Week in TV: May 22-28

Game of Thrones - 1.6, "A Golden Crown"

- Peter Dinklage and Jane Espenson: a match made in snarky-fantasy-TV Heaven. (I'll also add props for Arya's excellent "bitch, please" asides when Sansa talks about how much she wants to stay in King's Landing and bear Joffrey's babies.) Of all the show's characters, I think Tyrion's voice is losing the least in translation from the original book, and Dinklage is doing a bang-up job. When I read A Clash of Kings, I kept thinking that if that material made it to the show relatively intact then he'd probably end up with an Emmy, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he sneaks up and becomes a frontrunner for the award this season.

- I have mixed feelings about having read (most) of the books before watching this show. (I don't know that I've mentioned before that I'm in the middle of A Feast for Crows. It's slower going than the first three.) On the one hand, knowing who dies when and how terribly tinges some scenes with an air of tragedy that's hard to shake (the different combinations of people who don't know they'll never see each other again in the departures from Winterfell in the second episode made me unexpectedly burst into tears - I didn't realize before then that I cared that much). On the other, it does occasionally give things a bit of "yelling-at-the-screen-during-a-horror-movie" flair. Like that scene where Sansa made up with Joffrey - sometimes it's an "Oh, Sansa," sometimes it's a "Girl, RUN," sometimes it's a "Ooh, honey, this is not going to work out in your favor." Good times.

Glee - 2.22, "New York"

This episode ended up seriously frustrating me, and I'm trying to put a finger on why without devolving into a pure rant. I just still can't believe that they tried to play off Rachel and Finn kissing as the reason that the club didn't make it past the first cut at Nationals and not their unformed, unfocused, bullshit "rehearsal" "process." It seems insulting to a) songwriters and b) actual glee clubs who actually work to prepare themselves for competition to suggest that a group - even with the "pluck" and "determination" of the New Directions - would show up at a competition like this with barely a day's work on their performances and not be repeatedly and dramatically shown up. (Sure, they didn't make the cut, but twelfth? Seriously?) I haven't been in a chorus in over a decade, but chunks of songs I sang then surface out of my mind all the time. You know why? Because we practiced them - ad nauseum. As much as the show tried to sort of place Jesse in the non-dreamer villain column in critiquing the club, he was also mostly right. There have been enough song performances that have landed more in the "flight of fancy" realm than the "actual performance" one this season for me to think must be some way for this show to show the club taking the competition structure as seriously as they pretend to and still showcase a variety of songs.

I keep thinking about this show in comparison with Friday Night Lights - last season, I kept thinking that Will is the kind of character who imagines himself to be someone like Coach Taylor, but is actually more like Assistant Coach Stan. (Except I actually wish FNL would follow up on that one time when Julie awkwardly ran into Assistant Coach Stan at that gay bar, and never want to see another story about Will's romantic life ever again.) FNL lets the structure of the competitive season shape the show, and even though its characters are sometimes underdogs, it never pretends that the team's success happens without focused hard work. I wish Glee had enough confidence in its storytelling to do the same.

Other Shows:

Oz

- The first three seasons felt like some of the most human television I've ever seen, asking the viewer to consider people and society and how they're all held together in a way that felt truly unlike any other show I've watched. It's a fascinating snapshot of domestic politics in the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and I doubt that another show will ever offer as thoughtful a portrayal of the issues involved in the death penalty. The later seasons devolve a bit into sensationalism, more melodramatic storytelling and distractingly prominent guest stars, but it remains a singular show. I can see seeds of the cable TV revolution in Oz, though I can also see why the show may not have received a lot of awards attention even with its superlative acting ensemble. I'm even more intrigued now to watch The Sopranos and The Wire.

- The fact that nearly every character on this show is a Bad Dude or Lady has given an unsettling air to so many things - Criminal Intent, Fringe, those Farmer's Insurance ads with J.K. Simmons...I'm not sure I could go back to watching Dexter even if I wanted to. I think the only media that doesn't feel adversely impacted is Dean Winters' set of "Mayhem" ads for Allstate. That being said, that ubiquity just reinforces the feeling that the casting directors who work with HBO's shows don't get nearly enough credit as star-makers, or even just as discoverers and highlighters of talent. (In my dreams, next year Vanity Fair devotes one of their excellent photo spreads to 15 years of HBO dramas.)

