We Hardly Knew Ya
After last year’s amazing new crop of shows (Desperate Housewives, Lost, Veronica Mars) this year's pickings were pretty slim. There were, however, a few oasis in this creative drought. Unfortunately, some of them would not survive. The only new comedy that I took a shine to, Kitchen Confidential, saw itself paired with the genius, but anemic-rated Arrested Development on Monday nights, and sadly for Bradley Cooper and crew, this sardonic and sexy ensemble (Jamie King, why must you leave so soon?) saw its fortunes mirror its mate. Both shows will air their final episodes this month before going on to that great static field in the sky.
On the drama side, Carla Gugino once again lands material that’s too smart and quirky for your average nimbiscle American viewer. Anyone who needs proof that there isn’t a God need only look at Gugino’s TV career. Horseface Paris Hilton I can’t get off my set, but the stunning and exquisitely intelligent lead of Karen Sisco and Threshold gets ripped away from me every other year. Of all this year's new shows that tried to imitate Lost’s intricate mysteries, Threshold came the closest. The alien invasion story has been told many a time (twice this season), but Threshold changed the game. We’re following the conspiracy this time around -- not the ones trying to uncover the conspiracy. We’re with the Cigarette Smoking Man, not Mulder and Scully. There were some serious chills to be had here (human teeth growing out of a tomato?) and with Gugino teamed up with Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek, but here closer to his mad scientist in Independence Day) and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) pound-for-pound the most charismatic actor alive today, this show had a lot going for it when CBS pulled the plug. Sure, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs get to keep their prime time hour, but something smart and interesting. Pah!
As Homer Simpson once put so eloquently “Boooooooobies.”
Speaking of boobies -- actually not really, but where do you go after that? Though we got two and a half seasons of Arrested Development, we’re still losing it well before its time. Many in the mainstream media have hailed this show to no avail, so doing it myself seems especially futile. But the show will live on on DVD (and if life is fair, cable) so I have to at least give a fair eulogy to this brilliant program.
How funny is this show? So funny, you won’t realize how funny it is. The jokes are so layered, so rapid-fire that it’s impossible to catch every joke the first time around. Not only that, but this comedy has a mythology of its own. Jokes from the first and second episode are referenced twenty episodes later. In one of the first episodes ever, Lucille Bluth winks at her son, and its one of the creepiest laughs I’ve ever had. And then, this past Monday we see it again, but this time from her daughter and then her son’s fiancee. It’s funny by itself, but together with previous knowledge of the show it’s hilarious.
As good as the writing is, the impeccable cast takes it to another level. Jason Bateman’s straight-laced Michael Bluth may be the best straight man in the history of comedy. His muted reactions to the lunacy around him often gets deeper laughs than the broader gags. The rest of this remarkable ensemble is similarly perfect from Jeffrey Tambor’s George Bluth, Sr. to Tony Hale’s Buster to Alia Shawkat’s Maeby. The casting is so spot-on that even the star guest appearances are stellar including Henry Winkler as the Bluth’s inept lawyer and Liza Minelli as the cradle-robbing Lucille Austero.
It takes a lot to get me to cry laughing. It happens too rarely. Friends got its share. Scrubs (RETURNING SOON!) gets a lot. But Arrested Development, I laugh just thinking about it. All anybody ever has to do to get a smile out of me is say “Swoop me!” “Ready, Aim, Marry Me” may be the funniest half-hour of television I’ve ever seen. And the rest of the episodes are not far behind.
This is truly a comic tragedy.
Not so tragic was the demise of Reunion, an inspired concept that did everything poorly that Arrested Development did so well. Casting -- pretty, but vapid. Writing -- obvious rather than clever. Just bad, bad, bad. Hopefully, this doesn’t mean bad tidings for the reason I gave this show a chance in the first place: Alexa Davalos.
I mean come on. Give this girl a job.
