weapon of Choice” succeeds, if not overwhelmingly. Kristen Wiig proves that she fits well into this universe, something that we could have called based on her great work on Saturday Night Live, and while none of the three songs in the episode prove especially groundbreaking they fit into musical genres the show hasn’t often delved into, and were connected well enough to the romantic hijinx of the episode that I’ll forgive the lack of outright quality.

It’s not one that we’re going to remember, but it’s at least one that get a few laughs, a few catchy lyrics, and a commendation for some cleverness.

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