Monday, September 30, 2013

The Departing and The Soon-To-Be Departed (Review)

Series: How I Met Your Mother
Episode Title: "Last Time in New York"
Episode Grade: A-

I went on at great length last week about the emotional underpinnings of How I Met Your Mother, because I'm largely incapable of talking about anything without going on at great length. And it's that core of emotion that has enabled the show to achieve a kind of resonance that even well-crafted sitcoms lack.

But an emotionally resonant sitcom is still a sitcom, and it's fair to judge How I Met Your Mother on a comedic standard. That's largely where the show has fallen short in recent years, even while getting many of the emotional beats right.

"Last Time in New York" has some lovely moments, and we'll get to those. But above all else it is funny, a consistently entertaining half hour of television that provides reason to hope Carter Bays and Craig Thomas can make the world's most drawn-out wedding something we enjoy watching.

Writers tend to talk about "A" plots and "B" plots in episodes, but "Last Time in New York" really has two A plots. The first, which is more light-hearted, has Barney and Robin freaking out about the arrival of all their elderly relatives and the possibility that they might end up a bitter, sexless old married couple themselves.

The Barney-Robin pairing can raise a number of troublesome questions, but the chemistry between Cobie Smoulders and Neil Patrick Harris is sensational enough to quiet most of them. The two have an easy reporte built over the course of eight seasons, and it remains a pleasure just to watch the two bounce off each other and reveal just how perfectly, pervertedly compatible they are.

Barney and Robin spend most of the episode trying to find a naughty public place to have sex, but they're stymied by the hordes of elderly relatives who have descended on Farhampton (and who are inexorably drawn by uttering the words "Mandy Patinkin"). This is all pretty frivolous, and the jokes about old people trade more on hoary stereotypes than genuine wit.

But, again, it's fun. Watching Barney constantly misinterpret Robin's statements as an invitation for anal sex is fun. Watching Wayne Bradey sacrifice himself as if he's a doomed soldier in a classic war movie to the old relatives so that Barney and Robin can get away is fun. Smoulders wasn't necessarily asked to do much in the first couple seasons of the show, but she's evolved into a really outstanding comedic performer, and her work with Harris is always a highlight.

A-plot Two is Lily discovering Ted's list of things to do for the final time in New York. There's more of an emotional core to this, and not just because Ted expects to leave behind Robin and the rest of his friends. Ted's love for New York has itself been a theme running through the show's many seasons; his passion for the city's architecture, its energy and its beauty have been re-visited constantly. Sometimes it's been played for laughs, sometimes for drama, sometimes for thematic resonance, but it's always been there. And it's always been one of the better elements of Ted's character; he's hardly unique in fiction in having a passion for New York, but How I Met Your Mother's writing staff have done a remarkable job in keeping that passion from coming off as the insufferable arrogance you see from other fictional New Yorkers.

But this is also a consistently funny story. The to-do list is perfect Moseby: whether Ted is correcting the "Your a penis" graffiti on the corner (that's YOU'RE a penis, thank you very much), saying goodbye to the Empire State Building (he sometimes talks to it about life, OK?) or finally coming clean with the beautiful woman upstairs (she's an incredibly loud walker and can't play the bongos at all), the little cutaway gags developing from the list are funny.

"Last Time In New York" ends on something of a cliffhanger: Ted finds Barney to share a last glass of Scotch, only to be confronted by the fact that Barney saw him helping Robin dig in Central Park for her old locket last season. So the emotional stakes remain. But there are two syllables in "sitcom," and tonight was excellent proof that How I Met Your Mother is still aware of the second.

Notes

  • The C-plot tonight is Marshall driving through a "hellish, cheese-infested wasteland" (Wisconsin) with Sherri Shepherd. Jason Segel was apparently quite reluctant to come back for a final season, and I wonder if the road trip plot is a way of working around his lack of availability, because he doesn't get much screen time tonight.
  • Lily's awesome dress, which was both slutty and classy in exactly the right proportions, was ruined, which forces her to opt for her back-up dress, which is just classy.
  • Marshall and Ted ruined the dress in a sword fight sparked by Ted's discovery of the old swords he and Marshall once shared. Marshall ends up raising a pretty valid point about the way Andre the Giant is disrespected in The Princess Bride.
  • Of course, it turns out even Lily and Robin are unable to resist the allure of a sword fight, and they end up dueling. Lily apparently thinks Mandy Patinkin's famous line is, "My name is Rodrigo Montoya, you killed someone I love, prepare to dance."
  • During the fight, Lily and Robin accidentally destroy the 30-year-old bottle of expensive scotch Marshall and Ted bought for the wedding. They replace it with cheap whiskey, chocolate syrup, ketchup and hand sanitizer. Ted can't tell the difference.
  • Josh Radnor in a 1910-era bathing suit. Always comic gold. 

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Portrait of a Magnus in Decline (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Pharsalus"
Original Air Date: October 9, 2005
Episode Grade: C

"Pharsalus" is a perfect example of what we might call a "strategic anti-climax." There are moments in a story that an audience can recognize as momentous and epochal, especially when the story is based in well-known history. These moments present certain challenge and expectations.

Instead of taking these challenges head-on, the strategic anti-climax deliberately sidesteps them, disposing of the crucial event in a cursory fashion. The focus is placed on the lead up to, or aftermath of, the incident and how it shapes the characters involved.

There can be thematic reasons for this, such as an attempt to emphasize the importance of all the little things that contribute to the large event. In comedies, the strategic anti-climax can be played for laughs. In skillful hands, it's a storytelling trope that puts the audience off-balance by subverting its expectations.

"Pharsalus," on the other hand, is strategic anti-climax as cop out. It dispenses with its titular battle in a way that betrays a contempt for the audience and doesn't do nearly enough in the aftermath to make up for it. There's enough in the closing moments of this episode to keep it from qualifying as a true disaster, but it remains the worst episode of the series so far.

There are two choices here that creak and squeal like a rusty gate. In the first, the episode starts by showing Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus stranded on an island somewhere in the Aegean, most of the 13th Legion having been drowned by the massive storm we saw last week.

In the second, "Pharsalus" elects to elide The Battle of Pharsalus, in which Caesar destroyed Pompey's forces. The "battle," such as it is, is represented with a soundless, generic, 15-second vignette in which a few soldiers swing swords at each other and scream menacingly. This being finished, we cut back to an ever-so-slightly bruised Caesar riding triumphantly into camp.

And so Rome handles the first truly momentous, epic moment of its run: by waving at it from a passing car. I eagerly await the moment where the show grapples with Caesar's assassination by having Pullo say, "Hey, remember when those dudes stabbed Caesar last week? That was weird, wasn't it? Anyway, I like having sex."

Let's be honest about what this is: a bullshit-powered plot machine. Rome was famous as one of the most expensive shows of its day, but it has shown no stomach for shelling out the money required to truly do justice to a battle like Pharsalus. This episode is an attempt to make a virtue out of a necessity, and the necessity is an inability or unwillingness to grapple with the true scope of the moment.

Pullo and Vorenus, for their part, are stranded on their island so that they can't take part in the "battle," such as it is. If our two main characters were present the show wouldn't be able to get away with ignoring Pharsalus; the audience would expect to see the two in action. We wouldn't accept breezing past a moment that presented so much danger to Pullo and Vorenus. Throw a shipwreck at them, however, and the details of the battle become irrelevant.

Of course, the shipwreck plays a more important role in the story: bringing Titus and Pullo into contact with a defeated Pompey. The two escape their island by building a raft out of the corpses of their comrades, which is terribly innovative and interesting to anyone who hasn't read Watchmen. 

Titus and Vorenus wash up on the beach right in front of Pompey and his family, who are fleeing to a Greek port where they can take ship to Egypt and try to raise more forces. This is, again, an utterly ridiculous contrivance, a deus ex machina so ridiculous that it's partly redeemed later in the episode when Caesar lampshades its ridiculousness by suggesting these two men must have gods on their side.

For all that there is in this development to set one's eyes a-rollin', it does at least bring us the few moments that prevent the episode from a complete collapse.

Kenneth Cranham hasn't had much to do so far as Pompey, but he shines in his final episode. "Pharsalus" does well when it is exploring a defeated and humbled Pompey, and it is at its best when Pompey is interacting with Vorenus.

There are some cursory attempts to raise questions about power and influence in these post-Pharsalus scenes. Pompey's servants and soldiers all flee, one of them stealing the jewelry from his wife's neck as she sleeps. The guide and protector who's left, a creepy fellow named Lysandros (with a bitchin' metal nose), is impudent almost to the point of mutiny, harshly inquiring about his fee and refusing to move on to the Greek port when Pompey demands it.

