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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.