Obliquely Referential

Mixed Messages in Advertising: Victoria's Secret

2010-03-16T12:38:00.004-04:00

Message the commercial intends to convey: These women love their bodies, and you would too if you bought this underwear.

Message the commercial actually conveys: These women love their bodies, and you would too if you were a supermodel.

Braid: Contemptuous, Contemptuous Hair

2010-01-26T13:30:00.013-05:00

I won't be writing about video games very much here because, honestly, I have no business writing about video games, since I am, as a general rule, terrible at them. But I've been playing Jonathan Blow's Braid the last couple of days and I was struck by two things:

The gameplay really is as brilliant as everybody says.
The writing is terrible.

When I pointed this out on the Twitter, I received a bit of pushback, so I figured I'd expand a bit on my thoughts here. But first, a pretty serious caveat: Not only have I not finished the game, I've barely begun it. So when I critique the writing, what I'm critiquing is not the story, but rather the style.*

Take, for example, the second passage in the game:

Not just one. He made many mistakes during the time they spent together, all those years ago. Memories of their relationship have become muddled, replaced wholesale, but one remains clear: the princess turning sharply away, her braid lashing at him with contempt.

The final line here is presumably the line from which the title is derived. As such, it would be nice if it weren't so tortured. Braids, as unfortunate as it may be, do not "lash with contempt." Indeed, braids are not prompted to do anything by emotion, given that braids feel no emotion, given that braids are composed of hair, which is emotionless. This is not me being overly literal or rejecting personification as a valid literary tool. The problem is that this is not how personification should be used, and it's hardly clear that the author even intended to use it. On the contrary, what Blow seems to have been trying to say is that the princess was contemptuous. But what he, in fact, said was that her hair was contemptuous. Which is kind of funny, but probably not intentionally so.

Or take this line from the middle of Chapter 3:

But to be fully couched within the comfort of a friend is a mode of existence with severe implications.

Translation:

Getting too comfortable can be problematic.

Is Blow's version better? If so, why? Because it contains more words? Because it's less clear? Because "is a mode of existence" just sounds so, um, not stilted?

The problem here seems to be one of trying too hard. Blow was clearly trying to create something of artistic worth, and he was adapting the storybook style of the early Mario games, so he took the narrative style of those Mario games and tried to make it literary. Unfortunately, it reads not as great literature, but as a poor imitation of great literature.

Which is too bad because the rest of the game really is an artistic triumph.

*It also means that I reserve the right to change my mind if it turns out that the story justifies the style.

Parks and Recreation: Leslie's House

2010-01-24T09:21:00.009-05:00

One of my favorite things about Parks and Recreation this season was the addition of Louis CK as Leslie's new love interest, Dave. Unfortunately, CK's run is up and Dave has left Pawnee for the big city of San Diego. This has left a Dave-shaped hole both in the show and in Leslie's heart, and the writers have decided to fill that hole with Justin Theroux. They definitely could have done worse. Most interestingly, they seem well aware of that.

If there was a problem with Dave as a character, it was that there were very few problems with Dave as a character, as well as with Louis CK's portrayal of him. He was funny largely for the same reasons Hank Hill was funny, but he didn't have much in the way of a character flaw. This resulted, unsurprisingly, in a character that fans (the few of them that exist) really liked. But he wasn't meant to be a permanent character, and when the time came to write him out of the show, the writers had a bit of a problem on their hands: how do you replace a character everybody likes?

The solution they came up with is kind of brilliant: replace the somewhat too perfect character with a parody of a too perfect character, such that his one flaw is actually that he's so perfect that it gets to be kind of humorously obnoxious. How can fans really complain that Leslie's taking a step down with Justin when he's a philanthropic lawyer who travels all over the world and knows everything about everything?

Granted, I may be overstating the problem the writers faced here. CK was on the show for such a short while that fans may not have gotten so attached to the relationship that this was a big deal.* Other shows have faced more pronounced versions of this problem, though. I'm thinking specifically of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which solved the problem of replacing Oz by turning Willow gay and bringing in Tara, who was just as overly perfect in her own way.

Other notes:

This is the second episode this season to use the dinner party trope, and we're only halfway through the season. It doesn't really matter as long as they're well-executed, but it seems odd that the writers would use the same trope twice so close together.
April and Andy should get married and have lots of weird, funny babies.
Deviled eggs are absurdly delicious. As such, I can't really fault Ron for wanting to keep them all for himself.
As for Leslie's use/abuse of the rec center instructors, it was the kind of thing that easily could have gone off the rails, but fortunately didn't. It also highlighted yet another way in which Leslie is different than Michael Scott: she takes immediate responsibility for her actions and rectifies them as best she can.

*On the other hand, fans certainly grew attached to Amy Ryan on The Office, and she wasn't in any more episodes than CK was on Parks.

I'm with Coco: The Myth of Conan O'Brien

2010-01-22T16:36:00.015-05:00

I used to have a pretty serious case of chronic insomnia, and as a result I became something of an avid viewer of late night television. I watched Conan's show, which was my favorite,* every night for several years, until the insomnia finally subsided, after which I didn't really watch late night anymore. But ever since Conan switched over to The Tonight Show, I have made a point of watching on Hulu every once in a while. So when I say that I have a genuine affection for Conan's work, and indeed Conan himself, I'm not kidding. And I don't think anyone else who's claimed to hold a similar affection over the past couple of weeks is kidding, either. But I do think it goes beyond simple affection, that we aren't responding entirely to Conan himself, but rather to a mythic narrative, in which there are good guys and bad guys, winners and losers, predators and innocent victims.

But before we get into the whole mythic narrative thing, it would probably be useful to discuss where that original affection comes from in the first place. In many ways, it's as much a triumph of narrative as all the swirling rumors are now. The most important quality for a late night host is that of relatability. If we're going to spend five nights a week with some dude in our bedrooms, we need to like him at least a little bit. And so every good late night host develops some sort of persona that endears him to his audience. Letterman's the sarcastic wiseass. Kimmel's the frat boy. John Stewart's the frustrated liberal. Leno's basically a plugger. And Conan is your dorky friend. So when I say that I have “a genuine affection for Conan's work, and indeed Conan himself,” what I'm really saying is that I have an affection for the character of Conan O'Brien that's on my TV screen every night. How real is that? Well, as real as these things get.

