Tag Archives: Episode 9

May 27, 2009 · 4:49 pm

Season Finale: My Boys – “Spring Training”

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“Spring Training”

May 26th, 2009

My Boys has, perhaps, the oddest season structure on television. Its sporadically placed nine episode seasons always feel as if they barely start before they’re done, and they often seem designed so as to make no sense by the time they actually air (with this finale taking place during Spring Training despite finding the Baseball season in full swing – yeah, I said it – or the recent episode about the depths of winter taking place, well, not during the depths of winter).

But, more importantly, the show has this really weird pattern of ending and opening seasons with these highly dramatic scenarios of romantic cliffhangers and major events, but then abandoning them for the entire season in favour of standalone stories that are just about these character hanging out. This wouldn’t be a problem if these two forms were all that compatible, but to be honest they’re not: the end of last season was a bit of a mess, and when the show transitioned into a less serialized format this season it was kind of fantastic. I haven’t been blogging about the show due to time restraints, but there was some really great individual episodes in there, more than enough to convince me that the show is still in great shape.

As a result, it was with some caution that I entered into “Spring Training,” already pretty well knowing what we were heading into: Kenny and Stephanie’s hookup way back in last season’s finale was swept under the rug except for a few moments this season, so it was inevitable that we would be confronting that particular storyline. However, to my surprise, that’s the only attempt at drama the show made in the half hour, providing a finale that draws a simpler cliffhanger, and a trip out to that cliff which let the guys be guys, let P.J. go without any stated relationship trouble, and allowed a pretty great little season go out on a pretty good note.

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Project Runway Canada Season 2 – “Episode Nine”

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“Gimme Shelter”

March 24th, 2009

When three people left in the first episode of the season, this was an inevitability: it was almost required that there would be some kind of twist where people could gain the chance to come back into the season. It was even something they did last season: finalist Marie-Genvieve was eliminated after a particularly erroneous garment, but then returned to end up clearly better than most of her competition.

However, the difference in Season 2 is that, to be entirely frank, there wasn’t anyone who felt like they particularly needed to come back, people who went home for reasons that weren’t quite true. While an argument could be made foy Baylor, that isn’t who the producers brought back as the designers head into this week’s challenge, and it’s really hard to get excited about Jason and Genevieve coming back into the game when the designs they were eliminated on were, well, deserving of elimination.

So while the show is perhaps justified in using this as a big “A-ha” moment, it’s all backwards: rather than people we missed returning to create some sort of karma, it feels like we’re being punked. And, I don’t like being punked, and neither do the designers who get sent home in the wrong fashion.

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Tagged as Adejoke, Avant Garde, Camping, Canada, Elimination, Entertainment, Episode 9, Fashion, Final Four, Genevieve, Gimme Shelter, Iman, Jason, Jessica, Kim, PRC, Project Runway, Rachel Roy, Ready to Wear, Return, Season 2, Second Chance, Shawn Hewson, Sunny, Survival, Television, Twist, Unfair

March 18, 2009 · 10:50 pm

Lost – “Namaste”

“Namaste”

March 18th, 2009

At the very beginning of Lost’s first season, orientation was a common relationship for all of our characters: all of them had their own baggage, their own identities, but all of them had in common that struggle to reorient their lives in such a way as to fit into this new island structure. We see Jack trying to associate his pre-island struggles with his father and with medicine with his new role as a leader, to uneven success, just as we see Kate come to terms with her crimes and her culpability in the wake of what is essentially a fresh start. Even if some people oriented themselves faster than others, or more successfully than others, everyone had to start at that basic point.

But in “Namaste,” that balance is entirely skewed – if the term means “I bow to you,” then many amongst the show’s cast have no idea who, or what, to bow to anymore. There are three sets of people on the island in these two different time periods: one set who has been there for three years and has become part of the culture (Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Jin), one that has been there before but finds this new territory disturbing regardless of the time period (the Oceanic Six, Frank, Ben), and those who are experiencing it all for the first time (Caesar and the group left back by the Hydra). The problem is that, for the first group, they are part of the culture: they went through orientation, they saw the videos, and now they are integral parts of the structure of this island and its history. Everyone else, meanwhile, is starting anew, but for some of these characters you can’t just stop yourself from recognizing a new captive as an old friend, or reacting when you first see an old lover for the first time.

