Freaks and Geeks Rewind: Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers

Spoilers for the "Freaks and Geeks" episode "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" coming up just as soon as I find my coat with the big pockets...

Two Bill and Millie episodes in a row? What great and glorious bounty is this?

I wrote a bit in my "Chokin' and Tokin'" review about the obvious parallels between these two characters: how they're generally the nicest, most sincere, least self-conscious kids on the show. "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" offers up another parallel -- though not necessarily a planned one, as the Millie subplot was a last-minute addition when something else didn't work -- as we see slightly darker sides to each of them when they're faced with lousy personal circumstances. For Bill, it's the horror of discovering that his mom is dating the dreaded (to the geeks, if not to us) Coach Fredricks. For Millie, it's the hit-and-run death of her beloved (albeit very old) dog Goliath. And for one episode, we get to see Bill and Millie behaving in very un-Bill and Millie-like ways. (Bill moreso than Millie; she's congenitally incapable of being that bad.)

After a humiliating gym class basketball game -- which has more to do with Bill's lack of grace and skill than anything Fredricks does -- Bill comes home to his latchkey kid routine: grilled cheese on the pan, a hunk of chocolate cake, a tall glass of milk and his best friend, the TV set. On the basketball court, Bill's miserable; watching Garry Shandling tell jokes on "The Dinah Shore Show," he's in bliss. Martin Starr's laughter is so genuine that it's a wonder to see, but he had help, as Judd Apatow and co-writer Bob Nickman were telling him dirty jokes off-camera until they got the right response. The sequence -- scored, as the entire episode is, to a Who song, in this case, "I'm One" -- is taken directly from Judd Apatow's own childhood, and you can tell; even by this show's amazing standards, it feels personal and intimate.

Bill's mom Gloria comes home from her waitress job (her stripping days are long behind her) and tells Bill that a male friend will be joining them for dinner. You can tell by the way Bill asks "Another new friend?" that this isn't a new phenomenon, just as you can tell it's something he's not crazy about. In a great little moment, Gloria says Bill knows this man, Bill guesses that it's Neal's dad, and Gloria briefly turns back into a 16-year-old, snorting, laughing and saying, "Vic Schweiber? No! Gross!" Instead, the man in question is Coach Fredricks, news of which sends Bill into a tizzy. "He's a jerk!" he tells her. "He's a dumb jock!... You gotta, you gotta, you gotta dump him."

Fredricks (whose first name turns out to be Ben) awkwardly makes small talk with Bill at dinner, and if there was any doubt that they live on two different planes of reality, their discussion of movies erases it. Fredricks declares "Rocky II" -- not "Rocky," "Rocky II" -- the greatest movie of all time, largely because of how great Carl Weathers' abs looked in it. (I suspect he also prefers the ending where Rocky wins to the original's nobility-in-defeat resolution.) Bill speaks up for "Stripes," which Fredricks immediately dismisses: "Bill Murray's a wise-ass. Somebody better smack some respect into that guy." When Bill praises Murray some more, Fredricks realizes it might be time to change the subject and tries to suck up to Bill and Gloria by suggesting that Bill (who's tall but completely uncoordinated) might have a future with the school basketball team if he applied himself and got some private lessons. Gloria excuses herself for a moment, and Bill gives the visitor the silent treatment.

It's such an awkward and yet real sequence. As happens throughout the episode, Fredricks is doing his best to reach out to Bill, but he keeps getting hamstrung, both by Bill's complete refusal to go along and by his own lack of understanding for what makes a geek tick. If he was dating Alan's mom, or Todd Schellenger's, no problem, but Fredricks and Bill are from two different species.

Fredricks keeps trying and failing to suck up to him at school, first by stopping him (in full view of the geeks, from whom Bill is trying to keep this a secret) to praise Gloria's cooking, then by attempting to turn the next gym class into a lesson in basic fundamentals, entirely for Bill's benefit. Bill, aware both of what Fredricks is trying to do and the fact that he suddenly has power over the guy, loudly refuses to participate, suggesting that comic book reading, nose-picking and going to the bathroom are all more worthwhile activites than gym class. It's incredibly harsh, but (as Bill well knows) Fredricks can't lash back at him or risk alienating Gloria the MILF, so instead he winds up venting his frustration at Alan. ("I've had it with the constant comments and the incessant cackling!") Bill walks out of gym, and when Fredricks threatens to punish him, Bill asks, mocking, "What are you gonna do: call my mom?" (Alan: "I never thought I'd say this, but Haverchuck's the king.") Not that he intends it this way, of course, but Fredricks gets his revenge when Bill looks up from the breakfast table a few mornings later and sees "Ben" emerge from his mother's bedroom in his undershirt and boxers (adding insult to injury, Fredricks drinks OJ out of Bill's personalized mug).

While Gloria tries to make peace by suggesting Fredricks take Bill to a local go-kart track, the geeks give Bill conflicting advice on what to do. Neal the snob says there's no upward mobility to being a gym teacher, while Sam (who had his own bonding moment with Fredricks back in "Tests and Breasts") suggests he may not be such a bad guy, and even invokes the Bizarro softball game from "The Diary." Bill's not having it, and he's even madder when Neal accepts Fredricks' go-kart invitation on all their behalfs. (Not that Fredricks is that happy about having to take two extra kids, either.)

On the go-kart expedition, it's constantly two steps back, one step forward with Fredricks. He bores the hell out of the geeks by monologuing about Wilt Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell but also buys them fake poo and other gag gifts from the joke shop. Bill continues his sulk, but even he can't stay mad for long surrounded by all these awesome driving machines. Fredricks isthisclose to making things okay with Bill by challenging the geeks to a race -- really, all he has to do is lose and everyone will be happy -- but he can't let go of his competitive instincts, and he not only beats Bill, he runs him off the track and into a hay bale. Bill unloads on him, says all Fredricks cares about is winning, not other people's feelings, and he storms off.

In a scene that's just so perfect I want to go watch it again (... and I'm back), Fredricks squeezes his large frame into the back seat of his car so he can apologize to Bill. He admits that Bill's probably right that he's just a dumb jock, but he's also someone who loves Gloria, who recognizes what a difficult time she's had since the divorce, and he thinks he can make her happy. Bill doesn't respond, but after Fredricks gets out of the car, Bill breaks down in tears, overcome by about 12 feelings at once: pain at being a child of divorce, bitterness that he's going to have Fredricks in his life, guilt at wanting to deny his mom happiness, more guilt at the realization that Fredricks really isn't that bad, etc. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Martin Starr, genius.

In a sweet button to the story -- especially in light of the knowledge that we'd never see this dynamic again -- Bill finally decides to reach out to Fredricks by teaching him about "Dallas." It takes a minute for Fredricks to figure out the implications of this, but then the lightbulb clicks on, he leans forward in his seat and tries to frame the show in terms he gets: "So, what, Bobby's the good guy?" Bill nods and says he'll explain more at the commercial, and Thomas Wilson gives this glorious half-smile. (He's so perfect in this part. As a treat, go watch him on YouTube singing Biff's Question Song. Go ahead; I'll wait.)

While Bill is busy stewing in his own juices, the freaks are all excited about the prospect of going to see The Who on their "farewell" tour. Harold doesn't want Lindsay going to the concert, and Lindsay's attempts to get him to listen to some Who songs to understand this genius backfires when the first cut he plays is "Squeeze Box." (In maybe my favorite bit of non-Martin Starr-related physical comedy in the series, just look at Becky Ann Baker as Jean -- who's too sweet and naive to realize what the song's really about -- miming someone working an actual squeeze box on the "in and out and in and out..." lyrics.) Lindsay finally manages to get permission, though, by noting that she just wants to look out for Millie, who'll be attending.

And why, you ask, is Millie going to a rock concert? (Okay, so you're probably not asking, but I'm not going in straight chronological order this time, so forgive the stupid rhetorical flourishes. Really, they're all I have.) Well, as mentioned above, her dog Goliath gets run over -- unbeknownst to her, by Kim in her Gremlin. (Not sure which is the funnier Ken reaction to the news that Kim killed a dog: "With your bare hands?" or "I always say 'girl plus car equals dead animal.'")

Lindsay, who was in the car at the time Kim unknowingly killed Goliath, wants to tell Millie the truth, but Kim -- half sincerely, half to avoid a hassle -- thinks this will just make Millie feel worse. Instead, she bonds with Millie over the story of her own dead dog Bobo (whose epileptic seizures she describes in far too graphic detail). Millie, touched, invites Kim and Lindsay to her funeral for Goliath. (Lindsay, guilty about her role in the death and the cover-up and also not sure what the hell you say at a dog funeral, tells the story of how Goliath used to hump Jean when she wore her furry boots, "And then you got spayed and you didn't do it anymore.")