Cranham handles all of this with a heartbreaking mix of wounded dignity and resigned acceptance, and he takes advantage of his first real chance to imbue the character with something more than simplistic arrogance. And Rome doesn't allow Pompey too unrealistic a transformation; he shows a flash of the old arrogance when explaining Pharsalus to Vorenus, defending his strategy as "right" while blaming its failure on the "cowards" in his army.

Vorenus, who had initially taken custody of Pompey after killing Lysandros, decides to release Pompey. He later tells Caesar that he didn't think a "broken" Pompey was a threat, what with his watery eyes and shaking hands, but his explanation to an aghast Pullo is a little different. The traditionalist, honor-bound Vorenus just doesn't think a man such as Pompey Magnus deserves to be trussed up and delivered like a slave to Caesar. It's a reasonable explanation that's consistent with what we know of Vorenus.

In the end, of course, all Vorenus does is give Pompey the freedom to die on the Egyptian shore. It's a moment that's handled with the kind of unsparing directness that I can only wish the episode had displayed with the Battle of Pharsalus.

For all of the good work turned in by Cranham and Kevin McKidd, "Pharsalus" remains an utterly disappointing and uninspiring episode of television. Yes, the scope and size of this moment is massive and difficult to cover. But it's a task Rome gave itself, and the magnitude of the moment should give the show an extraordinary amount of pitch and drama.

Instead, Rome opted out of the moment, and in doing so betrayed a crippling lack of ambition and creativity.

Notes

  • The other significant plotline here is Atia dispatching a reluctant Octavia to ask Servilia for some men to guard the house. This leads, as it so often does, to a lesbian affair. I assume this will eventually prove to be part of Servilia's revenge plot, but right now it's just manipulative.
  • There's a really good scene before the "battle" in Pompey's camp. Pompey wants to hound Caesar into a hunger-driven surrender without offering battle, but Cato, Cicero and Scipio play on Pompey's ego and talk him into an "honorable" battle.
  • Caesar's reason for giving battle with his hungry, desperate troops: "We must win or die. Pompey's men have other options."
  • Cicero and Brutus surrender to Caesar, who has a shockingly joyous reaction to seeing the two Senators. 
  • Ciaran Hinds is good in relatively limited work here. He's charming with Brutus and Cicero and furious with Lucius Vorenus. 

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Resurrection of a Franchise (Review)

Series: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Episode Title: "Pilot"
Episode Grade: B+

(Editorial note: I've considered the pros and cons of repeatedly typing in the periods listed above, and after a careful analysis have decided to omit them in the body of the reviews. It's annoying, and you can send complaints to my copy editor)

The Avengers was more than your usual summer blockbuster. It was, in fact, less of a movie than the culmination of a marketing and branding strategy that began with the original Iron Man. Superhero movies are always mercenary, profit-driven affairs, but The Avengers was unseemly even by the standards of summer comic book flicks.

For all that, the movie was redeemed by Joss Whedon's deft, light-hearted direction; in an era of dark, gritty superheroes, The Avengers was as whimsical as a movie about fighting the end of the world could really be.

Agents of SHIELD is clearly just another branch in the trillion-dollar money tree Marvel is nurturing with The Avengers franchise. But based on the pilot, it also has plenty to recommend it, including a top-notch cast and a healthy dose of Whedon's irreverence.

Of course, Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo and Chris Hemsworth aren't available for a weekly television drama, so we instead get the delightful adventures of Special Agent Phil Coulson. You might remember Coulson as the guy who assembled the Avengers in the various Marvel movies.

You might also remember him as the guy who was killed about halfway through The Avengers. So far as Coulson is concerned, SHIELD Director Samuel L. Jackson faked his death in order to unite the superhero team. The reality is far more traumatizing, though we don't get the details in the pilot; our old friend Agent Maria Hill (hi Colbie!) darkly hints at some other back story. There's probably a cloning plot line coming up, or maybe straight resurrection, but, hey, it's a universe with Thor and The Hulk in it. I can buy this.

Clark Gregg always gives off an air of officiousness; he has always been perfectly cast as a government operative (back to his delightful appearances on The West Wing) who's just a little annoyed by everything going on around him. He's somewhat less well-suited for the role of idealist, but it's not a crippling flaw.

If there's a hole in this particular episode, it originates with Brett Dalton, who plays the blandly handsome Agent Grant Ward. Writers of superhero stories enjoy putting an everyman at the center of the craziness in order to provide the viewers/readers with a relatable entry to the universe. The problem is that the everyman is seldom of much interest himself, and Dalton continues that tradition here. Dalton is both boring and insufferably arrogant, which isn't much of a combination.

The plot of "Pilot" is compelling enough: an apparently average man witnesses an explosion at a building, then punches into a brick wall, climbs into the burning structure and rescues a woman inside. This being 2013, all of it is caught on video and posted online. SHIELD swings into action to find the man and bring him in.

There are some nifty little Whedon-esque tricks. For the first 15 minutes or so, an organization called "Rising Tide" is set up as the antagonist, one of their operatives providing a portentous, threatening voiceover...until it's interrupted when Coulson tracks down the van "Rising Tide" is using as a base and discovers the organization is a single hacker, played by Chloe Bennett.

"Skye," as Bennett's character calls herself, isn't a terribly well-rounded figure at this point. She's beautiful, she's good with computers, she has your standard network television paranoid politics and she's hiding an idealistic streak. All standard stuff. But Bennett has the right attitude for the part, and she's good with Whedon's dialogue, so we can afford to wait a bit for Skye to get fleshed out.

It turns out that the superhero from the opening scene, Michael, isn't a superhero at all. He is, instead, an unemployed factory worker who got roped into a medical experiment that somehow involves gamma radiation, Captain America's super serum and alien metal. There is, of course, a shadowy organization lurking behind the scenes, and the ghastly experiment in creating a super human causes insanity in the subject, as ghastly experiments to create super humans often do. Michael is also set to explode sooner rather than later. Again, your usual evil scientist side effects.

This all leads in fairly predictable, lockstep procedural fashion to a showdown at the local train station, and here's where Agents of SHIELD shows a little hint of becoming something more. Through Michael, the show explores the psychological ramifications that come with the existence of The Avenger; Mike is torn by feelings of inadequacy, brought on in part by the knowledge that there are "gods" above him and in part by his own economic ails.

The various resentments swirl together and get tangled up, and all Michael can really feel is impotence and the resulting rage.

This gets resolved in an annoyingly neat fashion, as SHIELD's science team rushes to the scene at the last minute and provides Ward with a magic rifle that can paralyze Michael, but not kill him. He's taken back to headquarters, the superhero device is removed and he's returned to his wife and kids.

There are a few paths Agents of SHIELD can take from here. It can become a procedural with nice branding and excellent production values; discover a new superhero or villain or science experiment every week, destroy it, find out a little bit more about the organization funding all this. Or, it can go deeper into serialization and explore its characters in depth.

A show like Agents of SHIELD is probably never going to be able to take a lot of risks; it's too important to Marvel's brand for the downsides that come with excess ambition. But between the presence of Whedon and cast members like Coulson and Ming-Na Wen, there's every reason to expect a consistent, quality product.

Notes

  • Skye briefly talks with Michael before Coulson discovers her, and she insists she has an office. "Of course I have an office. A mobile off...I work...live in a van. By choice..."
  • Coulson discovers Skye while she's loudly insisting that SHIELD will never find her, because Joss Whedon is clever, but he's often not subtle.
  • That woman Mike saved? She was the doctor who implanted him with the alien device that gave him his powers. She's still alive at the end of the pilot.
  • The show helpfully informs us that a scene takes place in "Paris, France," thus saving us from the inevitable confusion over whether or not they're actually in Texas.
  • The fight choreography in Paris is really, really impressive. Very brutal.
  • "I don't think Thor is technically a god." "You haven't been near his arms."



Monday, September 23, 2013

Final Beginnings (Review)

Series: How I Met Your Mother
Episode Title: "The Locket"/"Coming Back"
Episode Grade: B+

How I Met Your Mother has always been a show torn by different instincts. It is, of course, a CBS sitcom, and an important one for the network; it's been a tent pole show for CBS, and one that, as the Monday primetime opener, really launches the week's programming. That position carries with it certain duties, and the format its own tropes. As such, HIMYM can never veer too far from the standard sitcom atmosphere and plots.

But there's always been another side to How I Met Your Mother, a side with ambition and heart and an intense yearning that takes the show to places other sitcoms never care to visit. This sometimes shows in "gimmick" episodes in which Carter Bays and Craig Thomas play with narrative techniques such as scrambled timelines or an unreliable narrator.

