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So I have faithfully followed the first season of the Big C (fantastic acting, plot, camera, direction), Walking Dead (even more fantastic camera, plot, writing, good acting), Boardwalk Empire (spotless TV, perfect, Quality TV at its finest, great pacing of long-form narrative), and seen the latest season of Dexter (hello Julia Stiles, you rocked my world again), the Christmas Specials of Eureka and Warehouse 13 (I enjoy fun, cute TV so much), and what have I contributed to the blog??? Zilch.

Have I missed anything important out there, shows, specials? Please let me know...

BUT... what have I contributed to my dissertation? DING DING DING: Three chapters. Yay me... slacker...

Only two to go and I can hand this over after corrections and begin waiting...

I think I may actually survive this thing called dissertation... but I cannot wait to get back on here and discuss what I see in more then one-sentence TVeets on twitter. ;-)

BG

AMC's Rubicon - Thoughts on the Sneak Preview/Pilot

I have been writing about some of the new summer’s shows and have not found much to praise except some notable series’ returns. The jury is still out on SyFy’s Haven, and I have maintained only a faint interest in Persons Unknown (what can I say, I get bored enough to watch it?). I had no hopes, let alone high hopes, for AMC’s Rubicon. Then again, I was maybe just a little hopeful -okay, I said it- after the basic cable network’s success (disserved success) with shows such as Breaking Bad and Mad Men. I was going to be VERY open-minded for this one.

Rubicon is the story of a widowed analyst, Will Travers (James Badge Dale (who earlier this year headlined HBO’s The Pacific) at a New York City-based federal intelligence agency, who stumbles over a code, he will surely try to break. We are spared from long, wordy explanations about this person and his past. Rather we hear it all in one quick dialogue: supposed to meet daughter and wife at Twin Towers on 9/11, was late, they’re gone, he is no longer late. The rest comes by simply exposing the character through action and interaction… almost feels like a breath of fresh air these days.

He works with his father-in-law and shows him his odd find first: Crossword puzzles that are seemingly repeating clues across papers, representing four branches of government… but what is the fourth branch? Only a day after asking him that, Will Travers’ father-in-law is believed to be dead. (and that train scene was at the same time expected and a total surprise… I love understatement and realism) While I am already wiggling in my seat thinking: Come on Will, you must see that that is odd… the series takes its time, lets him grieve, and meet a friend of his father-in-law.

What begins here with a game of phone-chess, I hope, will become a long and interesting friendship between the old and the new, the classic conspiracy movie and the hyper-tech-conspiracy thrillers we have now. Because the story unfolds slowly in the mind of this old friend, Ed Bancroft (Roger Robinson), and in the minds of the grey eminences from the ‘top floor’, who know the pattern was found, who wonder if they can move forward… We as an audience are as of now, kept as exactly that - outsiders looking in. The characters and plot play out so beautifully that I am finally not mad that nothing is given to the audience, because I care about the story more, than about the big mystery, I guess. But that is good television that is Quality Television without all of its soap-opera-origin trappings.

I think we can all agree that certain observations of genre rules (established by success more often than not, mind you) can be helpful in generating a great genre piece and for the critics to remain somewhat guided, and possibly a little objective.

What does make great thrillers, great? The best of the best thrillers excelled at doing something that made us excited, kept us invested until the end. Most televised thrillers have thus faced a seemingly impossible obstacle in the medium’s long form, or so it seems to me. And the first big conspiracy theory series of the summer, Persons Unknown, although entertaining, falls short of keeping me excited, especially due to its low-quality visuals, questionable performances, and lack of consistently moving plot; for a good thriller never stops.

The most successful thrillers and conspiracy films present the viewer with a maze, both narratively and visually. Camera work is used to enhance that feeling of never-ending winding streets and claustrophobia. The audience is pushed into a low-lit world of shadows, or sterile environments to become actively engaged in the unraveling of a mystery, even if it is just by hunching closer to the screen, or moving your head while trying to look around a corner you will never see around.

