Taking a few days off from writing, blogging, or any other kind of computer activity. I wrote a review of the "Mad Men" season one DVD that should go live on Tuesday morning, but beyond that, don't look for anything from me until Wednesday morning at the earliest. I'll try to catch up on some of the early-week shows like "In Plain Sight" and "Middleman" when I have a chance.
Play nice while I'm gone, kids.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Doctor Who, "Forest of the Dead": 'Tis a far, far better thing I do...
Spoilers for tonight's "Doctor Who" coming up just as soon as I take my daughter to the playground...Due to a time crunch, I'm going to be briefer about this one than I'd like. The Steven Moffat-scripted episodes of "Doctor Who" are always special (though we'll see if he can maintain that quality when he's running the show in 2010 instead of parachuting in for one or two episodes a year), and there's a lot I could say about "Forest of the Dead" that I just don't have time for.
There were some complaints last week that "Silence in the Library" played a little too much like Moffat's Greatest Hits, with River Song's out-of-sequence relationship echoing Sally Sparrow from "Blink" (though the more obvious parallel was the one I made, to "The Time Traveler's Wife"), the Vashta Nerada as the new nanongenes, "Hey, Who Turned Out the Lights?" replacing "Are You My Mommy?," etc.
I don't know that "Forest of the Dead" is going to quiet that notion for the dissenters, as the finale -- with the souls trapped in the mainframe restored to their bodies and River and her dead crewmembers granted eternal life of a sort inside the repaired computer -- is very much in the "Everybody lives!" vein of "The Doctor Dances." (Even Moffat seems to have recognized that this is a pattern for him, and promised that there will be more permanent deaths once he's the showrunner.)
But in some ways, I compare what Moffat does to a great musician. There are enough recurring themes and stylistic elements in, say, a Bruce Springsteen song that you'd know it was one of his even if you put another singer in front of the E Street Band, but that doesn't lessen the impact of hearing the latest variation on the theme, because the innate craftsmanship is so good.
Take Donna's alternate life inside the computer. I've seen variations on this story before on other sci-fi shows (most famously "The Inner Light" from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," where Picard spent an entire lifetime and had many children and grandchildren in the space of a few real-world minutes), but the dream logic nature of that existence and Catherine Tate's performance as Donna began to realize that her kids weren't real made it feel like its own thing. And then Moffat went and gave the thing its own vicious kick by having Donna's computer husband turn out to be very real but unable to call out to her because of the stammer that he'd spent so much time establishing earlier in the episode. Take the size of the universe, multiply it by the number of eras that The Doctor can take Donna to on the TARDIS, and you have the odds of her ever running into her fella again -- especially since she doesn't even know to look for him. So cruel. So perfect.
Even The Doctor figuring out a way to save River (and to let her spend the rest of her days palling around with Proper Dave, Other Dave, Anita and the restored Miss Evanglista) wasn't quite the happy ending it initially seems. The Doctor did, after all, hand over ownership of the planet to the Vashta Nerada, so it's not like he can come and visit her whenever he's in a romantic mood. Obviously, he has the ability to go visit younger versions of River, and we know that he'll either seek her out or run into her again one day, but barring something incredibly clever, there will never be a moment in time where the two of them can be on equal footing in their knowledge of the other.
I really, really enjoyed this one. The Doctor opening the TARDIS with a snap of his fingers was practically worth the price of admission by itself, with all that it signified.
As always, a reminder: we're respecting the American broadcast schedule, so no talk, however vague, about things happening in episodes that have yet to air in America. Got it?
What did everybody else think?
My Boys, "The Shirt Contest": Spike TV
Spoilers for last night's episode of "My Boys" coming up just as soon as I find a tablecloth...Just when I let myself get fooled into thinking the writers were wise enough to never, never, ever show PJ doing her job, they had to go and devote an episode to it. Razza-frazza...
"The Shirt Contest" had a number of problems -- the storytelling felt very ragged, Brendan's never really been that interesting (other than his D-bag period) to merit his own storyline -- but the biggest was the latest failed attempt to make PJ seem in any way credible in her profession.
I suppose I should be thankful for the small favor that PJ didn't get romantically entangled with Spike, as I feared she would as soon as we got a look at the guy. But even though the relationship stayed strictly professional (or, at least, platonic), it became yet another storyline about PJ being clueless and her having to turn to Jay Tarses (who didn't even get any good jokes) so he can explain to her how the world works.
PJ's not a kid. As she said last week, she's nearly 30. She's the beat writer for one of the most popular baseball teams in the country, for one of the two main newspapers in one of the biggest cities in the country, and she wouldn't somehow know that Spike Upton has left a trail of failed ghostwriters in his wake? I'm sorry, but that just makes her look foolish. I'll grant the writers some dramatic license on the notion that PJ thinks this book will be a big career-changer ("as told to" athlete memoirs are a dime a dozen, but at least PJ would have gotten her foot in the door of the book industry, and those things make nice supplemental income), but it just baffles and frustrates me that the "My Boys" writers don't understand how bad it makes their heroine look that she always has to have her own profession explained to her by men.
The titular shirt-making contest provided a few yuks here and there -- I particularly liked the way that Bobby's relationship with Elsa has turned him into Andy's personal errand boy -- but overall this was not one of the show's better efforts.
What did everybody else think?
The Wire, Season 1, Episode 5, "The Pager" (Veterans edition)
Once again, we're going to talk about season one of "The Wire" in two different versions: one safe for people who are brand-new to the show (or who haven't watched all the way through to the end), one where we can talk about anything from first episode to last. This is the latter; scroll down for the newbies edition if you want to be protected from discussion of things that are still to come, both this season and in later seasons.Spoilers for episode five, "The Pager," coming up just as soon as someone comes to take away my crumbs...
"The thing is, you only got to fuck up once. Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. And how you ain't never gonna be slow, never be late? You can't plan for no shit like this, man. It's life."
This is Avon Barksdale, explaining the fate of his older brother, who lies in a vegetative state in a dingy government-run hospital after being shot in the head but not killed. This is also Avon Barksdale explaining his governing philosophy of life. He knows you can't plan for everything, but dammit if he isn't going to try.
"The Pager" offers our first in-depth look at the detail's chief target, and we see just how cautious Avon has become. Is it paranoia -- or, as Wee-Bey puts it, "going past careful" -- that he won't use the same pay phone twice, that he wonders if the two lacrosse stick-wielding kids standing across the street from his girlfriend's apartment might be shooters from a rival crew, and that he orders Wee-Bey to rip the phone lines out of his girl's place? Based on the progress the detail makes in this episode -- more than in the previous four put together -- I'd say no. It's not paranoia if they're out to get you, is it?
No matter how careful Avon and Stringer try to be, they're still in charge of a large organization filled with people who aren't as alert as they are. Imagine if, as Lester insisted they should, the detail already had a tap up on the pay phone in the Pit. After this episode, they would have Avon's nephew and Avon's right-hand man on a murder conspiracy charge, based on their conversations about Omar's young lover Brandon. (It's not a spoiler to say Brandon's done for; we already know what Avon's bounty is about, and that his people killed John Bailey. Wee-Bey isn't going to use those handcuffs just to throw a scare into the kid.)
And even without a wiretap, the detail now has a clone on D'Angelo's pager -- and, thanks to the unexpected code-cracking abilities of Prez, an easy means of decoding the messages -- as well as a line on Avon's many real-estate holdings. Slowly but surely, they're gathering information that could be very dangerous to Avon, so why wouldn't he act like his spidey-sense was going off all the time? If his ex-girlfriend can put the cops on his trail even after she's dead, what might his current girl do with a tappable phone and a lot of time on her hands?
What we learn about Avon in this episode is that, in addition to being careful, he's a very smart businessman. He and Stringer discuss their planned move into a neighborhood on Edmonson Avenue like they're Wall Street types preparing for a hostile takeover. They know exactly how to make Scar (the current proprietor of Edmonson) go away if he won't leave on his own accord, and they know that they need to set Stinkum up with a good package of dope, rather than the weak, stepped-on garbage they've been selling at the high-rises and in the Pit, because a strong product is the best way to hook new customers in a new territory. (After Stinkum has established himself, they can, of course, return to stepping on the dope. As Stringer told Avon a few episodes back, what are the fiends going to do about it once they're hooked?)
After all the rampaging incompetence and bureaucratic interference we bore witness in the first four episodes, it's almost startling to watch an episode in which virtually everybody knows what they're doing. Sure, we get a large helping of Herc and Carver bumbling their way through their encounter with Bodie, but even there they seem to recognize their mistake (underestimating Bodie's guts and street smarts) quickly. But the detail is starting to get its act together -- even though missing out on the phone chatter re: Brandon was a colossal missed opportunity -- we get to see quite a bit of Avon and Stringer in action, and we start to see just how clever Omar is.
