I Speak TV

Update!

2009-02-18T22:50:00.002-05:00

Due to a hardy blend of time constraints and my annoyance with Blogger's quirks, for the next little while, "I Speak TV" will be hosted on our sister site, Threat Quality Press.

Here's some links for you:

- A review of the "Dollhouse" premiere

- A look at the central problem plaguing "24"

- Also up on 2/19, "Lost" vs. "The Prisoner"

Welcome Back, "Lost"

2009-01-23T16:42:00.006-05:00

So, if you weren’t quite aware, the season premier makes it as clear as it can: “Lost” is a science fiction show.

The audience response to this, as judged by its steady decline in viewership over the last year, has been, “OHHHH NO YOU DON’T!”

See, a lot of people feel like the show’s pulled some kind of bait-and-switch. They started watching the show thinking it was a character-based “struggle for survival” kind of series. And having recently watched four seasons straight through, I can tell you – other than a few weird visions and an occasional noisy monster, there weren’t too many that, just a few seasons later, we’d have a character try to explain, in his best “okay-nobody-freak-out-here” voice, that they’ve all become unstuck in time.

A monster in the jungle is one thing – it’s tangible. Still in the confines of an action-survival story. It’s something you can fight and kill. (At least, it was until it showed up on screen as an undulating sentient smoke-cloud, but anyway.)

But even if you explain the time-travel through a handy record-skipping metaphor and sciency-sounding explanations…it’s still time-travel. It’s conceptual science fiction that, bottom line, is NOT REAL.

That’s a harder pill for some viewers to swallow (and let’s face it – science fiction is still a niche genre). So for all the talk about “drop-off in quality,” or “frustrated fans,” I’d wager the real reason a great number of people bailed is because they didn’t want to watch a show that was becoming more and more about the space-time continuum and less about The Gang Hunting Boar.

Additionally, last year’s introduction of mystery-building flash-forward and fewer character-building flashbacks was a clear sea-change from character- to plot-based storytelling. A lot of viewers saw that as producers saying: “We care about the weirdo sci-fi crap now more than the characters, and you should, too.”

But that’s not true. In fact, the only reason the show can now successfully explore out-and-out sci-fi territory is because of those four seasons of character- and relationship-building. Because at the end of the day, a story only matters if you care about who it’s happening to. And the producers have been very careful to cultivate that concern.

(Which is why an episode where, say, Desmond’s consciousness is pinballing through time still works – because despite the lunatic premise, the real story is still about a guy who couldn’t possibly be further away from the one he loves, and it’s killing him.)

As for the actual episode(s), I thought they were very enjoyable, particularly for what they suggest – that the off-island present will be our “core” narrative (and the 70-hour timeframe to get back to the island would hint that “off-island” may not be a term we’ll be using all season), with the time-bouncing islanders (under the anti-Kate/Jack leadership of Juliet and Sawyer, has some interesting potential) making up the “flashback b-story,” possibly witnessing Great Moments in Island History as they happen (which would certainly be a novel way of answering some long-term questions, wouldn’t it?).

Some final advice: If you start talking about “Lost” and someone mentions how they dropped it because it got too “out there” (or some variation), just tell them that good stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Which requires change from one section to another, sometimes with unexpected results.

And if they don’t like it, they can just turn on frickin’ “Law and Order,” because Sam Waterston will never die.

Over the last few months, I wrote essays on each season of Lost, and I recommend them (of course, I would):

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4 (in two parts, here and here)

Adding up "Fringe"

2009-01-20T23:57:00.003-05:00

There’s been a lot of stupidity on “Fringe.” Bad science, stupid investigating, and plots that hint at forward movement by obliquely referencing people and things that might have something to do with…something.

The stupid has been neck-and-neck with the interesting – the creatively gross stuff, the enjoyable banter between mad scientist Walter and his sardonic son Peter, and Lance Reddick’s awesomely sharp jawline.

But with its first episode after the winter break, the stupid-to-interesting quotient on “Fringe” has officially tipped in stupid’s favor. And so, I’m 80% certain I’m giving up on the show.

Let’s add it all up. -1 for every stupid moment, +1 for every interesting moment:

-Olivia escapes her kidnappers by asking for a drink of water, which they oblige without issue (-1) – and when her captors sit her up to drink it, she smashes the glass over the one guy’s head (-1 for giving her an ACTUAL GLASS).

-Then she throws a knife at the other guy and it plows straight into his back (+1)

-She sneaks up behind another guy, knocks him out, takes his gun and the keys to his car, and even swipes some evidence on her way out, finds the proper car and speeds out, at which point she uses the stolen cell phone to call in the whole thing (+1 because she really hauls ass throughout the whole sequence).

-Later, it turns out “fringe division” (-1 for actually giving this previously-unnamed subgroup a silly name) is being investigated by the guy our hero, Olivia, had previously prosecuted for sexual harassment (-1 for asking us to believe a guy with such an obvious conflict of interest would be put in charge of investigating this particular division).

-Meanwhile, a giant slug thing kills an immunologist and crawls out its throat (+1 for doing what “Fringe” does best – being gross as hell).

-Olivia starts solving this and that (+1 for giving her a personality – it took 13 episodes, but she has finally developed “enthusiasm for her job” as a secondary trait, past “earnestness for her job”).

-Then, she realizes the double-agent guy in the FBI is the one who kidnapped her, through skillful deductive powers of noticing the same dollop of WhiteOut on his shoe (-2 for being so fucking stupid that THIS is how she puts it all together – this is Scooby-Doo shit, right here).

-Despite her suspicions, she can’t investigate the guy, so her partner goes to known criminal Peter to tap double-agent’s phone off the books (so the FBI can maintain deniability). He does this by standing in the room while Peter makes calls to his criminal buddies, and helping him set up the illegal wire-tap (-2, one for the idiocy of FBI partner, and another for the utter bullshit of this wiretap setup).

-Fortunately, Peter has tapped in JUST IN TIME to hear FBI double-agent call his wife – from his DESK AT FBI HEADQUARTERS TO THEIR HOME’S LANDLINE – to tell her “Olivia CANNOT LEAVE THE HOUSE ALIVE.” (-3 for the amount of phrases I had to put in aggravated caps.)

-Then Olivia shoots the wife in the head, narrowly missing a bullet herself (+1/2. Not too awesome, but…I gotta give ‘em something at this point.)

-So they catch double-agent, and in the interrogation room, Olivia breaks him by revealing she killed his wife (+1 because she gritted her teeth in kind of a cool way). Double-agent cracks hard and starts spewing in a really oblique way about how they weren’t kidnapping her, but SAVING HER, and now she’s RUINED EVERYTHING!!! (-3, two for the caps, one for the truly annoying vagueness of his “admission.” Nobody is ever this vague about anything.)

-Oh, and in the end, the investigator guy has to admit Olivia knows her stuff (still -1 because that still pisses me off.)

So let’s look at the tally:
+5.5
-15

Okay, it’s official: I’d have to be a real glutton for punishment to keep watching a show that hurts my brain this much.

Wait, what’s this?

Next time on “Fringe,” people’s brains liquefy and leak out their brains?

Oooooh…damn.

TV Winter Clearinghouse

2008-12-15T22:50:00.008-05:00

Been quiet on this site for a few weeks, because mainly...nothing much to write about. Most shows I love are either being cancelled (I'll miss you, "Pushing Daisies"!) or are otherwise going to bed until January.

But a man needs to write about TV from time to time, so here's what I can offer:

1) Speaking of "Pushing Daisies," the lone bright spot of that show wrapping up is that creator Bryan Fuller will be returning to his old stomping grounds at "Heroes." And what's more, he seems to know what the hell is wrong with that show (something about "it's focused on half-assed mythology, rather than characters people could give a shit about," or some craziness).

Now, granted, last year around this time, it seemed like series creator Tim Kring also understood where the show had gone wrong, but the difference this time is, Bryan Fuller is a good writer, and also not an idiot with a grudge against his show's fanbase. So it is possible I'll check out a few episodes of the upcoming arc when it returns next year. It's the least I owe Fuller for 23 episodes of "Pushing Daisies."

2) "Dexter's" third season finished off strong, pitting our hero the serial killer up against Jimmy Smits, a loose cannon who could've been his friend and maybe even his partner if he wasn't also a power-mad lunatic.

This show is at its best when it explores its recurrent theme of how grown men deal with absent father-figures. Last season ended with Dexter's feelings toward his foster father Harry (who had given him a strict "bad guys only" code through which to channel his murderous urges) colored by new information about Harry's indescretions. This one ended with him making peace with Harry's damaged reputation, as Dexter prepares to become a father himself.

Which is all great, but makes everything non-Dexter-related that much more of a chore. In the end, the only way to view Deb, Angel and Quinn's annoying stories is that they all tie into a "nobody's perfect, not even cops" theme, but man, that's stretching it. Hopefully next year they can finally figure out how to integrate the cop stories into the Dexter character arc. But it's been three seasons, so I'm not holding out hope.

Still, I am looking forward to next year.

3) So, "Leverage," huh? Yeah! No? Nobody watched it? Hm.

I watched TNT's new caper series for two reasons: 1) Showrunner John Rogers developed the lamented "Global Frequency" pilot, and 2) Timothy Hutton's cool. Hutton is an actor who really should get better material, and there are a few sparkling lines of dialogue (Hutton's casual threat to a man making overly-personal observations about him: "You know that part of the conversation where I punch you in the neck nine or ten times? We're coming up on that real soon!").

But ultimately...was anyone clamoring for a new "A-Team" series? I mean, it's okay, but when there's so many better shows on, and TNT usually blows their budget on a show's pilot, thus ensuring subsequent episodes will look pretty crappy...who has time for this?

4) Rather than try to come up with halfway decent shows to run at 10pm, NBC has decided to give Jay Leno a pre-late-night show, presumably to ease the transition into absurdist Conan O'Brien humor old folks just ain't ready for. Good for you, NBC. Because trying is just so damn difficult.

Granted, after all the effort you put into "Knight Rider," "My Own Worst Enemy," "Journeyman," "Raines," "Crusoe," "Kidnapped," "Studio 60," or...wow, we're really putting together quite a list here...okay, you sold me. Who wants to bother with anything new that costs more to produce than "Deal or No Deal"?

5) Okay, so all's quiet until January, when...holy jeebus. "24," "Lost," "Burn Notice," and "Flight of the Conchords" all return, along with premieres of potential curiosities like "Castle" (Nathan Fillion's new ABC show), "Kings" (NBC's 'David and Goliath' in modern times series with Ian McShane). You can forgive me my rest until then.

6) Okay, not exactly. I've been watching "24" from season 1 to view the series on the whole, a la the "Lost" retrospective I did during the summer. Now, apples and oranges, obviously, but it's still interesting to watch the show, knowing how it'll evolve over time (what with most of the cast being killed off and all). So: expect that.

(Also expect this site to move over to Wordpress at some point, because holy crap, can I not abide the shittiness of Blogger anymore.)

So that's it for I Speak TV until after the holidays.

Merry XMas! Ho Ho Ho!

"24": The Deadly Bauer Genes

2008-11-25T00:13:00.005-05:00

I think the producers of "24" knew pretty early on in the series that Kim Bauer may be the most dangerous female alive. Not only is she a heady mix of stupid and self-absorbed, she's got Jack Bauer as a father – who tries to make up for his shoddy parenting by basically letting her do whatever she wants.

As a result, she Mister Magoo's her way through life, somehow surviving through sheer luck while, oh, say, Valencia, CA gets nuked.

So it's a testament to the character that in last night's pretty solid season-7 primer "24: Redemption," she can somehow kill a man while being thousands of miles away.

Let's backtrack: Jack's friend Benton steps on a landmine while trying to keep a young African boy from doing the same. Which he was about to do, because he wandered away from the rest of the group to go get a scarf that was snagged on a bush. This is a scarf he was allowed to keep by Jack. A scarf that Jack had bought with the intention of giving to his daughter. So: Because Jack bought Kim a gift, a good man died.

Despite being a continent away (and entirely off-screen), Kim Bauer Blew A Guy Up. If you ask me, out of all the messed-up things Jack Bauer's done (cutting off a guy's head, chopping off his partner's hand, shooting another partner in the throat, torturing his girlfriend's innocent ex-husband)…by fathering Kim Bauer, Jack may have doomed us all.

Which just goes to show you: Every atom of Jack Bauer is dangerous. Even - no, especially - his sperm.

"'Pushing Daisies"' Beautiful Corpse

2008-11-20T20:47:00.002-05:00

(Written at Noon on 11/20)

“Did you hear ‘Pushing Daisies’ isn’t doing so hot in the ratings?”

“Boy, I hear that ‘Pushing Daisies’ is close to cancellation.”

“Hot dang, that there colorful show ‘bout the pie guy ain’t long for this world, do it?”

Yes, I know, everyone. I know. STOP TELLING ME, I KNOW!

And yet, oddly, I’m not too horrified.

I love “Pushing Daisies” unreasonably. It makes me laugh at puns. The more absurd it gets, the more gushily sweet it gets, the more it makes me smile. But if it doesn’t get picked up after its 13th second-season episode is complete, I won’t be mad. I’ll be bummed, and upset, but not mad.

I was mad when “Firefly” got cancelled, because it seemed to get shafted from the start. It never had a chance to be anything other than a cult hit.

I was mad when “Arrested Development” was cancelled because…well, looking back, I feel like it was part of a broader “red state, blue state” argument: “Nobody will watch ‘Arrested Development,’ but ‘According to Jim’ is still on the air?! THIS is why the country’s in the shitter!”

But if “Pushing Daisies” goes this year, I’ll understand why. It wasn’t for a lot of tastes. It’s not ABC’s fault – they promoted it heavily, they actually kept it on the same night, the same time, for two seasons. They made sure the season 1 DVD set was available before premiering season 2. They did everything right.

Usually when a show gets cancelled prematurely, it bugs me because like most fans, I get attached to the actors. For instance, I feel bad for 90% of the casts of “Buffy” and “Angel.” It’s just a fact of the acting profession that in most cases, the cast goes on to crap guest-starring roles or featured roles on inferior shows.

But most of the “Pushing Daisies” cast come from well-regarded Broadway careers, and that’s where they’ll go back. They’ll be okay.

The other sticking point with early-death on shows like this is there will almost certainly be unresolved storythreads. I’m not sure if they can take care of both the Ned’s Father and Emerson’s Daughter stories in the next seven episodes.

But even there, I’m covered. Bryan Fuller has said he’ll finish the story as a comic series if he can’t wrap it up on the show. And with the right publisher and artist (I’m thinking Oni Press), it’ll be a delightful package.

Frankly, if it goes now, the only bummer is we won’t get a full musical episode, and given the talents of the cast, that will be a real shame.

So if “Pushing Daisies” is a goner after 26 episodes, I’ll mourn it. But it’ll join “Arrested Development,” “Wonderfalls,” and “SportsNight” on my DVD shelf as another Beautiful Corpse series – killed long before it could decline in quality.

Which is not a bad way for a TV show to be remembered. Particularly one about a guy who can bring dead things back to bold, technicolor life.

(UPDATE, 8:55 PM: Well, damn it. Good thing I spent time writing this at work, huh? Anyway, I stand by it. I'm bummed, but not mad. If they don't bother airing the last seven episodes...THEN I'll be mad.

Okay, maybe I'm a little mad now. Just a little. I mean, really, ABC. You're cutting this one, but keeping "According to Jim," "Private Practice," and actually RENEWING "Scrubs"? What the HELL does Jim Belushi have on your executives, that he's proved so invincible?!)

Tuesday Throwdown: "Fringe" Vs. "The Mentalist"

2008-11-17T23:29:00.004-05:00

Last week’s “Fringe” featured an “Audrey II”-esque plant thing squeezing a man’s heart. What did last week’s “The Mentalist” have? Its lead character explaining the concept of a memory-tower to his co-workers.

You might be surprised which I found more interesting.

It’s all about the successful execution of a procedural. “The Mentalist” aspires to be nothing more than an engaging detective show, and as a result, everything it does above-and-beyond – things like character development, personality, and understated visual and tonal style – make it that much more impressive.

By contrast, “Fringe” seems to think it’s a lot better than it is. It’s so sure people get that it’s “not just” a mere procedural – by dropping increasingly annoying “Larger Forces At Work” hints and allusions to upcoming Stories To Be Told (including a rather smarmily-titled episode called “In Which We Meet Mr. Jones”) – that it seems to have ignored the fact that it has so far told basically the same story five or six times in a row now.

In fact, it seems a bit arrogant about that fact, having Lance Reddick irritably inform his subordinate that she’s always going to have more questions and basically, she should consider that just a part of the job, because she’ll know more when he’s ready to tell her.

This is the producers momentarily hijacking a character to tell viewers to stop whining about repetitive stories, and stop complaining that being deliberately obtuse isn’t the same as telling an engaging story. Because it’s all Part of The Bigger Plan, you see. And the producers erroneously assume we care about The Plan.

By now, viewers are extremely savvy to the precarious scaffolding that is “Big Picture Storytelling.” We’ve seen when it goes right: “The Wire,” and perhaps “Lost.” And we’ve seen when it goes wrong: “Heroes,” and off-seasons of “24.”

My advice to “Fringe” is to take up a page from “The Mentalist”: don’t worry about the Big Picture. It’s less important to viewers than you think. What viewers like is engaging weekly stories. If they actually build to something more, great. But it’s never the reason to watch a show.

Meanwhile, instilling a rigid “freak-of-the-week” format – to get viewers used to seeing weird crap by redoing the same story with minor variations each week, while also draping a larger picture – is actually a bit insulting to the viewer.

Unfortunately “Fringe’s” problems are wider-spread. While “The Mentalist” has a cast that starts with the beatific charismata of Simon West and is uniformly enjoyable overall, “Fringe” is kneecapped with the presence of Anna Torv and Jasika Nicole, two frankly terrible actresses in underwritten roles.

The worst part? Neither character is actually necessary for the main plots. And Anna Torv is the ostensible lead character!

(And for now we’re ignoring the patent silliness of the “science” involved in the stories. I don’t need it to actually be plausible. It’s helpful when it sounds plausible, but even that isn’t really necessary when you’ve got the amusingly loopy mad scientist explaining it. I only need it to sound interesting. Which is iffy from case to case.)

Anyway. Both “Fringe and “The Mentalist” have scored full-season orders, so I’ll follow each through until May, hoping from the best from each. But while “The Mentalist” has actually delivered more than expected each week, “Fringe” currently has quite an uphill climb.

How To Make Fun of Our First Black President

2008-11-06T23:40:00.008-05:00

Sure, there's been a lot of pansy-ass, lilly-livered-liberal outpouring of emotion over the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land (I just love that phrase - it's so "Dungeons and Dragons," and yet normal media folk use it all the time!). People all over the globe seem so beside themselves with enthusiasm over something as pedestrian as America's first black president.

Being that I'm an embittered political cynic, I wouldn't know anything about that enthusiasm. Ahem.

But now the real question remains: How Can American Comedians Make Fun of President Obama?

The question seems built on Fred Armisen's portrayal of the president-elect on "Saturday Night Live." Ignoring the whole "half-blackface-issue," the big problem seemed to be that Armisen's Obam isn't all that funny on its own.

These complaints seemed to ignore the fact that the featured Obama sketches were really just ways of making fun of John McCain (played by Darrell Hammond as a borderline psychotic). The joke only works if there's a straight-man - Obama - to respond to McCain's increasingly nonsensical deviations.

Now that SNL will have to develop skits exclusively featuring the Obama caricature, I offer this - and frankly, I'm disappointed I even have to say it, since it seems so frickin' obvious I can't believe any media concern has been spent on it.

In essence, it's "Barack Obama: Our First Superspy President."

How does Obama respond to every problem put in his path? Just like James Bond: by being cooler than cool about it. Even if the logical response is something closer to "Complete Freakout," Obama approaches problems like he's going to seduce it into submission.

This routine will easily cover the next few months, until Obama has actually shown what kind of president he'll get to be.

Something tells me no 007-president can smoove the economy into behaving...though it'd be nice to see Armisen-Obama try.

The CNN/Star Wars Connection: More Than Just James Earl Jones

2008-11-05T16:45:00.004-05:00

Ahh, election day news coverage. The one time of year when The Daily Show/Colbert Report’s potent blend of absurdity and silly pomposity is somehow less funny than actual cable networks.

CNN and MSNBC seemed to be having a Star-Wars-Off.

There’s Wolf Blitzer, talking to a hologram of a correspondent. Why? Because CNN likes to imagine the future of news the only way they know how: through the lens of a child's imagination in the 1970's.

Wouldn’t it have been cheaper and less goofily bizarre to simply do a satellite interview like they do every other day of the year? Of course. But on Election Day, audiences expect something new. Something with "zazz."

Or something that’ll at least make audiences instinctively answer, “Obi-wan? D’ya think she means ‘Old Ben’ Kenobi?” to their TVs.

Not to be outdone, MSNBC stuck their people on a set that was made almost entirely out of CGI effects.

You know how the Star Wars prequels were kind of hard to watch, like, on a conceptual level? It was because your eyes were constantly telling your brain to pretend that something that simply wasn’t there was real and interacting with the actual humans standing in front of it?

You shouldn’t have that happening while trying to hear some election results.

And if you’re asking, “Well, what did Fox News have?”, the answer is: an existential crisis.

ISTV Special Report: Romance No Longer In The Air

2008-11-03T23:35:00.005-05:00

Why is TV so against hurried coupling?

“How I Met Your Mother” and “The Office” have both plowed through their Big Relationship stories in record time, and it’s…well, it’s damn weird, and yet totally expected.

“How I Met Your Mother” walks an odd tight-rope balancing the audience’s expectations. There’s a frame of mind that thinks once lead character Ted meets the titular woman in question, the show’s over. That the series should end with the line, “…And that’s how I met your mother.”

Another line of thought is that the audience should actually get to know the mother, which would mean she could be introduced well before the show is over.

(This is the line of thought that, despite the best efforts of the creators to dissuade it, leads some conspiracy theorists – like, say, me – to conclude the mother is Wendy the Waitress, who’s been around since the start of the series.)

Still, the dismissal of Sarah Chalke’s character after a hurried wedding attempt felt like the writers realized they’d written themselves into a corner, and their breakup (by bringing in old flame Jason Jones) felt arbitrary and rushed. Ideally the breakup is a gateway to a larger story, just as Ted and Robin’s breakup at the end of season 2 informed Ted’s behavior during the strike-abbreviated season 3.

But the difference between the Robin break-up and this one is, we knew from the first episode how Ted and Robin’s relationship would go down. Teasing a wife for Ted and then backing off smacks of writers trying to stretch a story-arc past its expiration date. Not a big deal on this show, since the rest of the cast easily carries the weight – and Barney’s interest in Robin creates a slow-burning secondary romantic spirit – but it’s a weird thing for a sitcom to promote “Lost”-levels of continuity irritation.

+++++

Meanwhile, “The Office” had to figure out how to get rid of Holly, Michael Scott’s perfect girl (read: totally adorable dork). Now, I don’t believe this was a half-assed decision – they knew when they got Academy-Award nominee Amy Ryan that she probably had some other stuff coming up, job-wise (like, say, a Clint Eastwood movie).

But after a few episodes teasing the relationship and one of them actually getting together, Holly and Michael (due to her corporate-mandated transfer seven hours away) split quite suddenly (though narratively, it made total sense – Dunder-Mifflin clearly recalled the last time Michael dated within the company, so…probably a smart move on their part).

Nevertheless, it's the mark of a great show that they could not only create a character as absurd-yet-realistic as Michael Scott, but create a believable love-interest for him. So here's hoping that Holly will return at some point.

In the case of both shows, by removing the love interest, they've reset the clock on a part of their larger narratives. Dramas that do this are (often rightly) lambasted for this kind of reboot. But comedies have a little more leeway, and as said, both shows are pretty clever with their larger viewpoints.

So if you hear anyone complaining about "jumping the shark," I would advise an authoritative, ISTV Global Stronghold-sanctioned slap.

I Speak TV Couples Counseling II

2008-10-27T22:28:00.003-04:00

(Continuing our advice column for the staggeringly dumb males featured in commercials.)