The villains are by necessity obtuse beings, often corporations and organizations, but this works for audiences because the foot soldiers, robots, and computer tech, and manipulation of ‘friends’ create direct points of conflict. The bad guys in Persons Unknown are not really bad. They are, but there is no one to fight that is tangible. Players on the screen as of yet, do not make villains. Pushing the grey-matter is not really the best choice for a conspiracy thriller. The background music is hardly ever more than a backdrop, but one that allows us to anticipate, breathe, and hold our breaths. And AMC’s Rubicon, even in it’s first episode, has made a big promise to audiences by masterfully incorporating these elements in what is but a brief snippet of what is to come. The claustrophobic tension is tangible and camera angles are executed perfectly. My favorite shot is Will Travers, who in accepting his father-in-laws former position, moving up the ranks, is walking up a staircase. The camera is positioned so that the walls take over most of the frame. Will is moving up, but pushed into a tight corner. Why talk if you can show, and make us feel… When Will goes to visit Ed Bancroft, Ed opens the door cautiously. And we see another small hallway, followed by another door, more locks, more doors. He walks into the kitchen with a pass-through… It’s a warm environment, homey, but it is box after box after box in the frame. And I am hoping we get to open them all.

Refreshingly, extra-textual references are not hitting you in the face, the story is suspended in the post-9/11 space-time continuum, but nothing more specific seems important as of yet; the big mystery is handled believably by understatement, rather than the over-hyped-panic-mode that we have unfortunately come accustomed to. I mean, honestly, do you think one small leak would be targeted with major operations from the get go? That would belie the intelligence we suppose goes hand in hand with a decent conspiracy plot, no? I rarely give praise after series premieres, as you, my readers, are well aware of, but here, I couldn’t help myself. And, if the series is what it promised, the next 11 weeks will be so much better for a little bright light in summer-TV-darkness.

BG

Ps.: Now the only thing I am not sure what to do with… Why is Sledge Hammer in the previews for the series???

The Pacific

The series is just taking of, and it already holds much promise to become as acclaimed as Band of Brothers. The show even drew very clear and obvious visual connections to its counter piece, such as the sequence in which the boats make their way to the landing area. Normandy was much later and yet we as audience members are reminded of the blood bath immediately. And more specifically, we are reminded of the visuals presented to us by producers and directors before. A set of memories imprinted that now may confuse our very non-existent participation in either war.
What The Pacific did excellently, however, is the clear demarcation of this violence, and the one we are accustomed to in European Theater WWII imagery. The shooting at the single Japanese soldier, the use of human bodies as warning and to demoralize the troops...
It will take some time to see, how violence and the value of the human body will progress in the series...
Read review here.

Big Love - Over For Now

This final episode left me mildly entertained, but oddly surprised at the end. Oh no, not the J.J. thing. I believe I guessed right about three weeks ago, or so... Not that surprising, really.
I was surprised that all that female power-house struggle of the young was for nothing? Still they stand by the man? The only one striking out is the one woman who held power all along. Great moment Adalene, but we are not surprised you'd go that far if really threatened/hurt. Her borders were finally crossed and revenge was hers.
But I am going back to that last image of Bill and his wives, the emptying space in front of the podium, four people looking into nothing... It is not even that it leaves me mad, or I want to respond to the writers. I simply feel as if, this is just another excuse to string us along for another year of re-worked base-narratives that go nowhere, that lead nowhere, that answer nothing about these wonderfully created characters that always appear, if just for a moment, to actually change, transform, and grow. But constant retreat renders their actions almost useless and they remain, in the end, stuck where they began.
Should the following season be the last, and should it be done right, I think they seeded something great, though via obnoxious reinforced repetition, but... after being in it for all prior seasons, I am going to give it a chance. If the next season is neither the end, nor engaging with something brand new, I will walk on. This melodrama lives solely from its characters and their development. The meta-narrative is simply their show case. If they don't work, I don't really care what else could happen to them...
Read more and get a sneak on Season 5

Creationsim Caprica Style

Right off I will say that I don’t like it when love interests are unnecessarily introduced in any show, especially if there is no need for an additional point of conflict, as Adama has enough on his plate, no? BUT, I trust the writers and will either forgive or happily ingest what they supply.
Secondly I loath Tomas Vergis so much already that I know the writers and actor are doing it right, but I want the character to die… soon.
I think I am in love with this show… but hope to remain critical… if seemingly impossible re-reading my second sentence here.