When the lovestruck, hero-worshipping Brandon calls Omar the living embodiment of danger, Omar replies that he's just a man with a plan. He lies in wait and observes his targets until he sees the pattern in how they work and move, and once he knows how they're going to react, he factors that reaction into his plan and strikes. He's savvy enough to know when the cops are sitting on his van (and to know when they aren't, so he can take it out for a job), to know that someone named Bird killed William Gant ("the working man"), and that Kima and Jimmy are getting most of their street intel from Bubbles. Like Avon and Stringer, he's not a man who can be taken out by ordinary means, as we see when he deliberately arranges a parley with the detectives at a location of his choosing, and under circumstances where they'd have no grounds to arrest him or Brandon.
You'll note that, one episode after "The Wire" gave us the most profane scene that had ever aired on television, we get Omar scolding Brandon for his casual use of profanity, insisting, "Don't no one want to hear them dirty words." At the time the episode first aired, as I was just getting to know Omar, I took this as David Simon having a laugh on himself, but he explained there was a thematic point to Omar's aversion to four-letter words:
The reason Omar doesn't curse is that he has a personal code and he is beholden only to that code. He alone is deinstitutionalized and free and therefore in control of his own morality, flawed though it might seem. Everyone else is, in this sense, debased by the institutions they serve and cop and criminal alike, their language reflects (that).We'll learn more about Omar's code in the weeks to come, but Omar's clean language is just one of many character traits -- along with his fondness for whistling nursery rhymes as he walks up to his targets -- that establishes him as his own man. As Simon notes, he's not beholden to an institution. Jimmy, for all his antics, is still attempting to work within the complex rules and traditions of the police department. D'Angelo, for all that he questions his job, is a part of his uncle's drug empire. Even Bubbs is just a pawn of The Game, trapped as he is by his addiction. Omar takes advantage of The Game, but he's not truly part of it. He could walk away at any point if he wanted, an option the other characters either don't have or don't know about.
D'Angelo certainly acts like he'd like a way out, based on his behavior at the fancy downtown restaurant where he takes baby mama Donette. This is the first time we've seen a street-level character travel into a more familiar middle-class environment, and while D makes a couple of rookie mistakes (he doesn't think to make a reservation on a Friday night, nor does he understand about the samples on the dessert cart), most of his discomfort (beautifully played, as always, by Larry Gilliard) comes from his acute awareness of how he makes his money versus the other patrons. Donette tries to explain one of the fundamental tenets of capitalism to him -- "You got money, you get to be whatever you say you are" -- but D know that he has blood on his hands and blood on his money, and he's becoming less and less okay with that knowledge.
Note that his attraction to Shardene the stripper only grows after he sees her refund the money of an irate customer as he's being kicked out of Orlando's. Shardene says she did nothing wrong, and most of the other girls in that place would pocket the guy's cash and not think about it again, but she didn't feel comfortable keeping it. People who think outside the rules of The Game -- be it slinging dope, working Homicide, or dancing at a strip club -- are rare on this show, and D may have found himself an attractive kindred spirit.
Some other thoughts on "The Pager":
- Carver detailing exactly how he would break Bodie last week made Bodie's jaded reaction to the eventual interrogation -- "You supposed to be the good cop!" -- especially priceless. But I like how Bodie's resiliency, as well as his acknowledging the superiority of their sandwich place -- won some grudging respect (or, at least, a toning down of the usual hatred) from Herc and Carver. Not a lot of cop dramas would show two cops playing a game of pool with a guy they just tuned up, you know?
- Like Bodie, Johnny is now a devout believer in the rules of The Game, and you can see that Bubbs already regrets having taught him so well. Johnny, with the colostomy bag hanging at his waist and news of him having "the bug" (street slang for HIV), trying to cheer himself up by finding out who has the best package on the street would be funny if it wasn't so damn sad.
- Also interesting to note that talk of the bug comes up earlier as Bodie and the sex-obsessed Poot argue over whether you can get it from receiving oral sex. While Poot seems prepared to move onto adult pursuits like seducing Arletta Mouzone, Wallace is still interested in childhood pursuits, like the toy he's playing with when Bodie throws the bottle at his head. And yet it's Wallace who's the one with the courage to ask D'Angelo for some extra cash, Wallace who's the one willing to call in an APB on Brandon once Poot spots him at the arcade, and Wallace who's unafraid to go up and talk to Stringer when the SUV rolls up.
- After taking most of the spotlight last week, McNulty takes a bit of a backseat to the likes of Avon and Omar, but he gets a great tragi-comic subplot where he tries to do battle with IKEA furniture (I may have to get a bottle of Jameson's the next time I try to assemble one of those monstrosities) and then, after he for once in his life does the right thing by putting the boys' bedroom together, finds out that Elena has blown him off because she assumed he would screw it up. Very nice solo work by Dominic West, who's called on more than any other member of the cast to act alone.
- I don't, by the way, want to ignore the fine work by Wood Harris as Avon. Because Avon has worked so hard to insulate him from the street, he doesn't appear as often or for as long as you would expect the chief antagonist on a show like this. But Harris takes a showcase episode like this one and takes control of it, particularly during the hospital monologue.
- This is the first time so far in this rewatch where I've noticed Bodie do a long-distance spit through his teeth. Whether it happened before now or not, get used to seeing it a lot in the future. J.D. Williams is very good at it, and it becomes one of the character's trademarks.
- Landsman shows us his ass (the horror!), then shows himself to be mostly interested in covering it when he admits he doesn't care about what happens with the other shift, even if the Bailey case could in some way be connected to what Jimmy's working on.
- Compare Avon's paranoia to Marlo's. Wee-Bey thinks he's being over-careful, and yet the Barksdale crew still uses a number of communications technologies that can be tapped by a dedicated and talented enough police unit, whereas until Marlo hooked up with Vondas and The Greek, he continually stymied the MCU with his refusal to go anywhere near a phone.
- D'Angelo's fancy dinner will be recreated in even more mortifying fashion in season four, when Bunny takes Namond and some other kids from the special class out to Ruth's Chris, where they're overwhelmed and miserable with a glimpse of a world so different from the one they know.
- Though there will be many beatings and insults to come, the game of pool begins the long-standing, always amusing professional relationship between Bodie and Herc and Carver.
- Johnny's being HIV-positive is echoed four seasons later by Bubbs' refusal to accept that he somehow escaped his own years of drug abuse without catching the bug. It also better explains Johnny's disinterest in even comtemplating sobriety, and his willingness to lose himself forever in one of the more nightmarish corners of Hamsterdam.
- Kima will obviously have her own IKEA struggles in season five, and Jimmy will enjoy every minute of hearing her complain about them.
- There were some complaints in the final season about how the 10-episode order meant that the writers had to rush along certain developments that they might have taken more time with in earlier years, like McNulty discovering how to fake a strangulation murder in the same episode where he tried it out. And while the series traditionally moved at a measured pace, I see how they introduce the pager code and let Prez crack it in the same episode and wonder how much we were romanticizing the good old days when we watched season five.
What did everybody else think?
The Wire, Season 1, Episode 5, "The Pager" (Newbies edition)
Once again, we're going to talk about season one of "The Wire" in two different versions: one safe for people who are brand-new to the show (or who haven't watched all the way through to the end), one where we can talk about anything from first episode to last. This is the former; scroll up for the veterans edition if you want to talk about things that are still to come, both this season and in later seasons.Spoilers for episode five, "The Pager," coming up just as soon as someone comes to take away my crumbs...
"The thing is, you only got to fuck up once. Be a little slow, be a little late, just once. And how you ain't never gonna be slow, never be late? You can't plan for no shit like this, man. It's life."
This is Avon Barksdale, explaining the fate of his older brother, who lies in a vegetative state in a dingy government-run hospital after being shot in the head but not killed. This is also Avon Barksdale explaining his governing philosophy of life. He knows you can't plan for everything, but dammit if he isn't going to try.
"The Pager" offers our first in-depth look at the detail's chief target, and we see just how cautious Avon has become. Is it paranoia -- or, as Wee-Bey puts it, "going past careful" -- that he won't use the same pay phone twice, that he wonders if the two lacrosse stick-wielding kids standing across the street from his girlfriend's apartment might be shooters from a rival crew, and that he orders Wee-Bey to rip the phone lines out of his girl's place? Based on the progress the detail makes in this episode -- more than in the previous four put together -- I'd say no. It's not paranoia if they're out to get you, is it?
