Tag Archives: Liam

July 3, 2010 · 2:41 am

Cultural Catchup Project: A Case of Deja Vu (Angel)

A Case of Deja Vu

July 3rd, 2010

You can follow along with the Cultural Catchup Project by following me on Twitter (@Memles), by subscribing to the category’s feed, or by bookmarking the Cultural Catchup Project page where I’ll be posting a link to each installment.

As I get closer to the end of Angel and Buffy’s first and fourth seasons, respectively, the two shows are suffering from opposite problems when it comes to writing about them. While Buffy has gone through a lot of plot development which makes it difficult to write about a single episode as opposed to an arc, Angel is so devoid of plot development that nothing is really jumping out at me. It’s not that either show is depreciating in quality, but rather that Buffy is barreling through while Angel remains in the logical first season holding pattern (albeit with a twist, due to the events of “Hero”).

And so, while it isn’t ideal, I figure it’s best if I offer some quick comments on a large series of episodes for each show as opposed to trying to review them individually. These aren’t really thematic pieces, but more a grab bag assortment of comments regarding particular episodes. Now, I have some reservations about doing this for Buffy, and when that piece goes up later in the weekend I can assure you that it will go a bit more indepth with the growing arcs and some of the character work ongoing in the episodes leading up to the two-parter – however, for Angel, these episodes standalone in such a fashion that a quick paragraph on each seems like a nice way to capture the series’ progress of sorts.

If we can call it that, considering how much of it feels like a case of Deja Vu.

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February 27, 2009 · 12:32 pm

Left on the Cutting Room Floor: “Deadlock,” Editing and Soap Operatic Indulgence

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Left on the Cutting Room Floor:

“Deadlock,” Editing and Soap Operatic Indulgence

Last weekend, still stewing in frustration over “Deadlock,” [my review] the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, I tweeted the following to my twitter followers:

Pretty sure I could write five blog posts this week delving into points of contention on last night’s BSG. I must resist this.

As you can see, I lasted until this morning, as I have in weeks past, before needing to delve back into episodes that frustrated me, trends which concerned me, and that voice in my head that for all of my enjoyment of BSG’s four seasons is extremely cynical about the show’s direction when the show ends in three weeks. The last three episodes of the show have all felt “off” for me, and I’m at a point where I need to see something in tonight’s episode, “Someone to Watch Over Me,” that convinces me less of Katee Sackhoff’s talent or Bear McCreary’s musical genius and more of Ronald D. Moore and David Eick’s vision for completing this thing in only 4 more hours of television.

I am aware, of course, that these hours are really only 43 minutes, and that in that amount of time the show only has time to do so much. In fact, on numerous occasions this year, there have been moments where I’ve wondered what was left off the cutting room floor, and how some content seemed ill-fitting for particular scenarios. And after reconsidering “Deadlock,” and reading some of the interviews with the show’s writers regarding episodes like aforementioned Deadlock and No Exit, I’ve come to a conclusion that somewhere, in those minutes of uncut footage and those ideas not followed through on, there might have been a way to quell my cynicism.

But we got a love triangle instead.

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February 21, 2009 · 2:18 am

Battlestar Galactica – “Deadlock”

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“Deadlock”

February 20th, 2009

“Imagine, instead of 50,000 survivors, there are only five.”

The above are the words of the fifth and final Cylon, words that are in fact quite resonant: considering what we have learned of the Cylon back story in the last few episodes, the Final Five are survivors of a sort, the last of a dead race that have worked to create their own legacy. The Cylons are actually a weird race, in that there is this battle between control and destiny that defines them: if they hadn’t started to rely on pro-creation, taking the future of the race into their own hands and out of their more natural resurrection, maybe the holocaust wouldn’t have hit Earth. And if the Final Five hadn’t agreed to work with the Centurions in order to create the other 8 models, perhaps the attack on the twelve colonies wouldn’t have happened, and there could have been something approaching peace. These are just some of the points wherein questions of blame and responsibility tickle up and down the Cylon timeline, creating the backbone of what we thought would be at least half of the series’ trajectory moving into its final episodes.

What fascinated me about “Deadlock” is that instead of focusing on these types of questions, it removes us from the show itself and places us into the minds of the writers, as they move the characters around like they’re playing checkers on a chess board (Yes, that was a “The Wire” burn). While it was understandable early in the show’s run to have blatant transition episodes like this one, where people start taking on new roles and where old trajectories are shifted into new directions, both this episode and “No Exit” are so blatantly the result of setup that one can’t fully engross themselves in this world. We are coming to the point in the show’s run where the audience is more engrossed in the fate of these characters than ever, and I find myself consistently being drawn out of that element of the series in favour of pondering just how blithely they are willing to state the obvious, linger on that which needs not lingering, and delve into the absolute wrong kind of opera at this late stage of the game.

And if they seriously couldn’t plan out even half a season well enough to avoid episodes that read like this, then forgive me if I don’t join those who are concerned about how this is all coming to come together in a month’s time.

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