06:30 The Middleman
07:30 The Burning Zone
08:30 Supernatural
12:00 Back To You
12:30 That '70s Show
01:00 Good Morning Miami
The Middleman. Episode 7. "The Cursed Tuba Contingency" What a surprise. Usually I watch this show for the jokes, witty dialogue, pop culture references and elaborate plots. I was totally side-swiped this week by the romance between The Middleman and Lacey. Side-swiped because I found myself totally into it. Right from the start of the episode, when they sat side-by-side in the empty cinema I was smitten with them as a couple. And that's not been the case. Up to now I've not really warmed to the character of Lacey and the crush she had on The Middleman was just a throw-away gag in every episode. Now suddenly it was the main thing in an episode and it really worked for me. Brit Morgan and Matt Keeslar had great chemistry and the storyline was really romantic. Their cinema visits were wonderful. Her staying to see the end of the movie for him, and telling him what happened later during their goodbye dance, were very sweet and romantic. Darn, but it really got to me. And, suddenly, I'm totally rooting for them as a couple. If they don't end up together in the last episode I will feel royally jipped.
The Burning Zone. Episode 2. "The Silent Tower" While there were a few things to like in the pilot, this first episode of the regular series is across-the-board awful in all respects. Michael Harris joins the cast and is the best thing about the episode. Daniel Cassian is an interesting hero, and a reason to watch every week. Edward Marcase was written like an arrogant jerk in the pilot and this time out they writers have him fall victim to the virus in the opening minutes of the story and send him wandering around a deserted tower block for the duration of the episode. Crazy. This is the frakkin' lead character. And he's completely sidelined in the second episode? That's bad television, no matter how you look at it. Writers with no idea of how to establish a hero.
Tone-wise the show is trying so hard to be The X-Files that it comes across as ridiculous. Nobody trusts anybody, and everybody is lying to everybody. For, as far as I can see, no good reason. The paranoia and distrust made sense on The X-Files, but it's just silly here. Government conspiracies built up around viruses? How can they expect us to take this seriously?
Cassian makes a pretty likable and interesting hero, it must be said. Even if most of his scenes are very badly written (the twist at the end of this episode, for instance, is beyond awful). In fact, all the scenes are badly written. And the story is nonsense. A tower block where everybody committed suicide? Because it was - it turns out - build on a secret lab belonging to a long-deceased evil scientist. Who - it is revealed at the very end - is now one of Cassian's bosses?
I'm sorry but that makes no sense. The X-Files was able to get great milage from the idea what Scully and Mulder were often sent in as sacrificial lambs by people who knew the whole story but didn't reveal it to our heroes. This show tries the same idea, but it's silly when applied to a story about something so huge. And also applied to a team that is, at this stage, incredibly inept. On The X-Files, at least, you knew why they were using Mulder: he was bloody brilliant at what he did, and they could - to a large degree - predict how he would react and deal with stuff.
Marcase and his team are, it must be said, inept idiots. Two team members have become infected in their first two cases.
It's just silly TV. Sigh.
Supernatural. Season 2, Episode 9. "Croatoan" Beyond superb. This was something special. Maybe I just have a weak spot for stories like this... who knows? For whatever reason, I loved every single second of this amazing episode. This is the sort of TV hour I would rewatch over and over if I had enough spare time. The boys arrive in a town and soon find themselves trapped with a few innocents while absolutely everyone else in town goes crazy. It's the Supernatural take on every zombie movie you have every loved and I have to marvel at the way the writers can incorporate stock ideas into the world of the show and make them work.
If you accept that Supernatural is X-Files for the 00s then you must accept that they have much more restricted pallette from which to craft their stories. I mean, the clue is in the title: all stories must involve the supernatural! So, from the get-go lots of stock sci-fi/fantasy ideas are off the table. Yet, the show finds inventive ways to bring stuff onto the show that you might never expect. In this tale, you get all the beats you'd expect to find in Zombie flicks, or tales of alien possession, or standard stories of apocalyptic plagues. But, no... it's all tied to the recurring demon/evil on the series. Now, that's clever TV.
