Diana's Adventures in TV Land: Mad Men

This one's been on the to-do list for a while now: the show everyone's talking about, the show kazekage has been urging me to watch for months - and that counts for a lot, given how much I enjoyed the last series he recommended (Gargoyles).

So, just to start things off properly: sorry, love. Couldn't make it past six episodes.

I give the creators of "Mad Men" due praise for their recreation of 1960's New York: every detail radiates authenticity, even though I'm sure some liberties have been taken in terms of historical accuracy. And, as predicted, I've developed a major crush on Jon Hamm.

(Take note, CW bleach-babies - this is what a real man looks like!)

But frankly, my problem with this series has less to do with style and more to do with substance.

I'll preface the following review by admitting that my standards of evaluation aren't what they were a year ago; back then, if a somewhat-flawed series caught my interest, I'd stick around for at least a full season to see if things got better. I'm still watching (and enjoying) "The Vampire Diaries" because it's improved significantly since its initial mediocrity.

Unfortunately, I find myself sitting on a rather intimidating pile of books, movies and games at the moment, all of which I'd like to check out (and possibly review), which means I have considerably less patience for stories that don't hook me after a reasonable amount of time.

So I gave "Mad Men" six episodes. Is that fair? I'd like to think so - six hours is more than enough to present one of the two things I need in order to stay invested in a narrative: interesting characters or an entertaining story. (Years of substandard television have taught me never to expect both at the same time, but to be highly appreciative if they do show up hand-in-hand.)

Part of the problem may be hype backlash - more than any series I'm currently aware of, "Mad Men" has gained near-unanimous praise from critics and viewers alike. And yet, the one word that springs to mind when I try to describe this series is "joyless": taking into account that the whole point seems to be ridding its viewers of any nostalgic idealization of the period, there just isn't any fun to be had here.

It's the story of an ad agency, at a time when advertising was on the cusp of transforming into what it is now. And the entire cast is deeply screwed up, somewhere between Jackie Peyton and Nancy Botwin on the Arkham Asylum Scale of Batshit Lunacy.

Except that with Jackie and Nancy (and Tara Gregson, and Dexter Morgan, and Abed Nadir) there's so much more to the characters than just their idiosyncratic craziness. Dexter has his sardonic narration, Nancy has her equally crazy family and so on. With "Mad Men", there's no getting away from all these unhappy people being unhappy. There's no humor, no adventure, nothing but a sense of gravitas so immense and overwhelming I can practically feel myself being pulled towards the screen. For example: watching Pete squirm in episode 4 probably would've been gratifying if I found Roger or Don to be even mildly likeable. But of course, they're as miserable as everyone else.

On a final note, I don't think this problem has anything at all to do with the writing per se - the dialogue is crisp, story developments make sense, and there's enough characterization to give me a fair-to-decent grasp of the main cast in a relatively short amount of time. It's a well-told story, but that story doesn't appeal to me as a viewer. And while it's entirely possible that the atmosphere becomes a bit more balanced at some later point, I'm not going to drag myself through the depths of abyssal angst to get there.

Diana's Adventures in TV Land: Gargoyles

Note: This review refers specifically to the first two seasons of "Gargoyles" - since series creator Greg Weisman has taken surprisingly drastic steps to disavow the third season, I might as well do the same.

First, my thanks to kazekage for introducing me to this series.

The basic premise of "Gargoyles" is as follows: a thousand years ago, humans enjoyed a peaceful (if uneasy) relationship with Gargoyles, stone warriors that came to life after sunset and protected their shared homes. In 994 AD, one such home - Castle Wyvern in Scotland - is invaded by a horde of Vikings during the day. The helpless Wyvern Clan is decimated, leaving only six survivors. These survivors, including clan leader Goliath, are then frozen by a magic spell "until the castle rises above the clouds".

A millenium later, "eccentric" millionaire David Xanatos transplants the entire castle, brick by brick, onto the top of his corporate headquarters in Manhattan. The skyscraper's added height puts Castle Wyvern - and its Gargoyle statues - above the cloudline, and when the sun sets Goliath and his clan are released into a very different world.

As might be expected, the first season (13 episodes) deals with the Gargoyles orienting themselves in the modern world: they befriend Eliza Maza, a police officer, and make quite a few enemies as well. Goliath ultimately decides to declare Manhattan the Gargoyles' new home, and dedicates them all to defending the city from criminals and supernatural threats. And plenty of both emerge in the much-lengthier second season (52 episodes).

To better explain why I find "Gargoyles" so impressive, I've put together a little list of Things I Never Thought I'd See in a '90s Disney Cartoon (in no particular order):

1. Blood. Characters don't bleed often, but when they do, it's a significant moment, like Demona clawing Gillecomgain's face (thus giving birth to the endless vendetta of the Hunters) or Broadway accidentally shooting Elisa in the back with her own gun.

2. Character development. For everyone. Take a look at this "group photo" for the Disney Afternoon: "Tale Spin", "Darkwing Duck", "Gummi Bears", "Ducktales" - all amusing series in their own ways, but they all followed very strict status quos. Not so with "Gargoyles": the protagonists evolve, as do most of the antagonists.

2a. Most of the villains have a rather surprising amount of depth and growth. Demona is completely axe-crazy (and how's this for cognitive dissonance: she's voiced by Marina Sirtis, who probably only raised her voice two or three times throughout the entire run of "Star Trek: The Next Generation") but once her backstory is revealed, it's hard not to feel sorry for her, even though she refuses redemption at every opportunity. Xanatos seems to be the Gargoyles' archenemy (and i now understand why it's called the Xanatos Gambit: he's a brilliant Thrawn-level manipulator) but by the end of the second season he becomes a husband and a father, and finds common ground with Goliath (the one Gargoyle who hates him the most). Even Macbeth manages to let go of his hatred during his last appearance.

3. The Gargoyles are frozen in 994 AD and wake up in 1994; the natural assumption is that we're focusing on the present day. For the most part, this is true... until we discover that two storylines unfolded during the interrim, both of which have major ramifications on the present. The "City of Stone" arc flashes back to Demona's life after the fall of Castle Wyvern - a fittingly tragic tale that continues to reverberate throughout the second season. And then, later in the season, we learn what happened to the human Wyvern survivors and the Gargoyles' unhatched eggs. The series makes excellent use of its timeline.

4. Halfway through the second season, Goliath discovers he has a daughter, Angela... and he rejects her. Granted, it's more to do with how Gargoyles view family: children belong to the entire clan, so it doesn't really matter who the biological parents are. But it's still a shocking moment that taints our hero, especially since Angela does see him as her father. Of course, when he finally comes to love and accept Angela as his own, she's injured by the newest incarnations of the Hunter. Skip to 5:10
here and tell me you don't get the chills.

5. Much has been made of the series' surprisingly high number of loans from "Star Trek": Nichelle Nichols, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Kate Mulgrew, Brent Spiner and Michael Dorn all had recurring roles, while others such as Colm Meaney, LeVar Burton and Avery Brooks turned up for guest-spots. So for someone who's even moderately familiar with the Roddenberry franchise, it's pretty much a constant string of "Hey, I know that voice!"

5a. But that tends to overshadow the fact that the rest of the cast were excellent as well, particularly Keith David, John Rhys-Davies, Tim Curry (brr!) and Jeff Bennett, who totally channeled his QFG4 Ad Avis voice for Owen.

6. Various episodes take turns exploring Scottish, Irish, English, Native American, Nordic and Greek mythologies, with a line of dialogue summing it up perfectly: "All legends are true." But it's Shakespeare who gets the most love from the series' writers: Puck, Oberon, Titania, Macbeth and the Weird Sisters are all major players in the mythology, while Coldstone and his companions were apparently once known as Othello, Desdemona and Iago. Shakespeare and Disney - not a partnership I'd have anticipated.

Which isn't to say that "Gargoyles" is entirely without flaws. Pacing is a bit problematic throughout the series: for example, Puck is introduced very early in season 2 and doesn't turn up again for almost forty episodes; nothing much comes of Demona's ability to withstand daylight; the Illuminati are built up as major players but fizzle out towards the end; and the King Arthur subplot is practically an afterthought.

Also, while the World Tour arc had some great out-of-Manhattan adventures, the payoff was surprisingly lacking: almost twenty episodes are used to establish characters such as Cuchulainn, Natsilane, the New Olympians and the Gargoyle clans of England, Guatemala and Japan, but once the dust settles they never appear again. Granted, there were only six episodes left in the season once the World Tour ended, but I kept expecting Goliath's new allies to turn up during the Gathering or the Hunter's Moon - both major crisis points for the Manhattan Clan - and they're not even mentioned. Apparently the World Tour was meant to springboard an entire array of spin-offs, but to my knowledge none of them ever materialized so it all comes off a bit moot.