More often, however, what distinguishes How I Met Your Mother is the emotion animating each episode. How I Met Your Mother is a show about love, about the heights to which it can elevate us and the depths to which it can drive us. That means a lot of swelling music and gushing admissions of love, yes; "Come On," season's one finale, is a truly extraordinary romantic comedy, an episode that achieves remarkable heights of true sentimentality.

But the show's central conceit also means that, in many ways, How I Met Your Mother is a show about failure and heartbreak. There's only one mother, only one successful relationship, and while Ted's revolving door of women is often played for laughs, the show isn't afraid to explore the effect all of this romantic futility has on its main character.

There is an undercurrent of sadness in the show, a frustration that anyone who's ever wondered at the persistence and ubiquity of loneliness can understand. It's a sadness that, remarkably, pairs well with the hope and yearning I wrote about above. The sense that all of this heartbreak will be in some way redeemed by the end of the series is the true appeal of the show, and it's that a little too neat and tidy for real life, well, who ever suggested that our art must always adhere to strict realism?

So How I Met Your Mother begins its last season, and it's an important one. Finale seasons are always crucial, of course, especially when we know they're coming ahead of time. It's our last exposure to the show, and everyone wants to go out on a high note.

But this final season, which began tonight with back-to-back episodes, is even more important for How I Met Your Mother's legacy. It will go a long way toward determining how we remember the show: an above-average sitcom with some nice moments and a lengthy decline phase, or genuinely one of the best comedies of its time.

Much of the show's decline these last two or three seasons has been overstated; season seven's "Symphony of Illumination" is one of the show's greatest episodes, and its exploration of despair and friendship is nearly unmatched in the recent history of sitcoms. But for all that, the decline has been real; the humor broader, the laugh track louder, the mugging for the camera more intense. How I Met Your Mother has been a pleasant enough show to watch these last few years, but it's largely been coasting on our stored affection for these characters.

This ninth and final season, then, is vital, and it represents the culmination of what the show has been working toward since (God save us) 2005. When your show is entitled "How I Met Your Mother," the season in which that actually happens takes on an out-sized importance.

It's heartening then that these first two episodes are so strong.

I want to begin at the end, with two Teds. One of them is sitting alone at the bar in the Farhampton Inn, doing a crossword puzzle while he waits for Robin and Barney's wedding. The other Ted is sitting at the same table, a year later, talking to his wife.

It's a scene that, in its juxtaposition of loneliness and unabashed sentimentality, could very well serve as a mission statement for the show itself. It is a moment of true, unalloyed hope, and a scene that's written with unwavering confidence.

Probably the most encouraging aspect of these two episodes is Cristin Milioti, who plays the still-unnamed future wife and mother. This is a difficult role. There are nine years of expectations weighing on it, and so the decision to cast a relative unknown like Milioti was probably wise.

She handles her part with aplomb. Lily, driven to Milioti's train both by Ted's insane road trip behavior and the kind of coincidences that fuel sitcoms, is actually the first to meet the mother, who's in the band playing at Robin and Barney's wedding. This is a good start for Milioti, who is given some funny lines, a good sense of humor and that kind of likably quirky personality that only seems to exist on network television.

There's only so much going on in these two episodes. Barney and Robin are afraid they share a Canadian cousin, Mitch, but then find out that he's only Robin's cousin by adoption (his actual parents were eaten by sled dogs). Marshall stresses out upon discovering that his mom posted a Facebook photo that revealed his decision to accept a judgeship and gets kicked off his plane back to New York (alongside guest star Sherri Shepherd). Lily desperately wants to view the photo so she can see her son, but doesn't want to be tormented by Mrs. Erickson's passive aggressive photographic sniping.

It's all set up, basically, moving plot pieces into place so that they're in the proper position for the more important moments later in the season. Marshall ends up renting a car with Shepherd, which gives the writers an excuse to keep him away from the wedding for most of the season and give him wacky adventures with a sassy black woman. Ted's voiceover indicates that he'll end up causing a fuss by making one last run at Robin later in the season.

But it's pleasant set up, and the final scene of "Coming Back" is as beautiful and touching as the show's last season deserves. There will undoubtedly be some rough spots during this season; the decision to turn Barney and Robin's wedding into a year-long affair effectively guaranteed that. But I fully expect enough laughs and tears to make the whole thing worthwhile.

Notes

  • I didn't get at this much in the body of the review, but these two episodes are quite funny. More amusing than laugh out loud hilarious, but they consistently elicited a chuckle.
  • Lily groans when Ted pulls out his leather driving gloves, but he makes the unassailable point that "in 99.9 percent of crashes, the driver wasn't wearing gloves."
  • Ted has a massive travel binder of all the interesting sights between New York City and Farhampton. One section? "Mennonite Windmills," which drives Lily to the nearest train.
  • How do we know the mother is a good fit for Ted? She also owns a pair of driving gloves, and Ted reminds his kids about the seven-hour side trip she made them take on the way to Disney World so the family could see the goat who could blow smoke rings.
  • "Lady Tedweena Slowsby."
  • Barney isn't worried about the potential incest with Robin, because King Joffrey's parents were related, and he turned out to be "a fair and wise ruler."
  • Lily fondly remembers Marshall's calves, which "launched a thousand lady boners."
  • There's a great running gag at the hotel, where Lily pays a bartender $100 to keep a drink in her hands at all times. He calls it "the Kennedy package."
  • The Stinsons were cursed by a gypsy woman in 19th century to perpetual horniness. Oh, and the performance of awesome guitar solos.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Loyalty and Intimacy (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Egeria"
Original Air Date: October 2, 2005
Episode Grade: B-

What kind of man is Rome's Marc Antony? We've seen a fair bit of him in the first five episodes of the show (and, in one memorable scene, we saw all of him), but Antony's characterization, while direct and entertaining, has been rather thin. James Purefoy is clearly enjoying playing the blunt, brutish counter-weight to Caesar's smooth manipulator, and it's fun to watch, but Rome is a little too fond of that juxtaposition, and hasn't really given Purefoy much of weight.

That changes a bit in "Egeria," which is very much an episode about Antony and his priorities. There's still a lot here that's groan-worthy, though Purefoy does his best with it. But there's also some genuine insight into Antony's character, all sparked by the episode's primary story development.

But first we get the thoroughly entertaining spectacle of Antony trying to oversee the governing of the city in Caesar's absence. Caesar is in Greece, chasing Pompey in the hopes of forcing a climactic battle, and he left Antony behind to "keep the peace."

This, it goes without saying, is a task for which Antony is singularly ill-suited, though he executes Caesar's will well enough. When he calls in the senior Senator remaining in Rome and tells him he will be co-consul with Caesar, the Senator points out that Caesar is already dictator-in-fact. Antony has enough cunning to reply, "It sounds so much better if he's consul. Much more amicable."

Again, Purefoy is excellent here; he's all pleasant malevolence in his conversation with the Senator, and it's possible to see in this early scene why Antony has a position of power. But this is Rome pounding home a certain point about Antony, and it's a point we've seen made plenty of times before.

Things truly get interesting when Caesar writes Antony with a plea for help. While Caesar was pursuing Pompey, assuming that the aged general was just mindlessly fleeing in an attempt to postpone the inevitable, Pompey was actually gathering legions from the eastern provinces. Now, Pompey out-numbers Caesar 10-to-1, and he is the one chasing Caesar, who wants Antony to bring the 13th Legion to Greece as soon as possible.

But Antony is given another path. An ambassador from Pompey visits Antony and makes him an offer: abandon Caesar and side with Pompey, and the general will give Antony immunity for any crimes, a great deal of money and a province to rule.

It's hyperbole to say that Antony is torn by this turn of events; as played by Purefoy, there's not much introspection or psychological torment in Marc Antony, and he receives Pompey's offer with his usual smirk and bravado. But he is clearly considering it; when he dismisses Pompey's ambassador, he tells the man to disguise himself, evidence that he's ashamed of the meeting. The ambassador has a smirk of his own in response.

This gets to a question at the core of Antony's character: namely, does this character have a core? Antony has been set up, in many ways, as an opposite of Lucius Vorenus' duty-bound sense of honor, a man of coarse interests and simple tastes, with no sense of loyalty to the idea of "Rome" or her traditions. He has here an opportunity to protect himself at the expense of his oldest friend.

And Atia paints him an even more interesting picture. Once she discerns that Caesar might actually lose the war with Pompey, she starts looking for a way out; as Caesar's niece, she is vulnerable to a backlash from Pompey's loyalists should he win. So she makes a rather startling proposal in the aftermath of yet another sex scene: marriage.