Before Lindsay can even realize what's happening, Kim and Millie have quickly become BFFs, with Kim encouraging Millie to blow off studying to shop for records at the mall, just so long as she wears her big coat with all the pockets. (Millie may be in mourning, but she's still Millie, and has no idea what Kim's up to; she thinks it's the awesomest thing in the world that Kim likes that coat so much.) Lindsay's worried for Millie, but Millie says she finally understands why Lindsay joined the freaks: "You were just exploring, and now I'm exploring, too." Lindsay tries to get Kim to leave Millie alone -- "I don't think we should interfere with her life" -- and Kim offers us a hint of the person she was in the first few episodes. She asks why Lindsay can hang with them and Millie can't, suggests that Lindsay treats Millie as her safety valve for whenever her bad new friends get too scary (she still hasn't let go of the events of "Looks and Books") and threatens to beat up Lindsay if she tells.

It's interesting comparing Millie's assimilation into the freaks with Lindsay's, and not just because both were prompted by the deaths of loved ones. Lindsay and Millie were best friends and fellow Mathletes, but if the Lindsay of "Looks and Books" was the real face of the pre-freak Lindsay, she was never as sweet and naive and easily damaged as Millie. And she went into freakdom with her eyes open, fought to stick with the group even as Kim was fighting bitterly to chase her away, while Kim is extending an open invite to Millie.

The big difference is illustrated in the climactic scene in the hours leading up to the concert. Daniel's borrowed his cousin's "magic bus" and is grilling up dogs and serving beers and Millie's wearing ripped jeans and playing frisbie with Stroker (the guy whose party led to the car crash in "Looks and Books") when her mother drives up and illustrates exactly where the difference between Lindsay and Millie began. Harold and Jean are strict, moral parents, but they have some give and kindness to them that's completely non-evident from Millie's mom, a buttoned-down, controlling woman who says that "they" (meaning "I") agreed that Millie wouldn't go to the concert. Millie -- who, really, hasn't been doing anything all that bad during this episode, aside from the change in friends and wardrobe -- argues that she's a straight A student who never gets in trouble. "I can't believe you don't trust me! It's not like I'm going to drop acid or have sex in the parking lot!" Her mom doesn't know how to deal with having her authority challenged thusly and drives off in a huff.

Millie, her mind slightly blown by standing up to her mom for the first time ever, takes up Daniel's offer of a beer, and as the bottle moves to her lips, Kim -- finally comprehending Lindsay's message -- blurts out, "I killed your dog!" Millie feels betrayed (especially at learning that Lindsay was involved) and runs off. After thanking Kim for standing up, Lindsay gives chase, and she and Millie bond by listening to "Summer Breeze" (the only non-Who song in the episode, and a callback to the Seals & Crofts mention in "Chokin' and Tokin'") and reminiscing about Goliath, complete with a picture Lindsay saved of them as little girls hugging the aptly-named pooch. It's a sweet moment, even if I enjoy the Lindsay/Millie bonding in "Chokin' and Tokin'" more.

Some other thoughts on "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers":

• I would be remiss in discussing the freak half of the episode if I didn't bring up the matter of "Lady L." Nick, inspired by the self-taught Pete Townshend, has been learning guitar and pens a none-too-subtle ode to Lindsay, the lyrics of which are so awful that I simply refuse to quote them all. (One excerpt: "As I pulled the reins of the horse, she pulled the reins of her soul... I'm out of control!") Ken has to suffer through this falsetto-infused mess -- yet another in the long list of brave Jason Segel moments -- and tells him, "I thought I would hate it, but I kind of liked it." Nick asks if he's being honest. "No! That was terrible!" While the freaks are hanging out at the magic bus, Nick prepares to play the song for Lindsay, but Ken knows how badly this will go and smashes Nick's guitar, Pete Townshend-style. When Nick tries to yell at him, Ken tells him, quite rightly, "This is the biggest favor I ever did for you." (Rogen's not in very much of this episode, but every line out of his mouth is gold.)
• So, all The Who songs on the soundtrack: "I'm Free" in the gym basketball game, "I'm One" for Bill's afternoon snack, "Boris the Spider" as Kim and Lindsay run over Goliath, "Love, Reign O'er Me" as Fredricks emerges in his undies, "Squeeze Box" in the obvious place and "Going Mobile" at the go-kart race. (Wikipedia also lists "Drowned," which I missed but was probably playing during the magic bus sequence).
• A rare bit of Weir sibling squabbling in the opening scene, as Sam tries to fan the flames of Harold's paranoia about the Who concert, largely because he's bitter he can't ever see "Kentucky Fried Movie." (The scene also gives John Daley an opportunity to do his Rich Little-as-Johnny Carson impression.)
• Again, I have to ask: "Rocky II"? Really?
• I like how, when Lindsay tells her parents about Millie going to the concert, she's both sincere in her concern for Millie and brilliant in the knowledge that this will get them to give her what she wants. She's definitely picking stuff up from Kim about manipulating others.

Up next: "Noshing and Moshing," in which Daniel tries a new hairstyle, Neal tries a new career and David Krumholtz is awesome.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Mad Men: Mo' old money, mo' old problems

Brief spoilers for episode four of "Mad Men" coming up just as soon as I borrow a neighbor's lock of hair...

I watched this episode about a month ago (even before I saw episode 3, for reasons too boring to elaborate on) and wasn't in a position to take notes at the time, so I can't say as much about it as previous weeks, but I liked it. The primary goal is to humanize Pete -- to explain him, if not apologize for him -- and it accomplished that.

Those of you who find the show too heavy-handed probably aren't going to have their opinions changed by scenes like the one pictured above, where Pete's blue-blood daddy (or is he?; the money comes from his mother's side) lectures him about how his job isn't fit for a white man. But it worked for me, in part because of those obnoxious Bermuda shorts an docksiders; sometimes, it's the odd detail that makes a scene. Pete's weird quest for approval from Don makes much more sense now, both in light of his own lousy father figure and the revelation that he intended to be a creative type, but the episode's not entirely a pity party for him. He massively oversteps his bounds with the Beth Steel man, and I like that Roger manages to frame things so it looks like Don saved his job.

In the other half of the episode, Betty goes down the rabbit hole by agreeing to babysit for Helen the divorcee while Helen's off cruising for men at a Kennedy campaign event. It's an interesting friendship (if you can call it that), because Betty has as many reasons to be jealous of Helen as she does to be afraid of becoming like her. Chief among the latter: Helen's creepy son, so out of sorts from the divorce that he's lost all sense of boundaries, walking in on Betty while she tries to pee and then demanding a lock of her hair. (Not sure which of the two is more disturbing, but it was amusing to see the machinations a woman like Betty had to go to to use the bathroom in that get-up.)

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Lessons from Summer Burn-Off Theatre

At this time a year ago, "Knights of Prosperity" (then called "Let's Rob...") and "The Nine" were two of the most-anticipated new shows on any network. Now they're teaming up for ABC's microscopically-rated summer Wednesday lineup, and watching the two combined hours of both shows last night reminded me a little of their initial promise and a lot about why they both failed. Spoilers ho...

After Mick Jagger -- far and away the funniest part of the show -- refused to appear in any episodes past the pilot, "Knights of Prosperity" creators Rob Burnett and Jon Beckerman spun their wheels for seven episodes before having Eugene and the Knights move on to a new celebrity target. In the last episode to air before cancellation, they briefly considered Kelly Ripa, but then Eugene fell in love with her and they turned their attentions to Ray Romano, who in the show's universe is in town starring in an off-Broadway show where he plays a heroin addict.

Now, Romano's a good choice: he's funny, he's available, and he's friendly enough with Burnett and Beckerman due to the Letterman connection (Rob and Jon were writer/producers on "Late Show," Worldwide Pants produced "Everybody Loves Raymond") that he's not likely to bail before they're done with him. And, like Mick before him, Ray proceeds to steal the show out from under the main characters, whether he's overacting in his play (which is so cheesey that its title is included in the dialogue) or whining at length about the burdens of celebrity.

(From what little I know about Romano, this doesn't seem like a stretch; the "Raymond" writers once described Ray Barone as being exactly like Ray Romano, only saner and nicer, and they weren't being sarcastic.)

But the fact that at least two of the celebrity targets (maybe three; I missed the Ripa episode) so easily upstage the regulars isn't a good thing, and it's one of several reasons -- along with the name, the premise, the timeslot and America's near-total mistrust of new comedies -- that the show failed. All of the Knights have their funny moments -- Kevin Michael Richardson as Rockefeller was a great "find" (in that most of his resume consisted of voice acting before this), and I hope to see more of him in the future -- but none of them, with the possible exception of Eugene, exist as anything but the broadest of stereotypes, there to do their schtick and drop whatever pop culture-themed punchline Beckerman and Burnett thought up at the time. A little of that goes a very long way, and if Jagger and Romano weren't written any more deeply, at least we had our prior knowledge of each to fill in the blanks.

The first of last night's episodes suggests that the creators were aware of this, as the script was devoted to humanizing Louis the intern by introducing his rich bastard father. (Played by one of my favorite Hey It's That Guy!s, James "If Cromwell's not available, I'm your man!" Rebhorn.) And, again, I laughed from time to time -- a rarity these days for network comedies -- but I'm not in any way surprised that the show didn't work.