No matter how careful Avon and Stringer try to be, they're still in charge of a large organization filled with people who aren't as alert as they are. Imagine if, as Lester insisted they should, the detail already had a tap up on the pay phone in the Pit. After this episode, they would have Avon's nephew and Avon's right-hand man on a murder conspiracy charge, based on their conversations about Omar's young lover Brandon. (It's not a spoiler to say Brandon's done for; we already know what Avon's bounty is about, and that his people killed John Bailey. Wee-Bey isn't going to use those handcuffs just to throw a scare into the kid.)
And even without a wiretap, the detail now has a clone on D'Angelo's pager -- and, thanks to the unexpected code-cracking abilities of Prez, an easy means of decoding the messages -- as well as a line on Avon's many real-estate holdings. Slowly but surely, they're gathering information that could be very dangerous to Avon, so why wouldn't he act like his spidey-sense was going off all the time? If his ex-girlfriend can put the cops on his trail even after she's dead, what might his current girl do with a tappable phone and a lot of time on her hands?
What we learn about Avon in this episode is that, in addition to being careful, he's a very smart businessman. He and Stringer discuss their planned move into a neighborhood on Edmonson Avenue like they're Wall Street types preparing for a hostile takeover. They know exactly how to make Scar (the current proprietor of Edmonson) go away if he won't leave on his own accord, and they know that they need to set Stinkum up with a good package of dope, rather than the weak, stepped-on garbage they've been selling at the high-rises and in the Pit, because a strong product is the best way to hook new customers in a new territory. (After Stinkum has established himself, they can, of course, return to stepping on the dope. As Stringer told Avon a few episodes back, what are the fiends going to do about it once they're hooked?)
After all the rampaging incompetence and bureaucratic interference we bore witness in the first four episodes, it's almost startling to watch an episode in which virtually everybody knows what they're doing. Sure, we get a large helping of Herc and Carver bumbling their way through their encounter with Bodie, but even there they seem to recognize their mistake (underestimating Bodie's guts and street smarts) quickly. But the detail is starting to get its act together -- even though missing out on the phone chatter re: Brandon was a colossal missed opportunity -- we get to see quite a bit of Avon and Stringer in action, and we start to see just how clever Omar is.
When the lovestruck, hero-worshipping Brandon calls Omar the living embodiment of danger, Omar replies that he's just a man with a plan. He lies in wait and observes his targets until he sees the pattern in how they work and move, and once he knows how they're going to react, he factors that reaction into his plan and strikes. He's savvy enough to know when the cops are sitting on his van (and to know when they aren't, so he can take it out for a job), to know that someone named Bird killed William Gant ("the working man"), and that Kima and Jimmy are getting most of their street intel from Bubbles. Like Avon and Stringer, he's not a man who can be taken out by ordinary means, as we see when he deliberately arranges a parley with the detectives at a location of his choosing, and under circumstances where they'd have no grounds to arrest him or Brandon.
You'll note that, one episode after "The Wire" gave us the most profane scene that had ever aired on television, we get Omar scolding Brandon for his casual use of profanity, insisting, "Don't no one want to hear them dirty words." At the time the episode first aired, as I was just getting to know Omar, I took this as David Simon having a laugh on himself, but he explained there was a thematic point to Omar's aversion to four-letter words:
The reason Omar doesn't curse is that he has a personal code and he is beholden only to that code. He alone is deinstitutionalized and free and therefore in control of his own morality, flawed though it might seem. Everyone else is, in this sense, debased by the institutions they serve and cop and criminal alike, their language reflects (that).We'll learn more about Omar's code in the weeks to come, but Omar's clean language is just one of many character traits -- along with his fondness for whistling nursery rhymes as he walks up to his targets -- that establishes him as his own man. As Simon notes, he's not beholden to an institution. Jimmy, for all his antics, is still attempting to work within the complex rules and traditions of the police department. D'Angelo, for all that he questions his job, is a part of his uncle's drug empire. Even Bubbs is just a pawn of The Game, trapped as he is by his addiction. Omar takes advantage of The Game, but he's not truly part of it. He could walk away at any point if he wanted, an option the other characters either don't have or don't know about.
D'Angelo certainly acts like he'd like a way out, based on his behavior at the fancy downtown restaurant where he takes baby mama Donette. This is the first time we've seen a street-level character travel into a more familiar middle-class environment, and while D makes a couple of rookie mistakes (he doesn't think to make a reservation on a Friday night, nor does he understand about the samples on the dessert cart), most of his discomfort (beautifully played, as always, by Larry Gilliard) comes from his acute awareness of how he makes his money versus the other patrons. Donette tries to explain one of the fundamental tenets of capitalism to him -- "You got money, you get to be whatever you say you are" -- but D know that he has blood on his hands and blood on his money, and he's becoming less and less okay with that knowledge.
Note that his attraction to Shardene the stripper only grows after he sees her refund the money of an irate customer as he's being kicked out of Orlando's. Shardene says she did nothing wrong, and most of the other girls in that place would pocket the guy's cash and not think about it again, but she didn't feel comfortable keeping it. People who think outside the rules of The Game -- be it slinging dope, working Homicide, or dancing at a strip club -- are rare on this show, and D may have found himself an attractive kindred spirit.
Some other thoughts on "The Pager":
- Carver detailing exactly how he would break Bodie last week made Bodie's jaded reaction to the eventual interrogation -- "You supposed to be the good cop!" -- especially priceless. But I like how Bodie's resiliency, as well as his acknowledging the superiority of their sandwich place -- won some grudging respect (or, at least, a toning down of the usual hatred) from Herc and Carver. Not a lot of cop dramas would show two cops playing a game of pool with a guy they just tuned up, you know?
- Like Bodie, Johnny is now a devout believer in the rules of The Game, and you can see that Bubbs already regrets having taught him so well. Johnny, with the colostomy bag hanging at his waist and news of him having "the bug" (street slang for HIV), trying to cheer himself up by finding out who has the best package on the street would be funny if it wasn't so damn sad.
- Also interesting to note that talk of the bug comes up earlier as Bodie and the sex-obsessed Poot argue over whether you can get it from receiving oral sex. While Poot seems prepared to move onto adult pursuits like seducing Arletta Mouzone, Wallace is still interested in childhood pursuits, like the toy he's playing with when Bodie throws the bottle at his head. And yet it's Wallace who's the one with the courage to ask D'Angelo for some extra cash, Wallace who's the one willing to call in an APB on Brandon once Poot spots him at the arcade, and Wallace who's unafraid to go up and talk to Stringer when the SUV rolls up.
- After taking most of the spotlight last week, McNulty takes a bit of a backseat to the likes of Avon and Omar, but he gets a great tragi-comic subplot where he tries to do battle with IKEA furniture (I may have to get a bottle of Jameson's the next time I try to assemble one of those monstrosities) and then, after he for once in his life does the right thing by putting the boys' bedroom together, finds out that Elena has blown him off because she assumed he would screw it up. Very nice solo work by Dominic West, who's called on more than any other member of the cast to act alone.
- I don't, by the way, want to ignore the fine work by Wood Harris as Avon. Because Avon has worked so hard to insulate him from the street, he doesn't appear as often or for as long as you would expect the chief antagonist on a show like this. But Harris takes a showcase episode like this one and takes control of it, particularly during the hospital monologue.
- This is the first time so far in this rewatch where I've noticed Bodie do a long-distance spit through his teeth. Whether it happened before now or not, get used to seeing it a lot in the future. J.D. Williams is very good at it, and it becomes one of the character's trademarks.
- Landsman shows us his ass (the horror!), then shows himself to be mostly interested in covering it when he admits he doesn't care about what happens with the other shift, even if the Bailey case could in some way be connected to what Jimmy's working on.
What did everybody else think?
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Tenspeed & Goren?
In addition to the news about the Emmy top 10 semi-finalists (check the comments for some thoughts on the episodes each show will screen for the nomination blue ribbon committees), some other TV odds and ends:- Chris Noth is leaving "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," and will be replaced by Jeff Goldblum. (The last time Vincent D'Onofrio tried to carry the full load in every episode, he wound up in the hospital; hence the co-lead situation.) Goldblum, last seen playing a cop on NBC's short-lived "Raines," seems more in the quirky genius Goren mode than the earthy charmer Logan mode. So, the question: would you rather the non-Goren guy provide a contrast, or are you happier if the episodes are more tonally consistent between the two leads?
- CBS announced their fall premiere dates, with most of their shows debuting during premiere week (starting Sept. 22), but with "CSI" and "The Eleventh Hour" being held a few weeks because of the Obama/McCain debates, and the Friday shows (including "The Ex-List," which I liked) not debuting until the season's second week.
- In addition to Michael Strahan, upcoming "Chuck" guest stars will include Nicole Richie (I'm not optimistic, but she's marginally more talented than Paris), Michael Clarke Duncan, Melinda Clarke (after Rachel Bilson, the "O.C." alum I miss the most) and John Larroquette, who's going to play some kind of spy mentor for Chuck. (I'm assuming he's been downsized from "Boston Legal.")