The narrative surrounding the recent controversy has built off of these images and taken them in new directions. Two themes that have always been extant in the late night world but that the current situation has brought to the fore are those of generational and cultural conflicts. Letterman has come the closest to making those themes explicit, which is what should be expected given that he's the sarcastic wiseass:

The point of Letterman's clip is that the credibility of Leno's schtick is in peril. Ultimately, I think he'll come out fine because the vast majority of his audience doesn't care as much about all this behind the scenes stuff as the people on Twitter. Speaking of which, judging by Twitter and the rest of the Internets, one would think that Conan were the most popular late night host in the history of the world. So why's NBC getting rid of him? Quite simply, it's because the people on the Internet don't watch a lot of late night television. The people who find Leno and Pluggers amusing do. But of course we still want Conan to succeed and Leno to fail. It's just that most of us aren't going to end up watching The Tonight Show regardless of the outcome. But none of that matters to the narrative.

What matters to the narrative is that Conan, our dorky friend, is our representative in this field. Leno is lazy and boring and conservative and your parents in Kansas love him for reasons you just can't understand. Conan, on the other hand, does odd and interesting things and is willing to take chances and offend people from time to time. When you watch his shows, you get the sense he's at his best when he's at his least constrained, like during the writers' strike or now.** As such, it's not even his show that's the great hope for late night,*** but he himself.

And now the network, the corporation, the powers that be, of which Leno is a tool, wants to take that away from us. Which brings us to the new part of Conan's persona: unfairly fired employee. Such a persona is generally going to play well at any time because everybody loves an underdog, but it resonates especially well now because of the terrible economy. After all, if not even television stars are safe, who is?

Leno has tried to tap into this sentiment too, but has not been very successful.**** O'Brien, though, has reveled in it, thanks in large part to his brilliant press release that by now everybody who cares about the issue has already read. Perhaps the best thing about it is simply the salutation: “People of Earth.” In fitting with his already established persona, it's slightly oddball, but it's also all-encompassing and yet also personal. Who is he talking to? Who does this matter to? You, and everybody, but mostly you. Because he's one of you, a person of Earth. It is, in essence, a call to solidarity. It resonates with us because by this point we all know people who have lost their jobs, who have been wronged by faceless employers who don't seem to care about people at all, like NBC doesn't care about Conan. But we do care. So we rally and make bizarre looking art and join Facebook groups. Why? Because that's what people are supposed to do for each other.

Calling all of this mythic is not to say that the narrative we've built around this series of events is necessarily untrue or a bad thing. On the contrary, it seems to me that there really are relative good guys and bad guys here, winners and losers, predators and largely innocent victims. And it seems to me that it's really kind of nice. But, of course, narratives streamline. They exaggerate. They leave out inconvenient facts.

Like the fact that you're probably not going to watch anyway and that the internal machinations of late night television don't really matter all that much in any concrete sense. This is about a couple of rich white guys arguing over who gets to stay on NBC. Not exactly world-altering stuff. But by mythologizing it, we turn it into something that does matter. So Conan O'Brien, a 46-year-old millionaire who's been on TV for 16 years, becomes the face of youth and change and the disenfranchised. It sounds odd, almost farcical when put that way, but it really is materially true relative to the world of late night. And the narrative allows us to bring the truth from their world into ours.

*Nothing against Craig Kilbourn or anything. Except, of course, for the fact that he's Craig Kilbourn.

**Leno, by contrast, has seemed completely out of his element these past few weeks.

***Which, of course, we're never going to watch, but never mind that.

****At least, it seems that way to me. It could be playing better with his audience.

Human Target: Planes, Trains and Hot Chicks with Guns

2010-01-21T17:42:00.003-05:00

Two episodes in and Human Target seems to have already developed the rather compelling formula of combining the charming cast with an attractive guest actress and a fast moving vehicle. In the pilot (or the "Preview Event," as Fox called it), the actress was Tricia Helfer and the vehicle was a high-speed train. In the second episode (or "The Premiere" as Fox called it), the actress was Courtney Ford and the vehicle was an airplane. Presumably, something's going to have to give with the fast-moving vehicle part of this equation,* but the attractive guest actresses of the week should be easier to sustain, and the combination of said actresses with Mark Valley, Chi McBride and Jackie Earle Haley should prove plenty sufficient.

In truth, there are a few other elements at work here, chief among them being a writing staff capable of churning out breezily entertaining one-off plots and amusing dialog, fast-paced direction, and some marvelous action set-pieces. But the best thing about the show is the way it makes all of that stuff seem as easy as casting an attractive actress and letting her interact with Valley while McBride and Haley argue with each other against the backdrop of an upside down airplane. None of it actually is easy, of course. It's a trick, a false identity, like whichever name and job Valley's Christopher Chance will decide to take on next week. And it's a big part of the reason the show works so well.

Human Target premiered (or "previewed," I guess) before the season premiere of 24. I wrote about how I laugh a lot at 24 here, but the show is not intentionally funny. It is, in fact, Deadly Serious. And no matter how many ridiculous things happen, it remains Deadly Serious.** I've laughed plenty while watching the first two episodes of Human Target, too. The difference, though, is that I was supposed to be laughing. Because it's the kind of show that doesn't take itself too seriously, that recognizes when it's doing ridiculous stuff, and that wants you to go along with all that ridiculous stuff just because it's so much fun. It's a light actiony entertainment, and the most important thing a show like this can do is feel easy without being lazy. Which means that all the hard stuff--the plots, the dialog, the pacing and the set-pieces--should go largely unnoticed by the audience so we can focus on how much fun all the more superficial stuff is.

And it does. Which probably means the show won't be winning any Emmys. But what do the Emmys know anyway?

