Week in TV: February 20-26

Big Love

- Sometimes on Big Love, the plot machinations feel so improbable or indelicately deployed that they've kept me from enjoying the show (ahem, fourth season) but sometimes they represent such deliciously bad decision-making on the parts of the characters that it's my privilege as a viewer to sit back and gleefully yell "Bad idea!" at the television. I can't decide which Cara Lynn and her teacher or Ben and Rhonda is a worse couple. On the one hand, Cara Lynn's teacher is an adult who seems to recognize that he should know better, but also...can't stop himself from exploiting what Cara Lynn has pretty clearly explained as some epic Daddy issues? And in this corner, Rhonda Volmer, certifiable crazy person! Both seem like situations destined to deteriorate quickly and spectacularly and I can't wait.

- Speaking of certifiable crazy people, how much do I love Barb's sister Cindy and her particular brand of passive aggression? Sooo much. Obviously, I'm rooting for Barb in this situation, but over the course of the series Judith Hoag has made her own little art form out of Cindy's self-righteous condescension towards Barb, and I'm so glad that they found space for her in this last stretch of episodes.

Gossip Girl

- The pop culture references on Gossip Girl aren't always deployed with a whole lot of nuance, so it was nice to see that little snippet of Blair and Dan watching The Philadelphia Story without any extraneous commentary. It's not an obvious connection to make, but once the show gave that little nudge, it's practically impossible to not see Tracy and Mike as Blair and Dan's antecedents (and the great vibe between Meester and Badgely as an update of the repartee between Hepburn and Stewart).

- The actual specifics of the business dealings around Bass Industries are a little oblique to me, but I have to say that I'm digging Michael Boatman's work on the show. Something about the tone of his performance gives the whole storyline a very eighties-primetime-soap throwback feel. Very Dynasty. I hope someone ends up throwing a drink in his face.

- Digression! Why doesn't Gossip Girl have awesome old-school credits with a great theme? When you watch Dynasty or Dallas, they have such great theme songs and credits sequences that are, like, three minutes long and they create this great ambiance of fabulousness.

Okay, maybe it just seems like three minutes compared with those pathetic pale imitations of show themes they've got these days, but - Jewels! Brandy snifters! Joan Collins! (I love the Dynasty theme so much, you guys. I kind of want it to be the ringtone on my phone.) Doesn't it seem like there should be some sort of situation here that involves the various Gossip Girl actors swiveling dramatically towards the camera, or descending long staircases or gallivanting around in formalwear? Serious lost opportunity there.

Week(s) in TV: Thoughts on...Glee

"The Sue Sylvester Shuffle"

- It's a bit regrettable that they wrote Karofsky so broadly in the earlier episodes that kicked off the arc that sent Kurt to Dalton. This episode suggested that there's a great, subtle performance in Max Adler that hasn't been serviced as well as it could, showing flashes of a kid who lashes out because he's paralyzed by fear and constantly at war with himself. Who knows where the rest of this season will go, but hopefully there's room to give more shading to Glee's designated bully.

- I really liked the performance of "She's Not There," but would've loved it if they hadn't thrown in Will's totally inelegant explanation of the joke therein. Come on, guys. Googling only takes a few seconds - make the kids work for it a little.

"Silly Love Songs"

- And it would seem they're on a roll, as both Blaine and Lauren were granted more complexity in this episode. Blaine in particular really needed the shading - the show's been coasting to some extent on Darren Criss' God-given handsomeness and letting Blaine be some sort of shaman of well-adjusted gay teendom.

"Comeback"

- I'm of two minds about this episode's generally excellent take on "Take Me or Leave Me"; on the one hand, it's so insanely well-suited to Lea Michele and Amber Riley's voices that it's sort of astonishing that it took so long to show up on Glee (and that this is the first Rent song they've done, although admittedly I don't know whether Rent is still the go-to show for musical-theater-loving teens. I assume that it's sort of been superseded by Wicked and Spring Awakening, but what do I know?) On the other hand, how do you have two characters sing a duet where they both sing the same part? I understand that Joanne's section has a lyrical specificity particular to the song's context within Rent that Maureen's "I'm a fabulous diva, look at meeee!" doesn't, but the duet-that-wasn't aspect was jarring to me as someone familiar with the original.

