November 2009

Legend of the Seeker is an odd show for me, as both a critic and a fan. I can see so much potential in it and while I never really expect it to live up to that potential, I still find myself feeling disappointed when it doesn't take at least a few opportunities for some real emotional depth. Whenever a book gets adapted for the screen there's a respectable impetus to be faithful to the source material, but there are always reasons to deviate from the original. I think the Sword of Truth series does well as a standard exercise in high fantasy, but like most of the genre it lacks the pathos required to make a compelling modern TV drama. I so often find myself wishing that the show would be darker or more emotionally complicated, especially in episodes like "Touched" in which there are so many chances to push that button.

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Characters on House just aren't interesting when they're happy. In fact, that particular mutual exclusivity is the subject of this week's episode. Or at least it might as well be. I've written before about how Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital is as much an existential state as the setting of this show. While the paces of "Ignorance is Bliss" aren't as sharp as House can get, the overarching ideas it conveys are some of the more intriguing of the series. In a show that directly contrasts worth with wellness, it's only a matter of time before a character either leaves or becomes miserable.

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***Don’t read this if you’ve not watched the enirty of Season Seven. No, really. It’d be bummer.***

I remember the circumstances that surrounded my watching the Seinfeld finale a decade and some change back, but I don’t remember the show at all. If someone wants to let me know, go head. But seriously, if I can’t snag that bit of info from the recesses of my brain, there might be a reason for it. That’s basically stated in the seventh season closer of Curb Your Enthusiasm simply titled Seinfeld.

Imagining the licensing rights that needed to be wrangled for this season of Curb to come off is beyond imaginable. But Larry and company were able to do it and wound up with a hyper self aware season (even more so than usually) full of self effacement and even some shocking moments.

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Oh Dexter. What a bizarre set of situations the writers on your show have gotten you into. But I suppose the fact that you’re a serial killer is strange in and of itself. The heart of gold that you tote around mitigates any short comings you might have as a deranged sociopath. Unbeknownst to your friends and family you’ve slaughtered scores of people, but have always worked to hide behind some mask, held in place, although precariously by your sister and now by your new family.

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Remember when science fiction used to be, ya know, about fictional things with a scientific component? Yeah, sometimes I really miss those days. Given a less even-handed writing team a 21st century sci-fi show can quickly lose its footing and become little more than a soap opera that happens to take place in outer space or on an alien planet. It's obvious at this point that Stargate Universe wants to be the new Battlestar Galactica and it's equally obvious that neither the cast nor the writers have the chops to fill those gigantic, award-winning shoes. What matters now is how badly the show stumbles, or at best how gracefully it accepts that it's just a genre show on a cable network.

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The Office has a problem surrounding the bankruptcy plot introduced in last week's excellent episode. It wouldn't serve the show or any sense of realism if that plot blew up or was otherwise resolved in a short period of time. That doesn't make for very good TV, especially comedy. Watching the slow collapse of Dunder-Mifflin necessitates watching the company's board of directors tread water and stall for time. Where are the jokes in that premise? If "Shareholders Meeting" is any indication, the answer is few and far between.

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Glee is the surprisingly ambitious pet project of three different writers and as the first season of the show progresses it becomes more apparent that they aren't all equally talented. Last week's stellar episode was the product of Ryan Murphy's script and Paris Barclay's direction. This week, we can thank Brad Falchuk for a far inferior hour of television. This is a trend in Glee. Murphy writes interesting, entertaining scripts that are properly paced while Falchuk tosses off lumps of clunky dialog and clumsy storytelling devices. Falchuk was the mind behind "Preggers", the episode that I still consider the weakest of the season, though tonight's wasn't far behind. I'd be happy to see a second season of Glee that alternates between Murphy's good storytelling and oddball Ian Brennan's weird but stylistic episodes.

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The penultimate Curb Your Enthusiasm episode of season seven – “The Table Read” – really seemed to be an exercise in how Larry’s former co-workers were able to speak with him in any tone that they pleased. Cheryl finally gets to interact with everyone and a Funkhouser even shows up. None of this sounds like it should result in a well rehearsed show, but the Seinfeld reunion seems to be getting under way nicely. We’ll have to wait and see how the season finale finds the cast.

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I’ve perhaps wrongly assume that anyone currently writing for a television show has seen Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder. Its adaptation in 1954 from Frederick Knott’s play makes it anomalous in Hitchcock’s filmography for taking place mainly in a single room. Surely, Psycho was distinctly connected to the Bates Motel, but viewers were able to see the owner’s house, the motel office and a few rooms in addition to that creepy path leading up the hill. Dial M for Murder is all windows, walls, carpet and furniture. That’s not bad – and in fact it’s one of my favorite films from the British director. But it’s surprising that last week’s episode of Californiacation – “The Apartment” – was able to summon some connection to the fifty-five year old film.

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Somewhere there's a jerk sitting in an apartment in Hollywood who is eating a dinner purchased with money he made by suggesting, fighting for and eventually writing a scene in which two of the worst characters on a show populated exclusively with bad characters sat on a couch, drinking tea and talking wistfully about their inability to make decisions. I'm not saying that such a scene can't make for good TV. Hell, In Treatment was one of the best shows on television for a couple of years. But see, that show was about a troubled psychologist and his inherently interesting patients. Heroes is a show about people with super powers. Can you hear me when I shout that, writers of NBC's Heroes? YOU WRITE FOR A SHOW ABOUT PEOPLE WITH SUPER POWERS!

