You Win or You Get Cancelled

Did you enjoy last weekend’s Game of Thrones season finale, loyal reader? I sure did as I was looking forward to seeing the scenes from the third book brought to life. And now we wait with bated breath for next season. But how long will that be? Will there even BE a next season?

Despite the show’s success, there are signs of grave danger and in my morning periusal of Cracked, I found a good article by David Christopher Bell that lists four of them. The first one, the show catching up to the books faster than George R. R. Martin can write them, has been discussed at lenght. But there are other causes for concern.

If you’re a fan of Game of Thrones, I really think you should read Four Behind-the-Scenes Problems That May Kill Game of Thrones!

Orange You Glad Black is Back?

You’re probably aware, loyal reader, that Netflix last week released the entire second season of their hit original show Orange is the New Black. Erica and I, along with most of our friends, couldn’t wait to sit down and watch all 13 episodes over the weekend. After two days of binge-watching, I’m glad to report that the show built upon its solid first series to bring us a richer, deeper story.

The very first episode hooked us up with a mystery. Following her season-ending beatdown of Pennsatucky, Piper is taken to an unknown destination with other inmates by bus and plane. We are kept in the dark for most of the episode and I won’t spoil it, but the hour is fully dedicated to her story.

The season’s second hour is pretty much chock-full of the rest of the ladies back at Litchfield. Once we’re caught up with our regulars, we are introduced to some new inmates. Of particular note are Vee, an older woman who used to have Taystee under her wing and also has history with Red, and a motormouthed idealist named SoSo who almost instantly gets on people’s nerves.

The main thread running through the second season isn’t really Piper’s own story. As the main protagonist, of course, we still follow her and Larry, her ex-fiancé. However that plot takes a back seat to the machinations of Vee. She proves to be an excellent antagonist as a schemer. She is used to running a crew that she considers family and she won’t let anyone get in her way. The way she manipulates Taystee is both understandable and vile.

Vee also provides a foil for Red. Our favourite Russian is aiming to return to her position of power at the prison after getting ousted at the end of the first season. She must reestablish her smuggling operation and gather new allies. Watching the mental chess games between Vee and Red is riveting. And as the season progresses things get dark.

In addition to the new characters, season 2 of Orange further develops a few of the regulars with great success. My favourite is the handling of Mr. Healey. He started out season one as a sympathetic figure but pretty soon his anger, insecurity and self-righteousness made him an antagonist. In this second season, the writers have done a good job of making him more three-dimensional.

Through his efforts you can see that Healey genuinely wants to help these women. He definitely became a counselor and social worker as an idealist who over time lost his passion. The system beat him down over the years. As he realizes this, his old energy returns and he tries to reach out to some of his charges by creating a support group where inmates can come and share their troubles openly. It’s a great idea but we do see that it’s not exactly going to plan when the ladies don’t seem to follow the process. He gets discouraged again.

And that leads to a much richer and realistic interpretation of the charactet. Healey sees himself as a kind man, rescuing these women from their problems (as he sees himself doing at home with his mail-order bride), except that he needs to be the one in control. He wants to help them his way and when of course they deviate from that path, he cannot handle it and think they are ungrateful and unworthy, fueling his own feelings of powerlessness and impotence. In turns it pushes him more towards that ridiculous “men’s rights” frame of mind and the vicious circle closes itself again.

While some favourite characters from season one, such as the transvestite hairdresser Bourset, are relegated to supporting roles, some almost untouched ones get surprising backstories. Sweet Morello the prison van driver has a surprisingly dark side, and Sister Ingalls was quite the activist in her day.

Orange is the New Black season 2 is therefore a proper and engaging continuation of a rich story. I hope the show will keep the pace of The Shield and Breaking Bad by making each season better than the last in an organic way. They are definitely off to a good start!

It’s a Post-Jack Bauer World

Many years ago while living in Montreal, loyal reader, I discovered a thrilling show with an addictive formula. It was an action show that fostered suspense by unfolding in real time. I’m talking of course about 24 starring Kiefer Sutherland as counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer.

24 was hugely influential in the development of the modern serialized TV series. You just couldn’t get the show in syndication and air episodes out of order. Its success paved the way for Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead and many others.

Unfortunately over time (and very much unlike its progeny) the series fell into the trap of repeating itself and trying to maintain its audience by upping the violence, ruthlessness and sensationalism of the action and moving away from the suspense and character development of its earlier seasons. See Jack pursue a lead, lose it, torture someone into giving a new lead. Lose a plot device without hope of getting it back, have tech Chloe magically pull a new lead out of her computer, rinse, repeat.

