As a young child, Benna may have believed that it was all right for words or phrases to be almost correct, but as an adult she realizes that language has to be used accurately: “pears” are not “pearls,” “Satan” is not the same figure as “Santa,” and “igloo, eyelid glue, isle of ewe” do not convey the same meaning as “I love you.”– Lorrie Moore, Anagrams
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So long, and don’t let the door hit ya.
Here’s part 2 of the TV shows I finally kicked to the curb.
Deception
I really wanted to like Deception, not least because it has a surprisingly diverse cast. Alas, I am surfeited already with the subject matter by way of Revenge, which this feels like a dispirited copy of. The plot can be summed up as “rich people do bad things to each other and, eh, who cares.”
Revenge
And speaking of Revenge…
This show was unexpectedly fabulous in its first season. I enjoyed every minute of Emily being capably devious and Nolan swanning around in his layered shirts and unabashed bisexuality. This season, they’ve managed to displace the best elements of the show. Instead of Nolan as Emily’s confidante, we get some new guy. Nolan and Emily had a great, weird, compelling chemistry, and it is sorely missed this season. And instead of Victoria as the main antagonist, we get the members of The Initiative, which is Revenge’s version of The Shadowy Conspiracy. See, Victoria’s transgressions were driven by emotion – love for Emily’s father, devotion to her son, and conflicted feelings about her daughter. The Initiative’s bad lady lacks emotion and personality both. She can’t hold a candle to Madeleine Stowe’s barely reigned-in craziness, and I just don’t care about her motives. My feeling in season one was that Revenge really should be a single-season, closed-arc show. Nothing I’ve seen so far this season has convinced me otherwise.
And a special, dishonorable mention goes to:
Shadowy Conspiracy
Want to elevate your primetime soap to “high concept” fare? Gotta have a Shadowy Conspiracy. Need to generate conflict? Insert a Shadowy Conspiracy. Not sure what your characters’ motivations are? A Shadowy Conspiracy will distract us from that too. I get that writing a TV show is hard work. Shadowy Conspiracy, when done right, gave us The X-Files and Lost. But compelling stories have to contain realistic conflict. I don’t mean the situations have to be realistic; but the emotions do. If you can’t make me care about the members of your Shadowy Conspiracy, then leave it out. And this is why I keep enjoying the hell out of Parenthood, week after week. I genuinely think it’s the best show on network TV right now, and better than plenty that’s on basic and premium cable too. And part of the reason is that families generate conlict consistently and reliably. It also doesn’t rely on a single romantic plot to carry all the narrative tension.
Parting is such sweet sorrow… without the “sweet” or the “sorrow” parts, that is.
So, network TV was my addiction these past two seasons, because a) I don’t have cable and b) looking for a job is depressing and escapism is awesome. People, I watched every new show that had even a smidgen of possibility. But I finally hit the wall of boredom with most of the new offerings of the past two years. Here’s what finally got deleted off my Hulu favorites list and why.
Smash
Oh Smash. I wanted you to be good. I really did. I watched your whole first season. I suffered through your endless awkward plotlines to get to your fun original songs. I put up with you telling me how special Katherine McPhee is in order to enjoy your dance numbers. I was delighted to discover Megan Hilty and see Jack Davenport on American TV, and for these, I thank you. But the time has come to let you go. Play me out, preferably with something from A Chorus Line.
Kiss this show goodbye—
Angelica and Megan.
They did what they had to do,
but I still regret
what I did for Smash, what I did for Smash.
Look, my eyes are dry,
which isn’t all that shocking
since I don’t give a flying fig
for Julia’s husband problems
or Tom’s search for love
or Ivy’s love for drugs.
Gone! Book of Mormon’s gone!
Avenue Q’s gone!
It’s Smash we’ll remember. (Sigh.)
Kiss this show goodbye!
And give me back my hour.
(Nashville’s waiting in the wings…)
Pointless plot, thanks a lot,
for wasting my time, Smash.
Mediocre Smash!
Soon re-booted, Smash…
Once Upon A Time
I have no good explanation for why I watched an entire season and a half of this idiotic show. Well, I take that back. I have three explanations: Robert Carlyle and Lana Parrilla. And this:
Oh, Hook. Never have eyeliner and a prosthetic shepherd’s crook been so swoony. But Once is that worst of combinations, goofy but with no actual sense of humor about itself. This show single-handedly cemented my long-simmering hatred of all things Disney.