Dear, Guy who scopes out women on his cell phone during a coffee date with a lady-friend,

When she catches you taking pictures of girls on your cell phone, and then actually texts you to tell you, "Dude, WTF!" And you ask, "What? What?"

She may be willing to put up with a lot of your crap, and so you may be getting mixed signals. Allow us to answer to your question. Her answer to, "What? What?" is, "I'm thinking I should've dropped your inconsiderate, leering frat-boy ass months ago, that's what."

We hope this has been helpful.

2008-10-22T21:32:00.007-04:00

So getting down to brass tacks: what are we watching this fall?

Sunday: "Dexter" and "True Blood"
Monday: "How I Met Your Mother"
Tuesday: "House," "Fringe," and "The Mentalist"
Wednesday: "Pushing Daisies"
Thursday: "The Office" and "30 Rock"
Friday: "Life"

Let's take a couple posts to look at how my favorites are holding up, now that we're deeper into their new seasons.

“Dexter”:
Oh, goddamn it. We might be in trouble. As the A-story between Dexter and D.A. Jimmy Smits gets more complicated and interesting, we’re getting smacked in the face by the "Dexter" Curse: increasingly annoying B, C, and D stories.

B! Deb is being lured into a relationship with an informant and an internal affairs investigation against a new detective; C! Angel feels lonely; and D! LaGuerta’s got some case that ties in with D.A. Jimmy Smits. At least LaGuerta’s plot will likely come back to the A-plot, but man, do I not care about Angel’s Lonely Cop Life - and I like Angel!

The problem with “Dexter” as a series is that the only interesting thing about it is the lead character – any time the plot checks in on the supporting crew, it turns into, well, a mediocre cop show.

I thought they learned this in season two, when they tied Deb with the FBI agent hunting her brother, and Doakes was instrumental to the plot's resolution. And this season started its side-plot promisingly, showing how Angel’s promotion has affected his relationship with the cops investigating Dexter’s accidental killing.

Really thought that would cover a lot of ground, but here we are with Angel getting busted by a cop undercover as a hooker, and Deb mysteriously drawn to a couple of dudes we don’t care about.

Come on, show, you’re better than that.

“Pushing Daisies”:
I love how much the characters’ psychological backstories are informing the emotional core of the show, grounding it in believable human needs even as the visual puns go hog-wild with easy nun and clown gags.

While, say, a car in a lake holding the bodies of 17 drowned clowns is wacky and goofy and all that, it’s the emotional themes of absent families and how that dictates the behavior of the characters that makes the show brilliant.

Even though he’s the lead, I still feel like Lee Pace doesn’t get enough credit for his portrayal of Ned the Piemaker. His closed body language and barely-disguised need for affection isn’t just a response to being in love with a girl he can’t touch. He’s becoming aware that his own childhood abandonment has affected him more than he’s realized, and it’s making for great, slow-build storytelling (since the audience has been shown his deadbeat dad will be returning soon).

And I won’t lie – the subtle references to Ned and Chuck’s unconventional sex-life crack me up. On ABC at family hour, no less! Good for you, show!

"Heroes":
Quick update: every time I read a new recap of a "Heroes" episode, I feel really good about the decision to drop it. Just putting that out there, for those of you who keep watching. You know who you are. You don't need to feel that sense of shame every Monday at nine, people!

Next time: "Fringe" vs. "The Mentalist"! Stupid scheduling bastards have to make me choose?! Also: "True Blood": Annoying, pompous, or pulpy entertainment? Or is it all three?
Also, also: I'm watching "Life"? Really? I had no idea!

ISTV Couples Counseling

2008-10-17T00:04:00.004-04:00

Today, the I Speak TV Global Stronghold presents our first romantic counseling session for TV. It's come to our attention that men on television - particularly in commercials - are portrayed as either thoughtless boobs, or simply retarded (generally when it comes to healthy food consumption).

Never fear, we're here to help. And so, we present our new advice column, "Open Advice Letters to Morons on Commercials":

Dear the guy who sings catchy, Jason-Mrazy jingles about wishing he'd known about his girlfriend's credit rating before trying to buy a house, and ending up living in her parents' basement instead:

Did you, at some - and any - point in your relationship, attempt to have a serious discussion about finances prior to your apparently seat-of-the-pants, wild-hair-up-your-ass decision to apply for a mortgage loan?

Because I'm thinking all the free credit reports in the world wouldn't have made up for that straight-ahead five-minute chat.

Oh, and by the way, Mr. Accoustic guitar, three-day-scruff, uncombed hair, wide-eyed-like-you've-been-awake-for-days, track-jacket-in-the-afternoon-wearing troubadour...how's your credit, hmm? Making (excuse the pun) boatloads of cash at your job waiting tables at a pirate-themed seafood restaurant?

So here's some advice: Don't foist all the blame on the girl whose parents are nice enough to put your penniless ass up in their basement. And how about you back up a bit before you write another cute little ditty about your girlfriend's shitty credit?

Asshole.

We'll be back next week with another column, attempting to help out the guy who thought it'd be a good idea to snap pictures of women's asses with his cameraphone while his lady-friend watches the whole damn thing.

Because we are here to help.

Bobby Flay: Food Network Asshole

2008-10-15T23:26:00.003-04:00

So let me get the premise of this "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" show straight:

Bobby Flay, TV personality-chef, practices dishes, and then goes to the restaurants of people who have worked hard to build a reputation on these dishes. Where it's a sense of neighborhood pride, like say, buffalo wings in Buffalo.

And then Bobby Flay pops up during a crowded public promotion at the chef's own restaurant, and challenges that chef to "defend his title" regarding his/her signature dish.

Now, I know absolutely nothing about Bobby Flay. I am not a regular Food Network viewer. I just stumbled across this show.

But I have to ask: What kind of asshole is Bobby Flay?

Best-case scenario for him: He wins the taste-off, humiliating the hard-working cooks who have spent a lot of time and hard work developing a specific flavor and style that's earned them recognition. Which makes him a total dick.

Worst-case: He is beaten by the cooks, and he looks incompetent.

I'm sure, behind the scenes, the Food Network contacts all the restaurants and they agree, because hey, free publicity. But nevermind that. Based only on the narrative of the show...what the hell is the point of this show, other than to make Bobby Flay seem like some kind of TV-star egomaniac who thinks he can do better than the local pride?

Honestly...what a jag-off.

Pilot Season: "My Own Worst Enemy"

2008-10-13T23:04:00.004-04:00

Oh, now that's a shame.

NBC's new spy show, "My Own Worst Enemy," should be good. It's a great (if outlandish) premise, with good supporting players and wide-open mysteries (which may just be plot holes, but oh, what holes to fill)...all totally undone by the need to hire a big-name "star."

The premise: A spy who willingly split his own personality to hide out in the suburbs as a completely average guy finds the conditioning techniques separating the two personalities is breaking down. Hijinks ensue.

The supporting players: Alfre Fricking Woodard! A fantastic actress, in the shadowy-boss role. (Last year's failed "Bionic Woman" reboot had Miguel Fehrer in the shadowy-boss role, and I maintain that this is the best role for seasoned actors. Victor Garber kicked ass in the role during his time on "Alias." It just looks like a lot of fun, standing around complicated computer devices and being condescending to the leads.)

Wide-open mysteries: Why in the holy living hell would any organization blow billions of dollars to put a top operative (let alone, as the pilot suggests, multiple operatives) under a sleeper program, when...seriously, what the hell would the need for this be? Keeping the operative hidden? The guy is apparently a medal of honor winner. He's hardly a spook.

The answer, of course, is: it's the premise of the show, so...deal with it. Everything else is secondary. The pilot delivers no answers, but I'm sure the creators (including producer Jason Smilovic, whose credits include great shows "Kidnapped" and "Karen Sisco," and aforementioned crap show "Bionic Woman," which this one most resembles) have plenty of ideas in their notepads just waiting to be toyed with.

The problems: There are two, so we'll start with the lesser first - the pilot blows its chief gag way too early. Ten minutes in, and we get the joke - superspy and family guy are the same person - but then shit immediately breaks down.

Ideally, the pilot would follow both their lives, concurrently, only letting the two characters realize they're the same person around the last act, creating a hell of a good cliffhanger that would lead into the series proper. It was a stupid move that leads me to suspect this was written as a feature first.

(And it would make a good movie. Or a terrible one, since it feels a lot like the hacky movie pitch featured in Adaptation.)

But nevermind that now, because we've got to deal with Christian Slater.

Somewhere between bad movie choices and certain incidents involving guns and biting ex-girlfriends, Slater's star-power began to dim, making him available for TV roles. So I'm sure when the producers realized they could cast him, they were ecstatic.

Problem is, Christian Slater has only ever played Christian Slater. Asking viewers to accept him in two separate roles, when he can't be bothered to switch up any of his mannerisms, isn't just a problem. It is, in fact, THE problem, and as a result, the show just doesn't work.

A character actor is needed here. An actor who can do two roles: One who thinks this ludicrous scenario as acceptable, and one who thinks it's...well, a ludicrious scenario.Some kind of, say, affordable Paul Giamatti, who can alternate between capable agent and run-of-the-mill everyman, is absolutely essential to sell the premise.

So...not Christian Slater.

It's unfortunate, because this really is a fun, if wholly laughable premise. NBC is currently full of laughable shows (okay, "Knight Rider" and "Heroes"), and it really could've used one that was grounded by a decent enough actor.

If you want to watch a goofy spy show, "Chuck" is still on NBC at 8pm. It's very pleasant, well thought out, has good actors and writers, doesn't try too hard, and could use some viewers. Give that one a go instead.

"Torchwood"...only Canadian?

2008-10-03T22:22:00.006-04:00

Let me read you a synopsis of a science fiction show:

"There are creatures that live among us, abnormal offshoots of evolution that live in the fringes, unseen by most. Some are dangerous, but most are benign, becoming violent only because they are threatened by an ever-encroaching world. A mysterious leader of an expert team have dedicated themselves to tracking these mysterious creatures: harboring the benign ones, and protecting the world from the dangerous ones. Using their unique combination of instinct, medicine and cutting edge technology, this eclectic team must take on the creatures that lurk in the corners of our civilization."

This show's mysterious lead character is a transplant from another country, and over 100 years old.

The show's viewpoint character is an underappreciated cop whose investigation into a bizarre case leads to the secret organization's world.

For 300 big boys, WHAT is the name of this show?

You poor bastards went and said "Torchwood," didn't you? You would be right, if you weren't also wrong.

The show is actually SciFi's new series "Sanctuary," which started life as a Canadian web-series.

So...that right there will tell you how good it is.

"Torchwood" takes a lot of flack (often by me) for the fact that all the characters seem to be having sex with all the other characters. It's almost like Captain Jack Harkness hires people because they are bisexual and alarmingly horny (actually, that may be some unspoken fact that never made it out of the series bible). It's meant to be more adult, but it comes off as a bit ridiculous.

But I will never chide "Torchwood" again, because after sitting through a painful half-hour of the "Sanctuary" premiere, I now know what the BBC series would be without all the sex:

Canadian. Very, very Canadian.

Lookit! Good TV!

2008-10-02T00:20:00.006-04:00

Ohhh, there's that feeling. The reason I watch TV: new episodes of genuinely good shows. Man, that feels good.

"Pushing Daisies," last year's #1-super-best show ever (granted, pickings were slim), came back tonight after its strike-abbreviated first season, with an episode devoted to...bees. And realizing the whole damn episode would be filled with bee-related puns, I was a bit worried that the show's cloying aspects would overwhelm the re-introductory premiere. (And jeez, ABC, did the first five minutes of the episode have to be a season 1 recap for new viewers?!)

I accept that this is a love-it-or-hate-it show. Either you're on board with the modern fairy-tale Seuss-meets-Burton style of the show, with its cute weirdness and weird cuteness, or you find its super-saturated color-scheme and adorability annoying and sensory-obliterating. This is a show whose success is entirely dependent on how cynical a viewer is feeling that Wednesday. If ever the phrase "not for all audiences" was built for a show, this is it.

But I know I'm a terribly cynical person. And I also know that for the hour that "Pushing Daisies" is on, I'm not quite so cynical. Bee-puns and all. I'm so happy this show is back, and urge everyone to watch it (and also go get season 1 on DVD).

+++++

Speaking of introductory recaps, "Dexter"'s new season started with a looooong one. "Previously on 'Dexter'..." has never been such an understatement. Seriously, ten minutes recapping season 2, huh? Okay, fine, whatever.

But if you could slog through that, you got to watch Great Television in Action! The first episode managed to reset things to the status-quo of season 1 (before Dexter was being hunted) while at the same time amp things up into new and unexpected levels of danger.

SPOILER! (Ugh, I hate that term. But I realize some people only watch the show after it's out on DVD, so yeah, tread lightly here if you wanna stay blind for the next three months - and really, good luck with that.)

OK? Ready? Good.

Dexter getting Rita (SERIOUSLY, SPOILER, TURN BACK YOU BASTARDS, AAAAHHH!!!) pregnant is one of those developments that would seriously fuck up a lesser show. But the main theme of "Dexter" has always been how a man deals with an absent father's expectations. And last year, our lead made his peace with his departed dad - learning new things about him, and realizing that while "Harry's Code" is deeply important, doesn't rule his life.

So seeing how Dexter deals with the idea of himself as a father is an absolutely fascinating road to take. That's going to be the B-story, what the meaning of the show is about. But in the meantime, we're also apparently going to get Jimmy Smits as the friend Dexter never ever wanted. It's all looking pretty good.

+++++

Speaking of puns (from the "Pushing Daisies" bit, get it?...look, sometimes you have to work a little harder for your segues), HBO's "True Blood" made me proud for the first time in its few episodes with this line of dialogue:

Bill (after Sookie rolls her eyes at the name of the local vampire bar being "Fang-tasia"): You have to realize, most vampires are very old. There was a time when puns were considered the highest form of comedy.

The show's not perfect. There are way too many Southerner-stereotypes, Jason Stackhouse is so astoundingly stupid I don't know how he even remembers to breathe, and the actors' accents venture into Foghorn Leghorn territory at points...but I feel like this show's going somewhere fun, and that's more than I can say for...oh, say "John From Cincinnati" at this point.

But anyway: Good TV! Hooray!

One Down

2008-09-30T16:02:00.003-04:00

Aaaand we're done with "Heroes."

Over at the Entertainment Weekly recap, Marc Bernadin mentioned the phrase "Who's carrying the idiot ball this week?" to ask which character will have to do something unreasonably stupid just to move the plot along.

Watching this show is like watching some kind of high-speed Idiot-Dodge-Ball game being played, where characters launch their idiot balls at each other only to get pummeled in the face by three balls themselves.

Let's run down a partial list - from THE LAST THREE EPISODES:
- Hiro opens a vault his dad specifically told him NOT to open because he "Wants a quest." Because Hiro has the emotional complexity of an exceptionally stupid 5-year-old.
- A strange man in an African desert he hands Parkman a bowl, which he drinks out of without question. THEN he asks, "Hey, what was in this?"
- Nathan survives multiple gunshot wounds and suddenly becomes religious. Even though last year he was brought back from massive burns and had no such epiphany.
- Mohinder drinks a special potion and then is surprised it has dangerous side effects.
- Sylar hangs around the Company to "see where this goes," even though all he's ever wanted to do prior to this episode was to escape the Company so he can keep killing for powers.

I could keep going, or focus on all the bungled plotlines (Clone-Nikki, show? REALLY.) but honestly, why? A clean break, that's what's needed. Besides, "24" will be back on at the same time in a few months, and I'm gonna have my hands full keeping track of all the nonsense on that show.

I mean, they just proudly boasted that they even came up with an ending for this year's arc, like that's a novel new idea to them that stories should have beginnings, middles, and ALSO endings.

So I get the feeling that idiot ball's gonna be getting a lot of use over there.

"The Mentalist": Not Bad At All

2008-09-25T00:01:00.001-04:00

As previously stated: I am not a procedural fan. And so, by extension, not really a fan of anything on CBS. I will take personality over verisimilitude any day. And considering half the science of the "CSI"-style shows is way off anyway, why not focus on the things that make crime interesting: People?

With this in mind, “The Mentalist” was very enjoyable. Which has me on guard, because it’s on a network that tends to cancel their more original fare, and it’s on opposite “Fringe,” which has gotten a crapload more attention.

Anyway. “The Mentalist” features Simon West as Patrick Jane, a former fake-psychic in the John Edwards (no, the other one, think back – yeah, remember that asshole?) mold. After the murder of his family at the hands of a serial killer who didn’t take kindly to the BS “psychic” assistance he was giving the cops, Jane dropped the shtick and started using his keen observational skills in conjunction with a made-up-sounding but actually real California Bureau of Investigation (so just be happy the show’s not called “CBI,” which I guarantee you was the subject of at least one production meeting).

The smartest thing the pilot does is to have a sort of mini-pilot within the first five minutes that succinctly shows what Jane does, how he uses those skills, and his general attitude towards his work (his calm response to police who burst in just a leeeetle too late to stop a suspect’s shooting: “This isn’t as bad as it looks.”).

There’s a level of confidence in the episode that’s rare and appreciated in a pilot. Confidence in the strength of the show, yes, but also confidence in the viewer.

We’re allowed to grasp the specifics of the upcoming series without a lot of spoonfeeding or exposition to beat into our brains What It's About. We get that Jane is talented by watching him use those talents. We get to know the supporting players through their behavior: Cho’s staggering insensitivity, Rigsby’s quiet consideration, Van Pelt’s rookie mistakes, and Lisbon’s…well, right now she appears to be Cuddy to Jane’s House, but the show is basically "What if House actually solved murder mysteries instead of medical mysteries...and also was more pleasant to be around" (or, to address the obvious, "What if 'Psych' wasn't so damn wacky?"), so the taskmaster/babysitter role has to be there.

I also liked that the characters actually seem to know and like each other – which feels rare on investigative shows. They eat dinner together, they tease each other, they disagree without it becoming a major dramatic point. When Jane shows his atheist leanings to the Christian Van Pelt, neither one comes off as stupid. It’s refreshing.

(And there’s also a nice little jab at crime-scene procedurals, when a CSI enthusiastically describes his take on the murder, and Jane responds with mild distain, “You enjoy your work too much, my friend...I find you irksome.” Which is a word that needs to get more play.)

Now: A good pilot does not mean a good series. So, assuming this one doesn't die quickly, I recommend "The Mentalist" with reservations. We’ll just have to follow the show’s magician's-secret tagline advice and “Watch closely.”

Be Smarter, TV! (Part 2): "Heroes"

2008-09-24T00:24:00.002-04:00

Characters realizing they have some essential skill sets they’re not using – like, say, basic human intelligence – would reeeeallly help out “Heroes,” which just returned with a bombastic two-hour premiere.

There’s a lot to like about “Heroes” – for one thing, there’s nothing else like it on TV right now. It is a full-on superhero soap opera. But that's part of the problem - it seems to be taking a lot of cues from similarly-soapy mid-70’s Marvel comics, ignoring the fact that those stories were based less on logic and more on the limited amount of pages they had to tell a tale.

So the writers have a lot of real live people behaving as stupidly as a hastily-written comic book character might, while hoping real live viewers will accept it.

Let’s take the series’ most consistently stupid character: resident scientist Dr. Mohinder Suresh, ironically enough. The writers seem to be following the character template of X-Men character Dr. Henry McCoy, The Beast.

Way back when, McCoy concocted what he thought was a cure to his mutant genes. When bad guys came to his lab looking to kill him and steal the formula for nefarious ends, he hastily swallowed the potion, and as a result mutated further, growing blue fur and fangs.

Now on “Heroes” we have Mohinder, who – after studying the body chemistry of a girl who is basically a walking plague whenever she gets upset – develops a potion he thinks would give anyone superpowers. Which is all of a sudden important to him for some reason that's never come up before.

Plague-Girl quite rightly points out that this formula at least needs further study, and at best should be destroyed. So let’s play “Choose Your Own Adventure.” Does Mohinder:
A) Dispose of the no-doubt toxic sample in a proper, EPA-approved way, like any half-smart scientist would know how to;
B) Contemplate tossing the sample into New York Harbor despite its potentially catastrophic effects on the local sea life, or
C) Cram the whole thing straight into his veins for no apparent reason?

If you guessed A, I’m sorry, you terribly smart readers. That was a trick - on this show, it was never even an option. No, our genius sticks it straight into his veins.

Then, after an initial high of superpowers, he’s surprised – shocked, even! – to find bits of skin peeling off him. Well, yeah, MOHINDER.

With very few exceptions, every character on the show exhibits highly variable levels of intelligence. This is not rare on TV, unfortunately. Dramatic tension is usually a byproduct of people not asking obvious questions at opportune times (see: "Lost," season 2).

But…come on. This isn’t “Why didn’t Peter use his telepathy to see if a guy’s telling the truth?” That’s the nitpicking you just have to ignore with a show like this.

This is “What self-respecting scientist would inject himself with a chemical even he admitted needed more testing?” It’s a character ignoring basic human reasoning skills for the sake of a character arc.

The well-founded complaint of season 2 was that things moved too slowly, that old characters treaded water while new unconnected characters were introduced haphazardly (see: complaints about “Lost: Season 2”). But in its haste to course-correct, “Heroes” has started season 3 by overcompensating and having its characters Doing Stuff, no matter how poorly-conceived.

I still have high hopes for the season, because, well, I’m an optimist at heart (ha ha). Also it’s got Kristen Bell guest-starring. And lest we forget, things didn’t look so rosy on “Lost” at the outset of season 3, either.

But then, “Lost” didn’t seem to be tying all of its stories into the fact that half the characters were actually related (Sylar's a Petrelli? C'mon, what does that add?) and the grim fate of the world needed to be averted yet a third time (thanks to yet a third nightmarish vision of the future).

There are stories to be told here. Invincible Claire starting to question her own humanity if she can’t feel pain. Whatever arc Noah Bennet is going to go through. The existential dilemma represented by the fact that the mere presence of all these superpowered folk means the world is on the brink of destruction no matter what they do. These all point to a show with a bit of cleverness.

But somehow I’m lacking confidence. It might be because the guy who should have a faint clue as to what’s going on is absolutely confounded why he’s sloughing off skin after sticking Plague-Girl’s blood inside him.

Be Smarter, TV!: Part One

2008-09-23T00:10:00.005-04:00

TV shows should be better than they are.

Yes I know that’s a stupid statement to make, but just go with me here.

I first noticed this problem during a recent episode of “Burn Notice” where the lead character, ex-spy Michael Westen, is confronted by another burned spook. As Michael realizes what a desperate and amoral maniac the guy’s become, we get a “There but for the grace of god” kind of story, the end.

Except what that episode really did was point out the “A-Team” problem the show has.

The “A-Team” problem: Here’s a bunch of highly trained special forces guys with nothing to lose, hiring themselves out as mercenaries to people in need. And they have guns and explosives and everything. But when the time comes to run the bad guys out of town, what do they do?

The shoot their M-16s at the bad guys’ feet. Or flip the bad guys’ car over, making sure they can crawl out shaken and deterred, but not exactly damaged.

If the show made any logical sense, the A-Team would’ve killed at least a couple of guys here and there to show they meant business, right?

Same problem with the Michael Westen character. It’s well implied he’s been doing black-ops stuff around the world for years, and yet when confronted with a local drug runner or what have you, he always opts for elaborate cover identities and scams to run the bad guys out of town. Which is weird, because he must know that, more often than not, a little bit of creative violence would do the same job for half the time and money.

I’m not saying the guy maims or tortures every half-tard criminal he’s hired to scare off – because that show wouldn’t be terribly enjoyable – but he doesn’t even seem to realize it’s an option.

It’s moments like this I really wish the show weren’t on USA. Fox, FX, even TNT, there’d be a possibility of real emotional concern: Michael realizing those horrible tools are at his disposal and fighting to keep from using them, because he's trying something new.

But USA’s got "Monk" and "Psych." Characters Welcome, and all that. It won’t ever be anything but light, escapist fare.

But the lead character’s a talented ex-espionage agent. So I’m saying there should be a few more dark nights of the soul for him, where he realizes he’s not utilizing his simplest, most dangerous skills.

It would make “Burn Notice” a better show.

(Tomorrow, the reason for a two-parter: The "Heroes" Season 3 premiere.)