Other notes:

I got through the entire pilot without realizing that the attractive guest actress of the week was Tricia Helfer. I often fail to recognize her when I see her. She is a chameleon.
I'm glad to see Fox promoting the show so heavily, since I think it should be a big hit, and I find their scheme somewhat fascinating. The theory behind it, I think, is to turn both the first and second episodes into can't miss premiere events. We've seen something similar with the whole midseason finale thing. I guess my only concern would be that if every episode gets promoted as a super-special event, won't that kind of detract from the usefulness of calling something a super-special event?
The most ridiculous thing in these first two episodes is probably the skeleton key to the Internet MacGuffin in "Rewind." As with all the other ridiculous stuff, I didn't mind it and in fact kind of liked it. I suppose some people might call it lazy, but I think the absurdity of it fits well with the feel of the show.
I should also probably mention the nonlinear structure of "Rewind," though I don't have a whole lot to say about other than that I liked it, it was well done and I hope they don't overuse it.

*An episode on a city bus? On a cruise ship? On Segways?***

**This worked for 24 in its early seasons, and now it really doesn't, but it can't really shift tones at this point without becoming an entirely different show.

***Okay, on Segways might be pretty fucking awesome.

Why Nobody Watches Better Off Ted (Maybe) Even Though They Should (Definitely)

2010-01-20T09:11:00.002-05:00

Better Off Ted is all sharp edges and pointy barbs. Lots of folks have claimed that this is why it's had such a hard time grabbing, well, any audience to speak of. And that may well have something to do with it. It's not meanness, per se--Two and Half Men is far meaner, maybe the meanest sitcom ever--but it is a particular kind of cold and calculating satire. There are relationships there, there are even lessons, but those relationships and lessons are always butting up against and being consumed by a show that is on the whole distant and harsh.

That is intentional, of course. The feel of the show is the feel of the company at the heart of it. The American version of The Office dabbles in satire, but its focus is on the characters, making it a much warmer show. In Ted, the characters are secondary to the absurdity of the system. (It would, in fact, not be outrageous to say that the show's actual main character is, in fact, Veridian Dynamics.) So while in The Office little victories are celebrated, in Ted those same little victories are immediately sucked back into the system and spit back out in perverted (but hilarious!) ways. So, yeah, some people might find that a bit off-putting.

But I kind of think a bigger problem the show has is that now's not really a great time to be mocking office jobs, what with the way lots of people would kill a goat with their bare hands* for just such a job right now. It's not a coincidence that Dilbert, a comic strip that specializes in a similar type of sharp-edged satire, rose to fame during the 90s, when the economy was going swimmingly and everybody had jobs they hated. Now most people are just thankful to have a job, absurdities and all.

The Office has been better able to deal with this shift in attitudes precisely because of its heavy focus on characters. When the show started, most of the characters seemed to despise their jobs. As the show's gone along, however, we've come to see that some of them have a more nuanced outlook on their employment situation, while others have come to appreciate their jobs more. Even Jim takes his job seriously now. (Jim!) There are plenty of times the characters get frustrated, but at the same time, the office in The Office isn't such a bad place to work. And as the real world economy has worsened, the show and the characters have reflected that.

Ted's tunnel focus on office mockery doesn't really allow for that kind character-based nuance or the kind of archy-plot devices necessary to make that kind of transition. That doesn't mean it's necessarily a worse show. It just means it's a different kind of show. Possibly the kind of show that's not well-suited for this particular cultural moment.

Of course, it's also possible that nobody's watching Better Off Ted because, how did my brother put it? Ah, yes. "What the heck's Better Off Ted?"

*This is no doubt part of the Veridian Dynamics application process.

24: 4:00pm - 5:00pm

2010-01-19T10:39:00.002-05:00

It's perhaps telling that I laugh a lot while watching 24. Given that the show contains very little in the way of actual comic relief, it's probably not the reaction the show's seeking to inspire. But I think it explains why I've managed to keep enjoying it even as it has declined over the past few years.

At least people say it's declined over the past few years. And I believe them! I even have faint memories of maybe taking 24 more seriously than I now do. But if I did, in fact, take it more seriously at one point, watching the show now makes me think I probably shouldn't have.

24 is basically pure spectacle. At one point its themes and its sense of urgency had a relevance it no longer really has, underwear bomber or no. It has one great central character in Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer that can sometimes anchor the show in something resembling emotional reality, though that connection too has grown more tenuous. But even when the show has a firmer grip on these elements, its real draw was always the spectacle. And for the most part, that remains intact.

The reason people watch 24, the reason people have always watched 24, is to see Jack Bauer kill a bad guy with an ax. Or scream in their face. Or shoot them in the leg. Because it's awesome and it remains awesome. And I don't use the word cheaply in this instance. It really is awesome.

It used to signify something deeper than that. Back when our anger was rawer, before that moment had passed. But it's mostly the moment that's changed. The pure stupid ridiculous spectacle remains. It used to be cathartic, but now it just plays as dumb entertainment. And as far as the culture is concerned, that's probably a change for the better.

So what is there to say about the premiere? It was sufficiently ridiculous. I like Katee Sackhoff a lot. The plots all seem convoluted enough to be able to wind their way through another 23 episodes. When the helicopter blew up, that was kind of cool. Oh, and Jack killed a guy with an ax. I couldn't help but laugh.

In defense of David Caruso.

2009-11-08T09:37:00.000-05:00

David Caruso's performance on CSI: Miami has been much maligned, and when viewed out of context, as in the video above, that seems only fair. The performance is affected to the point of absurdity. He leans far too heavily on his sunglasses and vocal tics. He seems to think he's cool, when he is more or less the opposite of cool. But in the context of the show itself, Caruso's performance is indispensable.

This is because, outside of Caruso, CSI: Miami is perhaps the most boring television show in the history of the world. Which is not to say it's particularly awful, as it's actually too boring to be particularly awful. Criminal Minds, for example, is in many ways a worse show. But it's awful in an exploitive, slasher film-inspired sort of way. And so its boring parts are spliced with sickening and misogynistic violence. While CSI: Miami occasionally attempts exploitive storylines, it largely even fails at that. The plots are thoroughly unremarkable. Its violence is likewise rote. Further, the acting in the show, again outside of Caruso, is uniformly wooden and dull, as is the dialog. There is quite literally nothing to distinguish CSI: Miami from any other CBS procedural.

Except, of course, for Caruso. The reality of the situation is that a genuinely good performance on Caruso's part could not save this show. It would just be there amidst all the dullness. Best case scenario is the critics would look at Caruso's good performance and lament that he is on such a terrible show. The more likely scenario, however, would be that his performance would go unnoticed, dragged down into the void of somnambulism the show would create.

