Season In Review: Jericho S2

If the WGA Strike has taught us anything, it's that there are certain benefits to condensed storytelling. Exhibit A: the second (and final) season of "Jericho".

As I've said before, there are perfectly valid reasons why this show just can't grab a large enough audience to sustain itself, despite being relatively well-written, with a strong cast. Taking that into account, its revival is doubly impressive.

But coming back with a shortened (only seven episodes) season had an interesting impact on the series, especially given the grave - and eventually justified - doubts about any subsequent return. In effect, the writers had seven episodes to wrap up as many storylines as they could while still moving forward with some kind of seasonal arc.

Much to my surprise, they went and did just that.

Of course, compressed storytelling has a price - much of the supporting cast members were either relegated to the margins (Mary, Emily, Dale, Gray) or completely forgotten (Jonah, Skylar, Hawkins' kids, Gail except for that wonderfully subversive moment during Jake's interrogation). But at the same time, there was a great degree of internal continuity throughout the second season: Ravenwood's return, the ascension of Tomarchio, Constantino's schemes, Chavez's appearance and so on. I honestly didn't expect to get that feeling of completion, of a story drawing to its natural close, from such an abbreviated span of episodes... but I did. It's a sharp contrast to the cliffhanger conclusion we got last season, where it was nigh-impossible to walk away satisfied because nothing was resolved.

Looking back, I wonder if this approach could have helped other shows that didn't quite live up to their potential - it might've been better, in the long run, if the second season of "Heroes" had omitted Sylar, Maya and Alejandro altogether; that was a lot of screen-time given to a plotline that, in the final analysis, amounted to very little. Likewise, the strike has forced "Supernatural" to end its third season five or six episodes early, bringing the seasonal arc to a boil much sooner than is usually the case - and yet, that's an improvement, because what's normally happened is the "myth-arc" episodes get scattered throughout the season with very little rhyme or reason, to the extent that the episode prior to the two-part finales never had anything to do with the big climax. It's likely no coincidence that series with shorter seasons, like "Weeds", "Dexter" and "Burn Notice", manage to pull off a much more cohesive story with a minimum of useless filler.

Season In Review: In Treatment

When I first talked about "BeTipul" (English translation: "In Therapy"), I had no idea HBO would be adapting it for an American audience. With the first American season now complete, I thought it'd be interesting to do a piece-by-piece comparison and see what emerges - and since both "In Treatment" and "BeTipul" were highly character-centric, I'll focus on the actors/characters.

Gabriel Byrne/Paul Weston vs. Asi Dayan/Reuben Dagan: No contest here, folks. Dayan was a tired, sad-sack mess long before "BeTipul" started, and it showed - he spent the entire season on the edge of falling asleep on-camera (when he wasn't coked out or whatever the hell he does these days). It was just impossible to care about his performance given how apathetic he looked most of the time. Gabriel Byrne is much more kinetic, even when he's just talking, and his rage-out at Alex was much more effective than Dayan stumbling out of his chair and wagging his finger. Winner: HBO

Melissa George/Laura vs. Ayelet Zorer/Neama: Ah, here's a tricky one. On the one hand, George's performance was much more seductive, which is certainly in line with Laura's character... but by not going over the top, Zorer managed to come off as more "realistic", in a sense. I mean, there were certainly a few moments during the final Laura episodes when George oversold her role, and that had a problematic effect on the end of her storyline, because she ended up telegraphing the twist (that, as Gina predicted, she would reject Paul if he capitulated - it's not quite that clear in the Israeli version, you're left wondering whether Neama might really love Reuben for reasons other than transference). Winner: Israel

Blair Underwood/Alex vs. Lior Ashkenazi/Yadin: My crush on Ashkenazi aside, this is another example of an HBO actor going a little too far with the part. Alex/Yadin is supposed to be arrogant and unlikeable, but Underwood went to extremes with everything - the attitude, the monologues, he even falls apart in a much more grandiose way than Ashkenazi's relatively subdued meltdown. Another nitpick has to do with the extent of the revisions: his father was originally written as a Holocaust survivor, which (I felt) played much more strongly to the themes of strength and survival at all costs. It actually turned out a bit awkward in the HBO version, because Alex Sr. ends up playing the race card at a somewhat irrelevant moment - it just doesn't work. Furthermore, the HBO version more or less absolves Paul of all responsibility in Alex's death: in the Israeli version, Yadin's final session lasts about five minutes. He shows up in uniform, announces that he's going back, and when he asks Reuben whether he should fly, Reuben says nothing. That's why he feels guilty, because he never actually asks Yadin to question whether this is the right thing for him. It's Reuben's great failure, and the HBO version skips over it entirely by devoting an entire therapy session to Alex. So there's no pathos there at all. Winner: Israel