- Maybe it's just because I've been rewatching episodes of Friday Night Lights in anticipation of the *sniff* final season, but I'm really confused (and, frankly, kind of irritated) by Glee's vagueness around the competition structure of Sectionals, Regionals and Nationals. It seems pretty clear that the show is pointing towards New Directions going to Nationals, regardless of whether it ultimately makes sense or not, and that they presumably would re-encounter Vocal Adrenaline there. But wouldn't they still be competing in the same Regionals, especially since the show's specifically laid out that the other opponent from last year will be there? I know it's not really Glee's "way," but it would just be easier to invest some measure of interest in whether or not they win if it seemed like the competitions were governed by some sort of consistent rules.

"Blame it on the Alcohol"

- The character has extraordinarily few really endearing moments, so I was extra-charmed by Will's drunk grading. A lot of this episode made me sit back and think, "Sometimes it really is super-fun to just get tanked with your friends," which may or may not indicate that the after-school special aspect missed its mark. I guess it depends on who you think the show's intended audience is, age-wise.

Hollaaaaaa

Week(s) in TV: Playing Catch-Up

I ended up with a multi-week backlog of "Week in TV" posts, so I decided to just sort of disassemble them and scatter the pieces across different show-specific posts. I always want to write about Parks & Rec because it's so terribly excellent, but comments on comedies can so often turn into a laundry list of what was funny (especially with an episode like "Ron and Tammy, Part II"). So from the past couple of weeks I'll just observe that, among other things, I love: Jerry's little nod after Ben's comment about "gay thoughts" in the above clip, Shauna Malway-Tweep's enduring patience with Leslie's enthusiasm for headline brainstorming (although I don't think anything will ever top "Gazebo? More like Ga-zoinks-bo!"), and any situation that ends with Ron carrying Tom in his arms.

Trailer Thoughts

Chick-lit nitpick ahoy!

As I said back in my observations about Heart of the Matter, I like Emily Giffin's books because her characters act like adults. Not that you would necessarily glean that from this specific trailer. I like Something Borrowed enough, and think that it offers something so qualitatively and substantively different from other recent "chick flicks," that I'm willing to withhold judgement until the whole movie comes out. And, ultimately, while I have quibbles, it doesn't look bad based on this trailer. All that being said, there are a few things that jump out to me based on this snippet.

- As with any first-person work, I'm curious/concerned to see whether the emotional depth of the book will translate to the screen. The voiceover in the trailer works, but too much of that in a movie starts to feel like telling instead of showing. So much of how the reader comes to understand Rachel's relationships with both Darcy and Dex comes through in her communication of the story (and then creates such a striking contrast with Something Blue), and it seems like the plot particulars of Something Borrowed could seem much shallower without that grounding.

- From the scenes chosen here it seems like Movie Ethan is functioning as sort of a hybrid of Book Ethan and Hilary which a) is too bad, because I really like Hilary as a character and b) concerns me a bit. Not that I don't want more Ethan - I really like Ethan (and think Dex is kind of boring) - but I think that the physical distance that Giffin establishes in Something Borrowed is important to his function in the story as someone who advises Rachel without seeming to have a horse in the race, so to speak, as to who ends up with Dex.

- I will say that Kate Hudson seems perfectly cast as Darcy, and I hope that the movie does enough to make it clear why Rachel is friends with her even with all the shallow image-consciousness. In fact, I think my strongest feeling after watching this was, "I hope this does well enough that they make Something Blue." Because if Hudson's as tapped in to the character as she seems based on this bit, (and if she and John Kransinski have solid chemistry) then the take on Darcy's point of view could really be excellent.

Mood Music LIV

I've got so many drafts of posts floating around, and am terribly behind on TV observations (and movies, and other things), so there may or may not be some sort of crazy influx of posts in the next few days as I play catch-up. I'm not planning to share extended thoughts on the Grammys from last week, but I'm sure everyone can agree that Mumford and Sons just about killed it so here's a performance of my favorite song from their album.

Valentine's Day

For this year, I decided to just highlight two of my favorite Valentine's Day posts from the past:

A Good Memory

A Soundtrack for the Day

And an addendum to the show tunes list - this past year I heard music from Sondheim's Follies for the first time, and thought this song was an ideal addition to the playlist. Romantic and mournful, just how I like Sondheim.