Antony's reaction ("Why on Earth would we want to do that, of all things?") is appropriately incredulous, but Atia is dangling a hell of a future in front of Antony. Abandon Caesar, accept Pompey's offer, marry Atia, gain the advantage of her name and wealth and become de facto King of Rome. The choice in front of Antony, then, is not just loyalty or survival, it's loyalty or unfathomable power.

But Antony, it seems, does believe in something more than himself, even if it's only friendship. He chooses Caesar over Pompey, Atia and the throne of Rome, and he leaves Atia's bed after an exchange of slaps (Polly Walker gets the worst of these, of course).

The course of history dictates the result of this storyline, of course; the writers couldn't very well have Antony betray Caesar at this point, not when there's a battle with Pompey to be fought and a famous assassination to witness and Antony's own renowned end to orchestrate. But there's still something to be said for the details here, and this is an excellent way of making us give a damn about Antony.

So Antony makes his decision, and the episode ends with Vorenus and Titus Pullo sitting in a ship on the Aegean Sea, surrounded by their comrades, sailing to Greece.

Vorenus is the focus of the episode's other main plotline, which is always good. It's primarily a small scale, domestic story, which is less good. Kevin McKidd is exceptional no matter the story he's given, but he is at his best when his honor and dignity are set against the larger cynicism of Roman power.

Regardless, there is real and remarkable tenderness in this story, which is yet another chapter in Lucius' attempt to make Niobe hate him a little less. And it works in this episode, even if that's less a result of anything Vorenus does and more of Niobe making a decision to forget Evander, the man who fathered her child while Vorenus was away soldiering (Pullo and Octavian killed him in last week's episode, you might remember).

I haven't written a lot about the work Indira Varma has done as Niobe, and to an extent that's because the writing for her has been workmanlike at best. She's a put-upon wife uncomfortable with her absentee husband. It's not terribly original stuff.

But she shines in this episode, and when placed alongside McKidd, the chemistry between the two is outstanding. The awkwardness of their early scenes together is continued in this episode, only to fade in a way that is both genuine and consistent with the characterizations we've seen. The few days of bliss that Niobe and Lucius share feel earned, as does the sadness on display when Vorenus has to leave for Greece.

Notes

  • One other plotline in this episode: Pullo takes Octavian to a brothel to lose his virginity at Atia's urging. It's an insignificant little affair, though it ends with Octavian having sex with a prostitute whose accent seems vaguely Russian (well, probably. We never see the act itself, and it's possible Octavian wimped out at the last second)
  • "Octavian, have you penetrated anyone yet?" Oh, Atia. Never change.
  • Atia tries to get in good with Servilia by sending her a jeweled turtle (everyone's favorite Christmas gift) and a well-endowed slave. "A large penis always welcome." Oh, Atia. Never change. 
  • Antony holds court with his beloved dwarf aide by his side, something that offends Vorenus to no end. 
  • Lucius and Niobe are in the middle of a pleasant romp when their daughter interrupts. "Father, that dwarf wants you." Hell of a cockblock right there. 


Saturday, September 21, 2013

Programming Note

Brief notice for both of you reading the blog. My reviews of Rome, which have been appearing on Saturdays, will now appear mostly on Sundays.

With the end of The Newsroom, there's nothing forthcoming on Sundays night that I anticipate reviewing. By contrast, Saturdays for the next few months will be taken over by college football. And I expect to review at least a few episodes of Saturday Night Live.

Mark your calendars accordingly.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Like 500 Lawyers at the Bottom of the Sea (Review)

Series: Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Episode Title: "Pilot"
Episode Grade: B-

A few weeks ago, when writing about Rome's first episode, I made the entirely obvious and cliched point that pilots are exceptionally difficult (and like any good, ass-covering 21st century ironist, I defused my lack of originality by pointing it out). This is doubly true for comedies. It can take a while for the writer's room to find its voice, and network executives often excise anything original or innovative from pilots in an effort to make them more familiar to viewers. The humor is often broad and wacky, and characters reside on the extreme ends of personality spectra.

Keeping these factors in mind, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is an exceptionally fine start, and if the episode grade doesn't seem to reflect that, it's important to recognize that there's a healthy foundation here.

Because Brooklyn Nine-Nine is largely a vehicle for SNL alum Andy Samberg, secondary and tertiary characters aren't sketched out in much detail for the pilot. But Samberg's performance here is strong enough and likable enough to carry the initial episode.

Samberg has always been a funny, enjoyable presence; handsome in a goofy, non-threatening way, with a sense of humor whose target is usually himself. Those are important traits for Jake Peralta, the police detective he plays in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, because the wrong actor could make this character utterly insufferable and un-watchable.

Peralta is, in the pilot at least, largely a comedic archetype, a cocky man-child with a rebellious streak. I don't blame you if you fell asleep during that description, but it works here. This is partly the result of solid writing (Samberg never does anything too grating), but it's mainly a product of the work put in by Samberg, who's aware enough to deflect much of the humor back on himself.

The plot here is strictly workmanlike and paint-by-numbers: the precinct gets a new captain, Ray Holt, played by Homicide veteran Andre Braugher. Braugher is the other stand-out in this episode, which was probably to be expected considering his skill and pedigree. Captain Holt's something a tough, no-nonsense type, and again, this is the farthest thing from innovative. But Braugher brings a little smirk to the role, a slight humorous edge that keeps him from being a true stereotype.

The other characters are introduced in the clumsiest fashion possible, by way of blatant exposition in which Terry Crews, playing the precinct's squad leader, flatly lays out the traits of all the detectives. Rose Diaz is tough and sassy. Charles Boyle is not terribly bright, but he works hard. Amy Santiago, Samberg's partner, is competitive, driven and intent on proving herself.

There's an indifferently written murder plot here that intersects with a sub-plot where Braugher insists that everyone wear a tie and Samberg resists him. The only thing of interest here is the revelation that Captain Holt is gay, a piece of information that is delivered matter-of-factly and with little attempt to draw attention to it. We'll see how Brooklyn Nine-Nine deals with this moving forward, but it's an encouraging start.

And that can be said about the show as a whole. There's work to do with the other characters, and at some point there has to be a plot or two that's worth a damn. But the pilot episode succeeded in doing what pilot episodes are supposed to do: bring the viewer back for another episode.

Notes

  • But is it funny? Yep. Not uproariously so, but consistently and frequently. There's a lot of humor mined from Peralta's arrogance, and Samberg's delivery and timing are, as always, excellent.
  • "They called me Terry Titties, because I had large, um...." "Titties, yes, I remember."
  • Joe Lo Truglio does admirable work as a character who is almost literally described as average and boring. You don't want to turn him into too much of a sad sack, but he's quite funny in a sub-plot where he tries to ask Rose out to a classic movie festival.
  • "OK, I'll do it. I'll pick a better movie than Citizen Kane."
  • Samberg is quite upset to realize that he missed the signs of Braugher's homosexuality, including a newspaper clipping with Braugher's picture and a headline that says "NYPD's First Openly Gay Captain."
  • "Damn, I am not a good detective."
  • The show's not above lampshading the stilted nature of its introductory exposition, as Terry Crews' character admits that he "talked a lot about Jake in my departmentally mandated therapy sessions."
  • "Humility over. I'm amazing."


Sunday, September 15, 2013

Opening Doors (Review)

Series: The Newsroom
Episode Title: "Election Night, Part II"
Episode Grade: C

I didn't like this episode very much. Objectively speaking, I should have liked it even less than I did. It is only because I'm a soft-hearted, mushy headed sentimentalist that I find enough enjoyable elements in The Newsroom's season finale to salvage an otherwise poor effort.

We'll start with what...well, I don't know if I'd say it "works," but it works for me. And those are the closing moments of this episode, where Aaron Sorkin, writing what seems likely was intended to be a series finale, throws caution to the wind and just gives his characters and his audience a bevvy of feel good moments.

These start with Will proposing to MacKenzie. Again, objectively speaking, this is patently silly. A tiresomely large portion of this episode is taken up with the two of them bickering over their romantic past (replace "episode" with "series" and that works just as well), and Will's decision here is less spontaneous and more mystifying. That he still loves MacKenzie is believable (and has been addressed before); that he would take this particular action at this particular moment is not.

And yet the actual proposal scene works, almost entirely on the basis of Jeff Daniels' performance. Daniels was the show's main draw when it debuted, save Sorkin himself, and he's done solid work pretty consistently. But if he hasn't exactly been sidelined in The Newsroom's second season, he has spent a lot of time in B-plots while the rest of the staff handled Operation Genoa. And Sorkin's (smart) decision to spend less time with the on-camera aspects of News Night With Will McAvoy meant Daniels got less time to play Will McAvoy, Commentator.