This year 24 returned and is now 5 episodes into a 12-episode series and I was wondering how the series would change. Since it had left our screens after a dud of an eighth season, we as viewers have enjoyed a great new Golden Age of television. And it’s 24‘s own influence on character-driven, anything-can-happen, intrinsically serialized offspring that brought us here. Unfortunately instead of a show that dug into Jack Bauer in a new way, at the halfway point of the season it’s just warmed-over plots from its weakest years.

Can you imagine a series of 24 where Jack Bauer’s morality is put into question or shifting over time like Walter White’s or Vic Mackey’s? Because I think today’s savvy viewers expect that level of quality. I know I as a watcher my expectations have evolved and 24 has not.

Of course I will keep watching to see how the story ends in the next seven episodes. But I can’t think of a better illustration of the evolution of television drama in the last 5 years than watching 24.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Coming to Form

Ever since it premiered last fall, loyal reader, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been a disappointment to most viewers. Chiefly I believe it’s because of the big difference between the hype of a weekly connection to the Marvel cinematic universe in comparison to what a TV show can deliver.

The first half of the season was slow going to say the least as Agent Coulson’s little team seemed pretty irrelevant in the big picture. Other than a throwaway line here and there name-checking Tony Stark or Nick Fury, the show didn’t really seem to have any stakes and two of its central characters, super operative Ward and audience-surrogate newcomer Skye, were so bland they never really caught on. The only bright spots were the very likeable Coulson and the cute tech team of Fitz/Simmons. A big ongoing plot concerning the hows and whys of Coulson’s return to life after being killed by Loki in The Avengers was not progressing nearly as satisfactorily as it should have.

The series picked up a bit of steam in January as that mystery got mostly solved with a satisfyingly gruesome explanation that also opened up a bigger plot and raised the shadow of secrets within S.H.I.E.L.D. itself going all the way to Fury. However, it still spent a few episodes spinning its wheels. Bill Paxton was brought on board as a guest star and carried with him a good agent camaraderie with Coulson.

Up to that point, I was following the show mostly out of curiosity about where it was going to go. It was on my watching list but at the back. I was more interested in watching Arrow instead.

But then, Captain America: The Winter Soldier hit theatres and brought an explosive twist with real repercussions for S.H.I.E.L.D. on both screens. Indeed, it almost seemed like the TV show was deliberately holding back so it could instantly kick into it thanks to the HYDRA plot. Now Coulson’s team is on the run and has to deal with the remnants of the once-mighty organization, double-agents, dozens of villains freed and dangerous technology in the wrong hands. It also now has a true villain we can enjoy (whose identity I won’t reveal). Most of all the show now has a purpose and a sense of high stakes and urgency.

For the first time since it began, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has now shot to the front of my weekly watch list. If you want to jump back on board, you can safely skip to episode 9 of this season and catch up from there. If you like a good comic book show with an emphasis on mystery and plot rather than straight-up superheroics, it’s a very good choice as of now.

Promise And Disappointment

The fall TV season is over, loyal reader, and I’d like to talk about two new shows that gradually got me involved and let me down, respectively.

First off, I was excited back in September about the premiere of Vegas, a period show about the early years of Las Vegas. The main characters, real-life sheriff Jack Lamb (played by Dennis Quaid) and mobster Vincent Savino (Michael Chiklis) seemed very interesting and I’m a big fan of Mr. Chiklis after watching The Shield. It’s also written in part by Nick Pileggi, legendary author of Wiseguy and the scribe behind Goodfellas, Casino and City Hall. Now that’s a winning formula! And yet… after 10 episodes I feel disappointed.

Vegas isn’t bad but with such talent behind it, it comes out merely mediocre. It’s got three main drawbacks.

First of all, the episodes are very formulaic. A murder is committed, the rancher-turned-sheriff along with his brother and son talk to witnesses and follow leads and the unlikely culprit is caught in the end. It’s always a minor character that you saw for a moment or two at the crime scene. It’s nice to have a police procedural to watch, but Vegas is better when dealing with the B-plots of the “bad guy” Savino’s plans for the Savoy casino and Las Vegas in general.

Secondly, Vegas feels very tame. I know it’s a network show and can’t get away with the more graphic sex and violence of HBO or FX. But it feels like something from the 80s or 90s. There’s no sense of menace or danger and consequently very little tension. For a show that’s a cross between a Western and a mob story, it sure is a little too clean.