Arrow
This show is getting a lot of good press from the sci-fi/fantasy community, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. It’s torturously predictable, the chemistry between Oliver and Laurel is flat, and frankly, the hero is unlikable. I wrote recently that I never need to see another superhero movie. I guess I’ve hit a saturation point, and the drama of the superhero just fails to move me. So my lack of love for Arrow may be entirely on my cold dead little soul. If so, I’m okay with that. Plus, every time I see John Barrowman in these one-off roles, I just miss Torchwood.
Beauty and the Beast
I had a whole review of this re-boot a couple of months ago, but I was too apathetic to post it. This version in no way resembles the 90’s cult classic it’s supposedly modelled on. That show had pathos, romance, and Vincent’s vividly imagined underground world. This version? It’s like if that show were re-written by an overly literal marketing department.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar references Sylvia Plath. My day is complete.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writing about HBO's Girls:
Some questioned why a man my age would watch a show about girls in their twenties, as if they’d just discovered me hanging around a school playground with a shopping bag full of candy in one hand a fluffy puppy in the other. Of course, these critics are right. When I read Moby Dick I first had to convince the bookseller that I was a former whaler named Queequeg. When I read the poetry of Sylvia Plath, I had to pretend I was a depressed white woman with daddy issues. Don’t worry, I used a fake ID.
Pilot Season; or, the Agony and the Not-Egregiously-Horrible. Part 1.
As you may have noticed, I will watch anything. So once again I’m watching all the pilots that are fit to watch… or at least the ones I was arbitrarily curious about, and that showed up on Hulu.
I love TV. Seriously, I like TV better than movies. It’s a shorter time investment, and then if you like a show, it’s fun for longer, sometimes even years. It figures that I also love pilots. The premise is new, the characters are new; it’s fun to figure out what’s going on. It’s the excitement of a movie, but with long-term potential.
Giant caveat here: a pilot can be totally different in quality and tone from the actual show. Just look at the slowly evolving disaster that was last season’s A Gifted Man. That one was hard to let go.
So here, in no particular order, are my first impressions. Beware of spoilers.
Last Resort
Number of episodes watched: 1
The Plot
US Navy nuclear submarine goes rogue and retrenches to a tropical island. No, really. They had a good reason, having to do with refusing to bomb Pakistan out of existence. And then one of their own ships tried to kill them. It’s complicated.
The adorable Scott Speedman and the eminently agreeable Andre Braugher star. Also with a minor part, Dichen Lachman from Dollhouse, just in case you need to be reminded of the golden era of Joss Whedon TV.* There’s a NATO station, a local warlord, improbably PC Navy officers, and the leftover scenery from Lost.
The Verdict
So disjointed that I wondered if everybody was scrambling in the editing room at the last minute. It felt like some transitional scenes were just cut completely. But ultimately that didn’t bother me too much, because I just didn’t care about what was happening. How can you make me not care about Scott Speedman and Dichen Lachman, show! Speedman and Braugher are both charismatic, but I didn’t believe for a second that they were military men. This show needs more Michelle Rodriguez. More Lost, less JAG.
But here’s what’s actually offensive: as part of the stand-off between the submarine captain and the Nefarious Shadow Conspiracy in the US government, Andre Braugher detonates a nuclear warhead in the Atlantic Ocean. And the show totally glosses over what an environmental and social catastrophe this would be. So basically the captain’s an asshole, okay? And he actually should be court-martialed, along with everyone who knew what he was doing and didn’t stop him. I don’t think this show is saying anything particularly political; it’s just poorly thought out. Maybe the creators were so blinded by the shiny high-concept idea and cool submarine sets that they forgot to revise the storyline. Shiny! (Not in a good Joss Whedon way.)
Prediction
This show has got to be expensive to make, and it’s hard to see how they can sustain such a claustrophobic plot over the long term. I give it between 5 and 13 episodes.
Revolution
“It helps to think about my Twilight residuals.”
“I’m not so sure about this, Billy” “Shhh, just keep gazing enigmatically into the distance until somebody gives us some narrative tension.”
Number of episodes watched: 2
The Plot
All electricity disappears from the earth. Fifteen years later, one man still seems to have some of the answers. But he hasn’t done anything about it yet, because… plot device?
So in the pilot he promptly gets killed by the Evil Militia, who also take his teenage son prisoner. His daughter and his alienated brother go on a quest to rescue the teenage son. And maybe to turn the power back on. It’s like S. M. Stirling’s “Dies the Fire” series, meets Terra Nova. Oh, and there’s a magic flash drive that turns local power back on. Got all that?
The Verdict
I so, so want this show to be great. It’s the most science fictiony of the offerings this fall. Billy Burke as the hard-case para-military badass uncle; Giancarlo Esposito as the Evil Militia’s right-hand man.
