Quoted/Screened: May 2012

"My personal hope is that he lets a hundred (or maybe a dozen) Whedons bloom. Let's hope he repays the loyalty of his fans by opening the doors of the entertainment kingdom to the kind of writers and creators who might not get a crack at the big time without his backing. Nobody's done more than Whedon to create and inspire a generation of TV writers; many of the best scribes working today got their start on Whedonverse programs and most of the rest were powerfully influenced by his shows. I hope he throws his weight behind those writers' most impassioned passion projects..., backs those writers' pitches, gets their shows on the air and brings more fine entertainment products to the Web."

- Maureen Ryan, "Avengers Fans: Thank TV for That Awesome Movie (And What Joss Should Do Next)" at Huffington Post

I thought I'd let this stand as my Screened post for May, since the bulk of my movie viewing was contained in three trips to the theater to see The Avengers. (All 2D) (The only other movie I saw was We Bought a Zoo, which was much more charming than I expected.) The best was the first showing I went to, on Saturday the fifth, where the opening-weekend crowd responded to quips and plot developments with raucous laughs and cheers. The quippy banter of the script was perfectly suited to the viewing experience - it felt joyous to be among the crowd in a way I seldom feel in a packed theater. I rewatched some of the lead-up movies in the week before I saw The Avengers; while my opinion of Iron Man 2 hasn't really changed, I can see how The Avengers benefitted from letting that movie do a lot of heavy lifting in establishing SHIELD's presence in the broader plot and defining Tony Stark's relationship with them, and I think the weaving together of the various plot strands actually elevates the first Thor and Captain America movies a bit.

I also liked this LA Times interview with Joss Whedon - I think the comparison of Bruce Banner with Oz from Buffy is a really interesting one to make among the many "how does The Avengers fit in the Whedon-verse" analyses floating around. That was the other great feeling I had watching the movie for the first time - in that much-heralded shot that tracks from hero to hero in the midst of the final battle, my cult-TV-loving self couldn't help but think, "Holy crap, he really did it."

Week in TV: August 8-14

True Blood

Always good to see everyone getting back in Bon Temps - the out-of-town storylines aren't bad, but they make the seasons feel disjointed week-to-week. It'd be nice to see Bill and Sookie decide to spend some time apart and then actually do that for a sustained period of time, but I guess there's always Season Four. Hopefully, Alan Ball and his writers will put a bit more temporal distance between seasons three and four - when you step back and consider that it's maybe two months from the beginning of the first season to now, everything feels kind of crammed together. More space in the pacing could really make the show feel less...frantic.

Mad Men

- I'm sure that this is the kind of episode that a certain contingent of Mad Men fans despise (the kind who think the show would be better with Betty gone entirely) but I kind of loved it, though it was definitely meandering plot-wise. A big factor is the degree to which I love Anna Draper - she's probably my favorite of the show's range of tertiary characters. Don's been acting like such a sleazy lush recently, and Anna represents such a fresh breath of air as the woman who "knows everything about [him] and...still love[s him]."

- A standout episode for Jared Harris; Don and Lane drunkenly watching the Japanese monster movie was one of the funnier things I've seen on TV in recent months. And I'm intrigued to see how the dynamic between Joan and Lane continues to play out; their irritated sniping at one another played like one of those things that becomes significant in retrospect once you reach the end of the season.

Degrassi: The Boiling Point

The new format has worked well, and hit a high point this week with the "My Body is a Cage" two-parter, which featured the show's best-executed storyline in years. (I keep meaning to mention how much I love that they've switched to contemporary song titles.) Utilizing the daily structure well, the writers did a good job in past weeks of slowly integrating Adam as a new student and then focusing episodes on his being transgendered. Jordan Todosey deserves serious acclaim for her performance as Adam - she frequently kept the story emotionally grounded and kept it from veering too deeply into after-school special territory. (Seriously, whatever the Canadian equivalent of an Emmy is, she deserves at least a nomination.)

So You Think You Can Dance

- A satisfying conclusion to an underwhelming season. Though both Kent and Lauren were solid throughout the season, I think Lauren showed just a bit more skill and versatility across the different genres. I won't write too much about what I think the show needs to fix, but I will link to an Entertainment Weekly online piece that clearly addresses some of the show's most pressing problems.

- I didn't comment on it in the relevant week, but as I watched the Top 4 show back again, I was really struck by Adechike's "where I came from" package. The producers behind the show could have pushed his "story" so much more - I mean, "young black urban male finds himself through dance, with assistance from the High School of Performing Arts"? That's, like, 1/6 of the plot of the original Fame - it is literally cinematic. I try not to be a conspiracy theorist, but being the third-best guy in his season puts him in the same company as All-Stars Pasha, Mark and Ade, and it never seemed like he was getting a comparable level of respect or admiration from the judges.

Rewatched:

Pushing Daisies, "Pie-lette" and "Dummy"

From one of those moods where boredom conspires with Netflix Instant Watch - I own the DVDs, but they're on loan to a friend. Things I forgot I missed about this show, in no particular order: Digby, all the pies, the coroner, and the way Jim Dale says, "The facts were these."

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Decided to give it another watch, since The Collected Works of Joss Whedon seems to be the summer's overarching project. It's interesting that there's not really any dancing in Dr. Horrible - it's not absolutely vital to all musicals, but most do have some. I'd love to see the kind of eye he might bring to a feature musical, since the big ones these days seem to be guided by choreographer-directors (Shankman (who choreographed the famous Whedon-directed Buffy episode "Once More with Feeling")/Marshall/Ortega). The part of my heart devoted to wishing fervently for a big-screen take on Company thinks Whedon could do a good job with it - cynical/funny is sort of his sweet spot.

Also Watched: Rubicon, Top Chef