- It was interesting to finish watching this show in the same week when Christopher Meloni's decision to leave Law and Order: SVU was announced, as Oz repeatedly made it dramatically clear that SVU was wasting Meloni's boatloads of God-given charisma.

- This was the first full series I watched via HBOGo, and while I'm not overly fond of watching things on the computer I was pleasantly surprised by the streaming service. While the actually streaming software (or maybe just the site's bandwidth, I don't know, I'm not a techie) still seems to need some tweaking (it's not as consistent for me as, say, the Netflix player), the selection of series in particular is great - the streaming counters the main frustration of watching HBO dramas through Netflix, where the breakdown of episodes-per-disc means that watching multiple seasons can move at a snail's pace. It's verrry tempting to blaze through the relevant remaining entries on my "best of the 00s" wishlist (four down in the last 18 months - holla!) - for now I'll settle for figuring out how it can best supplement the reading I'm starting to work on for comps.

Mood Music LVII

Early KoL always feels perfectly suited to the kind of insufferably hot, humid weather that dominates my summers - makes it slightly more bearable to step out of doors.

Screened: April 2011

April 3: Sex and the City 2

Screened: At home, DVR from HBO

April 9: 12 Angry Men

Screened: At home, from personal collection

April 15: McCabe and Mrs. Miller

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

April 21: How Do You Know

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

April 23: Trainspotting

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

April 24: Prodigal Sons, Life as a House

Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch

Books Read: January, February and March 2011

January 1: The Long Song by Andrea Levy

January 16: Starter for Ten by David Nicholls

January 21: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

February 2: A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

February 19: I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson

March 8: Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain

Week in TV: May 15-21

Game of Thrones

- I kind of loved the scene with Renly & Loras, if only because it makes me really excited for the show to introduce more of the Tyrells - doesn't "capitalize on an intimate or vulnerable moment with your partner to advance your personal agenda" seem like a move straight out of the Queen of Thorns' playbook? I love the way the books increasingly present the Tyrells as super-schemers, but with less of the overinflated sense of self you see in other houses, and I think that the show's original writing could draw Margaery in particular as an interesting counterpart to Sansa.

- The beginning of the trip to the Eyrie was just the best - the uneasy side-eye action between Catelyn and Tyrion while Lysa rants crazily from her throne? THE BEST.

- I forgot to mention previously how much I love the opening credits. I can't wait to see how they render Riverrun, the Twins and Harrenhal.

The Killing

I'm going to start letting episodes accumulate on the DVR and watch them all closer to when the season ends. I was just so disengaged during this hour, and found at the end that I didn't particularly care about that disengagement. Still well-performed by its principal actors, still drearily-paced.

Law and Order: Criminal Intent

I don't know that I've ever seen an episode of any Law and Order franchise use a flashback like this one did. Connecting Goren's therapy back to his interplay with Nicole Wallace was cleverly written and well-edited; I hope they keep drawing on that sort of continuity in this set of episodes.

90210

I couldn't let the season finale pass without observing how much I enjoyed the storyline of Adrianna switching out Silver's meds. It was Classic Spelling: a circumstance that would be horrible if it occurred in real life, but that made for excellent melodramatic television (like Adam Carrington painting Jeff Colby's office with lead paint to gaslight him back in the day on Dynasty). This episode's appearance of the Ghost of Javier was just the icing on the cake.

How I Met Your Mother

The semi-reveal of the wedding at the end of this episode was so terribly frustrating, and perfectly encapsulated the things that have been distancing me from my former status as a fan of HIMYM. The writers keep throwing the ball out ahead and then promising that the journey to get where the show is going will be worth certain information remaining shrouded in mystery. But - it isn't. I used to be so excited for this show, but when I heard that it was being renewed for not one, but two more seasons, I just felt exhausted. I believe that they could still have great stories remaining for the characters. I believe they could mine good material from Lily and Marshall having a baby. I believe they could find their Paul Rudd, so to speak, in casting a girlfriend for Ted who's not an unbelievably grating character (or even, Heaven forbid, the Mother). It just doesn't seem like Bays and Thomas are willing to go there without a set endpoint, and I don't know how much more patience I have for wheel-spinning.

Friday Night Lights

I love how Billy and Mindy are a) turning into Taylors-in-Training, with various hits and misses as mentors to the teens in their lives and b) adopting Luke and Becky as surrogates for Tim and Tyra. Their messiness is so endearing.

