Mood Music LXI

Week in TV: September 18-24

Good lord, TV. I am only one person!

How I Met Your Mother, 7.1: "The Best Man" and 7.2: "The Naked Truth"

My patience for this show's mythology shenanigans has grown so thin, but something in me just can't give up on it. The plan going in was to mostly let episodes just sort of accumulate on the DVR and watch them in blocks, and nothing I saw in this hour really dissuaded me from that position. (I'm going to be time-shifting like a fiend this year. Lots of moves to Friday and Saturday afternoon and evening.)

Sons of Anarchy, 4.3: "Dorylus"

I'm so curious to see where they go with the plot point of Juice's secret background. SOA does Imitation of Life!?! (It's brief, but Sutter wrote an interesting blog post about the upcoming storyline.)

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, 13.1: "Scorched Earth"

It's interesting - they seem to have done so much to try to shore up the show to compensate for Christopher Meloni leaving that this episode felt much more focused than others I've seen from the past few years. Ultimately, I wonder if the show didn't wait too long to start introducing new detectives into the mix (as opposed to when Criminal Intent started rotating D'Onofrio with Noth), but Kelli Giddish fit in well in this episode. And while it feels a bit manipulative, I was a big fan of the last detective/ADA quartet of OG Law and Order, so I'm glad to see Linus Roache back as Michael Cutter. As premieres go, they put together a fairly solid argument for Meloni's departure not being the incentive to abandon viewership that it originally seemed.

The Playboy Club, "Pilot"

- This show was both not as bad as I thought it would be and not as good as it could be. And while the potential for a better show lies somewhere among its multiple storylines, I fear its association with a still-existing corporate entity means that there won't be an incentive to find and cultivate that better show. It could find depth in deconstructing the tightly corseted facade of the Bunny. Instead it persists in glorifying an imprecisely-defined concept of empowerment, introduced not by one of said empowered women, but in the voice of "Hef" as a shadowy Big Brother figure. It's like someone read Enlightened Sexism and took it as an instruction manual instead of a criticism.

- Reviewers keep bringing up Mad Men in comparison with this show, and certainly that show's current place in the zeitgeist undoubtedly had an impact on getting this show greenlit. But the show that came more immediately to mind watching this was American Dreams - not only because of the performance from "Ike and Tina Turner" (another missed opportunity in contrasting image and experience?) but also due to the similarities between Hefner and Dick Clark, their presence as shadowy background figures on the show and their presumed behind-the-scenes ability to influence how they're depicted. I only hope Playboy Club grows to encompass the kind of scope that American Dreams did.

- Fall TV Footnote! Gloria Steinem's website put up a PDF of her famous undercover piece about working at New York's Playboy Club. (The points made in the show's voiceover sound suspiciously similar to the P.R. she cites and ultimately rejects as presenting a false picture of how Bunny life really is.)

Unforgettable, "Pilot"; Person of Interest, "Pilot"; Prime Suspect, "Pilot"; A Gifted Man, "Pilot"

Ah, network dramas. None of these was bad or offensive, and each one has at least one actor who I like, but life's too short to accumulate crime procedurals. I'll definitely give Prime Suspect another episode or two, and I'm so wiped out on Friday nights this semester that I may keep up with A Gifted Man (or, as I started calling it in my head midway through the pilot, Dude Providence) at least until Chuck starts.

Charlie's Angels, "Pilot"

I think a go-for-broke, full-tilt camp remake of Charlie's Angels could be sort of fun, but, unfortunately, this is not that show. The tone was way too serious for the core premise, and it made the whole show feel like it was aiming for a portentousness that was never quite there. And as much as I love Victor Garber, I think he was missing a bit of the warmth that John Forsythe had in his voice work as Charlie.

2 Broke Girls, "Pilot"; Whitney, "Pilot"

Watched them, can't even really think of anything germane to say about them, not getting added to the schedule.

Miscellaneous Links

- Interesting piece from Wired on Dan Harmon - I feel like every interview I read with him makes me worry about his health.

- The A.V. Club has really been stepping it up a notch with their series of showrunner interviews. This week's set with Louis C.K. really showcased how much he thinks about every aspect of Louie from script to screen, and how much cachet he's built up among comedians and other artists.