“Know thy Enemy” made clear that the narratives are not a game to the characters. Christian style mortification, human vanity creating the afterlife to ensure death is not the end (you remember what happened to Babel, right?), Sister Clarice sharing her big moment of successful infiltration and avatar-program retrieval with opiates, Amanda alone, Graystone facing painful destruction and then there is Adama. Grounded, low-life, mob-attorney Adama, who is startled by V-World.

The only one beginning to enjoy herself, while mute in her body, is Zoe Graystone. Enjoying the early stages of flirtation, with a man she will never be equal to.

Reset Button and Auto Destruct

tinydancer79
Last week we had a wild ride to Mexico and back. Bordering insane, I quite enjoyed the border showdown between the Greens and the Hendrickson’s and felt that this display of parental love all around was fantastic. This week leaves me startled, oddly reset, and at odds with the producers that have decided to leave us with but one episode to clear this mess up. They are insane.
The political endeavors, a very smart and self-protecting Sissy Spacek out for blood, two men in a polygynous marriage, Adeline drugged, Wanda in a state of mental distress beyond understanding, Albee not realizing who is to blame for his lover’s death, seeking someone else to blame and going absolutely insane … In all of this Sarah’s leaving is the only foreseeable, controlled, logic plot point. Ben’s newly reset obligation to his family also expected. And while this monstrous amount of narratives drives me absolutely insane, none finding the devotion I believe necessary: I LOVE IT. Maybe I just want more then what they give…
Is it because I enjoy being tortured?
But everything we see here is not new, not unexpected, not really. Albee is a modern day homosexual Ophelia, stuck and insane, because he is left with the knowledge of happiness and love in a place where these do not exist. Wanda always has a premonition; she is haunted by knowing, and silenced by the (I think) unspeakable evil of what she is keeping hidden from sight, just like Cassandra was. The characters we have here in Big Love are by far the most classic figures of tragedy. And the trick is, that Utah offers all the necessary trappings for the story to unfold. Religious issues ranging from contemporary to century old conflicts, believes that have modernized and such that have not. We have hierarchies in place all around that allow for the most sophisticated plots without having to deal with courtroom dramas, hospitals, work places (which is where you can usually find these hierarchies). Big Love is an absolute exception in a world where family plots equal family comedy. Will it be a British or Greek tragedy? We will have to wait and see.

And if I were to write the end, I just might have Agamemnon killed in the end. His never-ending hysteria is what truly hurts my senses.

I'm Awake...

I certainly am now, after watching ‘There is Another Sky’. This episode demonstrates once again that Caprica is well thought through, rich in imagery and characters, and, for those of you feeling it is too slow, perfectly paced! The wealth of characters needs to be crafted carefully; else we’d have another ‘Lost’, where everyone leads NOWHERE (sorry fans of ‘Lost’, but we all know writers lost control of that one, more then once).
In last week’s episode, Tamara Adama realizes she exists only in V-World and takes ‘life’ in a stride; father Adama makes amends with his family, and Graystone presents a fruitful solution to the Holo-Band fiasco. V-World gets its own little entry (which is actually fantastic, as the plot is rich enough and visually stylized already), teenage Capricans show their privileged faces to us and really address the instability of the 12Worlds for the first time. Finally, the defense robots make a little more sense, although I am waiting for a clear narrative here still. Who wants to go to war with whom…? I wish there was a guide for the twelve worlds…
This episode allows us to figure out the game that is Caprica, as much as it allows the characters within the show to figure out their worlds anew. Everyone has been picked up and tossed where the story led them. Uprooted people that need to re-orient themselves (sexy-married Mob-Adama being the exception among regular cast members it seems). Adama’s family ceremony, Graystone’s move to the new –and oddly ignored- project, they all move forward. They are all awake, taking charge of their own lives. No standing still, no passivity, not even Amanda Graystone. Interestingly, the writers have decided that whilst talking about a robot, there is no need to cloud the ethics, work for diplomatic word choices when presenting the cylon… Always critiquing the world surrounding us, while subtly in BSG, is here more to the point, in your face... it is more urgent. But we still are watching entertainment, a show, one that passes many people by. The fine art of Sci-Fi fable is at work here, but it remains part of the machinery that it critiques. Granted, the critique comes from within, but participation is nevertheless required.
Caprica is humanity before its fall, before being humbled by its own mortality.
Nothing is simplified on Caprica: there was no child, but a child will be found.