Mood Music LVI

I think Born This Way : 2011 :: Ta-Dah : 2006; that is, a dance album that comes around at the precise moment when I need some perking up.

Books Read: December 2010

Better late than never, right?

December 22: Original Story By by Arthur Laurents

There's actually a very specific reason why I picked up this memoir - for a while now, I've been sort of fascinated by the character Anybodys in West Side Story. Like various of the Jets, she doesn't have a clear antecedent in Romeo and Juliet, but is rendered with an intriguing degree of specificity as a) a supporting character and b) someone who vocally refuses to conform to gender norms in the early 1960s. I wondered if she was a creation of Laurents, who wrote the book for West Side Story, and accordingly decided to pick up Original Story By to see if he discussed it at all. While that question wasn't addressed in any way, shape or form, the book was a delightful read. Laurents isn't afraid to indulge in some good, old-fashioned name-dropping - he seems to have interacted with an unbelievable array of Old Hollywood figures, and is wonderfully willing to talk about who he doesn't like and why and to dissect how his own work translated from page to screen.

December 26: Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Good, but probably my least favorite of Cohn and Levithan's three collaborations. I liked the different scope of New York locales they utilized for this book, and the way they used the Christmas season to revel in touristy kitsch, but Dash and Lily as protagonists come off a bit abrasive in their high opinions of their own points of view.

December 26: Fannie's Last Supper by Chris Kimball

Reading more Cooks Illustrated and watching more of the America's Test Kitchen shows in the past year have really made me a fan of Kimball. (I love this Slate piece, where he declares that suggested cooking times are "bullshit.") The enthusiasm that drives his presence in the shows is evident in this take on the Fannie Farmer cookbook of 1896. The academic in me would've liked a bit more examination of how class shaped kitchen work and who performed it, but the budding foodie reader loved the detail Kimball devoted to dissecting every element of the late-nineteenth-century multi-course dinner party.

December 27: Matched by Allie Condie

A solid introduction to what is clearly intended to be a series, but also a bit dry. Once you've read more than one young-adult take on a dystopian universe, the whole structure of the "heroine being part of the system/heroine questioning the system/heroine rejecting the system and working for the revolution" can feel pretty rote if it isn't executed with a significant measure of unique framing and writing infused with emotion. I think the ideas shaping the world of Matched have potential for a great second book, but I felt the introduction was just good.

December 27: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

December 28: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Both books where I'm intrigued to see how they've been adapted for the screen later this year - they could be affecting if done well, and melodramatic camp-fests if not. (Maybe fabulously so? I mean, one thing that really stuck with me when I read Water for Elephants was that, trusting that they stick to the story, Cristoph Waltz getting *spoiler alert!* clubbed to death with a circus tent pole by the elephant he once abused could make for the kind of clip that out-of-context viral fame is made of.)

Week in TV: May 8-14

Game of Thrones

- This episode was particularly exposition-tastic. It wasn't really a great stand-alone episode of television, but it dispensed a lot of information vital to the series in as elegant a manner as possible, which is all that one can really ask of an adaptation dealing with as sprawling a world as this one.

- Sansa's discussion of mothering male heirs in this episode, and the show's ongoing descriptions of houses with interrupted lines of succession due to war made an interesting contrast with the recent royal wedding business. Obviously, the newly-minted Duchess of Cambridge doesn't have to worry about those same negative implications of producing female heirs, but the suggestions of a reproductive imperative in royal marriage were still swirling all around that event.

- There are many character introductions that fill me with delight (the third episode did a great job of bringing in a lot of the series' major supporting characters without making it feel like too many pieces were coming into play) but inception of Jon and Sam's wonderful bromance made me particularly happy.

- The Skins fan in me freaked out to see Joe Dempsie playing Gendry. It's always nice to see an actor you like in a role that starts out relatively small - it speaks to the potential for world-building in the show that they've already cast the role with someone who can handle it becoming more prominent. It's probably looking too far ahead to think about how awesome he might be working with Maisie Williams in the second season, but I'm excited anyway.

