Quick-Shot Movie Reviews

Madea Goes To Jail: Tyler Perry's plays always feel like two very different stories fighting for control of the screen/stage. On the one hand, Madea is a very amusing character, and her antics provide plenty of comedic moments; on the other hand, there's this whole layer of obnoxious Christian proselytizing and saccharine melodrama that you're apparently meant to take quite seriously. It's a schism that's impossible to reconcile, because the tone of the Madea scenes is very light and entertaining and then you're brought down to baby-mama-drama and accepting Jesus' love. The end result, for me, was much like "Diary of a Mad Black Woman": fast-forwarding through most of the movie looking for the funny parts (read: Madea's scenes).

Corrina, Corrina: One of the less interesting Whoopi Saves The Day films, part of a whole sub-genre where Whoopi Goldberg plays a wise-cracking outsider who enters a hopeless situation and turns it around for everyone, like a '90s version of Mary Poppins. I'll admit I have a soft spot for "Sister Act" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash", but "Corrina, Corrina" doesn't quite do it for me: Goldberg's performance is too sedate, the other characters are dull, the story takes a last-minute leap into romantic territory that would've been better left unexplored. And you wouldn't know it from "Veronica Mars", but Tina Majorino was one scary-looking moppet. Brr.

Pump Up The Volume: This would've fit in nicely when I did that "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"/"Dangerous Minds" comparative review, because it's an interesting middle point in the continuum. Thematically, the conflict is still between teenagers and an actively oppressive authority, as it was in "Ferris Bueller", but that movie was about individual rebellion. "Pump Up The Volume" prefigures "Dangerous Minds" by making that rebellion a collective experience, and we're still years away from bringing any ethnic context into the mix - it's still very much the white suburban middle-class kids who declare war. On that level, though, on the brink of the shift where unity becomes fragmentation and The Enemy becomes other teens, this film does the job well.

The Conrad Boys/Shelter: Broadly speaking, these movies both tell the same story, which is why I'm reviewing them together: a teenager has been saddled with heavy responsibility and has to choose between obligation and love. Of the two, I think "The Conrad Boys" did a better job with the story because it's more complex - appearances can (and do) deceive, Charlie's options aren't quite what he thinks they are, and most importantly, the choice is precisely that: a choice. By picking one, Charlie forfeits the other, and that's good drama. "Shelter" falters in this sense because not only is Zach's dilemma external (someone else is forcing him to choose), he ultimately walks away with everything he wanted. For obvious reasons, that's a less-compelling take on the story.

Diana's Adventures In TV Land: Battlestar Galactica S3

It took me a bit longer than expected, but I've finally completed the third season of BSG.

The New Caprica storyline was an excellent exercise in dismantling the cast, taking them apart to see what makes them tick. Jammer's weakness, Starbuck's flirtation with insanity, Adama's guilt, the horror of Fat Apollo, Tigh's determination... we'd seen these things before, in smaller quantities, but New Caprica really strips the characters down to their most basic attributes. Our heroes are humiliated, beaten down, and contrary to expectations, some of them never really recover. In fact, it splits the people very decisively, between the resistance of New Caprica and people who were either seen as sitting on the sidelines or actively helping the Cylons, and this division goes all the way to the end of the season and Baltar's trial.

Jacob at Television Without Pity made an interesting comment about New Caprica: the characters get what they want, in the worst possible way. I think he's absolutely right - Kara's desire for a family is perverted by Leoben; President Baltar is rendered utterly powerless; Six gets her boytoy back and he's not quite what she remembered; the refugees have their new world and it's a living hell. This extends to "Unfinished Business" too, because Lee also gets what he wants, and he would've been better off without it.

After all that human drama, you'd think we'd finally left the mumbo-jumbo behind. Then we get to the Algae Planet and the Temple of Five.