Daniels is outstanding while proposing, and if the dialogue he's given here is mainly just a reprise of the standard Sorkin trope of nervous, hyper-eloquent babbling, he and Sorkin both execute it well. He executes it well enough to make the moment genuinely touching, anyway.

A few plotlines converge in the newsroom at the end of the episode, all to the strains of a cover version of "Let My Love Open the Door." Will and MacKenzie announce their engagement. Reese, given the choice of accepting or rejecting Charlie and Will's resignation by his mother, announces that he won't accept them or settle with Jerry Dantana. Don and Sloane look lovingly into each other's eyes, having finally shared a kiss once Sloane figures out that he was the one who bought her book at the charity auction. And the camera pans over the newsroom, everyone hard at work and drinking champagne, before zooming in on Maggie checking a breaking news alert and cutting to black.

It's a genuinely moving ending, a reminder of the energy and passion of the people in the room, as well as the endless nature of what they do. It serves as a kind of wordless mission statement for the show as a whole, which is why I suspect this was written before Sorkin and HBO had worked out the details of a third season.

What comes before, however, in the first 40 minutes or so of this episode, is something like a perfect example of Sorkin at his worst. Some of this comes with the previously discussed re-hashing of Will and MacKenzie's past.

Even more irksome is Sorkin's continued insistence that Jim is something akin to a saint. I said last week that Jim embodied the worst sort of Sorkin character: the insufferably arrogant jackass whose insufferable arrogance is never acknowledged in-universe. "Election Night, Part II" demonstrates this brilliantly, as Jim gets not one, but two opportunities to lecture a woman in his life about how awesome she is.

The details of these are even more depressing when listed in detail, so it will suffice to say that he lectures Lisa (his ex and Maggie's friend who we haven't seen since early in the season) on her intelligence and lectures Maggie on her strength.

This is the sort of thing that Sorkin's critics seize on when they accuse him of raging sexism. Those criticisms are dramatically overstated, but watching a saintly male character gallantly come to the defense of women who lack self-confidence it's hard to say that they have no basis in reality. These "you're too good for your own doubts/the man you're with/the job you're in" speeches were tiresome when delivered in Sports Night, and they haven't grown less so over the last 15 years.

More of consequence happens this week than last, but the episode isn't nearly as good. There are problems of character and narrative here, but put simply, "Election Night, Part II" isn't remotely as fun as "Part I." The manic energy and wit of the first part is lacking, and what's left makes a poor end to what was generally a solid season of television.

Notes

  • There's a fun little runner where Will has to keep interrupting Sloane to throw to various reporters. "Are you doing this on purpose now?" "No, it's just working out incredibly well."
  • Reese wants to give a big speech announcing that he won't accept Charlie's resignation, but Charlie and Will have already decided not to quit. Reese's disappointment at not being able to do the right thing is pretty funny.
  • Reese: History should reflect I acted admirably. Rebecca: Is it possible the greater glory belongs to me?
  • Marcia Gay-Harden was a delight this season.
  • Jim to Hallie: "Just physically, you're hard to look at. Not homely so much, but weird-looking."
  • Sorkin clearly thinks a high Jane Fonda is a comedic delight. I don't agree.
  • See you next year, folks. 

Saturday, September 14, 2013

The Set-Up Man (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "The Ram Has Touched the Wall"
Original Air Date: September 25, 2005
Episode Grade: C+

There are episodes with enough energy and wit that they can feel eventful and exciting despite a relative lack of plot movement or character development (see The Newsroom's latest episode). "The Ram Has Touched the Wall," Rome's fifth episode, is a vastly different sort of beast. Objectively speaking, a lot of important things happen in this episode. And yet it's basically a bore, a dull affair saved by some outstanding scenes in its last few minutes.

We begin in Pompey's camp, where the great man, realizing his weakness, accepts the (ridiculously unbalanced) offer of truce Caesar sent last week. One thing I wish Rome had done better over the last few episodes is demonstrate exactly why Pompey's position is so weak; instead, Caesar acquires a large supply of gold and Pompey surrenders. This isn't a huge issue (it's not hard for viewers to connect the two points), but it could use some spelling out.

There's an excellent scene later where Caesar, Antony and Caesar's personal slave marvel over Pompey's surrender. Ciaran Hinds continues his good work in his discussions here, simultaneously explaining to Antony why he can't simply reject the truce he proposed and trying to find some pretext for doing so. Their conversation gets at questions of power and manipulation; when Caesar's slave points out that Pompey has the Senate with him, Antony retorts, "In Rome they are the Senate. Beyond the walls they are merely 300 old men."

Caesar finds his pretext in Pompey's refusal to meet him in person; it is a clear, simple explanation that the people of Rome can understand and support. Much to Antony's dismay, however, Caesar refuses to pursue Pompey and decides instead to wait in Rome.

Polly Walker doesn't get a lot of screen time this week, but she is the instigating force behind two of the episode's three significant plots. In the first, she enlists Titus to help Octavian learn to be masculine. The straw that broke the camel's back here appears to be discovering Octavian joyfully painting his sister's toe nails, but this particular issue has been bubbling since the pilot, so it doesn't feel forced.

In the second, Atia finds out from Antony that Caesar's only staying in Rome because of his love for Servilia. This infuriates Atia, and she starts scheming to break up the two.

Atia's hostility, though established in last week's episode, is still difficult to explain. The show offers no compelling reason for it. We're not told that Caesar's relationship with Servilia poses any sort of threat to Atia's position; she's Caesar's niece, not his lover. Her power is familial, and thus not vulnerable to Caesar's flings.

Octavian even points this out, and all she can say is that she's concerned about the Republic. Again, Octavian scoffs at this, and I don't think we're supposed to buy it. At this point, Atia's actions just seem like motiveless villainy, and that's not consistent with what we've seen from her in the past.

But this Roman Iago, this ancient Machiavelli, this scheming evil genius gets her way. We can see this was inevitable after discovering her fiendish plan to hire some dudes to paint graffiti on the walls.

Which...hey, it works, and perfectly. Caesar and his wife Calpurnia are out for a pleasant stroll with their litter and armed guard, and they see the (admittedly quite skillful) depictions of Caesar having sex with Servilia. Calpurnia makes the situation abundantly clear: Caesar dumps Servilia, or he gives his wife a divorce.

What follows is quite masterful, and two people deserve credit for this. The first is Bruno Heller, who wrote the episode. There are no scenes here where Caesar agonizes over the decision, weighing his love for Servilia with his lust for power (Calpurnia's family is quite influential). Instead, Caesar simply makes the only decision he can, and next we see him he is telling Servilia that they will no longer see each other.

The second person who deserves credit is Hinds. His scene with Servilia is utterly brutal, and that's with Lindsey Duncan providing all of the emotion. Hinds plays his part utterly stone-faced; he is terse and direct, and he betrays no ambiguity with Servilia. This is a political decision, not an emotional or romantic one, and he treats it as such.

Our man Lucius Vorenus, meanwhile, has run into some bad luck. The slaves he brought back from Gaul died from disease, and only one scrawny little boy survived. The slaves were the foundation of his business plan, and he has no other way of earning money.

The plot that follows is a little perfunctory. Vorenus initially takes a job as a bodyguard for a local businessman, but has the expected ethical qualms at being told to kill one of the businessman's debtors (he broke the guy's arm with some mild hesitation). He ends up crawling back to Antony and taking the offer he spurned last week: a big promotion, prestigious position and ample signing bonus.

I call this "perfunctory" because the entire plot really just exists to get Vorenus back in the legion. The slaves suddenly dying of the flux...OK, that's fine. It's an excuse, but really, all plot points are just excuses, and the idea that a group of slaves crowded together in squalid conditions would all die of the flux is reasonable enough.

But Vorenus' decision to re-up with the army doesn't seem to fit with what we've seen of him in the past. He won't kill the debtor, but he practically begs Antony for the chance to join the army and kill his fellow Romans, the prospect of which had greatly bothered him before. He has enough sense to be embarrassed by all of this ("I have sold myself to a tyrant").

For all this, the scene where a fully armored and equipped Vorenus receives the blessing of Mars at the god's temple is wonderful, and mostly wordless. The camera is tight on Vorenus' face as he strides through the streets, and the self-loathing Lucius feels is evident there. When he has finished the ceremony, the temple priest smears a streak of blood down the middle of Vorenus' face, and the shot of Lucius wearing his prefect's helmet is striking.

"The Ram Touches the Wall" has a run time of 52 minutes, and through about 40 minutes this is the series' worst episode. The end of the thing salvages it, but taken as a whole this episode is still smaller than the events within it. Technically, this is quite the eventful 52 minutes: Caesar severs his relationship with Servilia, Pompey and the Senate flees to Greece and Vorenus re-joins the 13th Legion.