Week in TV: September 11-17

True Blood, 4.12: "And When I Die"

Maybe I'll come back to this one? Like much of the season, this episode was mostly kind of dull. And what was exciting about it (in the last ten minutes) seemed to pretty blatantly be setting up plot points for Season Five. Which is all well and good, but that's nine months from now. Mostly, what I'm left with is: OMG REVEREND STEVE!!!!!

Sons of Anarchy, 4.2: "Booster"

- I really dig the mutual disdain Potter and Roosevelt have for Jacob Hale. Just another quality that adds to the general vibe of "The time of nutbag ATF agents is over".

- I love Rockmond Dunbar anyway, but that Do The Right Thing reference put it over the top for me. (If I let my TV geekery wander a bit, it's an interesting line to borrow - originally spoken by Giancarlo Esposito who, of course, is now appearing on Breaking Bad as Gus. Who, like SAMCRO, is having his own issues with a Mexican cartel (not that the SOA writers would've known that when they put this together)).

Ringer, "Pilot"

- I wanted to like this episode much more than I did. They loaded both characters with a host of problems, which are not the same thing as personalities, and declined to capitalize on Sarah Michelle Gellar's best trait as an actress in keeping the dialogue so low-energy. It could be a good guilty-pleasure show if they double down (no pun intended) on the campy possibilities of the story. Something about it makes me hope for that trajectory, even if it seems against the odds.

- The one aspect of this episode that I found really interesting was the subplot of Bridget attempting to maintain her sobriety while masquerading as her sister.

- So what's the over-under on how long it'll take for them to bring in someone else from Buffy? I'm thinking November sweeps, by which time it will likely be clear whether the show will make it past the original thirteen-episode order. I vote for Emma Caulfield - I think she could make a quality snooty rich lady.

Up All Night, "Pilot" and Free Agents, "Pilot"

A pair of shows that need time for their ensembles to gel. Up All Night has a great central cast, and I think the pilot showed that there's a clear sense of what the show is and what differentiates it from shows like Modern Family and Raising Hope. Free Agents wasn't terrible, but there was a definite air of humor lost in translation - watching it, I kept thinking, "Oh yeah, I can see how this probably worked better in Britain." I'm interested to see where the former show goes, but the latter never grabbed my attention the way I wanted it to.

The Secret Circle, "Pilot"

I don't know whether I'll ultimately stick with this show - CW programs always end up creating DVR issues for me - but not because this episode didn't pique my interest. They established a decent number of characters in the hour, and hinted at the potential for deep mythology and background, so I'm not averse to watching further weeks. At the very least, light shows (especially teen soaps) are a good accompaniment for morning coffee.

Miscellaneous Links

- Besides the football thing, this is pretty much how I feel this time of year. (from Hanna)

- I didn't watch H8R (even I have limits), but the reviews by Dan Fienberg and Todd VanDerWerff were a couple of the best things I read this week. Good TV-critic rants are truly priceless.

Week in TV: September 4-10

Sons of Anarchy, 4.1: "Out"

- The few reviews I've read of this premiere emphasize this season returning the focus to the club as it functions in Charming as opposed to the more wide-ranging search for Abel last year. While I'm looking forward to the return to that scope of storytelling, in this episode I was most excited to see the show introduce new antagonists (and, at least based on their first appearances here, specifically non-crazy antagonists) for SAMCRO. By the end of last season, Stahl became too manic and desperate, to the point that, while it didn't rob the triple-cross in "NS" of its dramatic weight, it felt inevitable that her all-consuming desire to entrap the club would come back to bite her in the ass. And Hale's death left the show with a void regarding a practical, reasoned perspective on the club and their role in Charming. I also come in already liking Rockmond Dunbar and Ray McKinnon, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how the show uses them across the season's arc.

- Not only was Ryan Hurst great in infusing the wedding scene with just a hint of sadness, but the show demonstrated a lot of respect for the audience's ability to retain information in letting that subtle undercurrent of grief be the episode's most direct reference to Donna. Semi-Related: I also love Lyla's tacky wedding platforms.

- They're awfully fond of musical montages on this show, with this episode bookended by them, so this EW gallery with Kurt Sutter and Paris Barclay breaking down the one that closed out "Out" was an interesting glimpse into that particular creative process.

The Hour, "Episode Four"

- I've enjoyed this show from the beginning, but I think this was the episode where the tone really clicked and the disparate storylines felt like they were all of a piece, joining comments on suppression and repression to construct a portrait of people striving together to challenge a status quo that leaves too many things unquestioned and unsaid.