It's the same thorn in my side each time: the religious aspect comes off as an attempt to push the plot forward in the absence of more realistic or complex mechanisms. Someone gets a vision or hums a song or follows a bouncing ball, and boom, we've reached the next part of the story. Or some never-before-seen quasi-Biblical text just happens to metaphorize exactly what's going to happen. It's bad enough on New Caprica when an "oracle" basically tells Three all about baby Hera, or the whole Eye of Jupiter thing where the Final Five Cylons are introduced in some huge and mythic way that gets deflated in a major way at the end of the season, but they finally crossed the line for me in "Maelstrom".

You see, until that episode, the metaphysics were a distraction on the level of plot, but somehow the characters managed to work around it: Roslin is no less compelling as a "prophet", Six's proselytizing doesn't keep her from playing mind games with Baltar. But "Maelstrom" is a huge emotional moment for the cast, the violent climax of a major character arc, and any real resonance is smothered beneath a layer of vague ramblings about "destiny", which is shorthand for "yeah, we don't know either, but give us some time and we'll think of something." That was just not cool.

I confess that by season's end I was sick and tired of Baltar: the bug-eyed neurotic routine had played itself out, and I think he lost the charisma that made him such an effective counterpart to Roslin. But the trial was interesting, because the writers managed to steer me into agreeing with Lee. Baltar is many things - a coward, a pompous jerk, a moron despite his intelligence - and he made decisions that cost thousands of lives. But legally, technically, in the ways that matter when you're thinking about shooting him in the head? He wasn't a traitor. He didn't order the colonization of New Caprica knowing that Gina had summoned the Cylons. He didn't give Caprica-Six access to the Colonies' defenses knowing what she was, and what she'd do with the information. Is he to blame for the tremendous loss of life? Yes, but indirectly so, and that doesn't justify killing him.

Anyway, much like last season, we also have a Worst Episode Ever in "The Woman King", which - if possible - was even lower on the scale than "Black Market". Over-the-top, superficial shlock that somehow turns Helo into a saint despite oversympathizing with the Cylons to the point where Roslin writes out a check addressed to him in the amount of Reality. I think there's been some deviation from the general direction with Helo, because it's one thing to love Sharon despite her being a Cylon, it's quite another to see all Cylons in the same light, especially after New Caprica (which, as Roslin rightly points out, Helo never experienced).

And finally: the Final Five. Spoilers ahoy, but... okay. Let's take them one at a time. Tory? Sure. Works for me. Sam? A bit harder to swallow after "Downloaded", but I can still suspend disbelief enough to buy it. Tyrol? Now we're having problems. Sure, there were those two minutes where he suddenly starts thinking he's a Cylon, but the whole point of that was to illustrate the very human fear that It Could Be Inside Us. Making him a Cylon after all not only messes with that, it detracts from Hera being the Special Little Hybrid That Could (because Cally's pregnant within a year of them getting together), it also screws up the whole dynamic that he had with Boomer.

And finally, Tigh. This is where it all falls apart for me. Setting aside the fact that no machine could handle that much alcohol, Tigh was one of the most flawed, conflicted, human characters on the show. He was also one of the few with a shared history reaching back into the pre-history of the show (ie: he and Adama were friends for thirty years). Retconning him as a Cylon is just too implausible.

It just doesn't work, not really, despite assurances from the writers that the Final Five are "different". It's certainly convenient that they don't seem to follow the same rules as the rest of their kindred, for reasons that aren't even remotely apparent, but... "meh" is pretty much all I get out of that.

It was still a good season overall, because the aspects I regularly enjoy - the politics, the action, the drama - still overpower the juju, but I'm starting to worry that the metaphysical storyline is becoming more and more prominent; it'd be pretty disappointing for the last season to get totally lost in pseudo-spiritual nonsense.

Diana's Adventures in TV Land: Battlestar Galactica S2

Broadly speaking, the second season of "Battlestar Galactica" is divided into three arcs: Kobol, Pegasus and New Caprica. I'll be tackling them in that order.