Emmy series top 10 lists released
Tom O'Neil at GoldDerby.com got his hands on a list of the top 10 finalists for the comedy and drama series Emmy nominations. (The actual nominations will be announced on July 17). The list, and my thoughts on it, after the jump...
So, here it is:
So, here it is:
TOP 10 COMEDY SERIES FINALISTSSo, the good:
"Curb Your Enthusiasm"
"Entourage"
"Family Guy"
"Flight of the Conchords"
"The Office"
"Pushing Daisies"
"30 Rock"
"Two and a Half Men"
"Ugly Betty"
"Weeds"
TOP 10 DRAMA SERIES FINALISTS
"Boston Legal"
"Damages"
"Dexter"
"Friday Night Lights"
"Grey’s Anatomy"
"House"
"Lost"
"Mad Men"
"The Tudors"
"The Wire"
- "The Wire" cracked the top 10, which now gives me false hope that it could actually get a nomination.
- In fact, four of the five shows I would pick for the best drama on TV this season got nominations: "The Wire," "Lost," "Mad Men" and "Dexter." For that matter, I wouldn't be upset with a "House" nomination.
- "Flight of the Conchords" cracked the top 10.
- "Family Guy," which, as O'Neil notes, was submitted there after the producers found out they could separately submit a special episode in the animated series category, made the first cut. I'm not the hugest fan, but at least it demonstrates some outside the box thinking.
- "Heroes" and "My Name Is Earl," two shows that made the top 10 last year (with "Heroes" getting a nomination) but were quite lousy this year ("Heroes" especially) didn't even make it this far.
- No "How I Met Your Mother" on the comedy list, while "Entourage" appears to have a lifetime Emmy pass despite being neither good nor anything resembling an actual comedy.
- "Battlestar Galactica" -- the final show I'd have on my own Best Drama nominees list -- continues to get snubbed, no doubt because no one in the Academy can imagine a sci-fi show be award-worthy.
- "Boston Legal" likely also has a straight-ahead pass for a nomination, probably at the expense of "The Wire."
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Welcome to *^&*@ing 'Damages,' Tim Olyphant!
Still more "Damages" news: Timothy Olyphant, best known as Seth Bullock from "Deadwood," is joining the cast for season two. Quoth the press release: Olyphant’s character will become tangled in the life of Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) as she deals with both her recent personal loss and the escalating conflict with her boss Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) when the firm takes a new client (William Hurt).Season two's still slated to debut in early '09.
Oh, my groin!
So, I checked out a couple of ABC's summer reality shows that aired last night. Quick spoilers for "Wipeout" and "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" coming up just as soon as I watch "Lost in Translation"...There are many, many, many lines from "The Simpsons" that have worked their way into my vernacular as both a person and a critic, and none moreso than Homer explaining his film festival voting philosophy in "A Star Is Burns": "Barney's movie had heart, but 'Football in the Groin' had a football in the groin."
"I Survived a Japanese Game Show" is, to a certain extent, about the juvenile joy of seeing people take metaphorical footballs to the groin. "Wipeout" is about nothing else.
If you've watched ABC at all this summer, you've essentially seen all "Wipeout" has to offer: people of various shapes, sizes and ages all falling face-first into the mud while trying to complete an obstacle course that's been designed to be all but impossible to finish unscathed.
Actually, no -- the commercials were actually better than the show, because they (at least the ones I saw) didn't feature the play-by-play of John Henson, who's so insufferable that I wanted him to be forced to go through the stage with the boxing gloves over and over and over again. I remember liking Henson once upon a time when he hosted "Talk Soup," but here his barbs were as cheap and obvious as the show itself: Ha-ha, this woman's fat! Ha-ha, he's a little bit effeminate! Ho-ho, that guy's old!
The ad campaign blitz obviously worked, as "Wipeout" pulled in nearly 10 million viewers, and actually improved half-hour to half-hour. Some of that is a function of it airing at 8 o'clock (more people are watching TV at 8:30 than 8, so most hour-long shows in that timeslot go up), but clearly there was a good-sized summer audience who didn't find it repetitive, lazy and kind of insufferable. I can't see ever wanting or needing to watch it again; I'm hopeful (but not optimistic) that the novelty will wear off quickly.
There's plenty of humiliation in "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" as well, but there it's so varied and strange -- and very much in keeping with what I understand of those shows -- that it doesn't get repetitive or annoying. I'm not sure I ever need to see it again -- the reality show aspects felt, if not unnecessary, than so predictable that I didn't care -- but if I happened to come across one of the actual game show sequences while channel-surfing, I could see myself stopping for a couple of minutes.
Once again, viewers didn't agree with me. It dropped two million viewers from the end of "Wipeout," then lost another million and a half at the half-hour mark.
What did everybody else think?
Get ready to feel the 'Burn Notice'
I'm taking a few days off next week and am busy trying to get ahead, but I'll have at least one other post up later today. In the meantime, I'll point you to another of Mo Ryan's in-depth showrunner interviews, this time with "Burn Notice" creator Matt Nix. I particularly like this bit where he talks about Bruce Campbell:Honestly, we were so lucky with Bruce, I didn’t believe we’d get Bruce. When they said that we might, I was like, “Really? How about Leonardo DiCaprio and a flying car too?” And then he said yes. I thought they were joking and they weren’t.I have the first two episodes of the new season (it's back on July 10, with Tricia Helfer as Michael's new "handler"), but haven't had a chance to watch them yet. Looking forward to it.
In some ways, he’s the heart of the show. He embodies the tone. He always strikes a somewhat ironic tone in his acting, but when you watch him, he’s fun to watch. There’s always a part of him that is clearly having fun. He brings that to the set. He brings that to acting. So when you put him and Jeffrey in a room together, they play in a really fun way.
I kind of don’t know what the show is without Bruce. We were incredibly fortunate to get him. That character [of Sam] is one thing, then there is that Bruceness to him as well. The Bruceness is irreduceable [laughs]. It’s hard to put your finger on. Sometimes I feel it’s easy to forgive the show [with him on it]. Things are tightly scheduled, it’s very challenging, there are a lot of things [to sustain], but when Bruce is on the screen, it’s like, “We’re all doing a show here!” I think he buys us a lot of goodwill.
He actually just pulled his hamstring doing a stunt, I just got a call, he’s on the way to the hospital. But that’s a great example of Bruce – he called me on the way to the hospital to say, “Here’s my idea of how we’ll write it into the show.”
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Chuck vs. the Strahan
Over at The Star-Ledger's Giants blog, Jenny Vrentas has some news that may be of interest around here: Michael Strahan will be guest-starring on an upcoming episode of "Chuck," playing Mitt, the obnoxious manager of the sporting goods store at the same mall as the Buy More, the Large Mart and Wienerlicious.Quoth Josh Schwartz: "After everyone saw him, they were like, 'Well, maybe we should get Mitt back here.'"
Middleman, "The Accidental Occidental Conception": Here's mud on your guy
Spoke too soon on "The Middleman," as I was able to finish watching it this morning. Spoilers for episode two coming up just as soon as I pick up some bottled water...My only real reservation from watching the pilot was whether the show would be able to pull off that half-retro, half-self-aware, all-funny tone on a regular basis. Episode two reassured me on that front; the wheels could still fall off down the road, but this felt very consistent with what we got from the pilot.
In some ways, "The Accidental Occidental Conception" (say that five times fast) was actually an improvement, in that Matt Keeslar and Natalie Morales were given dialogue that was just as goofy but not nearly as long. "I'm as serious as a Hefty bag full of Rottweilers" is a funny line, and one where Keeslar could focus entirely on the delivery and not on his breath control. And on occasion, all it took to make me laugh was the insertion of the right word into an otherwise straight line, like hearing him say "anathema."
Based on my recent complaints about the heroine's family being an annoying distraction on "In Plain Sight," I'm pleased that, so far, Wendy's roommates have been well-integrated into the story. (Middleman's crush on Lacey helps, as it provides an excuse to have Wendy's two worlds cross paths even if there isn't a plot reason for it like there was last night.)
The captions continue to amuse, as does the just-broad-enough acting by the guest stars (I particularly liked the bitchy Underworld desk clerk). Plus, points for having Wendy complain that the bad guy is the latest in a long series of "Terminator 2" rip-offs.
(Speaking of Wendy, my wife watched a bit of the episode with me, and pointed out that Morales comes across a lot like Amanda Peet, and it became one of those things that I suddenly couldn't avoid noticing. In particular, she sounds exactly like Peet did on "Studio 60" -- albeit much funnier.)