This isn’t a mind-blowing episode of Lost in terms of major revelations, but it fills in some key gaps that we hadn’t quite pieced together in the last few episodes, and draws attention to our central conflict. The show is purposefully trying to reboot itself in the middle of a season, knowing full well that it’s impossible – that impossibility is embodied by the characters, the characters who are either trapped separated by decades from the people they came to see or those trapped in the distant past with no clue as to their mission. Just as they can’t forget about the past, pretend like nothing happened, neither can I, and this kind of narrative disconnect in fact sends us back to these characters, and even back to past events in previous seasons, to get a real sense of what has changed.

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Tagged as 1977, 2007, ABC, Benjamin Linus, Christian Shephard, Daniel Faraday, Entertainment, Episode 9, Ethan Hunt, Hurley, Jack Bender, Jack Shephard, James Lafleur, Kate Austen, Namaste, Oceanic Six, Orientation, Paddle, Peter Chang, Review, Sawyer, Sayid, Season 5, Submarine, Television, Time Travel

March 16, 2009 · 3:08 am

Flight of the Conchords – “Wingmen”

“Wingmen”

March 15th, 2009

At the end of the first act of “Wingmen,” Murray brings Bret and Jemaine in for an entirely unnecessary band meeting: he had, in fact, only called the meeting so he could tell him that there was no need for a meeting. Murray quite wisely noted that sometimes you fall into habits and patterns, and it’s just hard to break them.

For Flight of the Conchords, that pattern is the structure that the show used in its first season, building episodes around songs, and nine episodes into its second season it feels like it is finally falling into a slightly different pattern. There are still songs, but they’re being used less as the meat of storylines and more as points of introduction or conclusion, letting the comedy fill in the gaps. While “Wingmen” wasn’t a comic highlight as far as the season is concerned, the way it used this structure was very effective, and an example of how the show has found new strength in a new structure.

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Tagged as Bass Clarinet, Bread, Bret, Cheap Zoo, Chris Isaak, Diplomatic Immunity, Electric Bill, Entertainment, Episode 9, Freaky, Garbage, Goldfish, HBO, I Told You I was Freekie, Imaginary Date Song, Jemaine, Kilts, Kristen Schaal, Lyrics, Mel, Mugging, Murray, NewZealandTown, Pet Store, Savannah, Season 2, Sitcoms, Television, Top Gun, Walkie Talkie, Wallpaper, wingman, Wingmen

February 23, 2009 · 9:12 am

Yes, I’m Still Watching…ABC’s Life on Mars

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Yes, I’m Still Watching…Life on Mars

February 23rd, 2009

There were many shows that I caught up on over the end of last week, finding myself recovering from one major academic deadline and then not wanting to start preparing for the next one immediately. And so I sat down and caught up on numerous shows that I’ve found myself falling behind on for this, that, or some other reason.

The one I’m choosing to write about first is the one that has perhaps been off the radar for the longest period of time. I blogged my way through the premiere of Life on Mars, but since that point I have been noticeably absent. But the show after a very strong fall finale of sorts in December, Life on Mars has returned after the break to struggling ratings (nothing ever performs well after Lost) but to a bit of a creative resurgence, picking the right kinds of stories and the right balance of 1973 reality and 1973 surreality to sustain my attention.

I still have some concerns with certain elements of the show’s storytelling, but at this point they have done more than enough in terms of creating endearing, well-acted and well-rounded characters for me to be too preoccupied with such matters, and although I am still remiss in not checking out the BBC original series I am pleased at some of the broader mythology stuff that is starting to appear.

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Tagged as 125, ABC, Entertainment, Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episodes, Eric Balfour, Gretchen Mol, Harvey Keitel, Home is Where You Hang Your Holster, Jason O'Mara, Let All the Children Boogie, Maggie Siff, Michael Imperioli, Procedural, Review, Sam Tyler, Season 1, Take a Look at the Lawmen, Television, The Dark Side of the Mook

January 15, 2009 · 11:06 pm

Goodbye, Gil Grissom: CSI – “One to Go”

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“One to Go”

January 15th, 2009

The amount of times that I have stopped in to check on CSI has been slim in the years since I stopped paying much attention to the show – yes, there have been various character exits, numerous serialized storylines, and intriguing plots, but my Thursdays are chock-full enough as it is. But what I’ve gathered in my relative ignorance is that the show remains by far the most effective of the franchise, demonstrating character-driven storylines and weathering cast changes with subtle precision.