The Kobol storyline (episodes 1-7) continues from the end of the first season - the Fleet has been divided between an imprisoned Laura Roslin and Colonel Tigh (replacing the incapacitated Adama). Things spiral out of control very, very quickly, and on that level it's a very engaging story. Until Kobol comes into play again.

I've mentioned that I find the metaphysical/religious aspect of the series somewhat incompatible with the realistic tone established in the miniseries - it's certainly valid to explore a human religion based on the Olympic Pantheon, but when we're expected to take millennia-old prophecies as "real" in the sense that they're informing where the story's headed... well, honestly, this isn't "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". It's a little too convenient that every plot development has some pseudo-Biblical context that confirms its significance.

However, if the Kobol arc's good for anything, it's demonstrating a particular talent of the BSG writers: character death. There's a tendency to give minor figures like Elosha and Crashdown just enough screen time that when they die, it means more to us than an anonymous Redshirt.

Somewhat surprisingly, once Kobol is left behind, the religious subplot is abandoned as well, and the status quo snaps back to early season 1. Now, I was personally pleased with that particular development, but on the other hand, Kobol takes up a third of the season and ultimately doesn't amount to anything beyond vague foreshadowing.

Episodes 8 and 9 ("Final Cut" and "Flight of the Phoenix") serve as a sort of prelude to the next major arc. They're a good example of enjoyable filler, and Tyrol naming the Blackbird after Roslin got me all misty-eyed. It was also nice seeing Lucy Lawless again, especially in such a subversive role.

The Pegasus arc (episodes 10-17) kicks off with the Admiral Cain trilogy ("Pegasus" and the "Resurrection Ship" two-parter), an easy pick for my favorite episodes thus far. Everything that's good about BSG, that works for BSG, is distilled in "Pegasus", an episode which asks (and answers) an interesting question: what if Adama had abandoned the Fleet at Ragnar at the end of the miniseries, to go off and fight Cylons? What would the show be like without the civilians bringing humanity to the military machine? Helena Cain (another revised female in the mold of Starbuck, Roslin and Boomer) isn't a monster, she's Adama taken to a logical - if frightening - extreme, someone with no greater cause to serve than war. She's who Adama would have been, had he not met Laura Roslin. Remember that Roslin's first question to Adama was whether he planned to stage a military coup and declare martial law - Cain would have said yes in a heartbeat. And we can see this so clearly in her dehumanization of Gina, not very far from the way Adama sees Sharon #2. So all in all, I found Admiral Cain to be a fascinating and compelling character, and I'm sorry she was written out so quickly; on the other hand, the New Caprica storyline simply wouldn't have worked with her.

"Epiphanies" follows the "Resurrection Ship" two-parter, and... okay, here's my problem with that episode: Laura Roslin should have died. Don't get me wrong, she's my favorite character in the series, and I honestly think the show would be a lot weaker without Mary McDonnell's acting chops. But part of what makes Roslin so compelling is that she's on borrowed time, and she knows it, and she does her best to do as much good as she can for as long as she can. Naming the Blackbird after her was a way of acknowledging that, the hope that she'd given them, but after all the "dying leader" prophecies and the progression of her illness, to cure her cancer with a blatant deus ex machina was incredibly irritating, especially since the New Caprica arc was going to overturn the status quo anyway.

The Pegasus arc also bears the distinction of featuring the worst episode of BSG I've seen: "Black Market". If I step back - way, way back - I can see the motivation behind this story: we've had episodes dealing with the realistic difficulties facing refugees, such as water shortages and low morale, and it makes sense that we'd take a closer look at economy, trade and the eponymous "black market" in this context. The problem is that it's not "Battlestar Galactica". It's "Sin City In Space". "Black Market" reads like someone just copied phrases out of the Frank Miller handbook - we have a gold-hearted hooker mommy and an evil kingpin and an antihero tortured by his past, and it's so transparent you just can't take it seriously. Worse yet, the antihero in question is Apollo, of all people, and the plot necessitates not one but two major retcons to his history in order to make it work. And when your plot dictates and rewrites the characters, rather than the other way around? Yeah, that's made of fail, as they say.