One complaint: I know you've gotta at least attempt to service the fanboys, and so the main titles feature Wendy in a cleavage-baring catsuit that she never wears on the show itself, but I preferred the fake opening credit sequence from the pilot, the black and white homage to the Diana Rigg "Avengers," complete with umbrella and SCUBA mask.
What did everybody else think?
Secret Diary of a Call Girl: Beloved aunt
May not get to see last night's "Middleman" until tonight, but in the meantime, quick spoilers for episode two of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" coming up just as soon as I check my messages...This show may not be deep, but when they give Billie Piper the right notes to play, it can be funny. Belle wrestling with her professional obligations to a client who doesn't want to have sex at an orgy party versus her attraction to her favorite author gave her the opportunity for a number of priceless reaction shots (particularly when she first learns of the client's plans). It does make her seem a bit of a brat, but that's who Hannah/Belle pretty much is.
We then take a left turn at the very end of the episode when the fake personal emergency gets replaced by a genuine one, with the birth of her sister's baby. The writers of the show seem as ambivalent about Hannah's family as she does; the idea of her going from an orgy party to her holding her baby nephew is interesting, but the scenes felt disengaged, and the only part of the final act that really worked was Hannah's reaction to Ben (who, like everybody else in her real life, doesn't know what she does for a living) finding the Louise Brooks wig in her purse.
But as I wrote last week, the episodes are short enough that there really isn't time to get bored.
What did everybody else think?
Monday, June 23, 2008
HBO to rerun all of George Carlin's specials
Continuing today's all-Carlin, all-the-time theme:
HBO will remember George Carlin this week with encore presentations of many of his HBO specials. The specials span his association with the network, from his first HBO special (“George Carlin at USC”) to his last (“It’s Bad for Ya”).
“George Carlin: It’s Bad for Ya,” which debuted on the network in March, will be seen on the main HBO channel this Friday, June 27 at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT).
In addition, HBO2 will present 11 of his specials over two nights. The HBO2 schedule is (all times ET/PT):
Wednesday, June 25
8:00 p.m. George Carlin at USC (1977)
9:30 p.m. George Carlin Again! (1978)
11:00 p.m. Carlin at Carnegie (1983)
midnight Carlin on Campus (1984)
1:00 a.m. Playin’ with Your Head (1986)
Thursday, June 26
8:00 p.m. What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)
9:00 p.m. Doin’ It Again (1990)
10:00 p.m. Jammin’ in New York (1992)
11:00 p.m. Back in Town (1996)
12:05 a.m. You Are All Diseased (1999)
1:00 a.m. It’s Bad for Ya (2008)
Sepinwall on TV: George Carlin, 1937-2008: A man of many words
As expected, I was asked to write a longer appreciation of George Carlin for The Star-Ledger. You can read it here.Off to NYC to talk with David Simon and some of the other guys from "Generation Kill." I imagine Simon'll have a few interesting things to say about Carlin; they have a lot in common in terms of their willingness (some might say need) to utter truths that most people don't want to hear.
In Plain Sight, "Trojan Horst": Mary vs. Pure Evil
Brief spoilers for the latest episode of "In Plain Sight" coming up just as soon as I play a few rounds of Stargate Defender...Who would have thought that the episode with Dave Foley as guest star would be one of the less overtly comic episodes of the series?
Don't get me wrong: Foley brought the snark with his role as Horst, alleged man Friday to elite hitwoman Lola (but actually Lola him/herself), and the idea of Foley playing someone with a female alter ego is especially funny if you remember how good he used to look when he'd dress up as a woman.
But "Trojan Horst" was more action movie than farce, the show's take on the classic Howard Hawks/John Wayne Western "Rio Bravo," about three law men holed up with a prisoner while his posse tries to liberate him by force. (The original movie proved so adaptable that it's been copied countless times, including twice by Hawks and Wayne themselves.)
And on that level, with Marshall wounded but still fighting, and Mary doing everything possible to keep her partner alive without giving up her charge, the episode worked. I have some issues with the last act, as it seemed awfully easy for Mary to get Horst's people to drop their guns, and for Mary and Stan to catch up to Horst after getting Marshall some medical attention, but overall, I liked it. I'm just a sucker for scenes like the one where a bloody Marshall pulls himself off the ground and starts shooting at the bad guys to protect the far healthier Mary.
However, I'm more than ready to see Mary's family go away forever. That won't happen this season (I've seen an episode that airs in mid-July, and mom and sis are still in the picture), but lord does the show grind to a halt whenever we have to deal with those two.
What did everybody else think?
Everything is a situation: George Carlin, R.I.P.
Legendary comedian George Carlin has died of heart failure at 71. Carlin's probably my biggest hero as a comic, someone whom I didn't always agree with, but who always argued his points with such conviction -- as he once put it, "I don't have pet peeves. I have major psychotic fucking hatreds." -- and seemingly impenetrable logic that I couldn't help but laugh.I frequently quote his philosophy that any topic, no matter how sensitive or despicable, can be made into a joke, as he demonstrates in his routine about how rape can be funny. As he put it, the trick is how you construct the joke and what the exaggeration is.
I also loved Carlin's obsession with the misuse of language. His routine about the 7 words you can't say on television (which pay cable and "NYPD Blue" rendered obsolete) is his most famous, but his material about non-profane language could be just as funny.
I may be asked to write something longer for the paper, so I need to head into the office early. In the meantime, some other good bits of Carlin you can watch or listen to:
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Sepinwall on TV: Michael Giacchino and Bear McCreary, score keepers
Today's column, as mentioned earlier in the week, features a pair of interlocking conversations with "Lost" composer Michael Giacchino and "Battlestar Galactica" composer Bear McCreary (pictured above). In addition, because they gave me more than I could use, I also put up a semi-complete transcript of both interviews.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Doctor Who, "Silence in the Library": The time-traveler's wife?
Spoilers for "Silence in the Library," the latest bit of Steven Moffat-penned "Doctor Who" brilliance, coming up just as soon as I explore all the buttons on my remote control...Spoilers. Heh.
So here we have an episode in which The Doctor states his desire to protect Donna from spoilers about her future, and then in which The Doctor meets a woman who has her own book of spoilers about how and when she'll know The Doctor in his own future (as well as what horrible fate awaits our Donna), and in the real world we have me, Alan Sepinwall, trying real, real hard to obey the law and my own responsibilities as a critic(*) by not downloading and viewing a copy of part two of this story so I can know what happens with Donna's face, and the little girl/security-bot, and the million-million lifeforms, and The Doctor's apparent future romance with Professor Song, and...
...wouldn't it be easier if I could just look through the book and see what happens next?
(*) Really, it's the critic thing more than the lawful thing that's preventing me from jumping straight to "Forest of the Dead," as I don't want whatever I say here to be colored by my knowledge of what's coming. Sure, I've written about series where I've seen entire seasons in advance, but the cliffhanger nature of something like "Silence of the Library" makes me want to be responding emotionally to what happened in the same way I would if I had been in England a few weeks ago when it originally aired and there was no way to jump ahead to the next one. Anywhooo...
Slight nerd digression (as if a "Doctor Who" blog post isn't enough of one on its own): Like Grant Morrison's comic books, Steven Moffat's "Doctor Who" scripts are always overflowing with ideas, like the "ghosting" of the telepathic comm system, or the faces from beyond the grave, or the Vashta Nerada shadow creatures themselves. (As with the stone angels of "Blink" or the clockwork robots of "Girl in the Fireplace," the genius of Moffat's monsters is in their simplicity.) But unlike Morrison's trippier work (say, Invisibles instead of Animal Man), Moffat never lets his desire to stuff in every stray brainstorm get in the way of solid storytelling. "Silence in the Library" has plenty of moments where I wonder exactly how Moffat thought something up, but it's primarily one hell of an unsettling thriller, one where we're never allowed to gain our footing.
First we're set up by the teaser to wonder how exactly The Doctor and Donna landed in some little girl's imagination, and by the time we loop back around to their meeting, we find out that the girl isn't a girl at all. (Or is she? They didn't cast Colin Salmon just to play a figment of some security drone's imagination; how do we know we should trust anything he tells his young patient?) And then, before The Doctor can devote much brainpower to figuring out what's happening in the library, he gets thrown off his game by the arrival of the colorfully-named River Song, who clearly has a lot more experience with him than he does with her at this point.
Because I've read the book I name-checked in my subject line (coming soon to a theater near you!), I'm used to the concept of lovers(**) first meeting each other at very different points in their respective timelines, and so I put two and two together well before either The Doctor or Donna did. And I'm damn curious to see whether Alex Kingston will be appearing regularly once Moffat takes over the show for good with the 2010 season. (I quite liked Kingston early in her stint on "ER," before the writers made the baffling decision to place Corday in Mark Greene's gloomy orbit, which took away all her spark.)