Mia Wasikowska/Sophie vs. Maya Maron/Ayala: Sometimes the simplicity of the casting process astounds me. How's this for a revelation - if you're looking for someone to play a 16-year-old, try aiming in that general age range. Maya Maron was probably the most sympathetic character in the Israeli cast, but Wasikowska trumps her easily, both because she looks the part of the young, vulnerable yet wrathful girl and also because she performs it excellently. Winner: HBO

Josh Charles/Jake and Embeth Davitz/Amy vs. Rami Hoiberger/Michael and Alma Zak/Orna: I liked that they cast a South African actress as Amy, as if to further stress the enormous differences between her and Jake. This storyline was practically translated intact, so I don't have much to say about it in terms of comparison: both pairs worked out nicely, though my one nitpick for this week was the rewrite of the eighth session, after Alex's death. Originally, the script called for Reuben's and Michael's conversation to be hallucinatory - the lights turn on and off, and when they go out the conversation shifts to Yadin's death, and when they turn back on for the last time, Michael is gone: he was never there, it was just a way for Reuben to deal with his guilt. I still find that ambiguous episode to be better than doing the parental bit with Jake, it was especially repetitive given that we'd only just finished digging up Amy's skeletons. Draw

Dianne Wiest/Gina vs. Gila Almagor/Gila: Gina/Gila is my favorite character, not just because she's the only person who can cut through Paul's BS but also because she actively resists the narrative she's being forced into, constantly challenging what we, through Paul, know about her. I was surprised to hear that the role had gone to Dianne Wiest - my immediate reaction was "Well, geez, she's too nice." And she is: the most dominant aspect of Gila Almagor's original performance is the way she could adopt this withering, critical, almost disgusted look whenever Reuben indulged himself too much - Wiest doesn't have that, not even during their climactic Charlie/David argument. Winner: Israel

As for the bit players... well, Ian never had any screen time in the Israeli version, his character was conflated with Rosie's in the form of Reuben's daughter Rona. Paradoxically (but, I feel, more realistically), Rona is both the one who takes her father's side and the one who chooses to confide in her mother. Michelle Forbes was great as Kate, she channeled the character's anger really well. And it was nice seeing Peter Horton again as Sophie's needy father.

Overall, barring a few glitches towards the end of the run, I honestly think "In Treatment" acquitted itself nicely. Doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on its audience, but I can't say I'm surprised - it's pretty heavy stuff...

Diana's Adventures in TV Land: The Odyssey

This was one of my favorite TV shows growing up, and I recently reacquired it. It's been a fun couple of weeks.

While attempting to retrieve his deceased father's telescope from some bullies, 12-year-old Jay Ziegler suffers a head injury and lapses into a coma. Moments later, he finds himself in a feudal, post-apocalyptic (yet strangely familiar) world, populated entirely by children. He befriends Alpha and Flash - mirror images of his best friend Donna and his rival Keith - and sets out on a quest that, like Jay himself, is constantly evolving.

It's strange to look back at this childhood relic with adult eyes. The first time around, my appreciation of "The Odyssey" was mostly superficial: it was a highly entertaining drama-adventure story, lead actor Illya Woloshyn was cute, and I loved Andrea Nemeth as Medea, an aristocratic sorceress who manipulates and blocks Jay at every turn.

But watching it today, I find I enjoy it on a much deeper level. Granted, most of the complexities I now see are relegated to subtext (this is primarily a children's show, after all), but it was still surprising to see how "The Odyssey" subtly dabbles with complicated psychological, social and pseudo-supernatural issues. For example, it's assumed that Downworld (the producers' name for the adult-free world) exists in Jay's head, and external circumstances in the real world affect events in Downworld... but there are also moments when Downworld appears to be a legitimate reality all its own. In the first-season finale, Medea steals an escape route from Jay, and moments later Donna sees an identical girl, comatose, wheeled in next to Jay's room as a faint afterimage of Medea appears, laughing victoriously. When next we see her, she claims to have visited Jay's world.