I Gave You My Heart…
I look back at all the love affairs I’ve shared with fictional leading ladies -- Laura Harris’ Ashley on “Fifteen,” Jenna Von Oy’s Six on “Blossom,” Emily Procter’s Ainsley Hayes on “The West Wing” -- and none of them hurt me more than Jennifer Garner’s Sydney Brystow on Alias. I have not been back to visit my favorite wig-wearing super-spy since the disastrously hurtful and offensive season premiere. Vaughn’s dead (or not, who cares now?) and Sydney’s playing Mr. Miyagi to some new agent while Ben Affleck’s demon seed gestates in her womb.
Man, I’m bitter.
I’ve never been good with break-ups. I moved to Florida after my last one. Not because of the girl -- at all -- but it certainly made things easier on me. I’ve employed the same strategy with Alias. I just don’t want to see it anymore. I’ll hear about the show, or see commercials that’ll entice me to give it another chance -- like small-town gossip in the grocery line -- but I know better. You broke my heart, Alias. I don’t care if you’re sorry. I can’t go back to that. You’ll just hurt me again.
If Alias was a long-term relationship that didn’t work out, Desperate Housewives is the one-night stand that I tried to get a little more mileage out of despite my better judgment. For those who haven’t seen it, Desperate Housewives’ first season is a masterpiece of sly, satirical mystery with tremendous character work by the entire cast. It’s one of those unfortunate cases with American television that when something is a success, it must be stretched for every dime. Housewives concluded its central mystery with such a tremendous, cathartic finale that it should have ended there. Nice and sweet. Clean break.
But along with Lost, Housewives was the other breakout for the resurgent ABC, and no way in hell they were letting it off into the sunset just yet. So, the writers got back to the drawing board, and the first episodes of the season could have been a handbook on the sophomore slump. Characters we’ve come to love acting either completely out-of-character (Bree getting dirrrrrrrrty with the pharmacist a matter of months after her husband’s death) or turning an endearing trait into a grating bother (Susan’s frazzled pratfalls). The worst place for a once-smart and savage satire to go is into self-parody. Unfortunately, that’s where the residents of Wisteria Lane are currently stuck.
Welcome to the Block
So, they killed Threshold and Kitchen Confidential, but a few of the new kids in town showed greater staying power. I was initially intrigued by the quirky procedural Bones (starring Joss Whedon alum David Boreanaz), but it sadly did not survive my final round of cuts. I still recommend it highly, but I had to curb my couch potatoing at some point. In fact, for most people I’d probably recommend Bones more than my favorite new show this year: Invasion.
Invasion takes the “television series as novel” concept that Lost started with its large cast and slow-developing mystery and pushes it even farther. I’ve endorsed a lot of television to friends and family over the past several years. It started with 24 (my DVDs are still circling through my family). Then Alias. Then Firefly and Lost. But I would be hesitant to recommend Invasion with the same passion. Not because I think it’s quality is lesser than those others, but because it does suspense in a very different way. It’s not the bomb-under-the-table suspense. It’s creepier. It’s the type of fear that slowly burrows into your heart, your mind. It stains where you live. As ridiculous as it may sound when referring to a show about an alien invasion, this show isn’t fantastic. It’s about the slow, subtle corruption of your home.
This show has developed with such a brutally deliberate pace that I was five episodes in before I realized how much I enjoyed it. One of the things I always liked about The Sopranos is how lived-in the show feels. The way Tony lumbers around in his robe, slurping up his cereal, vegging out in front of the television. Invasion has that same feel. The dialogue is plain and direct, the way real people talk, and much of the drama comes from the failed marriage of its leads. They live on top of each other in a small town. The kids are exchanged on weekends. And that world gets really small when one of them is now married to the town sheriff. This is enough to build a show around, but then there are the lights.
Invasion’s pace is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that it is slow. God, is it slow. People flip out about Lost and it’s stingy doling out of secrets. It has nothing on Invasion. But that slow, almost mundane pace, lulls you into a calm just before it slams you with something completely unexpected. Not only that, but these surprises aren’t ones that make your jaw hit the floor; they’ll make you curl into a ball and call your mommy. 24 or Lost make you scream with surprise. Invasion wil make you whimper.
