Week in TV: October 10-16

Boardwalk Empire

Best episode yet, and a great episode for fleshing out previously underserved characters in Margaret, Gillian and Chalky. In some reviews I've read, people have found the scenes highlighting Margaret and Chalky somewhat heavy-handed, but then I don't know what period television they're watching where such moments are "expected" or "obvious." Maybe it's just years spent in history classes where people feel compelled to excuse "the way things were back then," but I think it's important to showcase resistant voices in media like this. Thinking critically about the past helps us understand then and now, and if this is the kind of writing that BE's going to continue to employ, then I'm in for the long haul.

Rubicon

I'll be honest, I really didn't think they would ultimately have the terrorist act seen through to completion, but I think that doing so distinguishes Rubicon from every other show airing right now. The whole season has gradually ratcheted up the tension in a glorious slow burn; many shows are daring, but few do so without also being showy. I'm on pins and needles waiting to see what happens in the finale - now that that tension has culminated in an explosion, what do the characters do next?

Mad Men

- Unusually low-key penultimate episode, at least as far as this show goes, which makes me a little concerned that something crazy is going to happen tonight. Like, both Sterling and Cooper keeling over dead or something. A plot point like Don publicly rejecting tobacco work represents a dramatic shift in the show - Lucky Strike is the client that forms the backbone of the pilot - but I think it would be uncharacteristic of Weiner to have some new savior show up in the finale. Most of the storylines feel right now like their implications are designed to play out in the long-term rather than the short-term - an exciting feeling after a finale, but an unnerving one beforehand.

- I usually like the oblique collection of out-of-context quotes that fill the "Next Time on Mad Men" teasers, but I wish that if they'd only been pulling from past episodes that they'd used the prior season finales rather than selections from this season. Not because I haven't liked this season (I definitely have) but because the past three finales are among the show's best episodes. A teaser with, say, Don's carousel speech and Peggy in the hospital from "The Wheel," Peggy's confession and Don's righteous smackdown of Duck from "Meditations in an Emergency," and various company-heist hijinks from "Shut the Door. Have a Seat." would actually get me excited about next week. As it is, I have to say I'm more intrigued to see how Rubicon closes out their season.

- This is mostly unrelated, but I really hope that somewhere among the lead-up to the Broadway arrival of the How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying revival we get a picture of Robert Morse and Daniel Radcliffe together. Just because I'm pretty sure it would be adorable.

Chuck

- I'm not dreaming, right? This season has been mad boring thus far? I'm sure a lot of outlets will blame it on Chuck and Sarah being together, but the problem is not their relationship as much as it's the fact that they never stop talking about their relationship. There's a rational level of insecurity involved in any new pairing, but I think we passed "rational" sometime in Season Three's back six and now we're veering off into "grating". All I know is when 8 on Monday rolls around, I increasingly want to watch 90210 live and time-shift Chuck instead of the other way around.

- I know I should probably be offended by the incidences of obvious product placement, but there's something so blatant about the way they mention Subway that it just makes me laugh.

Glee

- Now that's how you use a song from A Chorus Line.

- When the characters were reviewing their summer vacations in the premiere, did we somehow skip over Artie's lobotomy? Or are we supposed to believe that breaking up with Tina prompted some sort of dramatic break with rational thought? Where he seemed essentially smart, though occasionally misguided last season, now he just seems like he's taken leave of his senses. (The football thing stretches even the bounds of Glee's universe. Rules or not, there's no way that a school system lawyer wouldn't intervene in the interest of liability there. I'm pretty sure the apprehension of being sued transcends hyper-reality.) I just wish that he could've had a serious, low-key discussion with Brittany about the implications of losing his virginity instead of condemning her for manipulating him with her slatternly ways.

Sons of Anarchy

- I was struck in this episode by the difference between the ceremony involved in accepting or dismissing a member from the club and Jax's cursory break-up with Tara; I don't think SoA's ever before delineated quite so clearly the status of women in the club's milieu. I'm interested to see where Tara's path takes her now; I suspect that like Bill and Sookie on this past season of True Blood, she and Jax may be more interesting apart than they are together. It's not classy, but I'd love to see Tara totally lose her shit.