As I mentioned when I wrote about "The Kill Point" the other day, it became obvious quickly that "The Nine" had a flawed concept from the start. The bank hostage stuff was inherently going to be more exciting and interesting than anything happening to the characters in the aftermath, and yet the flashbacks themselves had two basic problems: 1)There's no suspense about any of the broad strokes (how/when the siege ends, who lives, etc.), so all that's left to fill in are the smaller details like how Scott Wolf betrayed his girlfriend or why Kim Raver's hair got butchered; and 2)Even the filling in of said details was never going to live up to however we imagined it in our heads when the pilot had that amazing time-jump from the start of the siege to the end.

Last week's episode took place almost entirely in the bank and suffered from the no-suspense problem as it tried to create false jeopardy around Wolf's character, while last night's episode was largely about the survivors' present-day problems. The notion that they're all being watched because one of them was in on the robbery doesn't thrill me -- it's one or two steps removed from a silly "Prison Break"-style conspiracy theory -- and yet I suppose it's more dramatic than most of the episodes that aired back in the fall. Interesting isolated moments here and there, but this is one of the most dramatic pilot-to-series quality drop-offs I've ever seen.

Anybody play nostalgic masochist like me and watch either one? What did you think? Click here to read the full post

For the David Simon fans...

...a New York Times story about how Fran from "The Corner" is marrying the real-life inspiration for Omar Little. Click here to read the full post

Freaks and Geeks Rewind: Chokin' and Tokin'

Spoilers for the "Freaks and Geeks" episode "Chokin' and Tokin'" coming up just as soon as I wake up a dog...

And so "Freaks and Geeks" came to an end on NBC, not with a bang but a major bummer. "Chokin' and Tokin'," one of the series' best episodes, was also the last one to air before NBC suits canceled the show, replacing it with another installment of "Dateline." Judd Apatow was in rare form that day, posting the following rant on the now-defunct FreaksandGeeks.com:

This has been a terrible day. It is always painful dealing with a network (HBO excluded. They are great). They have no interest in quality. They have no patience. They have no job security. This is a recipe for disaster. So now they will bring 'Dateline' back to the air. News magazine shows are truly evil. They pretend to be news, but they are 100 percent tabloid garbage. They prey on people's pain and turn it into cash for their mega-corp masters.

How much money did NBC make exploiting the Columbine children? Did we need to see all of those images, day after day for months? Must they interview every kid who has ever murdered their parents or classmates? They say it is news. It isn't news, it's greed. What do we learn from those reports? These shows are glorified versions of the old movie 'Faces of Death.' They will talk about anything if they think people will watch it. It desensitizes everyone who watches it. It makes us feel like the world is a scarier place than it actually is . . .

The film 'Network' has come true. I am just glad that we were able to sneak something decent on, that was from our hearts, before they killed us. Think about this-they haven't aired six episodes. That costs them millions of dollars. How much do they resent our show to take that hit? What are the real politics of this decision? Maybe at the highest level of NBC or GE there is someone we do not even know, and he doesn't relate to the geeks. He relates to the bullies. I would guess our show doesn't touch his heart; it reminds him of his deepest pain-his flaws. Either that or he sees a number and doesn't care what it is- if it's not making my stockholders money today, get it off. God forbid they showed anything they were proud of.

Oh, I'm sorry, they do - it's called 'Daddio.'

Sorry. I like rants, and Judd has a gift for them. The remaining five episodes (plus the long-shelved "Kim Kelly Is My Friend") would air out of order over the next six months, some on NBC, some on Fox Family, and eventually all 18 episodes would be put back in order for one of the greatest TV on DVD box sets ever made -- a distinction earned by both the episodes themselves and the bonus content. (And as great as the regular version is, I weep over my decision to cheap out and not order the deluxe yearbook version; if I don't regret that choice as much as my dad regretted never putting a pool in our backyard, it's close.)

And, as I said above, "Chokin' and Tokin'" was one of the best hours Apatow and company ever put together. It's a Drugs Are Bad, MMMkay? episode that feels honest, not hysterical. It's a spotlight on Lindsay and Bill that turns out to really be a spotlight on Millie and Alan. It has some of the series' funniest moments (Sam and Nick taking advantage of Bill's situation, Lindsay being terrified of her babysitting charge) and some of its most poignant (Sam and Neal's joking about ghosts turning serious, Millie acknowledging the truth of her friendship with Lindsay). It represents everything that was good and decent and brilliant about this show, and it's particularly galling that the ax fell right after it aired. (The problem, of course, is that there were no bad episodes.)

Feig and Apatow have both suggested that some NBC executive must have watched the episode with his family and been so put off by the drug content that he ordered the cancellation. While I generally have a low opinion of that NBC regime, I feel I have to give them more credit than that, if only because "Chokin' and Tokin'" comes down so hard against the use of even a low-level drug like pot that only a complete moron could view the episode as in any way pro-drug. (Then again, to steal Judd's joke, these were the people who greenlit "Daddio"...)

And so, nearly 800 words later (in fairness, 300 words are Judd's), we get to the actual recap.

Deep in the heart of freak country, there's a marijuana drought, and Nick's not dealing well with it at all. Daniel still has enough self-control that, when Nick demands to know what they're going to do with no pot, Daniel calmly suggests, "Not be stoned?" (Daniel's so disturbed at seeing Nick turn into a pot fiend that he tries to throw out his own emergency stash, but while he and Ken are arguing over the bag, Mr. Rosso interrupts and decides to make the two of them his new Just Say No project.)

Five days into a marijuana-free lifestyle, Nick is clear-eyed and alert enough to briefly seem appealing to Lindsay again -- or, at least, enough that she wants to encourage her friend to stay clean -- and she invites him to cut class with her and show off his old basketball moves. (In one of the best DVD extras of all, put the Apatow/Starr/Daley commentary on as they watch an outtake of Jason Segel -- who had boasted that he would hit every shot -- going 1 for 12 from the field, with a layup his only basket. The commenters have a lot of fun with this.) But this clean and sober Nick lasts only as long as it takes for the new marijuana crop to come in, and when pot dealer Mark shows up with some killer hydroponic stuff, Nick's off to blaze up, and invites Lindsay to join him. Sensing her reluctance, he says that marijuana is natural; she replies that so is dog crap, "and we don't smoke that."

Nick finally packs her bags for a guilt trip, and Lindsay finds herself high and bored out of her mind in Nick's basement as he eats chips and listens to "Fat Bottomed Girls." (He's all psyched to imitate a specific drum roll, but he's so high that he misses it.) Lindsay complains that this isn't fun, that Nick is so much cooler when he's not high, and that it's sad that all Nick's done for the last five days is wait for this moment. Feeling wounded again by the girl of his dreams, Nick compares Lindsay to her father, says he's not addicted, and to prove it hands her his entire stash to do with as she pleases.

Lindsay is nothing if not easily manipulated, and in a funny little montage scored to Blood, Sweat & Tear's "Hi-De-Ho," struggles to roll her own with the donated pot. Where her first time smoking didn't have much affect at all, this one sparks a very bad reaction -- made worse when an oblivious Harold reminds her that she committed to babysitting little Ronnie Johnson down the street.

Suffering a major paranoid freak-out, Linday turns to the only person who can help her: Millie, who at first guesses that Lindsay's big problem is a lost textbook before realizing the truth.

"You're high!" she tells Lindsay, shocked. "You're on the pot!" (She then explains that she can recognize stoned behavior because she once went to a Seals & Croft concert.) Millie's beyond disappointed with Lindsay -- though not as much as Lindsay is with herself -- and agrees to tag along to make sure Ronnie survives the babysitting experience. Ronnie's parents, no doubt eager to get out of the house for the evening, don't even notice how bleary-eyed and frightened Lindsay looks as they rattle off the standard instructions. (As the parent of a young'un, I've been there.)

The entire episode is a great comic showcase for Linda Cardellini , who more often than not through the series has to play straight woman to the freaks, as she gets to play even more against type than in "Looks and Books." The absolute highlight is a sequence, scored to "Little Green Bag," where Lindsay -- who's a nerd even when she's stoned -- takes out an encyclopedia for guidance on how long her bad high might last. Just as she's getting somewhere with the text, Ronnie barges in to play Tag with her. Lindsay panics and says she's not playing, and when Ronnie gets upset and calls her a cheater, she yells, "No, I'm not cheating! Just give me some space, man!" Millie, as usual, saves the day, explaining gravely that she is the one who is it, and that she'll put Ronnie to bed, then take care of Lindsay.

After the little monster's down for the night, Lindsay tells Millie how Nick is stoned practically 24-7. Millie suggests that Nick does it because he's unhappy, and when Lindsay suggests everyone's unhappy, Millie says she isn't -- at least not in the profound way Lindsay and the freaks are -- because "I know God's taking care of me." She and Lindsay argue about faith vs. reason, and Lindsay, experiencing her first real rush of stoner logic, suggests that all of life might be a dream, and not their dream, but the napping Johnson family dog's -- and if the dog wakes up, they'll all cease to exist. Millie, out to prove to Lindsay that God's world does not take place in the mind of a dog, moves to wake the pooch up, and as a terrified Lindsay begs her to stop, she says, "Just have faith, Lindsay. Have faith! Arise, doggy! Arise! Arise!" The dog wakes up, reality maintains its present state, and Millie nuzzles the dog, smiles and says, "Believe, Lindsay!"