RE: The Emmys

2008-09-21T23:20:00.006-04:00

1) Yaaaay, "30 Rock"! Yaaaaay!

2) Is there anything cooler than The Smothers Brothers? Unfortunately, considering how politically minded and ahead-of-his-time Tommy Smothers is, I feel bad that his chief influence on me was wanting to learn yo-yo tricks when I was a kid. So much so that to this day, I find those motorized yo-yos that automatically "walk the dog" to be absolutely abhorrent.

2A) Has Steve Martin been botoxed or something? He looked a little...waxy. I suppose all older stars have their HD issues.

3) I'd be willing to bet that if the "House" producers had submitted the episode where House is holding an Emmy and pretending to give an acceptance speech, rather than the dramatically awesome season finale, Hugh Laurie would have actually won. This is how out of it the actual Emmy judges are, I think. Still, Bryan Cranston's cool. Eh, at least it wasn't Spader again.

4) Betty White: Always a pleasure.

5) Once again: "30 Rock"! Yaaaaaay! And Tina Fey actually managed to throw in "Watch the premiere October 31st" before the music cut her off.

Sons of Liver Failure

2008-09-18T00:01:00.002-04:00

I wanted to give FX's new "Sons of Anarchy" a shot, because, hey! Ron Perlman! Katy Sagal! Biker shenanagans! Why not?

Keeping in mind that I have yet to watch a single FX program - other than "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," of course - that I've stuck with for more than six episodes. It's not that they're bad shows, really. It's just I feel like they're trying too hard to be edgy, so I'm always put off.

We know you're bad-ass, FX. You're like your danger-loving parent company Fox. Except you're so tough you don't even need that pussy-ass "O." We get it.

Short version: it was...eh. Sagal and Perlman are cool, but you can hear the creator pitching it as "'Sopranos' meets the Hells Angels meets muthafuckin' HAMLET, DUDE!"

But rather than blather on, I instead invite you to play the "Sons of Anarchy Drinking Game."

1) Invite friends over and a bottle of your favorite poison.

2) Turn on the "Sons of Anarchy" pilot. (Comcast subscribers: It's onDemand! In Hi-Def! (Where available!) )

3) Drink every time you see the words "Sons of Anarchy" or hear a character reference the biker club's acronym SAMCRO.

4) Whoever's liver doesn't fail wins.

4a) Alternatively, depending on how BAD-ASS you are, whoever's liver doesn't fail is some kind of nancy who can't handle liver failure like a BAD-ASS!

Death to Vinnie Chase!

2008-09-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

Spinning around in a reality just to the left of ours is an alternate Earth. And on that alternate Earth, there’s an alternate HBO, airing a Bizarro-version of “Entourage.”

The Bizarro-“Entourage” would take its plot points from the fact that its main character, Vincent Chase, is some kind of zen asshole, casually indulging in expensive vacations and sex with hot morons because despite his working class roots, he’s become a gigantic Hollywood cliché. And the friends he brought out to Hollywood with him, to keep him “real,” have the unenviable task of explaining to him just how much he’s pissing his career and (supposed) talent away every time he indulges his whims by performing in shitty vanity projects and then acting like the negative consequences are someone else’s problem.

It would be an interesting show. An inside look at how easy it is for a once up-and-coming star to end up headlining direct-to-DVD movies and becoming the butt of industry jokes.

Unfortunately, we don’t live on that alternate Earth. We live with this reality’s HBO, which features a version of “Entourage” wherein Vinnie Chase’s massive fuckups result in him having no problem lounging on a Mexican beach and fucking morons every day while his friends placate his ego and find him another high-paying job he balks at. Which is just fine, because the plots don’t ever delve into just how badly he’s fucked up. Oh, they’ll give lip service to it, but it never amounts to any real lasting change in the characters or plots. Why bother with that? There are a lot of really nice boobs to show instead.

Every time the series threatens to veer into interesting territory (such as last season’s finale, where a Harvey Weinstein analogue buys Chase’s awful film for one dollar), it backs off because…well, I really have no good explanation, other than “Nice breasts need to be filmed.”

I continue to watch “Entourage,” mostly because, well, what the hell else is there to do on a Sunday night at 10 PM? But I watch it because A) I like the Ari/Lloyd banter, and B) because I like to think of Eric’s evolution as the main thematic thrust, even though the show’s ongoing focus on just How Cool It Is To Be Vinnie Chase continually proves me wrong.

In other words, I am a Spite-Viewer. Every time I watch “Entourage,” what I’m actually thinking is, “I hope it all ends with Vinnie Chase starring with fucking Carrot-Top and wondering what the hell just happened.”

Also, he starts losing his hair.

(I'm a very spiteful viewer.)

Your Awful Friend, "Saturday Night Live"

2008-09-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

"Saturday Night Live" manages to sucker me in at least once every year.

It's nobody's fault but mine. I like to check in, see how it's doing. Like hanging out with an old friend you haven't seen in a while. An old friend whose annoying qualities far outway any good reason to maintain a friendship with them. But you put in your time, hoping like hell maybe this go-around you won't kinda want to punch them.

And so you usually end up with about 10 minutes out of a 90-minute hanging-out session that you can qualify as "Not so bad."

In the interim, you spend the rest of the night:

- Marveling, as Michael Phelps, like all athlete-hosts before him, tries his damnedest to read cue cards properly, while at the same time adding inflection. Bless his heart, he managed to do almost one of those things at any given moment (to his credit, he did it while cracking up less than Jimmy Fallon).

- Staring confusedly, as Andy Samburg performs yet another vaguely science-fictiony, humor-free digital short. Begging the question: is he such a grating presence that Lorne Michaels is using this "digital short" scam just to keep him out of the studio during regular business hours?

- Wondering, just what so many funny actors (Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, et al.), who have all been genuinely amusing elsewhere (30 Rock, Apatowe comedies, etc.), are doing on a show that seems to be crushing their sense of funny.

- Scratching your head at the sad reality that one skit actually cribbed its concept from the often-escruciating Aaron Sorkin dramedy "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

Not the best old friend to spend a Saturday night with, is what I'm saying.

But we here at the ISTV Global Stronghold have special futurey technology called "linking" (which Andy Samburg CAN NOT HAVE) that allows you to speed through that awful night with your awful old friend, in order to get to those gloriously not-painful 10 minutes.

(We would have special technology called "imbedding," except Blogger's being a bit finicky tonight. Expect a move to Wordpress very, very soon.)

First, Amy Poehler and special guest Tina Fey open the show with the inevitable Sarah Palin/Hilary Clinton bit:

Then, an ad-spoof premise I've often wondered about: In the T-Mobile "Fav-5" commercial where the dad tells his daughter she "shouldn't have such hot friends," what does that conversation turn into?

There. You're welcome. Now you don't have to hang out with this "friend" of yours again. At least until some actor or band you REALLY like shows up. Or Christopher Walken.

And then the cycle of pain will begin anew.

Vampires: Eternal Poseurs of the Night

2008-09-09T00:01:00.003-04:00

I’m not a “vampire guy.” Find a new angle on it, and I might be interested, but it’s not an innate selling point. On the negative end of the spectrum, Anne Rice had made the subject silly in its pompous romanticism. On the positive end, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”/”Angel” had pretty much locked in what a TV show with bloodsuckers should be for me.

So I was curious what HBO’s new vampires-in-the-south show “True Blood” would try to do, to make the “monsters are people too” subject interesting.

This is an easier task than trying to make the Deep South interesting. Usually it comes off as mocking, or…no, it always feels like there’s some outdated idea of The South that creators are trying to winkingly play into or subvert.

By the end of the first episode, I found myself enjoying the southern aspect while still being frosty on the vampire side.

“True Blood” starts pretty shakily, pulling the “That goth guy isn’t a monster; the everyday-lookin’ fella behind you is!” trope that’s already pretty old-hat. Then, after a brief bit of exposition/Bill Maher product placement about The State of Vampirism, there’s the introduction to the rural Louisiana town. It’s the standard assortment of twangy, folksy southern types – the slutty townies, the wary bartender who just wants to keep things quiet, the sassy black gal, the waitress who wishes she’d gotten outta this dump.

But over the course of the hour, the show did a good enough job of making a few of them feel like actual characters, rather than an assortment of voice-coached accents. In particular, Anna Paquin, essentially playing a sunnier version of her Rogue character from the X-Men films. The fact that our viewpoint character is open-minded, likeable, and, well, adorable, helps us accept the rest of her people.

When an overarching murder plot was introduced midway through the episode, I thought, “I could actually watch a ‘murder in a small southern town’ kind of show like this.”

Which makes the supernatural aspect feel that much more unneeded and intrusive.

So no, I’m not at all sold on the vampire element yet. Vampire-as-vampire has been given up for the most part in pop culture, in favor of vampire-as-metaphor. In terms of the first episode at least, now that readily available synthetic blood has allowed vampires to publicly join society, the metaphor is homosexuality. Which lets the southerner-cliches react to a bloodsucker in town a lot like we’d assume they’d react to having their first Resident Gay. It feels a bit forced.

(FYI: They do, actually, have a Resident Gay, a mildly annoying motormouthed fry-cook.)

Not helping is the fact that the new vampire in town – despite the pedestrian name “Bill” – behaves with all the preening, posing, and glowering mannerisms that make Anne Rice’s material seem so ridiculous. REALLY not helping is that the actor playing him looks like Paul Rudd doing an amusing impression of “menacing.”

The show’s definitely worth watching a few more episodes – I’ve yet to watch an HBO show that didn’t need a few episodes to really make its intentions known – but so far, it’s Anna Paquin’s supreme lovable-ness that’s going to bring me back for the next episode.

Fall TV: It is, as they say, "Time to Face the Hole"

2008-09-07T22:58:00.007-04:00

The 10.5 most amazing things about Fox's “Hole in the Wall”:

10) Brooke Burns says everything in the same weirdly halting yet totally excited cadence. “You’re the team captain, right!” and “Introduce me to your team!” sound like the exact same sentence. It’s really bizarre.
9) The two teams in the first episode were made of “Six-Packs” – guys on the shortish side who are “personal trainers,” but from their descriptions sound more like unemployed bodybuilders – and “Beer-Bellies” – radio employees who likely think “The Jerky Boys” was the apex of comedy. In other words, there are no winners here. Only losers.
8) There are actually lifeguards on duty when the contestants fall into the 5-feet-deep pool. At least, I think they’re lifeguards, because they’re wearing Baywatch-style swimsuits and holding those pontoon thingies. Once again: for the 5-feet-deep pool. That a camera man is standing in.
7) Before every…ah, let’s just be charitable and call it “event”…there is an explanation – complete with cute visual aids – of what the next challenge will be. “This time, TWO contestants need to jump through the holes.” In case the whole concept was just too confusing for the average viewer.
6) After every commercial break, there is a recap of the results of the previous jump through the hole. Again, just in case viewers were having trouble keeping up.
5) In addition to Brooke Burns on the sidelines, there’s a host up in a balcony, whose best moment came when he referred to one of the very white, American, Californian bodybuilders as “an Iraqi war veteran.”
4) The grand prize is $100,000. For jumping through a cutout in a Styrofoam wall. Just let that sink in.
3) The show’s attempted catchphrase is, “It’s time to face the hole.”
2) This show is 22 minutes long, when by all rights, it’s hard to make a case for it being longer than 2 minutes.
1.5) Watching this show, you are actually likely to utter the words, "Y'know, I think I'd probably be pretty good at this."

And the #1 most interesting thing about “Hole in the Wall”…

1) There will actually be more than one episode of a show called “Hole in the Wall,” wherein obnoxious people attempt to jump through a cutout in a Styrofoam wall.

Will I be watching this show again? …Possibly. I’ll definitely watch it after it follows the “Fringe” pilot. But if I can’t be bothered to plop myself down on the couch Thursday nights at 8 to watch “My Name is Earl” – a show I actually kinda like – it’s not too likely I’ll make time for this one. No matter how many oddly-shaped contestants they promise to shove through those holes.

Then again, “It’s time to face the hole” is a phrase I’d really like to see used in regular conversation.

Fall On My Face (Part 1: Preview Night)

2008-09-02T23:39:00.009-04:00

Dear god, the new fall season. What the hell, man. I mean, really. What The Hell?!

"Knight Rider"? "90210"? A shitload of "Gossip Girl" knockoffs (which itself is a "The OC" knockoff)? Come on. You're wrecking all of our important TV/world-domination equipment here at the I Speak TV Global Stronghold.

If you look at last year, there was a lot that was interesting - worth checking out, at least, even if it wasn't actually any good.

Last year, I checked out "Bionic Woman," "Chuck," "Life," "Reaper," "Pushing Daisies," and "Journeyman." Lot of sci-fi/genre choices. Only "Pushing Daisies" was really worth anyone's time, although "Chuck" and "Reaper" were both in their own ways enjoyable light-weight fare.

This year, the new series schedule's pretty bare. So here's what I'll be focusing on in the coming weeks.

APPOINTMENT VIEWING:
- Fox's "Fringe" earns a few weeks to see what it'll become. (Poke around the site and you'll find my review of the pilot.)

- Its thematic competition is "The 11th Hour," based on a solid BBC series. Dark City's Rufus Sewell takes over Patrick Stewart's fringe science advisor role, which is a point for the show. Unfortunately, it's on CBS, which has a certain shallowness to all its pilots, so that's a point against.

- "True Blood" has a premise I already find sort of grating - vampires living in the open among southerners. But it's HBO, so there's no harm in watching at least a couple of episodes, assuming it's not another show about the perils of being a psychiatrist.

TRAINWRECK VIEWING:
- "Life on Mars" was another very good BBC series, so I'm interested to see what ABC does with it. Other than totally retooling the cast, setting, and creative team. Which is always a great sign.

- I want to see if Christian Slater is as miscast in "My Own Worst Enemy" (NBC), a Jeckyll & Hyde/"Alias" mash-up, as I assume he'll be, so yeah, I'll watch an episode or two here.

- "Crusoe" (NBC) - exactly what you think it is - may be the dumbest idea for a series since the WB's ill-fated "Tarzan" series a while back.

SICK, CARNY SENSE OF HUMOR VIEWING:
- "Hole in the Wall" (Fox)...Well, c'mon. Based on the Japanese gameshow (and that should sell you right there) of people trying to fit themselves into shapes cut out of styrofoam. Proving that Fox doesn't need to ask people embarrassing questions about themselves to show viewers a good time. Because Fox does, in fact, think viewers are that stupid.

ON THE HORIZON:
In a weird reversal (likely due to the writers strike, which forced networks to greenlight a lot of fall shows without actually looking at them), midseason is the time to get interested in TV, with NBC's modern David & Goliath retelling "Kings," Joss Whedon's new Fox show "Dollhouse," and Rob Thomas's redux of his 1999 ABC series "Cupid" showing up.

Watching TV: Always a weird experience. Always worth the wasted time. Place your faith in the ISTV Global Stronghold. We won't steer you wrong. And if we do?

Well, we've finally built our deathray, so you won't feel a thing.

ISTV Classic: "Heroes, Season 2"

2008-08-28T00:29:00.006-04:00

Since "Heroes: Season 2" has been released on DVD this week, I thought I'd use the opportunity to offer again a post written a few months before this site went active. So this one is for all you new "Heroes" fans just getting into the show via DVD and may not know what you're in for; and all you old "Heroes" fans who, thanks to the blissful haze of passing time, may have forgotten what a fricking slog Season 2 became, and to go into season 3 with eyes wide open:

"I Have Some Questions, 'Heroes' Producers"

Now that I've finished re-watching the first season of "Heroes," and NBC will be airing the finale of "Volume II" tonight, I thought it might be a good idea to pose 10 questions to the producers that, 1.5 seasons in, haven't really been answered. Initially this list numbered in the high 20's, but I then realized asking "Where did Claude go?" is really just asking, "Why couldn't you and Christopher Eccleston's agent come to an agreement?" so I've decided to choose my battles.

1) Didn't Mrs. Bennet have some pretty scary-looking brain damage thanks to the Hatian? Because she looks fine now.

2) Why in the hell would a multinational organization like The Company have a big office in Odessa, TX? For that matter, why don't they have a proper name?

3) So does Kensei's sword have powers allowing Hiro to focus his, or was that just an annoying bullshit plot device to let Hiro waste half the first season? Because he just went to Japan, met Kensei, and came back, and that never really came up.

4) Why would Isaac Mendez do a series of paintings depicting events that directly contradict his own previously-painted prophecies?

5) Eden, Candice, and now Elle...exactly how many sociopathic pixie girls does The Company have in its employ? Are they particularly reliable? Because two of them are dead now.

6) So remember how you told us Linderman had manipulated every aspect of Nikki and DL's lives to get them to produce a kid with Micah's computer-communicating abilities? A question in two parts, part A) being, Is that like how a Frankenstein and a Vampire had a Werewolf on "The Munsters"? Or is it part B), because you noticed, like I did, that it turns out the characters had virtually no connection to the overarching plot otherwise?

7) Am I to take it that at the end of the season 1 finale, everyone was so transfixed by the pretty explosion in the night sky that NOBODY noticed a grievously-wounded Sylar slowly dragging himself towards a manhole?

8) So if Linderman was in charge of The Company, wouldn't he have a problem with his mentor being imprisoned in one of their facilities for like 30 years? Or did he just not notice? And if he just didn't notice, I have a follow-up: just how stupid is was Linderman, anyway?

9) Exactly who in the FUCK gave custody of Molly to Matt Parkman and Mohinder Suresh? Y'know, the Parkman that got shot point blank multiple times in the chest and would have been recouperating for months and in no condition to care for a child? This would be the same Parkman that had recently been fired from the LAPD for being a total flake, and oh yeah, just left his wife and unborn child. Did they think that these negatives would be offset by Mohinder, who is NOT A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES, frequently travels giving lectures as part of his "job," and has known both Molly and Parkman for a grand total of like two hours? Seriously. I would like to talk to agency that thought these would be suitable guardians. Is this agency the Department of JESUS FUCK, REALLY?! (The DoJFR?)

10) Okay, let me see if I've got the timeline down. For three months, Nathan Petrelli sat burnt to a crisp in a hospital bed. Once healed, he managed, in under a month, to 1. Get divorced and lose custody of his kids, 2. Become a full-on drunk, and 3. Grow a big fuck-off superbeard in which woodland creatures could nest? I guess my question here is, are we to take from this that Nathan is SO VIRILE, that he hits rock-bottom with more efficiency and accuracy than most men can succeed?

I suppose I have one more follow-up question: Since you guys are gonna have a little time between finishing volume 2 and starting up volume 3, do you think you could spend an extra couple days hashing out story points that make between a dash and a lick of sense? Or perhaps characters that do not routinely make the dumbest choice available to them?

When the scale of smartest to dumbest ranges from Peter Petrelli (who despite having mind-reading powers, does not bother reading the mind of the man everyone keeps telling him wants to destroy the world) to Maya (who speaks fluent English, but yet is completely unable to interpret Sylar's vocal inflections or body language, which say nothing but "Eeeviiiilllllmwahahahahaah!"), you've got some issues to iron out.

R.I.P., Henchman #24

2008-08-25T22:53:00.016-04:00

The "Venture Bros." season finale aired last night, and by the end of it, I actually shouted, "Holy Crap! They killed Henchman 24!"

My girlfriend looked up at me and said, "Wow, you're really upset, aren't you?"

"No! No," I answered. "It's just...I didn't expect them to do that. It was a funny gag."

This was a lie. I was, in fact, a little upset.

"Venture Bros." is the last of Cartoon Network's old-school "Adult Swim" shows. It came in at the tail end of the first batch that mocked old Hanna-Barbara shows - "Sealab 2021," "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law," etc. - and just before the newer batch like "Tim and Eric Awesome Show" and "Squidbillies," - shows you'd have to be really, really stoned to find funny.

"Venture Bros." is the apex of the old-school because as it's gone on, its nerd jokes have become more obvious and esoteric all at once. By which I mean, they'll throw a "G.I. Joe" parody out there, and that might be funny for what it is. A newbie might laugh at it.

But by this third season, the joke itself is really more of a capper to a series of other jokes from earlier seasons. And so the newbies might be wondering why the big fans are laughing so much harder.

It's a bizarre turn of events, when a show that started off as a riff on the quick-punchline idea, "What would Johnny Quest be like if we followed him into his middle-aged-failure years?" has actually developed a huge supporting cast, a plethora of important thematic devices, an assload of running gags, and an alarming detailed sense of continuity. "Venture Bros." has officially become the "Lost" of Adult Swim.

As a result of the audience's investment in the characters and mythology, "Venture Bros." can do something a show like "Metalocolypse" can't - it can pull the rug from under the audience and provoke a genuine emotional reaction.

Case in point, the Henchmen. Half-assed supervillain The Monarch has had a giant band of nameless henchmen throughout the series, but two of them - portly, squeaky-voiced #21 and skinny, Ray-Ramano-sounding #24, both audience-surrogates - have managed to survive onslaught after onslaught of absurd violence, though what The Monarch refers to as "that rare blend of expendable and invulnerable."

Until last night, when #24 was accidentally blown up. REALLY blown up - #21 actually caught his flaming head.

That the season ended with Brock quitting his bodyguard job didn't really matter. FUCKING #24 died!

That this is both hilarious and upsetting is why "Venture Bros." is the best Adult Swim series. And maybe the only Adult Swim show where you'd hear someone say, "...Actually, you should just start with the first season. Everything will make more sense after that."

Rest in Peace, Henchman #24.

(Oh, also? Last season, they revealed that the head of the shadowy villainous organization was, well, David Bowie. So...you really should put "Venture Bros." in your Netflix queue, just for that, right?)

2008-08-25T15:55:00.001-04:00

"Some Velvet Morning" starts up today: www.threatquality.com.

Olympic Fever, Catch It! (Part 4: Robot Smile)

2008-08-21T00:21:00.007-04:00

Things Shawn Johnson Is Probably Thinking, As She Keeps Grinning No Matter What Happens:

"Oh, boy! China!"

"My life's just gonna get better and better after this!"

"I hope NBC thinks of me when they start casting 'Small Wonder 2.o'!"

"This'll be a great way of making friends!"

"If I keep smiling, maybe Mommy and Daddy won't fight so much!"

"I bet I'll live forever!" (Okay, that one stolen from McSweeney's - don't care.)

"Gee, d'ya think they like me back home?"

"It's awfully hard to breathe in this leotard!"

"Puberty? What's that? Sounds fun!"

"I'm cute, but puppies are cuter!"

"Why does that Liukin girl look so mad? We're Olympians!"

Olympic Fever, Catch It! (Part 3: Ladies Night)

2008-08-20T00:42:00.006-04:00

Awesome, sometimes-weird night for American Olympian women. They all did great – particularly our terrifying giantesses on the softball team – but at the same time, a strange sense of defeat at the uneven bars and the pole vault.

The uneven bars was an actual sense of robbery – esoteric scoring procedures meant that in spite of a tie, bullshit-she’s-16-year-old He Kexin got the gold, while the U.S.’s Nastia Liukin (arguably with the more even performance) took silver. A clear sense of China kinda screwing around with things in multiple ways.

On the pole vault front (a phrase you are unlikely to ever see on this site again), jetsetting Russian Yelena Isinbayeva got the gold, which meant it was totally worthwhile to watch a little profile about how she somehow is an athlete while also being very attractive and living what appears to be a model’s life in Monte Carlo (and would also not mind a small part in American movies someday).

And it would’ve been totally fine that American Jennifer Stuczynski took silver, on account of she’s only been doing this for about four years, if not for the dismissive chewing-out her coach gave her from the stands – totally mic’d on a global telecast, which is obviously the best time to have that kind of conversation. His passive-aggressive, “Yeah, silver. That’s not bad. It’s no gold, but it’s not like you’re Isinbayeva” scolding really took the (silvery) shine off the whole thing.

So thank god for Women’s Beach Volleyball, is what I’m saying. Our gals pounded the hell out of the Brazilians, a victory made all the sweeter after the commentators mentioned that the Brazilians pulled rank and kicked them off the practice court earlier that day. It’s rare I say this (actually, this may be the first time I’ve ever said this), but: Suck it, Brazil! Go enjoy your losers’ party – which is probably going to be really awesome and sexy, with beads and feathers and such.

In conclusion: USA! USA! USA!

