TV is awesome

Some quick thoughts on the TV I’ve watched this week will be the subject of today’s update. I was going to write a story about an immortal man who is so bored with his life that he decides he needs to do things he has never done before, such as KILLING A MAN, but that seemed kind of dark and dreary. I wrote half of it already, though. I’ll write the rest later this week. But to go from that to TV reviews is pretty challenging, so forgive me if some of these have a particularly dark slant to them.

Also, there are spoilers beyond this point for The Sopranos, The West Wing, 24, Prison Break, Gilmore Girls, House and Veronica Mars. So be wary of that!

The Sopranos

Christopher is my favourite character on this show because he reminds me so much of me. We are both wannabe writers with awesome hair who want nothing more than to become respected members of the New Jersey mafia. So I liked this episode just because it focused on him. I did not, however, like seeing him all strung out on heroin hanging out at the carnival and making friends with a dog. Though it looked like a nice dog. I hope he’s okay. Tony, on the other hand, is still pretty awesome, but I have to question the wisdom of a television show running a “Protagonist is bored with his life” plot line. Because, well, the only way to show a character as bored is to bore the viewer, and most viewers don’t like that. I wish I could figure out where the hell David Chase is going with this series, as I don’t see how this is moving things towards any kind of end.

I kind of think they could do a whole spin-off show where AJ just ineptly tries to kill a senile Uncle Junior. It could even be a cartoon. Sort of like The Road Runner versus Wile E. Coyote bit, except the Road Runner is a crazy delusional man with big glasses and Wile E. Coyote is a dumbass kid barely able to figure out how to hold a gun.

The West Wing

I don’t really watch this show, but I’ve gotten into the older episodes thanks to the DVDs, so I thought I’d watch the last few episodes. This was pretty decent stuff, though definitely nothing like a Sorkin script. I liked seeing CJ & Danny together because Timothy Busfield is a personal hero of mine, and Toby being all eh-whatever-I-might-go-to-jail-have-some-chicken was pretty sweet, but it all felt relatively cold compared to the episodes I’ve been watching on DVD. I just really like Aaron Sorkin, I guess.

Prison Break

I don’t really watch this show. I mean, I do. I watch it. But I don’t think it’s a particularly good or interesting show by any stretch of the imagination. It started out with a ridiculous premise and it has only gotten more ridiculous, as the man-who-purposely-went-to-prison-to-break-out-his-brother plot line has been extended to include a mob boss, a pedophile, a saucy Latino, a cantankerous old coot, a streetwise black guy, a naive youngster in need of a mentor, an enormously fat man and a worldwide conspiracy that somehow involves the vice president, a man who faked his own death and a plot to take control over the American government and, later, the world.

But if you can ignore the sheer inanity of all of that, this is still a really tense hour of television. This week’s episode especially, with the assault on the warden and the finalizing of the escape plans and the escape itself, was sure full of interesting moments. When Michael is finally safe and sound outside of prison, here are the lessons he will reflect on:
don’t allow any enormously fat men to take part in your escape plan, especially if said escape plan includes a significant amount of climbing and rope-traversing; boy, if the prison doctor had been a big burly man, things would have gone differently, wouldn’t they?; next time, use a much smaller tattoo. Or just code the plans into a book or something. Jesus.

24

Fuck, I’m torn between liking this season a lot, as the whole Jack-verus-the-EVIL-President plot line has been a favourite of mine ever since I started watching this show, and absolutely despising it for the sheer incredulity of it all. Seriously, just make a fucking copy of the recording already. Play it over your cellphone, upload it to your PDA, realign some goddamned space satellites to beam the signal to the national news media. And don’t tell me it isn’t possible, Jack Bauer — you just flew a fucking plane with your BELT. Then landed it on the freeway, despite being told by the co-pilot that it was impossible! You’ve defeated Dennis Hopper, a nuclear bomb, an evil virus, an Arab terrorist with a limitless number of back-up plans and, soon, the United States President, but the best you can do with this recording is give the fucking thing to Chloe, who apparently felt the need to check her myspace before making a copy of the thing. Didn’t anyone want to listen to it? Wouldn’t that have been helpful? It’s like 8 seconds long. PLAY IT FOR THE ROOM. Christ.