But what the show lacks is… electricity. (Sorry, sorry.) I’m willing to put aside the dubious science for the sake of the plot, but in that case, the plot needs to be compelling. So far, I can’t remember the name of a single character. And all that’s happened is:
Generic Girl** and Badass Uncle roam the landscape ostensibly looking for Teenage Brother. They get sidetracked almost immediately, but there’s not much sense of urgency.
Generic Girl makes a good-looking guy friend who turns out to be working for the Evil Militia. This development has all the impact of when that cute guy you kind of liked in eighth grade turned out to be a jerk.
Dead Dad’s Girlfriend is sad because she’ll never see her kids in England again. Well, yes, that is a giant bummer.
Nerdy Science Guy provides some much needed reality checking and sarcasm. He’s kind of like the Greek chorus of intelligent viewers, and is the only one who seems remotely curious about the magic flash drive. Give this man more screen time, please.
Oh, and Generic Girl’s long-lost mother is Elizabeth Mitchell from Lost. Now, I would happily watch an hour of Elizabeth Mitchell and Billy Burke bitching in the wilderness. And the flashbacks to just pre- and post-blackout are cool. But as it stands, there’s surprisingly little tension for a show that should be, you know, tense. They could all die of sepsis at any moment, for pete’s sake!
Much like Terra Nova, this show seems to have low expectations from its viewers. I didn’t really need them to spell out why Dead Dad’s Girlfriend was sad about not seeing her children, even their photos on her (non-working) iPhone. Nor did I need the lengthy dissertation on why Generic Girl doesn’t really want to kill people. You know what happens when the dialogue spells things out so painfully? My attention wanders. It felt like… I just… I… what was I talking about? How long can you reasonably expect a flash drive to be viable, even a magic flash drive? In a world with no electricity and an apparently mild climate, where did Evil Militia Leader get that bucket of ice? What does it say that I’m more curious about the inanimate actors than the breathing ones?
Now, here’s the caveat: this show is from Eric Kripke, of the well-loved Supernatural. So maybe it will improve dramatically. But in the meantime, here’s a tagline:
Revolution: The most exciting sci-fi show since Terra Nova!
You’re welcome, Hollywood. I will accept royalties.
Prediction
This one is doing quite well in the ratings. It’s going to be around a while, like its mysteriously stable digital media. And I’m inexplicably going to watch every episode, while slowly feeling my own life force drain away.
The best shows you’re probably not even watching
Community
Show runner Dan Harmon got the boot, but we still have the stellar cast. I would rather watch re-runs of this show than almost anything else on TV. It manages to be smart without being in love with itself, and the characters are imperfect, biased, and completely likable. Saturday Night Live wishes they could top the show’s pitch-perfect homages to Law and Order, Ken Burns documentaries, and Doctor Who. And the friendship between Troy and Abed is one of the most lovely relationships on TV.
The Vampire Diaries
Overlook the silly title for a moment. This show is fun, slightly macabre, and tightly paced. It’s not exactly the successor to Joss Whedon, but it shares a lot of the same attributes. For one thing, there are real stakes and real losses. Drama should be heightened by the supernatural, and this one gets that right.
Parenthood
You can keep Breaking Bad, because I think this is the best drama on basic cable right now. Plus there are three back-seasons at this point. Go watch them and tell me you’re not immediately addicted. Every character has at different moments made me cry and annoyed the crap out of me. Max Burkholder, who plays the autism-spectrum son, does such a good job he can be truly discomfiting to watch. This show’s got what both the pilots above are missing: characters so well-realized you actually feel invested in what they want, even if you think they’re crazy for it.
* It still stings after all these years.
** Generic Girl is played by Tracy Spiridakos. I’m sure she’s perfectly lovely and I sincerely hope this show makes her rich and famous.
Secret Diary of a Franchise
As enjoyable as the Bourne movies are, it could be that the theme has been tapped out. So to help Hollywood continue to produce them, here are some possible directions.
The Bourne Delusion
Average citizen Ed Bourne (Kevin James) gets knocked on the head after watching too many spy movies and starts acting like a high-strung super-assassin in everyday life. Ed steals a car to get to his job as a tax accountant, exits a dental appointment through the back window, and becomes convinced that his moody teenage daughter is a counter-spy. A trip to the mall culminates in a gripping rooftop chase through the streets of Columbus, Ohio.