But by going completely over the top, hamming it up, and turning the douchiness up to eleven, Caruso almost kind of sort of does save the show. Not in the sense that he turns it into something actually good, but certainly in the sense that he turns it into something that can occasionally be so bad it's entertaining. Granted, this is only the case when Caruso's on the screen, but this really only goes to proving the point. Caruso's not exactly transfixing as Horatio Caine, but he is ... something. Which is more than anyone can say about the rest of the show.

Whether Caruso has done this intentionally or obliviously is another matter. But I'm just going to go ahead and give the man and his sunglasses the benefit of the doubt.

Parks and Recreation: The Second Season So Far.

2009-11-05T19:23:00.002-05:00

When Parks and Recreation premiered last season it was met with largely negative reviews from disappointed critics. I tend to think the show's first season is better than most were giving it credit for. While those early episodes are certainly very uneven, it was nonetheless clear from the beginning that the the potential was there for a great series. The cast was uniformly excellent and the setting was particularly well established. What was lacking was a solid grasp of the characters and their relationships. The second season has seen the show fix those issues and, in so doing, largely fulfill the potential those uneven early episodes displayed.

In the first season, Amy Poehler didn't seem to know how to play Leslie Knope, and as a result Leslie often came off more as a collection of one-dimensional characters from funny bits than she did a recognizable human being. The rest of the cast seemed to do better, but their characters were thinner and privy to less screen time. All the stories revolved around Leslie, which kept the other characters one-dimensional and prevented them from establishing relationships with one another. This could have worked if Leslie had been better established, but even then it wouldn't have been ideal, as the best sitcoms are based on character interaction.

None of these problems are really unique to Parks and Recreation. These are standard-issue growing pains that most new sitcoms go through. Characters are rarely perfected within the first handful of episodes, and it always takes some time for the cast to gel and for relationships to establish themselves. But the way Parks structured its episodes--watch Leslie be funny!--did tend to highlight these early flaws, and that was probably its biggest problem of all. The self-inflicted prominence of these flaws distracted from the things the show was already doing well--specifically, the way it established a sense of place better than most sitcoms ever manage to--which resulted in critics rather underrating it, and, even more significantly, lots of viewers tuning out, viewers the show is still trying--mostly in vain--to win back.

Which is unfortunate, because Parks really does deserve to get those viewers back at this point, as it has solved every single one of its early issues. Interestingly, it seems to have solved all of its problems basically all at once, so that it's hard to point to an easy progression of improvement. But I'm going to try anyway.

The first five episodes were of pretty much uniform quality: funny in moments, incoherent overall, for all the reasons I've already discussed at length. The sixth and last episode of the first season was, as most critics noted at the time, a marked improvement. I think this improvement had a lot to do with its status as a season finale, and the writers efforts to structure it as a season finale. Season finales didn't used to be any big thing, but modern television viewers now demand that they offer something more than a regular episode. A big part of that expected something more is a sense of closure, not just for the main character, but for all the characters. And so the writers felt obligated to broaden their scope beyond Leslie. Which they did. This gave the show more of an ensemble feel that they've managed to carry over into the second season.

The other important thing that happened in the first season finale was the end of Leslie's first season character arc. The arc itself was pretty thin--Leslie is infatuated with Mark, whom she once slept with and who does not share her feelings!--but it provided an excuse to finally settle on a good way to write and play the character. Which, again, they did. Leslie rejected Mark's drunken advances and has ever since been a more grounded, self-aware character. She is not a Michael Scott retread, which is the way some early episodes indicated the character would turn out.

The result of these two huge changes--a more grounded Leslie combined with more of an ensemble feel--is a Parks and Recreation that can more than hold its own in NBC's Thursday comedy block. Indeed, through the first seven episodes of the second season, Parks has been perhaps the most consistently funny sitcom on television, in general.

Last week's episode, "Greg Pikitis," does a good job illustrating just how these changes have positively effected the show. The A-plot is still Leslie-centered, but it also incorporates Andy (Chris Pratt) and Dave (Louis C.K., who is terrific in the role). It centers around Leslie's rivalry with a juvenile Halloween prankster and involves her doing all sorts of borderline insane things in an attempt to catch him. This has become her main character trait: an overabundance of enthusiasm. In the end, however, we find out that Leslie has been correct all along, as Pikitis really is responsible for all the elaborate pranks. And so Leslie tends to be overly exhuberent, we see that she also tends to be correct much of the time. She's not clueless or mendacious or petty. She just wants to do the right thing. She's flawed, sometimes very flawed--as Dave says, he would not want to live where she was in charge of enforcing the law--but her aims are true. Michael Scott might be pitiable, but Leslie is genuinely likable.

The B-story, meanwhile, makes good use of virtually every other member of the cast. We get Rashida Jones' Ann trying to impress both her hospital coworkers and her friends at Parks and Recreation by throwing a party. We get Paul Schneider's Mark being his usual supportive self, in his usual oddly-less-effectual-than-he-thinks-he-is sort of way. We get Aubrey Plaza's April recounting her previous adventures at a gay Halloween party. We get Nick Offerman continuing to be bluntly hilarious. And we get more of Aziz Ansari's Tom Haverford being far more human than the obnoxious image he tries so hard to cultivate suggests.

Parks has also done an increasingly good job putting the characters together in new and interesting ways, suggesting that each character has a unique relationship not only to the office as a whole, but to every other individual character. Which is to say, it's really building a world with a sense of place occupied by characters that feel like real human beings and relationships that feel entirely natural, regardless of the absurdities that surround them. And that bodes well for the future.

The ratings, on the other hand, not so much. Let's just hope people start to realize what they're missing.

Mixed Messages in Advertising: Hardee's Biscuit Holes

2009-06-27T10:49:00.000-04:00

Message the commercial intends to convey: Hardee's Biscuit Holes are just like testicles!

Message the commercial actually conveys: Hardee's Biscuit Holes are just like testicles?

I don't know whether to respect these fast food chains for embracing their food's less appetizing qualities or to be fearful that they seem able to turn those less appetizing qualities into marketable attributes.