(**)And are we supposed to infer that they're lovers? Married? What? It's clear she doesn't travel with him, or else she wouldn't keep running into him out of sequence with his own timeline, so if she's a companion, it's a very unusual arrangement. And we know The Doctor's not exactly a monk. He had a child of his own even before Jenny, and it was becoming clear by the end of Billie Piper's run on the show that The Doctor's feelings for Rose ran deeper than for just another companion.
And then there's the matter of Donna herself. Where Rose and Martha both fell in love with The Doctor himself, Donna has fallen in love with the life that he's opened for her, so much so that I've been worrying that this can only end badly for several weeks, well before River couldn't quite look Donna in the eye once she realized who she was. Something awful's coming, I think. I don't expect Donna to stay a post-dead face in the library, but I also think the only way her plan to spend the rest of her life traveling with The Doctor will succeed is if her life winds up being very short indeed. Either she'll die, or her journeys will end quite abruptly and unpleasantly, but she's obviously out of the picture before River ever meets The Doctor before her first time, and it wasn't a good exit.
You know what? I think I've figured out a way to fight the impulse to jump ahead. I'm gonna go back and watch this one again. It's worth an instant replay, and then some.
Finally, I cannot be clearer on this point: Do NOT discuss anything, however obliquely, from episodes that have yet to air in America. I don't care how badly you want to discuss part two (there are other sites where you can find that opportunity), and if you think you have some clever way to hint at things to come without spoiling things for the rest of us, I can assure you that you're wrong. Anything with even a scintilla about "Forest of the Dead" or any other episode will be deleted, immediately, by me.
And with that bit of awkward business in mind, what did everybody else think?
'In Treatment' renewed
This had been rumored for a while, but HBO made it official today: "In Treatment" will be back for a second season, with at least Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Wiest reprising their roles. Playwright turned "Criminal Intent" producer Warren Leight will take over from Rodrigo Garcia as showrunner -- as I understand it, Garcia's not leaving the show; it's just too difficult for one man to be in charge of that many episodes -- and the show will be relocating production to New York, no doubt for Leight. (Paul's practice will still be in a Washington, DC suburb; my guess is either he'll be in a new house or we won't see much of the exterior anymore.)In terms of other returning regulars, the press release simply says "Additional cast members will be announced as they are confirmed." In the Israeli original, a few of the first season patients continued into season two, notably the Jake and Amy counterparts.
No longer cut off in mid-funk: Freaks and Geeks yearbook edition coming back
Back when I was revisiting "Freaks and Geeks" last summer, I would frequently lament my decision to buy the regular, albeit bonus-laden, version of the DVD set, instead of the extra-special, absurdly bonus-laden, Yearbook Edition. Well, as David Lambert at TVShowsonDVD.com points out, the rising stars of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, et al was apparently enough to convince Shout Factory! that it was time for a re-release, in late October. It ain't cheap (Amazon price is $119, and that's apparently 50 bucks less than the list retail price), but if you're as obsessed with that show as I am, it's worth it. Now I can finally stop giving my buddy Steve the stinkeye every time I'm at his house and notice the Yearbook up on his shelf.
The Wire, Season 1, Episode 4, "Old Cases" (Veterans edition)
Once again, we're going to talk about season one of "The Wire" in two different versions: one safe for people who are brand-new to the show (or who haven't watched all the way through to the end), one where we can talk about anything from first episode to last. This is the latter; scroll down for the newbies edition if you want to be protected from discussion of things that are still to come, both this season and in later seasons.Spoilers for episode four, "Old Cases" -- and a word of warning that due to the episode's nature, this post will feature extensive discussion (and, on occasion, reproduction) of a certain four-letter word -- coming up just as soon as I try to prove a negative...
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
The fuck?
Fuck it. Motherfuck!
In the seemingly neverending debate about "The Wire" vs. "Deadwood" (in which I took part at one point), one of the arguments in favor of "Deadwood" is the idea that David Milch's use of language is so beautiful and so exact that it elevates his show to a level that "The Wire" (or "The Sopranos," or any other great TV drama) can't quite reach. I would certainly never speak ill of the amazing "Deadwood" dialogue, but I think it's only fair to point out that "The Wire" had its own moments of gorgeous, precise employment of nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the justly-celebrated scene where McNulty and Bunk go over the Diedre Kresson crime scene, uttering nothing but variations on the F-word.
It's a goddamn symphony of profanity, is what that scene is, at once shockingly funny (as you realize just how many times the F-word is being uttered, to the exclusion of all else) and unexpectedly brilliant (as you realize that the two cops are quickly getting to the bottom of what happened here). It's almost a parody of the idea of doing a cop show on HBO, and yet it conveys so much about how smart Jimmy and The Bunk are -- and how well they work together -- that they can figure out so much about Kresson's murder and communicate it to each other using only that word.
What, of course, sets it up so beautifully is the earlier scene where D'Angelo, irritated with Bodie's bravado about escaping from juvie, walks Bodie, Wallace and Poot through every detail of the crime. That scene serves other purposes -- notably in continuing the tension between D'Angelo, who questions the way they do business, and Bodie, who blindly follows the rules of The Game -- but its primary function is to act as a road map so that we don't need any kind of expository dialogue -- or any dialogue of the non-F-word variety -- when Bunk and McNulty go into that apartment. We know exactly how this murder went down, and so we can just appreciate watching these true professionals at work.
(Getting back to the notion of "The Wire" as a show that teaches you how to watch it, by later seasons Simon won't even need to resort to that level of hand-holding. There's a sequence in season four where we watch a Homicide cop silently work through a murder scene and slowly put all the pieces together, and by that point, a preamble isn't even necessary. The show's visual language, and our own understanding of how a good detective studies a scene, will be all we need to fill in what's left unsaid.)
But if the legendary "fuck" scene teaches us what a natural police McNulty is, the bulk of "Old Cases" is devoted to illustrating the ways in which his personality flaws -- his addiction to himself, as Sgt. Jay Landsman puts it -- constantly get in the way of people noticing just how good he is.
Sure, his knowledge of Baltimore street crime is so encyclopedic that he can cite No-Heart Anthony's home address without prompting, and he and Bunk are like magicians when they work together, but McNulty is constantly getting in his own way. We already know that he cheated (with Ronnie Pearlman) on his soon-to-be-ex-wife Elena, which no doubt explains her hostile demeanor towards him, and we've seen countless examples in just these four episodes about how Jimmy's need to prove himself the smartest guy in the room causes him to violate protocol, common sense and even (in the case of refusing to take a sick day for the raid last week) basic decency.
Jimmy may not always be the smartest guy in the room, but he's self-aware enough to recognize this. You can see he's already starting to regret his tight bond with Judge Phelan, who's just digging Jimmy's grave by pushing Burrell to continue the Barksdale detail. (Landsman charming Rawls into giving Jimmy two weeks to wrap up the detail and come home clean won't do him much good if they're going to start writing wiretap affidavits, will it?) And when Lester Freamon -- who, in the story of how he wound up in the pawn shop unit for 13 years (and four months), proves that our cuddly housecat is really just an older, possibly smarter, but just as stubborn version of McNulty -- warns him about not letting the bosses know where he doesn't want to be transferred, you can see Jimmy immediately flashing on that conversation from "The Target" where he told Landsman that he'd never want to ride a boat for the marine unit.
When Bubbs, the wisest fool in all of Baltimore, gets a glimpse of the clean and bright neighborhood where Jimmy's kids play soccer, only to return to another burnt-out street in West Baltimore, he notes that there's a "thin line 'tween heaven and here." This is one of the core statements of "The Wire" (and the inspiration for the title of an outstanding "Wire" site), as the show is about all the people who fall over to the wrong side of that line, and how impossible it is to get back across. For the most part, the line represents the barrier between ordinary citizens like Elena or even the late Ms. Kresson and players and hustlers like D'Angelo and Bubbs, but the Baltimore PD has its own versions of both Heaven (elite units like Homicide) and Here (do-nothing squads like the pawn shop unit). Lester was already tossed over that line for valuing pride over common sense (as Jimmy notes, he could have easily made his case without the fence) and only made his way back by a fluke and some determination (he kept coming to work long enough that anyone who remembered his punishment were gone when the call for humps arose), and Jimmy can see that he's in very real danger of being cast out of heaven if this goes much further.
And yet, as we continue to see here, the Barksdale crew is both a worthy and challenging target, a tough, disciplined bunch who can't be got by ordinary methods -- see Marvin taking a mandatory five years in prison versus risking the wrath of Avon -- and who have more than one civilian body on their side of the ledger. If Jimmy's going to jeopardize his career in order to go after a bad guy, Avon seems as good as any.
