January 26, 2009

Idiot Boxing – 1/26/09

24 (Fox) — I’ve watched a plethora of terrible action movies chock full of incoherent plot twists and implausible developments. 24 has always done the job of both filling that mold and taking it a couple of steps further by attempting human drama. Jack Bauer might be a one-man army, but he’s tortured. Like John McClane in Die Hard, Mason Storm in Hard to Kill or Jason Bourne in the Bourne series, Jack has pain in his past that effects every move he makes in the present. The writers don’t always work this successfully—most evident in Jack’s conflicts with Kim any time after season one—but they put forth the effort.

So 24’s an efficient, slick vehicle for action, better at delivering the “100% pure adrenaline” promised by Point Break than any TV series and even most current action movies. My one great wish for this season is that they shut up about torture. As I observed last week, the writers have finally figured out that people criticize the show for its irresponsible pro-torture stance. The question I’ve always asked is, “People think 24 is an accurate reflection of anything?” Nearly every action movie has gratuitous torture scenes where the heroes get exactly the information they need just in the nick of time. It works not because torture, in reality, is the best method to extract information, but because it provides a release for the audience. We’ve seen the hero get his ass handed to him for the whole movie, and finally he gets some payback. It has nothing to do with reality.

24 decided to make torture the big elephant in the room by having scene after scene of characters condemning torture. It kinda makes it more irresponsible when everyone condemns torture, then someone gets tortured and provides accurate information. Merely acknowledging the moral dilemma doesn’t fix the problem. They could stop torturing for information and just start beating the shit out of people. It provides the same basic emotional release for the audience with none of the ethical mess. So that’s it, 24 writers: either shut up about torture, or stop having characters torture villains.

That aside, this was a decent filler episode. I hate describing any episode of television as “filler,” but 24 is guiltier of this than most shows—one of the flaws of the format, I suppose. Just think about everything that happened between the end of last week’s episode and the end of this week and ask yourself if we needed an entire hour to get from Points A to B. I liked where we ended up—the First Husband drugged and passed out, the First Dead Son’s Soon-to-Be-Dead Girlfriend in an SUV on a collision course with wackiness, Jack grazing Renee and helping Tony bury her… At the end of the hour, the episode left me looking forward to next week more than thrilled about this week.

The Beast (A&E) — As an antidote to 24, The Beast works wonders. It combines a pointed—but not preachy—political agenda with a vast, shadowy conspiracy that makes very little sense right now but is incredibly intriguing. In between examining said conspiracy and handling the somewhat strange “assignment of the week” formula it has apparently adopted, The Beast provides balls-to-the-wall action, bizarrely Swayze-esque “existential philosopher meets gun-toting shit-kicker” characters and a “will they or won’t they?” romance that doesn’t quite work. Rose is smart, tough and attractive, but we’re in episode two and I’m already demanding that they shit or get off the pot. I did like Barker’s advice: give her up, because she’ll just distract him from the job, but Rose is a series regular. She’ll be back. Ellis’ internal struggle about whether or not to join up with Ray or stick with Barker also has a “will he or won’t he?” element, but it works a little better for two reasons: it’s not exactly a stale cliché, and it gives Ellis the conflict that will drive this series’ overarching conspiracy.

At the end of the day, all the nuts and bolts of the storytelling aside, The Beast is about ass-kicking, gunfights and explosions. It delivers on all those counts and more.

Bones (Fox) — I usually hate procedurals because of the typical plot-first, characters-never approach to storytelling. Bones reached a point about a year and a half ago where executive producer Hart Hanson and his writers realized they should make all these plots MacGuffins that allow the characters to reveal new information about themselves and how they interact with each other. The plots remain important only inasmuch as the characters have a drive to solve the cases. Sometimes the writers miss—the clumsy Iraq War episode, where each member of the team took goofy, out-of-character stances—but more often than not, they hit.

This week’s circus-themed episode had a very solid Booth-Brennan story. I liked everything about it, but I had a big problem with the latest nugget of character development regarding young Dr. Lance Sweets: he was adopted (not sure I like that), his birth mother happens to be a psychic (I like that) who works at a circus (uh-oh), which allows him all sorts of knowledge and access to the circus lifestyle (hate it!). He knows the language and customs and can guide Booth and Brennan through this strange world.

This development didn’t work for me for two main reasons. In the first place, I can’t stand it when procedurals try to do an episode like this—basically a “theme” show—so they pick a random character who just happens to be an expert or, at least, a hobbyist in whatever topic they’ve chosen. Law & Order seems to do this three out of every four episodes, and CSI has picked up the torch. Say, I almost wrote “torture” by mistake. Coincidence?