Mixed Messages in Advertising: The BK Super Seven Incher

2009-06-26T10:45:00.000-04:00

Message the advertisement intends to convey: Eating the BK Super Seven Incher is just like putting a large penis in your mouth!

Message the advertisement actually conveys: Eating the BK Super Seven Incher is just like putting a large penis in your mouth?

Glee: Pilot

2009-05-20T13:28:00.000-04:00

Whatever becomes of Glee after this, that was one hell of a pilot. At this point, Ryan Murphy's creation is more style than substance, but the style is so terrific that I'm okay with that for now. It is a problem that has to be addressed going forward, however.

But first, that style! It's not exactly the case that none of this has been done before. But I think it is fair to say that none of this has been done all at once and in this medium before. The first quarter of the show plays like a rehash of Election, which is fine as far as it goes. I think Election would probably make a pretty great TV show, actually. But, to Glee's credit, it soon grows out of that simple rehash (though, to be sure, it retains elements) and begins layering pieces of other shows on top of it: we see bits of Murphy's old show, Popular, and of Freaks and Geeks, and of Friday Night Lights, and, most obviously, of High School Musical and American Idol.

The smörgåsbord of inspirations makes for compelling television, but also for a delicate balance. If the show leans too hard toward High School Musical, it risks becoming, well, High School Musical. But if it leans too hard toward Friday Night Lights-like realism, the musical performances will seem even more absurd and out of place. And if it gives in too much to irony and fails to take the musical performances seriously on some level, it risks turning them into camp and dragging the rest of the show down with them. The presence of Murphy makes maintaining the show's balance seem all the more unlikely. Though Murphy's an excellent writer, he's been known to do some stupid stuff and drive shows into the ground. (Shockingly enough, Nip/Tuck didn't always suck.)

But television is unpredictable. I wouldn't have guessed that Friday Night Lights would very nearly run itself off the rails until Landry went and killed that guy. And I wouldn't have guessed that The Big Bang Theory would become a solid little sitcom that I look forward to watching every week after its painfully hackish pilot. TV shows evolve and devolve, hang together and fall apart in interesting and unexpected ways. And yet part of reviewing a television show is trying to predict the future, because television is by its very nature episodic, and one episode does not a series make. And so I'll say this: Almost all shows collapse eventually. Glee will not escape that fate and, because of its balancing of styles, is indeed likely to meet it sooner than most. But right now, it's a great show. And when it comes back in the Fall, everyone should endeavor to watch it. Because pilots like this don't come along very often.

Just how soon Glee hits its collapse, and just how painful that collapse will feel to its viewers, depends on whether it can improve on its pilot's weak points by deepening its themes and sharpening its characterization. As of right now, Glee doesn't really seem to have anything new to say. Insomuch as it has cribbed its style from various inspirations, it has cribbed its themes as well, and the mix of themes is far less compelling than the mix of styles. High school is symbolic of a caste system from which we never really escape, even if our roles get changed around. There's more to life than the collection of material wealth. There's a conflict between the belief that we can achieve whatever we want to achieve and living in a small town in which most everybody has failed to achieve even their most modest of dreams. Etc. Etc. All true and potentially interesting, but nothing I haven't seen done better before.

Even more problematic is the squad of archetypes Glee sends forth to tackle these themes. Most grating is Jessalynn Gilsig's Terri, who is the shrill and shrewish housewife at once holding her husband back from his true potential and pushing him into a career he's sure to hate. It's not Gilsig's fault—she's a fine actress, one for whom I've always had a bit of a soft spot—but the character as written is an appalling stereotype and a shortcut for referencing the problem with materialism without actually tackling it. Equally stereotypical, though more amusingly so, are the gym teachers, played by Peter Gallagher and the always fantastic Jane Lynch, who provide yet another thematic shortcut, this time for referencing the high school caste system.

Fortunately, these are the sort of problems that can be corrected. In particular, I'm not too worried about the characterization. Toward the end of the pilot, certain characters, such as Lea Michelle's Rachel, were already moving beyond the types on which they had been modeled. Add to this a uniformly excellent cast and a talented writing staff, and there's every reason to believe the characterization will work itself out to a certain extent. The thematic shallowness is more concerning, and I'm not sure I trust the show so much on that front.

Despite these shortcuts in characterization and the thematic deficiencies, Glee is easily one of the best pilots I've seen in a long time. The world of the show is already recognizable and well-defined, and the show itself is unlike anything else on TV. More than that, it's just a pleasure to watch, as purely entertaining as anything I've seen all year. And that in and of itself is no small accomplishment.

Other stuff:

I'm ready for more episodes now. And yet I have to wait until Fall. I have mixed feelings about this promotional strategy.
I managed to get through that entire review without mentioning how great Matthew Morrison and Jayma Mays were. For shame.
I spent the entire episode waiting for former Celtic Kevin McHale to show up. And then I realized that it was a differet Kevin McHale, and he was playing the kid in the wheelchair. Moral of this story: I'm an idiot.
When properly deployed, any piece of music can be effective. And, to be sure, Glee used “Don't Stop Believing” very effectively. But Journey sucks. A lot. Let us never forget.

How I Met Your Mother: The Leap

2009-05-19T15:22:00.000-04:00

How I Met Your Mother sometimes overreaches on the sentimentality. It's a flaw, but it's also part of the show's charm, and it happened towards the end of last night's season finale. “The Leap,” written by series creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and directed, as usual, by Pamela Fryman, rolled along quite nicely until then, though.

Specifically, everything involving the goat was gold. There are, of course, those who believe it didn't live up to the hype, which is fair enough, I suppose. But that's why it's best not to measure quality by hype. (Which, incidentally, is why I almost universally hate backlashes.) And Ted fighting a goat to the delicate strains of “Murder Train?” That's funny.

Also funny is the budding romance between Barney and Robin. Though I think the show probably should have built up to their confrontation a bit more quickly, their fear of commitment and of their own feelings for one another make the dallying seem honest. And now that we've gotten the confrontation, it's hard for me to say that it could have been handled any better, really. Whenever Ted's relationships come to some sort of head, the show generally drops the comedy, strikes up the background pop song, and goes for straight, if slightly absurd, sentimentality. Not the case with Barney and Robin, at all, and that's how it should be.