Another interesting aspect of the show is the way it toys with the traditional quest narrative. Many contemporaries of "The Odyssey" dealt with the conflict between a finite quest and a (potentially) infinite ongoing series by simply erasing the last stage of the quest, "Samurai Jack" being a particularly noteworthy recent example: at the start of every episode, Jack finds some way to get home, then he endures some horribly difficult trial to get to the MacGuffin du Jour, only to have it destroyed at the last minute. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But "The Odyssey" doesn't do that. Rather, the series is built on a chain of smaller quests, each of which is completed in its turn. At first, all Jay wants is to find a way home, but this gets subverted when he suspects that Brad, the formerly benevolent (and now mysteriously despotic) ruler of Downworld, may be his father. He then spends the rest of the first season trying to reach the Tower, the center of all Downworld authority and seat of Brad's power. And when he meets Brad, he finds a new objective, and spends the second season alternately wanting to escape Downworld and trying to return when the real world hits him with some particularly ugly truths. The second season ends on a literal world-smashing note.

Then the third season breaks the mold: four months have passed since Jay woke up, but adjusting to regular life is difficult because he's lost two years and can't quite seem to catch up. At the same time, he's also in a radically-changed Downworld where everyone's getting older and it's scaring them witless. The third season made some very interesting changes to the formula, aside from simultaneously taking place in both worlds: Jay's personality takes a darker turn, the abstract and oddly-wonderful locations of past seasons are replaced with shadowy tunnels, wild forests and the oppressive atmosphere of the Tower, and Downworld becomes much more strongly tied to Jay's feelings and wishes: his relationship with Medea becomes inversely proportionate to his relationship with her Upworld counterpart Sierra, whose boyfriend Mick becomes the scheming grand villain Finger in Downworld.

"The Odyssey" is one of the few shows that, to me, withstood the test of time; I can't think of many other shows I liked as a kid that could still appeal to me (though I stand by my preference of the Misfits over Jem and the Holograms - given the choice of tough women scratching out their claim to fame or ditzes mooning about double lives and true loves, I'll never regret picking the former). And while the acting can be awkward at times (these were children, after all, though a young Ryan Reynolds puts in a very amusing performance as the usurper Macro), it's still a lot more professional than other child-oriented and child-centric series I've seen.

Season in Review: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Sorry for disappearing yet again, it's Crunch Time at the university and there just aren't enough hours in the day...

Here's a preface I'm sure you've all heard before: I liked the first Terminator movie, loved the second, hated the third. It's probably not too much of a stretch to attribute to "Rise of the Machines" the same kind of franchise-killing status as, say, "The Dream Child" for "A Nightmare on Elm Street" - the point of no return, when the pie's been jumped and the shark's been eaten.

Taking into account the relatively weak TV season we've had, in which even the strongest shows faltered (why, yes, Tim Kring, your spider-sense is tingling), it was hard to be optimistic about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. There were just so many potential land-mines: the recasting of iconic characters (by which I mean Arnie and Linda Hamilton - I doubt anyone shed a tear for Edward Furlong), the problematic expansion of the premise (time travel and the Terminators themselves, by sheer necessity, become a lot more common than might perhaps be advisable), the very practical question of how far a series can stray from the original story as established by the films before it loses itself, and a certain degree of demystification, in which we're given unambiguous access to things that had previously been left to our imagination.

Fortunately, it all seems to have turned out rather well.

Mind you, I have doubts about how far this show can run on its own steam - it is, after all, operating on a yes/no premise (can the heroes stop Skynet before Judgement Day?), and you only have to look at "X-Files" to see how that trap is sprung: "Do aliens exist? Yes No Yes No Maybe." (For a more modern version of this problem, see "Lost".)

But the first season of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" has acquitted itself well, mostly by balancing its exploration of the pre-existing premise with new directions (ie: Sarkissian and the Turk). The show takes liberties with the formula without discarding said formula, and that's not an easy balance to achieve. So, props for that.

What I liked most about the show is the way it mythologizes its parent films, not just by referencing continuity but by actively using it. Kyle Reese becomes this huge, legendary figure post-mortem, but then we meet his older brother Derek and our perspective changes. The pilot picks up immediately after the second movie and then jumps into the future, invalidating the third movie in a very satisfying fashion. Sarah's dramatic escape from the mental hospital leads to Dr. Silverman deifying her. And so it goes.

I have to admit, though, there were some storylines that just didn't work for me. I'm thinking specifically of the whole high school thing with John and Cameron pretending to be normal kids - it just didn't feel like it was going anywhere interesting, though the abbreviated nature of the season could've had something to do with that.

The casting's a bit uneven, with strong performances offset by some unfortunate acting decisions. Summer Glau is brilliant as Cameron, John's pet Terminator, and she's all the more impressive if you remember that it's a complete reversal from her last role, where - as River Tam on "Firefly" - she was a manic, erratic ball of energy. Cameron's the exact opposite: static, modulated, calculating, so that the viewers never forget what she is.