In the aftermath a few hours later, Lindsay's finally coming down from her high (but still has the munchies, as she binges on sugar cereal) and says that she wants to be best friends with Millie again like in the old days. Millie's naive in many ways, but she's not dumb and knows how this story is going to end. She feels sorry for Lindsay, she says, "Because tomorrow, when you're not loaded anymore, you're not going to believe in God, and you're not going to want to be my friend anymore."

It's a superb all-around episode for Sarah Hagan and Millie, but the stuff about God is the best part. With a lesser actress, Millie could come off as really harsh and judgmental -- Millie is, in fact, judging Lindsay for her lack of faith -- but Hagan finds the kindness inside that dialogue. Yes, Millie's disappointed that Lindsay doesn't believe in God the way she used to, that Lindsay doesn't want to hang out with her that much anymore, and that Lindsay got high on the day she was supposed to be babysitting, but it's a resigned, loving kind of disappointment, not condemnation. She wishes she still had the old Lindsay around, but she'll still be her friend when requested/needed, not because she's a doormat, but because she's a good person and that's what good people do. (It's also an appropriate subject since we know Lindsay went from geek to freak after her grandmother's death turned her into an atheist.) It's a really nuanced, generous view of true believers, the kind that some other TV writers (oh, I don't know, Sorkin) could really stand to learn from.

And, again, the episode comes down very anti-drug. Sure, Mr. Rosso is displayed as a buffoon and a hypocrite again when he tries to scare Daniel and Ken straight with a visit from a brain-fried alumnus, but Apatow's script absolutely takes Lindsay's point of view about how the freaks in general and Nick in particular are wasting their lives getting high. There's a really funny counterpoint to Lindsay's freak-out where Daniel, Ken and Nick sit in the basement and listen to music -- the same non-activity we saw Nick enjoying so much earlier -- and completely hating it without pot. ("What do people do when they're not stoned?" asks a baffled Nick.) We see, just as Lindsay does, how much sharper and cooler Nick is when he's not baked, and Lindsay's own high is presented as unpleasant in every way. There's no hysteria here, no DUI car crash moment or any of the other hyperbolic tragedy you see on most other teen shows when their characters drink or do drugs, just the suggestion that, just maybe, getting high all day every day isn't a roadmap to success.

In fact, the worst reaction to a foreign substance that anyone has in the episode is Bill's dangerous peanut allergy, which nearly kills him after Alan slips some nuts in Bill's sandwich as a prank, believing Bill to be full of baloney about the allergy.

Alan gets his hands on this information in social studies class, where Bill is going out of his way to impress the very crush-able Miss Foote (Leslie Mann, aka Mrs. Apatow, in a far sweeter role than her "Knocked Up" character). Bill tells her and the class not only about his allergy to peanuts -- and to bees and air and cats and (some) dogs -- but about Neal's psoriasis and Sam's penchant for fainting at even the thought of blood. This, not surprisingly, turns them into objects of ridicule for the whole class -- including Sam and Neal's new objects of desire Maureen (from "Carded and Discarded") and Vicki Appleby -- and Sam and Neal chew out Bill for holding them back socially in his refusal to be anything but a geek. They're all supposed to go to a sci-fi convention that weekend, but the upwardly mobile Sam and Neal now want to go watch Maureen and Vicki in a cheerleading competition and try to pawn Bill off on Gordon Crisp. (Gordon's a treat throughout this episode, whether it's his "I don't like sci-fi... I love it!" fake-out or his constant plotting of the perfect time and place to put on his costume and make-up for the con.)

There's tension every now and then among the geeks about which one is the geekiest, but this subplot is probably the roughest their internal squabbling ever gets, and of course Bill is the target. Unlike Neal, who thinks he's much smarter and more worldly than he actually is, or the desperate-for-approval Sam, Bill is perfectly secure in the knowledge of who he is and his place in the world. In that way, he's a kindred spirit to Millie, though I think he's more aware of what the rest of the world thinks of him than she is; he just doesn't care. Neither of them have much in the way of guile or pretension -- what you see is what you get -- and in turn they're the most generous, sincere and non-judgmental characters on the show. They might embarrass you from time to time if they're your friend -- assuming you care, as most teenagers do, about other people's perceptions -- but they'll be truer and nicer than any other.

(And yet, when I mentioned this parallel to my wife and she said, "They should have gotten together," I immediately declared it a terrible match. Somehow, I can't see Millie and Bill watching "Welcome Back, Kotter" together.)

I've talked a lot in previous recaps about Martin Starr the comic genius, but he's just as good at the serious moments, the little bits where Bill's honesty can be completely devastating, like his delivery of the line in "The Garage Door" about how his dad called him three months ago. We'll see a lot more of that in the next episode, "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" (also -- perhaps not coincidentally -- another Millie showcase), and we see it here in the moment when he realizes there's peanut in his sandwich. Alan laughs and gloats and sarcastically asks if they should call an ambulance; Bill, very quietly, says, "Yeah," and the next thing we see is him on a gurney as paramedics, Miss Foote and Kowchevski rush him to the ambulance.

Sam and Neal immediately take up a hospital vigil and feel guilty about how they'd been treating their friend. Their conversations are always walking the knife edge between comedy and tragedy. When Bill's mom, Gloria Haverchuck shows up, Neal asks if Bill's still alive, Sam worries that he's going to die, and when Mrs. Haverchuck is gone the two have an argument over semantics. (Neal insists his question was optimistic: "'Alive' is good. 'Die' is bad. Trust me on this. My dad's a dentist.") They try to cheer themselves up by imagining a dead Bill as Casper the friendly ghost, visible only to them, still hanging out and being goofy, but when Sam sees Mrs. Haverchuck crying in Jean's arms, the mood's ruined, as Sam notes, "It would just be dead and gone forever."

Alan's father drags his kid to the hospital to apologize, and Gloria's far more restrained than I would be under similar circumstances, demanding only to know why anyone would do such a horrible thing to her son. While everyone else is down the hall, Alan sneaks into Bill's room and, after confirming to himself that the comatose Bill's still not faking, apologizes and explains why he treats the geeks so badly: they were mean to him first, way back in the fourth grade, when he wanted to go shoot rockets with them and they said no. Alan likes comic books and sci-fi, he explains, and yet the geeks never invite him to conventions or stuff like that.

It's a sweet, character-redeeming moment, and yet I felt then and still feel now like Alan's closeted geekiness was a bit of a writers' fantasy: "You see, that bully who was always demeaning me really wished he could be just like me!" I let it go, though, because it leads to two great moments later in the episode. First, Bill wakes up, and after getting the requisite hugs and tears from his mom and friends, Alan comes in for another apology, and Bill says he heard everything Alan said the first time and invites him to go to the convention with them. Alan immediately reverts to type -- "I don't want to hang with you losers!" he says in mock indignation -- but Bill notes that George Takei will be there, and if Alan wants to come, he just has to meet them at Sam's house at 10 a.m. on Saturday. (Bill is so forgiving that he invites the kid who almost killed him to be his friend!)

And the episode closes with the geeks in full costume -- Neal as Yoda, Sam as Luke Skywalker circa Episode 4, Bill as the Tom Baker Doctor Who (a thanks-for-not-dying present from his mom) -- waiting for Harold to drive them and Gordon. We see Alan on his stupid bicycle lurking behind a bush, clearly wanting to ride up and join them, and just as clearly afraid of the social repercussions if he does. "Man, I just can't do it," he says, shaking his head, and rides off.

Again, I don't completely buy Alan's deep dark secret, but at the same time I appreciate the injection of some harsh reality at the end. Even if Alan really does torment the geeks because he's jealous of them, it's now been going on so long -- with Alan acquiring an entire bully posse along the way -- that he'd be in no man's land if he tried to switch teams. Still, it would have been interesting, had the show continued (sigh...) to see how Alan treated the geeks going forward. (He pops up briefly in the next episode and seems excited about the prospect of Bill getting in trouble for something, but doesn't do anything directly egregious towards Bill or the others.)

God, what a good episode. I want to go back and watch it again, except I have other work to do, and five more recaps to write. And given that the next episode is also heavy on Bill and Millie, I can expand on my fanboyishness there.