As indicated in the lede, the show's melodramatic tendency did, however, rear its head at the end of the episode, when Ted infiltrated the Marshall and Lily storyline and turned Marshall's leap over to the neighboring rooftop into a somewhat strained metaphor for letting your life take you where it will. Which is sort of a nice sentiment.

And sort of a sad one. Because implicit in that leap is the harsh reality of giving up on your dreams; whether it's, in Lily's case, being an artist; or, in Marshall's case, saving the environment; or, in Barney's case, being a violinist; or, in Ted's case, being an architect. To its credit, the show is pretty upfront about this. None of these characters have accomplished their dreams, and in this way it is similar to The Office, which is a show about people who often fail and the small victories they do manage to achieve. Where the shows differ is mostly in style; whereas HIMYM embraces melodrama, The Office eschews it. So The Office gives us a scene wherein Pam finds out she's pregnant and hides it in silence behind a window, while HIMYM stages the leap in slow motion with voice-over narration.

What's most interesting about “The Leap,” though, is the way it plays the acceptance of failure as a victory in and of itself. And it is! We each have to accept our limitations. Despite what our parents told us when we were growing up, we can't actually be whatever we want to be. But we can be something else, even if that something else seems a little less spectacular to us. And maybe we can achieve slightly smaller dreams, like making the leap over to the roof next door. It's a bittersweet sort of victory.

Bones: The End in the Beginning

2009-05-16T10:36:00.000-04:00

I'll generally not begrudge a show for taking stylistic risks and changing up its format from time to time, because risk-taking is the sort of thing that should be encouraged. But the Bones season finale, "The End in the Beginning," written by creator Hart Hanson and directed by Ian Toynton, was something of a disaster.

It was a dream episode, apparently taking place in Booth's mind as he lay in a coma after his brain surgery. The lab became The Lab, a nightclub owned by Booth and Brennan, who were married, while the other cast members took on various roles within the club. Despite being a dream sequence, there was still a murder mystery, involving the killing of...someone. Cam and Jared, Booth's brother, played FBI agents investigating the murder, which Booth and Brennan eventually solved. Jared was the killer, not that it matters. In between there were some lame attempts at meta-humor and Hodgins wrote a book and Sweets sang a pretty good song and Motley Crue sang a pretty bad song.

Oh, and, OMG, Booth and Bones totally did it. Except they didn't, because, you know, it was a dream, and the imaginary sex was just designed to titillate shippers who read spoilers. And then Booth woke up and was all like, "What a weird dream." And then he was all like, "Hey, who are you?" when Bones tried to talk to him. Because he had amnesia. Because Hart Hanson always has to end his seasons in the stupidest way possible.

"The End in the Beginning" is most directly comparable to "Restless," the fourth season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are people who really dislike that episode, but those people are wrong, as "Restless" is one of the most brilliant pieces of television ever created. It's smart and funny. It brings the themes of the show to forefront. It deepens the characterization. And it wraps up the fourth season and sets up the fifth in a creative and unexpected way.

But "The End in the Beginning" is very much not "Restless." It is less smart and funny than odd and baffling. While it does bring the themes of the show to the forefront, insomuch as it focuses on the nature of Bones and Booth's relationship and the way it revolves around violence, it doesn't touch the breadth of the themes "Restless" expounded upon. In fairness, though, Bones doesn't have the same thematic breadth as Buffy anyway, so I think we can give them that one.

But by this point, Hanson and company should realize that people watch their show for the character interaction, not for the simplistic themes or uninteresting mysteries. And characterization is really where the episode falls apart, as the alternate characterizations in the episode were by and large random and pointless. What does it tell us, for example, that Cam played the role of detective in Booth's dream? And what does it tell us Zack found the gun? And what does it tell us that Hodgins was writing a noirish mystery novel? The answer to all of those questions is, unfortunately, nothing. Or at least nothing that's not superficial and trivial.

And that's the biggest reason why the episode was so lame. It's not that it was a bad idea. It's just that it's the kind of idea that's difficult to do well. And "The End in the Beginning" proved it.

The amnesia thing, though? Yeah, that was just a bad idea.

30 Rock: Kidney Now!

2009-05-15T23:00:00.000-04:00

30 Rock has been pretty uneven this year. With that in mind, the relative quality of an episode of 30 Rock has less to do with how much you laugh, because you're always going to laugh, and more to do with how well it is constructed and how much it plays on the relationships between the characters. “Kidney Now!” did well with the latter, but not so well with the former. In what I've decided should be this blog's grand tradition, we'll start with the bad stuff first.

In the best episodes of 30 Rock, all the plot threads converge at the same time in one big orgasm of hilarity, and that just didn't happen here. Tracy's story was funny, and Liz's story was funny, and Jack's story was funny, but they didn't really seem to have a whole lot to do with one another. I suppose it's okay that 30 Rock isn't NewsRadio, and in a lot of ways 30 Rock is actually better than NewsRadio, but it would be nice if the writing were tighter.

That said, “Kidney Now!” did a great job with the character stuff. Alan Alda is perfectly cast as Jack's newfound father, and their relationship feels surprisingly realistic. Jack's happy to have a dad, but, because he's kind of selfish and not in any way John Locke, he's not so thrilled at the prospect of losing a kidney. Milton, meanwhile, realizes he might have been a bit forward about the whole kidney thing, and they hug, and even have a catch. And while Jack may not be gung ho about personally sacrificing, ruthlessly blackmailing other people into sacrificing is right up his alley. So he still gets to help his new father not die. Even though the whole thing is played for laughs with a thin veneer irony, it's still sort of touching in an odd way.

Also oddly touching was Tracy receiving an honorary high school diploma after delivering a nonsensical commencement address at the graduation of the high school from which he dropped out. That story is, of course, a really old cliché (Jack and Milton's story actually contains two clichés!), but it works because of the extra absurdity 30 Rock brings to it. The cliché is usually used for straight up sentimentality, which is the direction the episode fakes at, with Tracy claiming to have dropped out over drugs and violence or whatever. But the writers upend that expectation by revealing that Tracy actually dropped out because he was too squeamish to dissect a frog, and in doing so they point out the absurdity of the cliché in general, while still managing to evoke the sentiment of cliché.