The Killing

I keep thinking back and comparing this show with the first season of Veronica Mars in reflecting on why I think it's not quite working. Veronica Mars did a great job of sustaining its overall arc, especially in pacing revelations regarding the conspiracy around imprisoning the wrong man for Lilly's murder and in maintaining a cloud of suspicion around several characters until the final reveal of the real murderer. It made Lilly Kane a vivid character in her own right, showing not just that the remaining characters missed her but illuminating her unique personality and presence. And it introduced Aaron Echolls with subtlety, showing that he could be a villain without making it immediately clear that he was the villain.

Conversely, I feel like I can't say much about Rosie Larsen, besides that she liked butterflies and had some shady friends. The show has drawn great performances from Brent Sexton and Michelle Forbes in showing the Larsens' grief, but still has this distinct void around who Rosie was and what specifically they miss about her. While I could see the Richmond campaign tying back in to the murder investigation later in the season, right now it's making for a dull B-story that highlights how little is being solved week-to-week in the A-plot. I'm trying to be optimistic, and could definitely see them pulling out a great couple of episodes once they let the audience in on who the killer was and how he or she has been covering their tracks. Right now, though, it's not quite all gelling.

Gossip Girl

I love the way the show uses Desmond Harrington. It's like Stephanie Savage keeps him locked up in a closet somewhere in Silvercup and once a year just sort of drags him out, dusts off the mothballs and sticks him in front of a camera to do the Jack Bass thing. He's turned into one of the show's few recurring characters who is used exactly the right amount.

Parks and Recreation

- So back in January, Amy Poehler did this interview with Alan Sepinwall where she mentioned the drunk talking heads from "The Fight" and how awesome they were, and I kept thinking back to that wondering when they would come up and whether I was over-hyping them in my mind. The reality, somehow, was so much better.

- There's something I really love about April's pretense that the Snakehole Lounge is actually named after someone whose last name is Snakehole.

Friday Night Lights

- I love how over the years my FNL viewing keeps coming around to some point or another where I end up shaking my head sadly at the TV, sighing, and saying, "Oh, Julie." I can't even quibble with what a terrible decision-maker she is, since the vast difference between her idea of her worldliness and her actual worldliness been such a consistent part of her character nearly since the pilot. (In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a fairly direct line between that charmingly pretentious analogy she makes between the Panthers and Moby Dick and her ultimately having an affair with a TA.) I just hope the rest of the season doesn't leave her too downtrodden.

- It is positively eerie how much the kid they have playing Buddy, Jr. looks like Brad Leland.

On pickups and cancellations:

We're heading into one of my favorite times of year, when the TV year ends. The next weeks will have upfronts with pilot pickups and show renewals, and then comes Dream Emmy ballot time. (Yay!) It's been interesting to watch the news of cancellations and renewals coming down this week - it seems like most of the networks are ready to clean their slates and work on reshaping their brands. If there's been another season since the writers' strike with so much turnover, I can't recall it. Most of the cancellations were unsurprising, though some were disappointing - I felt like Detroit 1-8-7 and Off the Map had great casts with material that could've made great shows with a little tweaking and refining. And I was happy to see that Happy Endings got a renewal - there's definitely the potential for a great second season there, a la How I Met Your Mother. More commentary yet to come as the weeks progress and I reflect on which shows I may stop watching looking ahead to next season...

A Wish Come True

God bless Kurt Sutter and his wonderful compulsion to share. It's all an insatiable media consumer and lover of behind-the-scenes information could hope for.

If you'll recall, I said back in the fall that this specifically was an episode for which I was looking forward to the cast commentary, so this just fills my heart with glee.

Ready for Summer

HBO's promos tend to be pretty excellent across the board - I love each season's new "look how awesome we are" shows-and-movies montage - but there's something I really love about the simplicity of this one. Like, "Check out our hot awesome cast in all their glorious righteousness." And I don't think there's a clearer illustration of the general excellence of Nelsan Ellis than how much of Lafayette's character he projects in about four seconds of screen time. The fourth book of the original series is probably my favorite, and now I'm really starting to look forward to the particular brand of insane tawdriness that True Blood brings to the summer. Seven weeks and counting...

Trailer Thoughts

I'm so curious to see how this show shakes out - nineteenth-century America is so underrepresented in television once you get away from the standard Western template and tropes, and the construction of the railroad seems like a rich vein to tap. I'm particularly intrigued by Common's character - it seems like popular media has been reluctant to tackle the emancipation generation of black Americans in all their complexity, and there's definitely a wealth of stories to be told there. There's so much potential here - I hope the show's writers capitalize on as much of it as possible.