And because that is, for all the geeks in you: did you see Kat from BSG was back as Pryah? Working for Graystone… Was she a cylon then? Or does this suggest that Daniel planted her Avator? But then how did she become a skin job? Or… is she the model that had to be ‘boxed’? Because she remembered being human? Have fun with that one. ☺

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/02/big_love_recap_bird_gang.html
Here is another look at last night's episode of Big Love.

Fallen and Risen Again

First of, just two questions because we all love to speculate, right? So what about JJ? Whose babies is he planting, or if that is not it, what is the evil plan behind it all? The creepy son did seem to show emotion right there when he looked at Nicky, but there is no doubt he will do whatever the plan is asking for. Right? There is just that quick flutter of his eyelids, the close up holding on that moment. Nicky is not screaming, but begging, pleading, for her to be allowed to claim her life as a woman. This show knows how to pull our strings and play them beautifully, although Nicky will possibly remain a psychological miracle to me forever. Her actions so unexpected at times, make this series so good, so realistic, too. For the broken is erratic, is full of logic that destructs itself, bit by bit by bit.
And then there are the Greens. I retract my earlier statement. Their evil has for the first time reunited what was broken, or so it seems. They came back at the right time, and for a long enough while, with potential for the future? Mom, Dad, Bill, Joey, and Ben all at their lowest, ready to rise to the occasion and try again to make things right. But then Mommy steps up to save her son and that, well, that was just pure genius. She demonstrated her motherhood, gave quick-thinking Bill an edge, and single handedly saved them all. The genius in the scene lied with the simple tones, the music that did not push the action, the quiet that allowed us to hear single calls for action, not screams, not tumult, just shock and surprise.
But all this is taken back to zero in the shows final moments today. Margene is ignored by Ben, and Barb stands alone, in thought. Pondering why she was not trusted again? Protection? But there is no argument. We are past family meetings and talking things out. This is where we are: the brink of the end. Ultimate loss of communication. Each one to deeply concerned with saving their own life, in whatever form necessary.

tinydancer79
It does not matter if we talk about business security, fertility, fighting for acknowledgment, love, or the right to be in the open. They all strive to make their life sustainable in a world that is hurting them. It hurts them by conventions, social norm, laws, regulations that protect no one, and religious pressure. It keeps them trapped in a past within their present. No real life, just an image of it, a faint promise ringing in your ears of that which is not and may never come.
What strikes me here is that the future they work towards, no matter how often they call upon ‘heavenly father’ no longer is in the afterlife. That was the struggle they faced last season, last year, last opening credits Then, marriage, and babies, priesthood, family and Roman still most often preoccupied their minds. Nothing is light now, no heaven to aspire to. All of their wishes now lie right here, on earth. And didn’t we see it coming, when Bill turned his back, on his knees, to the Holy rising behind him. His eyes firmly fixed on the ground. Who he now makes peace with is the man he blames for all the bad in his life. That, is acknowledgment. This season is the awakening.
Only few episodes left this season. Much is unresolved. Where does Alby go from here? Does he get that his wife did this or will he blame Bill? AGAIN: What is up with JJ and that creepy Walker family from Kansas?
9 Episodes is all they gave us this time around. But it works. The story is streamlined, straight forward, no deterrence, no new churches, just a few lose ends I believe they will resolve or bring to the next season. Just a good old fashioned burning all bridges. The less they carry over, the better, I think.
I sure hope this, in my eyes best season, will not be diminished in the aftermath by becoming redundant. For it would be to easy, to send the family through another trauma induced reunion once again. So momentum has to keep up. Only one question then remains. Where do we go from here?
-I can hardly wait.