- How great is Jessica Hynes? Her terse, matter-of-fact tone in her scene at the beginning of the episode beautifully established the tension that drove the remainder of the hour. In recent weeks, I've also seen her appear as an oversharing hippie on Skins and as an Edwardian-era boys' school matron on Doctor Who, so I'm sort of in awe of her range. (I also watched Paul over the weekend, and it's really interesting to see the more drama-focused track she seems to have taken post-Spaced as opposed to the genre work for which Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have gained international attention.)

- I've gone down a slight rabbit hole of British television recently, and it's really highlighted why comparisons between this show and Mad Men are simplistic and unfair. It's not just that the only thing they really have in common is the era, and even then not really. There's the difference in years, but more importantly, there's the different trajectories in global identity that the United Kingdom and the United States take during those years, which necessarily and dramatically inform the goings-on on both shows. But the striking thing you notice after watching more than a few British productions? Quite simply, they've been owning us at period pieces for decades, and have a deep pool of acting talent to back up that continuing engagement with the past.

- Just because it's not really like Mad Men in any way doesn't mean I can't still obsess over the fashion. I love everything about Bel's wardrobe, especially the scarves-as-headbands. And this show really makes me want to try to work some red lipstick into my repertoire.

Doctor Who, 6.10: "The Girl Who Waited"

- A great episode, with one of Karen Gillan's best performances in the series - I was particularly, and somewhat unexpectedly, pleased to see the return of Amy's bitterness towards the Doctor, which has largely dissipated in the episodes since "The Eleventh Hour."

- I again felt like I was waiting for a direct reference to what happened with Melody - you'd think that that's a thought that would come up in thirty-six years of stewing. In interviews I've read with Steven Moffat, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, it seems like they've got a handle on what keeps Amy and Rory traveling with the Doctor after that kind of traumatic experience, but I'm not sure that that's coming through on screen. There's an argument to be made that it would make sense for them to decide that being on the TARDIS is better than staying in Leadworth alone with their thoughts, but I think they need to specifically say so out loud, instead of leaving it to conjecture. I'm not sure how long the issue can go under-addressed without the arc (or lack thereof) starts undermining the quality of individual episodes.

Revenge, "Pilot"

I was really intrigued by the specific promotion offered for an early viewing of this pilot - ABC offered the pilot script as a free Kindle download on Amazon, which concluded with a link to watch the episode online. The changes from the script to the screen made for an unexpectedly interesting glimpse into the creative process of setting up a show's world to start off a drama series, particularly one like this where a good chunk of the story is dependent on past events. I love a good primetime soap, so I hope this one sticks around long enough to dig into its central mysteries. The pilot shows a lot of potential without seeming too high-concept to be sustainable past thirteen episodes.

The New Girl, "Pilot"

- Took advantage of this one showing up free on iTunes. I liked it, though I felt like I'd already seen about 90% of the pilot in the ads that have been running all summer for the show. I also feel like this pilot is difficult to use as an indicator of how the show will be going forward, since they had to replace Damon Wayans, Jr. and the pilot is so focused on the four roommates. Still, I like Zooey Deschanel (and Max Greenfield - Deputy Leo!), and as a nerdy, crafty twenty-something, I'm excited to see how they develop her character in further episodes.

- I found this profile of Zooey Deschanel from New York Magazine really interesting, especially in its take on both positive and negative reception of her star persona.

Miscellaneous Links:

- I love a good Mad Men dissection, so this Daily Beast post with Matthew Weiner and Jon Hamm breaking down "The Suitcase" was right up my alley.

- An interesting AOLTV piece (shared by Katie) by Mo Ryan about declining numbers of women writers on television staffs.

- More Downton Abbey! (The pieces coming out about the show right now must drive PBS's marketing people crazy.) This time, a New York Times article profiling Julian Fellowes. I love that he defends Thomas to the interviewer.