Fortunately, "Black Market" is just an anomaly, as the rest of the Pegasus-related episodes ("Scar", "Sacrifice" and "The Captain's Hand") are consistently high-quality. "Scar" deserves special mention for its use of continuity (ie: the hints that Scar is the same Raider Starbuck lobotomized in "You Can't Go Home Again") and Starbuck's painful disintegration; the timing seems a bit off, because all the scenes of Starbuck being denied permission to return to Caprica during the Cain trilogy were cut, but if you take that into account it works fine.

The season wraps up with the New Caprica storyline (episodes 18-20), in which everything falls apart in a very permanent and spectacular way. "Downloaded" gives us the Cylon perspective for the first time, following Boomer and Baltar's Number Six lover (who, as it turns out, is not the Virtual Six he's been talking to) after their respective deaths. This leads us to the two-part finale, "Lay Down Your Burdens", and a rather shocking twist: halfway through the last episode, we're catapulted a year into the future, crystallizing the new status quo in a way that makes total reversal utterly impossible. Everything changes in the interrim that we don't see: whole interpersonal relationships flourish, characters get married or promoted to unexpected heights, and I throw up a little in my mouth because Lee Adama puts on forty pounds and he looks horrible. It's change, in its purest and most real state, and that's something we don't get often enough in serialized fiction.

Overall, the second season meets, and in some cases exceeds, the standards set by its predecessor. On to season 3!

Season In Review: Supernatural S3

Once again, I find myself giving Eric Kripke credit for thinking outside the box. "No Rest For The Wicked" is likely the most shocking season finale I've ever seen, because the last ten minutes of the episode so boldly defy conventional thinking. I'll be vague for the sake of avoiding spoilers, but familiarity with the medium and its tropes leads you to expect that certain situations will always be resolved in certain ways, because "that's how things work". So it's quite jarring when those same situations are resolved differently (or aren't resolved at all, as the case may be).

I've mentioned before that I think the writers' strike had some positive fallout; given how badly "Heroes" was spiraling out of control, I shudder to think what might've happened if they'd gone on for the full twenty-two episodes. And since "Supernatural" tends to cluster the plot-centric episodes around the beginning, middle and end of the season, I doubt losing six episodes had any impact on the storyline beyond cutting out some filler.

And filler was a major problem this season, moreso than in previous years, because this storyline had a time limit attached to it: having sold his soul to resurrect Sam, Dean is given one year to live before he's dragged off to Hell. While he's determined to wreak as much havoc on the supernatural world as he can, Sam's obsessed with finding a way to break the deal. Meanwhile, loose threads from previous seasons are wrapped up rather neatly (Gordon Walker gets his due in "Fresh Blood" while the FBI and Agent Henriksen are finally dealt with decisively) and new characters - Bela and Ruby - are thrown into the mix.

Kripke was ultimately true to his word, at least where the lack of romance was concerned: Bela and Ruby were both antagonists to the Winchesters, frustrating our heroes at every possible turn. Bela even got a bit of pathos for her final appearance, though Ruby's twists and turns became so convoluted that it just didn't work for me. Still, as a way of momentarily breaking Sam and Dean away from their usual back-and-forth dynamic, both characters worked out just fine.

On average, this season was more or less consistent, quality-wise, with its predecessors: there was a lot of repetition with the boys' interactions ("I don't want to die"/"I'm going to save you") in lieu of character development, because at this point there's really nowhere left to go with them so long as they're cut off from a larger social network (whatever happened to Ellen anyway?). Episodes vacillated from "eh" to "good": the Gordon episodes were well-written, "Mystery Spot" was a highly amusing take on time loops, and "Ghostfacers" was a cute callback to the wannabes from season 1. Other than that, pretty much par for the course, and that's not a bad thing.

