Tag Archives: Season Two

September 9, 2008 · 12:36 pm

Gossip Girl – “Never Been Marcused”

“Never Been Marcused”

September 8th, 2008

Late last week, as anyone following my Twitter feed may have found out, I received in the mail a recent impulse purchase. The Complete Series box set of The O.C. was waiting for me at the post office, and with it came a lot of memories and, ultimately, a sudden impulse that resulted in finishing off the show’s first season, and starting the second, over the weekend.

I mention this because there’s always a lot of talk when any teen dramas are premiering, or airing, about how they compare with The O.C., now considered the seminal comparison point for any teen soap opera of this generation. Having just completed what it considered the show’s crowning achievement (its first season), I can confirm that it lives up to this title: while the central, most soap operatic moments are perhaps worse for wear compared to my recollection, the ancillary elements (The Parents, the less traditional romance of Seth and Summer, the humour and quippiness) are so strong that it’s hard not to hold other shows up to that standard.

And I spend so much time talking about this standard because “Never Been Marcused” was cribbed almost entirely from The O.C.’s own transition from summer to fall. I won’t attempt to accuse Stephanie Savage from plagiarizing herself, but I will say that she certainly has taken the lessons learned there to heart. The comparison is not a negative one: while obviously different in tone, the events we see here are smart in the same way The O.C. was smart, creating various entanglements that have dramatic potential for the future.

The real difference is that Gossip Girl is a show about scandal, a show where these events will be less introspective than they are fodder for our narrator and her incessant appetite for these types of affairs. This isn’t to say that it’s a lesser show by default, but it means that it’s shooting for another audience: one that includes me, definitely, but not one was diverse and inclusive as perhaps Schwartz’s original series to which this episode owes much of its plotting.

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September 8, 2008 · 9:25 pm

Season Premiere: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles – “Samson and Delilah”

“Samson and Delilah”

September 8th, 2008

The last time I took a look at Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, you’d think that I wouldn’t be here blogging a second season premiere. Not only was I fairly harsh on the show’s third episode, but the ratings were declining and the buzz was slowly dying. In a strike-damaged season, there was no question that a show like Sarah Connor would just get lost in the wind, a failed attempt to capture a franchise audience with a show that wasn’t living up to its potential.

Well, I had more or less written it off in this fashion, but in the slow summer months I revisited the series and finished off its nine episode run. And while I wasn’t quite driven to blog about my experience, I was quite simply pleasantly surprised: it wasn’t poetry, but the season finale in particular demonstrated a willingness to embrace a larger dramatic perspective, and the episodes leading into it did a strong job of furthering the show’s connection to the broader franchise storyline. As some have taken to saying: it might indicate that we’re living in an opposite world, but Brian Austin Green’s arrival in the series actually coincided with a strong improvement in quality.

So with this new perspective, the show’s surprise second season renewal seems more than justified: it’s a show that was on a definite upward swing heading into the its final episodes, and with the strike limiting pilot development this is one of many shows that deserve a chance to recapture audiences’ attention. So while the momentum is in its favour, and the cheaply priced DVD set likely sold quite a few people on trying the show for the first time, it does need to prove that it can sustain itself in its sophomore season.

The verdict on that front, though, remains iffy: with a rather tepid introduction of the new corporate conspiracy and a chip malfunction that creates a particularly volatile rollercoaster ride of a premiere, “Samson and Delilah” is a heavily action-oriented episode that feels like an organic, but frantic, followup to last season’s cliffhanger explosion. And while I could have done with more set pieces that didn’t feel like one long chase scene, there are moments here that remind us that this show is in better hands than I thought eight months ago.

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September 8, 2008 · 12:13 am

Mad Men – “The Gold Violin”

“The Gold Violin”

September 7th, 2008

Ken Cosgrove is a man of letters, a published writer who sees everything around him as some type of story, some type of allegory waiting to be turned into words. Having such an interpretative individual in a TV show is an interesting mirror for the audience, as when he suggests that an after hours trip into Cooper’s office to view a photograph would make a good short story, we’re in the process of watching a television show about an after hours trip into Cooper’s office.