Some other thoughts on "Chokin' and Tokin'":

• Claudia Christian (herself something of a geek icon for her time on "Babylon 5") makes the first of two appearances as Bill's hot ex-stripper mom. In her biggest scene here, she confesses to Jean that she blames herself for Bill's allergies, since she drank and did drugs, and Jean makes her feel better by admitting that she dropped Sam's head on a brick patio when he was four months old. (Side note: Jean talks about how they know much more about pre-natal nutrition now than they did when they were pregnant, and of course today moms are even more health-conscious than ever, and yet the kind of nut allergy that was rare in 1980 is becoming increasingly common. My daughter's been in a bunch of different pre-schools and other group activites, and in every one we have to check all her snacks for peanut products -- or even to see if they were made in a factory that also has peanuts -- to avoid endangering one of her friends. It's crazy.)
• Alexander Gould, who played little Ronnie Johnson, would go on to be the voice of the title character on "Finding Nemo" and now stars, appropriately enough, as Mary-Louise Parker's son Shane on "Weeds."
• There's a funny scene where Maureen and Vicki show up at the hospital to comfort Sam and Neal, but the affection doesn't last very long. Neal's already back on the outs with Vicki the next time she appears, in "Smooching and Mooching," and there's a deleted scene here where the guys ask the girls to go with them to Goofy Golf. Their spirits soar when the girls agree, then sink when the girls quickly expand the double-date into a group outing featuring Cindy, Todd and all the other jocks and cheerleaders. Bill arguably gets more real lovin' out of the whole thing, as a worshipful Miss Foote shows up to sit at his bedside after he comes out of the coma.
• Sam Weir, champion of all things funny (and only funny things): last week, he explained he wouldn't see "Ordinary People" because it wasn't a comedy, and when Harold asks him here to name his favorite "Charlie's Angels" character, he picks Bosley. (Though, between the Bosley love and Sam's appreciation for Joe Piscopo's Paulie Herman character, I'm starting to wonder if his sense of humor is a bit too forgiving.)
• "I'm With the Band" established that the freaks bought their pot from their band's bass player Shaun, but here Nick's buying from Mark, the frizzy-haired blonde kid who was so excited to be eliminated in dodgeball back in the pilot.
• Speaking of Seals & Croft, am I the only one incapable of hearing the group's name and immediately flashing to this "Simpsons" scene?

Up next (hopefully by Friday): "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers," a Haverchuck tour de force.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Status update

I've been down a rabbit hole the last few days working on a story for our new Sunday section, so the latest "Freaks and Geeks" recap won't be ready until later today, and I still have to watch "Damages" and a couple of other things before I can do a show blog (also, hopefully, later today). I did have a brief window yesterday in which I was able to write a column, featuring my reviews of "Power of 10" and BBC America's "Hotel Babylon." (Printer-friendly version.) Click here to read the full post

The Dudemeister's kiss

Very brief thoughts on "My Boys" and "Saving Grace" coming up just as soon as I go to confession...

It's always dangerous to watch a TV show about your profession. Cops pick apart all the logic leaps in cop shows, lawyers gripe about legal shows and my hospital administrator wife likes to yell at the TV about all the inaccuracies while we watch "ER" or "House" or "Grey's Anatomy." I'm not a sportswriter, but I work at a newspaper and have a bunch of sportswriter friends, including some women, and I cringed throughout last night's "My Boys." That P.J. would get all flirty with the new Cub was awkward enough, but that she would have absolutely no idea that this is the cardinal sin for female sportswriters -- that half the athletes and coaches and even the male reporters assume they're just there to nail an athlete -- was just awful.

There's probably an episode in P.J. developing an attraction to a player she covers and how she deals with that given the stigma, but she was written here as someone brand-new to sports reporting, and not someone established enough to be the Cubs beat reporter at one of Chicago's two major dailies. I won't object to another appearance by Jay Tarses as the seasoned columnist, but P.J. shouldn't have needed the old guy to explain it to her.

On the plus side, we got another Trouty appearance. I should hate Trouty, as he's a walking collection of tics and cliches in search of a character, but something about Johnny Galecki's performance is really endearing to me. (Or maybe it's just that I've seen him on "Big Bang Theory" and realize how much better he is here.)

After doing a good job the first two episodes balancing Grace's spiritual salvation with the pedestrian cop stories, "Saving Grace" gives us an episode that's at least 70-30 in favor of the cop stuff, and that's not a good ratio. And having established in an earlier episode that Grace was molested by a priest, I found most of the Church-related material heavy-handed, with one exception: when Grace tried to act like she didn't remember her first kiss, I wondered for a minute whose identity she was protecting and realized it was probably the priest. I'm glad that the Lorraine Toussaint character is written as more of an ally for Grace than the previous Disapproving Black Captain, but I either want to see more of Grace and Earl moving forward or they need to really punch up the procedural stories.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

John From Cincy: Mitch Yost gets back in the game

Spoilers for the penultimate episode of "John From Cincinnati" coming up just as soon as I fire up my grill...

So we have one episode left, maybe for now, maybe ever, and while I'm engaged, I don't for a minute believe that all our questions will be answered next week, or even most of them. Milch has always been better with beginnings than endings, and "JFC" is such a messy, shaggy story that I can't picture him tidying things up in a single episode. Hell, Mitch Yost -- our main character when this story began, don't forget -- just came back after being MIA for a bunch of episodes while Bruce Greenwood was off shooting a movie, so I think anyone believing that Milch has a firm grasp of his master plan are just wishing for the best the same way Butchie and Kai are when they convince themselves that John could never hurt Shaun.

I'm actually less interested in the return of Mitch (the show improved quite a bit when he left and the focus had to move off of the Yost marriage) than I am with Erlemeyer the chemist, the latest addition to the show's gallery of familiar TV faces. (For you young'uns, he's played by Howard Hesseman, best known for playing 60's drug casualty Dr. Johnny Fever on "WKRP in Cincinnati," and only slightly less well known for being hipster substitute teacher Charlie Moore on "Head of the Class.") I'm told this isn't a coincidence. One of Milch's chief themes of the series is our tendency to make character judgments based on first impressions, and he wanted his cast populated with actors the audience would feel like they knew -- often, in the case of people like Luis Guzman and Willie Garson, playing the sorts of roles they usually play -- so he could then show us how much deeper people like Ramon and Dickstein and Bill were than we first assumed when we saw the actors in question. I don't know that it's working all the time -- Ramon is nearly as big a cipher to me now as he was at the start, last week's comic ranting notwithstanding -- but it's interesting, and it's not hard to connect the dots between Johnny Fever and Erlemeyer. (Also, from "in Cincinnati" to "from Cincinnati." Better Hesseman than Gary Sandy.)

Another of Milch's pet themes, both on "Deadwood" and here, is the growth of community. As some commenters and other bloggers have pointed out, the Yosts and their friends have for the most part been existing independently of the rest of Imperial Beach. But that world has already been expanding in the last few weeks with the addition of Jerri and Dwayne at the internet cafe, and in one of my favorite sequences from last night, we see Cissy recruit a bunch of surf kids and Vietnam Joe to join the hunt for Shaun, and they in turn recruit more kids and more Vietnam vets. John, whatever his main agenda is, clearly wants the Yosts and the Snug Harbor people to reach out to the world at large. Maybe Butchie and Kai are right: maybe John doesn't mean Shaun any harm, and this is all just a device to help the Yosts "engage," just as Mitch re-engaged Erlemeyer.

The fact that Zippy disappeared along with Shaun and John shouldn't be a surprise, as all three have been tied together ever since Shaun brought Zippy back to life and Zippy returned the favor. What sort of Holy Trinity is this: the surfer, the birdie and the holy frat boy?

I still feel like the writing on this series has been too haphazard. Even if Milch wants, like David Chase's, to move away from TV's familiar narrative conventions, but you have to provide your audience something else in place of the usual rewards, and Milch has only done that some of the time.

But the highs, I'll admit, are pretty damn high. I don't usually think of Milch as a visual writer, and yet some of the strongest moments of "John" have been entirely wordless: the image of Shaun's wetsuit hanging empty like a ghost or a hanged man; the casual insertion of Mister Rollins (the grey man who molested Barry) in the background of the bar scene; and the closing sequence of Butchie sitting in the water, waiting for a wave to come.

That's as apt a metaphor for the series as a whole as I can think of. There are brief moments of tremendous excitement and fury and magic, and then a lot of sitting around, waiting for the next wave to hit. Does the finale give us something great to ride, or does the water remain frustratingly calm?

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

French in action

Spoilers for, in order, "Flight of the Conchords," "The Kill Point" and "Entourage" coming up just as soon as I ship out to Iraq...

Continuing my theory that everyone in the TV business is watching "Flight of the Conchords," earlier this week I heard "SportsCenter" anchor Scott Van Pelt, while narrating footage of Ozzie Guillen being ejected from a White Sox-Yankees game, say "Be more constructive with your feedback, please." Renewal can't be too far away; will world domination be next?

Not a great episode last night, and I'm noticing that the show usually stumbles a bit while doing storylines about the guys and their girlfriends. At first I wanted to blame it on Rachel Blanchard, but this one was entirely Blanchard-free and still felt flat, even with the attempt at gender role reversal between Bret and his special lady friend. Even a weak "Conchords" is worth watching, though, because there's always going to be something funny on the margins.