And Yet More on The Help

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

Discussing The Help in my August movies post, one of the things I said is that I felt like I wanted more historical specificity in the framing of the story. Which is all well and good, but even better if you've got an example on hand to compare it to. So here's one that kept coming to mind - Freedom Riders, a documentary which aired earlier this year as part of PBS's American Experience series, and was recognized yesterday at the Creative Arts Emmys for "Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking." One of the things I really like about this documentary is how well it uses its scope - it zeroes in on the Freedom Rides in a way that feels more incisive than, say, something like Eyes on the Prize, and gives a real sense of the range of people involved. I also appreciate the complexity of its depiction of the Kennedy administration and the way they balanced their interactions with the activists involved in the Rides with their desire to keep their Southern base with the Democratic party. More of the directed, purposeful actions of the era deserve this kind of rescue from the over-broad umbrella of "the Civil Rights movement."

Also, an interesting Entertainment Weekly piece from Mark Harris regarding The Help, and specifically Viola Davis' performance, which touches on a question I've been thinking about for a while - that of evaluating an individual actor's ability to transcend or bring depth to a stereotypical role.

Screened: August 2011

August 6: The Deer Hunter

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

A long-standing entry on the "Movies I Feel Obligated to See" list, crossed off!

August 9: Captain America: The First Avenger

Screened: In the theater

Probably the best I've seen of the leading-up-to-The Avengers movies. Captain America embraced its period setting with vigor, and established its cast of characters so well that the movie's flash-forward ending felt like a bit of a tragedy. It's not only a good movie on its own, it established its ties to the broader Avengers narrative in a much less clunky fashion than the Iron Man movies. By the end, I actually felt like I was really looking forward to next summer.

August 17: Jumping the Broom

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

A nice little wedding melodrama ideal for an afternoon viewing chilling on the sofa. It feels a little facile to compare any black-cast drama with those of Tyler Perry's oeuvre, but to that end I appreciated that this movie had plot-driving conflict without outlandishly demonizing any of its characters. Also, I love the opening credits.

August 19: The Help

Screened: In the theater

I've been thinking a lot about this movie, and trying to capture my thoughts about it without my commentary becoming a treatise. It's not a bad movie - in the most basic sense, it is a very good, faithful adaptation of its source material - but it is a deeply flawed movie. Ultimately, what I come down to is that what bothers me about The Help is similar to what bothered me about X-Men: First Class (and how interesting that they take place within a year of each other) - the movie claims a specific point in history in its setting, but presents an overall picture that is troublingly ahistorical. Outside of the scene of Skeeter perusing issues of Life following the murder of Medgar Evers, there is little, if any, sense of the broader civil rights movement. No mention of the fact that the action of the story takes place nearly a decade after Brown v. Board of Education. No indicator of how Skeeter, recent graduate of Ole Miss, reacted to James Meredith's integration. And no sense, upon the story's completion, that in the next year activists will focus their attentions specifically on Mississippi and push for the state's black residents to receive the rights due to them as American citizens. The movie doesn't argue that Skeeter isn't naive. But it's unwilling to ask whether she has been willfully ignorant in the years leading up to the opening moments of the story, or what kinds of prejudices she may have left to challenge even as she disagrees with the actions of her former friends.

There's also a distinct, irksome lack of historical specificity. The churchgoing scenes were well-anchored by David Oleyowo (and I do hope that Lee Daniels' Selma can find financing before it fades into the ether, because - among other reasons - this movie made me really curious to see how Oyelowo's take on Martin Luther King would play out), but reinforced the ongoing issue in depictions of the civil rights movement of the lack of recognition for the increasing radicalization (and distance from church-based groups like the SCLC) of younger activists by this time. Besides Nelsan Ellis' quiet soda jerk, there really aren't any younger black characters around to even begin to offer different points of view of the way the world should be. There's also the fact that while Evers' murder serves as a narrative turning point, he is never specifically identified as working for the NAACP and his death plays as more random than targeted. I was also surprised that even with the film's focus on 1963, they declined to mention the Birmingham church bombing. There is merit in Kathryn Stockett's decision to focus on the domestic sphere and the interplay between intimacy and distance enacted there by black and white women. But the story is then done a disservice by allowing the world outside these individual homes to fade into a hazy background where nothing much important is going on.

I imagine over the coming months and years this movie will keep popping up, especially as I continue refining my academic interests in race and representation in popular culture. It's been invigorating to see those issues discussed in national, mainstream publications as The Help gained popularity. I just hope the discussion continues once the movie leaves theaters, and that filmmakers see its legacy as a challenge and call to offer more complex takes on a rich, complicated time in U.S. history.