The Summer Olympics: Because Americans Need To Feel Good About Something For a Little While.

(And yes, this may have just been an excuse to post pictures of female Olympians. Sue me.)

Olympic Fever, Catch It! (Part 2: A Word From Canada)

2008-08-18T20:06:00.005-04:00

TO: ISTV Global Stronghold
FROM: Canada
SUBJECT: RE: Canada’s Capabilities in Summer Olympic Sports

Dear Global Stronghold folks,

Shut up, eh?

Look, we know we’re not the strongest swimmers out there, right? And yeah, it sure does look like we’re last out of the pool every time. But cut us some slack, will ya? Our water’s only swimmable – like three weeks out of every year. So we don’t get a lot of practice, eh?

And that official regulation-sized pool…it just goes on forever, and everyone’s zippin’ past us. An’ it’s sooo deep! We’re just happy not ta drown!

Point we’re tryin’ to make is, we’re self-conscious enough without you hosers makin’ fun of us, eh?

And we’re not stupid, in spite of some comments you’ve made at our expense, both in swimming and in other summer sports.

F’r example: We know those badminton rackets are used to bat around the little feathery thing. You don’t put them on your feet to trudge through snow. We KNOW that. (Now.)

So, just easy does it with the jokes there, eh? In a couple a’ years, we’ll see you at the Winter Olympics. And I think we’ll know who’ll be laughing then, eh?

(We will – Canada. Just so, y'know, there’s no confusion.)

Sincerely,

Your friendly, frozen neighbors to the north

Nearly Worth Watching: "Fringe"

2008-08-14T00:01:00.000-04:00

Caught the "Fringe" pilot early, so I can officially tell you that this is 80% a Show Worth Watching.
First, the bad: There’s a good deal of “Let’s Set Up The Series” stuff – characters speaking in exposition, vague subplots initiated, and a nice tour of the set you’ll get to see each and every exciting week, if the show gets picked up. It’s annoying, but on a pilot, everyone’s gotta just soldier through it, and assume this won’t be so prominent in later episodes.

The more painful bit of the bad is the fact that the lead actress looks like Kate Blanchett and performs like Elizabeth Rohm. She is startlingly bland, exhibiting almost no personality in the face of some truly weird concepts she’s supposed to be at the front of. It’s disappointing, firstly because how many decent, attractive character actresses are there who could deliver lines with a spark of excitement and curiosity – let alone decent AMERICAN actresses who could do the job?

But that’s something we have to cope with, since the rest of the cast makes up for it. In particular, John Noble, playing the scientific lead who will anchor the plot of the series itself. He isn’t charming or rakish. He’s not Dr. House. The Walter Bishop character is quite truly a Mad Scientist, delivering his lines like an autistic Vincent Price. At one point, he casually mentions that he’s pissed himself – “Just a squirt,” he clarifies – and that tells the audience quite a bit about the show that’s hopefully lined up.

I imagine a lot of actors chomp at the bit to play The Good-Guy Mad Scientist, quietly excited to inject an FBI agent with an LSD-Ketamine mix and toss her into a sensory deprivation tank. That enthusiasm is clear here.

Most surprising, I must admit, is Joshua Jackson as the scientist’s estranged son – also a genius, though a stubbornly directionless one. Though at first I thought he was trying a bit too hard to come off as “adult” despite looking like a youngish 25, as soon as he’s got Noble to play off of, Jackson comes alive, alternating between snarkily berating his father’s work and bemusedly translating for him, since he seems to be the only other one that “speaks Walter.”

That the show’s got J.J. Abrams’s “Bad Robot” company attached can be read one of two ways – “Lost,” or “Alias.” The vague references to “The Pattern” hint at the problems the latter series faced when it became clear that it had no real gameplan and just kept inventing new, obtusely-named threats. But I’m hoping for the quality of the former to keep it in check.

Helping that is the clever bits of gruesomeness displayed in the pilot. Not only the airborne toxin that turns people’s skin translucent – which the show manages to keep looking disgusting no matter how close up it gets - but more throwaway gags like the woman who casually strips off the skin of her arm to reveal a bionic prosthesis. If they can keep this attitude going, I’ll be impressed.

There’s a way of looking at this like a 21st-century redo of “The X-Files,” and hopefully that’ll be the case. The alternate is it devolves into a painful hybrid the last couple of years’ failed genre shows, “Night Stalker” and “Bionic Woman.” But it’s my hope Abrams and company have learned their lessons by now.

Olympic Fever, Catch It! (Part 1: Handballin')

2008-08-11T22:53:00.006-04:00

“Sure are a lot of handballers carrying flags,” my roommate quite rightly observed as we watched the Parade of Nations Friday night. Then, after we were done giggling at the term “handballer,” we realized we had no idea what handball is.

I was under the impression that handball was that one with two guys on a court who hit a rubber ball back and forth while wearing goggles. Only when Tad recognized the game I was describing as Squash did it occur to me that I also had no idea what Squash was.

Fortunately, a match between the French and Angola women’s teams cleared it all up. At first glance, it looks a bit like Calvinball – lots of running and ball-throwing and chasing each other around. But we quickly realized it was basically soccer, but you use your hands. And every three steps you have to bounce the ball.

When one of the players goes to score, the goalie (defending a goal bigger than hockey but smaller than soccer), largely unable to do anything because she lacks both room to dive and protective padding, just kinda jumps out towards the ball, flailing her arms and legs.

It is a fairly high-scoring game.

It’s also sort of brutal, since the only way a player’s going to gain control of the ball (other than that namby-pamby interception crap) is to ram her shoulder into the other player. Which was especially counterintuitive, since the court itself is a placid, calming powder-blue.

At this point, I started to wonder: How is this game not popular in the US?

- It answers Americans’ Soccer Dilemma by being faster-moving and higher-scoring, and on a smaller court which makes it easier to follow the action.
- It looks and sounds a bit like basketball. We like basketball.
- There’s none of the partial nudity that’s likely kept men’s water polo – arguably a more difficult game, since when you’re not playing, you’re still swimming! – from being comfortably embraced by many male fans.

Then it occurred to me that maybe it’s too simple for American sports fans. I mean, baseball and football have so many rules that slow the action down to a crawl, and apparently we love those two.

We had to retitle blindingly simple descriptive name “football” into “soccer” – a word that never, ever described anything.

It is possible Americans are really overcomplicating their own enjoyment of sports.

More Olympic coverage to come, probably.

Extended Play: Lost, Season 3

2008-08-03T23:18:00.012-04:00

Well that’s more like it.

Season 3 of “Lost” starts off floundering and directionless, much like its writers apparently felt, not knowing how long they’d have to string out mysteries and answers before they knew when the damn thing would END, so they could work out how to start finishing the story.

So while the first half of the season is devoted to answering questions all but the most dim-witted of viewers had already kinda guessed, the second half – after the creative crew got a schedule for when the show would end – starts tossing out answers and barreling into the next phase of the story.

By the middle of Season 3 (and once again, taking it in as a “TV-novel” beats the shit out of the frustrating experience of watching it as a weekly series with a big gap between new installments), there’d been a lot of throat-clearing episodes (“How Jack Got His Tattoos” the most annoying example), and a half-answers to tide weary viewers over.

But after the last deck-clearing outing – one entirely devoted to doing away with poorly-conceived new characters Paulo and Nikki – a sharper, more coherent display of the show’s Big Story began to emerge. This culminated in the first Ben flashback – which explained a bit while offering specific questions about the character and his place in that Big Story. The questions stopped being “What’s going on?” – that vagueness that got folks annoyed last season - in favor of “Who knows what?” – which holds the promise of concrete answers.

Let me back up for a second and talk more about the added characters. Introducing new folks onto a show set on a supposedly uninhabited island is a tricky proposition, but while most people bitterly recall Nikki and Paulo – two previously-unseen castaways viewers were unfairly asked to readily accept as part of the ensemble, even though they brought nothing of merit with them – it’s important to note that this season also brought Ben, Juliet, and Desmond to the fore.

I have a soft spot for Juliet because of her unflappably dry sense of humor (which ironically contrasts her off-island basket-case status). And she is important to the Big Story, in that she’s a catalyst for explaining the mysterious malady that’s killing pregnant women on the island (which affects original characters Sun and Claire). But Ben and Desmond are the ones to pay attention to, as they turn out to be insanely important additions necessary to drive the Big Story and its emotional themes forward.

Pushing Ben – leader of the mysterious Others and keeper of the magic island’s secrets – to the forefront of the story gave the viewers fair warning that the serious questions about the overarching plot were, in fact, going to be answered.

And with the arrival of Desmond, viewers learned that there was a deeply romantic element of the story we didn’t even know was there.

(If there was a drawback to our quick investment into the starcrossed Desmond-Penny love story, it was the “duh” realization the Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle seemed that much more pointlessly juvenile in comparison. “Kate wishes Jack paid more attention to her? Fuck her. Desmond’s devotion to Penny was the only thing that kept him alive for THREE YEARS.”)

It’s amusing to note that all three of these characters, so important to the Big Story, also brought with them a sense of humor that had been lacking previously. The tone of the show mirrored this in a way by tossing in a bit of self-effacing meta-commentary. Characters started pointing out how over-the-top Sawyer’s nicknaming had gotten, or how ludicrous Locke’s island-worship actually sounded. It felt like a clear message from the writers: “We know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry. In the end, we’re all here to have fun.”

All this culminated in the game-changing season finale, throwing viewers off by flash-forwarding to the post-island torment of its leads. If the meta-jokes were the writers’ way of saying they understood viewer frustrations, the finale was their way of saying, “And just to shut you up: yes, we know where all this is going, too.”

+++++

So that’s three seasons viewed pretty closely together, with full knowledge of season 4 (which kept all season 3’s lessons to heart by introducing more useful new characters and giving answers to big questions without leaving viewers feeling like they’re being maliciously dicked around with). When the season 4 DVD shows up, I’ll plow through them, too – particularly with an eye on how the writers strike affected the story’s pacing and reveals).

What’s my final prognosis? Very simply, I’ve learned to trust the creators again. It’s been a tough road, and there have been some hiccups along the way (which reminds me, I forgot to mention how off-handedly they killed off Mister Eko, or how they had to foretell Charlie's death just to make the audience like him again), but I remain incredibly impressed by the body of work they’ve managed to produce so far. And I fully believe they know what they’re doing.

At this point, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn they had a bigger plan for Bai Ling’s “Jack’s Tattoos” character all along.

"Doctor Who": The English-to-ADD-Kid Translation

2008-07-30T20:48:00.005-04:00

The season 4 finale to “Doctor Who” airs this Friday, but through the magic of the internet, I – and pretty much everyone else who goes nuts with all the commercial edits SciFi makes – already saw it during its BBC airing a few weeks back.

I want to talk about it, but I can’t really recap it with the…well, let’s just call it “sense of urgency” required to really do it justice.

So I’m passing those duties off on the Global Stronghold’s intern, Randy. Randy is a 12-year-old boy whose brain is positively riddled with ADHD. And to prepare for his first-ever recap, he's just shotgunned three Red Bulls.

You can take it from here, Randy:

“Ohhh mygod it was awesome you guys first, right? First Earth gets stolen and then the Doctor and Donna go see those rhino guys from last season and Rose is back and Jack is back and Martha’s back and Harriet’s back and they all talk with webcams and then the DALEKS come and shoot at everyone and they’re all like EXTERMINATE! But sometimes in German!

“And then the Doctor gets shot and has to regenerate but he doesn’t really regenerate because he gets better and puts all the extra energy in his other hand before he regrew it and it’s in a jar under the TARDIS console and then they all get captured by the Daleks and their creator’s all mean and messed-up looking and one of the Daleks is crazy and giggles and it’s TOO FUNNY and but, right, Donna’s still in the TARDIS and she touches the hand and it grows into a another Doctor and Donna gets all Time Lord smart and they fight and win!

“And then all of them fly the TARDIS together and they lasso Earth back to where it should be and then Rose has to go back to her Earth and she gets to keep the other Doctor and they kiss whichisAWESOME and then to save Donna’s brain he takes out all her Time Lord memories and it’s sad and then he goes back to the TARDIS alone and he looks sad MAN I gotta pee bye!”

Thank you, Randy. Now head out to the drawbridge, I think you’re mom’s here to take you to piano practice.

Now then. I wish I could say that Randy’s explanation lacked the nuance or pacing of the actual finale, but he pretty much nailed it. Showrunner Russell Davies is stepping down, and apparently wanted to cram every freaking idea he didn’t get to use into two hours of show.

But he didn’t bother to edit any of his ideas, or fit them together with any particular care or concern, and so this is what we get: a plot so frantic we need the addled brain of RANDY to properly filter all these plot points.

Still, there is always a sense of joy and importance to a “Doctor Who” finale, and in that respect, I can’t say this disappointed.

There are some minor concerns that could be pointed out – that Rose is stuck with some kind of cut-rate Doctor-knockoff, or that Donna’s fate is unnecessarily cruel, or that God help me, I might have to subject myself to a third season of “Torchwood” in the near future – but I suppose I’ll just let Davies take his victory lap, hope he gets some rest, and look forward to incoming showrunner (and writer of some of the new series’ best episodes) Steve Moffat.

Who hopefully will realize that bringing the Daleks back for a FIFTH time might maybe weaken the characters. Something that might not have occurred to Davies.

Or the ADD-ravaged child ghostwriting for Davies. Whichever.

"24" Enters the Wonderful World of "Plotting"

2008-07-28T14:43:00.005-04:00

“24” is going to be...interesting next year.

Which may be damning with faint praise. But if you saw last year, which started out with a torture-broken lead who kills a long-time partner AS VALENCIA IS NUKED!, but somehow ended as dull as humanly possible, "interesting" the best you can really pray for. Even if it involves the logic-backflip of bringing Tony Almeida back from the dead, when we watched him die (this wasn’t “we didn’t see a body” dead, either – this was “his heart stopped and Jack cradled the corpse” dead).

But the producers have promised pulse-pounding thrills AND sense-making plots this season. Apparently, the writer's strike helped the show by allowing for a) a prequel movie running in November (freeing the show, however briefly, from its one-day constraint, allowing the producers to show their oft-envisioned "Jack's building houses in Africa" idea), and b) a chance to, for a change, COMPLETELY PLOT OUT THEIR SEASON.

See, "Lost"? This is why people don't believe you when you say you have a plan. Because here's a show that hinges on real-time continuity, finally coming out and admitting it usually just flies by the seat of its pants when it comes to the season’s story-arc. Sometimes, it leads to balls-out lunatic seasons like 3, where it was actually sort of fun watching writers clearly making it up on the spot (even if it resulted in Jack Bauer as the world’s first decathlete heroin addict). And sometimes...well, if you blow up a nuke too early, all you’ve got left by the end is “Hey, let’s blind Ricky Schroeder.”

So congratulations, “24.” I think you'll find this experiment in "plotting ahead" to be a pleasant surprise.

Extended Play: "Lost," Season 2

2008-07-17T00:01:00.001-04:00

When I talk to people about “Lost,” the general response is, “Yeah, I tuned in every now and again, but every episode was about pressing a frickin’ button, so I lost interest.” Which made me all the more curious to watch Season 2 – I mean, how much frickin’ button-pushing was there?

What surprised me most about Season 2 is how quickly the show changed from being about one thing – surviving on an island – to being about another – discovering that the island is a totally different place than previously understood. While Season 1 had virtually no mentions of The Dharma Initiative and only a bare glimpse at the notion of The Others, Season 2 dove headlong into it from the first episode, and these two new additions dominated the stories for the rest of the year.

As a result of introducing the overarching Dharma mystery – a story that, unlike the character-based dramas, has to have a beginning, middle and end – Season 2 started to tug fitfully in a lot of directions. In particular, the Dharma story was introduced, but couldn’t progress too far since the writers didn’t know how long the series would run.

And because the new stuff was so interesting and offered viewers the hint that there was something more important going on here, the character drama started to feel needlessly manufactured (see: Charlie, who ended Season 1 triumphantly but became truly insufferable for no real reason shortly into Season 2 – but it did give me a theory, which I’ll get to in a second) or so slight as to be totally pointless (hello, “Sawyer hunts down a noisy tree-frog”).

If Season 2 saw a lot of false starts in terms of plotting (my favorite being Jack’s idea to “train an army” to combat The Others, an idea that sounded terribly important but disappeared within three episodes), it saw its greatest cock-up with the introduction of the tail section characters, in particular Ana-Lucia and Mister Eko. And here’s where "TV Series As Novel" meets its arch-enemy, “Everyday hassles of working on a weekly network show.”

It’s clear they intended to do more with both characters – Ana-Lucia as the island’s sheriff and Eko as its spiritual guide – but through a mix of uncertain planning, bungled introductions (Ana-Lucia was so insanely grating from the outset that it was simply impossible for viewers to get behind the character even after she started to rehabilitate), and casting actors who would prove too difficult to work with, that revisions had to be made (and man, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje must have been a major pain in the ass, for the producers to jettison the Eko character after setting him up as a major player in the series).

Add to this the often erratic airing schedule for new episodes, and it’s no wonder the audience started turning on “Lost” in Season 2. And while the season does view better in large chunks (once again lending credence to the “novelistic TV” theory), watching 40 minutes of “Hey, Sun’s pregnant” just to get three minutes of teases about The Others does make a viewer feel like he’s getting dicked around.

Even viewing it now, with the knowledge of how things start to pull together, being aware that some throwaway bits do have actual meaning, there were still some moments where even I was developing outlandish theories that didn’t even track with what I already knew, just to stave off frustration.

(My favorite made-up theory is that the “island sickness” that was heavily alluded to in the first two seasons but since then has been pretty much forgotten about was meant to explain why some characters – say, Charlie – started behaving erratically or, well, stupidly, for no reason and with no later follow-up. I’m still working on a theory that would explain why the hell the island would want Hurley to jump off a cliff, though. I’m open to any suggestion that doesn’t begin or end with the phrase “crappy writing.”)

So yes. Officially speaking, Season 2 was sort of iffy, in comparison with the nearly-perfect first season. But I think it was a necessary learning experience for the show’s writers. As we’ll see as we get to Season 3, once they got past some first-quarter hiccups (most glaringly, another stupid introduction to new characters Nikki and Paulo…oh, Nikki and Paulo, how I can’t wait to revisit you two), the show started firing on all cylinders, and hasn’t really stopped since.

Onwards to Season 3!

Addict TV? Really?

2008-07-14T23:51:00.004-04:00

The evolution of VH1 from "adult contemporary music channel" to "a network that finds it acceptable to air a program called 'I Love Money' " was slow and soul-crushingly inevitable enough that it wasn't exactly surprising.

But A&E? Didn't that, at some point, stand for "Arts and Entertainment"? Didn't they used to run a bunch of "Biography" episodes, and in the afternoons offer repeats of "Newsradio" and "Night Court"?

I used to make sure to get home from classes in college so I could catch some "Newsradio" at lunchtime. It was...comforting.

This past weekend, I watched A&E and saw a show called "Intervention," wherein a knock-off Dr. Phil coaches a family on confronting their addict to get help. It was depressing, to put it mildly (not least of which because the guy DIED - way to go, Dr. Faux-Phil).

During the commercial breaks, I got to see a preview for "The Two Coreys." The show that asks viewers to give a shit about two self-absorbed, borderline delusional recovering addicts who for a brief period were also teen actors.

Most heavily promoted was "The Cleaner," the network's new scripted drama, starring Benjamin Bratt as, from what I could understand, leader of an A-Team of addiction counselors.

At what point did A&E come to stand for, as Tad puts it, "Addicts and Ex-Addicts"? And more importantly...is there really a huge market for this? VH1's freak-show mentality I get, but where is the real audience reward for watching a cancer-riddled fall-down drunk refuse treatment and die?

I hope it's not schaedenfraude (and no, I'm not spell-checking that, you know what I mean), but are we supposed to learn from them, or what?

Patriotic Monday: A Look Back at "The West Wing"

2008-07-07T22:59:00.008-04:00

I’m watching the third season of “The West Wing,” and finding myself amazed this show ever existed. It’s such an anomaly. I mean, think about it. Aaron Sorkin – a playwright with a couple Rob Reiner movies and a failed ABC show under his belt – says to NBC, “I want to do a character-based office drama set in the White House, centered around a Nobel-winning intellectual president.” And NBC said, “Sounds like a sure-fire winner!”

(Probably not exactly how it went down, but still – the damn thing made it to air, right? Go with me.)

This wouldn’t have happened had the show been created after 2001. Our new-millennium politicians tend to sing praises for Jack Bauer of “24,” not President Josiah Bartlet, after all.

But squeaking by in 1999, at the tail-end of the Clinton administration, it made a bit more sense. An idealized, liberal White House drama. A show based around characters presenting ideas about how America could become a better place. Illustrated by spouting shitloads of dialogue while walking through long corridors. And somehow it worked.

Season 3 is most interesting because this is when it stopped working. Not so much because it tried to do anything different. Quite the opposite – it tried not to, in the face of the entire American political spectrum shifting post-9/11. Watching season 3, it seems almost quaint – these characters having long, impassioned discussions about RU-486 or affirmative action, when the real world was still trying to figure out how to cope with, well, you know.

The show’s way of coping with 9/11 was to kick off the season with a self-contained “parable” episode, “Isaac and Ishmael,” wherein the leads discussed the nature and origins of Islamic extremism with a bunch of high school students. The conceit was both absolutely brilliant and mind-bendingly condescending, since the high school students the uber-intellectual senior staff was teaching was really just a stand-in for the American public. It was the first sign that Aaron Sorkin maaaaybe thought he was around to show the viewers how much smarter than them he was.

And from there, things got a bit wonkier. I always recalled season 4 (which ended with a very “24”-esque First-Daughter-kidnapping arc) as the point when the train went off the rails, but season 3 is where things first got off-track (stopping locomotive-based metaphors….nnnnnow). Because it seemed like they were actively ignoring the reality outside their window, only occasionally tossing it into the discussion mix briefly with no real meaning.

One episode had Toby Ziegler, my favorite, vigorously defending bold language against Islamic extremism in a foreign policy document by bluntly declaring, “They’ll like us when we win.” It’s an unnervingly coherent argument for aggression, coming from the most morally confident character on the show.

Which might have had more impact, if more of that episode hadn’t been devoted to Sam trying to explain he wasn’t being sexist when he told a female friend she looked hot in an evening gown (one of many points where you started to wonder exactly when Sam became a voice through which Sorkin could grind an axe or three – the entire subplot reads as Sorkin shouting to some woman he once offended, “This is why I’m not sexist, and if you’d have just listened to my long explanation at the time, I wouldn’t have to shove it down the mouths of my characters!”)

(Another issue where the series writer started to more liberally inject his own ego into the show: having leads correcting their opponents’ grammar and improper phrasing. One example: When a congressman says a bill is “dead as a Greek poet,” Sam chides him by saying he’s sure there are still some living poets in Greece. Well fuck you, Sorkin, you’re the one who wrote the damn line.)

By the end of this season, the show’s attempts to fight off reality reached its head by introducing Robert Ritchie (read: G.W. Bush) as a plain-spoken (read: moronic) Republican (read: moronic) presidential nominee folks really seem to like. But Bartlet trounces him in one debate. How? By Being Smarter.

And that is about the point where the show left Idealism Station for a long layover in Magical Fantasy-Land Junction (okay, now I’m done with the train metaphors, promise).

All this said, I really do miss “The West Wing.” Like I said, it’s a show that couldn't exist today. But if there’s one thing this show inspires, almost bull-headedly, it’s hope for tomorrow.

Who knows? Network TV is nothing if not a recycling of ideas (see: CW’s fall-season “90210” redux). If Obama wins in November, and his first couple years aren’t a total mess, maybe we’ll see “West Wing: The Next Generation.”

(I mean that as a cheap punchline to wrap up this post. But I can guarantee you some producer in Hollywood is already putting a pitch together, just in case.)

No One Watched It But Me: "Kitchen Confidential"

2008-07-02T22:18:00.005-04:00

The Show:
“Kitchen Confidential,” Fox, 2005

The Premise:
Based fairly loosely on the book by Anthony Bordain, disgraced star chef Jack Bordain is given one last chance to head up a slick New York restaurant while keeping his ne’er-do-well kitchen staff in check.