Week in TV: January 30-February 5

Big Love

- I really, really want this season to end with Barb running away to start her own sect of feminist Mormons. Actually, finding Adam Beach first and then running away. (Intermittently, I want Barb to smother Bill with a pillow and then run away to start her own feminist sect. But in this episode the caroling scene and the scene where Bill directly confronts Alby reminded me that he's not a horrible, self-involved person all the time.)

- What kind of ice rink has a Couples Skate to "Knowing Me, Knowing You"? I mean, sure, everyone loves ABBA (that may actually be my favorite ABBA song), and it made for a great moment in the show, but isn't that kind of thing supposed to be romantic? I think a song that starts out with the lyric "No more happy laughter" kind of defeats the purpose. I guess "God Only Knows" would've been a bit too meta, though.

- I love Heather (and Tina Majorino), but I'm a little disappointed that she didn't use her time away at college to engage in some personal reflection and decide to stay away from the Henricksons forever. Run, Heather! Save yourself!

- Anne Dudek generally brings awesomeness wherever she goes, but they've really been using her well on this season of Big Love. That scene in the shelter where Lura wearily removes her fake eyelashes was such a quiet, beautifully executed character moment.

Skins

- Before this season started, "Chris" was the episode I was most curious to see. While I think "Cassie" and "Jal" (the second and third episodes of the first series of the original) are better overall episodes, the first UK "Chris" lays a lot of emotional groundwork that sustains arcs that carry through to the end of the second series, and presents an important moment of pathos for a character who up until this point was mostly a goofball. Like the pilot, this episode frequently hewed uncomfortably closely to its predecessor, but I think Jesse Carere acquitted himself well following in Joseph Dempsie's footsteps.

- This episode, more than the others, made me think that this show could be great in its own right if the writers worked more to recognize the strengths of this group of actors and tailor the roles to those strengths. James Newman in particular seems to have somewhat softer edges than Nicholas Hoult in the role of Tony (especially in the ongoing arc of US Tony and Tea as opposed to UK Tony and Maxxie), and if the writing of the character reflected those differences, then Newman wouldn't always fall short in comparison.

Community

I was eating dinner when I watched this, and I laughed so hard at Joel McHale's delivery of "Maaaarrrrr" that I choked on my food. That's right - this Community was so funny that it almost killed me. The excellence of the Dungeons and Dragons game made up for the irritation generated by the horrifying behavior they've been writing for Pierce.

Also Watched: 90210, Chuck, Gossip Girl, Greek, RuPaul's Drag Race, Hellcats, The Good Wife, Cougar Town, Off the Map, Top Chef, Parks and Recreation, Grey's Anatomy, Bones, 30 Rock, Private Practice

Mood Music LIII

This feels appropriate for my current mood because:

a) Hyper-Literal: I'm trying to alter my sleep schedule because waking up at 10 really isn't conducive to getting substantive amounts of work done during the day, but I can't seem to make myself go to sleep any earlier. I'm sleepy.

b) Lyrics-Conscious: I try to not make this a place where I talk too much about things that make me neurotic or insecure or whatever, but something about February makes me extra, extra crazy, and it is emotionally draining. Part of it's Valentine's Day, part of it's where the month falls within the school year. Unfortunate events of the past seem to have disproportionately occurred during this month. Excluding Black History Month, February is just no good.

Week in TV: January 23-29

Big Love

- I was a little worried after the premiere, but this episode was much more reminiscent of Season Three in focusing on women and the different ways that they're affected by the patriarchal hierarchies that shape society in the show. I especially liked the way this episode brought in Barb's mother - sometimes new information introduced late in a show's run can feel implausible or overly convenient, but Nancy's history as a former ERA advocate both made a lot of sense and explained a lot about her and her relationships with Barb and Cindy.

- This might just be me not remembering anything that happened in the fourth season, but what happened to Joey and Wanda? I didn't realize until this episode that Shawn Doyle and Melora Walters aren't listed in the opening credits anymore.

Greek

If nothing else, this last stretch of episodes was totally validated by the excellence of this week's Beaver-centric episode. Not only was it a great showcase for Aaron Hill, who's been an all-star of a supporting player throughout the show's run, but it was also stuffed full of Greek-type awesomeness, like the return of Katherine and Stripper Heath. If you'd asked me during the preceding hiatus whether I missed Greek, I probably would've shrugged indifferently, but this episode really exemplified the way the show created and perfected its own little niche in the television schedule.