Trailer Thoughts Shrieks of Dismay Regarding Delayed Transatlantic Transmission

WHY DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOUR MORE MONTHS FOR THIS OMG?!?

Ahem.

As I mentioned in my big books post, one of my summer reads was Adam Hochschild's To End All Wars, which focused on Britain's involvement in World War I - and, indeed, a major factor in my wanting to read it was prompted by the announcement of the declaration of war at the end of Downton Abbey's first series. I read and liked Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost back during my brief high school obsession with the history of the Congo (you know, like all kids have), and after I read a complimentary review of To End All Wars, I couldn't quite keep my curiosity under wraps. I've never been particularly engaged by military histories, but Hochschild managed his scope well and utilized a variety of perspectives that made it more interesting than a strict accounting of battles, especially in his focus on radical politics, labor unrest and Britain's conscientious objectors. Looks like the show is going to dive in to a good deal of that history, and I obviously can't wait to see it. Normally I don't have any problems finding enough patience to resist the urge to hunt down "alternative" means of watching shows that take a while to make the trip over here, but right now I feel like I'm going to have to sit on my hands once September 18 rolls around.

Books Read: August 2011

August 3: A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

Somewhere in the middle of this book, I began to feel like I needed to start back at the beginning of A Game of Thrones and make myself a comprehensive flow chart of characters, locations and situations as I read. While I understand the complaints of the fans who waited for years for this book to come out, I have to say that starting the series just this year means that I haven't had the time to re-read and obsess, making the ever-expanding cast of characters much harder to grasp in anything even approaching a comprehensive fashion. There ends up being a lot of "Oh, this is like that guy with the thing..." For most of the points of view, this doesn't make too terribly much of a difference in appreciating Martin's depiction of a world being subsumed by darkness (and wondering how on earth they'll translate some of the stories to the screen if Game of Thrones gets this far). It's certainly a lot of information to process, though. A few years until The Winds of Winter doesn't sound bad at all to me.

August 28: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

I ended up re-watching Sherlock as I moved things around my apartment in preparation for the hurricane, then decided to download this on to my Kindle for some weekend reading. Which then came in handy after my power went out. I don't really think I understood how much of the adaptation for the show is really about capturing an ethos rather than telling the exact same story until I read A Study in Scarlet. It's sort of intangible and difficult to describe, but there's just something tonal that the writers behind the show seem to get about Holmes, Watson and the structures of the mysteries that were missing in the recent Guy Ritchie film. Not gravity, necessarily...I'm not sure exactly what word I'm looking for.

I also read "A Scandal in Bohemia" - it seemed like an appropriate companion piece to the weekend to read the story of perhaps literature's most well-known Irene - and I'm really curious to see how it translates in the show's second series. The basic setup of the story - a prominent man tries to retrieve a potentially reputation-damaging photograph - seems very well-suited to Sherlock's style of updating. And after seeing the way he's framed characters like River Song and Madame de Pompadour in "The Girl in the Fireplace" in Doctor Who, I'm really intrigued to see how Steven Moffat writes a 21st-century Irene Adler as a foil for Holmes.

Screened: Catching Up

Same disclaimers as the books piece, but with what little commentary I already wrote staying put. (Not included: a second trip to the theater for Bridesmaids and a failed attempt to watch Biutiful, which proved that there are indeed limits to my desire for Oscar-field completism.)

May 1: Rabbit Hole

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 3: Dick

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 4: Requiem for a Dream

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 14: No Strings Attached

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 20: Blue Valentine

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 25: Bridesmaids

Screened: In the theater

June 23: X-Men: First Class, Jane Eyre, Fish Tank

Screened: In the theater, In the theater, Netflix Instant Watch

Yeah, so the day may have been "Michael Fassbender's Out-of-Control Hotness"-themed. (I started to watch Inglourious Basterds, too, but I fell asleep in the middle.) What of it?

I guess I liked X-Men, but with serious reservations. The lack of historical specificity in this movie is irking me. It seems like the creative personnel behind the movie had an idea of wanting to set it in "The Sixties," but were then unprepared to tie it to a specific date with the way the story ultimately uses the Cuban Missile Crisis. The few period songs seem oddly placed - my mind is still trying to wrap itself around the use of "Palisades Park." It's very stylish, but in a way that struck my eye as very post-British Invasion. (The most striking example of this weirdness is alleged-CIA agent Moira McTaggert in her miniskirt-suit, which no professional woman by any means would've worn to the office. In my imagination, January Jones' first costume fitting for Mad Men Season Five involved Janie Bryant asking some form of, "What on earth was going on with that movie?")