Finally, and what for me is the biggest hurdle… our purported “hero” Ralph Lamb is (at least the TV version of him) just unlikable. He used to be an ace investigator for the military police who retired to his ranch. Now that Las Vegas is growing, he sees his way of life changing and becomes sheriff when asked to keep the peace. I think we’re supposed to find his gruff down-home nuggets of wisdom and his scowls about anything he doesn’t like endearing but to me and many others he just comes across as a cranky, condescending jackass. For example, a recent episode had him avoiding all calls and meetings with the city’s new mayor because he found out Savino had been helping him out with his campaign. We could go along with him if we had seen him win due to nastier tactics (see the tame content I was talking about), but really all we’ve seen the mob do to help is disconnect a power cable during a televised debate that the incumbent was losing anyway. Lamb just comes off as disrespectful and petty because his guy didn’t win.

The good sheriff also seems to take the law into his own hands a lot. Now, that’s par for the course for TV cops (Michael Chiklis’ Vic Mackey is a great example), but in Vegas he does it so arbitrarily and apparently more in the name of what he doesn’t like than what’s right or wrong. Indeed, the very first episode sees him punch out a few security guards because he didn’t like airplanes going over his field. A more recent episode has him following up a lead to a photographer who takes pictures of scantily-clad women to sell to magazines. Hardly the most noble of professions, granted, but nonetheless the guy wasn’t a pimp or anything. He wasn’t forcing the women to pose, it was just a regular cheesecake photo shoot. And the photographer had nothing to do with the crime of the week, he was just a lead. Yet Lamb pulled out his gun, fired a warning shot between the terrified man’s legs and told him he would shoot higher if he ever saw him in his town again. Yes, I’m 100% behind this annoying, judgmental lunatic.

By contrast, my reason for watching the show still is Chiklis’ Vincent Savino. For the supposed “bad guy” of the series, he’s the complete opposite of Lamb. He’s friendly, charismatic and he sees a lot of potential in Vegas. He genuinely wants to help build it into a world-class city with great entertainment, opportunity and glamour. Savino is regularly seen standing up for his lowliest employees, sometimes against other mobsters, he is faithful to his wife and generally is a gentleman mobster. He seems to only rely on violence and intimidation when it’s absolutely necessary and he doesn’t enjoy it. Our “bad guy” is more the type to grant favours and grease some paws than extort and assassinate.

I’ll keep watching Vegas for Savino’s storylines, but my recommendation for the future would be to make the hero more likable, go a little edgier with the action and try to mix things up a bit with the formula.

Leaving the mob-themed Western behind, I’d like to talk about a more pleasant surprise in this fall’s line-up, the CW’s Arrow. Based on the Green Arrow comic book character, it stars Stephen Amell as young billionnaire Oliver Queen. Shipwrecked on a dangerous island for five years, he’s now back in his home town of Starling City among his rich family. But his life on the island changed him. He secretly carries out a war on the high-level criminals that corrupted his city. People his own father worked with and whom is mother seem to be a part of.

Unlike Vegas, I didn’t have high expectations for Arrow. After a few episodes, the hero was kind of bland, there were no good villains and the supporting characters were simplistic. But as the season progressed, things got a little more developed. Nuances started to appear for our hero who is not all that heroic. He even straight-up said he doesn’t consider himself a hero and for once it didn’t come out as false modesty. He eschewed going after common bank robbers and instead wanted to keep focusing on a list of corrupt businessmen his father gave him before killing himself. It’s an interesting approach and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it.

After a string of forgettable bad guys (they even turned freakin’ Deadshot into kind of a punk), the program recently picked up through the addition of John “Captain Jack” Barrowman as the shadowy antagonist behind the mysterious, villainous criminal organization. And without spoiling the mid-season finale, a development finally brought a villain worthy of going toe-to-toe with Queen.

The show also gradually reveals what happened to Oliver on the island via regular flashbacks and it’s fascinating to discover more and more about it every week. As it turns out, it’s no deserted island. Mercenaries abound, a mysterious archer stalks the jungle and a masked madman called Deathstroke even captures and tortures Oliver. I’m really intrigued to know more about this island and what Oliver did on it for five years.

Now, Arrow is not perfect. It still has a problem with secondary characters that go nowhere, such as Oliver’s former bodyguard and current partner Diggle. The main love interest is as pointless and annoying as Lana Lang was on Smallville. But those problems have gotten much better since the first few episodes and things are really starting to coalesce. Oliver himself started off as Bruce Wayne Lite but not anymore. It’s interesting to see a “super hero” without too much self-righteousness. And it’s even more interesting to see a show come from shaky beginnings to finding its legs and showing great potential. Once things I’ve matured even more, I think it’s going to be a solid cult show. Unlike Vegas, it’s trending up.

