What's up, everyone. Well, just about made it through the week, and getting ready for the weekend, and soon, Thanksgiving. I've got a lot to cover today, so here we go:
TV STUFF:
- I'll start by talking about Wednesday's episode of GLEE. Yes, Glee - a show that's clearly among the most buzzed-about of the new TV season. The fact is, people freaking love Glee. And yet, objectively, you've got to admit that the show can be uneven. In some ways, it's one of the strangest shows I've ever seen, in that every episode seems to swing wildly back and forth in terms of tone. Some weeks, the show is dark and cynical. Others, its bouncy and optimistic. Some weeks, the teen drama feels authentic and realistic - more Freaks and Geeks, and others, it feels broad and cartoonish - more High School Musical. Glee is a show that's really, really hard to get a handle on. And yet, a lot of people (namely of the female population), love it unconditionally. Why is that? When talking with girls who are self-proclaimed "Gleeks" (shudder ...), you never hear things like "well, I liked the episode, but it was really dark compared to last week's," or "good episode, but it was weird that so little time was spent with Sue Sylvester this week." Things like that. At the end of the day, I think that a lot of people simply love the characters in Glee and will follow them through thick and thin. It's the Twilight effect - as soon as there's that element of female empowerment fantasy at play, all objectivity goes out the window. And hey, I'm not trying to be sexist here - guys do the same thing with over-the-top action movies and such. But I think there is that undeniable factor that there are many girls out there who relate to Rachel. Some of them have her confidence and sense of self, some only wish they did. But Rachel is a landmark character because she's a character of the YouTube age -- in the past, she would have just been another middle-of-the-road high school nobody. But now, in our culture of constant self-promotion and anyone-can-be-a-star way of thinking, Rachel may *actually* be sort of a loser, but in her own mind, she's on the A-list. And in the self-contained world of the glee club, she is a star and a diva. Rachel reminds me of any number of people I actually know, for better or worse, and I do think that Glee nailed the character in terms of concept and casting. She's the kind of character that girls can relate to and live vicariously through, but that guys can easily grow to hate. I mean, here's a character who wants it all - she wants to be a loud and proud glee-club geek, yet has a real superiority complex, pines for the football team quarterback, and is probably just as dismissive of others as they may be of her. So I think that's something that makes Glee resonate so much with a certain segment - it has Rachel, and other characters, who break from the usual TV mold. People are thrilled to see these types on TV, and it is refreshing, you have to admit. We all know Rachels, and some of you reading this probably are Rachels. And maybe, in the age of Facebook, Twitter, and American Idol ... well, the scary thing is that maybe all of us, in our own way, are our own particular brand of Rachel. Yikes.
But back to this week's episode, it was another one that just felt so different in tone from the previous week's, it was pretty jarring to me. There was no Sue. And that meant a lot less overt comedy. On the other hand, there was A LOT of singing - and a lot of that was done as much to advance the story - musical style - as it was just to be a showpiece for the cast. I enjoyed most of the storylines here - Rachel's crush on Will and his fruitless attempts to turn her away made for some pretty entertaining moments - capped off by Will's musical medley that only served to make Rachel and fellow teacher Emma that much more enamored of him (ironically, he sung "Don't Stand So Close to Me" - and even though he wanted Rachel to take the chorus to heart, it probably didn't help that the song is about how much a teacher is lusting after his Lolita-esque student). Meanwhile, the Quinn pregnanacy angle came to a head, as the whole sordid situation was revealed to her conservative Christian parents (her Dad's daily highlight is watching Glenn Beck - oy). This was another storyline that was handled pretty well, especially since Quinn and Finn have become really good characters since the pilot.
But yeah, this was another one where you just didn't know which Glee was going to show up to the party. Over on TV Guide, Matt Roush addressed this same concern. He explained that even though Glee can be uneven and all-over-the-place, he still remained inexplicably passionate about it, because it was just so different, and yes, unpredictable. I don't know if passionate is the word I'd use to describe how I feel about Glee, but the whole Glee phenomena definitely fascinates me. And it's funny because despite some of its darker themes, this episode was ultimately a very cheery, uplifiting ep. It was no big surprise that it ended with "Lean On Me." But the weird thing is that in a different episode, with a different tone, who knows. Personally, I like Glee better when it's darkly funny and twisted (the Slushee episode from a few weeks back, maybe my favorite one yet). And yet, I feel like a lot of Glee fans secretly want it to be High School Musical. Glee is smart enough and fun enough to support multiple tones, but personally I'd like it a little less Disney-fied. That said, "Don't Stand So Close to Me" has been in my head all week.
