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.

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...