What Made It Special:
This one was all about setting. For every five shows set in a precinct, hospital, or law firm, there’s one that tries to do something different. “Kitchen Confidential” had the added bonus of stranger-than-fiction source material in Bourdain’s book, a memoir of life on the fringes, because let’s face it – no one in their right mind would want to work in a restaurant.
It was also blessed with an outstandingly talented comedic cast, starting with Bradley Cooper, who’s really gifted at playing assholes you still kinda like. Also on hand were Nicholas Brendan (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), John Francis Daley (“Freaks and Geeks”), and John Cho (Harold and Kumar…).

Signs It Was Going Somewhere Good:
When the show adapted the warts-and-all parts of Bourdain’s book, it was really sharp, and had an air of authenticity to it. There were also hints that we were actually watching Jack, initially at an emotional high after a year of sobriety and newfound sense of responsibility, reaching the beginning stages of egomania that led him into the sordid booze-drugs-women combo that finished him off the first time around.

Signs of Wear and Tear:
It was a fucking Darren Starr production, so it frequently abandoned the enjoyable heightened realism of the “day in the life in the kitchen” angle for “Sex and the City but with Chefs” sex-comedy nonsense that felt nothing but contrived and worse, conventional. “The chef’s dating a vegan!” probably sounded great in the writing room, but honestly – the book had a story about a guy stitching up his own wound and returning to work. How did that not strike them as the more interesting source of humor?

Sign the Producers Knew They Didn’t Have Much Time Left:
They didn't hear the train until it was right on top of them – the show got pulled four episodes in.

Why No One Watched:
Its lead-in was, god bless ‘em, “Arrested Development.” In its third season. When any hope of getting new viewers in was totally lost. (I believe around the third episode, they might have switched the timeslots. Which is hilarious in its own way.)

Available on DVD?:
Yup, a two-disc set you can grab through Netflix.

Where You've Seen It Since:
Pretty much every single cable network now has its own reality-chef show, but ironically, none of them are going to give you the terrifying (and frequently hilarious) reality of working in a restaurant that Anthony Bordain does. (Though weirdly, neither does “No Reservations,” Bordain’s otherwise-enjoyable travelogue show on Discovery.)

Jeff Goldblum: Crime-Stopper

2008-06-30T23:21:00.004-04:00

A year or so back, Liev Schrieber had a four-episode guest role on "CSI," playing a character who was quite alien to the franchise, in that he had a personality. His character seemed to have a life that existed outside of the procedural he found himself in. It was really refreshing and interesting. So of course he had to die, so William Peterson could come back on and get things back to normal.

"Back to normal" is something most procedurals don't have to deal with, because they rarely ever leave "normal." Which is why I tend to hate the big procedural families, "CSI" and "Law and Order."

Pop on NBC, CBS, TNT, USA, or Spike at any time of the day, and you've got a better-than-average chance of catching an episode of some permutation of these two franchises. But - and here's why I hate them - I defy you to tell me what season it's in. Because every season is pretty much like the one that came before it. There might be some minor changes - Warick might be gambling again, or Sam Waterston's looking older - but those changes rarely affect the plot.

Hell, Jerry Orbach DIES, and "Law and Order" just replaces him with Dennis Farina, and thus, the grizzled-detective balance is restored.

(Shows like "House" and "Bones," by virtue of their being "mystery of the week" stories, could also be dubbed "procedurals," but here's the difference: if you removed the A-plot - Who is sick/who's been murdered - you'd still have character-based stories going on.)

So my ears perked up when I heard Jeff Goldblum would be joining the cast of USA's "Law and Order: Criminal Intent."

"L&O: CI" is the red-headed stepchild of the franchise, relegated to the USA sister cable channel where it could get better ratings with a cheaper production cost. It's also the only "Law and Order" where the lead character has some liveliness.

This is because it's primarily Vincent D'Onofrio as the lead, chewing scenery left and right because, well...he's Vincent D'Onofrio, so he gets to. But because he is The Vincent D'Onofrio, apparently doing a whole season of scenery-chewing takes a lot out of him, and so he needs a little help now and again.

Last year, Jeff Goldblum starred as an L.A. detective in a short-lived series called "Raines," where he talked to imaginary crime scene victims to solve their cases. Those were six great episodes (and will likely be a future "Nobody Watched It But Me" entry). Because the show was essentially "Jeff Golblum: Detective." Probably more people would have watched if it was called that.

Oh, how groovy it would be if Detective Raines transferred to New York. I can't imagine I'd be that lucky, but then again, it's rare that Golblum plays anything other than his own quirky, rambling self. So if I can watch a Dick Wolf-sanctioned "Jeff Goldblum Solves Crimes" show, I might actually be willing to check this out.

I don't give a shit about the crimes. TV's been recycling the same "ripped from the headlines" tales of horror for decades now. I care about who's insane enough to want to solve them.

I believe Jeff Golblum is just crazy enough for the job.

Flip This Global Stronghold!

2008-06-23T16:08:00.005-04:00

Anyone who watches “The Office,” and thinks Michael Scott has become too much of a cartoon to be believable on what is supposed to be a reality/documentary series…head on over to TLC. Pop on a little show called “Property Ladder.”

- Watch! as people with absolutely no real estate experience listen to the advice of a woman who, in addition to having a decade of experience in the field, is the host of the show – advice intended to save them time, money and trouble – and respond, “Nnnaaah, I like my idea better.”
- Marvel! as these people listen to plumbers who are clearly screwing with them, and reluctantly agree that putting a toilet directly in front of a low window in the center of the room is probably okay.
- Wince! as a young couple decides to forego a housing inspection prior to buying the property, and then immediately discovers that, based on the pervasive wood rot, the house seems to be holding itself up on pure optimism more than anything else.
- Gawk! as three friends, who together refer to themselves as “Team Tripod” (also the name of their pub-quiz team, I assume), systematically destroy a waterlogged backyard because of their firm, yet completely unfounded, belief that adding a master bedroom is the key to selling the house for far more than any reasonable human being would pay.
- Grin! – while curling your fingers into Punchin’ Fists! – as one of them says, without a trace of irony, “Making a million dollars is harder than I thought.”

Now go and watch “The Office” again. And thank god they don’t write Michael Scott as blindingly, offensively stupid as these people.

You Stop It Right Now, Billie Piper!

2008-06-18T22:49:00.008-04:00

And now, I present my first impression of Showtime's British import, "Secret Diary of a Call Girl":

"What the...Akk! No! Stop doing that, Billie Piper! You stop doing that right now!"

Okay, that was pretty much the entirety of my reaction to this show. I was actually more uncomfortable watching Billie Piper simulate oral sex (and seriously, foley guys, easy does it on the sucking noises, please) than I was when David Duchovny was faux-banging his way through Los Angeles on "Californication" last year.

The series pilot tells you everything you need to know about its protagonist - actually, she tells you most of it through fourth-wall-breaking narration, and you can infer when she's being Unreliable Narrator the rest of the time - but even at 21 minutes, it still feels pretty slim. Hannah/Belle is a call-girl because she "loves sex and money, and is fundamentally lazy." And then the episode more or less affirms this, but doesn't give you much reason to care.

This may be the Curse of a Previous Role in effect. Billie Piper is so ingrained in my memory as The Doctor's companion Rose on "Doctor Who" that the image of her fellating a mutton-chopped old man is just feels very, very wrong. I'm all for an actor trying to shake an iconic role, and I do fully believe that Billie Piper is capable of other parts, but...jeez. This was her first choice?

Whether its the thin premise or the tawdry attempts to (Warning: Writerly Phrase Approaching!) "deflower Rose," there's virtually no reason here to watch another episode.

(And we'll end here with quick note for David Tennant: If I see you thrusting your naked ass in the direction of ANYTHING in your first post-"Doctor Who" role, we're going to have some problems.)

Extended Play: "Lost, Season 1"

2008-06-17T00:07:00.007-04:00

Recently a friend of mine asked, “So what’s the deal with ‘Lost’?” Two hours later, we reached a comfortable end point.

By this, I do not mean I’d managed to explain the show in total. I mean we’d reached a point where I felt she now had a good base of knowledge.

(Seriously – no hyperbole. Two hours. As a friend, yes. I can be quite cruel.)

As a summer project, I’m watching “Lost” from the beginning. “Lost” is what can be referred to as “novelistic” television – a show that can and should be viewed, per episode, as a chapter in a larger story.

(The best example of this format is HBO’s “The Wire.” If you were to watch one episode from, say, the middle of the second season, it would mean nothing to you as a casual viewer. But watching it as a middle-chapter of a bigger story…whoa mama.)

While very much in this mold, “Lost” also has the unfortunate compliment of being a hugely successful show on network TV, meaning it’s got to be at least somewhat accessible to a casual viewer. So I was very curious to see how, taking the long view, the series has managed to build itself as a TV-novel, without enjoying the built-in benefits of an HBO series: wholly-plotted 13-episode season arcs, contracts for recurring actors who aren’t series regulars, and built-in end-points.

So, taking it from the top, Season 1:

The first thing to strike me about Season 1 is how slowly paced it is. More to the point, what surprised me is how slowly paced it is, while somehow keeping viewers. To this day, I’m really blown away that people got behind this show as enthusiastically as they did.

My theory is that the producers snuck this big fat epic story past viewers by making them focus on two things: the characters, and the day-to-day drama of surviving on an island when there’s no hope for rescue. No Dharama Initiative, no Others, no Jacob.

It’s not that this was crap they came up with later (there are a lot of vague allusions to it all, and there’s even a lot of visual motifs that show up as early as the pilot). It’s just that the focus was so squarely on immediate concerns to the characters – shelter, water, building a raft – that The Weird Shit (polar bears, visions of dead people, etc.) was mostly background noise then.

By design, “Lost” is probably the most character-based show on television. Its early episodes were almost entirely about getting to know the people on the island.

And boy, did they have a wealth of characters to deal with. At the outset, “Lost” had a massive cast, and watching it now, four seasons in, it’s clear to see the logic of the producers, as their story progressed and they got to see which characters had legs and which didn’t (and also when they write themselves into corners – I maintain that step-siblings Boon and Shannon were dead the moment the writers finished the episode where they, y’know…did it – gah, still weird, still weird!).

There was a remarkable sense of balance in the first season, too. Each episode moved the story along a little bit (as far as we understood it, anyway), while offering showcases for multiple castaways each episode. If anything’s been lost as the Big Story’s moved on, it’s that ability to service multiple character-arcs in a given episode.

(For instance: Did you know Michael, Walt, Sun and Jin used to have major stories? I know, it’s shocking, but in that first season, their very human dramas were center-stage.
Contrast that with, say, Season 2 character Desmond. Now, everyone loves Desmond - I blame the Scottish accent - but outside of his flashbacks, find me an epsiode where he’s not primarily standing around in the background looking confused.)

But eventually, we find ourselves at the end of the first season. Both the slave-ship The Black Rock and the first Dharma station found by Locke have been introduced. The last few episodes of the first season tell the viewers: “There’s no turning back now: We’re getting into The Big Story.”

And if I were someone just watching the first season for the first time, those two big portents would be a signal to me: Hop off the ride now, or hang on till the end.

I made my choice to hang on to the end pretty much from the pilot. Problem is, a lot of people didn’t realize they wanted to hop off until midway through the second season, and man were they pissed off as a result.

We'll deal with that very shortly.

Next Week: Season 2 (Or: Maybe It Was The Dharma Station, Maybe It Was Ana-Lucia, But Boy, Were People Pissed About Season 2.)

The Daily Show Has Not Forgotten

2008-06-09T23:18:00.006-04:00

There’s a special talent to being press secretary in the Bush Administration, because they have the unenviable task of representing the public face of All That We Hate. Ari Fleischer knew this. Because in 2001-2002, Ari Fleischer made virtually no effort to hide an attitude that mostly said, “That’s okay – I hate you too. But our approval rating means you can just suck it.” His distain actually made him pretty good at the job.

Then came Scott McClellan, who got the position just as public opinion on the administration finally reached the sane conclusions, and things, as they say, took a turn. McClellan is not a man who doesn’t have arrogant distain in his armory, nor the sharp edges of Fleischer. McClellan, all round softness, had only flop-sweat to save him as he wearily repeated the same things over and over, even though the White House press corps had recently located its collective balls – something McClellan had clearly not been warned about.

But McClellan was a visual reminder of the heavy kid who couldn’t make it through gym class, who dreaded the presidential fitness tests, who got hit with Every. Last. Dodgeball. And so while I could be satisfied in hating Ari Fleischer, I always had a bit of pity for Scott McClellan.

If “Daily Show” interviews in the last year or so are any indication, it’s that the former members of the Bush Administration will never Get It. They will never understand why we are so goddamned angry. They seem to think that leaving, writing a book, and going on TV with a practiced-genial smile and light admissions of, “Well, now that I’m out, I can say what I really thought!” is enough to win over the embittered liberal viewership of something like “The Daily Show.” A viewership whose collective anger and confusion over the administration’s refusal to admit to even the most basic of truths is voiced by Jon Stewart.

In the nation’s long, painful break-up with the Bush Administration, Jon Stewart seems to be representing our friend who is trying like hell to explain our feelings to this group we don’t want any more part of. He is the Joan Cusack of our John Cusack movie, really.

So there Scott McClellan sat, smiling obliviously, clearly not expecting a verbal pummeling, because apparently he has not learned anything and did practically no prep-work before showing up. He thought he’d get a pat on the back and a “welcome to our side” from Stewart.

Instead, god bless him, Stewart took the opportunity to push the issue of how McClellan and crew’s systematic manipulation of facts leading up to the Iraq war are not the very definition of the word “Lying.” Which McClellan tried to squirm out of, not at all well, before finally, pissily mumbling, “Well were you in the room?” as the practiced smile cracked a little. And the sweating started.

Meanwhile, Stewart’s smile widened, because behind the light ribbing and the “I’m no expert, but, uh…” playing dumb, he was sending McClellan a message: “The book doesn’t matter. We don’t care that you’re sharing weak-ass opinions now that your boss’s already done for. You stood there and lied to us consistently and totally for years, and we want an apology.”

It’s happened a lot, lately. McCain was the last time I noticed Stewart’s interview strategy of laying out basic facts and watching, astonished, as McCain couldn’t satisfactorily reconcile what he’d said with what was true, but wouldn’t admit to the mistake, either.

So Stewart and “The Daily Show” have become a useful way to send a message, from us, to every former insider currently angling for a cable-news pundit job:

"We haven’t forgotten, and fuck you for thinking we might."

Your Buddy, Your Pally, Your Season Finale: "Lost"

2008-05-30T22:13:00.007-04:00

What Happened, Basically (in no particular order, because what's the point, really?):

1) The original castmembers: The Oceanic 6, more through chance than design, made their way off-island, and concocted a cover-story to keep the rest of the islanders safe from any further Widmore-related attacks.

2) The newer favorites: Charlotte and Miles decided to stay on the island for reasons known only to them; Daniel Faraday (I like using his full name) tried like hell to leave (also for reasons known only to him), only to be sucked away with the island mid-boat-trip; Frank Lapidus (same here) flew the Oceanic 6 to "safety"; Desmond was reunited with Penny (much sooner than I expected, actually) when she found the group out at sea.

3) The Island/The Islanders: In "moving the island" (which, appeared to be a literal event - or at least a "re-cloaking" of the location), Ben was cast out, while Locke took on the role of new Others leader with a weird little smile; Sawyer's stuck with Juliet, and...shit, I can't even keep track, how many more castmembers are there?!

4) Who died? Well, by appearances (read: I'll believe it when I see bodies), mean sonufabitch mercenary Keamy (first during an extended knock-down fight with Sayid, then definitively during a much shorter encounter with Ben), Jin (blowed up real good with the freighter), and Michael (but c'mon - he got visited by ghost-Jack's-Dad, so...probably not so much).

5) Flash-Forward Stuff: Turns out burn-out addict Jack, responsible-mom Kate, assassin-Sayid, and nutso-Hurley were all visited by an undercover Locke, before his "suicide" (he's the body in the coffin from last year's finale); Sun, now a hardcore corporate type, is forging some kind of alliance with Charles Widmore; and Ben visited Jack with a proposition for getting back to the island, provided everyone - including Body of Locke - comes along.

6) Misc: Walt visited Hurley, and, uh...well, that's puberty for you. And a lot of other shit I can't remember happened, too. Come on, that was a pretty good recap there, considering I'm not getting paid by Television Without Pity, right?

How Good Was It?:
Very good, in the sense that the middle of a good book is good. Not at all satisfying on its own, but for what it sets up, hoooo-boy. This year's finale was all about prepping the structure and dropping hints for the next two years.

Which is to say: Now is not the time to jump on board with this show. If you've never watched it, borrow or Netflix the previous seasons. If you gave up during season 3 like everyone else, sit down with a friend who watches and prepare to ask a lot of questions that get flustered responses of "...Look, don't worry about that right now."

But god bless ABC for trying to get new viewers involved anyway, by occasionally airing one of their pop-up-info reruns, where a text box at the base of the screen tells you thinks it thinks you're apparently too stupid to piece together for yourself. Tidbits like, "Sawyer gives a lot of people nicknames," and "These are C4 explosives" during the scene where you can clearly read "C4" on the EXPLOSIVES the characters are all talking about.

Anyway.

My favorite character bits were the rare displays of deadpan humor. While Hurley and Sawyer (and Sayid, for a drier joking style) are usually the go-to comic relief characters, lately it's been Ben and Miles walking away with the prize:

When somewhat-psychic Miles tells Charlotte he knows she was on the island before, she cagily asks, "What do you mean?" to which he replies, mock-dumbly, "Yyeeaahh...what do I mean?" and walks away. And pretty much any time Ben has to explain anything to Locke, the two become the mystical-messiah equivalents of Laurel and freaking Hardy.

Did the Strike Hurt the Season?:
Yes and no. On the one hand, the tightened season forced them to streamline the story a little bit, which means there was virtually no filler on any episode. On the other hand, that meant the audience had a lot of paying attention to do, since there wasn't much slowing down to explain (which is going to make for a few frustrating episodes next year, I'm sure, as they actually spell out some things for the slower viewers).

Based on producer interviews, the short straws apparently got pulled by the new characters (the "freighties" - and let me just say now how sick I am of every little fucking thing getting a nickname on this show, especially when it gets referenced later BY A CHARACTER). Fleshing-out flashbacks for Miles, Charlotte, Frank and Daniel were planned but unfortunately postponed until next year. This does not bother me, because it ensures that four well-concocted new characters will get to stick around for at least one more season.

What I Hope Happens Next Year:

Man, that's a loaded question, since "what I hope for" versus "what the producers will give me" might likely be two very different things. But for the hell of it, here's what I think will happen:

1) The structure of the show will shift to the Oceanic 6, etc.'s attempts to return to the island as the main plot, with the island action taking the flashback role;

2) The time-tossed romance of Desmond Hume and Penny Widmore will remain a focal point - particularly as revenge-minded Ben (and by extension, Sayid) targets Charles Widmore's daughter, setting Desmond directly at odds with the rest of the cast;

3) More goddamn shit I can't reasonably explain.

2008-05-28T23:23:00.011-04:00

It's fun to look at failure. Yes, a few successes here and there, but at the end of the graduating TV Show class of 2007, it's nice to take some time and laugh at the dropouts.

So What Died Screaming?

NBC:
Bionic Woman: No loss. It was crap.
Journeyman: Slightly more of a loss. It was boring, but mostly because it had to set up the basic rules of its time-traveling premise before it could get into the interesting, weird territory - like "what if he accidentally changed the timeline?" A great big "oh well," with the hope that Kevin McKidd is now freed up for better things.

_________

CBS:
Cane: Hooray, now Nestor Carbenell can appear on "Lost" without any big contract issues!
Moonlight: Hooray, now I don't have to deal with people who never watched "Angel" telling me this show "really wasn't that bad"!
Jericho: Because my dear friend Pam and her family liked it, I will not laugh at the fact that CBS got the rare opportunity to cancel a show twice. Heh. (That was a snicker, not a laugh!)

___________

ABC:
Nothing you didn't see coming during its first two weeks of airtime. Y'know. "Cavemen."
God, just look at that picture. Live and learn, ABC. Live and learn.

_________

FOX:
I feel a bit bad here. EVERYTHING they put out got cancelled this year, save for "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles." Granted, none of it was much good, but who knows? Maybe "New Amsterdam" might've gotten better. I mean, I stopped watching two episodes in, but I keep my ear to the ground, y'know?

So What, Through Whatever Arcane Means, Survived?
Here's the neat thing about the surviving fall shows: because of the strike, anything that wrapped up its season around, say, December, will be getting a huge push in the fall, like they're brand-new series. The problem with that? Count on a few pain-in-the-ass "Getting the newbies up to speed" episodes that are utterly redundant to returning viewers. Que serra.

NBC:
Chuck: Blandly pleasant to the point of being incorporeal, but as long as Adam Baldwin has a job, I'm happy.
Life: I actually heard this (also bland) Zen Detective series got better as it went along. Might be worth Netflixing the DVD, I'll let you know.

_________

CW:
Reaper: Once again - heard it got a little more involved during later episodes, so it'll be back by mid-season. It was a fun enough show, but repetitive stories and slack pacing put it on the back, back, back burner for me. Once again, if the DVD's worth it, I'll tell you.

_________

ABC:
Pushing Daisies: Yaaaaaaay!
Dirty Sexy Money: Really? Huh. Okay.
Eli Stone: Oh, COME ON.

_________

CBS:
The Big Bang Theory: Jeez, really? I guess people who don't actually hang out with nerds enjoy the vicarious thrill.

________

Fox:
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Just like with "Chuck," as long as fellow "Firefly" alum Summer Glau has a regular gig, I'm happy. And one more time, say it with me now: we'll see if the season 1 DVD's any good. Apparently, the show really pulled together once they introduced Brian Austin Green's character. That's one of those sentences you never expect to write.

++++

Next: "Lost" finale
Upcoming: The absolute abortion that appears to be the fall season; and: What the hell are you gonna watch during the summer?

Stick with us, TV watcher. Just because the season's over, it doesn't mean the Global Stronghold's shutting down.

"Puppy Bowl"'s Biggest Fan

2008-05-22T23:09:00.014-04:00

(Guest-written by Molson, lead hench-dog at the I Speak TV Global Stronghold)

Hi everyone! Hi! Hi!

I just saw this TV show, and it's the best TV I've ever been distracted by! Oh, boy, is it great!

It's better than the commercial where a doorbell rings, which always excites me. And it's better than that other commercial where there's a dog in it. That one was pretty cool, but not like this.

This show - no, that's not right, it's more like sports. I'm not sure what sports are. I know they make some of the people around here bark at the TV. But it never barks back, which I think is maybe a bit mean.

Anyway, it's called "Puppy Bowl," and on it? Right? There are dogs! Dogs like me! And they run around, and they drink water, and they play, and they play, and they play! Oh boy, is it great! I said that already, but it still is!

The other dogs run around and look right out at the screen, and it's like they want me to play with them. So I stand up and bark, right? But not like how the other people do it, I'm not mad at them, I want them to know I like them, and I wanna play with them too!

And y'know what? They bark back! And then they run around more! It's the greatest thing ever!

Someone here just said the word "hyperbole." I don't know what that is, but I'll bet it's fun!

But I'll bet it's not as fun as watching "Puppy Bowl" all day! I'll bet I could. But watching it sorta tired me out, so I'm gonna go take a nap wherever the guys here like to walk around a lot.

Hey, that reminds me: Isn't walking fun? Aw, man, sometimes I just walk for...ooh boy...sleepy. How do these people type all the tatk;js s;kadl; tkj;oiare;ajrkej;goiar;ejig;geihoh'eoeaoihgiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

(Guest columnist Molson is a professional small dog who has lived in the ISTV Global Stronghold for as long as he can remember. It is a length of time impressive only to him. In his role as lead hench-dog, he is chief engineer of barking at imaginary noises he thinks he hears.)

Your Buddy, Your Pally, Your Season Finale: "House"

2008-05-20T23:54:00.005-04:00

What Happened, Basically: The show did its semi-annual break with the formula in order to indulge in some pretty interesting "House solves a case based on his own fractured memories/hallucinations." Eventually, it's revealed that the mystery victim is Amber (formerly fellowship candidate "Cut-throat Bitch" and currently Wilson's girlfriend/walking external spine). Who then DIES, forcing Robert Sean Leonard to pull on his puffy thespian pants and do some hardcore Acting. I tease – he did a hell of a job with one of the saddest scenes in the series.