My Grade: B
- Moving on to the third of four 2009 episodes of V ... well, I feel similar about this one as I did towards Episode 2. The show right now is only okay, but I like the premise enough to stick with it and see how the new showrunners change things up come 2010. It's funny, because I just talked about how the characters on Glee make it consistently fun in spite of some of its other problems. V is the oppositte - the premise is strong and intriguing, and there's a lot of fun, if not well-worn, sci-fi tropes at the heart of the story. But V really needs a shot in the arm. It needs the added oomph to make it really pop. The characters right now, mostly, are pretty bland. The best character is the V leader Anna, partially because she is so mysterious and we don't know her true motives. But that same quality detracts from characters like the FBI agent played by Elizabeth Mitchell. Could she eventually turn things around and make the character her own, like Anna Torv has done on Fringe? Maybe. But Fringe is a show that really focuses in on character. V right now is very broad, very cartoonish in some respects. That's fine, but if that's the route you're going to go, give us some awesome, larger-than-life heroes that we can really root for.
This week's episode competently moved things forward, and had a couple of decent twists with regards to the rebel Fifth Column V's, and them being the impetus for a couple of the principle good-guy characters to finally meet. Meanwhile, we all got to live vicariously through the teen kid as he hooks up with Laura "Supergirl' Vandervoort, without realizing, of course, that beneath her human facade she is a hideous lizard-alien. We also learn that Vandervoort is Anna's daughter, which wasn't that great of a twist, but who knows, could pay off down the line. But as things progress, you can't help but wonder why things are unfloding the way they are. Why don't the rebel V's just expose themselves to the media? Why did Elizabeth Mitchell feel so strongly about protecting the V's from an assasination plot? Wouldn't such a thing just expose them also? Right now, V feels like a series just trying to get from Point A to Point B, and when you do that, it's hard to get much pop out of a twist or story beat.
In any case, still onboard for now, and despite my lukewarm feelings, I'm still very curious to see if the show gets that shot in the arm come next year.
My Grade: B-
- Next up, I'll talk about another big sci-fi show that has had its ups and downs - FRINGE. Before this week, Fringe aired a couple of episodes in a row that were pretty much standalone stories. They were alright, but these last few episodes have felt like X-Files lite - as I've been saying over and over again here on the blog. What I mean is, these eps have employed the standard "monster of the week" storytelling style made famous by the X-Files back in the day. But, Fringe has done only a so-so job of creating really compelling monsters and villains each week. The show rarely takes the time to get into the psychology of these villains, and the resolutions to their stories tend to feel rushed and glossed over. That's not to say there haven't been some great moments these last few weeks. The lack of depth given to the weekly antagonists is, overall, in part a tradeoff for getting so deep into the heads of our heroes. No matter what else is going on, Oliva Dunham, Walter and Peter Bishop, Broyles, etc., have developed into some of the most fun / badass / well-developed characters on TV, and it's always a pleasure to watch them interact. That said, it was high time for the show to get back into the mythology that made it really take-off in the latter half of Season 1. Those eps were where the show really began to hit its stride, and it seems like this is where the writers excel. The fast-paced, mythology-driven episodes of Fringe made the show feel fresh and unique. During that run of great episodes in S1, it didn't feel like any show I had seen before - not like X-Files, Lost, whatever. So it was a shame to see Fringe lose some of that uniqueness over the last several weeks.
In any case, I was pretty excited for this week's ep - it featured the Observers - bald, otherworldly men who monitor important events and have been a constant, enigmatic presence in the Fringe-verse since the pilot. Sure, the Observers might be a bit derivative of comic book characters like The Watcher or The Monitors, but still ... they are cool. I was really curious to finally get an episode that spotlighted them. As it turned out, this one was definitely had more of a spark than other recent eps of Fringe. There were a lot of cool, fun scenes with the bald-headed beings, and there was some great interaction between them and Walter (and the mystery of his relationship with them is one of the show's best riddles). No doubt, this episode felt uniquely Fringe-y. But, I don't know, it also felt a little cliched. The story revolved around one rogue Observer tampering with space/time in order to prevent a girl's death. Turns out he had watched that girl survive a childhood trauma and felt a peculiar attachment to her, and was willing to defy the Observers' non-interference rules in order to help her out. It made for a decent story, but definitely something I've seen many times before in books and movies and TV. The kicker was that they seemed to be setting up some sort of big reveal as to why the Observer singled out this one girl to be saved, of why she was important. Turns out, it was because our bald, emotionless, pale-faced Observer friend had learned the true meaning of love, and, as a single tear rolls down his eye, he explains to us that yes, love was the reason why he had to save this random girl and potentially endanger all of existence in the process. Pretty cheesy, and not really what I was expecting.