As for the actual story itself: Wow. Intense stuff. Not just in terms of what happens to everyone in the story, but based on the character drama between the two brothers. Dean has never been cooler, or - in the same beat - more chilling and scary. Jared Padalecki does some of his best work on the show, as Sam faces his own death. He really nailed it. No over-the-top antics, he just conveyed the weight falling on Sam's shoulders as contemplated his fate and totally pulled us in to feel it too. I knew that Sam wasn't going to die (Hello!) but the point was making the audience feel his pain and marvel - yet again - at the amount of suffering this poor guy has to go through.
Supernatural's ace-in-the-hole is the ability is tell strong stand-alone stories and use each one to examine (and lay bare) the characters of the men at the centre of it all. Thirty episodes in and the show has delivered two of TV's best ever heroes. Very real people in the middle of un-real stories.
Back To You. Episode 16. "Chuck and Kelly, Doin' It Again" Oh dear. Another dismal post-revamp episode. Although it is set in the workplace, this is - once again - driven by Chuck and Kelly's daughter. And, guess what? The little tyke has managed to suck the funny out, once again.
There are laughs, yes. Fred Willard and (the great) Ty Burrell have a funny plot about swapping ties, but most of the episode has Chuck and Kelly dealing with an ad campaign with strong sexual undertones. On the same day they have decided to tell the world about their daughter. There's not a lot of milage in that idea. And the point of the episode seems to be to engineer problems so Chuck and Kelly can make a grand gesture at the very end and tell everybody live on air.
It's undoubtedly meant to be warm and fuzzy.
But it's false as frak! The sort of crap that only happens on TV. It might work on an emotional level if we - the audience - cared about this daughter. But we don't and I resent having yet another episode devoted to her.
I'd suck it up if there were laughs, but there's aren't. End of review.
That '70s Show. Season 6, Episode 6. "We're Not Gonna Take It" Average episode. Nothing special. Three plots: Eric and Kelso compete for a waiter job, Red tries to get Fez and Laurie divorced, Donna and Jackie try to help Bob with his post-break-up depression. Each plot generates a few laughs, but nothing special happens.
Good Morning Miami. Episode 8. "Penny Wise, Jake Foolish" While it does have flaws (the subplots are weak) this is the first superb episode of GMM. This is where they started to hit it out of the ballpark. And there are no gimmicks or nonsense to drive the story. Just good gags and great character work.
Penny, Dylan and Jake dominate the episode and this is the one where the writers (skillfully and with great subtlety) tell us that Penny has a crush on Jake in the same way that Jake has a crush on Dylan. Genius. It makes the show suddenly more interesting. Certainly for me, because Penny was always my favourite character (and I'm mad about Constance Zimmer).
I've seen this episode many, many times and I always admire the way the writers tell their story. It's Jake's birthday and he tells Claire that he wants a watch. We see Penny hearing this. Claire points out that a watch is a romantic gift. And that's the end of that. We get one more reminder during the episode (from guest star: the great Kenneth Mars) that watches are romantic gifts. Then, at the very end, we see that Penny has bought Jake a watch for his birthday. Which, in the closing seconds, she doesn't give him. Awww.
Broke my heart the first time I saw it. Still breaks my heart, to be honest.
Apart from that, all the Penny-Dylan-Jake stuff is great. Very funny. Penny delivers several really great one-liners and there's a great playfulness to all the scenes between the three of them. The writers pull a great double-bluff by making us think that Dylan has the wrong idea that Penny likes Jake. Clever writing all round, then.
Except in the sub-plots (Gavin addicted to gum, Frank stealing from a corpse). Never mind. I love this episode anyway.
Highlight? Good Morning Miami (Penny likes Jake, aw...)
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Sun, Sep 7, 08 - Middleman, Burning Zone, Supernatural, Back To You, That '70s Show, Good Morning Miami