Diana's Adventures In TV Land: Battlestar Galactica S1

One of the more frustrating aspects of life on the other side of the Atlantic is that I often find myself at a distance from the mainstream discourse. This is a problem when it comes to TV, because I never "discover" a good show until it's been out for ages, at which point there's little need to talk about it. On the other hand, I benefit from the delay as a viewer, because by the time I've caught on, the show usually progresses enough that I can watch entire seasons consecutively, giving me a much clearer overall perspective.

Case in point: "Battlestar Galactica". A few days ago, I finally decided to check out the three-hour miniseries that served as the series pilot, and I've been hooked ever since. Now, it's certainly true that I'd heard people talking about this show in the past... but there's really no way to join a conversation that assumes you already know what's going on, and all the talk about Cylons and such went totally over my head. I'd also been under the mistaken impression that the show was a continuation of the 1978 series, which I had no desire to dig up.

So, bearing in mind that science-fiction isn't a favorite genre of mine, I suppose the first question is "why did I finally decide to check it out?" followed by "Why do I like it?"

Initially, what piqued my curiosity about BSG was an article I'd read about its female characters - specifically, the fact that several prominent men from the original series had been rebooted as women. That struck me as a bold move, especially considering how male-dominated this particular genre can be. Moreover, the women had been positioned as counterparts to the men rather than subordinates, in a way that pushed gender equality to levels I'd rarely seen before: President Roslin stands toe to toe with Commander Adama, Starbuck is a match for Apollo (in more ways than one), and Number Six is an excellent foil for Dr. Baltar. This isn't a minor issue for me: one reason why I lost interest in "Star Trek" and never cared for "Star Wars" was precisely because Kira was too over-the-top, and Troi and Crusher never did anything, and Leia is remembered for the slave bikini and the bagel hairstyle, and the less said about Amidala, the better.

There's also the fact that Jamie Bamber is ridiculously cute. Well, he is. What, I can't have my shallow moments?

So that's more or less why I finally sat down and watched the miniseries (the fact that it was airing at the time helped). By the time it was over, "Battlestar Galactica" had shot right past casual viewing and made me a fan.

Here's the thing: BSG may just be the most realistic science-fiction show I've ever seen. Going back to "Star Wars" and "Star Trek", the other reason I've got no affinity for either franchise is because their respective universes are built in a way that allows massive amounts of contrivance in the service of plot. For "Star Trek", there was always some technobabble crisis that was solved by throwing more technobabble at it. The main conceit for "Star Trek", and this is very apparent with "The Next Generation", is that technology has advanced to such an extent that anything's possible. And if anything's possible, nothing really matters, because there's always going to be some nonsensical equalizer that'll turn up at the last minute to fix everything. (The fact that there are at least fifty ways to time-travel in the "Star Trek" without leaving your room? Not conducive to dramatic situations.) And "Star Wars"? Hell, "Star Wars" acknowledges magic as an actual Force in the universe. The Force lets you see the future, control people's minds, use telekinesis, make impossible shots, and it's pretty much arbitrary in terms of who's born with the power to use it and who isn't.

"Battlestar Galactica" is so much more sophisticated, precisely because there are no easy outs. No time travel, no alternate universes, no gadget or MacGuffin that saves the day. When characters die, they die for real, and it's so much more powerful because humanity has been reduced to a very limited number, and every death has meaning. Thematically, it's got this delightful mix of action and political intrigue and human drama, with a much darker slant than I'd expected and a truly formidable foe in the Cylons. What truly impressed me, insofar as the miniseries was concerned, was how deftly cliches were avoided - when Roslin is forced to abandon the annoying moppet she'd befriended, there's no last-minute save. Killer robots: 1, irritating brats: 0. Actions have real consequences. The refugees face real problems - lack of fuel, water shortages, fear of infiltration, chaos and confusion - and these things can't be overcome through technology or magic but are dealt with the way we would have to deal with them.