Herc and Carver once again don't get it. Even if Bodie hadn't escaped from Boys Village (Here) and headed back to the Pit (for him, Heaven) through the simple luck of being left unattended in his civilian clothes with a mop bucket nearby, we know there's no way that Carver's proposed scare tactics would have put a dent in his gangster armor. As Herc learns from Bodie's grandmother -- a bit of information I confess I had forgotten all these years later, and one which makes me look at young master Broadus very differently now -- Bodie was orphaned at age 4, and had spent the years leading up to his mother's death being dragged around the fringes of The Game by her. (In that way, he's no different from the baby that Omar coos over before hooking up the mother with some dope. That kid will be very lucky to grow up to be anything other than another Bodie.) Bodie may be a knucklehead himself, the Herc or Carver to D'Angelo's Kima, but he grew up hard and remains hard, and if those two morons had shown up at Boys Village before he walked away, he would have either stared them down or simply laughed in their cop faces.
No, traditional methods have no real way of working with Avon's crew, which is why Jimmy and Kima and now Lester are going to have to employ every bit of creativity at their disposal in order to get them. And if it takes more than two weeks -- as we almost certainly know it will -- then what happens to McNulty?
Motherfuck.
Some other thoughts on "Old Cases":
- "Who uses pagers anymore?" As I've mentioned, this season's arc was inspired by work Ed Burns did on several drug crews in the '80s, and so we get the Barksdales using outmoded technology. (Possibly purchased from Dennis the Beeper King on "30 Rock"?) But because the cops comment on this, it works, and because Lester points out the counter-surveillance advantages of pagers versus cell phones, it makes Avon, Stringer and company seem that much more impressive.
- The show's visual style, as laid down by Clark Johnson and Bob Colesberry, rarely called attention to itself, but there are a couple of stand-out images in this one. The most obvious is Bodie throwing rocks at the stationary surveillance camera in the Pit, which would become a memorable part of the opening titles for years to come, but there's also the transition between the dirty water in the mop bucket Bodie used for his escape to the coffee in Herc's cup as he and Carver drive down to juvie to scare him. Also, there's a nice moment at the end of D'Angelo telling the story of Diedre Kresson's murder when the camera takes a skyward view of the Pit, then pans over to the more prosperous skyline of downtown Baltimore, illustrating Bubbs' "heaven and here" remark.
- Note that, at the gym, Stringer (despite his clothes) isn't really there to play basketball but to talk shop, and the one thing we see him do on the court is to set up Avon for an alley-oop dunk, as befits his role as Avon's number two.
- We get another of the show's small handful of "Homicide" alums as Callie Thorne makes her first appearance as Elena. I never much liked her on "Homicide," but I think that was more a matter of her character, Det. Ballard, being poorly-conceived than anything to do with Thorne. She's fine here as the woman who has to play the bad guy because Jimmy's too busy playing Peter Pan.
- After exploding on the scene last week with his hijack of the Pit stash, Omar becomes a much more unusual and interesting character this week. We find out not only about his brother No-Heart Anthony, but that he fancies himself a bit of a ghetto Robin Hood, doling out free dope to the truly wretched cases. And we find out that, to the horror of Avon -- who immediately ups his bounty upon hearing the news -- Omar is openly, proudly, defiantly gay, and that his young partner Brandon is also his lover.
- The reveal of Omar's sexuality comes in the same episode where we get our first extended look at Kima's relationship with upwardly-mobile girlfriend Cheryl. It's interesting how being gay is viewed in the two different worlds. Omar is reviled for it -- even his other partner, Bailey, tries to make himself scarce as soon as Omar and Brandon get affectionate -- while Kima is able to thrive professionally, even though she has to deal with the usual innuendo (and occasional insults) from the likes of Herc and Carver. But the decision to include two prominent gay characters, neither of them defined solely by their sexuality, is part of the series' commitment to showing a panorama of modern American life, even if it's through the lens of a show about cops and dope dealers in West Baltimore.
- The detail loses a body, albeit a useless one, when Pat Mahon (not Mahone, as I'd been previously spelling it) takes advantage of Bodie's assault to take a disability pension. Augie Polk, too scared (or smart, depending on your POV) to take Pat's advice about throwing himself down the steps to the detail office, is still on the job, but at the moment he, the mysterious disappearing Santangelo and word jumble-solving Prez seem to be neck-and-neck for title of biggest hump on the detail. Herc and Carver may be stupid, but at least they went along with Kima's plan to prove they couldn't follow D'Angelo.
- Is it wrong that I was as charmed as Rawls by Landsman's masturbation story? Delaney Williams makes Jay's utter lack of shame seem like an admirable trait.
- I should, I suppose, mention the pre-credits scene with the desk wedged into the door. But even though it's very funny -- particularly if you watch it knowing that Lester's smarter than these other guys put together, and therefore knows what's wrong -- and a commentary on inefficient bureaucracy, the scene kind of speaks for itself, no?
D'Angelo is, of course, lying to Bodie and the other Pit kids about his role in Diedre Kresson's murder. We'll find out in the season finale that Avon just used him, without D's knowledge, to set up Wee-Bey for the actual hit. It's a really interesting choice for the show to make, I think, as it fundamentally changes our perception of D'Angelo between now and when we find out the truth in the finale. It's one thing for D to have killed another player in the heat of the moment, but quite another to think that he killed a civilian woman on his uncle's say-so, you know? And it complicates -- not eliminates, but complicates -- my desire to sympathize with him over his growing desire to get out of The Game. I'm not saying I loathed D from the minute he tells the story -- he could regret that killing as well, after all -- but I definitely viewed a lot of his later actions this season through a different lens than I otherwise might have if I knew from the jump that this was a lie.
It seemed so out-of-character for the series -- Simon and Burns rarely misled viewers about something that big, for that long -- and so I asked Simon why he chose to do it that way:
There are clues in HOW D'Angelo tells the story -- his dramatic hesitation at the moment of truth, when it comes time to actually describe him shooting her in the face after the tap tap tap -- he hesitates, can't say specifically what he did next. A character was lying, taking credit for being more gangster than he actually is. No way to show this without simply throwing the lie out there. It would be lame and false to have him confess his lie in the next moment, even to someone else. People don't behave that way. So he lies. But in the writing and performance there are clues to a careful viewer that something is amiss with D'Angelo's account. And ultimately, when we hear the true story, we are certain (or should be certain) what it is. He is telling Wee-Bey's story, claiming it for his own. It works with the Pit Crew -- save perhaps for Bodie, who still doubts. But even D'Angelo, as he lies, is taken aback by his own claims of brutality. Watch the performance again.In this case, I guess, I wasn't a careful enough viewer. I'd like to say this is another thing that I would have recognized in hindsight once the show had educated me on how it worked, but because it's so unusual for their MO, I doubt it.
We didn't have Wee-Bey recount it because it was a better window into the soul of D'Angelo to watch him use it falsely and stumble through it emotionally. Wee-Bey would've just told the story, serving the overt plot only.
Up next Friday: "The Pager," in which the detail puts Jimmy's plan into action, while Wallace and Poot go to the arcade.
What did everybody else think?
The Wire, Season 1, Episode 4, "Old Cases" (Newbies edition)
Once again, we're going to talk about season one of "The Wire" in two different versions: one safe for people who are brand-new to the show (or who haven't watched all the way through to the end), one where we can talk about anything from first episode to last. This is the former; scroll up for the veterans edition if you want to discuss things that are still to come, both this season and in later seasons.Spoilers for episode four, "Old Cases" -- and a word of warning that due to the episode's nature, this post will feature extensive discussion (and, on occasion, reproduction) of a certain four-letter word -- coming up just as soon as I try to prove a negative...
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
The fuck?
Fuck it. Motherfuck!
In the seemingly neverending debate about "The Wire" vs. "Deadwood" (in which I took part at one point), one of the arguments in favor of "Deadwood" is the idea that David Milch's use of language is so beautiful and so exact that it elevates his show to a level that "The Wire" (or "The Sopranos," or any other great TV drama) can't quite reach. I would certainly never speak ill of the amazing "Deadwood" dialogue, but I think it's only fair to point out that "The Wire" had its own moments of gorgeous, precise employment of nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the justly-celebrated scene where McNulty and Bunk go over the Diedre Kresson crime scene, uttering nothing but variations on the F-word.
It's a goddamn symphony of profanity, is what that scene is, at once shockingly funny (as you realize just how many times the F-word is being uttered, to the exclusion of all else) and unexpectedly brilliant (as you realize that the two cops are quickly getting to the bottom of what happened here). It's almost a parody of the idea of doing a cop show on HBO, and yet it conveys so much about how smart Jimmy and The Bunk are -- and how well they work together -- that they can figure out so much about Kresson's murder and communicate it to each other using only that word.