At any rate, the second problem is that this almost gives Sweets too much development. I like the psychic-mother angle because it reveals some kind of genetic link—most psychics, especially circus psychics, are frauds who use a combination of street smarts and instinctual empathy to read people. We already know Sweets’ intellectual capacity and interest in psychology is right in line with the mother’s occupation. To me, the “adoption” angle just feels like too much to drop into an episode as an “oh, by the way.” On one hand, it’s refreshing; on the other, it should have enabled him to be much more empathetic to Brennan’s abandonment issues with her own family. Maybe it’s unethical for a therapist to say, “Hey, I know what you’re going through,” but it seems odd that he’d never even mention it.

Burn Notice (USA) — Burn Notice is back, and unlike the other USA shows, this midseason re-premiere feels like a premiere. After ending on a cliffhanger that involved stopping an assassination attempt (maybe?) and Michael nearly getting blown up, the gang is back and trying to get deeper into the mystery of Carla. Of course, they’re also following the formula of the show by taking on a client. That’s sort of where the episode went off-kilter—granted, it was as sharp, entertaining, and ass-kicking as usual, but they didn’t sell me on Michael’s desire to work a “normal” case shortly after getting blown up. They tried to explain it away by having Michael want to focus on the work rather than the attempted murder, but come on—seriously?

Everybody Hates Chris (The CW) — I love the idea of a club populated entirely by underage kids with fake IDs. This show has had a lot of bizarre, absurd gags like this, but I don’t know… This might be the highlight for me, so far. The whole episode worked pretty well—the teenage quest to get a fake ID (followed by inevitable disappointment) is a staple of teen TV (and movies), but the writers loaded the episode with cleverness and defied expectations like the club full of kids aged 12-17. I also enjoyed the way Drew’s X-ray glasses subplot tied in with Uncle Ryan, provider of fake IDs and purveyor of all that crap kids get tricked into buying and ultimately screwed.

Flashpoint (CBS) — Does anyone remember Tino from My So-Called Life, the mythical cool kid who managed to have a monumental influence over every character despite few people ever actually seeing him (this includes the audience)? I sort of wish the ex-sergeant in this week’s Flashpoint had been this kind of character: oft-referenced, held in extreme high regard by the other characters. Maybe not referenced in every episode, but by the time he makes this appearance, we have an understanding of his influence and impact, making his downfall—and the foreshadowing of their potential downfalls—all the more tragic. I liked this episode a lot, but they shoehorned all the exposition into the first few moments. It left me thinking, “If everyone loves this guy so much, why hasn’t anyone ever talked about him before?” Still a good, solid episode, but it could have had more oomph if they’d laid down a bit of groundwork in earlier episodes.

Lost (ABC) — I love a good time travel story, and I’m glad Lost has finally veered in that direction officially. Faraday laid out some nice, solid rules involving a very rudimentary description of string theory and bringing up questions of fate vs. free will. According to Faraday—whether or not the show bears him out remains to be seen—they’ve become unstuck in time, but nobody can interact with their past selves because, essentially, what’s happened already happened. They can’t change it. None of the universe-destroying paradoxes of Back to the Future or any other mindfuckery. Unless it was destined to happen—as Alpert suggested to Locke—it won’t happen. Sawyer can’t warn anyone about the freighter; they can’t save Ana-Lucia, Libby or the endless litany of other victims; they basically have to hide.

While I love this development, I have to wonder about the future of the show. In one fell swoop, they’ve almost answered too many questions. There are still plenty of mysteries, but long-term mysteries like the whispers, the skeletons of “Adam and Eve,” the Others’ lists of “good people,” the Dharma Initiative’s overall goal, the “ghosts” appearing all over the island, why some people (like Alpert) don’t age, etc., etc… They can explain all of these with the phrase “time travel.”

In typical Lost fashion, they’ve loaded up the cannon with new questions: what the hell’s going on with the Oceanic Six, is Jin still alive, how many will die before the Six get back and “re-stick” time, do Desmond and Frank also need to return to the island, what the hell is going on with Ben’s creepy network of off-island pals who know things…? Despite the new questions, the writers have left me with a feeling like they’re ready to wind things down. Fewer questions will arise as they get closer to the end, which is kind of depressing. Not that their explanations disappoint—I just miss the sense of wonder.

Monk (USA) — TV shows always have a tell: when your special guest star is someone like Gena Rowlands, and the first 10 minutes present her as the idyllic mother Monk never had, you know things won’t end well and she’ll never return. It makes everything a little more predictable, but I guess the real joy of the episode came from watching Tony Shalhoub go through the transformations throughout the episode. We didn’t get much Natalie, Stottlemeyer or Disher, and the mystery was as predictable as something from season one or two. Shalhoub and Rowlands anchored the show this week, automatically elevating the material and almost—almost!—making me not care that Monk would screw everything up and we’d never see her again.