Time travel is another headache-inducing issue here: the series takes the familiar stance that history has already been written, so whenever Goliath or someone else goes back in time, they only end up doing whatever they were meant to do all along. This becomes especially frustrating once the Archmage makes his comeback, because his future self saves his past self from death and tells him he knew how to do it because his future self told him, etc. It all gets a bit too recursive for my tastes.

Still, there's a lot to love about "Gargoyles": solid writing, a cast without a single weak link, bold (and successful) attempts to push beyond the standardized limitations - both technological and "moral" - of animation at the time, and a rich, consistent mythology that holds up under scrutiny. All of this from a mid-'90s Disney cartoon.

Hardly a surprise, but...

"Heroes" has been cancelled. So has "Flashforward".

I very much doubt that the demise of "Flashforward" comes as a shock to anyone - any series that needs a three-month hiatus to stabilize itself, after losing two showrunners in rapid succesion, after only nine episodes, is utterly doomed. Still, it had a rather interesting premise and solid, capable actors.

Why, then, did I lose interest in it so quickly (along with the rest of America, it seems)? I suspect the main reason was the overabundance of irrelevant subplots: there were about a dozen storylines introduced (again, in nine episodes) and few of them had any meaningful connection. Yes, our FBI protagonist's investigation and his potentially-doomed marriage are worth following, not so much the tale of his AA sponsor's war-ravaged daughter. The cancer-stricken doctor is certainly sympathetic, but the babysitter? Not really. And the writers throw in so many red herrings and dead-ends that it just turned into a confusing jumble after only a few months. With cast members jumping ship even before the official announcement, it's probably best to quietly turn out the lights and call it a day.

"Heroes" is, of course, another matter altogether. At one time occupying the top spot on my must-see TV list, its downfall was a far more protracted and painful affair.

In many ways, it was a series that comic book aficionados like myself had been waiting for: an original, live-action superhero drama that took itself seriously while tossing the an occasional wink to the old conventions and tropes. It was the X-Men without giant robots and spandex; it was "Watchmen" without the overwhelming pessimism; it was "Astro City" set in New York without the pre-arranged public acceptance of superhumans.

(The fact that they had Milo Ventimiglia, Zachary Quinto and Adrian Pasdar, sometimes on the same screen? Well, that was just a bonus for me personally.)

And despite various hiccups along the way, the first season managed to tell a good story, with a great villain in Sylar. There was suspense, romance, a few dramatic deaths, a fair amount of action (though I'm sure the Kirby Plaza showdown could've used a bit more flash) and more; all in all, an excellent start.

Then the second season came, and... well, that's where the decline started, though it was gradual enough that you might not notice it without hindsight. Of course, Tim Kring's defense is that the WGA strike brought an abrupt halt to the season - technically true, since the second season lasted 11 episodes rather than the traditional 22-24.

But even if you take those eleven episodes on their own merits, they're not particularly good, largely because they just reiterate the first season's strengths in a lesser capacity: another apocalyptic threat, another trip to a dystopian future, another Mystery From The Past (and wow was that revelation a letdown) and so on. Characters started doing very foolish things simply because the plot demanded it. Guest stars such as Nichelle Nichols, Joanna Cassidy and Nicholas D'Agosto were utterly wasted despite being built up as significant figures in the storyline.

The real turning point, in my opinion, was showrunner Tim Kring's decision to abandon his original plan for the series, wherein each season would feature a different cast of characters. It was a daring plan and one that could have worked quite easily: if you can create six popular characters, there's no reason why you can't create six more further down the line. And by the first season finale most of the characters had wrapped up their individual subplots: Sylar was defeated and probably killed, Hiro completed his quest, Nathan and Peter saved each other, the Hawkins family was reunited... all nice and neat, minus a few loose threads.

And instead of leaving well enough alone, Kring preserved the cast in the second season... and then dumped a whole batch of new characters on his viewers. Some, like Dana Davis' Monica Dawson and Kristen Bell's electrifying (in more ways than one) turn as Elle Bishop, were instant darlings; others, like Mexican twins Maya and Alejandro and seasonal Big Bad Adam Monroe (played by David Anders), were... less successful. To put it both mildly and politely.

The problem was, of course, that having these second-stringers around only demonstrated how poorly their storylines were being handled in comparison to the ones who'd been around for a whole season already. It didn't work because the writers simply didn't have the time to develop the new characters while formulating new storylines for characters they'd already established.

Then the third season lapsed into utter nonsense: more new characters, hopelessly entangled subplots, and a loss of anything even remotely resembling coherence. Notable guest stars such as Seth Green, Breckin Meyer, John Glover, Francis Capra and Dan Byrd were kept from making any significant contribution (indeed, most of them just stood around and talked for a while before disappearing into the ether and never returning).

Of course, the end result of this increasingly rapid degeneration was painfully clear: rather than embodying the best aspects of the superhero genre, "Heroes" came to represent said genre's worst excesses. Characters who'd long since outlived their purpose were maintained, without being given equally compelling new directions. Storylines became convoluted beyond comprehension, with retcons becoming more and more common. Plot dictated motivation, even when the plot made no sense to begin with. It became, for lack of a better term, a hot mess (literally so: Sylar may have devolved into a useless, whining prat but good lord Zach Quinto is still a poster boy for snu-snu).

Getting axed at this point is more a mercy-killing than executive meddling. I can't even say I'm particularly sorry to see it go, since I said my goodbyes to "Heroes" while it was still on the air. As with most spectacular TV flops in recent years, I can only hope that the right lessons will be learned here...

TV Review: The 10th Kingdom

On paper, this really should've worked better than it did.

"The 10th Kingdom" is a ten-hour TV miniseries adopting the same subversive, iconoclastic approach to fairy tales that's become both popular and common over the last decade, from "Shrek" to "Enchanted" to "Fables". Broadly speaking, the premise is that all those tales really happened, but in the distant past - the common realm shared by such figures as Snow White, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and so on has been split into nine kingdoms, ruled by the descendants of those legendary women. This is a world where, as one character puts it, "Happy Ever After didn't last as long as we'd hoped."

When a new Evil Queen escapes her imprisonment, Virginia Lewis and her father Tony - a pair of thoroughly ordinary people living in New York (the titular Tenth Kingdom) - are drawn into this fantasy world, dodging trolls, dwarves, gypsies, the Queen's Huntsman and all sorts of stock fairy tale types. Accompanied by the Big Bad Wolf and Snow White's grandson (trapped in the form of a dog, naturally), Virginia and Tony must stop the Evil Queen's plans and save the nine kingdoms.

That's an excellent premise, especially for such an extensive series. And to its credit, "The 10th Kingdom" makes the most of its fantastic settings without becoming a Tolkienesque travelogue. Since the plot hinges mostly on the Queen's machinations, our protagonists are constantly moving from one exotic location to the other, trying to stay ahead of her. The effects are pretty impressive for a TV miniseries: the opening montage deserves special attention, as New York transforms into a fairy tale kingdom. It's absolutely stunning, even if that particular scene never actually happens in the story.

Unfortunately, the casting is a bit... off. Which isn't to say there aren't some superb performances: Scott Cohen's Wolf is a neurotic mess who can't decide whether to court Virginia or gnaw on her bones, and despite initially coming off as a squicky pseudo-rapist, he actually ends up becoming one of the most sympathetic cast members largely due to Cohen's endearing tics. And Ed O'Neill as the Troll King? Wow. Of course, the real surprise is Dianne Wiest as the Queen. After seeing her in movies like "Edward Scissorhands", "Practical Magic" or "The Associate", you could be forgiven for writing Wiest off as a typical "Nice Mom" actress... but I had a feeling she could go further, especially when she went nuclear on Gabriel Byrne at the end of "In Treatment". And that's exactly what happens here: Wiest seems like she'd be more suited for a Fairy Godmother type of role, making her more imperious moments even more shocking and commanding. When she tells her stepson he'll be begging at her feet for food, she does so in a very pleasant tone - which makes her even scarier.