What, of course, sets it up so beautifully is the earlier scene where D'Angelo, irritated with Bodie's bravado about escaping from juvie, walks Bodie, Wallace and Poot through every detail of the crime. That scene serves other purposes -- notably in continuing the tension between D'Angelo, who questions the way they do business, and Bodie, who blindly follows the rules of The Game -- but its primary function is to act as a road map so that we don't need any kind of expository dialogue -- or any dialogue of the non-F-word variety -- when Bunk and McNulty go into that apartment. We know exactly how this murder went down, and so we can just appreciate watching these true professionals at work.
(Getting back to the notion of "The Wire" as a show that teaches you how to watch it, by later seasons Simon won't even need to resort to that level of hand-holding. There's a sequence in season four where we watch a Homicide cop silently work through a murder scene and slowly put all the pieces together, and by that point, a preamble isn't even necessary. The show's visual language, and our own understanding of how a good detective studies a scene, will be all we need to fill in what's left unsaid.)
But if the legendary "fuck" scene teaches us what a natural police McNulty is, the bulk of "Old Cases" is devoted to illustrating the ways in which his personality flaws -- his addiction to himself, as Sgt. Jay Landsman puts it -- constantly get in the way of people noticing just how good he is.
Sure, his knowledge of Baltimore street crime is so encyclopedic that he can cite No-Heart Anthony's home address without prompting, and he and Bunk are like magicians when they work together, but McNulty is constantly getting in his own way. We already know that he cheated (with Ronnie Pearlman) on his soon-to-be-ex-wife Elena, which no doubt explains her hostile demeanor towards him, and we've seen countless examples in just these four episodes about how Jimmy's need to prove himself the smartest guy in the room causes him to violate protocol, common sense and even (in the case of refusing to take a sick day for the raid last week) basic decency.
Jimmy may not always be the smartest guy in the room, but he's self-aware enough to recognize this. You can see he's already starting to regret his tight bond with Judge Phelan, who's just digging Jimmy's grave by pushing Burrell to continue the Barksdale detail. (Landsman charming Rawls into giving Jimmy two weeks to wrap up the detail and come home clean won't do him much good if they're going to start writing wiretap affidavits, will it?) And when Lester Freamon -- who, in the story of how he wound up in the pawn shop unit for 13 years (and four months), proves that our cuddly housecat is really just an older, possibly smarter, but just as stubborn version of McNulty -- warns him about not letting the bosses know where he doesn't want to be transferred, you can see Jimmy immediately flashing on that conversation from "The Target" where he told Landsman that he'd never want to ride a boat for the marine unit.
When Bubbs, the wisest fool in all of Baltimore, gets a glimpse of the clean and bright neighborhood where Jimmy's kids play soccer, only to return to another burnt-out street in West Baltimore, he notes that there's a "thin line 'tween heaven and here." This is one of the core statements of "The Wire" (and the inspiration for the title of an outstanding "Wire" site), as the show is about all the people who fall over to the wrong side of that line, and how impossible it is to get back across. For the most part, the line represents the barrier between ordinary citizens like Elena or even the late Ms. Kresson and players and hustlers like D'Angelo and Bubbs, but the Baltimore PD has its own versions of both Heaven (elite units like Homicide) and Here (do-nothing squads like the pawn shop unit). Lester was already tossed over that line for valuing pride over common sense (as Jimmy notes, he could have easily made his case without the fence) and only made his way back by a fluke and some determination (he kept coming to work long enough that anyone who remembered his punishment were gone when the call for humps arose), and Jimmy can see that he's in very real danger of being cast out of heaven if this goes much further.
And yet, as we continue to see here, the Barksdale crew is both a worthy and challenging target, a tough, disciplined bunch who can't be got by ordinary methods -- see Marvin taking a mandatory five years in prison versus risking the wrath of Avon -- and who have more than one civilian body on their side of the ledger. If Jimmy's going to jeopardize his career in order to go after a bad guy, Avon seems as good as any.
Herc and Carver once again don't get it. Even if Bodie hadn't escaped from Boys Village (Here) and headed back to the Pit (for him, Heaven) through the simple luck of being left unattended in his civilian clothes with a mop bucket nearby, we know there's no way that Carver's proposed scare tactics would have put a dent in his gangster armor. As Herc learns from Bodie's grandmother -- a bit of information I confess I had forgotten all these years later, and one which makes me look at young master Broadus very differently now -- Bodie was orphaned at age 4, and had spent the years leading up to his mother's death being dragged around the fringes of The Game by her. (In that way, he's no different from the baby that Omar coos over before hooking up the mother with some dope. That kid will be very lucky to grow up to be anything other than another Bodie.) Bodie may be a knucklehead himself, the Herc or Carver to D'Angelo's Kima, but he grew up hard and remains hard, and if those two morons had shown up at Boys Village before he walked away, he would have either stared them down or simply laughed in their cop faces.
No, traditional methods have no real way of working with Avon's crew, which is why Jimmy and Kima and now Lester are going to have to employ every bit of creativity at their disposal in order to get them. And if it takes more than two weeks -- as we almost certainly know it will -- then what happens to McNulty?
Motherfuck.
Some other thoughts on "Old Cases":
- "Who uses pagers anymore?" As I've mentioned, this season's arc was inspired by work Ed Burns did on several drug crews in the '80s, and so we get the Barksdales using outmoded technology. (Possibly purchased from Dennis the Beeper King on "30 Rock"?) But because the cops comment on this, it works, and because Lester points out the counter-surveillance advantages of pagers versus cell phones, it makes Avon, Stringer and company seem that much more impressive.
- The show's visual style, as laid down by Clark Johnson and Bob Colesberry, rarely called attention to itself, but there are a couple of stand-out images in this one. The most obvious is Bodie throwing rocks at the stationary surveillance camera in the Pit, which would become a memorable part of the opening titles for years to come, but there's also the transition between the dirty water in the mop bucket Bodie used for his escape to the coffee in Herc's cup as he and Carver drive down to juvie to scare him. Also, there's a nice moment at the end of D'Angelo telling the story of Diedre Kresson's murder when the camera takes a skyward view of the Pit, then pans over to the more prosperous skyline of downtown Baltimore, illustrating Bubbs' "heaven and here" remark.
- Note that, at the gym, Stringer (despite his clothes) isn't really there to play basketball but to talk shop, and the one thing we see him do on the court is to set up Avon for an alley-oop dunk, as befits his role as Avon's number two.
- We get another of the show's small handful of "Homicide" alums as Callie Thorne makes her first appearance as Elena. I never much liked her on "Homicide," but I think that was more a matter of her character, Det. Ballard, being poorly-conceived than anything to do with Thorne. She's fine here as the woman who has to play the bad guy because Jimmy's too busy playing Peter Pan.
- After exploding on the scene last week with his hijack of the Pit stash, Omar becomes a much more unusual and interesting character this week. We find out not only about his brother No-Heart Anthony, but that he fancies himself a bit of a ghetto Robin Hood, doling out free dope to the truly wretched cases. And we find out that, to the horror of Avon -- who immediately ups his bounty upon hearing the news -- Omar is openly, proudly, defiantly gay, and that his young partner Brandon is also his lover.
- The reveal of Omar's sexuality comes in the same episode where we get our first extended look at Kima's relationship with upwardly-mobile girlfriend Cheryl. It's interesting how being gay is viewed in the two different worlds. Omar is reviled for it -- even his other partner, Bailey, tries to make himself scarce as soon as Omar and Brandon get affectionate -- while Kima is able to thrive professionally, even though she has to deal with the usual innuendo (and occasional insults) from the likes of Herc and Carver. But the decision to include two prominent gay characters, neither of them defined solely by their sexuality, is part of the series' commitment to showing a panorama of modern American life, even if it's through the lens of a show about cops and dope dealers in West Baltimore.
- The detail loses a body, albeit a useless one, when Pat Mahon (not Mahone, as I'd been previously spelling it) takes advantage of Bodie's assault to take a disability pension. Augie Polk, too scared (or smart, depending on your POV) to take Pat's advice about throwing himself down the steps to the detail office, is still on the job, but at the moment he, the mysterious disappearing Santangelo and word jumble-solving Prez seem to be neck-and-neck for title of biggest hump on the detail. Herc and Carver may be stupid, but at least they went along with Kima's plan to prove they couldn't follow D'Angelo.
- Is it wrong that I was as charmed as Rawls by Landsman's masturbation story? Delaney Williams makes Jay's utter lack of shame seem like an admirable trait.
- I should, I suppose, mention the pre-credits scene with the desk wedged into the door. But even though it's very funny -- particularly if you watch it knowing that Lester's smarter than these other guys put together, and therefore knows what's wrong -- and a commentary on inefficient bureaucracy, the scene kind of speaks for itself, no?
What did everybody else think?