As for the others, I could just about buy Lena Headley as an action heroine, but she lacks the intensity Linda Hamilton brought to the character. And Thomas Dekker... to be honest, I think I liked him better when he was cheerful and rebellious in "Heroes" - the John Connor Non-Stop Pity Party Emo Parade isn't working for me, though he earns major points for really pulling off that "reunion" with Kyle in the finale.

Overall, I liked it: at once familiar and fresh, with plenty of violence (a surprising amount of it, actually) and some clever twists on pre-established continuity. I'd strongly recommend watching the first two films before checking it out, though - exposition isn't abundant, and I imagine the effect for someone unfamiliar with the movies is not unlike constantly perceiving something in the corner of your eye that you can't quite see.

Movie Mini-Review: Requiem For A Dream

Bloody hell, that was awful. Ninety minutes of utter misery. Whatever artistic merit "Requiem For A Dream" may have is totally lost beneath a black, miasmic depression so all-consuming, so complete, that enjoyment of any sort is practically impossible. I pride myself on being able to "take" hard-hitting dramatic elements, but when 100% of a story is human ugliness... to be totally honest, I just don't see the point.

Quick-Shot Movie Reviews

30 Days of Night: I liked it. It's always been the scratchy, confusing artwork that put me off the "30 Days of Night" comics, but the film manages a suitably creepy contrast of the vampires' warped, unearthly features and the realistic world around them. The acting was a bit sketchy, though ultimately tolerable. And I haven't seen many other horror movies that successfully depict mass slaughter (as opposed to individual kill-scenes): the overhead shots of Barrow being decimated were very effective.

Phoenix: Too cheesy for my tastes, though it deserves some points for getting a touch inventive with the standard "love triangle" formula, in which the person torn between two lovers is entirely absent from the story.

Spiral: On the one hand, there's an absolutely brilliant double-twist at the end of the movie. On the other hand, the middle act drags a bit mostly because of the lead character's laconic state; a lot of time is given over to Amber Tamblyn's ramblin' (take that, Stan Lee!) and the pace slows down as a result (though, as it turns out, the double-twist ends up linking to the whole verbosity issue). Zachary Levi cleans up surprisingly well - the curls were doing him no good in "Chuck". Definitely worth watching.

After Sex: An adorable series of vignettes with a common premise: each story takes place immediately after the two protagonists have had sex. It's basically a wide array of character moments, ranging from sweet (Kristy and Sam, Christopher and Leslie) to dramatic (Freddy and Jay, David and Jordi) to hilarious (Trudy and Gene, Marco and Alanna, Neil and Bob if only because looking directly at Neil opens a time-warp near your computer that sucks you into 1981). Clever at some points, anvilicious at others.

Slipstream: Not a single fucking clue. I prefer being eased into the weirdness as opposed to spending ninety minutes having no bloody idea what the hell is going on.

Book Review: Star Trek Double-Shot

Mirror Universe: Glass Empires
Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances

As I mentioned when I reviewed "Dark Passions", my interest in the Star Trek Mirror Universe outlasted my stay in that fandom - partly because I'm generally interested in parallel universes and doppelgangers, but also because I've always found the MU so much more engaging and dynamic than the mainstream Trekverse, where the status quo always found a way to reassert itself even after supposedly major astropolitical upheavals (ie: the Klingons are at war with the Federation! Oh, wait, they're over it. Never mind). With the MU, you have the Terran Empire overthrown by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance, providing two major "phases" in galactic history. Characters die all the time, or pop up in the most unexpected places.

So I'm always on the lookout for Mirror Universe fiction, and I was quite pleased to pick up "Glass Empires" and "Obsidian Alliances", a pair of anthologies collecting three novellas each, all set exclusively in the Mirror Universe. The six stories are based on six incarnations of "Star Trek": "Enterprise", the Original Series, "The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine", "Voyager" and Peter David's "New Frontier" novels.

Before moving into specific reviews, I should note one potential flaw that might deter readers: both collections require more-than-casual knowledge of Mirror Universe history and Star Trek canon. This isn't totally unexpected, I know - any doppelganger story requires you to understand the difference between characters and their dark reflections - but accessibility becomes an issue in some places. On the flip-side, these two books are to be commended for the amount of internal continuity they share: stories from "Obsidian Alliances" reference "Glass Empires", and those stories set during the Alliance's reign indicate a growing schism between the Klingons and the Cardassians (which, if the Mirror Universe timeline ever continues forward, should provide an exciting backdrop for future upheavals). And while this duology contradicts "Dark Passions" and William Shatner's work in the Mirror Universe, I find the story they provide so cohesive that I'm comfortable granting it personal-canon status.