Sadly, the series is also saddled with two protagonists who are utterly wrong for the roles: Kimberly Williams is painfully limited as Virginia, playing her scenes in a dull monotony to the point where she can't muster enough real emotion for the film's most climactic revelations. Williams seems completely out of her element, even before the fairy tale aspects come into play: as the series' main focalizer, we spend time with her before she becomes involved in the adventure, and there's just nothing interesting about her. And then there's John Larroquette as Virginia's father Tony: a mere annoyance at first, Tony's character just gets more and more grating and abrasive as the series progresses, and since he's a protagonist there's no getting away from him.

It's no exaggeration to say that Williams and Larroquette derail the series: at first, they're generic fish-out-of-water adventurers, but midway through the storyline their characters become personally involved in the plot, except both Virginia and her father are so flat and unengaging that the whole thing falls apart.

And that's a shame, because the story has some rather surprising feminist overtones: traditional victims like Snow White and Red Riding Hood are rewritten as powerful, beloved monarchs whose contribution to the realm went beyond just getting their own Happy Ever After. Camryn Manheim has a cameo as the spirit of a grown-up Snow White: older, flawed, but still adored and respected - not because of how she looks but because of who she is and what she did. And her advice to Virginia deserves to be quoted verbatim: "Lonely, lost girls like us can rescue themselves." Also? One of the three trolls chasing Virginia and Tony is female, and no one says a word about it.

"The 10th Kingdom" is exactly the kind of postmodern fairy tale I want to see. There's nothing wrong with parody per se - "Shrek" certainly did it well enough - but weaving together all those fragments into a coherent whole is impressive, even moreso when clear efforts are made to put a fresher spin on the moral and gender issues inherent in the classic fables. But once Virginia and Tony take center stage, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain interest in the unfolding events. This is one instance where bad casting decisions really bring the whole thing down a notch or two.

Expanding on my Feb. 12 post

Because I don't think I've ever talked about my affinity for MTV's "Daria".

I was fresh out of high school when I first "met" Daria Morgendorffer. It was a second-season episode - I forget which one specifically, but I remember that it dealt with Daria's feelings for Trent. I remember that because I'd gone through the exact same thing a few months earlier, developed a huge crush on someone who couldn't have been more wrong for me. And I handled it the way Daria handled it: miserably. A few months later, I ran into him and had this... epiphany that it never would've worked anyway. And that was it.

It's not that "Daria" is a completely accurate rendition of my (or anyone's) high school years; I would've loved to have her gift for deadpan sarcasm, we didn't have a Fashion Club to mock relentlessly, and while our teachers could be a bit sadistic, they weren't quite as far gone as Lawndale High's staff.

But we did have a Kevin and a Brittany. (Come to think of it, we've had Kevin and Britney too.) And I had a maladjusted best friend who spent most of her time drawing in a little notebook which she'd never let me see.

So when "Daria" comes out on DVD, I'll be there. Because it actually offers two pleasures for the price of one: nostalgia for my fonder memories of high school, and absolutely scorching satire of the parts I could've done without. The fact that it's one of my favorite coming-of-age stories of the '90s is, of course, an added bonus.

TV Review: "Dune", "Children of Dune"

Once upon a time, a 17-year-old girl saw David Lynch's adaptation of "Dune". She did so at the behest of her boyfriend at the time, a hardcore Trekkie who also worshipped at the altar of Frank Herbert.

Three hours later, she came to the conclusion that there probably weren't enough drugs on Earth that could make her understand what the hell was going on.

To be fair, that's a problem I usually have with David Lynch movies, and since I lacked the time (and the disposition) to read Herbert's novels, I was content to let matters lie for a while. And up until a few weeks ago, that was that.

And then my dear kazekage brought up "Dune" in relation to "Avatar", and as is usually the case in our dialogues, he got me thinking. I realized that I'd never gone back to Herbert's creation as an adult - I do that from time to time, going back to stories I dismissed as a teenager just to see if my perspective has changed over the years. Sometimes I find myself developing the opposite opinion ("Sliders" seems so much more formulaic now than it did fifteen years ago), and sometimes... well, I still can't think of a single figure in the DCU pantheon who remotely interests me.

Of course, with my graduate thesis still circling over my head like a vulture, reading the books is still out of the question, so I decided to settle for the "Dune" and "Children of Dune" TV miniseries, written and directed by John Harrison. With a combined length of just over 9 hours, and a reputation that credits Harrison with being more faithful to the books than Lynch, I figured it'd be enough to get some idea of what Herbert was doing.

To my surprise, I really liked the first part of "Dune". Oh, it's slow, but it does an excellent job setting up the various worlds and people within. The actors mostly do well with the material, especially given how flat most of the characters really are: Alec Newman's Paul is just whiny enough to sell his aristocratic background without being obnoxious, Ian McNeice is marvelous as Baron Harkonnen, and Matt Keeslar is exactly the kind of pretty it takes to play the vapid and treacherous Feyd. I also enjoyed the complex political maneuvering between the three Great Houses. Part 1 ends with the climactic Harkonnen attack on House Atreides and the death of Duke Leto.

And then, in part 2... the Desert.

In a word? Oy.

I don't know, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm being unrealistic when I expect science-fiction to avoid the ethereal metaphysics of religion. Of course, I've never seen that combination work well, or at all: not with Kara Thrace, or Neo, or John Henry the Terminator talking scripture with a religious FBI agent. It always comes off as facile tripe, a cheap way of raising suspense by asking impossible questions that ultimately don't "require" an answer. And it completely takes me out of the story.

So after a fairly interesting and engaging first part, imagine my dismay when we spend ninety minutes exploring the Fremen culture, a wafer-thin metaphor for other "desert people" you may or may not have heard of right here on Earth. And then everyone gets high on homegrown drugs and gains superpowers. Paul, of course, is the Chosen One, the Messiah, etc. And he has visions of the future. Of course. By the time the third act started I was rather disengaged; it doesn't help that the story becomes rather predictable at that point, in that the Fremen defeat their Harkonnen tyrants, Paul becomes Emperor, et cetera. Everything is framed in prophecies and dreams and rituals, none of which I find even slightly coherent.

And what's especially frustrating about "Dune" is that, if Harrison had cut out the religious context, he might've been left with a great sci-fi political thriller. The most intriguing sequences in the second and third parts include Princess Irulan's investigation into the Atreides massacre, the Baron's scheme to glorify Feyd at his brother's expense and so on. Paul's ascension to the throne works on that level too. I even loved the various accents and the weird hats (seriously, there are some weird hats in this miniseries). But by the end of the miniseries, the damage had already been done.

Still, I was determined to see this through, so I continued to "Children of Dune". In some ways, it's an improvement; the political storyline is much more engaging from the very start, as Paul's reign has quickly degenerated into a senseless (and apparently meaningless) jihad against the rest of the universe. Paul himself is trapped by his position, while his own people conspire against him with the help of his defeated enemies, including Irulan and the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. Meanwhile, Irulan's older sister Wensicia (played to perfection by Susan Sarandon) has a few schemes of her own.

Of course, by now I'd come to expect getting my hopes dashed, and sure enough, Paul spends most of part 1 having the same vision over and over again, about something called the Golden Path. I'll get to that in a bit, but let's just say right now that Path leads nowhere you'd want to go.

To both Harrison's and Herbert's credit, I have to say that "Children of Dune" takes some bold turns: Paul, our protagonist and focalizer since the beginning of "Dune", is written out at the end of the first act to make way for his children, Leto and Ghanima (with Leto being played by the absolutely adorable James McAvoy). Paul's sister Alia takes over as Regent, but her mental instability - long foreshadowed if poorly set up - leads her to become increasingly oppressive and violent. As it turns out, she's having hallucinations of the long-dead Baron Harkonnen, who may or may not be possessing her. That was a nice twist. Alia starts seeing the twins as a threat to her power, they go on the run, and... well, that's when I hit the next metaphysical pothole.

See, throughout the first part of "Children of Dune", Paul has the same vision over and over again, where Leto tells him about a Golden Path that holds the key to humanity's salvation. What is the Golden Path? Damned if I know: no one ever explains it. Oh, Leto undergoes a significant (and similarly ill-explained) transformation at the end, but still, as he's standing there declaring a new dawn for mankind, I'm utterly mystified as to the question of just what in the name of Gregor Samsa he's talking about.

Again, it's a situation where the best parts of the story are overshadowed by vague mumbo-jumbo about space heroin. And unlike "Dune", where the characters' relatively flat nature allowed their own arcs to continue despite the religious interruptions, "Children of Dune" seems to lose track of various characters, skipping over significant developments so we can spend more time on Paul and his kids tripping out. What happens to Wensicia's plan to steal sandworms? What happens to the Bene Gesserit after the Reverend Mother's execution? Why does Irulan switch sides after her conspiracy fails? Why don't we get to see characters reacting to major deaths such as Duncan and Paul himself in part 3? Because of drugs. So remember, kids, drugs are bad and will not give you superpowers. They may bore you to the point of utter frustration, though.