RuPaul's Drag Race

- Before this season started, I was thinking to myself, "You know, I kind of wish they would bring Shangela back like Daniel Franco on Project Runway. If nothing else, that totally excellent turn on Terriers seems like more than enough justification for a second chance." AND THEN MY WISH CAME TRUE!

- Vanessa Williams is kind of perfect as far as guest judges go. I don't know about you, but I think presenting at the Golden Globes plus being a Drag Race judge makes up for the fact that she was totally shafted by not being included in the Miss America 90th anniversary reunion. (I also liked how Delta Work's "Kwanzaa realness" dovetailed so nicely with my December 26 post.)

Skins

I'm of two minds about Tea's role as the one American character who appears to be dramatically different from their UK counterpart. On the one hand, television can definitely use more young lesbian characters (this EW timeline that accompanied their recent Gay Teens on TV cover story really clearly marks the disparity), and while the plot of this episode felt laid on a little thick at times, the scene with Tea's grandmother describing her past was genuinely affecting. On the other hand, the show draws so significantly from its predecessor that it feels strange to have just one character who's so different from their antecedent. Tea's relationship with the boys in the group is tinged with a sort of wink-wink lasciviousness that makes it a disappointing companion to Maxxie's relative place within the UK group, and I wish they would've maintained Maxxie's interest in theater in the translation, as opposed to making her a cheerleader.

Off the Map

I want to like this show - there are actors I really, really like in it - but after three episodes, the premise remains a bit off-putting. I understand wanting to give each character a compelling backstory, but the collective tragedy of it all makes it seem like the only doctors the people of this unnamed South American country can get are unbelievably emotionally damaged. Like...well-adjusted people who've worked through their issues (and speak Spanish) are too good for this jungle clinic? Or the people running the clinic don't care if the doctors use the patients to work through their heavy personal business?

Nikita

Can I be totally shallow/lame for a minute? As a former viewer of The Young and the Restless, (okay, I still watch sometimes but not very frequently) I was really excited that they reunited Thad Luckinbill and Lyndsey Fonseca here. They always had really great chemistry, which is part of why I've never really been able to buy anyone else playing Colleen on Y&R. I mostly approach shows with serious intent and an analytical mind, but I'll be honest - there's a part of me that's just a big softy shipper at heart.

Parks and Recreation

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure this is the episode where Ben Wyatt became my new Fake TV Boyfriend. And sick Leslie Knope became my new most favorite thing ever.

Also Watched: 90210, Gossip Girl, Hellcats, Cougar Town, Community, The Office, 30 Rock, Bones

Screened: December 2010

December 1: Leap Year

Screened: At home, DVR from HBO

While it's mostly the slate of original series and documentaries that keep me paying an exorbitant-for-a-graduate-student monthly fee to receive HBO, I have to say that access to terrible romantic comedies requiring no effort on my part to obtain them is an added bonus. I couldn't stop feeling bad for Amy Adams and Matthew Goode while I was watching this; underneath her character's unbearable shrillness and awful, awful personality, they actually had decent chemistry that could've really worked in a movie that was more about the interpersonal relationship than the cliché-riddled concept driving the plot.

December 1: Waking Sleeping Beauty

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

I love a good behind-the-scenes film history, and I'd been waiting for this movie to come out on DVD ever since the trailer was first released. The film, looking at the resurgence of Disney animated films in the 1980s and 90s, benefits immensely from a sense of candor and self-reflection on the part of director/narrator Don Hahn, a former producer for Disney. It celebrates the accomplishments involved in creating movies like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, but doesn't shy away from chronicling all manner of behind-the-scenes discord among animators and executives. While there were a lot of things that I liked about this movie, I have to say that I really enjoyed the focus on the late Howard Ashman. It's clear that Hahn places great value on Ashman's contribution in bringing a musical theater sensibility to the movies, and the clip of Ashman coaching Jodi Benson through the recording of "Part of Your World" is a small treasure.

