Fantastically gory, with special merit for the excellent new badassedness of Action Tara. And with shapeshifter dogfighting, Sam's messed-up family finally becomes as interesting as the rest of the active stories. Hopefully the latter half of the season will grant Sookie a degree of perspective and a renewed sense of self-preservation, since she's been behaving as though she doesn't have any sense at all. I don't want to become one of those people who harps on the differences between the books and the show, because I do believe that the show has distinguished itself as its own distinct entity. However, I do think they could introduce some more of the essence and tonal beats (and timeline spacing) of the books alongside the characters they've started to bring in. In the books, especially the later books, Sookie has a very clear "better the devil you know" sense of what her relationship is with the vampires in her life - for all of Sophie-Anne's foibles, Sookie recognizes that she allows her to live her life in Bon Temps where other monarchs would force her into service. There's no sense of a comparable sort of recognition in the show, and I think Sookie's character this season has suffered because of it.
Mad Men
- 1964 and 1965 were such major years for civil rights, this has to be the season the show stops being polite and starts getting real with race, right? It's easy to point to political advancements - the Civil Rights act in 64 and the Voting Rights Act in 65 - but there are also social and cultural shifts happening that would be impossible to ignore, particularly for an agency selling itself as being on the cutting edge. A lot of reviews I've read have wondered if the show will directly acknowledge Beatlemania, but it's also the heyday of Motown - the Beatles frequently traded number ones with the Supremes. Sidney Poitier won his Oscar in 64, and at this point was on his way to becoming a marketable star in his own right in a way a black actor had never been before. Add this to the increasing visibility of the civil rights movement on television - for example, Fannie Lou Hamer's speech for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the Democratic convention the summer before this season starts - and it seems pretty clear that this is the time for Mad Men to venture beyond elevator operators and maids.
Don and Roger specifically cite Pete's recognition of the potential in marketing to a black audience in "Shut the Door. Have a Seat," and it would seem to be a rich well to go to if SCDP continues hurting for clients. What the show really needs, in my opinion, is a black Rachel Menken - it doesn't have to be a woman, though that would be pretty awesome - a client who comes into the agency with a forthright manner, a clear sense of what they want and no illusions about the personnel. The show sketched Conrad Hilton so vividly last season - why not do something similar with, say, the Johnsons (or a New-York-based contemporary)?
- Joan got an office!
- Aaron Staton stays in (though no sight of Ken in the premiere), Michael Gladis and Bryan Batt leave. (While Jared Harris and Kiernan Shipka get bumped up to regular cast member status. It's astonishing how much older she looks, just in a year's time.) With Lucky Strike still a major client of the firm, it's sadly unlikely that we'll be seeing Sal again anytime soon. I'm intrigued to see how Ken comes back into play - I believe he was the highest-ranking person left at Sterling Cooper after the events of the finale, so presumably he stayed there, but I wonder if the creative elements of his character (short story-writing and such) that the show has introduced in the past will come into conflict at all with McCann's allegedly soulless way of conducting advertising.
- It's a small thing, but I love that Don did bring Allison over to SCDP to be his secretary. Compared with, say, Lois and Jane, she was like a shining beacon of competence in the third season.
Degrassi: The Boiling Point
Two favorite characters getting spotlights this week, which is always awesome: Riley, who is such a tormented wayward soul, and Claire, who rocks because a) she's smart, b) she's willing to be a voice of reason where there frequently is none, c) she's way better than her lame, nutty sister, and d) she never lets the opportunity to tell Jenna what a man-stealing ho she is pass her by.
Friday Night Lights
Vince's story got a little too Boyz N The Hood there for me, but Michael B. Jordan and Jurnee Smollett made it work on the emotional side. All in all, a pretty smooth penultimate episode, what with all the piece-moving that needs to happen for the finale.
Ongoing:
Deadwood, Season 3, Episodes 1-4
- As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, there's a lot of shows I'd like to watch or revisit now due to Deadwood. The terrific slow burn Timothy Olyphant does in these episodes made me regret missing Justified when it aired earlier this year. One for the Netflix queue.
- It wasn't as bad as the second season's "Al passes a kidney stone" story, but Alma's pregnancy woes just made the show's depiction of nineteenth-century frontier medicine *that* much ookier.
- Janie Bryant's received a lot of press in the past few years for her work as a costume designer on Mad Men - it makes sense, as the fashions of the 1960s are easier to incorporate into twenty-first century wardrobes than those of the 1870s - but her work on Deadwood is gorgeous too. Joanie's top hat with the long trailing scarf may be one of my favorite accessories on either show.
Also Watched: Intervention, Covert Affairs, Top Chef
No comments:
Post a Comment