And that's it for "Dune". Unlike the Lynch version, I could definitely see a lot of potential in Harrison's adaptations... but at the same time, they're guilty of the same weak, wishy-washy use of pseudo-religion as a way to push the story forward without really thinking it through. And on that level it's no different than something like "Battlestar Galactica", which - despite having a tremendously talented cast and a brilliant story - ended on a note that still pisses me off, a year after the fact. If that aspect hadn't been so dominant, I think I would've liked "Dune". I think I would've liked it a lot.

Postmortem (not what you think)

It's been over two months since my last post, and that was the Big Goodbye to the Savage Critics.

I've had (and am still having) a bit of a dry spell - there's loads of things to talk about but I haven't had the time, energy or inclination to just sit down and blog about it. And I'll probably drop out of sight for a few months more after this.

For right now, though...

Well, it all started when my dear friend Kazekage over at Witless Prattle called my attention to yet another firestorm breaking out over Power Girl.

Of course, my immediate reaction was along the same lines as any other news pertaining to the Big Two: "Whatever."

But I started reminiscing about a time when I was much more passionate about female representation in comics. And I remembered that I'd lost interest in that particular area of debate not because I stopped believing in the cause, but because it was becoming increasingly obvious that nothing was changing. Every time the mainstream seemed to learn its lesson, Gail Simone would applaud Brian Bendis for killing off the Wasp just so Henry Pym could finally be more interesting (that would be more convincing were it not for Bendis' little Tigra debacle earlier in the year), or you'd have that rather unfortunate incident with Spider-Man's roommate.

So I wasn't particularly surprised that the same old arguments, centered around the exact same characters, still continue. I don't much care to jump back into that.

And then I saw the season finale of "Dexter", and it got me thinking about female characters in TV... and I realized it hasn't been a great season for women. At all. To wit:

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Supernatural: Ellen and Jo Harvelle



HOW: Sacrificed themselves to give the Winchester brothers a shot at Lucifer.

WHY: Anyone watching this show long enough learns two things: no matter how vocal the fanbase gets, Sam and Dean will never go horizontal (they've done everything short of having Eric Kripke come and carve that message into the camera lens to stress the point), and most supporting characters have a limited shelf life.

The problem here, though, is that as of the most recent midseason finale, there are no women left on the show. Bela died at the end of the third season; we lost Pamela, Ruby and Lilith during the fourth, with Anna locked away somewhere; and now Ellen and Jo, the only female hunters who've ever lasted more than one episode, are gone.

JUSTIFIED? Hard to say. On the one hand, the show has never shied away from making clear the fact that hunters die young and bloody - the fact that Dean and Sam have both been killed over the course of the series certainly seems to indicate as much. And Ellen already dodged one bullet at the end of season 2. But on the other hand, it wouldn't have been such a bad thing to have a mother-daughter duo hang around and serve as a counterpart to the brothers' own relationship; as it stands, they're just one more subject for the Whiny Winchesters to wangst about.

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Dexter: Rita Morgan



HOW: The Trinity Killer's last victim.

WHY: Based on the hype, Rita's murder was designed to be a "game-changing" moment - something that would represent a complete break from the status quo of the first four seasons.

JUSTIFIED? Given that this was the moment that pushed me to put everything else on hold and blog, I obviously have strong feelings about Rita's death. Now, I'll admit that I was not her biggest fan this season: she was obnoxious, overbearing and seemingly incapable of doing anything by herself. Her role was pretty much the same as always, the obstacle that complicates Dexter's plans and forces him to get creative. And I'll admit that there were quite a few moments this season where I wished she'd just take the kids and leave Dexter alone.

This, though... this was absolutely brutal. The worst part is that thanks to the season's opening scene, we know exactly what Arthur Mitchell did to her. In front of her infant son. It's almost too unsettling to imagine.

The question, then, is whether changing the status quo justifies the use of such an overfamiliar cliche as Women in Refrigerators. This was a show where the alternate scenario could've played out. Instead, Rita dies as she lived: not defined on her own merits but only in terms of her importance to Dexter.

---

Weeds: Pilar Zuazo



HOW: After overhearing her threats against him and his brother, Shane Botwin bashes Pilar's brains in with a croquet mallet, killing her instantly.

WHY: Shane's mental instability had been building up for years, as far back as season 3; killing Pilar in cold blood was the climax.

JUSTIFIED: Yes, but with a caveat: this was actually the first time Nancy had had to deal with a female antagonist, much less the woman behind last season's Big Bad. I loved the contrast between the two, Nancy as the failed wannabe crimelord whose kids either ignore or deliberately undermine her, and Pilar as the drug baroness who effortlessly intimidates people like Esteban and Guillermo. And I was waiting for Nancy to step up - having Shane do it for her felt a bit like cheating.

---

Dollhouse: Madeline Costley/Mellie/November



HOW: Manipulated by the Rossum Corporation and captured by the DC Dollhouse.

WHY: Best guess? We've known since the start of season 2 that budget cuts and other considerations reduced Amy Acker and Miracle Laurie to guest-star status (Saunders still hasn't turned up after going AWOL in the premiere). Given that the series is being cancelled at the end of this season, I suppose this is just the quickest way to wrap up that particular loose end.

JUSTIFIED: Not really, no - the episode is edited in such a way that you don't see her being kidnapped and you don't know what happens to her: is she wiped clean again? Imprinted with an alternate personality? Not the most satisfying conclusion to her story, especially since said story had already had a proper ending last season.

---

There are a few more examples I can think of, but they're pretty much along the same lines.

Now, to be absolutely clear, I'm not advocating a position where female characters (or minority characters, for that matter) be preserved in amber and kept safe from any kind of dramatic upheaval. Far from it: Ronald D. Moore screwed the pooch in many, many ways during the fourth season of "Battlestar Galactica", but putting a bullet in Felix Gaeta after his failed mutiny wasn't one of them. Neither was Laura Roslin's death. And while I was annoyed at the loss of Ianto Jones, it wasn't because he was gay: rather, he was the most interesting of the three Torchwood survivors in terms of his backstory and whatever secrets he still kept. A lot more could've been done with him, and killing him off just so the villain can make a point? Pretty much a waste.

And that, I think, is what's been bothering me with these (and other) characters: not that they were killed or removed at all, but that their end only served to push other characters forward. To choose a more successful example, Jean Grey didn't die (the first time) to put Cyclops in the spotlight - after all, Claremont ended up reducing Scott's role in the team after that.

I guess what I'd like is for writers to exercise a bit more thought before pulling a Fridge stunt; it's far too easy, and far too common, and might cause more harm than good in the long term.

Episode in Review: Dollhouse - Epitaph One

I wrapped up my season review of Dollhouse with the following comment:

"I suppose the question of whether I'll be watching season 2 is moot, given the vultures circling over this show, but I'm going to have to chalk this up as another disappointment from Camp Whedon. And those are really starting to pile up. I do hope he comes out with something in the near future to remind me why I used to love his work..."

As it turns out, I was wrong on several counts. For starters, "Dollhouse" has been renewed for a second season. This was quite a shock to me, given that the networks have been utterly merciless with genre TV over the past year or two given the cancellations of "Pushing Daisies" (no, still not over that), "Middleman", "The Unusuals", "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", "Reaper", et cetera ad nauseum.

And then there's "Epitaph One".

For those who aren't familiar with the background, FOX initially commissioned thirteen episodes for the series' first season, but this included the unaired pilot - which Whedon famously discarded after completion - so that, even though the cast and crew had already produced "Epitaph One" as a coda to the first season, the network refused to air it, with only vague promises that it would eventually do so at some unspecified date in the future.

It should be said that this isn't yet another case of network interference derailing a narrative: for all intents and purposes, "Omega" is the finale. "Epitaph One" is an afterword.

It's also the best thing Whedon's done since "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog".

There's a certain habit I seem to be developing with regards to Joss Whedon, where I'm continually disappointed by his work only for him to create something that utterly astounds me, seemingly out of nowhere, perpetually redeeming my opinion of him as it were. After the Noxon years of "Buffy" he regained a lot of my faith "Dr. Horrible", lost it again during the unfortunate X-Men/Runaways/Buffy Season 8 Let-Down Hat Trick, and "Dollhouse" was inconsistent to the point of utter frustration: a return to form in some respects, a bitter failure in others. But if the second season stays in the ballpark of this episode, all slights will be forgiven and forgotten.