How Good Was It?: The potential crapness of going back into House's brain for a finale after it was already done to finish Season Two was offset by the emotional resonance and genuine shock of Amber's accident/death. And the gaping implausibility of House being up and around after suffering a skull fracture and a heart attack was eased by Hugh Laurie's intrinsic awesomeness (actually, the entire cast was just acting the hell out of this two-parter).
This is par for the course with "House," as it has slowly but surely given up on pretensions of plausibility while remaining a solidly entertaining hour of TV.

Did the Strike Hurt the Season: Hoo-boy, did it. The only benefit – breaking right after choosing the three new cast members gave it a kind of "intermission" feeling – was lost by not having nearly enough episodes to properly balance the newbies with the older cast (even though they seemed to have fun finding different ways to cram Jesse Spencer into an episode – he's House's bowling buddy! He knows surgical hypnosis! – or, alternatively, having him bolt out of the main plot at the earliest convenience).

What I Hope Happens Next Year: 1) They come up with a half-plausible reason for putting an intensive care physician in charge of the surgery department, and an immunologist in charge of the ER (while leaving Foreman, an actual neurosurgeon, in Diagnostic Medicine)…I mean, really, show; 2) They strike a better balance between the Dangerous Drug Addict House of Season 3 and the Wacky Uncle Misanthrope House of Season 4. This was hinted at by the last episode, where House was able to admit to Amber in dream how deeply unhappy he really is. And coupled with his guilt over his perceived complicity in Amber's death, an interesting character arc may have been set up for Season 5. (Then again, they jettisoned three main characters at the end of last season without a good plan for getting out of that one, so…)

Your Buddy, Your Pally, Your Season Finale: A Comedy Tonight!

2008-05-19T23:16:00.023-04:00

(About the title, I'm sorry. The Global Stronghold's atomic title generator hasn't worked right ever since our lead hench-dog pooped on the controls.)

Finale: "The Office"

What Happened, Basically: Jim's attempted proposal to Pam was derailed by Andy's impromptu proposal to Angela; Ryan's coke-fueled business fraud led to his arrest; and Michael actually managed to flirt successfully with new HR rep Amy Ryan before getting blindsided by the return of a pregnant (but not by Michael-seed...sorry for that phrase, really) Jan. Also, Amy Ryan was under the mistaken impression that Kevin was retarded - an impression Kevin did nothing to dissuade.

How Good Was It?: Pretty damn good. The show manages to keep the Jim-Pam dynamic fresh by just letting them be a fun, pleasant couple who make sense together (without being cloying) while successfully shifting the "Will they/Won't they" thing to, of all people, Dwight and Angela. And Michael's unhappy return to Jan because he's going to be "kind of a daddy" underscored the season's overarching plot of abusing Michael's life at every turn just to see if he eventually notices how bad shit has gotten (they whipped Jim and Pam around for three seasons, so it's only fair to aim the misery in a new direction).

Did the Strike Hurt the Season?: Yeah, a little. Even though it more or less added up to a full run thanks to the front end's double-episodes, they clearly had to rush some plot points, like the Ryan-as-morally-bankrupt-yuppy thing and the resulting Ryan-Jim animosity (which really could've used a few more episodes to breathe). Still...minor issues they can certainly handle more fully next year - here, and on the upcoming top-secret spin-off. (Also, according to Jenna Fischer's blog, they were as bummed about what got left out as anyone. So.)

What I Hope Happens Next Year: 1) They don't try screwing with the Jim-Pam relationship (note to TV producers still twitchy about romantic chemistry because of fucking "Moonlighting" 20 years ago: Sometimes two people get together and it's NICE and it WORKS); 2) Amy Ryan comes back, and they don't ever bother explaining to her that Kevin's not retarded (this is a joke that could go on for years!); 3) The spin-off doesn't suck, and features Toby.

+++++

Finale: "How I Met Your Mother"

What Happened, Basically: Wow, fuck if I know. Turns out, if you miss the first ten minutes of this show, the rest of it makes no sense. None. All the running gags and themes are set up by the first commercial break, and if you don't tune in by then...damn!

How Good Was It?: To the extent that I understood it? Well, the Barney-Ted reconciliation was sweet, and Barney's realization of his burgeoning love for Robin is even sweeter.

Did the Strike Hurt the Season?: No, if anything it helped. I'm a big proponent of the cable model of 13-episode seasons, so the shortened run meant the focus of the season - Ted's foray into Barneydom, its consequences, and how he got back on track - was a lot tighter and more meaningful (particularly when you see that while The Maturation of Ted is the main point of the show, The Accidental Maturation of Barney has been a great through-line of the season).

What I Hope Happens Next Year: 1) The Mother is introduced (I'm not convinced it's Sarah Chalke's character just yet) and we can start some kind of end run (since this is a show with a built-in expiration date - how people in their twenties learn to become Real Adults - and if you want to see what happens once a show goes past the end of that theme, go ahead and watch "Scrubs" [see below]); 2) the Barney-Robin relationship is explored intelligently (read: not annoyingly - see previous "Moonlighting" nervousness).

+++++

Finale: "30 Rock"

What Happened, Basically: Pregnancy scare for Liz (really scary when you consider it was almost noogie-extolling Beeper King Dennis); Jack Donaghey suffered through a position in the Bush Administration while inspiring his new best friend, the Bush-nicknamed "Cooter Burger" ("No crying in the bathtub for me tonight!"); Tracy successfully completed the world's first porno video game.

How Good Was It?: For the second straight year, "30 Rock" has created a unique blend of absurdist political humor (even Proud Republican Jack is embarrassed by the current administration's lack of anything approaching logic - or pens), sincere character development (Liz's muddied attempts to get her life both successful and fulfilling, without any real idea how normal people do that), and just flat-out lunatic bits (the porno videogame). I love this show so much.

Did the Strike Hurt the Season?: Yeah. The short run meant the many secondary and tertiary characters were pretty much MIA (Toofer? Pete? Hello?), and the show's ability to meander into quirkily inconsequential sideplots went with them. (And recent interviews have shown Tina Fey is totally aware how beloved all the side characters are, and will make pains next year to include them.)

What I Hope Happens Next Year?: An honest-to-god plotline for Pete Hornberger. Also, seeing just a little bit of that porno video game might not hurt.

+++++

Finale: "Scrubs"

What Happened, Basically: The creators had an exhaustive group-wank over their love for The Princess Bride and did a fantasy-retelling of a medical case. It was about as funny as the last episode of "The Simpsons." And if you didn't bother to see the last episode of "The Simpsons,"...well, that should tell you a lot.

How Good Was It?: Seriously, we only watched it because we were waiting for "The Office." It's fucking terrible these days. Though it is evilly fun to watch Zach Braff's face age into grotesque fishiness (enjoy your character-actor bits as an old man, you pompous jackass!).

Did the Strike Hurt the Season?: Through mind-boggling logic, it actually helped this increasingly annoying series, as they somehow earned a "farewell" season on ABC next year, even though all its characters and plotlines were exhausted by the end of season 3, and now everyone on it is just annoying as all hell.

What I Hope Happens Next Year: An asteroid falls on the hospital two minutes into the first episode; only Dr. Cox survives, and in minute three he goes home to his wife and kids and shuts the door behind the viewing audience so we don't have to watch any more of this heartbreak that used to be an amusing series.

+++++

Tomorrow: "House"

Late Next Week: "Lost"

Inbetween: Hey, remember how there were all those fall shows that got totally sideswiped by the writers strike? We're going to talk about them - or what's left of them. Also "24" and "Heroes" will be discussed. Because if we don't talk about them when they're not on, how do we know they exist?

(Oh yeah, DVDs. Well, still.)

I Hate TV: Commercials

2008-05-15T00:11:00.006-04:00

Here at the ISTV Global Stronghold, tensions are running high. The minions are getting twitchy, no matter how many times they receive the poke of the Cattle Prod of Doom.

Maybe it’s the sudden end of the truncated 2008-2009 television season. Maybe it’s a sense of dread when the announcements of new fall shows all read as painfully as they do. Maybe it’s a recent reminder that, in defiance of GOD'S WILL, “According to Jim” continues to draw breath.

As a response to the morale issues, work on our orbiting death ray has accelerated.

Target one: commercials that offend our senses (Target two: Jim Belushi).

In any event, until the laser is operational, the minions have had to get creative in their terrorism. So they've taken to simply rewriting their commercial-nemeses, for clarity and honesty:

“Sex in the City: The Movie”:
One of the four women: EEEEEEEE!!!
Another: HAHAHAHAHAHA.
All of them: EEEEEEEHAHAHAHAHAHA!
(Martini glasses clink together)
[Repeat, over, and over, and over, until excruciating.]

+++++

KY Massage Products:
Man: When my clearly upper-class girlfriend and I are doing something that isn’t explicitly referred to as “sex,” we like and/or need to use this product. Which we are not explicitly referring to as “sex lube.”
Woman: Because we’re pretty sure you can’t say “sex lube” on American TV commercials.
Man: Certainly not on primetime network TV. Man, how’d we even get on during “Lost”?
Woman: By agreeing not to say “sex lube,” dear.
Man: That’s right, honey. Hey, wanna do something on this bed we’re sitting on that is likely but not specifically referred to as “sex”?
Woman: Do I! Hey, bring the not-necessarily-sex-lube!

...And yes, we have a team examining the feasibility of TiVo within the Stronghold.

I Hate TV: NBC

2008-05-12T22:05:00.007-04:00

Watching the otherwise perfect "30 Rock"/"The Office" block, an anger arose in me. Not because of the shows - "30 Rock"'s season finale was awesome, with only one minor complaint - NOT ENOUGH PETE HORNBERGER! - and "The Office" wasn't the best of the season, meaning it was only really hilarious and not astoundingly hilarious.

But I couldn't shake the nagging feeling of irritation.

As luck would have it, a Locke-centric episode of "Lost" gave my brain a nice, trauma-induced case of amnesia, so it took a few days to remember what had pissed me off so much.

Today, it all came back to me, in increasingly hurtful stages.

First, I remembered promos for "Deal or No Deal." Thanks to the summer, this show will actually INCREASE ITS PRESENCE. (I hear as a follow-up to GW's appearance, Dick Cheney will show up to shoot the banker in the face!)

Then the memories of the flop-sweat extravaganza that is "Last Comic Standing" flooded my memory. This is a showcase for excruciating mediocrity masquerading as standup comedy that, four years ago, was getting such deservedly bad ratings that its finale results were announced during a John Goodman-voiced animated sitcom (also cancelled after six episodes). And yet, it's summertime, so the thinking is, "You assholes will watch anything, won'tcha?" And to really rub that in, it's often hosted by Jay Mohr, whose mere presence screams "There is a God, and he fucking hates you."

This gaze into the abyss was jarring enough to unlock the final bit of trauma from my brain:

Blammo.

This summer, I will be watching "Lost" from the beginning, season 2 of "The Sopranos," and I might just get into "Battlestar: Galactica."

I will NOT be watching NBC.

(Does anyone remember when NBC felt like the "smart" network? When it ran "The West Wing," and Tina Fey wrote "SNL" so it wasn't absolutely horrible? Turn of the century NBC. Good times.)

On The Web

2008-05-06T00:38:00.003-04:00

Taking it easy on I Speak TV this week. Waiting for the seasons to wind down before delivering final marks on Lost, House, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, and 30 Rock once their finales air. (Though I believe there will be a brief reminder of those fall shows, like Heroes and Pushing Daisies...remember them?)

In the meantime, the new Summer Movie A-Go-Go series begins over at sister-site Future Blues, with a review of Iron Man.

And Threat Quality Press opens its doors this week, where quality writing will be afoot. I'll be posting new essays every Thursday. New short fiction will be available from one of our writers every Friday, too.

So:

GO!
Future Blues
GO!

and

GO!
Threat Quality
GO!

I DEFY You to Be More Boring

2008-04-30T09:51:00.004-04:00

Not a bold statement to say I like to be caught up on entertainment news. TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, the usual stuff. And so I can speak with some authority when I say I have found The Most Boring Entertainment News Headline of All Time:

"George Eads to Cameo on 'Two and a Half Men.' "

I read that and thought, "Wow. It is not possible for me to care less about any aspect of this headline."

And then I thought, "There's someone out there reading this, and getting really excited."

This is why I Speak TV exists: To keep you from turning into them.

The Doctor Has Lovely Comedic Timing

2008-04-24T23:56:00.004-04:00

Okay, before I get into specifics, I offer a quick description of “Doctor Who,” because I feel like there’s always someone who has no idea what I’m talking about ("Wasn't he a curly-haired dude with a long scarf?") when I mention the very, veeeerrry long-running BBC series:

“Doctor Who” is about a bright, eccentric, long-lived alien traveling space and time looking for adventure, while holding a deep, if sometimes frustrated, admiration for humanity and its potential. He travels with companions, people he encounters who want to see the universe along with him. After a lengthy hiatus, The Doctor returned a few years back, first as the gruff Christopher Eccleston, and the in his current incarnation ( the 10th so far - with each mortal wound, The Doctor "regenerates" as a new actor, which started mostly as a means of recasting the part without a lot of complaints) as David Tennant, whose chatty enthusiasm belies a lonely heart.

Now then, everyone caught up? Good, because “Doctor Who” returns to the Sci-Fi Channel tonight at 9 PM. Yes, yes, last week it belatedly aired the 2007 Christmas special, but, y’know. That was Christmas. What has “Doctor Who” done for us lately?

It brought Catherine Tate back is what.

Tate was the titular character in the 2006 special “The Runaway Bride,” where she had two settings: loud/angry, and loud/sad. This is not a complaint, mind you, just an observation – Tate’s Donna Noble character was designed as something of a palate-cleanser to get audiences used to the loss of Rose Tyler, before introducing new companion Martha Jones.

Well now they’re both gone, so it’s time to introduce a new companion for The Doctor. Rather than go the previous route – young women attracted to The Doctor (and let’s face it, who could blame them, Tennant’s adorable!) – the producers decided to introduce a character who could not possibly be less interested in him In That Way. When he fumblingly admits that he doesn’t want any romantic awkwardness for a change, blurting, “I just…I just want a mate,” she mishears his genuinely vulnerable plea for, well, a buddy, and disgustedly assumes that this twiggy alien “wants to mate.”

This is after an opening half-hour that doles out a lot of just-missed-each-other physical comedy.
So this season looks to be a little heavier on the comedic aspects available to both the actors and the show, while giving the lead a good foil, a friend who's willing to occasionally kick him in the ass for a change. If what I’ve read is true, this might just be to soften us up before bringing back all the current run's ersatz companions (Rose, Martha, and Captain Jack Harkness).

With this many former cast members in place, fans can assume we’re heading into a seriously apocalyptic season-ender. Well, okay, another seriously apocalyptic season-ender.

“Doctor Who” does some heartbreakingly great finales. Because they all signify some kind of loss for the series (first Eccleston, then Rose, then Martha). If the rumors are true, this one might just culminate with the loss of David Tennant, as he regenerates into his 11th incarnation (possibly Robert Carlyle, an interesting choice).

Coping with change is a pet theme of "Doctor Who," but still, I’d really miss David Tennant. The old saw goes that everyone has “their” Doctor – the one they get attached to, because he’s the one they meet first. Eccleston was my Doctor, but Tennant by the beginning of season 3 had really made the role his own, and so now when I think of the character, his is the version that springs to mind. So if this season is going to be his swan song, I hope to hell they can avoid too many crap middle episodes (every season starts and ends spectacularly, but inbetween, hoo-boy, does quality vary).

But that's all for later. But not much later, which is nice. For once, Sci-Fi is airing the episodes only a month after their BBC premieres, so I won’t feel four months behind for a change.

Nobody Watched It But Me: "Threshold"

2008-04-23T22:52:00.005-04:00

The Show:

"Threshold" (CBS, 2005)

The Premise:
Alien colonization via mathematical patterning and sub-audio signals is opposed by a Red Team of misfit scientists.

What Made It Special:
Aside from the nicely modern take on an invasion (echoing an issue of Warren Ellis's "Global Frequency"), the main draw was the top-to-bottom excellent cast. Carla Gugino plays intelligent and career-minded without ever going for the hard-ass-woman cliché; Brent Spiner's doctor seems to genuinely dislike his circumstances and the people around him; Peter Dinklage gives a blithe perviness to his self-destructive linguist.
But maybe the best surprise is Brian Van Holt (who, god bless him, went on to “John From Cincinnati,” potentially a future “Nobody Watched It But Me” entry) as the reserved black ops agent assigned to the group. Initially I thought he was too bland to deliver on the quiet menace I thought the character should have, but eventually it dawned on me that they were playing him like a lot of cops and criminals talk about the toughest guys they know: because he IS a badass, he has no need for grandstanding or bravado.
He gets the series’ best moment, too. After successfully defusing an armed standoff with a bunch of kids by using WORDS AND LOGIC, he puts down his rifle and, in lieu of any line of dialogue to cap off the tense scene, just sort of exhaustedly breathes out, “Pfffhhhh.”

Signs It Was Going Somewhere/Signs of Wear and Tear:
Usually this is easy to divide into two sections. But this show could be so frustratingly uneven that its good and bad blur together.
For instance, ignoring the amazing pilot (on which it appears they spent all of the budget meant for the rest of the series), week-to-week it would be a mediocre-to-just-above-average series. No visual style, dialogue mostly made up of these very smart people explaining things to each other that they already know, and great plot ideas that are pretty dully executed.
So yes, mediocre shows – that is, until the last five minutes of most every episode, which would usually end with either a pathetically minor victory, or a catastrophic revelation, both of which regularly implied that the Red Team was LOSING (example: one episode ends with Spiner realizing, "They've gotten into the food supply," which is NOT followed by, "To Be Continued").
(According to exec producer David Goyer, this wasn't accidental – their three-year plan would have seen Gugino's "Threshold" protocol escalate to "Foothold," and finally "Stranglehold," as the alien threat became overwhelming.)
This sense of losing ground on the battle escalated with every episode, but by the time it became apparent that that was part of the overall design, the show had been canned – before the last four episodes even aired.

Why No One Watched:
This was the year after "Lost" landed, and every network excitedly tried its hand at a sci-fi show. All of them crashed and burned, after which networks figured maybe people enjoyed the serialized aspect of "Lost" (a theory they watched fail the next pilot season). It didn't help that what was essentially a horror/sci-fi hybrid was sitting on CBS's normally soft-touch Friday night lineup (currently home to the reasonably successful "Ghost Whisperer," so there you are).

Where You Can Catch It:
The Sci-Fi Channel and the digital Universal Channel periodically offer reruns, but you can catch it most easily by Netflixing the DVD release.

Where You've Seen It Since:
If you check out Wikipedia, apparently it's been seen even earlier, as a reminiscent BBC series called "UFO." But since then, aliens haven't been too popular on TV or in film – the Nicole Kidman Body-Snatchers remake tanked horribly, if I recall.
Other than “Lost,” the only sci-fi TV shows with any presence – “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (which is likely picked up for a second season), and “Battlestar: Galactica” - are about robots who want to destroy us all.
I wonder if that's a sign of something. I'm no sociologist, but what does it say when we can hack apocalyptic robots, but don't really want aliens in our pop culture anymore?

OMG You Guys Jim and Pam Squeeeeee!!!!

2008-04-19T00:13:00.006-04:00

When the American version of the British series "The Office" was concocted, I wasn't terribly optimistic at the notion of NBC developing a show that was so...British...in tone. When I say "British," I think I mean "soul-crushingly hopeless." Check your thesaurus.

The BBC "Office" was more tragedy than comedy. It mined its jokes from the exhausting futility of day-to-day existence. No good deed went unpunished, no character ever really won. For example, when Tim (Jim here in the states) professed his love to Dawn (Pam - but you probably figured that out) in the series finale, she shot him down. It was only in the concluding Christmas special that they threw fans a bone by getting them together.

How to get romantic leads together without killing dramatic tension has plagued TV writers since "Moonlighting." This season, the American "Office" seems to have found the answer: shift the focus away from the romantic leads, onto the unspoken agony that is Michael Scott's life.

This is the first time since the opening six-episode season that the series has summoned up the bleak nature of the original. Now that Jim and Pam are together, we don't really have to worry about them - we can look at other things. Particularly, how fucking awful it is to be Michael Scott. Meaningless job, cruel lunatic girlfriend, and the inability to really make it better, because despite his best efforts, he has no idea how to effectively interact with other people.

Some of the most recent episodes have been the darkest in tone, but not just because they showed how bad Michael's corporate and work lives have gotten. They also showed that just because Jim Got The Girl, didn't mean his life was automatically great. His stint as substitute boss in "Survivorman" implied that without a certain level of self-awareness, he actually could become Michael. And in "Dinner Party," when he seriously pondered abandoning Pam at Michael and Jan's psychodrama of a get-together, 'shippers everywhere got a sign that Jim might not be the perfect boyfriend.

But it also made the couple that much more realistic.

If this were a shitty TV show, Jim would be in the doghouse with Pam and have to make a grand gesture to win back her trust. But it's not. At its best, "The Office" does its best to mirror reality, and so we saw that the two worked it out like they actually would - through playful ribbing, rather than a Big Important Fight.

And yet this past episode, "The Chairmodel," where Jim revealed that he bought an engagement ring "the week [they] started dating," all I could think was, "Oh fuck, they're going to break them up." This is Ross-and-Rachel disease - the (often network-generated) notion that to keep the high drama going, you need more ups and downs in the relationship.

But "The Office" isn't about high drama. It's about little victories, a series theme echoed in the last episode by Kevin - who had recently been dumped by his fiancee (off-screen, which should piss him off, considering all the time the documentary crew devotes to Jim and Pam) - successfully reclaimed the staff's parking spaces, and sheepishly admitted, "It's nice to win one."

So I'm really hoping that the writers think of Pam and Jim together as just a little victory. It won't change the world, or even their workplace, but it would be a rare case of something going right for a change. Like Kevin said. It'd be nice to win one.

Stop Laughing, Laff-Bot!

2008-04-16T22:46:00.006-04:00

Okay, Lewis Black's "Root of All Evil" has been on enough weeks for me to make an absolute judgement.

This show kinda sucks. But not for the reasons I expected.

The first problem is that Lewis Black is very funny when his stand-up routines are filmed. There is no doubt. I have seen him taped, I've seen him live, and he's a funny guy. But the minute the scent of a script whiffs off him, all humor evaporates.

(For instance: the funniest parts of "Accepted," a generally enjoyable film in which Black plays the counterfeit dean of a fake college, actually occurs during the bloopers, where Black tries like hell to get through a scene without cursing - which was apparently quite difficult.)

But that's actually okay, when you compare it to the worst part: the LaffTrack2000.

It's depressing. Because these are professional comedians, and they know their business quite well. We're talking about Greg Giraldo, Andy Kindler, and Patton Oswalt (who fares the best, but I am biased because he's my favorite comedian). They know how to get laughs out of people. But at some point during the filming of this show, the producers apparently decided the audience laughs needed "punching up."

Except they didn't seem to have much money, because it seems like it's the same guy laughing raucously at any joke Oswalt delivers.

I love Patton Oswalt. And that's why it really pisses me off to hear a robot laughing randomly at his jokes.

So...go watch one of Patton Oswalt's comedy specials, available on Netflix. Otherwise, simply avoid watching robo-laff-bot-2000 patronize the comedians on "Lewis Black's 'Root of All Evil'."

+++++

Meanwhile, I'm not exactly one to talk shit on "The Daily Show." Love it. Get most of my daily news from there. I won't lie. The writer's strike hurt a lot of us, in a lot of different ways.

But does it seem like lately, the show is at its least effective when they do their little pre-taped skits (which always feels like a "Here's why we employ writers!" kind of forced bit)?

But they're at their best when don't do anything more ambitious than compiling a montage of horrendous CNN footage that shows cable news networks to be, at best, retarded and irresponsible, and at worst, the real Root of All Evil that Lewis Black can't even get to because he's too busy trying Paris Hilton against Dick Cheney?