I don't want to sound like a total downer here. The truth is this ep had a lot going for it. Awesome Observer-tech and weapons, great Walter wackiness (milkshakes!), and some cool and creepy, very otherworldly acting on the part of those playing the Observers.
Anyways, I think the sheer novelty and coolness factor of having an episode of Fringe totally focused on the Observer(s) was enough to keep me pretty enthralled for the duration of this episode. But do I wish that a slightly better, cooler, and more original story had been devised for the occasion? I do.
My Grade: B
- I finally got around to watching the final two hours of THE PRISONER. This one is interesting. I have some issues with how the story wrapped up, but I also can't deny that the conclusion, and the miniseries as a whole, made a big impact on me. This was a series with flaws, but it was also one that kept me hanging on every word, every image, every revelation. This was smart, intelligent, sophisticated storytelling. Maybe it sometimes got too ambitious or too convoluted or too abstract for its own good. But when I think about the level of writing and acting on The Prisoner, this is clearly stuff that is on a higher plane of existence than so much of what you see on TV. I mean, I can think of few, if any circumstances, where I've seen acting as captivating and resonant as what we got from Sir Ian McKellan in this series. Just awesome, memorable stuff. Give this man an award. I think when all is said and done, people will remember this version of The Prisoner as a worthy reimagining of the original series. Not perfect, but at the end of the day, some pretty darn compelling TV.
Again, I thought the final two hours was a case where the second hour was stronger than the first. The first hour was really interesting, but it's funny - while watching, I was frustrated with how confusing the hour was, and yet, after the second hour, it made a lot more sense in retrospect. Basically, Hour 5 of The Prisoner dealt with an apparent clone of #6 that is all of a sudden running around The Village. This second 6 is a more irrational, more animalistic, more dangerous version of the original, and he's causing quite the stir, even threatening to kill 2. The twist comes later in the episode, when we see that there's also a clone of 2 out there. This new 2 is calmer, more carefree, and in turn more reckless than the original. In the end, we see that this is all part of 2's ongoing attempts to mess around in the mindspace. He's isolated aspects of he and 6's psyche's, testing whether those independent entities would have the ability to go through with actions that the originals would never dare. 2 has created a 6 that is willing to kill him, and a version of himself that is willing to die. Pretty cool in retrospect, but while watching, it was often just confusing. But still, I got caught up in the mindgames and was eager for more. And more was what I got in Hour 6, as things really kicked into high gear, and we began to learn the heretofore unknown origins of The Village, 2, etc. Without going into spoilers, I'll say that the resolution wasn't quite as huge as some might like, but it was pretty fascinating nonetheless. It gave me a lot to think about, so to speak, and I was impressed with how well everything ultimately tied together. All of the main characters fit nicely into the grand scheme of things. And even if the secret of the Village wasn't ultra-super-mind-blowing, it allowed for some really intense, emotional moments with 6 and 2 and 313, who in the end was way more important to the overall story than I initially suspected. It turned out that this version of The Prisoner ended up having a lot in common with things like The Matrix, Lost, Dark City, and even the game Bioshock. Moral questions about what comprises a utopian society versus a dystopian one, and about whether a man has the authority to impose order on others, even if it's by force and without their consent. At what cost does a "perfect" society come, and is it worth the price?
So hats off to THE PRISONER. It proved to be a well-told, superbly-acted, and highly relevant update of the original. It was chock full of fascinating ideas and discussion-worthy moral questions. Really, really good stuff.