Why is this episode so great? At its core, "Epitaph One" is an expression of Whedon's greatest strength as a creator (and, I think, the reason he's so popular): the man takes chances. He puts real risk into the creative process and isn't afraid to change gears for the sake of the story. Case in point, our coda begins a decade in the future, with an entirely new cast, in a world gone utterly mad due to public use of Dollhouse technology. We'd seen hints of the potential dangers before, but only in generalized, undefined ways: for Mag, Zone and their companions, it's reality. Use a radio and you might catch a stray signal that will wipe your mind, or imprint you with a psychotic personality.

In the midst of this chaos, the survivors accidentally discover the original Dollhouse and start piecing together the mysteries of the past. We learn a bit about what happened to various characters (Topher's fate, in particular, is heartbreaking, and that's some more Whedon magic right there: I never thought I'd feel anything but disgust for Topher, and all it took to change that was one scene). After a few twists, one of which left my jaw hanging (you'll know it when you see it), the episode ends on an open note that allows for quite a few possibilities. Will the second season continue from this point and explore the post-apocalyptic landscape, making this episode the mother of all deck-clearing exercises? Or is this the series finale and upcoming episodes will retroactively build towards it?

Either way, I'm on pins and needles for more, which certainly wasn't the case after "Omega". Good show, Mr. Whedon.

Dollhouse: Season in Review

I'd love to say that sticking through to the end of the season has earned me some great insight into the nature - and problems - of "Dollhouse"... but the truth is, I'm as frustrated now as I was at the end of the pilot.

It's all well and good to run a relatively bold experiment in serial narrative: can you identify with a protagonist whose basic personality changes every episode? Can you have continuity without memory? Conceptually speaking, these are certainly interesting avenues for exploration.

Unfortunately, the sum has turned out to be considerably less than its parts.

The central moral issue (if you can call it that) in "Dollhouse" has to do, unsurprisingly, with the Dollhouse itself, and the way its Actives are used. Throughout the season, we were basically given three points of view represented by Paul Ballard, Adelle DeWitt and Topher Brink. Ballard sees the Dollhouse as an evil institution enslaving and pimping helpless victims, but he's also a slightly obsessive freak with a one-track mind whose investigate skills are, shall we say, slightly less than impressive. DeWitt wants to believe she's helping people, but more often than not things go horribly wrong (and she's kind of a hypocrite too). And finally, Topher doesn't much care about the moral implications of his work: he just likes playing with shiny toys and human brains.

In other words, there probably is a moral quandary here worth exploring, but none of the characters are capable of expressing that properly. And rather than remain neutral, the show seems to vacillate between taking the Dollhouse's side (ie: the traumatic revelations about Echo, Victor, November and Sierra in "Echoes", as well as Echo's innate desire to protect the Dollhouse in "Spy in the House of Love") and condemning it (because November's fate in the finale certainly looks like liberation in a uplifting sense).

The reason this is such a problem is because the Moral Issue is really the only thing that could even remotely qualify as an ongoing storyline. There's very little plot consistency: at best, the events of an episode will have consequences in the next one, but that's about it. Alpha is introduced, built up, and then forgotten until the penultimate episode; the threat of Echo snapping seems to appear and disappear whenever it's convenient, and so on. There was no sense of structure at all; the first five episodes seemed devoted entirely to world-building, with Whedon asking viewers to stick around a bit longer until the good stuff would kick in. And yes, later episodes improved somewhat, but none of the glaring flaws in this series were corrected (or, apparently, even noticed at all).

As for the season (possibly series) finale, "Omega"... well, I will say this for Whedon - he's still very good with misdirection, as the whole Whiskey revelation proves. And I enjoyed much of the dialogue. But now, a plea to all TV networks: can we have just one science-fiction series that doesn't engage in metaphysical mumbo-jumbo?! As soon as Ballard started talking about souls (and, guess what, he seems to be proven right given what Echo becomes) I just rolled my eyes and strongly resisted the urge to stop watching. Enough with the metaphors, enough with the childish navel-gazing, enough with invoking higher powers: just once, I would like to see a story that unfolds without invoking questions of divine intervention and the human spirit (literally).

I suppose the question of whether I'll be watching season 2 is moot, given the vultures circling over this show, but I'm going to have to chalk this up as another disappointment from Camp Whedon. And those are really starting to pile up. I do hope he comes out with something in the near future to remind me why I used to love his work...

Season in Review: Heroes S3

I've probably made my feelings regarding "Heroes" rather clear by now, but it bears reiteration: this series has degenerated to such an extent that I jumped ship before the season ended. I've only ever done that once before, with "Lost"; typically, if a series jumps the shark, I hang on until the season finale on the outside chance it'll work out. If it's a show I've really enjoyed in the past, I might even hang around longer - I made it all the way to the series finale of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", despite the fact that every single week the show would leave me disappointed and frustrated at best, outraged at worst (Nathan Fillion as a misogynistic priest who won't shut up? Gee, thanks, Marti).

But "Heroes"... there's something about the way it's gone downhill that got to me. If I take a step back and look at all three seasons, a pattern seems to emerge as follows:

For the most part, the first season holds together under scrutiny both in terms of the Myth Arc and with regards to individual subplots. I'll grant that some characters' storylines were more satisfactory than others, but every plot development I can recall at the moment paid off in the end. And it was a good story, full of twists and drama and energy.

The second season still has a largely consistent Myth Arc - the story of Adam Monroe and the Elder Heroes - in that plot elements are set up, executed and followed upon. Characters still have reasonably straightforward directions. The difference here is that the story wasn't very good, especially in comparison to its predecessor: Adam wasn't as threatening as Sylar, the new characters (with the exception of Elle) were dull, and the backstory of the Primatech founders was painfully abbreviated and didn't add up to anything substantial. It was still coherent at this point, but not very engaging at all.

And then we come to the third season, in which the question I kept asking myself every week was "What's the point of this?" Because think about it: what was the point of Hiro's trip to India? What was the point of Ando getting powers? What was the point of Alex? What was the point of anything relating to Sylar whether it's Luke, his father or whatever? What was the point of Coyote Sands and Alice Shaw? I'm not even talking about the first half of the season, with Pinehearst and Arthur Petrelli and that insufferable Spider-Mohinder subplot. The reason this season was so awful - the reason I just couldn't stand to watch it anymore - is that not only were the individual elements of rather poor quality, but they didn't add up at all either. It's like a very ugly jigsaw puzzle except none of the pieces fit together anyway. Things happen, and then other things happen, and characters just go where the plot demands, and there's no apparent rhyme or reason to any of it.

If that reminds you of a certain non-reality island-related series... well, yes. And it's not a flattering comparison at all.

So I'm done with "Heroes". And I'm sorry about that, but not because of anything they've done over the last two seasons - rather, I'm sorry that it fell so far and wasted so much of its potential. Time to move on...

Season in Review: Battlestar Galactica S4

It's taken me a considerable amount of time to get my head together regarding the final season of "Battlestar Galactica"; to be honest, I'm still feeling a bit conflicted regarding the series' conclusion.

I'm always a bit sad when an amazing, well-written series goes downhill. "Heroes" has recently become so insufferable that I've finally dropped it mid-season, which I've only ever done once before ("Lost", towards the end of season 2). For perspective's sake, I stuck by "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to the bitter, bitter end, long after it went from bad to offensively bad. I suppose that's my preference for modular storytelling coming to the forefront: if a serial narrative starts to go sour, I'd rather wait for a proper jumping-off point so I can get some kind of closure. This is also a useful approach for older series, because you can avoid the Jumping of the Shark altogether if you know where to stop. Going further back, the end of season 2 was the best place to quit "Party of Five", because it was the happiest ending that miserable family would ever get.

The thing about jumping the shark, though, is that most of the time - especially in television - the downward trend can't be reversed. Once you cross that line, everything just slides further and further down, or it'll move laterally: the sixth season of "Buffy" was nauseating, the seventh was just plain stupid (or maybe I'd just gotten used to the Vortex of Eww by that point, I don't know).

But there's always a measure of consistency, and if we take my most recent example again, the second season of "Heroes" was bad, sure, but it had some kind of basic structure and almost every character still maintained a measure of appeal held over from the first season. Conversely, the current storyline is a jumbled, useless mess without a single sympathetic focalizer in the entire cast.