The only problem I've had is the increasingly metaphysical aspect the show's been getting into, specifically the whole Kobol/Apollo's Arrow thing at the end of the season. Laura Roslin becoming this messianic figure of mythological proportions is something of a problem for me, because it draws attention away from how down-to-earth she is: one of my favorite Roslin moments is her inauguration, that shot of her surrounded by people yet totally alone, raising a trembling hand in the air. She's not ready for it, she can't handle it, and then she does. It's such a human moment, and that - the human element, the emotional and situational realism - gets undercut whenever myths and prophecies and such are brought up. It's one thing for Number Six to proselytize to Baltar about her God, it's quite another to break up the Roslin/Adama alliance over a "magic arrow".

Still, it's a minor nitpick at this stage, because as prominent as the metaphysical dimension has become, it hasn't overwhelmed the larger storyline yet and I'm dying to know what happens next. And fortunately for me (as a viewer), BSG is currently running its final season - by the time I'm caught up, I'll probably be able to keep watching straight through to the end. So there's a bright side to being left out of the real-time experience after all.

Season in Review: Torchwood S2

After being moderately pleased with the first season of "Torchwood", I find I'm not quite as forgiving of its faults the second time around. It may be that this season missed so many opportunities, fumbled away so much of its potential, that I really can't overlook those mistakes again. Let's do an episode-by-episode breakdown:

1. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang:

Once again, the inevitable Buffy comparison rears its head - like "Anne", the third-season BTVS premiere, Torchwood kicks off without Jack Harkness. And we see a different team, doing their best to keep their head above the water, with less-than-favorable results. This, of course, is done with an eye towards stressing how vital the protagonist is, and how the others just can't do without them. Which, in fairness, is a perfectly legitimate technique... but when Whedon did it, there was a personal dimension at work too, because Buffy's friends had been hurt - emotionally - by her abandonment of them. There were trust issues for months afterwards. Aside from Gwen, no one seems to care that much that Jack left, and what's worse, he has absolutely no trouble sliding into the driver's seat again. As I've said, this is a case where the tools for a proper dramatic arc are practically laid out at the writers' feet, and no one capitalizes on the opportunity.

(It's a recurring problem with Jack specifically, in that he's become a sort of Teflon Man: nothing sticks to him, even when it should.)

That said, the bright spot in this episode was the introduction of John Hart as the anti-Jack. I'm a sucker for the "dark mirror" archetype, it's such a fascinating character dynamic, and it mostly works here: John is a negative-image of Jack taken to extremes, nihilistic and lecherous and deceitful, and these are all qualities I can imagine (a little too easily, to be honest) in Jack. James Marsters was disappointing in the role, as he stuck annoyingly close to the Spike template, but I liked the character.

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2. Sleeper:

Not much to say about this one: Beth is an effective one-off character, sympathetic to the extent that we understand her final decision but not enough that we really mourn her. My larger criticism here has to do with what seems to be set up here versus what actually happens - we're told the sleepers are advance scouts for an invasion force, and it's not clear that stopping them deters the invasion in any way. Well... where are the invaders, then? The episode seems to imply that Torchwood will have to face this threat again, on a much larger scale, in the future, but that never materializes. Hell, the writers could've tied this into the finale by associating the sleepers with the same aliens that destroyed Jack's home, but... well, that's another ball dropped.

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3. To The Last Man:

I liked this one. Mostly because I'm fond of Toshiko, for reasons I'll admit are less than clear to me, but also because this is a rare instance in which the writers slap together a temporal paradox that actually holds up under scrutiny: Tommy was always going to get the Rift Manipulator into the past, that's how Jack knew what happened to him, and Toshiko is stuck going through the motions of a destiny that's been set in stone.

