December 15, 2008

Holiday Cheer

Most of the shows have already left the air to make way for holiday specials and assorted crappy movies, but we still have a few left…

Everybody Hates Chris (The CW) — Strangely, this episode didn’t do much for me. Maybe because Julius talking down a suicidal bridge-jumper reminded me a bit too much of the overly absurd episode where Julius becomes the unintentional wheelman for a cross-country crime spree, maybe because I’ve never much cared for the New Year’s tradition of dropping the ball in Times Square. Whatever the reason, the episode left me feeling a bit empty, even though I laughed nearly as often as usual.

Leverage (TNT) — I enjoyed this episode nearly as much as the first, but here’s something that already drives me crazy: the brief flashbacks that explain how they pulled off the job at the end. In the pilot, they used a rather complex plan; in this episode, the plan was incredibly simple. It didn’t require explanatory flashbacks to spell out every little detail. It’s fun, light entertainment, so there’s not a lot worth nitpicking and the actors all have great chemistry. Just stop the flashbacks, please.

The Office (NBC) — Man, I loved the way Phyllis treated Angela when she had the upper hand. I loved that she actually did reveal the secret. I think I just love Phyllis and may have to steal her away from Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration.

Meredith, on the other hand, doesn’t do much for me. While sporadically amusing, can they give her a little more depth than “office drunk,” please? Every episode that focuses on her seems to involve a disaster that has at least something to do with her alcoholism. I did enjoy Michael’s inept handling of the situation, but it’d be nice if they dug a little deeper, maybe probing what drove her to drink in the first place.

And then there’s the oft-ridiculed (by me) Angela-Dwight-Andy triangle. It came to a head this week and will, if there’s any justice in the world, come to some sort of conclusion in the next episode (after the holidays). Please, please, Office writers, don’t linger on this. I’ll buy every episode from iTunes, along with the DVDs and BluRays and whatever else. I’ll buy every product advertised during the show and double up on the product-placement items featured prominently in the show itself. Just make all these romantic triangles go away. Please.

Pushing Daisies (ABC) — Have I mentioned my love of Ed’s Josh Randall, who plays Charles Charles? I’m not a big fan of them killing off Stephen Root, but at least they found a worth replacement. Except for the part where he drove off in Ned’s car at the end. I assume he’ll be back, because Pushing Daisies doesn’t have much time left to wrap up this storyline.

The lighthouse story… I don’t know. I’ll always welcome a Mary Kay Place guest appearance, but the mystery didn’t have the spark and intrigue this show has exhibited this season. Pairing up Olive with Emerson made her infinitely more tolerable, but please stop her from singing. It’s the holidays—can’t you let one of my Christmas dreams come true?

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox) — This week’s framing structure didn’t work at all. I typically love this show, so it disappointed me to find a legitimate failure of an episode after two (short) seasons of steady improvement. Look, we have the present-day story with Derek and the teenage girl (Lauren) trying to make sure the mother’s baby gets born. Then, we have “six months earlier” flashbacks to the Connor Crew saving Lauren and her family from a Terminator attack.

Careful viewers will note the problem: from the beginning of the series, we’ve spent a great deal of exclusive time with the Connors. No big gaps in time and no indication that they fend off cyborg attacks that are too dull to dramatize on the show. So when, exactly, did this happen? Why didn’t we find out about it earlier? If the show had done a better job of implying these people have rich lives outside the confines of the show, I could have bought it. So far, everything has seemed to go pretty much week-to-week, with episodes often resuming right where the previous one left off. I’m guessing if I tabulated a timeline and ignored inconsistencies, this entire series has only taken place across the span of maybe six weeks.

That’s just an educated guess, mind you. From where I’m standing, they’d have to make “six months ago” the present in order for this episode to work. A little not-too-distant future timecard opening the episode: SIX MONTHS FROM TODAY. Then: TODAY. I could be alone, but that already makes me feel a more significant glimmer of foreboding than the foreshadowing in the actual episode.

I still love this show, but I wish they had put more thought into the timeline problems. This show has been on the air for longer than six months, but that doesn’t mean the dramatized timeline matches realtime.

D. B. Bates is a film critic and television viewer who has often shouted at fictional characters who probably wouldn’t listen to him even if they could hear him and existed in reality. Interested in explaining to D. B. the many ways he got it wrong? E-mail him.

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