That's the pattern I consider to be represented fairly strongly in mainstream media. And it doesn't apply to "Battlestar Galactica". Because depending on your interpretation, it either jumps the shark at the start of the fourth season and then recovers, or it jumps the shark in the last five minutes of the series finale, or it doesn't jump at all and the intense backlash is coming from somewhere else entirely.

As I've mentioned in my talks with Kazekage both here and at the Witless Prattle, I think the problem with BSG - going all the way back to the Kobol storyline of season 1 - is that the series ended up gelling into two very different (and practically antithetical) stories. On the one hand, you had "realistic" character-centric science-fiction (or Syphy as I understand it's being called now): the Pegasus, life in the Fleet, the Mutiny, Lee and Kara, Kat's redemption, Dee giving up, Roslin's hand trembling at her inauguration, Adama waiting for her in a Raptor, Baltar's trial and so on. Stories about people. About who they are, why they do what they do, about their pain and fear and love.

And then you had the pseudo-religious story. The Lords of Kobol. God's plan. Oracles. Bob Dylan music. Angels. Hybrid-speak. The living dead. A view of the universe where every single event can be (and is) attributed to one (or more) omnipotent, perpetually-unknown higher power(s) whose aims and desires are completely unknown.

Needless to say, these approaches don't co-exist comfortably, and that schism bothered me from the very beginning. But up until the aftermath of New Caprica, it was tolerable because there was no obvious preference for one or the other: Roslin might be having prophetic visions or she might be having drug-induced hallucinations that just happen to coincide with actual events. U Decide.

But once you got to the Eye of Jupiter story, the divide between religion and... hell, let's just call it realism for the sake of terminology... that divide started to filter into the actual structure of the season. Entire episodes were devoted exclusively either to God's Plan or to the women and men of the Fleet. And nowhere does this become more evident than the fourth and final season.

It began with "Razor", a feature film that leaves absolutely no room for amorphous pseudo-mythology: it's the True Story of the Pegasus as seen through the eyes of Kendra Shaw, the last survivor of Admiral Cain's inner circle. Needless to say, I really enjoyed it: we get to see the Fall from another, much darker perspective - because Cain didn't have a Roslin figure to keep her grounded - and through Shaw we can also see exactly how the crew of the Pegasus became what they were by the time they met Galactica. It's a human story.

Unfortunately, we then get ten straight episodes of people chasing visions and spouting prophecies. Baltar, Roslin, Starbuck, Caprica-Six, the Final Five, all running after cryptic half-assed riddles, following "hunches" that miraculously work out for the best... and unlike earlier seasons, there's no rational explanation that can serve as an alternative if you're not inclined to do the whole God Mode thing. How does Starbuck know where Earth is? She just does. She can feel it. Why? Nobody knows.

Meanwhile, we have the Cylon Civil War, culminating in the destruction of the Resurrection Hub. I'm torn about that particular story: it certainly diminished the threat (and unique nature) of the Cylons, but it also highlighted the central contradiction of their existence - namely, that the peak of their self-evolution is represented by human replicas with human personalities. Caprica-Six falls in love, D'Anna's a zealot, Cavil's a bitter old man, Boomer always wants something other than what she has, and so on. They're not Terminators who only look like people: take away their resurrection and there's no real difference between the Cylons and the Colonial survivors at all. And that's a really original way to resolve this sort of conflict, especially in science-fiction where wars typically end with one side obliterating the other.

Still, for the first half of the last season, the dominant arc was God's/Gods' Plan(s). And then we got to Earth, and everything snapped back into focus. No more invisible people, no more prophecies, no more Hybrid babble, just a sudden and horrible lapse into bleak depression. And it's brutally effective, dramatically speaking, because we've been with these characters for years. We've seen them suffer, we've seen them die, and we believed it'd all work out for them in the end, that they'd find Earth and it would be worth the price they paid.

Which leads to the Mutiny and its aftermath - again, a story about the people. It's about Gaeta driven by guilt and paranoia, and Zarek finally making his move, and Tyrol bleeding for his ship, and Roslin taking a stand with a voice that still gives me goosebumps (seriously, Mary McDonnell did some outstanding work on this show and I hope to see her in another central dramatic role again very soon). We also have Ellen and Sam giving us partial answers about the Final Five which surprisingly held up under scrutiny.

I think the turning point, for me, was "Someone To Watch Over Me". It's the episode that promised an answer to what was probably the biggest mystery left on the show by that point: the Question of Starbuck. Or, to be more elaborate: Kara Thrace followed a vision into a gas giant. Her Viper exploded. Months later and light-years away, she turns up again and rejoins the Fleet, having gone all the way to Earth and back in the interrim. She's not a Cylon. So how did she do it?

To understand why this episode bothers me so much, I need to go back to the exposition-heavy "No Exit", where Ellen Tigh reveals that there had been a thirteenth Cylon model, Number Seven, whom she'd named Daniel. She describes him as a sensitive artist. The Sevens had apparently been exterminated by Cavil prior to the banishment of the Final Five and the fall of the Colonies. Two episodes later, Kara has an extended hallucination of her father, and eventually ends up playing a song he taught her as a child - the Final Five recognize it as the same Music that "activated" them at the end of the previous season.

The dots practically connect themselves: a Daniel model survives, fathers Kara, teaches her the song he learned from the Five. Kara dies and gets resurrected somewhere near Earth, which explains the gap in her memories. And maybe someone helped her get back to the Fleet, et cetera.

Within the context of this fictional universe's logic, that's a reasonable explanation. And then Ron Moore, series creator, goes on a podcast and tells everyone that no, that's not it at all, there's no significance to the Daniel story except highlighting what an asshole Cavil is. Never mind that Moore never actually answers the Question of Starbuck, except to say that she's "whatever you want her to be" (THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER).

At that point, there were only three episodes to go, and it became pretty clear to me that the two parallel tracks - realism and religion - were about to collide. And one would emerge to define the series as a whole.

I want to skip ahead to the finale at this point. I've already talked about it, but I think it still warrants discussion because... well, up to a point, the finale served the characters: Racetrack gets post-mortem revenge on the Cylons, Boomer makes her last choice, Helo and Athena and Hera get to be a family at last, the Colonials find their new home... and I'll admit that I cried during Laura Roslin's last scene. It just broke my heart despite the fact that I'd known her story would end that way, prophecy or no prophecy.

And if the show had ended with that last shot of Adama at Roslin's grave, ready to build that cabin he promised her, it'd be great. I could handwave the little things that bothered me: sending the Fleet into the sun? Well, that would ensure that no one (read: the enemy Cylons) would ever find the Colonials again. Letting the Centurions go? Eh. Maybe they finally got over the whole genocide thing.

But there's a coda. And I honestly believe that coda is singularly responsible for my mixed feelings, for the very vocal post-finale backlash... all of it. The coda jumps forward 150,000 years and reveals that the Colonials' new home is, in fact, our home: that Hera is our Mitochondrial Eve, and Virtual Six and Virtual Baltar are walking among us, wondering if the cycle of violence is going to begin again, because we're experimenting with artificial "life" and we're probably going to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Moore probably didn't intend to send the astonishingly Luddite message that the coda puts out there - an anti-technology warning set to the tune of Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower". The larger problem, of course, is that this coda completely demolishes the realistic track of the series: the story of "Battlestar Galactica" isn't about the people after all, because if their world is our world then they were totally erased. And even if we're meant to infer that we got some traits from them, like the Olympian pantheon and monotheism, the history of Earth-born humanity doesn't quite suit the Colonials' optimstic tones in the pre-coda scenes. The cycle of violence is, sadly, very much alive and kicking. And yet the Virtuals are patting themselves on the back, praising God's Plan. Which means "Battlestar Galactica" was about God's Plan after all.

And... yeah, that's not what I was expecting. In fact, that's very much the opposite of what I wanted to see, and I can't help feeling a bit "betrayed" - as if Moore pulled a stealthy bait-and-switch to get me to swallow a religious parable while thinking I was getting character-centric realism.

I honestly wish I could just write the whole show off, because that ending is such a turn-off... but I can't. Because when it was on - and it was on for most of its run - it was probably the best drama on TV. I just wish Moore had allowed us to celebrate the conclusion in the same tradition as the rest of the story: if you want to ascribe religious machinations, you can do that, but there's also a perfectly reasonable explanation if you're so inclined.

Ah well. An excellent series with an intensely problematic ending... it is what it is. Of course, now that it's over and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is ending and "Dollhouse" is hanging by a thread, I seem to have run out of science-fiction series. All at the same time, more or less. I wonder whether there's a broader implication for that with regards to generic trends in American television...