Here I was especially fond of the '60s-style French video (comic fanboy moment: if someone is ever demented enough to make a movie based on Garth Ennis' "Hitman," seeing Bret in that striped shirt convinced me he's the man to play Jean De Baton-Baton) and Dave giving Bret sausage advice. (Dave's a really nice color for the show to use, as he's more worldly than any of the New Zealanders and yet dumber.)

"The Kill Point" continues to intrigue me, especially after I watched last week's first Summer Burn-Off Theatre episode of "The Nine," which was almost entirely about the bank robbery. As I've said, I'm a sucker for bank robbery hostage stories, but with rare exceptions like "Dog Day Afternoon," they work best at a plot-driven, B-movie level. By starting at the end and working our way backwards over 22 episodes, "The Nine" sucked most of the tension out of the format. (There was a sequence in the latest episode where there's supposed to be some suspense about the fate of Scott Wolf's character, only we know he survived the siege intact.) "Kill Point" doesn't have the ambitions of "The Nine," but it's doing a fine job of singing a straightforward, eight-hour version of the old tune. We're halfway through now, and the creators have done a good job of populating their storyline. They can take someone like the real estate developer dad off the board in time -- the Wahlberg character is so smart that it would have gotten frustrating if he hadn't figured this out by now -- and still have the outside ex-military guys floating around to provide the next potential exit strategy.

Finally, I'm running on fumes with "Entourage." Self-contained Ari subplots don't work, even one that's more work-related than the stuff with his kids' private school, Gary Busey was funnier the last time he was on, and once again there's a lot of hand-wringing about the Variety story (which didn't seem particularly unfair to me) and everything works out fine in the end. Meh. M-E-H, meh.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Boys to men

Very heady times here at What's Alan Watching?, as the blog got blurbed last night in a "John From Cincinnati" ad. (They were quoting my "enthralled" review of the sermon episode.) I've been blurbed a lot from the column, but it's a first for this place, and it has me in a particularly whore-ish mood. What other shows can I blurb now? Would you think less of me if I said "According to Jim" is a comedy masterpiece for our time? "Scott Baio is 45 and Single" is a riveting, thought-provoking examination of relationship and celebrity in the '00s? "The New Adventures of Old Christine" is better than "Seinfeld"?

Speaking of celebrity, today's column deals with VH1's "Mission: Man Band," a Celebrity Has-Beens On Parade series that I didn't hate, since at least it's inviting its has-beens (former members of 'N Sync, Color Me Badd, 98 Degrees and LFO) to do the thing that made them famous. There are also items on HBO's Hiroshima/Nagasaki documentary and the latest round of Fox scheduling shenanigans, the upshot of which is that "Don't Forget the Lyrics!" has bumped "New Amsterdam" to midseason, at least. (Those who prefer the single-page, printer-friendly version can read that instead.)

Reviews of "John" and the other Sunday shows coming up later this morning. Click here to read the full post

Jekyll: Please allow me to introduce myself

Spoilers for the first two hours of "Jekyll" coming up just as soon as I go to the zoo...

I always feel like I'm in murky waters when I review a BBC America show. They send me the original British cuts of everything (with occasional edits for content: curse words elided, sex scenes trimmed, etc.), and I frequently get complaints from readers that what actually aired was cut to shreds, with commercial breaks every five minutes and large chunks of plot removed. I unfortunately don't have time to watch this stuff twice, so I'll be discussing the versions I saw, and hopefully my experience won't diverge too much from yours.

Anyway, as suggested in my Steven Moffat interview on Thursday, I found "Jekyll" to be quite a lot of fun, both in watching Moffat play his usual games with narrative structure and in watching Jimmy Nesbitt turn himself back and forth between Jekyll and Hyde with only minimal makeup.

Splicing the first two episodes together does create something of a mess, as each of the six hours has its own form and storytelling devices. So while the first hour plays with time so we don't see the monster until halfway through, doubling back to his first meeting with Catherine Reimer, the second hour is far more straightforward, starting with the cat-and-mouse game in the apartment and then turning into an action thriller set piece at the lion's den. I don't think they're completely incompatible, but each would have worked together had they aired separately. (The final two hours, which are also going to be lumped together here, flow together a bit better.)

And, dammit, Nesbitt is something to see as Hyde, isn't he? Moffat said he fought for a long time to not have to use any makeup for the change -- he came around only because it would cause plot problems in later episodes if the alter egos looked exactly like each other -- but Nesbitt doesn't really need it. There's that moment in Miranda Callendar's place where the lighting completely obscures his face, yet you can still instantly tell when the change happens. Just a great scenery-chewing (and lion-chewing, and human-chewing) performance.

I have a few problems overall with the miniseries, but I can't discuss most of them until closer to the end, save that the guy playing evil Benjamin is way too broad, and both his English and American accents sound forced. But I hope enough of you are coming along for this ride that we can talk more about it at length over the next month.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Mad Men: Slappy birthday

The morning column link: a mailbag belatedly talking about the Emmys (and the TCA Awards), the future prospects of David Milch's shows, and the amount of smoking on "Mad Men."

And speaking of which, spoilers for the third episode of that show coming up just as soon as I read up on smoking during pregnancy...

"Draper? Who knows anything about that guy? Nobody's ever lifted that rock. He could be Batman for all we know." -Harry

Who the hell is Don Draper? Or is he even Don Draper? That, to me, is the central question -- and the most involving element -- of "Mad Men." Who is this chiseled Cary Grant type who seemingly has it all and yet doesn't feel at home anywhere? Why does he have this June Cleaver doormat wife and yet is drawn to strong-willed, independent adult women like Midge and Rachel? And what's this "Dick Whitman" business?

There are a couple of ways to read Don's encounter on the train: 1)The other guy made a mistake, and Don just played along to get out of the encounter as quickly and painlessly as possible; or 2)Don really was Dick Whitman once upon a time, and changed his identity for reasons we'll learn later. If it's the former, the scene's a comment on how Don often feels like he's living someone else's life; if it's the latter, what's the big secret? (My friend Rich Heldenfels thinks Don's a Jew trying to pass for WASP, which also explains his attraction to Rachel, a Jewish woman who doesn't want to pass but wants to be able to run her business as if she was a blue-blood.) While his face doesn't give anything away at the time (Don rarely gives anything away, which is a credit to Jon Hamm's performance, as another actor might just come off as blank), he's testier than usual when he gets to work, which could be read either as him being freaked out at having been spotted by someone from his Dick Whitman days or just him feeling threatened by the popularity of the Volkswagen "Lemon" ad.

Episode three had a very different structure from the first two, the first half largely occurring at work, the second half entirely devoted to Don's weekend at home and the birthday party. He seems in command in both worlds yet fits into neither. He's unprepared for the popularity of the ironic "Lemon" campaign, can't resist treating Pete like crap even when Pete's playing nice, then ruins things with Rachel by kissing her and finding out she's not as eager as Midge to be a mistress.

Still, it's a fast-paced existence, and life slows to a crawl up in Ossining. The scenes have a more languid, dream-like quality, as Don drifts from one mundane activity to another. I don't think Don hates Betty or the kids, but for reasons he either doesn't understand or can't articulate, he's on the outside of the family looking in, even before Betty makes him get behind the viewfinder of their movie camera. Him not coming back with the cake is the kind of move that could scar his daughter (though she seemed just fine with the dog), yet I can see why he couldn't get out of the car.

The party sequence was filled with those moments that some people find sledgehammer subtle and others just consider authentic period detail: the pregnant lady with the cigarette, the one husband scamming on Helen the divorcee, the dad who slaps another man's kid for spilling his drink (followed by the kid's own father forcing his son to apologize). I understand both sides of this argument. Like I mentioned in the mailbag column, I know pregnant women smoked at the time, but it's such a shocking image now that I can see how for some people, the scene becomes entirely about the pregnant lady. It's a really fine line to walk; I think Weiner and company are succeeding so far, but I recognize why others disagree.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Freaks and Geeks Rewind: The Garage Door

Spoilers for the "Freaks and Geeks" episode "The Garage Door" coming up just as soon as I compose a haiku about the tuba...

"The Garage Door" is a stand-out episode in many ways. It's the first episode of the series where the geek storyline has significantly more dramatic weight than the freak plot. It manages to find time to focus on all three freak couples (or, in the case of Nick and Lindsay, ex-couple). Most importantly, though, it's the first spotlight for either Samm Levine as Neal or Seth Rogen as Ken.

It's interesting how the two actors and characters parallel each other. Levine and Rogen were both teenage stand-up comics (though Rogen looks much older, he's actually a month younger than Levine) with minimal to no acting experience before this show. Until this point, Neal and Ken were used almost excusively to make sarcastic comments about the other characters. And despite each actor's comedy backgrounds, their showcase episodes (this one, "Noshing and Moshing" for Neal, "The Little Things" for Ken) lean more towards the dramatic. (The Neal stuff is particularly tragic, but even Ken's romance is played more as sweet, especially here.) In fact, the man who gets most of the really funny lines is our token Serious Actor, James Franco.