Really, though, his story of the gold violin, perfect but unable to play a single note, is really more about the rest of the episode than it is about Cosgrove as a character. It’s not a new theme for the series, but the idea of things being entirely for show, form over function, is nailed home with a group of characters who make decisions or take life paths which will eventually come back to damage them.

But there is just something irresistable about a gold violin: as Cooper himself puts it, people buy things to realize their aspirations. The problem, of course, is when their aspirations are as complicated as Don’s emotional stability, or when they are as confused and ultimately misguided as Salvatore’s decision to get married. Really, the only purchase in the entire episode that isn’t an equivalent to the titular instrument is the painting that everyone presumes is such a prized possession: Cooper’s only in it for the money.

And if everyone else was only in it for money, Betty Draper wouldn’t be throwing up in the front seat of Don’s new cadillac, would she?

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August 25, 2008 · 12:05 am

Mad Men – “The New Girl”

“The New Girl”

August 24th, 2008

Don Draper is not a man who likes things. This seems strange to say, but it’s true: our protagonist is a man who desires things, who thinks he deserves things, who certainly feels things, but he is the type who has totally disallowed himself from liking things in a normal sense. He is a man who avoids more than he gravitates – he defends against his past while indulging in desire, deciding what he doesn’t like before he ever decides the other way around.

So, while the episode spends a lot of time struggling to discern what Don likes, it’s really through his actions that we are able to understand what he likes, or respects. Of the thing he lists to Bobbie, only movies seems to be true, as we saw him use it a few weeks ago as his work escape unrelated to his affairs. What he really likes is people who are reliable, people who are there for him and to whom he can reveal parts of himself others don’t see. In this episode, he runs into one of them and it sends him into a downward spiral; when he needs to escape it, he turns to another, one who owes him a favour.

What it boils down to is a discovery of how, precisely, Don Draper decides to live his life – and, like all good Mad Men episodes, it says as a little about everyone else on the show too, although the episode was less interconnected than others. With a glimpse of the past and a look to the future, “The New Girl” does manage to say a lot…even if I still am not sure who the title refers to.

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August 17, 2008 · 11:37 pm

Mad Men – “Three Sundays”

“Three Sundays”

August 17th, 2008

When Father Gil (Guest star Colin Hanks) stops by to the Olsen household for a dinner party, he is asked to say grace. He gives a short little moment of reflection on the meal in front of them, and Peggy’s Mother commends him on the fine words and asks if he’s going to say grace now. He quickly breaks into the traditional verse.

Roger’s daughter, meanwhile, is engaged. Her mother wants a wedding, a big gala where all of their friends can come and enjoy, but she isn’t on the same page: the young Ms. Sterling does want to feel like she needs to prove her love to anyone in some grand ceremony after only two months of engagement. Eventually, it seems settled: like it or not, a big wedding is simply unavoidable.

We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this: as my brother (who just finished the first season) noted, the 60s is a decade of change and Mad Men is a show about people of an older era. While this is not yet the time when there is an active war between these two generations, the battlegrounds are being drawn: as Don himself says, “We have a lot of bricks, but we don’t know what the building looks like.”

But, slowly but surely, the bricks are falling into place; and over these “Three Sundays,” a lot happens to lay a foundation.

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August 11, 2008 · 12:00 am

Mad Men – “The Benefactor”

“The Benefactor”

August 10th, 2008

After a busy day of moving, there’s nothing better than sitting down with one of the most satisfying dramas on television and just letting its quality suck you in. But, to be honest, it wasn’t grasping me at first: maybe it’s being tired, maybe it’s just that the show is finding a slower pace after a couple of really quick episodes, but there was something about “The Benefactor” that wasn’t clicking.

But then all of a sudden everything starts clicking – what seemed like a strangely slow subplot for Harry Crane turns into a sudden revelation of its broader impact on his life (And Peggy’s for that matter). It’s one of those examples where something initially so isolated has this ripple effect, showing in tiny small moments how one thing impacts everyone else.

And even though the episode is slow to start for Don and Betty Draper, they end the episode both with extremely twisted views of their current marital detente of sorts: as they both continue to struggle with embracing their new roles, it is clear that their expectations for happiness are quite different. When Betty cries in the car on their way back from dinner, they’re inexpicable tears of happiness, her bar set so low that being used to flirt with an unruly comedian is her new calling.