- Where's Wendy in all this kidnapping rigamarole? If I recall correctly, when last we saw her she was headed for a halfway house to become accustomed to sobriety. To some extent, it makes sense that they wouldn't tell her what's going on, in a variation of what kept them from sharing the news with Gemma for so long - don't alarm the recovering addict. But it would be nice if they'd mention her every once in a while, even if it's just to say that they're continuing to keep her in the dark.

Undercovers

Just what I was hoping for - oblique references to mysterious secrets! There may be hope for this show yet.

Hellcats

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the new crop of shows this fall, at least on the networks. The pilot was a little obnoxious, but Hellcats has actually turned out to not be terrible - its recent episodes have bestowed its main characters with decent development, and though it's depiction of both college cheerleading and the life of a pre-law student may not be 100% "accurate" in a real-world sense, the show does know its universe and communicate its ins-and-outs clearly. Special credit to Ashley Tisdale, who may be one of least broad actors to come out of the Disney/Nick machine in a while.

Terriers

Whenever I'm watching Sons of Anarchy and catch ads for Terriers, I'm struck by how mismarketed the show seems. The commercials highlight the goofy vibe and amiable banter between Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James, and if I wasn't watching the show I think I'd think it was pretty lightweight. Since the third episode, though, the show's been tempering that goofiness with some serious doses of darkness that make the show unique, and very, very good. That last scene with Hank and Katie was heartbreaking, and the kind of scene that makes you realize that you've become totally invested in a show's characters.

30 Rock

- I can't believe this is the first time I've wondered this, but something about the use of the TGS sketches in the live show brought it to mind: Does SNL exist at 30 Rock's NBC?

- While I like Jon Hamm a lot, I've never really found Drew terribly funny, and I think his ad (in both versions of the show) was the most SNL-esque moment of the show just in distance from reality. Later in the evening I saw one of those Allstate "Mayhem" ads with Dean Winters, and thought how much funnier it could've been with an ad from Dennis instead.

Also Watched: How I Met Your Mother, 90210, Gossip Girl, Raising Hope, Detroit 1-8-7, Caprica, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Top Chef: Just Desserts, Law and Order: LA, Community, The Office, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Degrassi, Gigantic, Law and Order: UK

Thoughts on..."Britney/Brittany"

So, clearly the "Week in TV" post for September 26 to October 2 never quite materialized. By the time I had time to think about it, it was Thursday, and I realized that many of the points could carry over to this week. I watched the pilots for both No Ordinary Family and Law and Order: LA, and thought both were solid, but feel no burning desire to continue on with either one. And I was curious to see where both Lone Star and My Generation were going, but as much as I liked/was intrigued by both, it's hard to mourn a show of which one has only seen two episodes. Lone Star could've been great, and for that matter, My Generation could've executed some major course-correction, but we'll never know for sure. Such is Fall TV.

Upon reflection, I realized that the only show I really had extended thoughts on for that week was Glee. (Hopefully, Lane's girlfriend on Mad Men wasn't a one-off and we can get back to her later.) I didn't really land on the "love" or "hate" sides of the Britney episode. There were pros and cons.

- While the whole device of characters hallucinating under the influence at the dentist was a little...implausible...I kind of liked that the show switched up the structure a little bit in terms of the way the songs were incorporated into the show. Usually Glee operates as a kind of hybrid between a backstage musical and a book musical, so it was interesting to see them try more of a revue. Songs presented largely independent of plot is where musical theater started, and I think Glee's loosely-structured enough to sustain episodes like this one every once in a while. Honestly, I'd love to see them tackle a week of performances with no plot at all, sort of Ziegfeld-Follies-style.

- I understand the impulse to draw upon the iconic video imagery in Britney Spears' catalogue, but I'd have loved to see some different song choices, maybe some non-singles. Rachel and Finn's storyline was begging for one of Britney's classic "I'm my own woman now and you can't tell me what to do" songs; my personal favorite is the underrated Oops!...I Did it Again track "What U See (Is What U Get)".