But the exit of Gil Grissom is a whole different story: while other exits felt like they were part of the ebb and flow of television procedurals, a changeover we deal with because Law & Order taught us to. But the loss of someone whose presence has always been the most central, whose calm and cool demeanor defined the very premise of CSI? This is an entirely different scenario, a watershed moment for the show’s durability and more importantly its ability to bring in a new lead actor.

In what is Gil Grissom’s final stand, his team has to band together to give him one last victory while at the same time getting used to seeing Laurence Fishburne walking the halls of CSI with his own brand of case solution. While the first half was defined by Grissom’s attempts to speak to and understand a notorious serial killer, the second half lets Grissom solve the case, along the way using many of his unique methods and saying goodbye to the people around him, while letting Dr. Raymond Langston be the one who faces off with the Dick and Jane killer.

The result is a rude awakening for Langston, and a solemn and fitting goodbye foor Grissom – it sets one up to want to try harder, and the other a chance to leave on good terms. The handling of the switchover is another reason why, if I’m stuck in a hotel room in the middle of the day with nothing else to watch tomorrow, a Spike TV rerun of CSI will continue to be a solid option even after Grissom is long gone.

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Tagged as 2009, CBS, Costa Rica, CSI, Dick and Jane Killer, Entertainment, Episode 9, Final Episode, Gil Grissom, Grissom, Grissom's Final Episode, Laurence Fishburne, One to Go, Raymond Langston, Season 10, Television, William Petersen

December 4, 2008 · 3:45 pm

Friday Night Lights – “Game of the Week”

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“Game of the Week”

December 3rd, 2008

“It would be good to get the ball rollin’, you know?”

It’s “Beer-Thirty” in the afternoon in Dillon, Texas, and Buddy Garrity sits in his recliner with a beer and a football game. A knock at the door sends him a reminder: it can’t be his ex-wife, who hates him, or one of his friends, because he doesn’t have any of them. For Buddy Garrity, his life is football.

But while the show has always used football as a point of dramatic tension in the lives of these players, and this episode featured some of the most football-oriented plotting since the show’s first season, this episode was about the show’s continued reminder that their lives go beyond the gridiron. While our two “goodbyes” pre-planned before the season may be over, this doesn’t mean that the theme won’t continue: they have a lot of characters to send off into some form of television sunset, and we’re starting to see the plot, well, get the ball rolling.

While the stories don’t quite have the same resonance as did the emotional exits for Smash and Street yet, what they do have is football. If this week’s game is any indication, the stakes are higher than ever and we’re back to having the big games as the backdrop for our action. What resulted here was a reminder that, as the stakes for the Panthers grow higher by the week, so too do the characters’ drive to go to college, to solve their interpersonal crises, and to (in some cases) get over significant hurdles to their future.

And if things are this captivating now, I’m fairly certain the State Championship will be happening in my living room, live in person.

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Tagged as 101, Adrianne Palicki, Cash, DirecTV, Entertainment, Episode 9, FNL, Football, Game of the Week, Landry, Matt Saracen, Minka Kelly, Season 3, Television, Tim Riggins, Tyra Colette

December 4, 2008 · 12:12 pm

Chuck – “Chuck vs. The Sensei”

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“Chuck vs. The Sensei”

December 1st, 2008

Any show coming out of a major story arc is going to have a bit of a tough time of their next episode. This isn’t to say that the episode is going to be bad, but rather that it’s inevitable: whether Lost after their premieres or Battlestar Galactica after its inevitable midseason pit stops, there’s going to be a point when the rising action has reached its climax and it’s too soon for the next story to really pick up.

This was, for Chuck, as good a time as any to return to the past of one John Casey, stern-faced Buy More employee in one life and…stern-faced NSA agent in the other. While I like seeing more of Casey, the episode spends a lot of time plainly stating that John Casey only has one speed: mad. There is no inner calm in John Casey, and while we get one moment of unquestioned humanity in the episode there is, for the most part, not going to be something approaching the emotional side that we get so often from Sarah.

But Adam Baldwin knows how to play mad, and the show knows how to balance an episode like this; while it doesn’t help it rise above the show’s standard this season, the choice to parallel Casey’s past with Ellie’s upcoming wedding and the pressures of in-laws offered a good chance for the storyline to slowly move forward even as Casey faces off against a familiar face from his past (and ours, as far as the TV spy game goes).

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