Cartoon Week: Some Crazy Damn Stuff

2008-04-10T22:41:00.006-04:00

Wrapping up this week of animated chicanery is the whole reason I wanted to talk about cartoons in the first place (other than the need to get content up every week).

During the mid-90's, Fox must have been really proud of "The Tick." Here it had an absurdist take on superheroes that was hilarious and well-received. So why wouldn't they try to adapt another indie humor comic? Why NOT try to make "Sam and Max: Freelance Police" into a cartoon?

It would be so easy! McGruff the Crime Dog and his rabbit sidekick solving wacky crimes - fun for all ages!

And fun it was. It was also absolutely batshit insane.

"Sam and Max" was a Tex Avery cartoon jacked up on cocaine and acid. Sam (the dog) and Max (the "rabbity thing") are at once unflappable and over-enthusiastic about everything that comes their way - mole men, moon men, sea monsters, their stalker - but they might also be borderline sociopaths. I could try to explain further, but I think I'll just let this line of dialogue sum it up:

(Sam and Max are on the moon, without any kind of space suits.)
Sam: So let me get this straight - we can breath here, then?
Max: I guess those prissy, paranoid astronauts never had enough spine to try it.

There you go. These are characters perfectly okay with calling astronauts pussies. Also, they made many mentions of not wearing underwear.

The show's recently been released on DVD, and the 11-minute episodes vary from okay to "Holy crap, how much violence can they gleefully advocate on a kids show, anyway?" awesome.

A taste is free:

Sam: Gee, I don't know anyone who would harm helpless kittens.
Max: Here, let me.

Max: Cooperate, and you will be slapped around without incident.

Sam: It's sort of fitting that Lorne would make his home down in the bowels of that funhouse.
Max: Huh. That's the first time I've ever heard the word "bowels" and "funhouse" in the same sentence.
Sam: Get used to it!

Sam: The path of violence can never lead to harmony.
Max: Now you're just being ridiculous.

And if that didn't sell you, well here. Have some episode.

+++++

Next week: We've got NEW TV! "The Office!" "Doctor Who!" "Hell's Kitchen!" Not at all likely to be in that order.

Cartoon Week: Is He Strong? Listen, Bud...He's Got Radioactive Blood

2008-04-09T18:19:00.010-04:00

Like Batman, Spider-Man's been adapted into cartoon form multiple times, starting with his first series 1967, which, in its infinite glory, gave us this:

(I can actually play this on the ukulele, and weirdly enough, at a slower tempo, it sounds a lot like the M. Ward cover of "Let's Dance.")

In the early 80's, Peter Parker was a swingin' college cat hanging with his buddies Iceman and Firestar in "Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends." Even as a small child, I always thought of them as "Spidey's bickering hangers-on," but hey, I was a cynical four-year-old.

The 90's gave us a "Spider-Man" that heavily referenced 80's-era comics stories and featured a ton of really awkward CGI backgrounds and recycled stock animation. Which is to say, it wasn't very good. The less said of its sequel, "Spider-Man goes to a parallel earth run by manimals," the better.

After the first movie came out, MTV released "Spider-Man: The New Animated Series." It was basically in the movie's continuity, but as a result, couldn't really use any of his villains, before they were introduced in the films. Which meant apart from The Lizard (voiced by Rob Zombie, if you can believe it), there were a lot of made-for-MTV villains. Which is about as good as it sounds. On the plus side, the animation (much, much more advanced CGI) was really interesting when moving, and Neil Patrick Harris did a fantastic job voicing Peter Parker, despite not being outwardly awesome.

But this year the reboot button got hit again, and Saturday mornings are the home of the recently-premiered "Spectacular Spider-Man." From what I've seen, it's really entertaining. It might be because the 16-year-old Peter Parker in this series:

resembles another energetic young go-getter:

In fact, all the designs resemble Bryan Lee O'Malley's "Scott Pilgrim" series, and that's fine by me. The show is light and fun, frequently humorous, and the hassles Peter has to deal with are...actually very much in the vein of the "teenager struggling with responsibility" story engine Stan Lee started and Brian Michael Bendis perfected.

Example: in one episode, to help Aunt May pay some bills, Peter enters and wins a Spider-Man photo contest, and is offered more work by the Bugle - if he gets a camera that might actually be capable of taking a professional picture. The dilemma: does he use the prize money to buy a new camera with the idea of using later income to help Aunt May, or does he stick with the original plan, which doesn't help him out at all?

This is the "real" story. On the surface, yes, The Shocker (hee-hee) is zapping the hell out of him (hee-hee-hee!), but what's really important? Peter having to make a hard choice any kid could understand.

This is why Spider-Man works in animation in ways Batman never could. Batman is a cold perfectionist. Spider-Man's just tryin' to help out, man. Bruce Wayne is a resourceful billionaire. Peter Parker's a kid trying like hell not to disappoint anyone.

It's the relatability-factor that, when you stick to the basics, makes Spider-Man a timeless, all-ages character.

(Unless he's stuck on an alternate earth with manimals. Oh, and a nanotech-costume, did I mention the nanotech-costume? God, the 90's were awful.)

Next Up: An absolutely balls-out crazy mid-90's FOX cartoon based on an underground comic. And it's NOT "The Tick."

Cartoon Week: My Batman

2008-04-07T21:21:00.013-04:00

Welcome to Cartoon Week here at the Global Stronghold.

I love Saturday morning cartoons. Always have. It's such a pleasant idea, and one I never entirely let go of, I'll confess. It didn't help any that at age 12, the exact time when I should have been growing out of it, Warner Bros. released "Batman: The Animated Series."

It was gorgeous. Stylized deco designs, setting the Dark Knight Detective in a world permanently covered in expressionistic 40's noir. Led by the designs of Bruce Timm and the writing of Paul Dini, the best of the shows told stories that were damn near Twilight Zone in their exploration of irony and moral ambiguity. The bad guys were all nuts, yes, but we understood why, and even to a certain extent sympathized with them. And of course, the lead himself. This version of Batman - dark and aloof like you expect but with a certain nobility and heart - carried through into multiple incarnations, including an 80-year-old version of himself in the much-better-than-it-should've-been spinoff "Batman Beyond" and as the smartest man in the room featured in Cartoon Network's often-epic "Justice League."

(How cool was Batman in "Justice League," you ask? Wonder Woman was totally into him.)

So it took some getting used to when the WB started a totally new, unrelated series titled, "The Batman." Scrapping any sense of noir, it instead borrowed heavily from anime. This Batman was young, state-of-the-art, and all his fighting moves sent him jumping 20 feet in the air and lingering for a while.

It was...annoying. But while I personally was a bit disappointed at the lack of depth involved in this series, I had to admit: if I was 10 years old? This snazzy, action-packed Batman would've been pretty cool. Not my Batman, no. But...it was something.

So when Cartoon Network announced a new series, "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," which would pair the man himself with other stars of the DC universe, I thought, well, why not? Every young generation gets its own Bat.

And then I saw this.

Jeeeeez.

I have a four-year-old niece, Julia. For Christmas, because my sister mentioned that Julia was getting into superheroes, I bought a three-pack of "Justice League" action figures. Know who her favorite is? You got it. But in particular, she likes it when I do the Batman Voice. Gruff, low, and irritable. Look at this Batman again.

He is too light and cute for a four-year-old.

But it's okay. I'm sure my one-year-old nephew will adore him. And in a couple of years, Julia will be old enough for My Batman. I've got some DVDs I can play her some Saturday morning.

Next up? I'll give you a hint: he does whatever a spider can.

That's right.

Underdog.

No, just screwing with you.

No One Watched It But Me: "Brimstone"

2008-03-31T22:41:00.008-04:00

How can you tell I really love television? Because I keep coming back to it, no matter how many times it breaks my heart. My brain is littered with the memories of TV shows that, for one reason or another, just didn't make it.

Here at the ISTV Global Stronghold, we're preparing for a drought period. The mid-season shows are mostly wrapped up or canceled, and post-strike shows are a few weeks away (but reminder: new "Office" this week). So now feels like a good time to introduce a new semi-regular feature, a trip into a storied past of shows that were well-loved by not very many people, but remembered fondly by all of them. A segment we're calling...

"TV Shows Watched By No One But Me"

The Show:
"Brimstone," Fox, 1998

The Premise:
Dead cop Ezekiel “Zeke” Stone, damned to Hell for murdering his wife's rapist, is recruited by the Devil to capture 113 escaped souls.

What Made It Special:
- First off, it was a good-looking show, employing the washed-out color palette style years before “CSI: NY” did it;
- It featured a lot of sharp, deadpan dialogue, which is easy to do when your second male lead is the Devil (John Glover, using his gleeful malevolence to full effect before “Smallville” made a cartoon out of him);
- It made clever use of the lead character’s natural limitations, such as his lack of funds beyond the daily $33 stipend that was in his pockets when he died; or, thanks to a 15-year culture gap, his burning desire for 1983’s favorite snack treat, a Reggie Bar;
- In one segment, Zeke bounces the show’s plot off hotel manager/aspiring writer Lori Petty; to his chagrin, she immediately reconceives it as “The God Squad,” believing Zeke’s premise to be too much of a downer nobody would be interested in (and I fully believe this was an actual producer's reaction to the show).

Sample Dialogue:
Father Horn: The Devil, he appears to you as a man?
Zeke: Yeah. He looks a lot like a kid I used to beat the crap out of in sixth grade…I’m sure that’s on purpose.

Signs It Was Going Somewhere Good:
With an open-minded priest and Lori Petty's hotel manager, the series kept adding interesting personalities to its supporting cast, smartly recognizing that Zeke would need to talk to someone other than the Devil to get things moving in new directions.

Signs It Might Not Have Been Going Anywhere At All:
About eight episodes in, it was pretty much the same episode every time: Ezekiel has to track down a soul; Ezekiel runs into problems killing it; Ezekiel figures out the trick and kills the soul, and has some wittily bitter banter with the Devil. Roll Credits.

Sign the Producers Knew They Didn’t Have Much Time Left:
Teri Polo's cop/love interest character is quickly and clumsily outed as one of the escaped souls. Really? Devil didn't notice that the detective helping Zeke out might be a little familiar?

Why No One Watched:
It aired on Fridays at 9. (SPOILER: This answer will show up a lot.)

Available on DVD?
Sure, if you search Torrentz and have a DVD burner. (Which I do. I love my "Brimstone" DVDs.)

Where You've Seen It Since:
The plot has been basically recycled – with no visual style, no sense of danger, and a languid sense of humor – as "Reaper," currently not being watched by a whole new generation on the CW.

I Was Watching "How I Met Your Mother" Before It Got All Trendy

2008-03-24T22:22:00.007-04:00

Tonight, "How I Met Your Mother" pulled its first major bit of "Will and Grace"-style celebrity stunt-casting, plopping Britney Spears into an extended cameo as a receptionist smitten with Ted.

Holy crap. Two entries mentioning Britney Spears in less than a week.

Something is amiss.

(And no, this isn't an unintentional crossover with Queen of Dirt - though you should be reading that blog, because you'll feel better catching up on celebrity horror than you would "accidentally" perusing TMZ.)

Anyway, for the five minutes of screentime she was given, it was a pretty clever character, with some solid jokes to be delivered. So here it is: Britney Spears wasn't bad. Would've been better if an actual, y'know, actress, had done the part. Someone who was expected to do more than show up on time with her lines memorized, who was maybe counted on to have a sense of comedic timing or something.

But hey, lookit! Britney Spears! (And really, that's the only reaction you can have, anytime she shows up: There is Britney Spears there, on the TV.)

Yeah, I'll admit it, I wasn't all that jazzed at hearing that our girl would be featured on this relatively obscure show. For a moment, I was actually beset upon by Indy Rock Syndrome. You're familiar with it. It's that uneasy feeling you get when new people start listening to a band you've been digging for years because they were featured on some commercial or something. (It is also known as "Pain in the Ass Snob Disorder.")

So yeah, for a little while, I got that irritable feeling that people might not be watching "How I Met Your Mother" for the right reasons. Then I realized that the possibility of introducing audiences to a show I like means it might not get canceled was a GOOD thing, so I unclenched a little.

So for all you out there who tuned in tonight because of a certain pop singer with a recent history of complete mental what-the-fuckness, welcome to "How I Met Your Mother." It's a good show, sometimes a little uneven, but it's got some great characters, strong running gags, and an honest-to-god, character-based premise, which is sort of rare for a sitcom.

Please enjoy it, and don't stop watching just because Britney won't be on every week. It's still good. Also, there's every possibility, based on past episodes, that someone from "Buffy" or "Freaks and Geeks" will show up in a bit part.

What do you MEAN you didn't watch "Buffy" or "Freaks and Geeks"?! Good god, I'm not sure we need your type of "viewer."

Shit! Shit, sorry. There goes the Syndrome again. Sorry. You're welcome here anytime.

Rube.

(Sorry! Really!)

"Lost": Half-Time Analysis

2008-03-20T23:24:00.002-04:00

If life here at the ISTV Global Stronghold has taught me anything about sports, it is that real team loyalty is an emotional rollercoaster. The highs are in the stratosphere, and the lows send your heart down to the molten core of the earth (where the Lava Men reside, I assume). Also, there is a LOT of violent cursing at the TV.

So I guess “Lost” is my local sports team. Fortunately for me, they’ve been doing very well this year.

We’re a little past the halfway point of season 4, taking a strike-necessitated break before the next half picks up in late April. So it’s time for an examination.

Last year, frustration had set in when it appeared that the show was seriously lacking in forward momentum. We got an episode showcasing Matthew Fox’s tattoo, and another solely devoted to killing off two unpopular late-entry characters. Rough stuff.

But the show was rejuvenated after that, helped by the announcement of a planned end-date, along with newfound frankness from the producers about the mysteries. Even better, by the start of this season, the overarching plot began to take shape. The audience finally had just enough details to make informed guesses on the real nature of the story.

Turns out, audiences couldn’t have possibly figured out the story, because characters absolutely crucial to the narrative had only barely been introduced 40-odd episodes in.

The Big Picture seems to revolve around a secret war being waged between bastard industrialist Charles Widmore (giant asshole) and island-native-wannabe Ben Linus (skeevy weirdo with possibly noble intentions). And caught in the middle is Desmond Hume, whose desperation to get back to his lost love has begun to form the emotional core of the series.

Desmond’s spotlight episode a few weeks back, “The Constant,” was easily the best of the year so far, and on the short list for best of the series. I won’t lie: Desmond and Penny’s phone conversation at the end was the most heart-wrenching moment of the series for me (the eyes, yes, they got a bit watery). For all the time-jumping and island weirdness and vague answers to straight-forward questions, we got to see what the stakes really are: “Lost” is a star-crossed love story. Romeo and Juliet stuck in “The Tempest.” (Thanks, English degree!)

Thus far, the only real misstep this year was Harold Perrineau’s loudly-announced return, six episodes before his “shocking” actual appearance (which kinda killed a dramatic reveal). But I think that’s offset by the show’s newfound ability to introduce new characters without them feeling tacked on or irrelevant (COUGHAnna-Lucia-Paulo and Nikki-Mr. EkoCOUGH). The squirrelly Jeremy Davies and gruffly languid Jeff Fahey characters have become two of my favorite reasons to watch the show.

So good for you, “Lost.” May you continue on this path to greatness, and not give us any more retarded flashback episodes that don’t mean a good goddamn. I’m rooting for you.

GO TEAM!

Damn, "South Park." I mean...damn.

2008-03-20T19:47:00.006-04:00

Well. That was pretty fucked up.

South Park manages to venture into some dark territory on occasion – here I'm thinking of Cartman feeding a boy his own parents and then tasting the kid's tears – but it's usually tempered with a goofy surrealist bent. Last night was a little different.

Last night was an honest-to-god horror story.

Granted, it wasn't an entirely new one, just one that took aspects of "The Lottery," "Wicker Man," and Chuck Pahlniuk's "Diary," but it was one of those rare times where the satire was so bleak and accusing that it was hard to laugh when the jokes occasionally rolled in.

The episode started with an unstable, despondent Britney Spears blowing her head off, and surviving…with three quarters of the head missing. Which stops absolutely no one from remarking how chubby and crazed she looks. When the boys realize that for god's sakes, think we need to leave this one alone, the citizens of South Park calmly reveal the truth: the need Britney to die, as part of a vague, indirect sacrifice. When she finally does die, the epilogue shows the townsfolk happily remarking on what a good corn crop this season has produced. Then they look up at a news story about Miley Cyrus, and sinisterly remark that the next harvest looks like it'll do just fine, too.

Haa…ha?

Rarely does "South Park" go so far into "A Modest Proposal" territory that it loses its humor, but holy crap. That was one grim damn episode.

Maybe I'm just a little touchy because I made that exact observation to someone a few months ago – "She's ours now, and apparently we need her to die," I believe was my remark – and now I feel both prescient and horrible.

So either "South Park," after 11 years, has finally succeeded in offending me...or it's just annoyed me by taking an off-hand sick joke I made and devoting 22 minutes to it.

Either way, as Stan and Kyle often do, I think I learned something today: apparently I just don't find the idea of a nearly-headless Britney Spears attempting to record an album all that funny.

Just to be clear, here:

This...

...does not offend me.

But the nearly-headless Britney sacrifice thing was maybe pushing it.

The First Annual ISTV Gentlemen's Wager

2008-03-20T19:42:00.002-04:00

Read this article: "Doc Diagnoses Brain Tumor Based on Handshake"

If this doesn't happen in the first ten minutes of the next "House" season premiere, I owe you all a Coke.

(If it does, you owe me the right to race your first-born for fun and profit. This is the way a gentlemen's wager works at the ISTV Global Stronghold.)

Joss Whedon Explains It All

2008-03-17T23:40:00.007-04:00

Feminism is a tricky thing for guys to really understand. It sucks, but it's true. We're raised a certain way. Or, more accurately, a lot of certain ways. A lot of guys are raised to be flat-out morons. Some are raised to be enlightened and understanding. Then there are guys like me, who are still trying to work out when it's okay to hold a door for a lady, so we're just kind of screwed from the get-go.

So thank god for Joss Whedon.

In addition to being an absolutely awesome writer and show-runner, he is also probably the most visible male feminist I know of (keep in mind, my focus is usually on TV, so I don't look terribly far). Every time I hear him speak, I Get It, just a little bit more.

It is in this spirit that I offer his 2006 Equality Now acceptance speech. Where he was introduced by Meryl Streep. So...damn. Good for you, man.

Anyway, it is in this speech that he offers so many answers on Why He Writes These Strong Women Types that it's like a crash-course in feminist theory for lunk-headed men like me.

Goddamn it, I hope "Dollhouse" doesn't get cancelled quickly.

Why Be a Detective, Again? (The Thrilling Conclusion to the "New Amsterdam" Diatribe)

2008-03-11T00:26:00.003-04:00

Ah. So there’s the interesting part.

The second episode of “New Amsterdam” is in many ways an improvement over the first. The standard reasoning is that a creative team has months to put together a solid pilot, but just a couple of weeks to get an entire series into production once they’re picked up. But between “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and this, I’m getting the sense that lately, creators are taking the second episode as a way of saying, “Okay, now that we’ve dealt with the set-up, here’s what the show is actually going to look like.”

And it don't look all that bad. Because in this episode, it was quickly revealed that the 65-year-old bar-owner, a bluesy old sass-talker who seemed destined to be “lead guy’s witty black friend,” was something more: the immortal detective’s son. Suddenly, things got a lot more interesting.

And then they got a lot less interesting, because we had to deal with another rote murder plot. Which once again begs the question: Why is this character a NYPD detective? What is the point here? We’ve seen that he can make money quickly and easily – and that he can easily forge identity papers. Why bother being a civil servant? Why not some eccentric immortal man-about-town who solves murders as a hobby?

(Answer: because that would make this a BBC series. We Americans like our heroes employed, dammit.)

A flashback shows that during the early ‘40’s, he tried his hand at being a lawyer, so at least we get the impression that at some point in his long, long life, John Amsterdam just started trying on careers for the hell of it. But the flashback – detailing, of all things, the birth of the 65-year-old bartender sidekick – is weird enough in its implications that, honestly: who gives a fuck about the murder investigation? (Not helping is the “tough-but-vulnerable lady-cop partner,” who, as far as I can tell is simply a bad actress, immediately sucking any potential personality from the procedural scenes.)

So there’s the question again: when you’ve got so many interesting ideas to play with, why sandwich it into a shitty police procedural? And yet this is not the biggest question. The biggest question, your honest-to-god “wha-huh?!” relates to how the character became immortal in the first place.

Just listen, because I am not exaggerating this at all. Centuries back, when the Dutch were slaughtering Indians on what would become Manhattan, our guy stepped in front of a sword to protect an innocent Indian woman. To save him, an old lady shaman patched him up and tossed some shaman-hoodoo his way, with the caveat that he will not grow old until he meets his true love.

This is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever typed in my life.

I can’t even begin to dissect what’s stupid about it because it defies all logic. It defies real-world logic (“Why would she bother to do that if she was apparently trying to save him?”) and story-telling logic (“Is this for any other reason than to sell a contrived romance plot?”).

So here I sit with a show about an immortal who works as a detective while trying to find his destined true love. Only one of these items deserves its own show, and only barely, without a lot of work.

As it stands, based on ratings, the viewing public – this would be the post-“American Idol” viewing public, please note, who will generally just keep the channel on for whatever the hell comes afterwards, because despite their phone-voting prowess, they are somehow not what we would call "taste-makers" – could not have given less of a shit about this show, so I doubt it will last longer than the time it takes me to finish typing this sentence. (What’s that? Still on? Hm. Just wait a few more days.) So this will probably be the last I talk about it (oh, don’t look so relieved).

But because I see a show that clearly wants to shrug off the shackles of its own self-imposed formula (at least, I want to see that), and because it will very likely be cancelled before it gets to where it wants to go, I’ve been reminded of a lot of other shows with similar goals, and similar fates.

So don’t be surprised if you see some “ISTV Classic” articles coming to a website near you. This website, as a matter of fact.

"I Speak TV." Remembering cancelled shows so you don't have to.

No Match For the Foam Dominoes (OR: How I Spent My Saturday)

2008-03-08T23:32:00.003-05:00

As hype for a new batch of episodes, G4 ran a day-long marathon of "Women of Ninja Warrior." Obviously, it was enough to quell yet another uprising from the drones here at the ISTV Global Stronghold.

Here in the control center, we realized that the biggest reason it's possible to enjoy "Women of Ninja Warrior" even more than its sibling competition is that there is the possibility that we could actually do the first-stage crap (ignoring our obvious lack of athletic ability, and our crushing laziness). For instance, on standard "Ninja Warrior," realistically, what are the odds of any of us running up a 15-foot wall and clutching the ledge at the top? Not so hot. But "Women of Ninja Warrior" is more concerned with balance and agility. And so we think we might actually have a shot of stepping from one post to another.

(That log-roll might be a whole 'nother hassle, but don't ruin our illusions, okay?)

At least "WoNW" looks like it would be fun to run through. except for the bits where the women mis-time their leaps and plow face-first into a pillar. That one might take a bit of planning.

Of course the best part - other than watching spectacular feats of agility right alongside all the face-smashing that shows up in the commercials - is the first-stage commentary offered by the announcer. He is, as always, absolutely supportive, though with the women, he sometimes seems alternately fascinated by and condescending towards their womanliness.

(Regarding a woman in a business suit) "Boy, does she look sharp!...Don't let her appearance fool you, this woman is capable!"

"She always held a fancy for watching female ninjas on TV."

"Can she seduce the competition into submission with her sex appeal? .... Go, Yoko! We believe in the power of your sex appeal!"

"Dance, tiny dancer, dance!" (This is actually far-more in-depth than his usual reaction to samba dancer Yuko Kawamoto: "Samba! Samba, samba, samba!!!" - which sounds just the same in Japanese as it does in Engish, by the way.)

"We want to see her go all the way, so she can report on her own success."

"Go for it, dear queen!"

"Your looks won't save you now! Only your raw strength will!"

"Oh! Danger!"

"She was no match for the foam dominoes!" (Okay, sometimes we just like taking the quotes out of context. Except this is exactly what it sounds like. She was, really, no match for the foam dominoes.)