But other than that, this show has been quite good this season. The guy who plays the President? Really really good. Maybe the best actor the show has seen. Dr. Romano as the bluetooth-loving mastermind? Nice touch. I’m glad to see he does actually have two arms. I was worried. I’ll call the end of this season right now: Jack saves the day, but — oh shit — here come the Chinese and boy are their faces red.

Gilmore Girls

This show had a sudden spike in quality with the Lane’s wedding episode, and the first parts of the episode following that. How delightful are Lane and Zack? How hilarious is Mrs. Kim? How much do you wish the show just focused around these characters and their friends? Especially considering Lane has no connection with the rest of the cast beyond being the friend Rory suddenly remembers she has every six months. But regardless, I liked seeing an episode focused on her, and drunken Lorelai is always very funny.

But this last episode, the season finale? Sucked. It was terrible in so many different ways. All this drama between Luke and Lorelai feels entirely manufactured and out-of-character. Luke was never written as a total douchebag until the writers decided they wanted him to be a total douchebag and, similarly, Lorelai was never written as a whiny insane slutbag who can’t vocalize any of her concerns until the writers decided the show needed a slutbag protagonist. The troubador subplot was phenomenal and funny and creative, which made the Lorelai-sleeps-with-Christopher-again plot just so very tiresome.

I hope a meteor hits the town of Stars Hollow and next season is just about the reaction of the citizens to that. I bet Taylor would be all “Oh no, a meteor in our historic town” and Michel would be all, “Vut is with dese rucks from the sky? My word.”

House

The 2-parter from last week where Omar Epps decided he needed an Emmy and so thus found a way to make his eyes stick out several inches beyond his head was pretty goddamn spectacular, and a real feeling of finality to it. So why wasn’t it the season finale? Instead we get this, which felt like a season premiere, with new plot threads launching for Chase (who is tired of patients — or maybe just poor!), Cameron (Lost her optimism! Where did it go? Oh no!), Foreman (Can’t make coffee!) and Cuddy. (Might be… pregnant? Wants to be pregnant? This is stupid!) It wasn’t a bad episode but it still felt like a very typical episode, nowhere near reaching the bar they set for themselves with the two-parter.

I understand why they’re trying to take the focus off of House a little bit and spotlight the supporting characters, but I can’t say that I like it. Hugh Laurie and the House character are the main reasons I watch this show, and I’d rather the other characters just stood around and reacted to him being a very very funny asshole doctor. I don’t really need to know about their lives or anything.

Veronica Mars

Jesus Christ this was good. Inevitably you want to compare this season’s finale with last season’s finale, but I’m not sure that’s fair considering I watched last season in one big lump, compressing 22 episodes into a 3-or-4 day time span. Watching the show as it airs certainly leads to more moments of frustration — and more time for speculation — so much so that I’m not sure I could even begin to compare the two seasons without watching Season 2 again, from beginning to end. But that’s like a 20-hour time investment and, god dammit, I have things to do and web sites to update.

Beaver surprised me, but, like last season, the clues were there. The kid was clearly manipulative, as shown by his whole I’m-a-teen-real-estate-agent bit with the Phoenix Landtrust, and also pretty damaged, as shown by his inability to slip the bone to Tina Majarino. I’m sure there’s even more pointing to him as the culprit, but, like I said, I need to watch it again.

Beyond that, there’s not much to criticize about this. It’s a ballsy, creative show that doesn’t go where you’d expect it to. Excellent acting, compelling characters, hilarious jokes, and mysteries — why aren’t you watching this show?

Later: I guess I’ll watch Lost but I kind of hate it and wish it didn’t exist! And The Amazing Race, which is kind of fun still. And The Office, which I am planning my whole Thursday around. I live such an exciting life.

Matt