But this is all put together in such a dull, workmanlike fashion that it has precious little weight.

Notes

  • Pullo's manhood lessons quickly turn into him begging Octavian for advice as to whether he should tell Vorenus about Niobe's adultery. Octavian is, for reasons surpassing understanding, quite enthusiastic about helping the soldier he barely knows, and ends up helping Pullo kidnap, torture and kill Evander, the guy who fathered Niobe's child.
  • "I dare say I can kill people well enough, as long as they're not fighting back." Rome, perhaps getting a little on-the-nose with Octavian's characterization.  
  • Atia points out the worthlessness of Greek philosophy by slapping a slave on the head and saying, "Here's a Greek philosopher for you." God, I love her.
  • Servilia puts a curse on Atia and Caesar. "Let his penis wither, let his bones crack, let him watch his legions drown in their own blood." As curses go, that's pretty badass.
  • I'm still trying to decide how I feel about Max Perkis' performance as Octavian here. He's quite good when he's playing sullen or dismissive, but when he has to confidently explain some point that he's figured out with his mighty intellect it's not at all convincing.
  • It's hard to overstate just how brutal the scene with Caesar and Servilia is. It ends when Servilia slaps Caesar, and he responds by slapping her. Hard. Three or four times. Beautifully acted, but tough to watch. 




Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Scattered Thoughts on Deadwood

How high can a single transcendent performance haul an otherwise workmanlike show?

It is silly and reductive to walk away from as well-regarded a program as Deadwood with just a single question in mind. But "silly and reductive" are not the worst things I've been called within the last week, so that doesn't bother me overmuch.

One of the impetuses for the creation of this blog was the realization, while I was watching Deadwood's run on HBO GO, that, for the first time in my life, I actually had some thoughts. There being no convenient place for me to share them, I decided to create one, fueled in part by the possibility that I might have another thought at some undetermined point in the far future.

I launched this blog when I was starting Deadwood's third season, and it seemed a little silly to launch into weekly reviews at that point. But I did want to actually take some time and puzzle out my thinking on the show.

And the thought with which I walk away from Deadwood is the question at the top of this post. The core of my experience with the show is the bare reality that I was drawn head first into every scene featuring Ian McShane, and seldom cared for those that didn't.

It is difficult to overstate just how extraordinary McShane's performance here is. As Al Swearengen, McShane finds and portrays the core of a character who could often have seemed like a thuggish caricature of an HBO drama Anti-Hero(TM). Instead, McShane imbues the character with wit, cunning and, quite extraordinarily, no small amount of heart.

McShane brings a thoughtfulness even to Swearengen's violence, and a violence even to his thoughtfulness.
This is, in short, one of the finest leading performances I can ever remember seeing on a television program. When McShane is tasting the words of David Milch, the show's creator, executive producer and head writer, Deadwood soars.

But while Deadwood is never too interested in soaring, it also fails to truly find the meaning of the mud in which it is so proudly mired.

Deadwood falls short in how it surrounds McShane. There are some fine performances, compelling moments, enjoyable dialogue and intriguing story lines. But for all that, Deadwood never coheres into anything like a digestible whole. It is, instead, a series of awkward silences and opaque scenes, punctuated by moments of violence and brutality, few of which lead anywhere.

What's perhaps most odd about Deadwood is its fondness for characters and plotlines that go nowhere and achieve nothing. We can consider Martha Bullock, for example; played by Anita Gunn, Martha is the wife of Seth Bullock, one of the show's main characters (played by Timothy Olyphant and his dreamy jaw line). She is also....

"She is also nothing else," is how that sentence ends. There's some back story discussed in Martha's first few episodes: she was originally married to Seth's brother, who died with Custer at Little Big Horn. She then married Seth, and eventually comes out to the Deadwood camp once Bullock gets settled there, bringing her son by her first husband with her.

Martha eventually loses her son in a tragic accident involving a rampaging horse, an extraordinary loss that affects her for two or three episodes, and is then never mentioned again. Gunn's role after this story line ends is to play a few scenes as the teacher of the camp's children and to stand around in the background cooking things as her husband discusses other matters.

This is assuredly a realistic portrayal of the role of a wife in a 19th century mining camp, but it is decidedly uninteresting television. I don't know how many scenes of Seth and Martha sitting in strained silence an audience really needs to see, but I know Deadwood blew by that number quite soon after Gunn's initial appearance.

Then there's the Bella Union, the competing casino, bar, brothel and massive plot sinkhole established by Cy Tolliver. I, like all reasonable people, am a fan of Powers Boothe, who played Tolliver and seemed for all the world when he set up shop in the camp like a compelling counterweight to Swearengen.

Instead, Tolliver became a confusing character whose only purpose on the show was to make Al look decent by comparison. Tolliver spent most of three seasons scheming and making alliances with Swearengen's enemies, all of which came to naught and none of which seemed to have any discernible impact on the show's plot.

Tolliver, perhaps, works as a cautionary tale and character study, a portrait of a pathetic man who thinks himself powerful but must constantly beg for the approval of those who actually are. Joanie Stubbs, on the other hand, has no such redeeming features.

That's perhaps an ironic thing to say, as I believe the point of her presence on the show is to provide a kind of redemption story. Stubbs, played by a large hat and Kim Dickens, is Tolliver's head prostitute who leaves to run her own brothel late in the first season.

Joanie is around important events; her brothel is the setting for a brutal murder of several prostitutes by an agent of the gold magnate George Hearst (who would become the villain of the third season). But there's little sense in which she actually...well, does anything. She eventually turns the brothel over to Martha Bullock for use as a schoolhouse, and she becomes protective of the children there, but this is not nearly as meaningful as the show seems to think it is.

Deadwood never actually digs into Joanie and her motivations, beyond establishing that she's a lesbian. The writers never do the work necessary to flesh out her character and make us care about her; as a result, any redemptive arc, even if it ends in a fumbling attempt at a relationship with Calamity Jane, lacks resonance and meaning.

The list of plotlines and characters that seem to exist just for the purpose of existing is extensive. It includes:

  • A young Scandinavian girl who loses her parents in the pilot episode, sees her life threatened by Swearengen (Al ran the bandits who killed her family) is adopted by Alma Garrett (one of the show's main characters) and then just kind of hangs around for 30 episodes getting her hair brushed,
  • A plot line in which Tolliver is stabbed by a minister, spends a few episodes feigning ill health, then gets back on his feet and starts plotting,
  • A plot line in which Mrs. Garrett, a recovering laudanum addict, falls back into the habit, then...gets better,
  • Calamity Jane, who is a drunk. The show makes this clear many, many many times, in scenes that occasionally amuse but more often annoy,
  • Wyatt Earp shows up and cuts some timber.
It goes on, and we belabor the point here.

Larger than problems associated with any given character or story is the distance between its apparent perception of its setting and what the viewer actually sees. Deadwood is grim and gritty and brutal. Deadwood, on the other hand...well, it's not my kind of camp, but it's hard not to notice the apparent decency of most of its inhabitants.

It's notable that pretty much all of the show's significant antagonists are external to the camp. The South Dakota territorial representatives. Hearst's minion. Hearst himself. By contrast, while there's no lack of brawling, drinking, financially lubricated fucking and murder within the camp, it doesn't actually seem like a truly rough and tumble place.

Alma Garrett can walk the thoroughfare without any undue attention (until she's shot at in the third season by...Hearst's minions). When Martha Bullock's son is killed, the whole damn camp mourns. Everyone is respectful of the camp's children. Jane can pass out drunk on the street every night without fear of being attacked or robbed.

For a lawless frontier mining camp, Deadwood seems like a shockingly pleasant place.

All of this probably makes it sound as if I disliked Deadwood more than I did. It is, on the whole, an enjoyable experience. One propped up by McShane's stunning performance, yes, but also by some wonderful dialogue and excellent production values.

But I had reason to expect more from Deadwood. As a result, it's hard not to find the bevvy of loose ends, unnecessary characters, weightless plot lines and opaque motivations more than a little disappointing.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Antics and Anxiety (Review)

Series: The Newsroom
Episode Title: "Election Night, Part 1"
Episode Grade: B

"Election Night, Part 1" is an example of an episode type that Aaron Sorkin has made an important part of his repertoire: a manic, hyperactive pace  that somewhat shrouds the reality that nothing much happens.

So, no, there isn't much plot in "Election Night, Part 1," and what's there doesn't add up to much. But it is fun. It is a wonderful, hectic hour of television, with dialogue that bounces off the walls in a style that is reminiscent of Sorkin at his best.