The Bourne Analysis
The Treadstone Project relocates to a retirement home in Key Biscayne, where super-spies with PTSD and amnesia learn to play backgammon and work through their feelings. Will Jonas (Russell Crowe) find love and a second chance at a normal life with art therapist Liz (Diane Lane)?
The Bourne Backlash
A shadowy conspiracy forms. Their goal? To send super-assassins against hubristic old CIA operatives who have too many meetings in poorly lit wood-paneled rooms. Pamela Landy is tapped to head the team.
Bourne Again
We revisit Jason Bourne (played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), who, after a near-death experience, finds God and feels called to a new career as a charismatic preacher. But will the CIA let him live in peace? Hijinks ensue.*
The Bourne Solution
Treadstone is relaunched as Project BasketO’Puppies. Due to comprehensive mental health benefits, no agents go off the rails and the only conflict is the yearly intramural wiffleball tournament. Channing Tatum and Jason Bateman star.
The Bourne Singularity
The sheer number of Bourne movies finally causes a small black hole to form in the vicinity of Los Angeles. No one is harmed since all production has since moved to Vancouver.
* Hardcore fans of the franchise will later pretend that this movie never existed, à la Highlander 2.
I’ve been reading Julia Cameron again
Take pen in hand and list the ten most irritating experiences you can self-inflict:
1) Read several years’ worth of The Family Circus.
2) Eat the Dorito bits at the bottom of the bag with a fork.
3) Sign up for extra telemarketing.
4) Marathon Walker, Texas Ranger.
5) Get “Summer Nights” from Grease stuck in your head.
6) Attempt to take action shots with a camera phone. Discover it doesn’t work. Repeat as needed.
7) Set your thermostat to turn up and down at random.
8) Lower your household water pressure.
9) Bang forehead repeatedly with a metal spoon.
10) AFFIRMATIONS.
Actually I kinda love this picture.
(And I’m still a fan of JC.)
Keeping things fuzzy
I don’t like keeping a journal because I like having things be fuzzy. – a writer friend
Whenever you begin with I remember, you retrieve a world. But how much precision do you owe the past? Artists who use their lives as inspiration must make decisions about how much to nail down the facts of their lives and how much to let the details remain vague, filtered, and even false. Science has shown that we can indeed form memory as early as two years of age; this will not come as a shock to most of us. But I find myself deeply reluctant to write down moments from that age, those priceless memories that have floated up from before my adult comprehension of time. Putting the whole-body experience of those memories in words is disquieting; it catches the experience in a net, pins it irrevocably to the graph of circumstance and later reconstruction. It paradoxically makes what felt real seem unreal.
Exactitude is at odds with memory’s talismanic power, and its shifting, felt nature. Memory is not fact, and does not want to be fact. Memory is, rather, a composition, a composite. Memory is experience and emotion together. This is why hearing someone else relate your history to a third party is disconcerting; the facts may all be in the right places, but the feeling is wrong. And just as concrete details can prove to be untrustworthy and amorphous over the years, so too does the emotional weight and meaning of memory change. It evolves as our emotional intelligence evolves.
In poems, this frangible world of memory is safe, because poetry is also felt, evocative, and not to be trusted with facts. A poem also lives in our emotional center, shifting its weight and its shape over time.
Early memories present like the koi in a leaf-filled pond. Not clear. More about movement than anatomical exactness. At their own pace, with a shape that is sensed and felt, but not caught. Poetry presents itself the same way, sometimes full-faced, more often gibbous.
What I learned this year, Part 2
9) When you first do something, you don’t have to be able to articulate why you are doing it.
10) For an avid reader, reading can become a substitute for doing.
11) Promote yourself. It feels super-awkward, but do it anyway.
12) Doubts don’t help you; they only undermine you. So, radically, quit indulging in them.
13) When I don’t write in my journal, I don’t write at all.
14) Not writing for even a day leaves me depressed.
What I learned this year, Part 1
In no particular order.
1) I can’t write Ted Kooser’s poems or Louise Gluck’s poems. I can only write my poems.
2) I can make them much better than I ever think I can at any particular stage of editing.
3) Forward momentum is the single most important thing.
4) I need to read poetry to feel consistently inspired to write it.
5) I don’t write for acceptance. I do it to have meaningful work, and to feel consistently alive. Of course I want acceptance from the rest of the world. But it’s really important to not get those two things tangled up.
6) I wrote about this previously, but it bears repeating: Don’t pursue the result of heightened awareness. Reach for the state of heightened awareness itself.
7) Writing anything generates motivation for writing anything else.
8) Writing anything generates motivation for doing anything else. In writing, I become real to myself. I become hopeful. My choices seem to matter. My life seems to matter.