The Office (NBC) — The Office has always toed the line between comedy and tragedy, but I don’t think they’ve done an episode as bleak as this one—and the ending may have come a little too easily (and, I must say, cartoonishly) to make it satisfying. The A story featured Michael and Dwight on a recon mission from David Wallace, who wants to expand Scranton’s territory to destroy a literal Mom-‘n’-Pop business. After pretending to be, respectively, a customer and a job applicant, Michael and Dwight are handed the mother lode—a complete client list—and even get some help with Michael’s damaged car. Their kindness makes Michael change his mind about handing the list over to Wallace, but he has Dwight to contend with. After a chase around the office park—which has become somewhat of an overused tactic on this show—Dwight holds on to the documents, sends them to Wallace, and Michael gets praise for a job well done.

I have one problem with this resolution: it prevents Michael from having to make any sort of difficult decision. We all know Michael hates decisions like this and would rather buy everyone ice cream sandwiches than confront a problem. Yet, we know two more things about Michael: he’s a huge sentimentalist who would naturally love the idea of this kind-hearted family doing something they love together…but, on the opposite side of the coin, he has a near-pathological obsession with being well-liked. In the end, Michael should have to decide whether or not he needs to please Wallace more than he needs to appease his conscience. Dwight literally takes the decision out of Michael’s hands. Do you remember the difficulty and heartbreak that went into his decision not to lie for Jan? I think the writers were trying for something along those lines, but they missed the mark.

Meanwhile, the B story takes one of the most mundane topics of office conversation—the relative attractiveness of a celebrity—and brings it to its illogical extreme. It felt a little more like this subplot belonged in an episode of NewsRadio than The Office. Don’t get me wrong—NewsRadio remains my favorite sitcom of all time by a pretty wide margin, but it has a completely different style where the idea of a ridiculous office debate taken far too seriously by the staff isn’t out of place. I get the idea that it’s about frittering away an afternoon when the boss is away, but the broadness resulted in a story that didn’t quite capture office life as well as it could have. This debate could have functioned as an opportunity for everyone’s general annoyance with one another to manifest itself in a debate about whether or not Hilary Swank is hot. It becomes less about her than about their own angst, and they can blow off some steam and let it go. They did this a little with Angela, but it didn’t reach the level of poignance that it should have.

Psych (USA) — I know the basic formula of this show has been “Put Gus and Shawn into an unfamiliar scenario and let wackiness ensue.” I can see the logic in putting them into the firefighting arena—lots of comedy fodder to be had. Despite some clever, amusing dialogue (I particularly enjoyed the conversation about firehouses being dalmatians’ “natural habitat”), they didn’t quite exploit the new occupation to its fullest. In a rare change-up, the setting felt like the afterthought while the mystery took center stage. Despite game appearances from ringers like Richard Riehle, Bruce McGill and Milena Govich, the episode lacked the usual manic energy and exuberance.

Supernatural (The CW) — Casting ringers like Barry Bostwick (Spin City) and John Rubinstein (Angel) definitely elevated this episode. A story that could have been as ridiculous as you’d imagine something titled “Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag” would be maintained a certain air of gravity and tragedy as it painted a portrait of three pathetic, aging magicians. They’re overshadowed by glitzier but less daring “magicians” (like Angel), leading Bostwick to the verge of suicide. Our heroes arrive when they realize something is amiss—Bostwick’s increasingly daring, suicidal stunts have reclaimed his audience, but they’re also apparently killing younger, “rock-star” magicians.

When Rubinstein reveals his immortality (at which point he’s played by Rubinstein’s real-life son, Michael, who’s generally credited as “Michael Weston”) and offers Bostwick the chance to live forever—well, everything goes awry, resulting in Rubinstein’s death at Bostwick’s hands. This leads to a nicely ambiguous ending in which Bostwick wonders if killing Rubinstein—his best friend for decades—to save Sam and Dean, a couple of guys he barely knows, was the right thing to do.

The subplot with Ruby didn’t do much for me, although I suppose I like where it’s headed—and I liked that this particular “case” had a real impact on Sam, driving him to his decision to help her. Mainly, I think I’ve decided that I prefer Katie Cassidy to Genevieve Cortese. I don’t think Cortese is terrible, but I think there’s supposed to be something resembling a smoldering intensity whenever she and Jared Padalecki share the same space—and I just don’t feel it.

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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