Like I said, I can’t recommend it for everyone, but for people who like more chill in their thrill, Invasion might be a great one to try.
The other rookie I have less trouble recommending. It’s pure visceral, no excuses entertainment. And of course, that means it is completely ludicrous. Prison Break starts off with a totally ridiculous premise. Michael Schofield robs a bank so he can break his death-row bound brother from a prison which Michael designed. If you can get past that, you’re in for a fun ride. This show twists and turns like 24 at its best, and over the course of its young season it has put together a very strong ensemble of heroes and villains. The six inmates who attempted the escape during the fall finale could all carry their own show, and that’s not including the one who dropped out in particularly violent fashion (no spoilers here). Of course, now we have to wait until March for new episodes, but when it comes back it gets paired up with 24.
I’ll say it.
Holy shit.
Big Returns. BIG Returns.
Like finding an unopened Christmas present a month later, 24 returns from its best season ever in January. Ever since the show went to its “Non-Stop Season,” I’ve spent the fall completely oblivious to one of my favorite shows (Lost and 24 are incomparably the best at what they do). I get into the shows I have like Lost and House and Veronica Mars. And then somewhere around November, the promo hits with the gold clock counting down and Keifer Sutherland’s unmistakable growl -- and I lose it. It happened during a Bears game this year.
Oh yea! The most exciting drama you’ve ever seen hasn’t even started yet!
Unfortunately, previewing this season would spoil last season for some of my family who are a little slow with the DVDs. So, I’ll just say it’s already a mystery exactly how Jack will come back this year, but angry Communist China will probably have something to do with it.
On a completely different note, Scrubs, the most delightful comedy on television returns with new episodes that we’ll get two-at-a-time because NBC’s comedy offerings are so embarrassingly grim. I have a special place in my heart for this show, because I got to do a photo shoot with the cast during my internship in L.A. before the show premiered. Every one of them was extremely personable and funny (karma does get you somewhere. Serves those snobs at “Inside Schwartz” right), and I immediately wanted to see them succeed (especially John C. McGinley who became my idol that day). As much as I liked those people, I was thrilled to see that the show was also very, very good. That nobody from this show has been nominated for an Emmy (especially McGinley and Zach Braff) is criminal.
Finally, my last “new” show has been going since September, but I haven’t been watching. And frankly, I owe Smallville an apology. I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Smallville since I first sampled it in its second season. At the time I thought that it short-changed the ample mythology that Superman had to offer in favor of a Dawson’s Creek teen dramedy with monster-of-the-week storytelling.
Then I bought Season 1 on DVD, and suddenly it had a new life. I don’t know how I’ll do watching this show in a weekly context, because so much of the character relationships develop slowly and stew for long periods of time. On DVD, the momentum of Lana and Clark’s relationship and Lex and Clark’s tension is more readily sustained; on television, it can feel like it’s all just a bunch of wheel-spinning. Upon closer (and faster) viewing, there’s some really crafty stories being told here.
This show is good, but it somehow masks its quality with its pretty cast and exceptional production values. It lets you believe it's a guilty pleasure. I’m sure much of it has to do with the high school drama played out by very attractive young people (it came on the heels of Dawson’s Creek) and perhaps the aw shucks nature of the Kents, but the twists on the Superman legend are constantly surprising and never quite as we would suspect. This show is consistently entertaining (my dad has watched many episodes with me), and there are those stand out episodes where it reaches truly stellar heights (see Season 3’s Memoria).
I haven’t watched a single episode of this season because I wanted to catch up on the mythology, but everything I’ve heard has hailed season 5 as the best yet. Considering how much I’ve enjoyed the first three seasons (I’m just starting on season 4 today), I can’t imagine how good it must be.
Too much for words
So, those shows (aside from Smallville) are basically my B-list. The shows I’m fanatical about will get their own in-depth write-ups in the future. Those would include Lost, House, Veronica Mars, and The O.C. All of them have been on top of their game this fall, and promise to continue the trend into 2006.
Happy viewing kiddies.
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