Whatever your show preferences are, loyal reader, I wish you a happy winter viewing season!

Most Adorable Recap Ever

I have to get up relatively early tomorrow, loyal reader, so in lieu of a lengthy post, here’s a dose of adorability as a preschool-aged girl recaps the latest Doctor Who episode. Enjoy!

Vegas, Baby!

I’m kind of excited about this new show I heard about today, loyal reader. It’s called Vegas and premieres next week. It seems to be the story of a Wild-West type sheriff (Dennis Quaid) policing the burgeoning city of Las Vegas in the early 1960s.

I’m a sucker for a good period piece (such as the mostly excellent Boardwalk Empire), but I must admit what has me the most excited is the presence of Michael Chiklis as the series’ apparent Chicago mobster villain. I’ve just finished watching for the first time the entire run of The Shield and I was blown away by Mr. Chiklis’ acting. After watching the series finale, I sat slack-jawed at my computer for about 10 minutes. The Shield took me places emotionally that I never had gone to before watching TV. It’s the only show I’ve ever seen that actually did nothing but get better after each season. Up until now, Sons of Anarchy had been the best television series I had ever seen, but The Shield officially now blows it out of the water.

Of course, most of that is due to the great writing, gritty photography and great direction, not just the skill of the actors involved. But hell, Chiklis was such a charismatic badass that you couldn’t help but root for him despite the very bad things his character did. I’m really hoping to get behind him again in this new show.

I’ll let you know what I thought of the premiere next week!

Day+25: How I Unnecessarily Stretched Out The Story Of How I Met Your Mother

My apologies for not posting last night, loyal reader. I ended up falling asleep after reading and had a very restful night.

Since Erica and I have been gone for several weeks, we have been missing many of our favourite shows and have been catching up since coming back. Last night we finished watching the latest episodes of How I Met Your Mother, including the hour-long season finale. True to the tone of pretty much the whole season, it was mediocre at best. I think it just might be time to retire this once-great series.

If you still haven’t seen the season finale, please read no further unless you want to be spoiled.

After all this time, I had nearly forgotten that the season premiere featured Barney’s wedding to an unseen person. And the last few episodes saw the lovable ladies’ man’s relationship with Quinn, his stripper girlfriend, deepen and solidify. When he proposed, of course, we were all led to believe that she would turn out to be the bride. Or at least that’s what the writer wanted us to think, but after pulling so many tricks, I don’t think many of us were fooled. I was very disappointed when it turned out the bride is Robin. Yes, we’re back to that again.

Poor Robin, the last few seasons have no been kind to her. The once-fun Canadian has either been entirely forgotten from some episodes, given a pointlessly melodramatic storyline about not being able to have children, and been the crux of a Barney-Robin-Ted love triangle that is now as threadbare as Ross and Rachel were in the day.

As for the series’ protagonist, well, Ted is still stuck in the same pattern of moping for love. Just as he’s been doing for 8 years now. There is hope, however, since the Star Wars trilogy clearly shows him holding his baby girl in the year 2015. Although come to think of it, it shows him holding A baby girl. I’m sure the writers were careful enough to leave themselves an out. For all we know, by 2015 he is a babysitter.

And what of Ted riding off into the sunset with an old flame? Well, just like Barney’s wedding to Robin, it seems like the show is just mining its old self for material to keep going.

The only ray of hope I have for the future are Marshall and Lily, the only characters who actually seem to be moving forward in their lives. With the arrival of a baby, I’m curious to see if the show will avoid the tired old new parents jokes and actually bring us a fresh take on the venerable trope. It’s a testament to both Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel that the characters of Lily and Marshall invariably turn out to be the most endearing. I find myself rooting for them to be happy much more than I do for Ted, Barney or Robin.

Since we want to know how it ends, we’ll more than likely keep on watching next season, but I do think it would be wise to make that one the final season. How I Met Your Mother used to be refreshing and different, but now it has simply become a shadow of its former self.

TV Review – Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes

As is fairly common knowledge by now, loyal reader, I love superheroes. I always have. While I wouldn’t condone real-life vigilantism, the fantasy tales of men and women with superpowers have always managed to capture my imagination. So I was very happy to see that Netflix is now carrying the 2010 animated Avengers series, soon to enter its second season.