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4. Meat:

And this is The One Where Rhys Finds Out. I'm somewhat amused to see that I like Rhys a lot more this season, while my affinity for Jack has decreased (I think the writers pushed him over the line from adorable to obnoxious once too often) - Rhys ultimately becomes the only character willing to call Jack's BS to his face, and that's refreshing.

I do wish, though, that the A-plot had been less preachy and awkward: Free Willy's cosmic cousin was just gross, and Jack lamenting the thing's fate? Too bizarre for my tastes.

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5. Adam:

Psychic attack is an inversely-proportionate dramatic technique: the more overt it is, the less effective it becomes. You can look at any '00s Claremont comic as an example - his use of mind control is never particularly engaging. Subtler forms of mental manipulation, on the other hand, can be truly terrifying (see: the infamous "24 Hours" issue of "Sandman" or the "Torn" arc of "Astonishing X-Men"), and while I suppose this episode would've been much more effective had the characters been developed enough to really mutate under Adam's influence, it still does a good job of warping the characters (Owen in particular) just enough to be disconcerting.

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6-8. Reset/Dead Man Walking/A Day In The Death:

I'm grouping these three together because they're pretty much a three-part episode.

Having never seen "Doctor Who", the significance of Martha Jones is somewhat lost on me; as always, though, "Torchwood" can be commended for its accessibility. Martha used to run with Jack and the Doctor; she doesn't anymore; she saved the world once. That's pretty much all you need to know, and it's delivered very concisely.

Unfortunately, that's more or less all we get out of Martha. The first two episodes put her in life-threatening situations and she's barely around for the third act. As guest-appearances go, particularly one that plays upon the shared-universe connection, you'd think something more... well, significant would happen. It did make me wonder whether "Torchwood" would be a good "dumping ground" for the Doctor's former companions, which must have reached Legion of Superheroes proportions by now, but I maintain that it'd only be interesting if the "Torchwood" writers had the freedom to do things with the characters (reports indicate Freema Agyeman will be returning to "Doctor Who" this season, which may explain why nothing actually happened to her throughout her stay with Torchwood).

The other major development in this trilogy is a (relatively) major transformation of one of the characters. Now, when you're dealing with small casts (and by today's standards, five characters is rather small), killing or permanently altering just one can have massive impact on the viewers. Done with an eye towards the overall series, it can divide your entire perception of the story into "before and after" - before Julius Caesar died ("Rome") and after, before the Chosen conquered the city ("The Tribe") and after.

Of course, this only works if you care enough about the target character to be affected by the change. And the writers chose Owen Harper, possibly the most unlikeable character on the show. A sarcastic prick barely tolerable in the margins, completely cut off from every other character except Toshiko, and that relationship is so one-sided it might as well be nonexistent. Setting aside the fact that when the dust settled, nothing much had changed aside from some inexplicable rapport with Weevils, spending three episodes on Poor Poor Owen was a total waste. If it had happened to Ianto or Gwen, that'd be something different, because they have some redeeming qualities. But Owen? Hell, I was glad to see him suffer. I was half-expecting it to be some huge cosmic comeuppance and that he'd emerge a better man. But he didn't. So it was a total waste.

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9. Something Borrowed:

Another major episode for Rhys, so I enjoyed it. However, this episode brought to the forefront the biggest flaw in the intra-team dynamic - what the hell is going on with Jack, Gwen and Ianto? Not so much a story-line as an erratic squiggle, there are episodes where Gwen and Jack have no chemistry whatsoever, it's all given over to Jack and Ianto, but then there are times when it seems Gwen's the one Jack wants and Ianto is just convenient. This has been done a thousand times before, so the possibilities are clearly delineated: Ianto resents Gwen, or Gwen resents Ianto, or Jack is legitimately torn between two lovers, or Jack is settling for second-best because he can't have his first choice. But doing nothing at all? A first, I'm sure, but hardly the wisest choice.