To cap it off, we offer video of Ayako Miyami, three-time "Women of Ninja Warrior" champion. 5'2" and 92 lbs. of warrior spirit.

Everyone Loves An Immortal

2008-03-07T00:15:00.006-05:00

“…See, we tried explaining that to the writers, but they just don’t get it. Just like they don’t get talking to girls. Or making eye contact.” - Parody of a producer, from a writers’ strike video

This quote serves as proof that fiction writers, by and large, seem to be more or less what you’d expect them to be: basically me, or nerdier.

(“Nerdier than him?” I hear you scoff. “Surely not – he is clearly their king!” Quiet, you. I’ll bet you didn’t know that we here at the ISTV Global Stronghold have special brainwave satellites devoted to trolling for such impertinent thoughts. “Nerdy.” Please.)

If you are like me (or nerdier), you start to notice pet ideas developing independently among such writers. One of those perennial ideas is the TV Show About An Immortal.

(See also: "Forever Knight," "Angel," "Highlander: The Series," "Dark Shadows," or a buttload of others I'm too young to remember.)

Indulge your creative side for a second. Try to seriously imagine a man who’s been alive for centuries, with no end in sight. Think about what he’s seen, what talents he would have developed over the years. How different his concept of time and place would be from a person with a finite lifespan.

He would be a fascinating character to write about. And what better format for it than TV? You can set up long-ranging story-arcs, lay out themes about life and death, and spend a good amount of time putting those ideas to work, creating a vast tapestry on which to display your statement of what the world might be like for a man who can't die.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? If you’re a creative type - say, a fiction writer, or even better, a sci-fi or fantasy geek - the possibilites would be pretty mouthwatering.

Now imagine you’re a producer. Your job is to pay for the damn thing, and ensure that someone watches the show your weirdo production crew put together. But you know how to get people watching. So you come to your writers and say, “Listen, we’ve got a shot at airing after ‘American Idol.’ We need to sex this thing up, and people like what they already know. So, uh…what if this guy solved crimes or something? How’s that sound, nerdo?”

That "hypothetical" conversation echoed in my brain during the pilot to Fox's “New Amsterdam” the other night.

It hits a lot of the right beats with its lead character, John Amsterdam. He has a wide range of obscure talents, from lip-reading to wood-working. He has first-hand knowledge of New York City’s history and geography. He's experienced familial loss. And maybe most interestingly, he doesn’t really bother hiding (or explaining) to people the fact that he’s older than Manhattan (frequently citing past experiences, claiming decades of sobriety at an AA meeting, etc.).

So with all that in place...why is the lead plot about a fairly dull murder investigation?

This is, in all seriousness, a plot that could be found on most any episode of “Law and Order.” Your lead character saw Times Square built. He builds furniture that scores big money on the auction circuit because it’s identical to one built by a "dead" master. What about his solving a by-the-numbers murder seems at all more interesting than the rest of his life?

There are even more important questions to ask about "New Amsterdam." But because I have read that the second episode is an improvement over the pilot, we nerds at the ISTV Global Stronghold will power down our atomic video-feeds, hit mute on our super-speakers, and leave further deliberations until we've had a chance to watch episode 2.

("Nerds." Feh!)

Can you believe it? Is it true? Is this column going…

TO BE CONTINUED….?

Rock, Flaaaag, and Eeeaaagle!

2008-03-05T19:43:00.004-05:00

When FX announces that "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" will be around for a fourth season, it's a win. A win for you. For me. For America.

And here to sing you everything you need to know about America is Charlie (during the aptly named episode, "Charlie Goes America On Everyone's Ass"). A man who seems to have permantently confused third grade social studies class with a Ford truck commercial.

Can the Octopus Jump? Can He Leap? Can He?

2008-02-28T23:20:00.004-05:00

Regular work has been interrupted slightly, here at the ISTV Global Stronghold (hidden in the shadow of Certain Doom Mountain). The henchmen are currently adjusting to new day work and a completely new sleeping and eating schedule. It's tough on the henchmen, but this is not a democracy. This is a televictatorship. They will figure it out. Or the Motivational Poking Stick awaits.

But we are not cruel overlords. For instance, we did not subject them to "Quarterlife" (though to be fair, apparently nobody subjected anybody to "Quarterlife"). In fact, to show our appreciation, we have appeased the henchmen by granting them access to "Ninja Warrior," G4's Japanese import obstacle course masterpiece.

The punishing competition (located on Mount Terror's daunting philosophical neighbor, Mount Midoryama) has won the affection of the henchmen, through the excitable spirit of its less athletic contestants (see below) and the relentless can-do-it-iveness of its superhuman All-Stars (including fisherman Makoto Nagano, who trains on his boat by doing sit-ups OFF THE BOW OF THE SHIP).

But the real draw is the announcer, whose zealous admiration of the contest (and seeming man-crush on many of the contestants) leads to some of the most goofily exciteable color commentary available along the Pacific Rim:

"Katsuga leaps across the balance bridge like an actor accepting an Academy Award!"

"The baretender is neither shaken nor stirred by the first obstacle! He is going to mix it up with the Rolling Log, like a marachino cherry by a swizzle stick!"

"He says he would gladly die if it would help him gain physical perfection!"

"The gods of Mount Midoryama have blessed this hunky model!"

"His golden skin glows in the darkness."

"It's clear from the way he's stripping off his jacket that 'Ninja Warrior' is no joke!"

"The wildman crawls like a feral baby!"

"Ages ago, before cities, culture, corporate mergers, or 'Ninja warrior, our ancestors swung from trees, much like this."

More to come, as next week appears to be just as grueling for the henchmen. In the meantime, the Stronghold offers this video to better prime you for further "Ninja Warrior" commentary (and by "commentary," we mean, "More quotes taken only slightly out of context"):

More like "SN-Hell!" HEYOOOOOO!

2008-02-20T20:20:00.006-05:00

A Quick History Lesson:

It was no accident that Lorne Michaels named his sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live.” It was a calculated move during the critical opening days of the show, because logically speaking, rooting the show in one place, at one time, promising the audience that they weren’t going anywhere, ratings be damned, unless NBC could come up with an insanely good reason to move it away from that time slot.

(This logic didn’t work as well for “Friday Night Lights,” as NBC recently concluded that it could just air the show on no night at all and make more money with it.)

As a result, the show became an institution. It also slowly but steadily, became what all institutions eventually become: punishingly unfunny. That’s primarily due to the other inherent promise in the title. The “live” part. A short list of why:

- Studio audiences are, by and large, kinda fucking stupid – mouthbreathing yokels, if you will – and yet their reactions choose which sketches make it to air (one of the greatest sketches I’ve seen in the last ten years, a “late night talk show” hosted by Michael York and Michael Caine at a Ken-Taco-Hut, only aired because whazzerface ran off stage in a panic and left them with five minutes of potential dead air).
- The best parts of the show are, more often than not, pre-taped ad parodies, the Robert Smiegel cartoons, or a digital short like “Dick in a Box.” Y’know. Non-live stuff.
- When you put men like Jimmy Fallon, Horatio Sanz, or Tracy Morgan, “performers” in front of cameras and live audiences, they can’t NOT stare into the cameras and crack up along with the audience.
- The format makes it directly responsible for “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” I’m mildly surprised that NBC did not, after canceling “Studio 60,” also cancel SNL out of spite.

So while in spirit, I do applaud the fact that “Saturday Night Live” is triumphantly returning with new episodes starting this weekend, mostly I’m dreading its return. Because Tina Fey is hosting, god bless her heart, I might actually have to watch (this is the logic that got me to sit through Hugh Laurie’s monologue). And I know that even with my beloved Tina and a well-rested writing staff, the show will still suck late night balls.

How can we foil this tyrant of lazy sketch comedy? Well, now that the writer’s strike is over, you can watch episodes of “30 Rock” online guilt-free.

Or, you can pop over to IFC, which is currently running a second season of “The Whitest Kids U Know,” a half-hour laugh-track-free series of varying levels of comedy strangeness. It's what made me realize why sketches without audience reaction noises always hit me better - there's a more palpable feeling that the troupe is performing just for the sake of it, not just to score some laughs from the peanut gallery.

So, "The Whitest Kids U Know." First off: these dudes really are quite pasty. Second, here's a little bit of what to expect. You may see a guy running up to his friend’s window with a baseball bat, excitedly yelling, “Hey Steve, c’mon! Race War!” You might finally learn whether or not sailors in a submarine think the phrase "submarine sandwich" is funny. Or you might learn an important lesson on how to perform the “who-gives-a-shit” air-jerkin’ motion:

If that worked for you, pretty much every sketch can be found on their website.

(Thanks to Will for showing the sketch that caused me to seek out this show in the first place.)

Huzzah (Redux)!

2008-02-13T00:17:00.004-05:00

It's good to not feel stupid for posting that bit a couple days ago. Now, officially, the writers' strike is over.

What does this mean for your favorite shows? Well, screw your favorite shows, let's talk about mine. Comedies like "How I Met Your Mother," "The Office," and "30 Rock" are working on anywhere from four to nine episodes, "Lost" might be able to pull out a truncated season, "House" can now work on getting Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Morrison on-screen for more than 30 seconds at a time, and...uh...well, that's about it.

"24" will show up again next January (start working on getting that whole "Tony's alive and is now the bad guy" idea to make sense, guys!). "Heroes" will figure out how to pace its series better by the fall. And all the other great freshman shows like "Pushing Daisies" and...okay, "Pushing Daisies" will return in September with a big fat marketing push behind them.

In the meantime, let's enjoy tomorrow night's fully-staffed "Daily Show" and "Colbert Report."

So: Huzzah! Again! Some more!

"My Buddy Bill"

2008-02-12T00:05:00.000-05:00

"It's weird. The conversation we're having isn't the least bit stilted. It just kind of flows. To be honest, if was a single woman, or a gay man? I would've wanted to jump his bones."

This is Rick Cleveland, writer for "The West Wing" and "Six Feet Under," speaking on his brief but memorable friendship with former president Bill Clinton, a friendship that started out based on mutual dog ownership and somehow ended up with Cleveland in Amsterdam, smoking hash with Christopher Walken.

Cleveland's special "My Buddy Bill" (apparently, if you do stand-up on only one subject for the whole set, it's called a "one-man play") is currently featured on Comedy Central. Because it's easily the best standup I've seen on Comedy Central in years, it's just about right that its "world premiere" aired at 10:00 PM on a Thursday. Because apparently it's important that the network air American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile during primetime.

More can be found on Comedy Central's website here. You can also download it from Amazon here. Or, you can wait a month or two and get it on Netflix.

"He asks if Mary and I would like to have dinner with them when they come into town. Apparently the Spielbergs, the Hankses, the Dansons, and the Bloodsworth-Thomesons will all be out of town."

Huzzah!

2008-02-10T22:32:00.000-05:00

The writers' strike seems about wrapped up, as the heads of both the east and west coast WGA accepted a deal, putting it out to vote on Tuesday as showrunners get back to the pain-in-the-ass business of re-establishing everything from producers to actors to craft services.

I'm no labor lawyer, or even what you'd call "all that bright," but the way the copy reads is: Not nearly as good as they were hoping, but hell, it'll do for now.

"Eli Stone": Receding Hairline Fights Stupidity

2008-02-06T01:42:00.000-05:00

What the hell is it about ABC shows? On paper, or even by the pilot, I’m happy enough with them. They’re generally pretty clever, and always well-filmed. I liked “Knights of Prosperity” (liked it a lot more when it was called “Let’s Rob Mick Jagger”). “Dirty Sexy Money” was a clever nighttime soap version of “Arrested Development.” I even gave “The Nine” a chance, mostly because I wanted to see SOMETHING succeed in the post-“Lost” timeslot.

But when it comes to the shows themselves, I just can’t find it in me to care. They lack some essential element that would otherwise make them worth watching. So add to the list “Eli Stone,” which has “Don’t worry, it’ll be cancelled soon” written all over lead actor Johnny Lee Miller’s cleverly hidden receding hairline. Okay, yes, that was mean. I don’t care about the show enough to feel bad.

Miller stars as the eponymous title character, a slick, materialistic lawyer who, after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain aneurism, decides to Become A Better Man. At least, we’re told he was slick and materialistic, but from the get-go he seems like such a well-meaning doof that it’s hard to buy any of it.

That would be a show telling us, rather than showing us, about its premise. The show pushes this type of lazy writing to its limits. Other featured cliches include Sassy Black Assistant, Most Important Closing Argument of the Attorney’s Life, Misunderstood Father, AND Very Special Case of the week – in a stunningly exploitative move for a pilot, a kid with autism whose mom is suing a pharmaceutical company over additives in its vaccine. (ABC managed to cover its ass with a disclaimer…that ran at the end of the show. Good work, gang.)

And then there is The Whimsy. Oh GOD, The Whimsy. Which I am not against in theory. But in practice, everything here is just a bit too on-the-nose, from the visions of George Michael singing “Faith” to all Eli's other visions being childhood recollections that take on greater importance. The show wants balance quirkiness and realism, but doesn’t really bother thinking either through. After being diagnosed with an aneurism that, medically speaking, WILL cause delusions and hallucinations, Eli is then told by an acupuncturist that he may be some kind of prophet. Uhm…what?

If you have a medical diagnosis that would in fact cause crazy shit to appear before your eyes, then there is no otherworldly mystery. Your brain is just fucking with you. And if you believe some hippy-dippy acupuncturist who tells you you might be a prophet? That’s STILL YOUR BRAIN FUCKING WITH YOU.

I am not against The Whimsy in television. “Wonderfalls” sits on my DVD shelf as an all-time favorite, and “Pushing Daisies” managed to get through my defenses to become the only new show this year that I actively enjoyed. But in “Wonderfalls,” the brusqueness of the lead offset the cuteness of the talking animal dolls that told her what to do. In the other corner, “Pushing Daisies” commits completely to its strange designs in dialogue, costuming, set, and even dialogue.

“Eli Stone” wants to be cute and clever and magical, while also being down-to-earth and everyday. But all it succeeds in doing is making me want to punch Johnny Lee Miller in his receding hairline.

Sorry, that wasn’t necessary. It’s just REALLY distracting to me.

The Greatest Moment in All of Superbowl History...

2008-02-06T01:19:00.000-05:00

...was watching the Terminator robots beating the shit out of the Fox football robot.

That showboating fucker's had it coming to him for a long time.

Fight the Future (No, Wait, That's a Different Sci-Fi Franchise)

2008-02-06T01:06:00.001-05:00

(ISTV Archive, originally posted January 23)

Genre television is full of parents screwing up their kids. It could be Jack Bristow on “Alias,” who subjected his daughter to mind-control conditioning as a child so she could withstand brainwashing as an adult. Or it could be Jack Bauer in “24,” mollycoddling Kim to the point that she ended up prey to cougar traps (seriously, this never stops being funny to me). And while the king of lunatic-parenting still belongs to "Dexter" foster-dad Harry Morgan ("Therapy, shmerapy! I can sort out my future serial killing son!"), we’ve got a new contender.

Sarah Connor, eponymous lead of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," does a bang-up job of fucking up her kid (with the best of intentions, of course) by relentlessly drilling into her teenage son's brain mantras like "Nobody is EVER safe!" and "Resist the urge to be seen as special or important!"

Lena Headey's tightly-wound performance in the pilot episode is meant to be viewed as lioness-protective, but mostly all you can think is "Climb down from your crazy tree, stress monkey." Her intensity begs the question: Can you still consider someone dangerously paranoid, even when you know she's being hunted down by killer robots from the future? Answer: Hoo-boy, yeah.

Between Headey's repressed-spaz-attack, her agonizingly ponderous voice-overs, and her teenaged son John whining, "You changed the future, you just didn't change it enough!" - one of many lines that makes you wonder, "Okay, just how much is the time travel aspect of this show going to hurt my brain?" - it's easy to think that maybe this just isn’t the show for you.

And it gets a little worse before it gets better, as good robot Summer Glau (who, between this and "Firefly," has got to be wondering what it is about her that keeps getting her cast as hardcore weirdoes) constructs a time machine to shoot them into 2007. This show wasn't initially meant for midseason, which means even when they jump ahead, they're still six months behind the viewer.

Weird, yes, but no weirder than the logic behind the time-jump, which is, "So the bad robots can't find you here." But...just how much damage did you do to the timestream, lady? Unless you were always supposed to, in which case...wouldn't this missing chunk of John Connor's history be pretty well-known to the bad robots already? And if that’s the case, then….uuuuuuggggghhhh. (That would be the sound that tells you to just stop worrying about logic, lest blood rocket out of your eye-sockets from the stress.)

The real reason, of course, is that otherwise the producers would have to film the show as though it took place in 1999, and who's got the energy for that kind of set-dressing? So here we have an entire episode devoted to clarifying that future episodes will place in the present, so don't ask so many damn questions.

You’ve likely gotten the impression that the pilot didn't exactly floor me. You are astute. But one night later, the strangest thing happened: the second episode was miles ahead of the pilot.

(A strange occurrence, as the general notion is that creators get six months to put together their pilot, but once they get greenlit, they have to slap together a second episode in like three weeks - so the quality usually suffers.)

But here we are, with a second episode that manages to find its footing by loosening up a tad. Headey’s mood drops from panic-mode into darkly-ironic, and future freedom-fighter John tries proving his mettle against that most daunting of stress-tests: high school. Not helping in this case is his robot bodyguard, who is busy learning how to act hoo-man (and seriously, thank god for Summer Glau, because with someone less adept at playing Dangerous Weirdo, this bit could get pretty obnoxious otherwise).

After three episodes, the show seems to have developed a solid long-form plot goal that doesn’t involve trotting out a Terminator-of-the-week to menace the regulars. Instead, the characters are on a mission to stop the future before it occurs, by tracking down the new potential creators of Skynet and…uhh…

Well, that’s the fun thing. You can’t have Sarah Connor killing everyone she thinks might be a potential threat week after week, because A) that gets boring pretty quick, B) this is a network show, and C) even after a few justified killings, it would become difficult not to question her sanity. So we see the character instead becoming humanly empathetic to these people who clearly don’t mean to bring about an apocalypse, and as a result, finding non-lethal ways to subdue their threat level.

It’s a theme John asserts in the third episode, questioning the point of hiding, denying their own humanity and behaving like robots to stay safe. And it’s a good theme to have. But based on a steady ratings slide since the premier, I’m not sure how much time they’re going to get to explore it. But lone benefit to the writer’s strike is that the show will get the full run of episodes to prove its worth. Hopefully, that will be enough.

New TV? Oh Thank God

2008-02-01T17:44:00.000-05:00

“House”

Thanks to Fox hording all their new episodes during the strike, this week we got “A Very House Christmas”! And I don’t mean you see a bit of tinsel or anything. I mean Secret Santa plays heavily into the B-plot, and the whole show ends with the cast socializing warmly at a Christmas party. Held in the lobby.
(I’ll just say this and then we’ll move on: HorseSHIT the Christmas party is held in the lobby. I hate it when shows do this. Last year, the Christmas party at my job was held at Dave and Buster’s. In March.)
Anyway. The closing shot, of House’s old staff meeting his new one, was there to bluntly inform viewers: “Kutner is your new Chase, Taub is your new Foreman, and 13 is your new Cameron.” To which viewers could be forgiven for wondering, “Why can’t we just keep the old ones?”
Turns out, as much as this show is about maintaining a formula (53 minutes of being frighteningly wrong, followed by a Wilson-induced Epiphany), the supporting characters have actually grown incrementally over three seasons to become capable doctors and more mature human beings – in other words, characters that offer no conflict for House. Whoops.
Weirdly, the show doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with having twice as many cast members, and so far this season, until they work the kinks out, we get a couple of Foreman scenes, and if we’re lucky, one for Chase and one for Cameron. Sometimes we get one or the other. This week, Cameron got as much screen time as a donkey. Possibly less.
If there’s any difference between the new support staff and old, it’s that the newbies seem to lack moments of actively despising their boss, no matter how many quirky insults he tosses their way (and while the plentiful racial jabs don’t seem to bug Foreman or Taub, it’s a little conspicuous that House hasn’t lobbed one playful slur Kal Penn’s way – that’s a good agent you must have there, Kumar).
As a result, House is coming off as little more than a crazy uncle figure. Which is quite a switch-up from last year at this time, when House – sweating, bug-eyed, and out of his mind in need of a Vicodin fix – ripped into Cuddy for what an awful mother he thinks she’d be.
So yes. Enjoy the Christmas episode. Then enjoy the Superbowl episode, which looks to be a slight departure from standard format. And then one more, and then HOPE THE WRITER’S STRIKE ENDS early enough that they can film a few more.

+++++

“Lost”

General internet reaction to return of “Lost”:
Omigod Hurley is off teh island and is Charlie alive or no whose that black guy did you know his name means like hell place or something omigod peeeeeeeeeeeeeee
My reaction to return of “Lost”:
Okay, seven episodes to go before frustration sets in….
“Lost” is one of those shows I really like, but fucking HATE listening to groups of people talking about it. I think it’s because this show generates speculation from people who aren’t really equipped to do it properly. It leads to left-field guesswork (good for you if you somehow deduced that Jack and Claire are siblings eight episodes into season one), or an attempt to link ideas when there’s simply not enough real information to go on (that goddamned four-toed statue).
Personally, I like to sit back, let the information I’ve received stew in the “Lost” section of my brain, allow it to make a few connections, and accept that some things I will not figure out until I am explicitly told (goddamned four-toed statue…!).
So my feelings are:
- I am glad this show is back on. I hope the strike resolves soon enough that we can get something closer to a full season;
- I am FREAKING ECSTATIC that Lance Reddick is on the show (but seriously, writers, you’re giving him a name that’s Hebrew for “hell”? Why do you have to do that to people?);
- If I have to do any speculating, I will say sure, that could have been Jack’s dad in Jacob’s cabin, since John Terry was listed in the guest starring credits, but didn’t otherwise show up in the episode;
- I am terrified that we’re going to have to sit through another “How’d Jack get that tattoo?” episode, based on a new one Matthew Fox got on his arm for some reason late last season.

2008-01-29T16:42:00.001-05:00

Truth-Bombs of "The Wire"

Why is “The Wire” so good? Well, if recent discussion here at the ISTV Global Stronghold is any indication, it may be that it allows for endless debate on whether "Stringer and Avon wordlessly realize that one of them is going to end up killing each other" or "Drunken McNulty cracks up his car, stands in the street reviewing his turning radius, cracks up the car trying it out AGAIN, and then heads into a diner, and somehow manages to have sex with the waitress" is The Greatest Scene Ever.

But something that gets lost in all the praise is just how educational the show is. Obviously, the show seeks to pass along the important truth that We Are All Utterly Fucked, but hidden within that message are several smaller truth-bombs:

1) Men who wear suspenders have absolutely no interest in helping you get quality results, no matter what your pursuit.

2) “What we ought to do is invent a serial killer” is an idea that sounds absolutely retarded coming from a drunken Irish man-whore, but completely reasonable coming from an enwisened older black man.

3) Whoever once told David Simon to "do less with more"? David Simon fucking HATES YOU, dude. He's banged out the last four seasons just to get to this point in Season 5, where he can write overly-broad caricatures just to stick it to you.

4) In Baltimore, you can be as gay as you wanna be, as long as you are also heavily armed and generally terrifying as fuck. (This may be the root of a lot of conservative neuroses.)

5) Short-statured politicians are not to be trusted - the frustration they feel towards their hilariously oversized conference desks and big-boy suit jackets, they instead take out on their constituents.

6) Baltimore Newspapermen come in three sizes: crusty and wise; young and ethical; and shithead (comes in “unjustly promoted,” and new “young and ambitious” flavor!). (See also: David Simon Fucking Hates You.)

7) If you live in Baltimore, and you are hardworking and generally decent, if a little flawed, you are required, by the laws of man IF NOT NATURE ITSELF, to be in constant contact with a complete moron who will witlessly destroy every good decision you’ve ever made (I’m looking at you, Herc and Ziggy).

8) Adorable children’s lives are constantly under threat of total destruction due to the dangerous requirements of dealing drugs after school.

9) Adorable children’s lives are constantly under threat of total destruction due to the negligent behavior of half-assed, moron police.

10) Adorable children should not live in Baltimore, really.

You tell me, “Wire” fans, what has the show taught you?