There had already been an earlier attempt at bringing Marvel’s premiere super-team to the animated universe. But the first animated series made a mistake, in my opinion, in excluding Captain America, Thor and Iron Man from the roster in order to focus on lesser-know characters such as Ant-Man, Wasp and Scarlet Witch. And the Avengers without Cap, Tony Stark and the god of thunder is like Star Trek without Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

Thankfully the newer show not only includes the Big Three, it also gives us the Hulk, Nick Fury and some great bad guys. It also has an excellent sense of pacing.

You see, I’m four episodes into the season and there still isn’t an Avengers team yet. The first half-dozen episodes or so each focus on one or two key characters who will eventually form the team. I think this is a great approach. Ensemble shows have a tendency to dilute their narratives sometimes between the various characters. And those characters end up settling into certain niche roles: the leader, the gruff badass, the sexy woman, the powerhouse, the funny man, etc.

By introducing each character separately, our first time meeting them let us see their courage, resourcefulness and ability to rise to a challenge. Later on when they assemble (see what I did there, comic book fans?), we will get to see how those strong individuals combine into a group dynamic.

The animation is slick and clean with no noticeable corner-cutting. It’s a step ahead of the mid-90s Spider-Man and X-Men series, though not as stylish as the classic Batman animated series. Like any good Marvel superhero show should, it also has a catchy (if a little cheesy) theme song.

If you’re like me and like a good superhero yarn, loyal reader, check out this new show, especially in light of the recent revelation that it will soon be joined by a new Spider-Man animated show partly created by Paul Dini (who made Batman such a masterpiece).

TV Review – Republic of Doyle Season 3 Premiere

After many long months, loyal reader, Newfoundland’s favourite detective returned on Wednesday with Republic of Doyle‘s third season premiere, featuring a much-publicized guest appearance by Russell Crowe. Despite a disappointing second season, I just love this show’s characters and St. John’s settings.

Since we last saw our hero, Jake Doyle has been working in a special unit of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, a job he gives up now to return to private practice. At the behest of his superior, he agrees to take one last job: to protect an important organized crime informant until the all-important trial in a few days. No sooner does Jake get to the hotel (after bumping into Russell Crowe’s character) that the witness is killed and Jake is suspect number one and on the run.

In many ways, this week’s premiere episode is a good representation of the series as a whole: it’s good funny one-liners, recognizable guest stars, banter between the characters and great action sequences in and around the City of Legends. It’s all good enough to distract us from a very contrived plot that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

All the main cast returns save Tinny, who is still away in England. It’s good to see Malachi and Rose back from their globe trotting vacation. Mal in particular is a great counterweight for his son’s hot headed ways. The best part of the show is the dialogue and relationship between the two.

Comic relief Des is back too. He’s a student at Memorial University and, of course, drops everything to help Jake on the case. His hero worship, no matter how much he denies it, is adorable! And the interrogation scene shows him gaining a couple of badass points.

Unfortunately, Jake’s prosecutor girlfriend Alison is still out of the picture and Leslie Bennett is still in. After being by far the most annoying character last season, I’m really hoping they can write her better this time around.

We find our designated love interest now directing traffic just down the street from our apartment, actually, at an intersection that had an actual traffic cop until about 15 or 20 years ago. She’d understandably still mad at Jake for getting her fired, and is not afraid to verbally blast him for it. Spoiler alert, she’s eventually reinstated as a sargeant in one of the most stunning use of the reset button I’ve seen in a while. I mean, I can see her getting an apology and her traffic job back, but her original job? The one she lost by being blatantly negligent in letting a known civilian troublemaker have access to her badge? The RNC is one forgiving police force!

While she warns Jake at the end that she will be his worst enemy if they cross paths again, I think it’s safe to say it’ll be another season of her being annoyingly pissy and yet still giving Jake all kinds of insider help, bitching about it all the way. I’m really, really wishing that this season either does something cool with Leslie or writes her off. She’s dragging down an otherwise fun show.

On the flip side, it was pretty cool to have Russell Crowe on the show! And it turns out this is the very episode that featured the car chase I caught on video last summer. It was awesome to spot where our corner was!

As usual, the plot kind of made no sense (if Russell Crowe’s crew had revealed their secret earlier, the case could have been solved a lot faster and easier, the villain had tons of other chances to kill the witness but for some reason waited at the last minute and involved Jake, etc). But that’s part of the charm. It was the same way with most of the old shows that inspired it. We come here not for the mystery, but for seeing a cool, streetwise father-son detective team take down bad guys while driving an awesome muscle car. In St. John’s!

For a season premiere, it was decent. I can’t wait to get the spirit of season one back though. Oh yeah!