Also, this is an episode where Jack Saving The Day is shoehorned in quite awkwardly, and probably contributed to my coming off the character. Rhys had a damn chainsaw in his hands - there was no reason not to give him a win in the Fighting Aliens column. But it's as if "Torchwood" writers have made Jack Must Save The Day a Commandment, and it's a shame. That way leads to overexposure.

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10. From Out of the Rain:

My least-favorite episode of the season. Like the fairies last season, the premise is very bizarre and "unscientific", too vague to hold my interest. As soon as you introduce magic into a scientific world, you're pretty much saying that anything goes... but there's no way you can reliably fight "anything goes".

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11. Adrift:

Another good episode, particularly noteworthy for Andy suddenly getting a more prominent role vis-a-vis his feelings for Gwen. It's a pity they only came up with that angle three episodes before the season finale, because it might've been an interesting storyline for Gwen (or at least a better choice for an affair than Owen). In fact, there's a glimmer of a great Gwen arc here, because Suzie's prophecy has come true: the job's gotten inside Gwen's head, it's changed her, and both Rhys and Andy - the men in her life who were there before Torchwood - can see what she's become. And they're not happy about it. Rhys' outburst was especially memorable, though I'm not sure the writers intended for me to take his side...

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12-13. Fragments/Exit Wounds:

The season ends with two of the best episodes to date. "Fragments" is the long-awaited "secret origins" episode, where we get backstory on Owen, Ianto, Toshiko and Jack. There's some good use of continuity (ie: Ianto's desperation has to do with Lisa) and a brief glance at earlier incarnations of Torchwood... interesting stuff for the most part.

"Exit Wounds" is more problematic. To be fair, it's not as though Gray's return hadn't been foreshadowed, and using John as a decoy works because you see him and immediately assume the worst. But, having caused more damage than any enemy Torchwood has ever faced, Gray isn't really dealt with in a manner that suggests End-Season-Big-Bad. It kind of peters out, though the body count is surprisingly high and I actually ended up feeling a touch sad for one of the casualties (you can probably guess who I'm talking about).

All in all, a disappointing season dominated by could-have-been scenarios. Better luck next time, I suppose.

Movie Review: Cloverfield

"Cloverfield" is one of those movies everyone's talked about that somehow went clear over my head, so I finally decided to check it out last night.

Strictly on the level of plot, it's surprisingly similar to another movie I'd seen last month, "The Mist": in both films, something otherworldly comes out of the darkness and wreaks havoc, but the story works around the monster rather than be about the monster; the human element is where the true focus lies. I actually prefer this approach to monster-centric stories where the people are little more than cannon fodder, so that worked out nicely for me.

If "The Mist" demonstrates how horror can bring out the worst in humanity, I think "Cloverfield" delivers the opposite message - faced with a threat beyond comprehension, Rob's determination to save Beth is nothing less than heroic, and that plays a big part in the way the audience is swept up into the action.

The most controversial (and innovative) aspect of the movie is the way it was filmed: the entire narrative is presented to us in the form of a digital recording from a handheld camera, wielded by various characters throughout the movie. It's disconcerting to say the least, but highly effective, because it enables a handful of cinematic and narrative tricks that couldn't have been done otherwise. For example, since we're basically seeing through the cameraman's eyes, anything that happens to him disrupts our field of vision as though it were happening to us. That puts the viewer into the story in a way the traditional "omnipresent observer" never is. I also think that, because we're so closely linked to these characters, we sympathize with them despite the lack of characterizataion - going back to my discussion of "Torchwood" with kazekage, it's broadly possible to create ciphers you can care about, and "Cloverfield" does this quite well.

Another trick has to do with apparent damage the tape has sustained (foreshadowing the film's penultimate moments): on several occasions, the tape skips back to a recording of Rob and Beth from a month ago, creating a powerful contrast between the idyllic "good day" they shared and the hellish present that threatens to engulf them. It's rather clever.

I ultimately ended up liking "Cloverfield" very much; the gimmicks work much better than I expected, without overwhelming the movie.