Ultimately, I'd love to have another two hours of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender smoldering at each other, but I'm not particularly attached to X-Men as the context in which that needs to happen.

Jane Eyre was a gorgeous film, and did a solid job of condensing the book's material. There were a few odds and ends I'd have liked to see make it in - the story with Mr. Rochester and Adele's mother, the girl St. John has a crush on and the contrast between her and Jane in perceived suitability to missionary life and of course, the classic Brontë weirdness of the whole "Rochester poses as a old fortune-telling gypsy woman" thing, which never seems to make it into the adaptations. (Hey, after watching all these movies in fairly short succession, I believe Michael Fassbender can do anything.) The casting worked really well, too - Jamie Bell has a sort of quiet intensity that made him well-suited to playing St. John. And while Fassbender has a sort of magnetic screen presence, this adaptation really allowed Mia Wasikowska to shine as Jane and show why she's our heroine.

June 28: Super 8

Screened: In the theater

July 2: Inception, The Social Network, Black Swan

Screened: At home, DVR from HBO; personal collection

July 9: Peyton Place

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

July 17: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Screened: In the theater

Someday, when I have the time, I'm totally going to write a series of posts devoted to nitpicking the entire series of Harry Potter movies - for some reason, this series provokes that impulse within me in a way that no other adaptations do. I felt like this was a solid conclusion to the group of films, but also found that it really showed how many emotional beats and story threads from the books were sacrificed in favor of plot efficacy over time.

July 21: Red Riding Hood

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

Books Read: Catching Up

These monthly posts totally got out of hand for me. I'd keep thinking that I wanted to write something more concrete about this book or that one, but never actually following through on doing so, until the backlog just became untenable. The Song of Ice and Fire books will probably come up again in future discussions of Game of Thrones, and I'd like to revisit A Discovery of Witches, Sisterhood Everlasting and The Night of the Gun when I have the time and focus to do so. Until then, I suppose this will have to suffice.

April 3: Sweet Valley Confidential by Francine Pascal

April 8: Bossypants by Tina Fey

April 9: A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

April 10: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

BTW, I'm totally adopting Deborah Harkness as a new role model. I mean, academic historian/fiction writer/wine blogger? Sounds pretty awesome to me.

May 1: Bumped by Megan McCafferty

May 21: Kissing Between the Lines by Diane Farr

May 31: Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

June 1: A Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man by Bill Clegg; Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

June 14: A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

June 20: Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

June 27: To End All Wars by Adam Hochschild

July 4: The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

July 6: Abandon by Meg Cabot

July 25: The Night of the Gun by David Carr

Weeks in TV: August 21-September 3

True Blood, 4.9: "Let's Get Out of Here" and 4.10: "Burning Down the House"

- It's made for kind of a whackadoo mix of storylines, but I love how the various spiritual possessions, skinwalking ventures and V-induced dreams have broadened the range of material that TB's ensemble has to play with.

- I'm sort of of two minds about this season. On the one hand, I think this season has done the best job of any so far of drawing upon the books; the books take place from Sookie's point of view, so she sort of darts in and out of the situations concerning different characters, and the show has established a broad enough cast of regulars that each of those stories has someone we know in it, which I think makes the audience more invested in everything that's going on than we've been in past seasons. On the other hand - like I said above, the mix has tended to be more crazy than cohesive.

Pretty Little Liars, 2.11: "I Must Confess"

- Oh, Dr. Sullivan. As soon as she told Emily that she knew, I was all, "Tell her over the phone, you're obviously going to get murdered!" Between the therapist's disappearance and Emily's Tragic Massage of Epic Creepiness, A's really starting to transgress some serious boundaries.

- Speaking of A, I loved the little "Update on Major Suspects" sweep through the audience for the doctor's hilariously unsubtle speech on text bullying, especially since Noel, Lucas and Mona had no lines or other scenes in the episode. I love when a show grinds the gears into place for a finale.

- Mr. Hastings, making a late-in-the-game play for Creepiest Weirdo in Rosewood! (Amid stiff competition!)