"Election Night..." takes place in the aftermath of the Genoa debacle (Rebecca: You aired a bad story. Will: It was a good story. Rebecca: Shame it wasn't true. Will: Sure, we don't meet your East Coast liberal standards...), Charlie and Will still employed at ACN despite their best efforts. Leona won't accept their resignations, and Jerry Dantana's lawsuit will be filed the next day.

This story branches off in two directions: in the first, Charlie heads upstairs to beg the company president (Leona's son, in case you forgot) to accept their resignations. Turns out, Reese would love nothing more than to settle the case and chuck Will and Charlie overboard but can't, because...well:

Charlie: Then why don't you?
Reese: My mom won't let me.

The other branch is much less fun, as it focuses on Will and MacKenzie and their utterly tedious romantic past. There's an interesting dynamic here, in that MacKenzie also wants to fall on a sword after Genoa, and actually has an out: Will can fire her. He won't, of course, and perhaps too much of this episode is taken up with Will simultaneously refusing to fire MacKenzie and berating her over the the failure of their relationship.

Emily Mortimer continues the good work she's been putting in over the last few weeks; she is at once harried and hassled and utterly competent. MacKenzie runs the newsroom (hey, I get the title now!) on an anarchic night with complete confidence and efficiency, but the strain of the Genoa disaster show son her face throughout the evening.

Of the many effective and funny sub-plots in "Election Night," one of the best actually belongs to Jim and Maggie. Throughout The Newsroom's run, Jim has always been the worst sort of insufferably arrogant Aaron Sorkin character: the kind we're clearly not supposed to find insufferable or arrogant.

Sorkin's critics often characterize his shows as replete with insufferable characters, which is true enough but misses the point. When Sorkin is at his best, his arrogant characters are on the side of the angels, but the arrogance is actually acknowledged and criticized in-universe. When he's at his worst, as in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the arrogance and insufferability is apparent only to the audience.

In The Newsroom, Jim has always played the latter role. So it's nice in this episode not to just see him screw up (he calls the Michigan First Congressional District for the incumbent before the sequestered analytic experts say that's kosher) but to actively avoid doing the right thing. And Jim's reluctance to have the call publicly retracted is understandable; Charlie is on the warpath regarding election night mistakes (which is itself thoroughly understandable), and the expert assures Jim that the incumbent will win.

An election night in a newsroom is really a perfect setting for Sorkin, and "Election Night, Part 1" demonstrates why. The plot lines here exist mainly to set the stage for next week's season finale, which means there's a lot that's half-formed, and what's here isn't terribly meaty. But it is an excellent display of Sorkin's ear for dialogue and raw talent, and it's simply a joy to watch.

Notes

  • The episode ends with Will agreeing to fire MacKenzie at the end of the broadcast. I'm looking forward to the heartfelt scene at the end of next week's episode where that decision is reversed.
  • Constance Zimmer is back, and that makes me happy. Her patter with Maggie where they bond over a shared hatred of Jim is wonderful.
  • "You're like a foot taller than a person is supposed to be."
  • Allison Pill gets some funny moments here, especially when she insists that Don used to shower with the chief of staff for a candidate in California (they were on the tennis team).
  • "There are individual showers."
  • Sloane has a reasonably funny sub-plot here where she finds out that someone at the network forged her signature on an economics text as part of a charity auction. Turns out it was Gary Cooper, the production assistant who accompanied Maggie to Africa. Olivia Munn is quite good playing obsessive.
  • Sloane wants to track down the guy who bought the book, and naturally enlists Neal's help. "You need to hurry before the trail gets cold.
  • Dev Patel is really doing outstanding work this season. 
  • Grace Gummer's Hallie appears again in a Skype conversation with Jim and demands to know if he can tell her the color of her hair. "Your hair is the color of goodness?"
  • Charlie launches into what appears to be a stirring Sorkin speech on the beauty of American democracy, only to see it quickly become a threat directed at anyone who makes a mistake on election night. 







Saturday, September 7, 2013

Gods and Gold (Review)

Series: Rome
Episode Title: "Stealing from Saturn"
Original Air Date: September 18, 2005
Episode Grade: B-

Television writers love duality. By creating two similar sets of events (a feast, let's say), populating them with different characters and setting them up in different contexts, the writer can point out (with varying shades of subtlety) differences in motivations and worldviews. It's something of a natural experiment, only scripted for dramatic effect: put two people in identical situations, see how they handle the situations.

"Stealing from Saturn" continues Rome's interest in tradition and the role of religion by counterpoising two feasts: one thrown by Atia for her triumphant uncle Caesar and one thrown by Vorenus to mark the beginning of his new business venture. The duality explored here is relatively superficial, and goes directly to some of the themes Rome has been trying to suss out in these early episodes: Vorenus, the devout and sincere man, set against Caesar, who treats Rome's religious traditions as tools of manipulation.

This is really the first time Rome has allowed us to spend significant time with Caesar, and Ciaran Hinds makes good use of the screen time. There's really nothing openly exceptional about Hinds' performance; there is, instead, an admirable stolidity and an ability to command the room through quiet dialogue and underplayed facial expressions.

Caesar's concern in "Stealing from Saturn" is to defy Pompey's prophecy that he will lose the support of Rome by ruling as a bloody tyrant. His chief tactic for avoiding this fate is to throw money at the problem; it's not the most subtle of strategies, but it is tried and true. Better bribes than blood.

The first step in winning over the people, Caesar understands, is to make a show of winning over their gods. So he approaches the priests of the Temple of Jupiter to hold an augury, with the hope that the ceremony will demonstrate the approval of the gods.

Of course, Caesar being Caesar, he's not prepared to let such an important occasion be determined by the random flight of birds. There's a clever little conversation between Caesar, Mark Antony and the head augur at Atia's party where the three bargain over the augur's bribe, all in the guise of arranging a birthday present for the augur's wife. Caesar wants his birds, and the augur can give them to him.

The problem is that you must have money to throw money at problems, and Rome's treasury, as we saw last week, now lies in the hands of one Titus Pullo, who came across the stolen gold while on a scouting mission.

This is where Vorenus' feast comes in. It plays a thematic role, certainly: Lucius chose the day of the feast because it was the gods had ordained it an auspicious day, and he opens the festivities by kneeling before a an altar of Janus and praying for a successful meal. All of this can't help but be contrasted with the cynicism on display at Atia's feast. Antony was even nice enough to stick a pin in this contrast earlier in the episode, when he accuses Vorenus of being "foolish, like a priest. Blinded by a cowl."

The feast ends when Niobe's sister, who married the father of Niobe's child, gets drunk and crashes into the altar of Janus, breaking it. Vorenus sees in this a bad omen, which, you know, is not unreasonable. Or incorrect, considering that the altar was shattered by a woman married to the father of his wife's illegitimate child.

But Vorenus' feast also has a crucial narrative role to play, as it connects Caesar with the stolen gold. Pompey has dispatched his son Quintus to track down the stolen treasury, and Quintus is quite good at his job. Quintus appears after the feast has ended and threatens Vorenus and Niobe unless Lucius tells him where the gold is located.

When Pullo shows up (with annoyingly fortuitous timing), he and Vorenus overpower Quintus and kill his thugs. What follows is interesting for what it says about Pullo, a man the show has tried to set up as a cynic and a sensualist in contrast to Vorenus' stern sense of Roman duty.

Vorenus orders Pullo to return the gold (and Quintus) to Caesar. Remember, Vorenus isn't Pullo's commander any more. He's a civilian. He resigned his position in last week's episode. Pullo would be well within his rights to tell Vorenus to sod off.

But he doesn't. Instead, Pullo physically straightens up when Vorenus' makes clear that he is giving in an order and reluctantly agrees to speak to Caesar about the gold. The pull of duty is strong, even for Pullo.

(Of course, Vorenus could always tattle on Pullo if the latter didn't agree, and that would have ended badly for Titus, so maybe that's the motivation here)

In the end, Caesar gets his gold. Pullo speaks with Antony and Caesar outside Atia's party, bringing Quintus along for the ride. Caesar lets Quintus live, much to Antony's dismay, and dispatches Pompey's son back to his father with a truce offer he knows Pompey can't accept.

And when Caesar gets his gold, he also gets his augury. The episode ends with a ceremony in which the holy birds are dispatched and their flight interpreted as favorable. And Caesar, on his knees in front of the chief augur, smiles in the knowledge of his power.

"Stealing from Saturn" is better as the result of its focus on Caesar; the plotting is tighter, and the viewer's attention isn't pulled in a dozen different directions. The episode does well to highlight Hinds and Kevin McKidd, its two best performers, so extensively.

There is no spark of brilliance here, however, nor any sense that the show has something meaningful or original to say about the nature of power or tradition-bound societies. That the powerful manipulate traditions ordinary people believe in is certainly true enough, but it's hardly a point that merits primetime television in the year 2005.