Lost

tinydancer79
I am not sure where this last season is going, but am afraid there is no other way, but sit and watch.

surfacing

tinydancer79
Alhtough a necessary move to bring Barb to finally take charge meeting Anna once again, no less with a baby did not much but diffuse today’s episode. The Hendrickson’s just never have a minute of private rest. After all, how could you even in prime time soap drama, losen on the conflict. But this episode was finally the awaking of what bubbled under the surface for three, long, often painfully Bill driven seasons.

How cheap does the struggle of Viagra now look, how farcical in hindsight? How unbelievingly light this serial started, the foreshadowing never reaching a point of solution. Now is when true struggle finally finds its way to the surface, the pain of those following a screaming, illogical, more-then-struggling patriarch, who appeals to emotional weakness in his family, time after time. Today, after all is pointing towards the women understanding their own suffering in the face of promised after-lives for the first time, he tells them that all he wants and all they need is to no longer hide. But look at the problems arisen.

Many of them do not stem from having to hide. Not Bill’s struggle with a female power figure (yes, I will remind you that he mistook her for a secretary and that is how all started). And neither does his problem with Barb, where the hypocrite himself betrayed the promises he made before, unable to hold himself to the same standard as his wives, no matter how often he promises. Margene wants to be herself within the family, not the lowest one in the food chain. That, we are reminded of by Anna’s reappearance. Not the horrible events at the motel, where no one really hides anything. Not Nicky’s past, not Bill’s. Nicky has it just right: they are broken. The homosexual love ended so brutally (and in harsh contrast to religion), electroshocks and re-orientation manipulation, Nicky realizing, finally, what she really has lost (well, okay, I am not so sure why she had to lose the eighties), and most terrifying: the singing J.J. and the frightened eyes of a woman you thought had seen it all before, her horrors beginning again, looking no older then the child that almost was turned into nothing but number seven. A number on the ladder to god.

And in all of this, the Mormon church is REALLY beginning to look like a cult. One wonders how controlled, smart, and forgiving the authors, raised in Utah, struggling probably themselves to grow up, must be to have so slowly built up to this. What is this? A simple truth, when religion and religious believes become excuses, illusions, and fetish, they should be called for what they really have become.

On a side note, the side note: Mexico, more gayness, smuggling and old fiends returned… Could have lived without. Hope it doesn’t muddy the waters.

But here we are: Barb is in power, Nicky is a savior, and Margene is the advocating the right to individuality.

Sorry guys, all Bill had was: “You, of all people?”

Missing Link

While I first was taken aback by the overflow of story-lines and subplots provided in Caprica - after all BSG had taken a little longer to introduce all players, questions, trajectories - I now, after only two episodes, am intrigued, fascinated, and 100% committed to the twelfth world. This is a place, a show, filled with all what makes humanity both good and bad, with all that has happened before, all that will happen again.

This society is advanced, in many ways. Students staying out after curfew occupy the time of cops, nothing bigger on their plates until this bomb that brought us here.

Homosexuality isn't argued about, but is so accepted that it is there but hard to catch in episode one. A friend had even to point out to me the subtle: "I would hit at a hot guy and your dad would leave with his sister", comment, so unimportant, it is something so trivial here, what better statement could the writers have made? Hooray for humanity that can see beyond something as laughable as a discussion of who someone else is allowed to enjoy live with. In this world, questions of right and wrong, and seemingly a full set of rules apply that tell your children thow to move about the day, or night. Rules, regulations...what else do we yet need to know about pre-cylon Caprica? Caprica before it's first hit in the stomach, its first loss of power?
What about the need to be part of this world? Adama,..., Adams, conformity, belonging. I am going to wait and discuss Adama-bad-ass in a later blog, so much yet to see.
Caprica