Pretty Little Liars, 2.12: "Over My Dead Body"

- PLL is approaching Lost-esque levels of obliqueness with their persistent refusal to offer concrete answers to their ongoing mysteries (I believe Garrett and Jenna were behind most, if not all, of the machinations of this episode, but enough of the notes related to that business were unsigned that I don't think they're necessarily A), but they do totally out-there creepiness better than just about any other show on television. Those dolls were truly something else.

- The idea of doing a one-off flashback Halloween episode is genius. More cable shows should have holiday episodes independent of their seasonal arcs. A Sons of Anarchy Christmas! Valentine's Day at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce!

Doctor Who, 6.8: "Let's Kill Hitler" and 6.9: "Night Terrors"

- I've tended to like the episodes focused on the quartet of the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River, but more and more it seems like the actors are landing the big emotional moments while having to spackle over some increasingly gaping plot holes. Like, as an immediate reaction, I would say that I liked this episode a lot, but if I think about it for more than about five minutes, my head swarms with unanswered questions and a creeping desire to try to pick apart the timeline. (see also: Point #5 in the io9 article linked below) Still, a delightfully energetic performance from Alex Kingston and great banter from Steven Moffat. Obviously, I'm torn. Strike this one down to revisit when the arc picks up again.

- "Night Terrors" is a solid episode, with a legitimately scary conceit in the dollhouse of horrors, done a serious disservice by airing out of production order. Declining to tie the episode's themes of the importance of family love and embracing an unconventional child to the broader arc of the story of the Williams-Ponds makes the characters seem flaky at best (and callous at worst: Rory's joke about letting the monsters get the boy feels...inappropriate given that, you know, his baby got kidnapped by nefarious aliens) and makes the writers seem like they're not paying attention to what's going on. If they absolutely had to move things around, it might've been better to switch this one with, say, "Curse of the Black Spot."

- This post is about to get totally linktastic. First! An interesting piece from io9 about things Doctor Who could do differently.

- AND: Steven Moffat is seemingly everywhere giving interviews about the second half of this series

- Daily Beast Interview

- Alan Sepinwall at HitFix Interview

- Mo Ryan at AOLTV Interview

Miscellaneous Other Links:

- Not terribly detailed, but with awesome, military-uniform-including cast photo: On the second series of Downton Abbey (Aside: Dear PBS, If the BBC can work it out so Brits and Americans can all watch the same new episode of Doctor Who on the same calendar date, can we please work on the timing of the Masterpiece selections' trip across the pond? I feel antsy just thinking about having to wait extra months for DA and Sherlock. Affectionately, Liz)

- Between Comic-Con, the TCA and the upcoming Emmys and start to the fall season, there's a veritable smorgasbord of showrunner interviews popping up all over the place online. The Daily Beast interview with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss is kind of delightful; they're clearly really jazzed to have the opportunity to dive further into George R.R. Martin's sprawling cast of characters.

- A.V. Club interviews with two of my very favorite TV people: Victor Garber and Martin Starr

- I'm fascinated by the ongoing discussions around AMC, their evolving brand identity, and what seems to be a growing suspicion among commentators that within the next few years their whole original programming enterprise could collapse like a house of cards. I started in on a post a few weeks ago, following the whole rigamarole around Kurt Sutter leaving Twitter - various outlets tried to frame it as some sort of showrunner smacktalk showdown, but I think that at the heart of what Sutter was saying about AMC, Mad Men and The Walking Dead was a criticism of the network for not managing its properties in a balanced way - but it sort of got lost in the shuffle (as too many posts do.)

Anyway: a fairly comprehensive timeline of this year's developments for the network from the New York Times and an excellent Vulture piece from this week. Potentially more thoughts on this in the future, maybe with the end of this season of Breaking Bad (a show I like, and certainly I can recognize why people love it, but I've had a few Sundays this summer where I've missed watching programs that night, and Breaking Bad is never the show I'm really burning to catch up on, you know?), especially if there are any more announcements that give off that "throwing things at the wall to see what sticks" vibe.

Shades

The whole recently-posted-to-YouTube collection of Roddy McDowall's old home movies is inspiring such crazed retro sunglasses lust within me.

I'll take the pair Ms. Bacall is rocking here, please.

Random TV Love

I kept thinking about this scene again and again after I watched this episode. I don't really have a big spiel to go with this, I just wanted to post it because I love it - the writing, the acting, the piano music, everything.