Are we closer to an answer to the "What does Rome want to be?" question I asked last week? Maybe. If the show retains the tighter focus displayed in "Stealing from Saturn," it's easy enough to see improvement in Rome. But to quote a Spartan response to Philip of Macedonia, "If."

Notes
  • Well, that's James Purefoy's penis.
  • Atia has some fun moments here. Concerned with Octavian's apparent lack of manliness, she demands he eat goat testicles in much the same way a sane mother would force broccoli on her child. "Puts oak in your penis."
  • Huh. Lot of penis in these notes.
  • Antony has a dwarf messenger he's named "Cato." Vorenus doesn't find this as amusing as Antony does.
  • Atia, complimenting Servilia, mother of Brutus and Caesar's lover: "She has none of the goatishness of women her age."
  • There are some wonderfully creepy shots in Rome's deserted streets. The camera work following Vorenus' daughter as she scampers through the streets and avoids the marching soldiers is quite impressive. 
  • Niobe gets some chicken livers examined to determine if her secret is still safe. The priestess examining the livers can only say "probably." This is why you opt for the good livers, not the cheap crap you get in the frozen food aisle at Wal-Mart. Or, um, Walus-Martus.
  • According to Wikipedia, the practice of examining the entrails and organs of birds for prophetic messages is known as "haruspicy." Treat these notes like they're the end of a G.I. Joe episode.




Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Goodbye (Review)

Series: Futurama
Episode Title: "Meanwhile"
Episode Grade: B+

Futurama has a strong history with purported finales. "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings," the finale of the show's original run, was one of the finest episodes in the show's august history. "Into The Wild Green Yonder," while nowhere near that level, was the best of the four movies the show's team created in the interregnum between the end of Futurama's original run and its resurrection.

"Meanwhile" will never be mentioned in the same breath as "The Devil's Hands...," which is probably one of the finest episodes of television in recent memory. But it hits the right notes, and if those notes were predictable they were also sweet and perfectly appropriate for the end of the show.

It's sort of interesting how little plot there really is in this episode and how strong the focus is on Fry and Leela. And while Futurama has always boasted a strong supporting cast, this was the right decision for the finale of a series that has achieved some of its greatest moments in exploring the Fry-Leela relationship.

There are two basic elements to "Meanwhile:" First, Fry has decided to propose to Leela. Second, the Professor invents a "Time Button," a device that can send the entire universe 10 seconds into the past. And like most of Professor Farnsworth's absurd inventions, this one nearly destroys the world.

Having asked Leela to meet him on top of the "Vampire State Building" at 6:30 if she decides to marry him, Fry, who stole the Professor's Time Button in an effort to make this moment last forever, grows distraught when the appointed hour passes and Leela doesn't show. Opting for suicide with impressive celerity, Fry throws himself off the building.

But as Fry approaches the ground, he spots Leela and presses the Time Button. Fry's realization that he's been falling for more than 10 seconds and is doomed to repeat his fall for eternity or die is played as one would expect Futurama to play it: for laughs, but with a realization of the situation's horror.

The rest of the Planet Express gang eventually make their way to Vampire State Building Plaza and concoct a plan to save Fry (Bender has an airbag, naturally). This works, but Fry lands hard on the Time Button, and through the magic of Narrative Causality this freezes time for the entire universe, save Fry and Leela.

This stretch of the episode, with Leela and Fry living a happily married life in the frozen universe, is sweet, charming and refreshing. The two are rapturously happy with each other. There's no angst about the situation (as there was when The Twilight Zone, among other programs, ran with this plot), just the simple happiness of two characters we care about finally getting to live their lives together.

The series ends where time stopped, at the Vampire State Building, with the Professor, who had earlier been wiped out of existence, finally digging his way through the material between the dimensions and happening upon Fry and Leela enjoying the glass of champagne he had set out before breaking the button.

Farnsworth fixes the button, and alters it so that the universe will become un-stuck before the button was invented in the first place. No one, not even Fry and Leela, will remember what happened after that point.

The series ends simply and perfectly, a reminder of the hope and sense of possibility that always lived at the core of Futurama:

Fry: So, what do you say? Wanna go 'round again?
Leela: I do.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

How Futurama Blew Its Second Chance

It's not exactly unprecedented in American television for a show to come back from the dead. It's not even unprecedented in the recent history of cartoons; Family Guy has gone from the grave to long-running stalwart of the very network that killed it within the last few years.

Still, these resurrections are uncommon, Jesus rarely deigning to look up from his busy schedule of completing 40 percent of Tim Tebow's passes to put the special touch on a well-deserving cancelled TV show. And in 2010, when Futurama aired its first new episodes in seven years after being cancelled by FOX, it was certainly deserving.

One of the best shows of the early Aughts, animated or live action, Futurama's merits were many and manifest, and we don't need to go into much detail here. You probably don't need much convincing. There was, in short, every reason to be excited about the prospect of more Futurama.

But as Futurama heads into its final episode tomorrow (which will be reviewed in this space), the verdict on its two post-cancellation seasons must be harsh. The show has largely been mired in mediocrity, its better episodes rising above that lowly state but never approaching the heights of its original run.

The show's problems, post-cancellation, are frequently story-driven in nature. It took Futurama's writing staff two years to figure out what they were doing with the relationship between Fry and Leela, which was an important and devastating flaw; so much of the original run's heart and depth was provided by the gentle yearning and deep feeling that defined Fry's interactions with Leela. This was a particularly baffling development, as Leela's feelings for Fry had been made clear with an explicit declaration of love at the end of the final Futurama movie that had been produced between the show's cancellation and its return.

Instead of moving forward with a relationship between Fry and Leela, the show instead constructed an inconsistent dynamic in which for two seasons Fry and Leela seemed to oscillate between a romantic relationship and a platonic one from episode to episode, all without making clear exactly what was going on between the two.

But while this particular character pairing is important enough to emphasize at some length, the structural issues go deeper. During its two post-cancellation seasons, Futurama's writing staff relied heavily (almost exclusively) on a story formula where a member of the core cast (or the entire core cast) undergoes a significant (and comedic) change, only to have that change reversed in the final 30 seconds or so.

The last two seasons have included episodes where:


  • Amy and Bender date and attempt to marry (Proposition Infinity)
  • Everyone swaps bodies (The Prisoner of Benda)
  • Lurr moves in with Leela (Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences)
  • Fry becomes a hideous abomination (The Mutants are Revolting)
  • Leela becomes a hideous abomination (The Mutants are Revolting)
  • All the characters switch genders (Neutopia)
  • Fry becomes a cop (Law and Oracle)
  • Fry becomes a hideous abomination (The Butterjunk Effect)
  • Fry becomes a hideous abomination (Fun on a Bun)
  • An anthology episode where all the characters become different types of animals (Naturama)
  • Bender becomes a father, then gives up the kid at the end of the episode (The Bots and the Bees)
  • Leela's mother gets a divorce, dates Zapp Brannigan (Zapp Dingbat)
  • Leela becomes a hideous abomination (Leela and The Genestalk)
That's...an extensive list, and it betrays a fatal lack of confidence, not to mention a simple deficit of ideas. The reset button is fine, when used sparingly, but late model Futurama slammed it so often that the poor thing should be out of order by now.

It's important not to fall prey to nostalgia. Futurama's first run was not immune from these types of episodes, and some of them (Godfellas, The Sting) are among the show's greatest. It's possible to draw meaningful distinctions between these "sudden change, followed by reset button" episodes, but the biggest difference is simply that the newer episodes aren't as funny.

FOX Network executives played the villain in the story of Futurama's original run, and that's a natural enough fit for them. And their frequent meddling with the show's time slots and air dates surely played a role in Futurama's initial failure to take with TV viewers.

But it's instructive that when Futurama left for the more forgiving and tolerant arms of Comedy Central, its writing staff did not use its new-found creative freedom to explore longer story arcs or innovative methods of storytelling. Instead, they merely took advantage of the basic cable status of their new network to repeatedly say the word "dong." 

One shouldn't overstate the extent of these last two season's struggles; few of the episodes were truly awful, and most were watchable enough. But neither should we understate the disappointment of these new episodes. Futurama's second chance was squandered, and squandered thoroughly, with two forgettable seasons that utterly failed to live up to the show's established level of quality.

As the show comes to (what we presume) is its final end, there's not exactly a sense of relief; Futurama never fell to the depths required for that. But neither is there any real sense that we are losing something of significance by losing Futurama, which wasn't the case when the show first went off the air. 

Instead, the prospect of losing Futurama is met best with a shrug. That is the tragedy of the post-cancellation seasons: they have turned one of television's unique, funny, heartfelt programs into a matter of apathy.