- There have been little odds and ends in Glee that are reminiscent of Ryan Murphy's prior high school show Popular, but none so much as Jacob Ben Israel, who's essentially the second coming of Popular's April Tuna. Murphy seems to have this affection for characters too strange to be real; in this episode, it worked for the increased focus on Brittany, but Jacob's off-putting manner was stretched a little too far beyond the limits of where the show can contain him. It's difficult to criticize any part of Glee for being excessive, but I feel comfortable in saying that the yelling during "Toxic" was too much.

- There has to be some occasion in the future where they have a dance-off between Heather Morris and Harry Shum, right? I mean, come on:

Week in TV: October 3-9

Boardwalk Empire

For an American Studies scholar, this show is kind of a smorgasbord of references. (1920 is right in the sweet spot of an era that a lot of historians like to work in.) Allusions to Uncle Tom's Cabin and Horatio Alger in the same hour? Nice.

Rubicon

I love how quiet this show is. The writers really trust the actors to communicate the paranoia and foreboding that sell both the broader conspiracy and the terrorist plot, and it's made the show uniquely good.

Mad Men

- It remains to be seen how the departure of Lucky Strike will play out long-term (I can't possibly be the only fan sitting there all, "Bring back Sal! BRING BACK SAL!"), but I think it will color rewatching of prior episodes in an interesting way. As embarrassingly desperate as the party in "Christmas Comes But Once a Year" is, how much more awful will it feel when you can put a date on when all that effort proves to be for naught?

- I've never really understood those people who believe in the Great and True Love of Joan and Roger, and I think the past few weeks have shown many reasons why they shouldn't be together. I mean, I get it: almost anyone seems like a better option compared with Dr. Greg. But Greg being kind of a horrible person doesn't make Roger not a horrible person too. The selfishness? The lack of respect for anyone besides himself? Betty gets a lot of press for being essentially a child, but I'd argue that Roger's development is similarly arrested.

- I like Abe.

- I don't think I've talked before about the wonderfully smarmy performance Kevin Rahm's given this season as Ted Chaough. I love straight-up shamelessness in a television character.

How I Met Your Mother

HIMYM is actually one of the major reasons I decided to try to do a weekly TV post. Back in the spring, I started to write a post about why I felt the show needed to establish an end date - it felt like they were spinning their wheels, and I didn't care about or like Don at all, to the degree that the writers' attempts to push him as Robin's potential soul mate actually made me angry. (The post was a tandem commentary on HIMYM and Big Love, and if that show's issues continue on to its next season, then I'll bring up those points again too.) The post sort of faded away, half-written and unpublished, and I finally deleted it when I realized that the points weren't really timely anymore. Hence, week-to-week observations. All of which is to say: I'm pretty sure that much of the audience got "closure" on Don a while ago, so hopefully Robin achieving the same will prompt the writers to pretend that whole thing never happened in the first place.

Glee

As far as Glee's themed episodes go, this was pretty middle-of-the-road for me. The question of how religion functions in people's lives is one that television shows rarely engage, so that was nice to see, but other shows have done it in recent years with a lot more nuance (Friday Night Lights, to mention one. This week's Community, to mention another.) Chris Colfer knocked it out of the park, though - among the show's main cast, I think he makes the most out of his showcase episodes - and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" did make me tear up.

Sons of Anarchy

We've had enough of a break from Stahl's all-consuming craziness that I'm excited to see where her deal with Jax goes. Like everything on this show, it seems inevitably doomed to fail spectacularly, but it's always an interesting ride getting there.

Undercovers

I think this week pinpointed for me what's making this show so boring so far. While I understand why they wanted to stay away from a major conspiracy angle, there's also nothing cohesive driving the show from week to week. When you look back at the early episodes of Alias, the storyline that comes out of Danny's murder drives Sydney in a way that gave Jennifer Garner's performance a propulsive fire (Nikita, so far, has been similarly passion-driven). On Fringe, the circumstances are so crazy that they demand action. Chuck's writers have managed to make the wheels turn with a combination of Chuck v. Intersect and CIA/NSA v. various nefarious external groups and conspiracy-mongerers. "Spies plus marital drama" is an interesting idea, but without interesting execution the show is going to fail sooner or later. I really want to support this show and keep watching it, but without a creative bump it's going to turn into a chore.