Previous episodes had hinted that all was not right in the marriage between Neal's dentist father (Sam McMurray, back again after "The Diary") and mom (Amy Aquino), and "The Garage Door" confirms that. After a few scenes to establish how much cooler Dr. and Mrs. Schweiber seem than Harold and Jean -- he loves watching "SNL" with the geeks and is going to buy Neal an Atari for his birthday, she plays tennis and drops words like "Ciao" into casual conversation without being pretentious about it -- Sam spots Dr. Schweiber giving a very romantic-looking hug to a pretty blonde woman at the local appliance store. Schweiber tries to play it off as something innocent (the woman is "an old high school friend of mine... from high school"), but Sam knows better -- even if he doesn't know whether he should tell Neal.

After telling Bill what he saw (and, in a very funny scene, demonstrating, in the middle of the cafeteria, what kind of hug it was), Bill insists that Sam has to alert Neal, that the geeks have a "code" against keeping secrets from each other. (Bill's proof: he told them about the time he pooped in science class when he meant to fart.) Sam resists, but while the three of them are enjoying Neal's new Atari -- which Dr. Schweiber bought ahead of schedule out of guilt -- Bill spills the beans. Neal naturally refuses to believe that his awesome dad could be a cheater, and accuses the other two of being jealous. (In a particularly low but honest moment, he invokes Bill's long-absent father.)

Dr. Schweiber conveniently walks in at that moment and can tell there's trouble in Adultery City, so he schedules a terrified Sam for an early morning dental check-up the next day. Neal, not so blinded by father-worship that he can't see something funny in his dad's reaction to Sam's reaction to him, rifles through his father's Corvette (complete with "I FLOSSEM" vanity plate) and turns up a second garage door opener that doesn't work on their door.

In a scene that works whether or not you know the "Is it safe?" bit from "Marathon Man," Dr. Schweiber interrogates Sam while wielding various dental instruments, but eventually decides he's the one who should be confessing. He insists that he's not having an affair, and in the very next breath admits that he didn't date much when he was young (no doubt he was a geek like his son) and has been with the same woman since college. "It gets so hard, Sam," he whines. "I feel there's something missing in my life, and I think I deserved a chance to find out what that something is. Don't you?" He promises Sam that the affair will be over soon, and Sam in turn pretends that he hasn't told Neal. (In a grim comic grace note, Sam really does have a cavity, but we cut away before the drilling begins.)

Neal tells the other geeks about the garage door opener, and after school they hop on their bikes in hopes of finding Dr. Schweiber's "love nest." Sam and Bill are gung-ho at first to help, but after day turns into night, both start angling to head home. Neal feels betrayed ("If it was your dad, you wouldn't be in such a hurry to go home") and keeps riding solo, eventually opening a garage door -- with his dad's 'Vette inside -- long after dark. He hurls the opener at the car and rides off, furious and broken-hearted.

Levine does a great job with an unexpectedly dark storyline (he's even better in its sequel a few episodes from now), yet the scene from this plot that always hits me the most involves Sam. The revelation that his friend's father could cheat has Sam fearing the possibility that Harold is stepping out -- even after a great sight gag where Harold walks past Sam's door in his underwear, black socks and shoes just as Sam is proposing the idea to Lindsay. When he comes home from the garage door mission, Jean and Harold -- feeling some peer pressure from the Schweibers, plus a desire to reward their terrific son -- present him with his very own Atari, and Sam, remembering the circumstances that got Neal his video game system, collapses, sobbing, into a confused Harold's arms. (I don't think he believes this means that Harold is having an affair, but the mere suggestion of it -- plus the realization of how lucky he is compared to Neal -- wrecks him.) Just a perfect example of how the writers managed to keep every character in mind even while writing a single-character storyline.

Over in shinier, happier freak country, Ken surprises himself and the other freaks when he develops a crush on Lindsay's tuba-playing friend Amy, who can match Ken sarcasm for sarcasm. Sample exchanges from their encounter at a diner, with Amy in full marching band uniform:

Ken: "Nice threads!"
Amy (perfectly aping Rogen's deep, old man tones): "Nice voice!"

Ken: "Hey, Sgt. Pepper, where's the rest of the lonely hearts band?"
Amy: "Looks like you ate them!"

Ken, who began the episode mocking Amy and her tuba from the safety of the McKinley bleachers, is ashamed to admit his feelings, but when Daniel catches him staring into the band room, completely lovelorn, Daniel says he's happy for him ("We've been waiting since the third grade for you to like somebody!") and volunteers to have Lindsay talk to Amy on Ken's behalf.

Lindsay, still enduring a steady crap barrage from Ken, is reluctant to help him out until she realizes that he really, really likes Amy. She bluntly tells Amy that Ken has a crush on her, and Amy admits she thinks he's totally cute, especially the mutton-chops she mocked earlier. ("Don't you want to reach out and touch them?" she asks a disgusted Lindsay.)

Nick has been pushing the freaks all episode to go to the local Laser Dome's Pink Floyd show (none of them wants to go, but nobody can think of anything better to do, either), and Amy tags along as Ken's date. In one of those details I believe was lifted straight from Paul Feig's own teenage years, Nick gets the schedule wrong, and the freaks actually wind up attending Southern Rock Night, where "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," "Freebird" and, notably, "Aimee" provide the score for Ken's first kiss. The date starts off awkwardly, and while Amy's buying refreshments, Daniel tells Ken he'll have to make the first move ("She's a band chick, man!"), that he should stare at her until she's ready to be kissed, and that simply asking to kiss her is a loser's move. Though Daniel is spot-on with fixing his own relationship (more in a minute), Ken's staring just creeps out Amy, but when he comes right out and asks if he can kiss her, she leans in and plants one on him.

Apatow has said that it was the second Ken/Amy episode, "The Little Things," that convinced him that Rogen had real comic leading man potential, but you can see glimmers of it throughout this episode. The puppy dog expression at the band room door is brilliant, as are all of Ken's stunned reactions at discovering himself capable of sincere emotions. ("I feel odd," he tells Lindsay, in one of several brilliant Rogen line-readings.) He may not have been ready for "Knocked Up" yet, but he was clearly on his way.

In the background of this wacky little courtship are progress reports for both Daniel/Kim and Lindsay/Nick. In the former pairing, Daniel has a brainstorm about how to avoid the constant arguing with Kim: he'll just let her yell and nag (in this case, about the fact that he once made out with some other girl at Laser Dome) without responding, which will confuse her and defuse any fight after a few minutes. He compares it to the tortoise and the hare, but it's more like Ali's Rope-A-Dope strategy with Foreman; Kim verbally punches herself out every time. Franco has himself a grand old time with this concept, getting big laughs out of a lot of lines and reactions that I can't imagine being that funny on the page.

(My favorite scene in this subplot: in study hall, Kim accuses Daniel of being full of crap, and he asks her, seeming very serious, "What if I'm not?" Kim has no idea how to respond to this, and asks, "Are you?" "I don't think so," he says, again baffling her. Really, you need to see how Franco and Busy Philipps play it; I'm not remotely capturing it.)

Because Ken's so happy and Daniel and Kim are enjoying a rare stretch of peace, we have to find at least one freak feeling miserable, so it's time to revisit Nick's feelings for Lindsay. Shockingly, he's still into her, while she's still trying to figure out a polite way to say she's not interested -- and in a funny bit of synchronicity, Daniel and Kim each give Nick and Lindsay the exact same advice: treat the other one coldly until they come around to what you want. The silent treatment doesn't work well for either of them, and at Laser Dome Lindsay says she doesn't want to lead Nick on if he still likes her. Nick, as we've seen him do before (and as we'll see him do again) tries to disguise his hurt by attacking the other person, in this case accusing Lindsay of being conceited. But when he sees Daniel/Kim and Ken/Amy spending the better part of "Freebird" with their lips locked, he turns to Lindsay and admits, "I'd be lying if I didn't say this was painful."

What a superb episode from start to finish. This and "Chokin' and Tokin'" were the last two episodes to air before NBC canceled the show (three more aired on NBC that summer, the rest the following fall on Fox Family Channel, but not all in order), and they proved that Apatow, Feig and company were just hitting their stride when the axe fell.

Some other thoughts on "The Garage Door":

• Nick's not the only one being transparent in his continued feelings towards Lindsay. In an early scene at the Weir dinner table that's otherwise about setting up Jean's inferiority complex towards the Schweiber's, Neal tries to impress Lindsay with a display of his sensitive side, noting that he cried while watching "Ordinary People," and that he intends to see it again (hint, hint!). Neal has apparently blocked out that time he professed his love to her and she started openly weeping (or else he's choosing to focus entirely on the platonic peck on the cheek she gave him minutes later), but his approach is totally wrong for a girl who knows he digs her.
• A few guest star notes: Before she played Amy, Jessica Campbell was Chris Klein's lesbian kid sister in "Election" and I figured she was on the verge of big things (or, at least, some kind of indie film career), but her two appearances here were essentially the last we saw of her. Meanwhile, Tava Smiley (aka Dr. Schweiber's mistress) has segued from acting to steady work as an infotainment personality.
• Check that about Franco getting most of the really big laughs: I neglected Segel's rendition of the "If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding?" line from "The Wall." (Franco still trumps him for overall laughter, including the bit where Daniel brings up Nick's spoken word rendition of "Lady" and telling Nick, "Jesus, man, we didn't want to be friends with you after hearing about that!")