Glass Empires

Age of the Empress: And to demonstrate the accessibility problem, we have this "Enterprise" story by Mike Sussman, Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore. Now, I've never watched "Enterprise", I had no idea who these characters were. As we'll see with a later example, though, this doesn't necessarily exclude me from enjoying the story. Except that "Age of the Empress" also seems to directly follow up on an episode of "Enterprise" in which a ship from the future and from a parallel universe is flying about, and... well, I was just totally lost. There was no effort made to reintroduce these characters and the situation for those unfamiliar readers, which left me outside the story for its duration. There's really no way I can give it a proper review, so let's move on.

David Mack's The Sorrows of Empire works much better, detailing Spock's rise to power and the eventual downfall of the Terran Empire. Despite a few plot clunkers (Spock's ultimate plan seems a bit on the iffy side, and the Insta-True-Love bit with Marlena isn't very convincing), Mack puts together a convincing tapestry of events only alluded to in the DS9 Mirror episodes, and his depiction of Spock as a logical - sometimes terrifyingly logical - entity makes his ascension all the more unnerving because it makes you wonder whether the "real" Spock, confronted with the circumstances of the Mirror Universe, would've acted the same way.

The Worst of Both Worlds by Greg Cox jumps about a century forward, into the time of Alliance rule. Jean-Luc Picard is an archaeologist modeled after Indiana Jones, scouring the galaxy for alien artifacts on behalf of his Cardassian patron. His routine is interrupted by his ex-girlfriend Vash, now a member of the Terran Resistance, who has uncovered evidence of a new alien race approaching the Alpha Quadrant: the Borg. As the title suggests, this is basically an inversion of "The Best of Both Worlds", in which the Borg target the Klingons, someone else becomes Locutus, and Picard - a lowly Terran slave - is the only one who can save the day. I liked this story mainly because, unlike "The Sorrows of Empire", the Picard featured here is very different from his mainstream counterpart. He's not at all noble, or interested in doing the right thing for freedom's sake, and he's only motivated to fight back when the situation affect him personally. But once he's goaded into action, we can see a glimmer of the Picard we know. Also, kudos for finding a way around the Borg problem (namely, that there's no way the Alliance could have beaten them) that doesn't seem like a cop-out.

Obsidian Alliances

Keith DeCandido takes on "Voyager" with The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, quite possibly the raunchiest story in the series. It's also, in my opinion, the most accessible: I knew next to nothing about "Voyager" but that didn't stop me from really enjoying the novella and getting a feel for practically every character. DeCandido adds some clever twists here following a common theme of inversion - the premise of "Voyager" is turned upside-down, and along relationship lines, friends in the main universe are lovers here, lovers are enemies, and the sexual restraint so enforced in the "Star Trek" franchise is totally evaporated. Overall, this was my favorite of the six stories, combining action, manipulation and sex into a fun ride.

I skipped over Peter David's Cutting Ties: like "Age of the Empress", it seemed primarily aimed at people familiar with the characters from the "main universe", and having never read "New Frontier", I thought it best to leave it be.

And finally, we have Saturn's Children by Sarah Shaw. Shaw's "About The Authors" segment reveals that she has a background in fan-fiction, which a) got me curious as to what work she's done in other fandoms, under which pseudonyms, and b) justifies my long-standing defense of fan-fiction as valid storytelling. "Saturn's Children" takes the Mirror Universe to the next logical place after its last DS9 appearance: the Resistance has grown to the point where leadership is splintered (Shaw opens the story with a quote from the French Revolution, neatly aligning the situation with human historical precedents), while Kira schemes to regain power and overthrow the new (yet familiar) Intendant of Bajor. Shaw arguably had the most challenging job here, because the DS9 mirror characters had a lot of screen-time and she's really the only writer who had to stick to pre-established parameters when writing her story (Mack's story goes so far beyond the Original Series that aligning his Mirror Spock with Jerome Bixby's Mirror Spock isn't an issue). Fortunately, Shaw rises to the occasion: Kira is every bit the manipulative seductress, Bashir the impulsive jerk, O'Brien the weary but determined leader looking for a better life. Like DeCandido, Shaw also doesn't shy away from using sex in an almost-explicit way, which is - in my opinion - thematically relevant to the setting.

"Saturn's Children" provides an excellent conclusion to the duology, though I'm hoping we'll see some of the loose ends (ie: Memory Omega, the growing discontent between the leading factions of the Alliance) picked up in later collections; apparently a third anthology will be published later this year. I'll be looking forward to it.