The show brings us law, order, science, family drama, teen drama, class clashes, religion (or religious insanity), and drugs/holo-bands that allow the cut from reality, polygamous life styles (not a problem for the old religion here again), and a teacher that weirds me out. It seems it all started because of the STO. The need to lay claim to a single god, to only one right answer, one way to reach the goal of higher moral existence that allows for whatever it is one seeks to find. Aaaah, we're back at the beginning. Once again. Arrogant human creature.
Now, as a good friend pointed out, we have a human avatar, knowing nothing of why, what, and where she is, surrounded by the very root of humanity's downfall. All that is within the seven mortal sins is lived in this space, that much we know from the pilot. It is the pit of human want. How will that make humanity look; a humanity that is far ahead of us, yet precedes the war?
There is much, we are not privy to as of yet. Why would they need all the robots if the worlds are at peace? How regulated are the worlds?
What happened to make Caprica what it is, brought together the 12 worlds? There is yet another missing link in all of this.

I am in.

Meet Caroline

tinydancer79

So I luckily have fallen sick and am forced to stay under covers for a little while. Else I may never have been able to finally catch up with my DVR related 'work' and thus the Dollhouse double features.
I have just finished "Stoploss" and "Attic" and am more than satisfied with the treasures the attic held. If you've given up on the series during the break and because it will finish as a completed series tomorrow you should give this show another chance. Coming full circle with its apocalyptic scenario it has married the dystopian fantasies of many great minds and given it the high-speed adrenaline kick of again very smart Joss Whedon.
For those of you that have not seen the series financed in part by Eliza Dushku (wanting to show she is more than a pretty face), the show is the ultimate foreshadowing in corporation exploitation, but not by brute force, at least not at the beginning.

Rather, you are being sold a promise of a better life for five years of yours. A classic devil trade, but not in the afterlife, your soul is not what is wanted, but your body. Your mind can be exchanged. Your mind can be altered to fit whoever pays for it. You're a doll dressed up to play make believe but don't know you're doing so.

Isn't that almost like reality is now. We trade our selves to bosses, friends, neighbors... so few chances to be one self.

But what is at stake on a grant scheme? I can hardly wait to see what the future will be like in Whedon's nightmare. I will now keep watching, and hopefully not be 'disengaged'. But after the doll announced she'll now meet her soul, I think I might not be let down.

Big Love is Big Drama

Incest (kind of), Racism, Sexism, Homosexuality, Bigotry, Religion, and ...Dr. Jekyll?

This was the season's defining episode, if I have ever seen on. Filled with promises that may be hard to keep on the tight schedule of a show with so few episodes per season. Conflicts wherever one looks, dealing with most any conflict there is to deal with, both new and old within the parameters of the series. Margie and Ben, re-igniting the incestuous side of their relationship, blackface on TV, and within the freeing speech at the Casino (who wouldn't want to yell the FU at Barb?), a story of one of their own, whom the tribe does not welcome. Ahhh, there goes the worst form of racism, the idea of having noble repressed natives, thankful to the white man. They have their own ups and downs, now even on TV, who would have thought.

The reappearance of Mr. Stockwell, however, I found was a poor choice. Too many dead dad's are haunting their children and our screens and have been, especially in connection to HBO, pointing outside the frame, ripping me right out of the story, in an unpleasant way. Alby is a character so transparent, I feel I personally did not need help in understanding his paranoid broken mind.
And while I love a good villain, I would like Joey to get a break from playing a man that is so trapped in his childhood, that he acts before thinking still. He killed, came back, and lost it again. J.J. playing him like you play a little child.

Tonight's episode of Big Love, while shock full of ... well, shock-ing moments -Nicky's holding the gun once again regaining her power and losing it immediately was wonderful- may have slipped one by some of us. or my mind is again in imagination overdrive, which is quite possible.
What is up with J. J. performing a biopsy on his cancer (?) ridden wife? When they market him as the 'baddest villain', are they talking about someone who enjoys keeping his wife sick, cutting into her? Actually, cutting into himself also maybe? Or how the heck does he lose all his fingernails?