Some thoughts about yesterday's TV

I expect I'll have more to say once I've fully digested the events of "Daybreak" and look back on the final season, but "Battlestar Galactica" is over, and... yes, I feel a loss. For all that I disagreed with the increasing pseudo-mysticism, for all that I found the finale's ultimate message problematic, for all that the unresolved questions left me deeply disappointed, the truth is I was in love with these characters, these remarkably complex and flawed and compelling people; with Adama and Roslin and Lee and Kara and Cottle and Helo, with everyone who made it to the end and everyone who didn't. Yes, even Baltar. I loved them all, and I'll miss them terribly.

Meanwhile, the sixth episode of "Dollhouse" aired yesterday. For context's sake, this was the episode Joss Whedon flagged as being of interest to those viewers who, like myself, were having mixed reactions (at best) to his newest project. According to Whedon, all we had to do was wait until episode 6 for the show to start hitting its stride.

I'll get to the actual episode in a bit, but that kind of request annoys me. I mean, isn't it unreasonable to expect your audience to just patiently hold their breath for a month while you get your act together? I'm not saying it's unheard-of for series to improve over time - even within Whedon's own filmography, the second season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was superior to the first - and patience is certainly rewarding when it comes to the slow-burning plot.

But there has to be some kind of baseline appeal that transcends the problems, that makes you want to hang around. "Dollhouse" doesn't have that, for reasons I've already discussed, and the only reason I'm still watching is because Whedon's got a lot of goodwill stored up with me. But that won't last forever.

Especially since the much-hyped sixth episode is good, but not great. Don't get me wrong, it is a very different creature: Ballard is pushed much closer to the spotlight, there's a lot of physical action (the kitchen fight scene was rather good) and our attention is finally shifted away from the inconsequential missions (the whole conceit of the show is that nothing the Dolls do matter, so why then have we been following their "engagements" so thoroughly?). And it's somewhat amusing that this episode aired the same day as the "Battlestar Galactica" finale, because "Dollhouse" also seems to be working the whole "Sleeper Agent" bit; we now have two characters who've turned out to be Dolls hiding in plain sight. And we're only six episodes in.

I don't know... I'll admit the sixth episode is an improvement, but I still don't feel like I need to know what happens next. While I'm all for experimental, postmodern approaches to fiction, I don't think Whedon is able to circumvent the very real need for a hook, a reason to tune in next week. And so far, that hasn't turned up. At my most charitable, I'm still only mildly curious about the future of this show.

First Impressions: Dollhouse

I've been holding off on reviewing this show, because frankly, I still don't know where I stand with Joss Whedon's latest project.

It's no secret that I've found his recent output disappointing, whether it's the horribly unfocused eighth season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or the sloppy last quarter of his "Astonishing X-Men" run. And news of pre-air tinkering hardly bolstered my confidence in "Dollhouse".

But I could never have predicted that the strongest feeling I'd get from this show is how strangely anti-female it seems to be: setting aside the rather gross implications of what these Dolls are actually used for, all the women we've seen so far are uniformly pathetic, whether it's last week's Beyonce stand-in or Ballard's simpering neighbor or Saunders. Echo's had her moments, but they don't really count, do they?

Because that's the biggest problem "Dollhouse" faces: the premise doesn't allow for character development. At least not in the short term. It's certainly a great platform to display acting skills, and both Eliza Dushku and Dichen Lachman do a great job of playing multiple distinct characters, but they're constantly being reset at the end of each episode - regardless of what may or may not be bleeding through. And even non-Doll characters aren't moving: Ballard's still playing his one note (even as Tahmoh Penikett demonstrates more range over on "Battlestar Galactica" this week), Topher's kind of a skeeze, and Lawrence... why is this guy around? Besides not liking Echo just because?

So yes, there are quite a few problems with this show. I appreciate Whedon trying to be experimental with the whole Doll concept, but there are some fundamental questions left unanswered, such as why you'd bother with a Doll since you can get the real thing for a lot cheaper - it's implied that Dolls are basically gestalt entities combining the best traits of a bunch of people, which theoretically makes them better at any task than a normal person... but that certainly hasn't borne itself out with Echo so far.

I'll be giving this show another two or three episodes, but to be honest, I kind of doubt a premise with as many holes as this one can turn things around in short order. We'll see...

Season in Review: Being Human

Now that the chaos of the First Week of my Last Semester is over, it's back to business!

And wow, this one turned out to be a disappointment.

I'd noted before that the pilot episode of "Being Human" made a great first impression with me; I also pointed out that most of its strengths didn't actually survive the transition to the series premiere (namely, Mitchell was recast and there was a very tangible swerve away from the more light-hearted and comedic aspects of the series towards a more standardized "drama/horror" format).

Which pretty much sums the whole thing up, because by season's end, this show was about as funny as an episode of "Damages" or "In Treatment". That's not to say it couldn't have done well in that particular genre... it's just that what we ended up with was a fairly uninspired storyline with quasi-philosophical ditherings about what it means to be human, a dull "vampire wannabe-soulmates" plot that was about as exciting as the Angel/Darla Merry-Go-Round of Angsty Sex and Fake Repentance. Been there, seen that, and I wasn't all worked up about it the first time either.

Very much a missed opportunity, then. Too bad; it really did have potential.

First Impressions: Being Human

British TV's been on fire lately: after "No Heroics" and the superb "Survivors", this week marked the debut of BBC Three's Being Human, about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a flat in Bristol.

This was actually a unique case for me, because a mix-up resulted in Ethan and I seeing the pilot episode released last year rather than this week's series premiere. And while I've managed to catch up, there are significant differences between the two episodes, so I've been left with two sets of opinions about the show.

I fell in love with "Being Human" about twenty minutes into the pilot, for so many reasons: the premise has Mitchell, a scrawny quasi-Goth vampire, working as a hospital janitor alongside his best friend George, a neurotic Jewish werewolf who can't find a safe place to let the beast out when the full moon comes. They're both struggling to live normal lives despite their respective curses and decide to move in together, only the flat they choose is haunted by Annie, a woman who may or may not have been murdered in that very house. Annie, like George and Mitchell, just wants to maintain some sense of herself as a person, so the three of them end up forming a rapport.

The pilot's tone is a surprisingly effective mesh of comedy and drama, alternating between lighter moments like George's hysterics and much darker situations (the Mitchell/Lauren subplot). The characters are given distinct and fleshed-out personalities with minimal exposition, and all three actors - Guy Flanagan as Mitchell, Russell Tovey as George and Andrea Riseborough as Annie - play their respective roles very well.

Which is where the problems start, because the series premiere ended up replacing two-thirds of the cast, switching in Aidan Turner as Mitchell and Lenora Crichlow as Annie. It's a mixed bag: Crichlow's version of Annie is a lot stronger and less twitchy than Riseborough's, but since George has the monopoly on neurosis anyway, it's probably a good thing to set her apart in that sense. Turner, on the other hand, is pretty much the archetypal Brooding Hunk, and I find that I prefered Flanagan's more sardonic, constantly-bemused performance, to say nothing of the amazing chemistry he had with his co-stars (seriously, this show's a Yaoi Fangirl's dream come true - HoYay is off the charts).

There's also a marked shift away from the comedic aspects of the pilot; George's hysterics are still amusing, but overall the premiere is much more serious. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you, especially since they're not overdoing it the way, say, "Demons" does (okay, so Brit TV's winning streak might have a few speed bumps along the way).

But I liked the idea of a genuine comedy-drama hybrid with supernatural trappings; in shifting the paradigm towards the darker end of the spectrum, "Being Human" lost some of its charm simply by becoming more similar to things I've already seen. I'm sticking with it, because it's still an entertaining and well-written show, but I can't help wishing they'd have gone with the pilot instead...

Oy vey.

Oh, "Heroes". What am I going to do with you?

SPOILER ALERT, obviously.

1. So the ultimate outcome of the Big World-Changing Eclipse is... Elle dies? Mind you, she was getting ridiculously wishy-washy and I approve of hitting the reset button for Sylar, if only because it's marginally better than continuing the cockamamie redemption story... but on a show with so many problems, it's odd they prioritized getting rid of a genuinely talented actress whose character debut was one of the few highlights of season 2.

1a. And seriously, that's it? Mass power loss, everyone's vulnerable, everyone's expendable, and then the eclipse ends and we're exactly where we left off? This has driven home - with painful finality - a fairly horrible realization I've had about this show: it's not about the characters anymore, it's about the powers. It's not about taking risks, because the list of characters who could have died during the eclipse is huge, and most of those characters still have some S1 goodwill attached to them that their deaths would have meant something: Peter, Nathan, Claire, even Sylar. This was the best point to change something, and they didn't. Missed opportunity.