The third story, meanwhile, was just a cliché used well, as Liz transformed into a real-life version of Jenna's advice lady from the previous episode. It added yet another wrinkle to the power-struggle in Liz and Jenna's bizarre friendship, and once again displayed how Liz is more like Jenna than she would probably care to admit.

Less analytical highlights:

"A guy crying about a chicken and a baby? I thought this was a comedy show!"
"From Peanut to President."
Liz: "We had a great year, didn't we?" Jack: "What are you talking about? It's May."
Kenneth's science class consisting entirely of bible stories.
Of course Clay Aiken is Kenneth's cousin.
The whole kidney song sequence.
"Opposite! Opposite! Opposite!"

The Office: Company Picnic

2009-05-15T13:53:00.000-04:00

The fourth season of The Office wasn't bad, but it also wasn't up to the standards the show's second and third seasons had set. It did, however, end on a positive note, with the arrival of new HR representative Holly Flax, played by the always awesome Amy Ryan. Season five picked up where the tail-end of that fourth season left off, and hasn't really had a bad episode all year. “Company Picnic,” the fifth season finale, written by Jennifer Celotta and Paul Lieberstein, directed by Ken Kwapis, and featuring the return of Ryan's Holly, just continued the excellence.

It's really nothing short of remarkable how much Michael Scott has grown as a character. Actually, what's remarkable about it is that it all seems so natural and unforced. He still has all the passive-aggressive tendencies and poor judgment he displayed in the early seasons, as illustrated by the less than polite way he treats Holly's new beau; but those traits have been tempered by experiences he's had since then, mostly having to do with his tortured relationships with both Jan and Dunder-Mifflin. He is now brave enough to stand up for himself, as well as just self-aware enough to realize when he doesn't really have to.

Holly, after all, is not Jan or David Wallace. She was being neither sadistic nor dismissive of Michael when she decided to break up with him; she was just being realistic. Moreover, Michael doesn't have to tell her that he loves her, because she already knows that. And when they sat there on the grass together at the end of this episode, discussing the disaster that was their SlumDunder Mifflinaire skit, Michael actually got that. And probably for the first time in his life, he didn't push. He just accepted the situation, and decided to enjoy the little bit of time they got to spend together.

Equally lovely was Jim and Pam's scene at the end. Even though Pam's imminent pregnancy had been foreshadowed a few minutes before, it nonetheless takes some guts to write a scene entirely reliant on the physical reactions of the cast. But it just shows how much confidence the show is working with right now, and Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski (who just maybe doesn't get enough credit for what he does) were more than up to the task.

Also showing just how much confidence the show has right now is the writers' decision to introduce a baby, which is one of those plot developments that has a reputation for eating shows alive. Given how well the show has handled the Jim and Pam coupling, however, I'm not too worried. The Office seems to take a certain pride in taking the things other shows have done wrong and doing them right.

Other stuff:

Pam's good at volleyball! I have no idea why that's funny, and yet it is.
SlumDunder Mifflinaire was evidence that even when The Office is at its sweetest, it can still make you cringe.
Stanley should get drunk more often. Just because I like seeing him happy.
Phyllis sitting down in the middle of the volleyball game is precisely the sort of passive-aggressive thing she would do. She is more like Michael than she would probably care to admit.
We need to see Rolf and Mose get together and hang out.
I'm liking the new receptionist. And so is Andy. But he really wishes she didn't suck so much at volleyball.

Lost: The Incident, Parts 1 and 2

2009-05-14T20:40:00.000-04:00

“The Incident,” written by the two-headed monster of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender, consisted of one hour and 50 minutes of pure, concentrated awesome and ten minutes of boring, nonsensical love quadrangle bullshit. That’s a pretty good ratio, but let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first so I can stop being critical and start being all OMG TEH FUCKING AWESOME!1!1!!

In general, the romantic relationships have always been the iffiest aspect of Lost. Remember, for example, that time in the second season when the writers briefly tried to build a love triangle around Charlie, Claire and Locke? Good times. Of course, Lost has gotten romance right every now and then: Desmond and Penny, Bernard and Rose, even Nikki and Paolo. (As horribly annoying as Nikki and Paolo were as characters, their relationship was sort of interesting as an example of two people who brought out the very worst in one another.) But you’ll note that the writers tend to not know what to do with these relationships once the characters actually get together. Nikki and Paolo destroyed each other in short order, while Desmond and Penny and Rose and Bernard have become tertiary characters.

It’s not too surprising, then, that the writers have kept the Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle they set up in the first season in a constant state of flux. They clearly don’t feel that they can write these characters out, and yet, at the same time, they don't seem to trust themselves to write a happy couple for any lengthy period of time. So we get annoying plot machinations like Sawyer and Kate fucking in a polar bear cage while Jack watches on a security camera.

The third season had already added Juliet to the mix, giving us not just the Jack-Kate Sawyer triangle, but also the Jack-Kate-Juliet triangle, which was, for the most part, just as stupid. This season’s “LaFleur” took those two triangles and combined them into what everybody on the internet is calling a quadrangle. And the thing about the quadrangle is, it wasn’t actually terrible. It existed mostly in the background, as subtle and unspoken tension between the characters.

Until the first ten minutes of the second part of the finale, that is, when the writers decided to have the tensions bubble over in absurd and unrealistic ways. Why was Jack so gung ho on blowing up the island? Because of Kate. Why was Juliet suddenly prone to bizarre and out of character mood swings? Because of Kate. Why was everyone so willing to talk about all of these feelings as Sayid bled to death in the back of a Dharma van? It’s hard to say, for sure, but probably because of Kate.