Top Chef: Just Desserts

There's "not here to make friends" and then there's the cast of this show, who seem to have built up a serious amount of mutual animosity in a relatively brief period of time, even for a reality competition. You'd think that with people deciding to leave of their own free will, or having some sort of oblique not-entirely-on-camera meltdown, that the other contestants would just sit back and let it happen. You already look like the good ones by default! It's Sibling Politics 101! Instead, the overly critical tone from various others comes across as hyperbolic, needless bitchery and the whole thing seems like it's teetering on the precipice of descending into total mania.

Bones

If the writers aren't careful, Hannah is going to land firmly in the same territory as Don on How I Met Your Mother last year. Telling us a new character is awesome is demonstrably not the same thing as actually introducing a new awesome character.

Also Watched: Nikita from last week, Chuck, 90210, Gossip Girl, Hawaii Five-0, Raising Hope, Detroit 1-8-7, Caprica, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Hellcats, Terriers, Community, 30 Rock, The Office, Grey's Anatomy, Nikita, Private Practice, Degrassi

New Shows:

Law & Order: UK

It was interesting to watch this after seeing the Law and Order: LA pilot. The Los Angeles version made me doubt whether the franchise could really work in another city, but then the UK version restored my confidence. The show sticks very closely to the original show's template, but with a unique chemistry among the permanent cast that makes it work almost immediately.

The A-List: New York

True story: I turned this off after about 45 minutes. I'm not big into the Real Housewives genre of shows - after the cast members introduce themselves and start talking to one another, they tend to achieve a level of vacuousness where my brain just completely tunes out. Also, teen Liz, who rooted for Reichen and Chip to win The Amazing Race back in the day, is disappointed that Reichen seems to be kind of a fame whore. I believed in your love!

Gigantic

The N's original programming isn't bad, necessarily, but their writing is never quite as sharp, and the drama not quite as daring, as some of the comparable-age-group offerings from ABC Family or the CW. Still, half-hour shows are perfect for morning coffee, and the mix of actual children-of-actors and former child actors in the show's main cast suggests that the show could demonstrate a more knowing sense of the scene it depicts than was on display in the pilot.

Mood Music XXXVIII: Feeling Nostalgic

You'd be forgiven for looking at this list and wondering, "Nostalgic for when, exactly?" For my early months of college, when these songs served as my soundtrack. After my parents had gotten me settled into my dorm room, one of the first things I did was download iTunes on my new laptop. At that time at home, the only Internet-connected computer was my mother's work desktop, which created this sense of constant surveillance. And I was such a good kid that I didn't even want to do anything that scandalous once I had free reign with my own computer. Even this totally legal enterprise felt emblematic of sweet, sweet freedom. The following are the first fifteen songs I bought - fifteen because I used a gift card - and there's something terribly soothing about listening to them in purchase order. It's not really a mix, but it's not random either. Maybe I'll do other chunks in the future - I love the way they present little snapshots of a given set of months.

Sister Golden Hair - America

Screened: September 2010

September 1: The Lady Eve

Screened: At home, DVR from TCM

September 3: The Turning Point

Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch

September 8: Broadcast News

Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch

September 9: You've Got Mail

Screened: At home, from personal collection

September 10: Little Women (1949)

Screened: At home, from personal collection

September 11: Going the Distance

Screened: In the theater

September 11: North by Northwest

Screened: At home, from personal collection

September 17: What's Love Got to Do With It?

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

September 18: Walk the Line

Screened: At home, from personal collection

September 22: Birth of a Nation (1933 edit)

Screened: Class screening

September 23: Within Our Gates

Screened: Class screening

September 24: Less Than Zero

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

September 28: Grease, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Screened: At home, on AMC

September 29: Gone With the Wind

Screened: At home, from personal collection

I'm going to be honest: I looked back at this list and don't really feel compelled to add extended commentary on any of these. I liked all of the movies I hadn't seen before, and I found Going the Distance to be heartening evidence that the romantic comedy may not be totally doomed. However, this month was kind of exhausting, and went by in a blur. Maybe I'll have more to say in October. For now, I'm just going to leave this list as it is.