But, I guess this is normal: for her, Don is really just a Benefactor, although a slightly more benevolent one these days.

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August 8, 2008 · 1:40 pm

Season Finale: My Boys – “John, Cougar, Newman Camp”

“John, Cougar, Newman Camp”

August 7th, 2008

After a bit of a non-starter of a season wherein the opening resolution to the cliffhanger never went anywhere, and where the relentless drive towards this wedding finale never felt like any sort of natural progression, we have a finale that wants to bookend things cleaner than the season actually was.

And it’s successful – as far as season finales go, it is a smart choice of letting its various characters serve the right roles in Bobby’s march to holy matrimony, and even though the ending is entirely predictable the episode offers our gang of friends enough opportunities to interact that it doesn’t feel like a total cheat. It still doesn’t feel like any type of finale, serving just as a tease for the continuation to come likely early next year, but it does achieve at least a good sense of character within its contrived plotting.

So while I can’t say I’m any more excited about the final cliffhanger as I was when I presumed it would happen weeks ago, the combination of a decent continuation of last week’s threads with some funny gang stuff rises above the median but does little to change the season’s overall quality.

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August 4, 2008 · 1:14 am

Mad Men – “Flight 1”

“Flight 1”

August 3rd, 2008

If last week was about the dueling crises of Betty and Don Draper, the sophomore episode of Mad Men’s second season is all about how the show’s other two primary characters are dealing with crises of their own own. Pete and Peggy’s fates are no doubt intertwined in this series, from the premiere’s tryst to the finale’s birth, and while they share only a brief conversation and one long look during one of Pete’s lower moments, their connection is apparent throughout.

Mad Men is all about reactions: to the times, to the people, to tragedy, to triumph, and everything else in between. We don’t see Flight 1 crash into Jamaica Bay, but we see the reactions of the people at Sterling Cooper and through the impact it has on Pete’s family. Much like the second season from a conceptual level, the show isn’t about showing us every event, but rather slowly pulling back the curtain on the ways that those events change these characters. It’s a show where a plane crash is never just a plane crash not because of some sort of electromagnetic field, but rather due to the show’s ability to emphasize the widespread impact of events both big and small on the characters it knows so well.

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August 1, 2008 · 7:14 pm

My Boys – “Jack and Bobby”

“Jack and Bobby”

July 31st, 2008

When you look up the TV Dictionary definition of “Jack and Bobby,” chances are you’ll find the short-lived WB Drama starring Christine Lahti (I watched the show for the first few episodes, but eventually got bored). However, there’s now a second definition: “See: Setup Episode of My Boys.”

Yes, this is a dreaded setup episode: one that provides little bits of comedy which stands on its own merits but, for the most part, chooses to simply lay the groundwork for the momentous summer finale that we’re getting in a week’s time (At 9:00pm EST, as TBS shuffles their schedule). And while I don’t want to come across as one of those impatient people who can’t stand setup episodes, this one just wasn’t any good: the major storylines seem to be heading in predictable and ho-hum directions, and some smaller things are being ignored in favour of the broad scheme of things.

And thus we have an episode where even a long-gestating development finally springing to life just doesn’t have the punch the writers think it does.

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July 20, 2008 · 9:38 pm

Burn Notice – “Turn and Burn”

“Turn and Burn”

July 17th, 2008

With all of the Emmy hooplah, and then The Dark Knight over the weekend, it leaves less time for a show like Burn Notice. I didn’t blog about the show last summer not out of spite but out of design: the show is just solid, fun summer entertainment, not bothering with complex emotions or anything else. And, while that makes it a lot of fun to sit down and watch late Friday night, it makes it somewhat less fun to blog about.

However, I don’t want to do the show a disservice by ignoring it: there was still talk of the show somehow taking a nose dive in its first two episodes of the season, and I think this put that to rest. While the stakes are certainly higher this time around, the show still gives Michael more control than chaos, and his adept skills and reverting to a controlled state are some of the show’s finest moments. This week’s episode even seamlessly integrated the ongoing Carla narrative with one of Michael’s traditional clients, something that I feel gives just the right level of balance when all is said and done.

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