What makes those ten minutes so frustrating is that the rest of the finale was so, so good. There’s no show on television today, and maybe no show on television ever, that’s more capable of making its audience as outright giddy as Lost is. And that was mainly my reaction throughout the episode. Here’s a list of just some of the things that were awesome in the finale:

Jacob and Esau (as everyone on the internet is calling Titus Welliver’s character) on the beach.
The title card informing us that the show had jumped ahead thirty years.
Jacob showing up in all but one of the flashbacks.
Juliet kicking everybody’s ass in the submarine.
Both of the shoot-outs.
Hurley driving the Dharma van.
Everything having to do with Lapidus.
Everything having to do with Bernard and Rose.
Locke’s body falling out of the container the crazy cult people were carrying around.
Esau-Locke slowly convincing Ben that he ought to kill Jacob.
Jack throwing the bomb down the shaft and everybody bracing themselves, only to have nothing happen.
The return of the electromagnetic pull like the one at the end of season two.
Dr. Chang getting his arm crushed.
Miles saving his father.
Elizabeth Mitchell and Josh Hallowell acting the living fuck out of Juliet’s death scene.
Ben actually killing Jacob, who seems to pretty much be God himself, and throwing his body in the fire while Esau-Locke watched on.
Juliet exploding the nuclear bomb by pounding on it with a rock. I'm just going to repeat that because she exploded the nuclear bomb by pounding on it with a motherfucking rock.
Fade to white.

So, yeah, just about everything.

All that said, as awesome as the episode was (and to be critical again), I’m still not entirely convinced the show has a whole lot to say about anything, really. It might, though, and I am definitely convinced that I underestimated the show’s ambition. The Jacob and Esau thing we saw in this episode is far more mythic, in the ancient sense of the word, than anything Lost had even hinted at before.

The themes of the earlier seasons of the show were never particularly complex, and what happens in the later seasons isn’t going to change that. But in the last couple of seasons, the show has developed a thematic complexity it didn’t previously possess. At this point, we are dealing with ideas of fate and morality that the show paid mere lip service to before. In the second season, for example, the characters crossed paths constantly in flashbacks, but it never really added up to anything. “The Incident,” however, gave us a very similar set of flashbacks in which Jacob met up with younger versions of Locke and Kate and Jack and so on, and it worked in a way season two’s flashbacks never did.

While this new knowledge doesn’t make the second season’s themes any more complex, it does give the viewer the sense of a show that’s building from something simple to something not so simple, and that’s almost as exciting to watch as all the awesome plot twists it throws at us.

Mixed Messages in Advertising: P.J. Bland's vs. Chile's

2009-05-14T17:33:00.000-04:00

Message the commercial intends to convey: At Chili's, our colorful food is better than the bland food at those other restaurants.

Message the commercial actually conveys: At Chili's, our food is better than cardboard.

Me, I'm not even convinced of that. The ad campaign is impressively extensive, though.

Scrubs: My Finale

2009-05-14T14:53:00.000-04:00

(Ed.- This is horribly late, of course, but I was holding it over until I was ready to launch the new blog.)

As my over-effusive post on the ER finale probably indicates, I’m something of a sucker for finales, in general. So you’ll forgive me if it seems slightly hyperbolic when I say that the Scrubs finale was the greatest episode in the history of television, and probably the greatest piece of art ever made since naked Neanderthals began writing on cave walls.

I don’t really mean that, of course. But it was a good episode of television, and easily the best episode of Scrubs since “My Last Words,” which had in turn been the best episode of Scrubs since season five, at least. The point being that Scrubs used to be reliable entertainment, but lost its way in its later years and actually became actively bad for large stretches of time. This final season has been a nice return to form and consistency, and the finale continued that and brought the show to a positive ending, which is as much as any fan could have hoped for and more than they had any right to expect when the season began.

There are a few specific things a series finale ought to do. If it does them, it will be a good episode. If it doesn’t do them, it will not be a good episode. To wit:

It has to have a good story, just like any other good episode of television would. This seems obvious, but with all the concentration on the points to follow, this can sometimes get lost. (I’m trying to think of an example, but I’m just a stupid blogger, so I can’t. Examples exist, though. I’m sure of it!)
It has to bring the main themes of the show to the foreground.
It has to remind the viewer of the show’s early seasons.
It has to provide closure on most of the relationships and hanging plot threads.
It has to give the viewer a sense that the world of the show will live on, even after the show itself has gone.

Getting all of these things right can be a tricky, especially when it comes to balancing the conflict between numbers four and five. But the Scrubs finale is a good example of just how to do it. To wit, again:

It had a good story running throughout the episode about the mother dying of Hutchinson’s and the son who decided against taking the test to find it if he had inherited the disease.
That story did a good job bringing the main themes of the show to foreground.
The flashbacks to the pilot at the beginning of the episode and the hall full of characters from earlier seasons toward the end of the episode acted as totems of times gone by and reminded us just how expansive the world of Sacred Heart is.
Scrubs isn’t really a plot-heavy show, but the penny thing was sort of fun, as was the unveiling of the Janitor’s likely fake name. More importantly, those little plot resolutions put a nice bow on JD’s relationship with the Janitor. JD got similar moments of varying silliness with Turk, Carla and Kelso. The most well-earned piece of closure, however, came with the JD-orchestrated Dr. Cox’s speech, which we were almost as psyched to hear as JD was.
At the same time it was giving us all that nice closure, “My Finale” was making it abundantly clear that Sacred Heart would still be there the next day, providing the same service it always had. (JD himself comes to terms with this over the course of the episode.) The closing home-movie montage of JD’s possible future was kind of beautiful (I admit it: I cried. So did you, so shut up.). And just as much as I’m a sucker for finales, I’m also a sucker for people getting into cars and driving off into the horizon, the horizon of course being not an ending, but the ever-present and distant future towards which we are always striving.

Of course, "My Finale" might not actually be the series finale, as ABC is in seemingly eternal ongoing discussions to bring the show back without Zach Braff. I can’t help but think that’s not such a great idea. The show was about how JD came to Sacred Heart and grew up. Now he’s grown up, as evidenced by his desire to be a better father, and he’s leaving Sacred Heart because of that. So this really is the natural ending point.

On the other hand, the fan in me would kind of like to spend more time with these characters. Add to that my desire to see more Better off Ted, the renewal hopes of which seem to be hinging on another season of Scrubs, and I can almost convince myself that another season might not be such a terrible thing. The critic in me probably knows better, though.

What this blog is.

2009-05-14T14:49:00.000-04:00

This is a blog about popular culture. We write about television, literature, music and movies. Mostly television, probably, but we'll see.