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I've decided to add Stargate Universe to the TV World coverage lineup, at least for sweeps month since our regular Friday series, Dollhouse, is on a break due to low ratings. As we previously reported, this will be Dollhouse's last season, but Fox still plans to air the remaining episodes starting in December. For now, we'll get our sci-fi fix with a show that has surprised me with how interesting it's been. SGU isn't nearly as emotionally or intellectually stimulating as Dollhouse, but as we've seen, Fox really isn't the place for intriguing science fiction. Last year the network canceled the troubled but still remarkable Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and it's famous these days as the company that treated Firefly like a leper. Given that it's their bread and butter, the folks over at SyFy don't mind hanging on to speculative series with a punch (at least not since Battlestar Galactica. Us fans of Farscape and The Dresden Files got shortchanged some years ago). So, here's the first of our episode-by-episode coverage of Stargate Universe.

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What do you do when the company you work for is on the brink of collapse? Naturally, you turn your office into a set for one of those hokey murder mystery games that were clever for a brief period in the early 90's and have been insufferably stupid ever since. The dire financial straits of Dunder-Mifflin have been a part of The Office's plot from the beginning, but our country's economic troubles over the past few years made this concept a looming terror instead of the underdog fodder it was when the show began. "Murder" was a very funny episode, but the laughs were tempered by a creeping dread and desperation that's more in line with what has made The Office relevant post "The Deposition".

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It was only a matter of time before Glee got around to an episode concentrating on some of the fringe characters. What was nice about "Wheels" is that it gave just enough attention to Artie to make him more interesting while deepening a lot of the other characters following a related theme. Glee is a show about outcasts, so there's no reason to pretend that the kid in the wheelchair is the only one who needs to be better understood.

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It’s odd to think that the real life Larry David actually enjoys musicals and most likely runs around Los Angeles singing them to himself or other random people that he meets. There might be more of this now seeing as he’s single, but considering the fact that there was an entire season devoted to The Producers and now an entire episode with a West Side Story subplot inserted, Larry’s love of song has been solidified.

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Since a bunch of jerks from the east coast had to play some stupid game that no one has ever heard of, Fox hasn't aired a new episode of House in a while. Its triumphant return was a "House is away" episode, a seasonal tradition since the rather well done airport episode from the show's early days. This time House joined Wilson at a medical conference, if only to spend some time with Cuddy. I don't know why the writers decide to keep going back to that well. Has the audience been particularly vocal about a potential House/Cuddy romance? For my two cents, that plot has always lacked the dramatic tension and acting chemistry necessary to make it work. At least this episode kinda, sorta put it on the back-burner again while giving the old team a chance to tool around unsupervised.

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Pretty much any show that prominently features a Fonda (any of ‘em, seriously, I’ll take ‘em all, even the yokel cousins that they no doubt have) is gonna carry around a great deal of cache. Sure, Peter’s getting up there in years – he’s almost 70 – but there aren’t a lot of actors that can do what he does. And in this fine, fine episode of Californiacation - "So Here's the Thing..." – Fonda gets to wrestle Runkle. What better way to gage the competency of your agent?

But Runkle’s escapades with his mannish (and man sized) boss are just a side note for this particular episode as our hero, Hank Moody, seeks to vanquish his various west coast lovers so that he may be true to his one, real love: the mother of his child.

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After eight episodes of Bored To Death, it occurs to me that the original premise is misleading, while at the same time necessary. I suppose I went into the series expecting a mostly episodic comedy about a would-be private detective. From the outset that seemed only reasonable, but looking at how the show transformed that initial assessment seems short-sighted. Given TV's propensity for empty, pun-driven titles I've more or less stopped paying attention to what shows are called. In the case of Bored To Death, I think there's a benefit to taking the title literally. This isn't a series about a neurotic private detective, it's a story about people who are so incredibly bored with their lives that they're willing to embrace any absurdity that comes their way. For some reason, it took eight full episodes for this idea to gel for me.

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I've been following SyFy's newest series, Stargate Universe, a lot more closely than I thought I would when it premiered two months ago. I've found the show to be surprising in a lot of ways and I think the risks it's taken in terms of characters and plot progression have mostly paid off, even if the show hasn't quite hit its stride yet. What's really astounding is that SGU has been capturing some pretty impressive ratings, averaging about 2.5 million viewers a week and holding as strong as the debut. So, why is this show, which I contend probably shouldn't be doing as well as it is, grabbing audiences better than practically any sci-fi show in the past five years?

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I suppose this episode had to happen and I'm glad it came about sooner than later. The Michael/Pam's Mom romance thread was amusing while it lasted, but it definitely ran out of steam in the past couple episodes. There's no way the writers were going to keep that relationship going, if only because it was incredibly distracting and had a tendency to monopolize the action of whatever scene it crossed. "Double Date" devoted half an episode to making the romance fall apart, then it threw a little extra fuel on the fire to make sure it ran for the remainder of the show.

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Recently, Ron Moore and SyFy gave Battlestar Galactica junkies one last fix in the form of The Plan, a sorta-movie about the Cylon perspective of what basically amounts to the first two seasons of the series. Without a doubt, The Plan wouldn't make a lick of sense to anyone who hasn't seen pretty much the entire series, but I can't imagine why anyone who isn't a die-hard fan would watch the movie in the first place. The Plan is the very definition of supplemental material. It didn't really add anything to the already massive, intricate plot of the series and it spent a lot of time rehashing old material, sometimes to clarify "new" developments and sometimes to pad the movie out so it covered the 110 minute run time. All in all, nothing spectacular, but it's still an interesting exercise for the completists out there.

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Larry David’s a pretty guilty lookin’ guy regardless of how he attempts to cover it all up. Whether it was his talking to Cheryl before the two separated or in “The Black Swan,” Larry might be able to fool other folks, but that hang dog look he wears should be readily apparent to viewers.

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