Up next: "Chokin' and Tokin'," in which Bill and Lindsay have very bad reactions to, respectively, peanuts and pot, and it's not clear whose is worse.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Rescue Me: So maybe that isn't it for me...

As I mentioned in my kiss-off review of the episode from three weeks ago, I was going to stick it out with "Rescue Me" through the rest of the season but didn't plan to blog about it. Then came last night's episode, "Seven," which featured several things I felt the need to either praise or damn (or both).

Spoilers coming up just as soon as I look up the nutritional content of edible panties...

Fair is fair, credit where credit's due, etc.: Last time out, I complained that the show had degenerated into a series of barely-connected scenes, some great, some awful, but all so tonally independent of each other that you could essentially edit each episode at random without changing much. But with the exception of the basketball game (and even that fit to a certain extent, if you look at it as a moment of respite for the guys), "Seven" felt all of a piece. The tragic events of the Baby Fire informed every scene that followed, whether it was Lou's sudden desire for children, Franco's reaction to the permanent return of Susan Sarandon and his daughter, or every single scene involving Tommy and his doubts about baby no-name. You can even justify Mike letting Garrity off the hook about the house fire under the "puts everything into perspective" umbrella.

The rescue sequence itself was harrowing (though I think it's one of those bits where the alt-rock soundtrack got in the way; it would have had even more impact if there was no score at all, just the confused shouts and calls and grunts of the characters), and Needles' speech about the guys being heroes was maybe the best speech on the show since Tommy's monologue at the beginning of the pilot.

But Tommy dangling No-Name over the railing? No. There is simply no way that Leary and Tolan can convince me that child-revering (albeit lousy-parenting) Tommy Gavin even entertains the thought of drowning a baby, let alone drives out to the river and holds the kid out while he makes up his mind. Probably not drunk and absolutely not sober. I don't care how opressive the atmosphere at Casa Gavin has become, how many ghosts (whether Johnny, or Tommy's own shade) talk him into it, it's about the only line I believe this guy would never, ever cross, even mentally.

(I won't say more than that because I made the mistake of going to FX's website to scrounge around for a photo to accompany this post, and the blurb about next week's episode completely spoils where this is going. Seriously, don't ever go there.)

What did everybody else think? Is my opinion of Tommy in this instance actually too high? For those of you who've been as down on the show as I have, did "Seven" redeem it in any way, or did it just remind you that Leary and Tolan can still knock one out of the park on occasion? Click here to read the full post

Jekyll of all trades

Today's column previews BBC America's upcoming "Jekyll" miniseries, but really it's an excuse to talk about the genius of writer Steven Moffat (even if he isn't nearly as impressed with himself as I am with him):

Imagine if the same man created "Friends," then popped in once a year to write that season's best episode of "The X-Files," and on the side dabbled in updating 19th century English literature for a contemporary TV audience.

There may be American TV writers talented enough to pull off that kind of hat trick, but the business rarely encourages that kind of genre-hopping. The British TV system isn't so quick to pigeonhole, which is how a man like Steven Moffat gets to show off his amazing versatility.

He created "Coupling" -- the original BBC version, not the loathed NBC remake, which we'll get back to -- a hilarious comedy of sexual manners about six intertwined pals. Each season, he's writ ten an episode of the new "Doctor Who" series that's held up as that year's highlight.

(In season one, it was the Lon don Blitz two-parter. For season two, he gave us "The Girl in the Fireplace," with the Doctor and Madame De Pompadour having a love affair that spanned either a few hours or a lifetime, depending on which one you asked. In early September, Sci Fi Channel will present "Blink," a paradox-filled treat that the British fans adored even though it barely featured the Doctor at all.)

And on Saturday night, BBC America presents "Jekyll," Moffat's riveting six-hour (though aired here in four installments, the first and last double-length) sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

To read the full thing, click here. (If you'd prefer to go straight to the printer-friendly one-page version, click here, then close your printer pop-up window.) I'll be blogging about all four installments of "Jekyll," which is terrific. (Though I feel I should add the usual BBC America caveat that I have no idea how badly it'll be cut up when it airs.) Click here to read the full post

Get (back) into the groove

So I returned to the office today to find two overflowing USPS bins full of mail waiting for me. Several hours of unpacking and viewing later (interrupted briefly so I could write up my interview with "Jekyll" writer Steven Moffat for tomorrow's paper), I... well, I still have a whole lot to catch up on, not to mention treats that I would love to watch (the complete "A Bit of Fry & Laurie" box set) if I ever had the time.

But I'll comment on a few shows I got a chance to look at that have already aired. Spoilers for, in order, "Big Love," "The Kill Point" and "The Bronx Is Burning" (plus a question about "Damages") coming right up...

I have a very ambivalent relationship with "Big Love." I admire it, at times even really enjoy it, but as I've mentioned in the past, I always feel held at a distance from it. (This led to much marital friction in the ramp-up to press tour, as my "Big Love"-loving wife complained that I never got into that show and yet was zipping through my screeners of "Tell Me You Love Me," which she hated.) I would be happy if I never had to see another Juniper Creek scene again, as I find all those characters far too broad and thin for a show with such high ambitions. And, frankly, Bill Henrickson himself gives me the creeps. I think that's supposed to be the point of the character, that Bill Paxton is giving an uncompromising performance, and that Bill has to be written this way to make the stories of the wives -- the heart of the show, and the reason I keep checking in despite my dislike of the rest of it -- work, but I wish that could be accomplished in smaller increments of screen time.

All that said, the latest episode was really quite something, absolutely living up to the "Kingdom Come" title. The Roman vs. Hollis action happened largely off-stage, and Roman even took a few bullets at the episode's end. (Though, of course, the direction made note of the fact that he was shot in three potentially non-fatal spots; much as I'm in a hurry to be rid of him, I suspect the writers will stick ol' Roman in a coma for a while and then bring him back in a big way in season three.) Bill grappled with the wives on the issues of free time, adding a fourth wife, and the impact that living the principle is having on their children. (Jeanne Tripplehorn in the scene where Barb hears her son's thoughts on polygamy? Amazing.) When the series moves away from the political gamesmanship and sticks to the nuts and bolts of trying to fit this lifestyle into a modern American life, it can be pretty great. Now that I'm home and at the same point in my viewing as the rest of the audience, I'm going to make an effort to blog at least a few more times before the season's over.

I'm not completely caught up on "The Kill Point" -- the Spike screener I had in my luggage only featured the pilot, so I'll have to track down episode two with the DVR -- but I really liked what I saw, and not just because there are so many "Wire" actors in the cast. (So far, I've got four: Michael Hyatt (Brianna Barksdale) as the SWAT commander, Michael K .Williams (Omar) as the sniper and J.D. Williams (Bodie) and Leo Fitzpatrick (Johnny) as two of the robbers.)

Bank hostage dramas are one of those genres (like underdog sports movies and "12 Angry Men" rip-offs) I'm a sucker for, so much so that I laughed when I realized the father and son in the bank are named Sabian. (Not sure if it's an intentional hat-tip, but Kevin Spacey's character in "The Negotiator" was named Chris Sabian -- a name repeated by every character in that movie so many times that I have to assume it was in Spacey's contract.) There are certain obligatory tropes to the genre, and the pilot handled a bunch of them nicely: the breach gone bad, the push-pull between negotiator and hostage taker and, especially, the "Dog Day Afternoon" moment where the hostage taker gets the crowd and/or media on his side. I could do without Donnie Wahlberg's grammar fetish (I was fine with it as a quirk until he made an underling waste valuable time confirming the apostrophe thing), but unless there was a massive nosedive in episode two (no spoilers, please, though comments on quality are fine), I think I'm in this thing through the end.

Finally, "The Bronx Is Burning" lapped me last night. I had seen the first three episodes before press tour, but while episode four was airing last night, I was in the actual Bronx watching every player but A-Rod hit a home run. Fortunately, the massive mail pile included episode four, so I watched it a few minutes ago. Same basic opinions -- the Son of Sam stuff feels totally extraneous, the mix of actors and archival footage is clumsy, and Turturro's really good -- with one caveat: while I was enjoying Platt's Steinbrenner in the first few episodes, he's starting to feel a little too cartoony, even for Boss '77. Also, I'd have to check my copy of the book (or my tattered copy of Steve Jacobsen's "The Best Team Money Can Buy"), but I don't recall Lou and Thurman's pep talk with Steinbrenner taking place on the night of the Blackout, or that Billy drunkenly interrupted it. (I could be wrong on the latter point, I admit.)

UPDATE: Whoops. Almost forgot that episode two of "Damages" (which I saw a few weeks ago) was on last night. Thoughts?

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post