2. As I said, I'm happy about the Sylar reboot, despite feeling rather queasy at the whole Tilt-a-Whirl routine his character's gone through this season - seriously, in 12 episodes he got his powers back, was captured by the Company, became the Third Petrelli Brother (or is he?), teamed up with Bennet, sold out Bennet to kill Jesse, saved Angela, betrayed Angela, betrayed Peter, saved Peter, switched to Pinehearst, retroactively got a "hunger" added to his character makeup to make his redemption easier (in theory) to follow, retroactively got a love interest in Elle, became an empath, lost his powers and now he's gone back to his roots as the boogeyman serial killer (yeah, I vaguely remember a time when Sylar was genuinely scary). And I know I've been driving this comparison home ad nauseum, but it's really the foremost parallel that comes to mind: Spike, hanging around Sunnydale long after he doesn't have a purpose anymore, so he's evil and then he gets a chip and becomes Xander's pet and then he falls in love with Buffy and then he gets a soul, all these "grafts" that don't feel organic in the least because they're dictated not by the logical extension of the character arc but because the plot requires some kind of justification for keeping these popular characters around.

3. I like Breckin Meyer. I like Seth Green. Ever since it was announced that they'd be doing a stint on "Heroes", I was looking forward to it. My reaction to their role?



If I had any faith left in Tim Kring at this point, I might be charitable enough to attribute the total waste of brilliant guest-stars as some kind of quasi-meta commentary on how celebrities draw attention regardless of how substantial (or insubstantial) their actual screen time may be, much like Nichelle Nichols last season. Then again, Nana Dawson really didn't do anything and the sole point of Sam and Frack is to give Hiro the Uncle Ben speech, and so who are we kidding here?

4. It's a point of concern that there's been a substantial death tally so far (Adam, Maury, Elle, Niki [in that her death was made "official" this season], Bob, Usutu, etc.) and yet I honestly can't think of a single death that moved me like Eden's or Isaac's or even Simone's for all the eye-rolling that followed. All the S3 casualties were pretty much written off quickly, almost as an afterthought, and you know, it might have actually meant something if Claire had died during the eclipse, because Bennet would have been devastated to have missed the last minutes of his daughter's life while he was busy avenging her, and... okay, it wouldn't have been a heroic death, at least not in the sense that she accomplished much besides sacrificing herself for her father, but it would mean something to other characters. Similarly, Peter - a character I really enjoyed in earlier years who I now find insufferable - could have gone out in a blaze of glory in Haiti, finally being a hero without having any powers at all. It's not like Peter's the focalizer for the audience anymore, those days are long behind us.

CONCLUSION: If I was ambivalent about it before, I'm not anymore. I'll stick around to the end of the season for closure's sake, but... yeah, the shark's definitely been jumped here, folks. Time to cut and run.

Damn.

Another one bites the dust. And, just to add insult to injury, "Pushing Daisies" is ending on a cliffhanger - one of my biggest pet peeves.

I'm feeling particularly frustrated about this one. It's like there's less and less space for intelligent programming these days; and when you do get fresh, exciting ideas, they're either dumbed down for mass consumption ("Heroes", which really should have stuck to the original plan of dumping the S1 cast and starting over fresh; "Veronica Mars" with its WB-infected teen melodrama of the later seasons) or painfully short-lived ("The Middleman", "Jake 2.0", "Freaks and Geeks", "Joan of Arcadia", the list sadly goes on.)

And the question then becomes: is it worth getting invested in these series to begin with? I mean, why should I bother to get into "Dollhouse" if it's not likely to last a full season? Why risk getting aggravated when the axe drops?

Loeb-otomy?

So... is it me, or was this week's episode of "Heroes" significantly better than anything else the season has offered so far? Sure, I'm still not happy with Sylar (and Elle to a lesser extent) being Spiked, but every other character was in top form - I'd almost forgotten that Nathan and Peter had such amazing chemistry together.

Obviously, it's way too early to attribute this apparent rise in quality to the departure of Jeph Loeb, but it's nice to think that maybe the slump is finally over...

TV Roundup

Just some quick updates apropos of nothing:

Legend of the Seeker: See below.

Heroes: Slightly better than season 2, but that's not saying a lot. Fortunately, they've ditched Jeph Loeb and his Cloud of Stupidity, so maybe things'll turn around.

Dexter: The lack of a direct threat to Dexter (so far) has made this season a touch more sedate, but the characters have always been compelling enough to keep me watchng even when things weren't happening. And I'm comfortable with the possibility of Dexter's redemption in a way I could never feel about Sylar.

Sanctuary: Dropped. It just... didn't amount to anything especially entertaining for me.

Wolverine and the X-Men: Surprisingly short on character moments, but still solid for the most part.

Pushing Daisies: I love this show. So naturally it's got an axe hovering over its neck. Is there some kind of public objection to funny, intelligent television series these days that I don't know about?

Burn Notice: On mid-season hiatus.

Battlestar Galactica: Ditto.

Weeds: Finished its fourth season a while back; still a major favorite of mine.

The Middleman: I have no idea if this is coming back for a second season or not... but I hope it does. It was awesome.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The second season really kicked things up a notch, with particularly interesting performances from Summer Glau and Shirley Manson. Here's hoping it dodges the bullet.

Supernatural: I'm still not sold on the God Warrior angle, but other than that it's business as usual.

Damages: Still waiting for the second season of this brilliant legal drama, whcih made such use of misleading flashbacks and flash-forwards that would put every other show on this list to shame.

No Heroics: Fun for six episodes, but I doubt it would work in a longer format - the jokes aren't that funny, but they're okay for a quick run.

Ashes to Ashes: Nope.

True Blood: Hell no.

First Impressions: Legend of the Seeker

Hmm.

Okay, so Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert - creators of "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and the infinitely superior "Xena: Warrior Princess" - have returned to television with a new series, an adaptation of Terry Goodkind's fantasy novel series "The Sword of Truth" (which I've never read). I saw the 90-minute pilot earlier today, and it left me with some mixed feelings.

Let's start with the superb visuals: this series looks stunning. Leading man Craig Horner is gorgeous (I like to think that bit of casting is Raimi's way of apologizing for seven years of shirtless Kevin Sorbo, which the years - and Paul Telfer's gratuitous skin shots in the later miniseries - have mercifully obliterated from my memory), and Bridget Regan's ethereal appearance goes a long way in selling those moments when she uses bad juju on people. As for Craig Parker, hell, I always thought Haldir was evil anyway. The action sequences have a tendency to overuse slow-motion, but they're still well-coordinated, without any of the blatantly impossible feats that eventually became mainstays of both "Xena" and "Hercules".

And yet... and yet. Mind you, I'm basing this opinion on the 90-minute pilot (which you probably guessed from the whole First Impressions thing), but as fantasy fare goes, "Legend of the Seeker" is rather formulaic. You've got your evil warlord, and a prophecy saying he'll be overthrown by a champion - said champion turns out to be a simple, down-to-earth guy with modest ambitions. Bad stuff happens, he accepts his destiny from a wizard with a ludicrous name (in this case, Zeddicus Zul Zorander), and everyone - seriously, everyone - constantly reaffirms his identity as the Chosen One until he finally "gets it" and follows through with an obligatory butt-kicking action scene. TV Tropes is going to have a field day categorizing this one.

And therein lies the problem: I've seen this exact sequence play itself out at least a dozen times in fiction. Raimi and Tapert haven't brought anything new to the table, there's no twist, no innovation that makes the stale old conventions at least seem fresh. Now, being formulaic isn't the same as being bad; after all, tropes become cliches partly because they work. But on the other hand, I don't know how happy Raimi would be to learn that I successfully predicted every single development in the episode - George's death, Richard being the Seeker, Zed's instant recovery from near-death, the hint of romance between Richard and Kahlen... hell, I'd bet good money that the evil warlord is Richard's father, just because the Darth Vader scenario is about the only cliche this show didn't tap in its debut.

Ultimately, it's hard for me to imagine staying invested in a series that's utterly incapable of surprising me - the eye-candy's nice, but I didn't chain myself to the TARDIS for David Tennant, and "Lost" is still teeming with cuties, so clearly The Pretty isn't enough. I'll stick around for a few more episodes, get a firmer sense of where this show is going... but my expectations have dropped a few hundred notches.