My Grade: A-
- Okay, that about covers it for dramas. So how about comedies? Let's talk MODERN FAMILY. I love Modern Family, it's my favorite new show of the year. But ... this one was not it's strongest episode. I think it somewhat coasted on the characters as they've already been established, without really bringing much new to the table. But, more importantly, it just wasn't as funny as previous eps. The highlight was probably the big pajama party that Jay threw for his grandkids. Getting Phil and Claire's kids together with Manny made for some funny moments, especially when we learned about Manny's semi-incestuous crush on Haley. But the other two main plots fell a little flat, I thought. In one corner, Claire's last-minute anniversery gift for Phil is a personal visit from a washed-up musician from a band who Claire mistakenly thinks Phil is a big fan of. The musician, played by none other than Edward Norton (!), was kind of grating after a few minutes, and the storyline as a whole kind of dragged. Same goes for the storyline involving Mitchell, Cameron, and their old friend, played by Elizabeth Banks (!!!). Banks is always good, but the storyline was pretty cliched. We get it, Mitchell and Cameron have a baby and have been domesticated, and no longer have time to go along with Banks on her crazy adventures. All in all, a decent episode of MF is still better than almost anything else, but in a short time, I've come to expect better.
My Grade: B-
- On the other hand, Thursday's episode of THE OFFICE was pretty freaking brilliant. This one didn't have a ton of huge belly laughs or anything, but man, it worked amazingly well as a dead-on satire of dysfunctional corporations. I thought the setup here was great, with Michael called to New York for a Dunder Mifflin investor's conference, where he'd be spotlighted as the company's most successful branch manager. However, with the company facing bankruptcy, Michael and the higher-ups at DM were greeted with a ton of hostility from the crowd, and Michael, never one to accept disapproval lying down, takes it upon himself to try to singlehandedly rally the investors back to Dunder Mifflin's side. With hilarious results (duh). This ep just fired on all cylinders. The juxtaposition of Michael's naive goofiness with the dead-serious upper management of DM was awesome. And Michael's nonsensical yet oddly-inspiring speech to the investors was classic. The B-plot back at the office wasn't quite as memorable, but it led to some nice character advancement for Jim, who tried to exert some of his newly-gained authority by finally clamping down on Ryan's lack of productivity. I loved Ryan's twisty, douche baggy responses to Jim. and maybe the funniest scene of the episode was Ryan avoiding work by giving Creed advice on his love life ("do you really like her, or just the idea of her?" bwahaha). Overall, this was a great episode of The Office - maybe the best overall of the season so far.
My Grade: A
- 30 ROCK in turn had a pretty good episode, although I don't know if it was quite up to the standards of The Office earlier in the night. This was one of those episodes where the main, Liz-centric plot was only okay, but the episode was somewhat saved by some hilarious subplots involving Jack, Tracy, and Frank. I was dying of laughter at almost everything involving Jack and Tracy each contemplating the idea of getting a vasectomy. Add the always-awesome Dr. Spaceman into the mix, and you had the makings of some kickass comedy. Plus, Tracy Jr.! I guess that, aside from Liz's apartment-hunting plotline being a bit dull, the thing that kind of annoyed me about this ep was the whole Green Week thing. This actually applies to all of the NBC shows that had to have some kind of environmental message jammed into their episodes this past week. On shows like The Office and 30 Rock, the message was basically a throwaway gag that ended up coming off as more of an "FU" to the whole concept as opposed to anything organic to the actual episode. Sort of funny, sure, but in this 30 Rock ep, the whole meta-commentary thing went a bit far. Even Al Gore's appearance felt more like some kind of ironic statement. I don't know, I like that 30 Rock took on the whole thing with its usual whacked-out sense of humor, but it was also kind of distracting. That said, I did really enjoy the ep as a whole, and there were many, many hilarious lines of dialogue throughout. I just don't want the show to get too meta and self-referential.
My Grade: B
- Man, I have had a rocky relationship with COMMUNITY of late. I was ambivalent enough towards the show that I finally decided to drop it a couple of weeks ago. Then I happened to catch last week's ep (the debate team one), and thought it was actually pretty great. I decided I should probably jump back on board the Community bandwagon. I mean, afterall, every week I read review after review declaring Community to be hilarious, one of the funniest comedies on TV. And yet, this week I was back to feeling totally "meh" about the show. I think the writing is consistently sharp, but not necessarilly funny. Last week's ep was the first time I felt like everything 100% came together as it should. This week, with Joel McHale's smart-alecky student befriending Ken Jueng's slightly insane Spanish teacher, in order to convince him to drop his ease up on his assignments, I don't know, it just felt like very standard sitcom stuff glossied up with rapid-fire dialogue and random pop-culture references. And I still dislike most of the characters. Am I missing something here?
My Grade: B-
Whew. Well, I've managed to cover a lot, and it's about time for the weekend to commence. Have a good one!
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