Week in TV: September 19-25, Part II

I don't envy the people who get paid to watch the new pilots. It's exhausting; the human brain can only handle so much expository dialogue before everything starts blurring together. In retrospect, maybe the academically front-loaded structure of my week isn't the only reason I'm tired.

Boardwalk Empire

- A good pilot, not a great one, but it gave me enough that I know I'm interested in seeing more. A few more episodes should show the cast settling in more with the fabulous production design and really making the era feel lived in. It didn't always draw me in, plot-wise, but I did feel at the end like I really wanted to keep watching Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt and Michael Shannon each doing their thing.

- I like the imagery of the bottles washing up on the beach, but otherwise this show has one of the least dynamic opening credits sequences I've seen on a while in a cable drama.

Hawaii Five-0

- Very fun, with good chemistry among the central four actors. I think this show appeals to the same part of my brain that likes to drop everything and watch Armageddon whenever I find it on TV.

- Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park are awesome anyway, but also featured in sci-fi/fantasy's two most gloriously tragic romances of the past decade. (I like to pretend that I don't have a big softy shipper heart, but I'm only human.) Hopefully, the show's procedural structure means that somewhere down the line they can find guest spots for Yunjin Kim and/or Tahmoh Penikett. Just because it would be awesome.

Detroit 1-8-7

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this pilot. It was very reminiscent of Homicide, (the central partnerships in the pilot in particular reminded me a lot of Pembleton/Bayliss and Bolander/Munch) but that just makes it derivative, not bad, and, at least tonally, a solid change of pace from most other crime procedurals currently featuring on the dial.

Undercovers

- It almost seems unfortunate that J.J. Abrams has a creator credit on this show, if only because that means it will invariably be compared with Alias. I loved Alias, but I can also recognize that this is a very different show. With Chuck back too, I don't know whether I'm patient enough for two separate lighthearted spy shows on the schedule, but I liked the actors enough here that I'm willing to give it a few more weeks.

- I can recognize that I'm talking abnormally much about Deadwood now, but I do have to say that when I first saw Gerald McRaney in this show I was all, "EVIL!!!"

I don't have the energy to write up all of these, but I do know which ones I'm interested in watching again.

The Rundown:

Yes: Boardwalk Empire, Hawaii Five-0, Detroit 1-8-7

Yes, with various reservations: Raising Hope, Running Wilde, Undercovers

Yes, as long as the network keeps it on the air: Lone Star

Yes, at least for a few weeks, because I'm curious to see how the documentary construct plays out week-to-week: My Generation

I totally thought I wasn't in, but that twist at the end there sure was intriguing: The Event

Inoffensive and solidly acted, but there are only so many crime shows one person can watch: Chase, The Whole Truth, The Defenders, Blue Bloods

Not great, and at times uncomfortably condescending in tone, but I might keep watching because I'm interested in race and media: Outsourced

Not laughing during a comedy is such an awkward feeling, especially when there's a laugh track: Mike and Molly, Shit My Dad Says, Better With You

Week in TV: September 19-25

Mad Men

- Only Mad Men would use a scene in a character's love life to distill an issue that still makes the feminist movement seem unapproachable to some women of color. While I sometimes wish that the show would take a more direct line on race in the sixties, it's difficult to fault the subtle portrayal of Peggy's increasingly willful naivete when I've known people who made the same kinds of rationalizations about why their particular milieu is predominantly white. We're heading into the years when militancy started to seem like the most viable option for some activists on the left side of the political spectrum, and I'm interested to see how the show's old-school conservatives react.

- Weiner is so specific about the way he wants things to play out that I'm sure it's not an accident, but I'm really fascinated by the way Kiernan Shipka and January Jones have started to sort of mirror each other in their performances. The subtle way that they've shown Sally picking up on Betty's mannerisms, particularly when she's upset, really distinguishes Shipka's performance from those by other actors around the same age.