December 5: The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

Another in-house Disney documentary, this time about the Sherman brothers, the wonderful songs they wrote for Disney ("Feed the Birds" is one of those songs that's grown on me in leaps and bounds - I think I didn't have a lot of patience for slow songs when I was little, but "Feed the Birds" is too beautiful to deny) and their enduring mutual enmity. It was interesting to watch this after Waking Sleeping Beauty, if only for the contrast between the different Disney eras they depict; the Shermans' tenure began during the era when Walt Disney was still alive and actively shaping the brand, and you really feel the impact of his role as the driving force of the company when the Shermans talk about him.

December 11: Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Screened: At home, DVR from HBO

December 16: The King of Comedy

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

I finished my last paper on the evening of the fifteenth, so it seemed like as good a time as any to dive back into the Scorsese filmography. This go-round represents my first viewing for most of the eighties selections, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked The King of Comedy. Not that I was expecting to dislike it, but critical or satirical looks at entertainment can feel kind of dated sometimes; while the film is very eighties, its take on fandom and celebrity felt eerily prescient.

December 17: After Hours

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

Conversely, the major discovery for me here was learning that, for me, there is such a thing as comedy that's too dark. The downbeats - especially the suicide midway through the film - were so down that I couldn't really get into the "isn't this zany?!?" vibe of the rest of it. Like Less than Zero, it's an interesting snapshot of a particular urban eighties scene, but there wasn't much beyond time capsule appeal for me.

December 17: The Godfather

Screened: At home, from personal collection

So, after that downer, I started puttering around my apartment looking for a good two-movie pairing, preferably for a nice little theme night. I landed on The Godfather since a) it was there, borrowed from my parents and b) I've previously seen bits and pieces, and have the sort of base-line familiarity with the catchphrases and whatnot just from growing up in middle-class America, but hadn't seen the whole thing beginning-to-end before. I mused for a while on potential themes for the evening - branching off on different actors (if Netflix had had Brian's Song on Instant Watch, it may very well have been "James Caan: Hot in the Seventies" Night(just because I like Brian's Song - obviously, I know there are other movies that could serve there)), the Coppolas, the "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" era; a friend suggested looking for a movie with positive representations of Italian Americans, but I couldn't come up with one off the top of my head. Ultimately, the theme was the path of least resistance - Godfather Part II, which I didn't finish until the following evening as I fell asleep in the middle.

Ah, the movie: Good performances, but I had a lot of trouble keeping track of who was who among the various enemies.

December 18: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

Screened: At home, from personal collection

Normally, I don't go for bleak in movies; it's proved to be a major stumbling block for me with the filmographies of Woody Allen and the Coens. For some reason, though, I flat-out love this movie. I love the weary cynicism radiating from Jane Fonda's performance, I love the uncomfortable frenzy of the derby scenes, I love the creeping dread that permeates every minute of this bleak, bleak film.

December 18: The Godfather, Part II

Screened: At home, from personal collection

December 23: Easy A

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

I feel kind of ambivalent about this movie - I really liked it, but I've got quibbles. Emma Stone's performance was great, but the attempts at meta-commentary on the teen movie genre in her narration were way too self-conscious. The connections to The Scarlet Letter were tenuous at best, but the denouement to the Huck Finn joke made all the other broad swipes at literary allusion worth it. Romantic comedies seem to be in such a sorry state that I appreciated the genuine humor in Easy A, but hopefully future additions to the genre can be funny without being so hyper-aware of their predecessors.

December 29: Black Swan

Screened: In the theater

I think I'm still sorting out all my thoughts about this one, but I know that I liked it a lot. Deeply, deeply unsettling in the best way possible. Having known a lot of high-strung, driven people, I felt like Portman and Aronofsky tapped into something about the way they think and function that was very real, even as the movie spiraled out into crazier and crazier places. I was also really impressed by the way that Black Swan managed to draw very heavily upon the kinds of themes that have distinguished some of the best ballet movies up until now - mother-daughter relationships and company politics in The Turning Point, life imitating art in The Red Shoes, etc. - and still feel daring and novel.

December 30: Eat Pray Love

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

Not as horribly self-indulgent as I'd feared, mostly rescued by good performances by charismatic actors and gorgeous visuals of sweeping vistas and delicious-looking food.

Happy February

I've posted this before, but I love this version of the song and it felt like a good way to kick off February. Doing work in cultural history and African American studies, I have so much respect for Carter G. Woodson and his work as an antecedent to what I (and my fellow students and our professors) do now. Happy Black History Month!