- A second viewing didn't make her soup/pot metaphor make any more sense, but Joyce remains delightful.

- The moving of Miss Blankenship's body joins the lawn mower sequence as one of this show's all-time greatest dark yet hilarious set pieces.

How I Met Your Mother

Modern Family

Cougar Town

Community

30 Rock

The Office

- I decided to group these all together because it's difficult to write about comedies without it turning into a quotefest, and these were all good, but not superlative episodes. All ultimately made me happy to see the characters again, and all made me laugh at one point or another. None challenged my feelings from last season that my affections for HIMYM, 30 Rock and The Office are on the wane, but they didn't make me want to completely stop watching either. Solid week all around.

- My favorite line of the week, from Community - Jeff's observation that the message of Twilight is "Men are monsters who crave young flesh."

Glee

- I love Community, but I have to give "Best Meta Reference to Internet Commentary on the Show" to Glee's opener.

- So...Matt transferred out, and Sam and Sunshine transferred in? Does McKinley not have freshmen or graduates? The whole discussion about Will stating that New Directions welcomes everyone audition-free made me think that they could construct a really great episode around someone showing up with lots of enthusiasm and no singing ability. Not saying that this is true of me back in high school, necessarily, but upperclassmen who are established in an extracurricular activity can build up some serious ire towards green, excitable freshmen with no idea what they're doing.

- "Getting to Know You": Using the history of the musical to make a sly wink at criticism of the show's broad handling of minority characters, or just the first song that came to mind when they needed something to sing to a group of Asian children? Also, as much as I like Artie, it's hard to quibble with Tina's call there. Those are, indeed, magnificent abs.

- It's always nice to see the show repurpose show tunes, but I'm a little disappointed at the context surrounding the episode-concluding "What I Did for Love." A Chorus Line is all about people pursuing careers in the arts and the sacrifices they make to do so, and shares a lot with Glee in that respect. If Glee ever elected to do an episode with original songs, I think A Chorus Line's hyper-confessional libretto could serve as an interesting model for the kinds of songs they could do. The titular love is specifically of dance, the love that unites the disparate characters of A Chorus Line, which made it somewhat disheartening to see it turned into Rachel's tribute to her own narcissism. The show can use as much candor as possible in addressing how shallow its characters can be, but I couldn't help but think how much better it could've worked as a group number.

Sons of Anarchy

Robin Weigert! More Deadwood! Can we have John Hawkes next, please?

Terriers

With this third outing, Terriers distinguished itself from other mystery-of-the-week style shows with a dark, unsettling resolution to the episode's central case. The writers are showing that they're unwilling to simply coast on Donal Logue's natural charisma, and as a result he's turning in a standout performance.

Grey's Anatomy

Private Practice

- Good follow-up to last season's Grey's finale, particularly with the layered flashback structure and the use of the therapy sessions. The myriad ways that PTSD impacts the different characters seems like a rich dramatic vein for the show to tap throughout the coming season, with great performances by Sandra Oh, Chandra Wilson and Chyler Leigh in this particular episode. I also liked the way it sort of bled over into PP - they've managed to maintain the ties between the two shows without it feeling too strained.

- With the PP subplot, I had to include a link to Gene Weingarten's amazing, Pulitzer-winning Washington Post piece about parents forgetting their children in the car.

Also Watched: Rubicon, Chuck, Gossip Girl, Parenthood, 90210, Life Unexpected, Hellcats, Top Chef: Just Desserts, Nikita, Bones

Next: I watched allll the pilots...

Mood Music XXXVII

The start to the new television season means lots of DVR maneuvering and rationalizations about what my academic schedule can reasonably allow in hours-per-week. It also means that my profligate media hoarding gets fired up anew, particularly in the "music I hear on TV" niche. Hence, the full-length version of the Community theme (excerpted in the credits below) that appears on that show's newly-released soundtrack is now my new most favorite thing.

Honorable mention to the Black Keys' "Howlin' for You," used to great effect in the Chuck premiere.